At least 35 workers were killed when Taliban militants ambushed a highway construction crew in eastern Afghanistan. Almost every one of the laborers, engineers, and guards on site where killed, kidnapped, or injured after the insurgents attacked a roadside camp early in the morning, reports the BBC . Eight militants were…
Continue reading …British soldiers were unlawfully killed by Afghan police officer, coroner rules
May 20, 2011 No Comment
Five soldiers were killed when the man known as Gulbuddin opened fire at a checkpoint in Helmand province in 2009 Five British soldiers shot dead by a rogue Afghan police officer were unlawfully killed, a coroner has ruled. David Ridley, coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, recorded the verdict at the end of a four-day inquest in Trowbridge. The troops were gunned down without warning by an officer, known only as Gulbuddin, with whom they had been living at an Afghan police checkpoint in Nad-e-Ali, Helmand province. Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 40, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, and Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18, from the Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote, 22, and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24, from the Royal Military Police on 3 November 2009. The soldiers were sitting outside in the courtyard of Checkpoint Blue 25 relaxing, having returned earlier that day from a patrol. Their killer, a regular cannabis smoker, walked up to the soldiers and without warning shot them with an automatic AK47 rifle. The inquest heard harrowing evidence from troops who survived the massacre, describing how the Afghan police officer screamed as he fired indiscriminately. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murders and some reports suggested Gulbuddin had escaped back to them, but military sources have suggested the attack was probably unconnected to the insurgents. No one knows why Gulbuddin opened fire, killing the five and wounding six troops and two Afghan police officers. He fled the checkpoint and was never caught. Some soldiers told the inquest he might have been shot dead in a gun battle immediately after the massacre. Speaking after the inquest, Boote’s mother and girlfriend spoke of their pride in him. . “We want Steven to be remembered because he was a hero and because he volunteered to fight for his country,” Margaret Boote and Emma Murray said in a statement. “He fought very hard to get a place on the team in Afghanistan and he was a highly valued and popular member of the Royal Military Police and of the Grenadier Guards Battle Group. “Steven paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country and he was immensely proud of what he was doing. “We are immensely proud of him and we miss him desperately but we know he was committed to the job he was doing.” Military Afghanistan guardian.co.uk
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Alexander Mamut promises to refocus Waterstone’s as local bookseller – and will install Daunt Books founder to run it HMV Group has agreed to sell its Waterstone’s business, which operates through 296 high street stores, to Russian investment billionaire Alexander Mamut in a £53m deal. Mamut said he believed the future success of the chain lay in “an undiluted commitment to books and bookselling” and promised to refocus Waterstone’s as a local community book store. The sale was announced on Friday morning with a trading update confirming a dismal trading performance across HMV’s businesses since the start of the year. Comparable sales within the group’s music and DVD stores fell 15.1% for the 17 weeks to 30 April, while like-for-like sales at Waterstone’s over the same period were down 8.4%. Mamut has said he will install James Daunt, founder of the Daunt Books chain of independent bookshops in London, to run Waterstone’s. Current managing director Dominic Myers will remain within HMV. The new book store boss has promised a “comprehensive review” of the business. In a statement he said: “Mr Mamut’s investment has been inspired and motivated by the opportunity to refocus the core business of bookselling towards a renewed customer responsiveness.” Mamut added: “The opportunity ahead to reposition Waterstone’s as a regional and local community orientated bookseller is an exciting one. The business enjoys a great loyalty from its customers and I believe that there is considerable integrity and value in the brand.” Mamut, who owns 6% of HMV Group, is said to be a friend of Chelsea football club boss Roman Abramovich and was previously an adviser to Boris Yeltsin. For a period he ran MDM-Bank, founded by billionaire Andrey Melnichenko and in 2007 he acquired US blogging site LiveJournal.com. According to Forbes, he has a net worth of $1.2bn (£740m). The sale of Waterstone’s, which employs 4,500 staff, will provide a major boost for HMV chief executive Simon Fox as he continues to seek new borrowing terms from the firm’s banks after dire trading results left the business heading for a breach of its loan covenants. HMV’s lenders are led by Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland. He made clear the sale to Mamut would only go through if a new lending agreement could be reached. Proceeds from the disposal are expected to arrive by the need of next month, though HMV’s bank and pension trustees must first give their consent. Elsewhere HMV is pressing ahead with plans to close 40 stores in an effort to pare back its overheads. It is also exploring a possible sale of its Canadian business. “A sale of Waterstone’s to Alexander Mamut provides a good new home for the business,” said Fox. “We expect this deal to enable the group to achieve a reduction in [its] borrowing requirements, and, in turn, focus on plans for transforming the HMV Group into a broad-based entertainment business.” Waterstone’s HMV Booksellers Retail industry Media business Simon Bowers guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A California man who fatally slammed his wife’s chihuahua against a wall during a domestic dispute could face a possible life sentence for the crime, according to authorities. Because Bud “Wally” Ruiz has four other convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, he’s in for a particularly harsh sentence this…
