Anti-missile system hailed as a ‘technical revolution’ has recently shot down nine rockets but failed to stop 11 others, says army The initial success of Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defence system has been hailed as an example of “Jewish genius” – but the army insists it is still at an experimental stage. Since 7 April the system has shot down nine rockets fired at Israel from Gaza, although it was unable to stop at least 11 others. Boaz Ganor, the director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism said: “It’s a technical revolution that shows us what may be possible in the future. The success has been limited by the fact that we only have two batteries, but it has proven itself accurate and efficient.” The Iron Dome consists of three units: a missile-tracking radar, a control centre and a missile-firing unit. The moment a rocket is launched its trajectory is relayed to the control centre, which decides whether it will land in an open or built-up area. If the rocket threatens a densely populated area a missile is fired at it. The world first became aware of the possibilities of missile defence during the Gulf war in 1991. US Patriot missile batteries in Israel and Saudi Arabia appeared to be successful at eliminating scud missiles fired by Iraq. In fact, the system was far less effective than it appeared and subsequent analysis estimated it had a success rate of about only 10%. During the Iraq war in 2003 the improved Patriots proved more successful against allied aircraft than long-range rockets. Iraq did not fire any long-range rockets and the Patriots downed one British jet and one American jet, killing both crews. Israel has long been the target of short-range rockets such as the Russian-designed Katyusha, supplied to Palestinian groups in Jordan and Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s. More recently, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets at Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war, killing 44 people. Israel has developed the Arrow long-range missile-defence system but, after its experience in 2006, the government decided to invest in the Iron Dome system instead. The cost of its development and deployment is estimated at more than £1bn, some of which will be subsidised by the US. Critics point out that each Iron Dome missile costs about £25,000, while the rockets they eliminate are worth less than a few hundred, which could allow militants to wage economic warfare against Israel. Others suggest it would be easy to fool missile-defence systems with decoys. “We know that terrorists are elusive and on a learning curve. There is no doubt that this success will challenge them to rethink and fine tune their tactics,” said Ganor, “The whole idea of launching rockets at Israel was a response to the failure of other tactics. If Iron Dome proves to be successful, Hamas and Hezbollah will certainly try to think of new methods of attack.” Israel Middle East Weapons technology Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
News International chief clarifies 2003 statement that ‘we have paid the police for information in the past’ Read Rebekah Brooks’ letter to MPs in full The former Sun editor, Rebekah Brooks, told a powerful group of MPs on Monday she has no knowledge of any actual payments the paper might have made to police offers in exchange for information. In a letter to the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, Brooks, who is now chief executive of the paper’s parent company News International, said she had no “knowledge of any specific cases” in which payments to police might have been made. Brooks was responding to a request from the committee made last month to detail how many police officers received money from the Sun, which she edited from 2003 to 2009, and when the practice ceased. Brooks, who edited the Sun’s sister title the News of the World before moving to the daily in early 2003, told MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee eight years ago :”We have paid the police for information in the past.” In her letter to the home affairs select committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, Brooks said she was grateful for the opportunity to clarify the evidence she gave in March 2003. She added that she was talking in general terms about the newspaper industry and its relationship with the police, rather than the paper she edited specifically, when she appeared before the culture media and sport committee in 2003. “As can be seen from the transcript, I was responding to a specific line of questioning on how newspapers get information,” Brooks wrote. “My intention was simply to comment generally on the widely-held belief that payments had been made in the past to police officers. “If, in doing so, I gave the impression that I had knowledge of any specific cases, I can assure you that this was not my intention.” Vaz wrote to Brooks at the end of last month following evidence given to the home affairs select committee in March by John Yates, the acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, in which he said Scotland Yard was undertaking “research” on whether police officers had received payments from newspapers. The Labour MP for Leicester East also wrote to Yates in March on behalf of the home affairs select committee asking for more details about this research. In the same evidence session Yates reiterated his claim that the Crown Prosecution Service