Continue reading …Katie Couric, the first woman to be solo anchor of an evening network news show, has officially signed off on her 5-year stint at CBS. Couric’s final CBS Evening News broadcast included an interview with Hillary Clinton and a “5 years in 5 minutes” retrospective of her time as anchor,…
Continue reading …Sarah Palin is finally a mother-in-law. The Alaskan’s eldest son Track married high school sweetheart Brittany Hanson in a scenic mountain pass near Wasilla, People reports. The 22-year-old Iraq veteran, now an Army reservist, plans to study at the University of Alaska after this year’s commercial fishing season. Brittany, 21,…
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Government talk of economic recovery was undermined on Friday when the country’s largest steel maker announced plans to cut 1,500 jobs in Yorkshire and Teesside. Tata Steel, which bought the Corus business in 2007, blamed a continued slump in demand from the construction sector but also new climate change legislation for its decision. “We are aware that our employees and their families will experience a very unsettling few months as a result of this announcement. We will do everything we can to provide them with support and assistance,” said Karl-Ulrich Köhler, chief executive of Tata Steel’s European operations. “The continuing weakness in market conditions is one of the main reasons why we are setting out on this difficult course of action. Another is the regulatory outlook. EU carbon legislation threatens to impose huge additional costs on the steel industry. Besides, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about the level of further unilateral carbon cost rises that the UK government is planning,” he added. The Indian firm said it was proposing to close or mothball part of its Scunthorpe plant, putting at risk 1,200 jobs, as well as cutting 300 jobs at its sites on Teesside. But it also said it would invest £400m in its “Long Products” business over the next five years and hoped to bring a turnaround to the hard-pressed side of the business that it had achieved inside the speciality steel division. The news from the steel industry follows a roll call of redundancies from a swath of other industrial and retail employers with mobile phone company Nokia cutting 700 UK jobs, pharma group Novartis unveiling 550 redundancies and Mothercare closing 110 stores. There has also been bad news from drugs maker Pfizer with 2,400 jobs under threat in Kent and Focus DIY, which went into administration this month. But the steel industry has been doing better with a Thai company, SSI, announcing plans late last year to restart operations at a mothballed plant at Redcar. Unions said the latest cuts amounted to 8% of Tata’s UK workforce and were a “devastating blow” to the regions affected as the steel industry played a major role there. “Today’s announcement highlights just how fragile our economy is and the coalition Government should not be so quick to start talking about growth and recovery,” said Unite’s national officer, Paul Reuter. “Union representatives are currently working with Tata to mitigate the impact of the cuts. Unite has already demanded that there should be no compulsory redundancies and we believe that this should be possible to achieve. Business secretary Vince Cable admitted he was “very disappointed” at the Tata move adding: “This will be a worrying time for workers at Scunthorpe in particular, and also in Teesside.” Job losses Tata Construction industry Carbon emissions Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Government talk of economic recovery was undermined on Friday when the country’s largest steel maker announced plans to cut 1,500 jobs in Yorkshire and Teesside. Tata Steel, which bought the Corus business in 2007, blamed a continued slump in demand from the construction sector but also new climate change legislation for its decision. “We are aware that our employees and their families will experience a very unsettling few months as a result of this announcement. We will do everything we can to provide them with support and assistance,” said Karl-Ulrich Köhler, chief executive of Tata Steel’s European operations. “The continuing weakness in market conditions is one of the main reasons why we are setting out on this difficult course of action. Another is the regulatory outlook. EU carbon legislation threatens to impose huge additional costs on the steel industry. Besides, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about the level of further unilateral carbon cost rises that the UK government is planning,” he added. The Indian firm said it was proposing to close or mothball part of its Scunthorpe plant, putting at risk 1,200 jobs, as well as cutting 300 jobs at its sites