had initially advised the Met to adopt a narrow interpretation of the law relating to phone hacking during its initial investigation into allegations of widespread hacking at the News of the World. He said that advice “permeated the whole investigation/inquiry” and helped explain why the police had only identified a small number of victims. The committee has asked Yates to supply a copy of the legal advice the Met received from the CPS when Yates reviewed the hacking evidence last autumn. Yates said its advice changed after a case conference held in October 2010, during which the CPS made it clear that a wider definition of what constitutes a hacking offence should be adopted. MPs have asked for copies of the legal advice supplied before and after that October meeting. A spokeswoman for Vaz said he had received a reply from Yates and the committee is likely to make it public in due course. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, contradicted Yates’s claims about the CPS advice when he appeared before the home affairs committee earlier this month. Starmer maintains the Met was not advised to adopt a narrow definition of hacking at any point. •
Continue reading …
Demonstrators dismiss peace mediators as Gaddafi allies and renew calls for Libyan leader to step down immediately An African Union (AU) peace mission has received a frosty welcome in Benghazi, the de facto capital of the Libyan opposition, as rebel supporters insisted that Muammar Gaddafi relinquish power. More than 1,000 demonstrators waved pre-Gaddafi flags and chanted slogans against the Libyan ruler outside a hotel in the city. They said they had little faith in the visiting mediators, who they said were mostly allies of Gaddafi who preached democracy for Libya but did not practise it at home. The African negotiators, led by the South African president, Jacob Zuma, met Gaddafi in Tripoli on Sunday and afterwards said he accepted their “roadmap” for a ceasefire . However, an Algerian representative of the delegation was vague on whether the proposal included a demand for Gaddafi to give up power and would only say that the option was discussed. The delegation, minus Zuma who left on Sunday night, arrived in Benghazi where protesters and the opposition leadership demanded that Gaddafi step down immediately. “On the issue of Gaddafi and his sons, there is no negotiation,” said Ahmed al-Adbor, a member of the opposition’s transitional ruling council. “The sons and the family of Gaddafi cannot participate in the political future of Libya,” he added. The meeting came hours after Nato air strikes hit Gaddafi’s tanks, helping the rebels push back government troops who had been advancing towards Benghazi. The AU’s peace draft calls for an immediate ceasefire, co-operation in opening channels for humanitarian aid and the start of a dialogue between rebels and the government. AU officials, however, made no mention of any requirement for Gaddafi to pull his troops out of cities as the rebels have demanded. Zuma called on Nato to end air strikes to “give the ceasefire a chance”, but prospects for the AU plan looked bleak, given the chasm over Gaddafi’s position. “The issue of Gaddafi stepping down from any political position is a closed issue … Muammar Gaddafi does not hold a position of power,” Abdel Monem al-Lamoushi, a government spokesman, told al-Arabiya television. “No one has the right to send Muammar Gaddafi into exile out of the land of his forefathers. This man will not leave Libya.” The AU does not have a good record in brokering peace deals, having failed to end conflicts or disputes in Somalia, Madagascar and Ivory Coast. Officials from Nato, which has been bombing Libyan government forces under a UN mandate to protect civilians, said they took note of the AU proposal but said the alliance would continue operations while civilians were at risk. The AU delegation, consisting of the presidents of South Africa, Congo-Brazzaville, Mali and Mauritania, plus Uganda’s foreign minister, landed at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport after Nato gave permission for their aircraft to enter Libyan airspace. The planes were the first to land in Tripoli since the international coalition imposed a no-fly zone over the country more than two weeks ago. Gaddafi later drove among the thousands of chanting supporters who gather daily at his compound to pledge their loyalty and act as a human shield against Nato air strikes. Gaddafi’s public appearances have become less frequent as the crisis has progressed. “It does not appear that this indication of a peace deal has any substance at this point,” said one Nato official in reference to the shelling of Misrata, which has been under siege for six weeks. Al-Jazeera television quoted a rebel spokesman as saying five people had died and 20 were wounded in Misrata, the sole rebel-held city in western Libya. Rebels in Misrata told Reuters that Gaddafi’s forces had fired Russian-made Grad rockets into the city, where conditions for civilians are said to be desperate. The UN’s children’s agency said at least 20 children had been killed and many more injured in Misrata, Libya’s third largest city, over the past three weeks. Unicef said children as young as nine months were among the victims and most were under 10. It said they died of shrapnel from mortars and tanks, and bullet wounds. Unicef, which warned that tens of thousands more children were at risk because of lack of food and clean water, said last week that children in Misrata were being targeted by snipers. Libya African Union Middle East Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Jacob Zuma Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Capture by fighters loyal to Ouattara comes after more than 30 French armoured vehicles join advance on Abidjan residence Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to step down as president of Ivory Coast has plunged the country into violence, has been detained in Abidjan by opposition forces. News of his capture came after a column of more than 30 French armoured vehicles closed in on his residence in the city. A spokesman for Alassane Ouattara, who won last year’s presidential election, told the Guardian: “It’s true. Gbagbo has been taken to the Golf hotel by republican forces. Our forces went to the residence this morning and took him out.” Another Ouattara adviser, Mamado Touré, confirmed that Gbagbo was with his family at the hotel. Other news sources have reported that Gbagbo was handed over to the French by his own “presidential guard”. Although the precise details of the capture remain unclear, both the French ministry of defence and “diplomatic sources” are maintaining that it was Ouattara’s forces who captured Gbagbo. Earlier, however, France’s ambassador to Ivory Coast said Gbagbo had been detained by French special forces. Residents reported heavy fighting on Monday morning between forces loyal to Ouattara and those backing Gbagbo around Abidjan’s Cocody and Plateau districts, still controlled by Gbagbo loyalists. Hundreds of pro-Ouattara troops massed at a base camp just north of Abidjan, where a small bus arrived, filled with new Kalashnikov rifles still in their transparent blue wrappers. The French armoured vehicles, each carrying four to eight men, left their base in the south and headed towards central Abidjan early in the morning. “Armed and ready for combat,” the commanding officer ordered. The men cocked their weapons ready to fire as the vehicles rolled out of the base. “The operation is under way. I cannot give you more details. The aim is to ensure a bloodbath is averted,” said Frederick Daguillon, spokesman for the French force in Ivory Coast. France, the former colonial power in Ivory Coast which has more than 1,600 troops in the country, has taken a lead role in efforts to persuade Gbagbo to relinquish power, infuriating his supporters who accuse Paris of neo-colonialism. Gbagbo’s refusal to step down after Ouattara won November’s election, according to results certified by the UN, reignited a civil war that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and uprooted a million people. Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara Kim Willsher Sam Jones guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Jon Kyl Is Sorry If He Gave Anyone The Impression That The Things He Says In Public Are Factual
April 11, 2011 No Comment
As you may recall, during today’s lengthy Pap Smear Armageddon/Government Shutdown 2011 pageant play, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) stood on the floor of the upper chamber, telling the C-Span cameras and gathered attendees that abortion was “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” That prompted many people to remark, “Uhm, actually, you have got those statistics just about as wrong as you possibly could.” But now, Kyl’s office has walked back the statement, in perhaps the most hilarious and cowardly way possible. Let’s kick this over to Alex Seitz-Wald, at ThinkProgress: This afternoon, CNN brought on Planned Parenthood’s Judy Tabar to discuss his comment. During the interview, CNN anchor Don Lemon relayed a statement from Kyl’s office walking back the comment, claiming the statement was not meant to be “factual”: LEMON: We did call his office trying to ask what he was talking about there. And I just want to give it you verbatim here. It says, ‘his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.’ Oh, ha ha, did you think that the things Kyl says aloud on television that go into the Congressional Record and that he attaches his name to are meant to be some sort of true facts or something? Well, the joke’s on you, because sometimes, Jon Kyl just likes to spit straight verbal nonsense at you to “illustrate” things that he wishes were true, but aren’t. Once upon a time, a Jon Kyl would call this little move of his “Clintonian,” so maybe we have to chalk this up to 1995 shutdown nostalgia. But noted: most of what Jon Kyl says on the Senate floor is intended to be complete horsecrap. RELATED: Kyl Walks Back Planned Parenthood Claim: It ‘Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement’ [ThinkProgress] [Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]