on Teesside. But it also said it would invest £400m in its “Long Products” business over the next five years and hoped to bring a turnaround to the hard-pressed side of the business that it had achieved inside the speciality steel division. The news from the steel industry follows a roll call of redundancies from a swath of other industrial and retail employers with mobile phone company Nokia cutting 700 UK jobs, pharma group Novartis unveiling 550 redundancies and Mothercare closing 110 stores. There has also been bad news from drugs maker Pfizer with 2,400 jobs under threat in Kent and Focus DIY, which went into administration this month. But the steel industry has been doing better with a Thai company, SSI, announcing plans late last year to restart operations at a mothballed plant at Redcar. Unions said the latest cuts amounted to 8% of Tata’s UK workforce and were a “devastating blow” to the regions affected as the steel industry played a major role there. “Today’s announcement highlights just how fragile our economy is and the coalition Government should not be so quick to start talking about growth and recovery,” said Unite’s national officer, Paul Reuter. “Union representatives are currently working with Tata to mitigate the impact of the cuts. Unite has already demanded that there should be no compulsory redundancies and we believe that this should be possible to achieve. Business secretary Vince Cable admitted he was “very disappointed” at the Tata move adding: “This will be a worrying time for workers at Scunthorpe in particular, and also in Teesside.” Job losses Tata Construction industry Carbon emissions Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Operator of Japan’s tsunami-hit nuclear plant reports a record loss of £9.5bn
May 20, 2011 No Comment
Tepco suffers biggest deficit by Japanese firm outside financial sector as it deals with failures that followed natural disaster The operator of Japan’s stricken nuclear power plant has announced record losses of 1.25 trillion yen (£9.5bn) as it counts the cost of ongoing efforts to contain the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said the losses – the biggest ever by a Japanese firm outside the financial sector – compared with a profit of 134bn yen the previous year. The firm’s beleaguered president, Masataka Shimizu, said on Friday that he would resign to take responsibility for the crisis at the Fukushima plant, now in its third month. Toshio Nishizawa, managing director, will replace him after a shareholders’ meeting on 28 June. Shimizu, whose resignation had been expected, did not appear in public for two weeks after the disaster and was later admitted to hospital suffering from fatigue. “I wanted to take managerial responsibility as a symbolic act of closure,” said Shimizu, who bowed in apology several times. “We are doing everything we can to resolve the crisis.” He defended the decision to appoint a successor from inside the company. “We put the highest importance on experience and expertise in our business operations when we chose the person for the top post,” he said. The head of the utility’s nuclear division, Sakae Muto, also resigned and its chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata, is expected to step down once the reactors have been stabilised. Tepco vowed to bring radiation levels under control and achieve “cold shutdown” in four stricken nuclear reactors between October and January next year, a deadline some experts have dismissed as unrealistic . Earlier this week the company revealed that new data indicated that fuel rods in three of the reactors had melted in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s north-east coast on 11 March, killing an estimated 24,500 people. The plant, located 150 miles north of Tokyo, has spewed radiation into the atmosphere and contaminated seawater and agricultural produce, forcing the evacuation of 80,000 people living nearby. Work to cool the reactors has been hampered by dangerously high radiation levels at the site. Tepco’s losses result from the cost the reacting to the crisis and of scrapping four nuclear reactors at Fukushima. It also decided to abandon plans to build two more reactors. The firm faces a compensation bill running into trillions of yen that will hit profits for years to come. Its stock has fallen 83% since the day before the tsunami, wiping 2.9tn yen off its market value. The government last week agreed to set up a special fund using taxpayers’ money from which Tepco can draw cash – which it will then have to pay back – to cover damages claims. Some analysts say compensation payouts could top £80bn Tepco’s losses exceed the 812bn yen deficit suffered by Japan’s biggest telephone utility, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, in 2002. Nishizawa sought to reassure consumers, saying Tepco had no immediate plans to increase electricity charges to help it through the most tumultuous time in its 60-year history. The firm said it would attempt to raise 600bn yen by selling land and other assets. Japan disaster Japan Natural disasters and extreme weather Nuclear power Energy Energy industry Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Another former teammate says he witnessed cycling champ Lance Armstrong use banned substances. Tyler Hamilton, who raced alongside Armstrong in the Tour de France for three seasons, told CBS ‘ 60 Minutes that he saw his teammate inject himself with EPO, a drug that raises endurance by boosting the number…
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