Continue reading …The army is on the Soviet occupiers’ path, with less success. What follows may be worse. All we can do, perhaps, is go Three years ago, in Helmand, I watched Nick Clegg present a battle plan to the British military. Unfortunately, it seems to be following it. The plan was a crayon and felt tip scrawl by one of his sons, who’d made his father promise to give it to the army. Handed over to amuse, it suggested that the baddies hidden beneath mountains could be fought by a few soldiers piling from a helicopter. We smiled at the juvenile simplicity. Now, in Helmand, the military are doing just this. They call their murderous night raids against insurgents a bold strategy for success, when really the intensification of violence is evidence of failure. We are, as David Miliband will warn in a speech on Wednesday, trapped in a war with no plan other than to kill as many baddies as we can before fleeing. At the end of my trip to Afghanistan with Clegg and Nick Harvey, now the armed forces minister, I wrote an overly optimistic piece suggesting that the army might be about to turn things around. Smart soldiers using jargon deployed PowerPoint charts to prove it. It seemed wrong not to take their confidence seriously, and allow them time to make their plans work. I did. More importantly, ministers did. They have had the time and the plans didn’t work. Almost everybody in politics thinks privately that military involvement in Afghanistan has been a disaster. The pity is few dare say so. Afghanistan is already yesterday’s war, though it is still to be tomorrow’s defeat. Mentally we have adjusted for the end, though there are still 9,500 British troops in action. Many soldiers and marines are on their fourth tour of duty – two years of a young adult life. Some face redundancy on return. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 10 years, and in Helmand for five – world wars were fought and won in less. It’s becoming one of those conflicts which seem to have no beginning and no end and probably no point, slipping from our enthusiasm and into history. Libya is eating up our energies instead. There was little interest last month when the foreign affairs committee published what (by its standards) was a strong criticism of the military surge. Perhaps some attention will be paid to Miliband’s speech. Of all politicians involved in pursuing the war he has been the bravest in speaking out. His intervention, as with his previous ones, is being made in America. That’s where decisions are being taken. Britain, having set 2015 as a date for withdrawal for no reason other than the proximity of an election, is ticking off the days on the walls of Camp Bastion like a prisoner scratching out a sentence. When General Petraeus leaves Afghanistan later this year he will of course claim to have broken the back of the insurgency, but what he has really done is scatter it across the country in response to ultra-violence. His predecessor, General McChrystal, promised to pacify 40 districts by last December and 40 more by the end of this year. It hasn’t happened. Talk of stabilising Kandahar has come to nothing – those mega-operations which were supposed to drive the Taliban out of their capital. In the north, Mazar-i-Sharif has rioted against the UN. In the south, we are indulging the fantasy that Lashkar Gah can move to Afghan control. Across the country, the coalition is more feared, violence higher and the president, Hamid Karzai, more unpopular than ever. Read Rodric Braithwaite’s magnificent new book Afgantsy to see where this will lead. His compassionate and brilliantly researched account of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan tells the story of an almost accidental invasion which collapsed not because of any single defeat but because the occupation became too expensive and incoherent to sustain. We are following the same path, and though Braithwaite is too discreet to make the comparison, the Soviet occupation was arguably more successful than ours. It ended in a negotiated settlement which might have lasted if the west hadn’t funded its ruin. The obvious thing to say – and when it’s obvious you have to ask if there is a problem with it – is that we must talk to the Taliban. Without that, we will leave a broken country. Our present strategy, says one official who has been at the heart of it, “is all a big, big lie”. Miliband will urge talks this week and of course he is right. But here’s the problem: what if no one answers? The Taliban have little incentive to reach a deal. A few hopeful signs – a half-recanting speech by the previously obstructive Hillary Clinton – does not yet amount to a process. In the meantime we are turning Afghanistan into a hyper-militarised state, funding a vast army and a security service which is becoming a government of its own. In the sham defence of democracy we will leave behind authoritarianism. It will no doubt last for a while after we go, as President Najibullah did after the Soviets. The Taliban will find they are not strong enough to rule Afghanistan. But nor is anyone else. If our present war is a calamity, what follows it will be worse. This is no way to end a column and no way to end a war, but maybe we will just have to shrug our shoulders and go. • Jon Snow chairs a Guardian and British Museum debate on Afghanistan at the British Museum tomorrow. Tickets at www.britishmuseum.org Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal David Petraeus Hamid Karzai Military Defence policy Middle East Julian Glover guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
George Monbiot and others at best misinform and at worst distort evidence of the dangers of atomic energy Soon after the Fukushima accident last month , I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problem of very large dimensions. Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry’s campaign about the “minimal” health effects of so-called low-level radiation. That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the “nuclear renaissance” to slow down appears to be evident from the industry’s attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima. Proponents of nuclear power – including George Monbiot, who has had a mysterious road-to-Damascus conversion to its supposedly benign effects – accuse me and others who call attention to the potential serious medical consequences of the accident of “cherry-picking” data and overstating the health effects of radiation from the radioactive fuel in the destroyed reactors and their cooling pools. Yet by reassuring the public that things aren’t too bad, Monbiot and others at best misinform, and at worst misrepresent or distort, the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure – and they play a predictable shoot-the-messenger game in the process. To wit: 1) Mr Monbiot, who is a journalist not a scientist, appears unaware of the difference between external and internal radiation Let me educate him. The former is what populations were exposed to when the atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; their profound and on-going medical effects are well documented. [1] Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). [2] After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time. The grave effects of internal emitters are of the most profound concern at Fukushima. It is inaccurate and misleading to use the term “acceptable levels of external radiation” in assessing internal radiation exposures. To do so, as Monbiot has done, is to propagate inaccuracies and to mislead the public worldwide (not to mention other journalists) who are seeking the truth about radiation’s hazards. 2) Nuclear industry proponents often assert that low doses of radiation (eg below 100mSV) produce no ill effects and are therefore safe. But , as the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report has concluded, no dose of radiation is safe, however small, including background radiation; exposure is cumulative and adds to an individual’s risk of developing cancer. 3) Now let’s turn to Chernobyl. Various seemingly reputable groups have issued differing reports on the morbidity and mortalities resulting from the 1986 radiation catastrophe. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2005 issued a report attributing only 43 human deaths directly to the Chernobyl disaster and estimating an additional 4,000 fatal cancers. In contrast, the 2009 report, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” , published by the New York Academy of Sciences, comes to a very different conclusion. The three scientist authors – Alexey V Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V Nesterenko – provide in its pages a translated synthesis and compilation of hundreds of scientific articles on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster that have appeared in Slavic language publications over the past 20 years. They estimate the number of deaths attributable to the Chernobyl meltdown at about 980,000. Monbiot dismisses the report as worthless , but to do so – to ignore and denigrate an entire body of literature, collectively hundreds of studies that provide evidence of large and significant impacts on human health and the environment – is arrogant and irresponsible. Scientists can and should argue over such things, for example, as confidence intervals around individual estimates (which signal the reliability of estimates), but to consign out of hand the entire report into a metaphorical dustbin is shameful. Further, as Prof Dimitro Godzinsky, of the Ukranian National Academy of Sciences, states in his introduction to the report: “Against this background of such persuasive data some defenders of atomic energy look specious as they deny the obvious negative effects of radiation upon populations. In fact, their reactions include almost complete refusal to fund medical and biological studies, even liquidating government bodies that were in charge of the ‘affairs of Chernobyl’. Under pressure from the nuclear lobby, officials have also diverted scientific personnel away from studying the problems caused by Chernobyl.” 4) Monbiot expresses surprise that a UN-affiliated body such as WHOmight be under the influence of the nuclear power industry, causing its reporting on nuclear power matters to be biased. And yet that is precisely the case. In the early days of nuclear power, WHO issued forthright statements on radiation risks such as its 1956 warning: “Genetic heritage is the most precious property for human beings. It determines the lives of our progeny, health and harmonious development of future generations. As experts, we affirm that the health of future generations is threatened by increasing development of the atomic industry and sources of radiation … We also believe that new mutations that occur in humans are harmful to them and their offspring.” After 1959, WHO made no more statements on health and radioactivity. What happened? On 28 May 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); clause 12.40 of this agreement says: “Whenever either organisation [the WHO or the IAEA] proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organisation has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement.” In other words, the WHO grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA – a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry. The IAEA’s founding papers state : “The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world.” Monbiot appears ignorant about the WHO’s subjugation to the IAEA, yet this is widely known within the scientific radiation community. But it is clearly not the only matter on which he is ignorant after his apparent three-day perusal of the vast body of scientific information on radiation and radioactivity. As we have seen, he and other nuclear industry apologists sow confusion about radiation risks, and, in my view, in much the same way that the tobacco industry did in previous decades about the risks of smoking. Despite their claims, it is they, not the “anti-nuclear movement” who are “misleading the world about the impacts of radiation on human health.” • Helen Caldicott is president of the Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear-Free Planet and the author of Nuclear Power is Not the Answer [1] See, for example, WJ Schull, Effects of Atomic Radiation: A Half-Century of Studies from Hiroshima and Nagasaki (New York: Wiley-Lis, 1995) and DE Thompson, K Mabuchi, E Ron, M Soda, M Tokunaga, S Ochikubo, S Sugimoto, T Ikeda, M Terasaki, S Izumi et al. “Cancer incidence in atomic bomb survivors, Part I: Solid tumors, 1958-1987″ in Radiat Res 137:S17-S67 (1994). [2] This process is called bioaccumulation and comes in two subtypes as well, bioconcentration and biomagnification. For more information see: J.U. Clark and V.A. McFarland, Assessing Bioaccumulation in Aquatic Organisms Exposed to Contaminated Sediments, Miscellaneous Paper D-91-2 (1991), Environmental Laboratory, Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS and H.A. Vanderplog, D.C. Parzyck, W.H. Wilcox, J.R. Kercher, and S.V. Kaye, Bioaccumulation Factors for Radionuclides in Freshwater Biota, ORNL-5002 (1975), Environmental Sciences Division Publication, Number 783, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN. Nuclear power Energy Japan disaster Japan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Looking for a family day out over Easter? Been there readers have plenty of suggestions, from ice-cream factories and egg hunts to the Strangest Place in the World WINNING TIP: The Forbidden Corner, North Yorkshire The self-styled Strangest Place in the World is a labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, follies and surprises created in a four-acre garden. I recommend it because it is so unlike anything else and it keeps everyone wondering what’s around the next corner. It’s for all ages, and very memorable. • Adults £10, children £8, family ticket £34, booking essential. Tupgill Park Estate, Coverham 01969 640638, theforbiddencorner.co.uk Lara999 Blue Planet Aquarium, near Chester Chester ( visitchester.com ) is a great place for families to spend a day, or even a few days. The Blue Planet Aquarium is about 10 minutes’ drive from the city centre. One of the largest aquariums in the UK, it has two amazing underwater tunnel experiences. This is a great idea for wet days. The aquarium is close to the Cheshire Oaks retail park ( cheshireoaksshopping.co.uk ), good for some credit-crunch retail therapy, with designer brands at discount prices, lots of restaurants and a huge cinema. • Adults £15, children £11, family £50.50. Longlooms Road, Ellesmere Port, 0151-357 8804, • blueplanetaquarium.com matthudson1 Easter Egg Trail, Ham House, near Richmond, Surrey This is a great family day out over Easter weekend. There are Easter egg trails at NT properties all over the country, but Ham House makes for some really stunning photographs. The entertainment works for the whole family, with activities, gardens to explore and lots of great play areas. Kids can enjoy face-painting, too. • Entrance to property, adults £9.90, children £5.50. Egg trails (24, 25 April 11am-4pm) £3. Ham Street, Ham, Richmond-upon-Thames, 020-8940 1950, eastereggtrails.com/Ham-House-and-Garden.aspx Songbird21 Muddy Boots, Glenrothes, Fife Muddy Boots started as a farm shop, selling veg, fruit, jam and honey, among others. There is a large cafe with a kids’ menu, children’s entertainment in the form of a tractor track, quad train, a large jumping pillow, gyro cars, grass sledging, turf boarding and indoor and outdoor play areas. It’s fantastic fun for all the family: leave grandparents in the cafe while the kids go and explore. The food is great and there are activities galore to speed the day. There is also a pottery area where kids can paint their own designs, from plates to money boxes. • Under-fives £2, outdoor play area (over-sevens) £5. Balmalcolm Farm, Balmalcolm, Fife, 01337 831222 Lizzy1921 Cream O’Galloway ice-cream factory, Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway This place is excellent fun for all ages, all year round (they’ll open up for groups out of season if you book ahead), whatever the weather and for only a few quid. Cold and wet outdoors? Head for the indoor play area, built to take adults so they can squeeze through the tunnels and down slides with their children, which is so much more fun than standing on the sidelines. If the weather’s half-decent, go for the outdoor adventure playground, an amazing structure between the trees and the ice-cream factory with something for everyone: a tower with amazing views over the surrounding countryside, bridges, chutes and a maze. And if that’s not enough, there’s also the possibility of creating your own ice-cream, although adults may have to curb their enthusiasm for alcohol-based desserts if the kids are to get a look in. They didn’t when we were there! • Adults £2, children £4, extra charges for individual activities, such as Ice-Cream Experience (adults £5.50, children £3.50). Rainton, Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries & Galloway, 01557 814040, • creamogalloway.co.uk BarbEdinburgh The Welsh Mountain Zoo, Colwyn Bay, Clwyd This is a good all-round family experience. They have lots of animals from around the world and tons of experiences to engage in. Amazon parrots are new this year – some of them talk – and agoutis, large rodents from South America. • Adults £9.95, children £7.50, family ticket £31.40. 01492 532938, welshmountainzoo.org amandtony United Kingdom Family holidays Guardian readers guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Hot weather comes to an end as rain crosses much of country and temperatures revert to seasonal averages “Was that it then?” asked hundreds of thousands of Britons as the weekend’s mini heatwave began to collapse just in time for the Monday morning return to work. The answer from the Met Office is essentially: “Afraid so”, as temperatures revert to seasonal averages and rain crosses much of the country, ending the driest early spring since 1953. A cold front has begun moving in from the Atlantic, initially in the north-west, but it is expected to reach all areas by Wednesday. Sadness at the transitory nature of the “little summer” – which will at least persist for much of Monday along the south coast – was mixed with relief at a bit of damp for farmers and the horticultural industry. Resorting to mains water has leached supplies from reservoirs, especially in the south-west where some have dropped to 80% capacity at a time of the year when things are usually more waterlogged. The area may miss out on heavy rain which is expected to cross northern England and the Midlands on Tuesday. But few will escape an accompanying fall in temperatures, with unsettled and sometimes gusty weather in place nationwide by Wednesday night, according to forecasters. Victoria Kettley, of MeteoGroup, said: “Barbecue weather will be beating a retreat for at least the next few days. The front system will be moving in across the UK over Ireland, Scotland, and north-west England bringing colder air and rain. “Temperatures will be cool across north and western parts of the UK with readings between 11-14°C.” Much of the UK was hotter than the north Mediterranean and even Bermuda over the weekend, with Scotland joining in the bonanza. The highest temperatures were at the country’s opposite ends, with both Southampton and Aboyne near Aberdeen recording 23°C. The Algarve and Rome recorded 21°C. The peaks were 8°C above April averages and the natural world has produced its usual crop of anomalies as a result. Dandelions are on average three weeks earlier, brightening roadside verges and keeping gardeners busy. Dominic Price, of Plantlife, said: “They respond to the sun and it has suddenly become warm enough to trigger them so all the flowers have opened at once, creating a mass of yellow, but not always where it’s wanted, such as on our lawns. Large numbers of dandelions also come at the expense of other wildflowers, such as orchids and harebells, as they will gorge on the nutrients in the soil, leaving the weaker plants struggling to survive.” Weather Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Serviceman Ryan Donovan charged with murder of lieutenant commander and attempted murder of three other officers A Royal Navy sailor has appeared in court accused of the murder of a colleague and the attempted murders of three other crew on board a nuclear submarine. Able Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan, 22, of Dartford, Kent, spoke only to confirm his name, age and address during the short hearing at Southampton magistrates court. Donovan has been charged with the murder of Lieutenant Commander Ian Molyneux, 36, who was fatally shot on board HMS Astute while it was docked in Southampton, Hampshire, on Friday. He has also been charged with the attempted murders of Petty Officer Christopher Brown, 36, Chief Petty Officer David McCoy, 37, and Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hodge, 45. Donovan was remanded in custody to appear at Winchester crown court on 13 April. Nick Hawkins, prosecuting, said the case could have been handled internally by the armed forces but it had been agreed that it would be held in the civilian courts. Molyneux’s widow, Gillian, described the father of four from Wigan as “utterly devoted to his family”. “Everything he did was for us. He was very proud to be an officer in the Royal Navy submarine service.” The shootings took place as local dignitaries, including the city council’s mayor, chief executive and leader, were being given a tour of the submarine while it was berthed at the Eastern Docks on an official five-day visit to the city. HMS Astute has been cleared to leave Southampton this afternoon to return to its base at Faslane, Scotland. Hawkins, the chief prosecutor for Hampshire Crown Prosecution Service, said: “The armed forces do have jurisdiction but during the course of the weekend I had discussions with the director of service prosecutions and we are in agreement this case is properly to be tried in the civilian courts and therefore should be dealt with no differently to any other murder or attempted murder cases that appears before your court.” Describing the allegation against Donovan, he said: “The prosecution claims it was the deliberate discharge of a SA80 rifle six times, aimed at four people, one of which was fatally wounded.” Crime Military guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …