Able Seaman Ryan Donovan appears at Winchester crown court accused of murdering officer on nuclear submarine A Royal Navy sailor has been remanded in custody at Winchester crown 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, was charged with murdering Lieutenant Commander Ian Molyneux, 36, who was fatally shot on HMS Astute at Southampton last 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. Judge Keith Cutler adjourned the case for a plea and case management hearing on 10 June. A hearing at Southampton magistrates court on Monday was told by Nick Hawkins, chief prosecutor for Hampshire Crown Prosecution Service, that the director of service prosecutions had agreed to hand over jurisdiction of the case to the civilian courts. Hawkins said the allegation against Donovan was that he fired an SA80 rifle six times, aiming at the four named victims, killing Molyneux. Molyneux’s widow, Gillian, described the father of four from Wigan as “utterly devoted to his family”. She added: “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 Eastern Docks, on a five-day official visit to the Hampshire city. Astute was cleared to leave Southampton on Monday to return to its base at Faslane, Scotland. Military Crime guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Ivory Coast president says Laurent Gbagbo is being held at villa pending charges on ‘national and international level’ Ivory Coast’s president, Alassane Ouattara, has said the former leader Laurent Gbagbo will face charges “on a national and international level”. Gbagbo has been moved out of the Golf hotel, where he was taken after his capture on Monday . Ouattara said he would be kept in a villa and his rights as a former head of state would be respected. “Gbagbo is in a residence under surveillance somewhere in Ivory Coast,” Ouattara said. His justice minister was preparing for a possible prosecution of Gbagbo, but Ouattara gave no further details. “There will be charges [against Gbagbo] on a national level and an international level,” he said. Ouattara will settle into the presidential palace in the coming days, he said, and a swearing-in ceremony will take place at a later date. Gbagbo refused to cede power after losing an election in November, leading to a four-month standoff. More than 1 million people fled their homes amid the fighting, and the civilian death toll surpassed 1,500. New footage has emerged showing pro-Ouattara fighters storming Gbagbo’s residence. Fighters are seen walking through the front gate carrying firearms. Many are dressed in camouflage and wearing helmets, and some are crouched in shooting position. After orders from a commander, fighters enter the residence, shoot at the lock on an orange door and push inside. The footage, shot by a pro-Ouattara fighter, shows Gbagbo being given a camouflage flak jacket before he and his wife are escorted to a car. Gbagbo was then handed over to UN peacekeepers and taken to Ouattara’s Abidjan headquarters. The French defence minister, Gerard Longuet, said France would reduce its military force in the Ivory Coast from 1,700 to 980 troops as soon as possible. Longuet said French forces took a secondary role to Ouattara’s forces and the UN in capturing Gbagbo. The French will not make any decision on an eventual pullout until at least June, he said, because the future of the French force would depend on the UN’s decision in June on whether to renew the mandate for its force. “Patrols of Ivorian and French gendarmes will circulate in Abidjan to show that there is a state of law that is being put in place,” Longuet told a parliamentary hearing. He said the head of the Ivorian gendarme service, the director of police, the chief of staff of the armed forces and the chief of staff of the army had all offered their services to Ouattara. Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara Ivory Coast guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A naval officer from the United Arab Emirates has been busted for keeping an unpaid servant while living in a tony Rhode Island neighborhood. Col. Arif Mohamed Saeed Mohamed Al-Ali was nabbed as he attempted to board a flight out of New York’s JFK airport. He pleaded guilty last week…
Continue reading …Mitt Romney tackled the “birther” issue in his first interview since announcing that he is exploring a White House run . “I think the citizenship test has been passed. I believe the president was born in the United States,” Romney told CNBC , suggesting that his fellow Republicans should focus on more…
Continue reading …The body of the sole West Coast victim of last month’s tsunami washed ashore on an Oregon beach 383 miles away from where he was swept away in California. The body of Dustin Weber, 25, was discovered earlier this month—22 days after the tsunami—and was identified through dental…
Continue reading …
France would need to demonstrate terrorist threat overides women’s right to veil the face for religious reasons Why would any Muslim woman choose to go out wearing a burqa? Her ability to see the world around her will be restricted by the mesh covering her eyes. She cannot eat or drink in public. A niqab – the full-face veil – is presumably a little easier to manage. A woman may use one hand to hold it up and the other to feed herself, though enjoying an ice-cream in a windy street must be something of a challenge. But it does give the wearer one intangible advantage: although she can see me, I cannot see her. It tells the world that she is a practising Muslim, just as I might identify myself as a Jew by wearing a kippa in public. Even that minimal kind of religious head-covering has been illegal in French state schools for the past six years. And, since Monday, it has been against the law for people in France to cover their faces with a burqa, a niqab, a hood or a mask while in a public place. There are exceptions for sporting and cultural events as well as for health and safety – but not for tourists. Head-coverings remain lawful. Muslim women understandably feel stigmatised and scapegoated by the French law. One told the Guardian that it was designed to humiliate people. The French ban is the first in Europe, according to Reuters. In Belgium, the lower parliamentary chamber voted a year ago in favour of banning the full veil. However, the reform is on hold because of long-term political deadlock. Seven of Germany’s 16 states have banned teachers in state schools from wearing Islamic headscarves. And wearing Islamic veils or headscarves is officially prohibited at universities in Turkey, a country that is predominantly Muslim but constitutionally secular. In Britain, the government ruled out a burqa ban last year. Damian Green, the immigration minister, said that “telling people what they can and can’t wear, if they’re just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do”. That’s true, although there was a time when covering your face wasn’t very British either. One French activist said this week that she wanted to challenge the burqa ban at the European court of human rights. To do so she would have to provoke the authorities into arresting and prosecuting her. She would then need to be convicted and have her conviction upheld by the French appeal courts. What, then, might the Strasbourg court say? Article 9 of the human rights convention allows freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Freedom to manifest one’s religion is subject some limitations – but only to those regarded as necessary in a democratic society to protect the rights and freedoms of others. There is no suggestion that these women pose any kind of terrorist threat, requiring them to be photographed. It is difficult to argue that I have the right to see the faces of women walking past me in the street – even though my inability to do so may perhaps limit my freedom to live in a secular society. Delivering the FA Mann lecture last November, Lord Pannick QC said he would expect the human rights court to find that the French ban on face-coverings is in breach of article 9. “There is no public interest to weigh against the manifestation of religious beliefs,” Pannick said, “only the unease of the non-believer that women should wish so to conceal themselves from the public.” The human rights lawyer based his view on a ruling by the European court in February 2010. It was a victory for 127 members of a religious group who wear turbans and distinctive clothes inspired by those of the Islamic prophets. The Strasbourg court held that their conviction under anti-terrorism legislation for walking the streets while wearing religious clothing was a breach of their human rights. Each was awarded €10 compensation. The court emphasised that there was a distinction between wearing religious dress in public and wearing it in schools or other institutions where there might be good reason to insist on religious neutrality. Dressing in a turban, baggy trousers and a tunic may not be the same as covering all but one’s eyes. But the French ban on veils still seems short-sighted.oiuld Joshua Rozenberg is a freelance legal writer, commentator and broadcaster French burqa and niqab ban European court of human rights Human rights France Islam Religion Joshua Rozenberg guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The US is urging North Korea to free an American citizen who was arrested and detained there several months ago, AP reports. “This individual has been detained. I don’t have any details of what this individual was doing in North Korea,” said a State Department spokesman. “We would ask that…
Continue reading …
Met confirms Paul Stretford was almost certainly targeted by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire Wayne Rooney’s agent, Paul Stretford, is poised to add his name to the list of public figures suing the News of the World after the Metropolitan police confirmed he was almost certainly targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the paper. Stretford, one of the UK’s most powerful and influential football agents, was shown documents on Monday by Scotland Yard, which indicates he was a person of interest to Mulcaire, the Guardian has learned. Copies of pages from Mulcaire’s notebooks contain Stretford’s mobile phone number and those of several associates and business partners. The notes also include dates which sources close to Stretford claim to correspond to the dates that stories about his clients were published by the News of the World. The documents were seized by police in a 2006 raid on Mulcaire’s home. Stretford is said by friends to be furious that he was targeted and is preparing to launch legal proceedings. Sources close to the agent point out that voicemail messages left on his phone during the period when Mulcaire was working for the paper more than five years ago were likely to include commercially sensitive information about transfer dealings, contract negotiations, sponsorship deals and a host of other business matters. Stretford, a former vacuum cleaner salesman, has masterminded the career of Rooney, his star client, negotiating his big-money move from Everton, the club he supported as a child, to Manchester United in 2004 and securing a string of lucrative sponsorship deals with companies including Nike and McDonald’s. The Sunday Times rich list last year estimated his wealth at £33m. Stretford is not the only football agent to be targeted by the News of the World. Sky Andrew, who represents former England defender Sol Campbell, is one of eight people suing the paper whose owner, News International, offered to settle last week . • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . James Robinson guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
IMF report says vulnerability of banks threatens financial system Risks of a fresh banking crash have diminished over the past six months but the financial system remains fragile four years after the crisis that took the global economy to the brink of meltdown, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said. In its half-yearly Financial Stability Report, the Washington-based IMF said the sovereign debt problems affecting Europe and the vulnerability of banks posed key downside risks to stability and economic recovery. The IMF advised policymakers in member countries to address the legacy of high debt burdens in rich western economies, to develop a more robust financial system, and to guard against the overheating and build-up of financial imbalances in emerging nations. Low interest rates and quantitative easing had boosted the appetite for risk, the IMF said, warning that “easy monetary and liquidity conditions may be masking underlying vulnerabilities”. It added that rising expectations of higher interest rates in the face of growing inflationary pressures could result in funding risks for vulnerable sovereign states and banking systems. Since the last IMF meeting in October, Ireland and Portugal have joined Greece in requiring bailouts to see them through their financial difficulties. “Sovereign balance sheets remain under strain in many advanced economies, as illustrated by increased sovereign bond market volatility in some euro area countries over the past six months,” the report said. It said UK banks were exposed to weakness in the residential and commercial property markets, with household debt remaining high. “Banks face pressure on the asset side of their balance sheets because of concerns about the quality of bank exposures,” the IMF said. “This is particularly the case for exposures to real estate – either residential or commercial – in Ireland, Spain, the UK and the US.” IMF European debt crisis Financial crisis Global economy Economics Global recession Banking European banks Ireland bailout Portugal Greece Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
The British engineer Richard Trevithick, born 240 years ago today, invented the world’s first full-scale, working steam locomotive but died a pauper Train enthusiasts may know his name, but to others today’s Google doodle may be something of a mystery. The steam locomotive proudly puffing away on the homepage is in fact celebrating the 240th anniversary of the birth of Richard Trevithick . Born in Cornwall in 1771, Trevithick was enthralled by the possibilities of steam power. After following his father to work in the mines, he eventually produced a high-pressure steam engine at the rather quaintly named Ding Dong Mine at Land’s End. This was in the age of James Watt and Matthew Boulton’s low-pressure steam engines , which had vastly improved the efficiency of the existing atmospheric engine , developed by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. Newcomen’s engine worked on the principle of a single cylinder with a pumping piston inside. The piston was attached to an external beam, and after each stroke steam and water were injected into the cylinder below. The water condensed the steam to create a vacuum, which pulled the piston down and raised the end of the beam. The problem was that the water was constantly cooling the main cylinder, so Watt added a second, smaller one next to it. This was close enough for condensation to occur, but avoided the inefficient cooling effect of the water being sent into the main cylinder. Trevithick, and many others working in mining during the late 1790s, were tired of paying royalties to James Watt and Matthew Boulton for the use of their Newcomen steam engine design. His attempts to find ways to avoid using these condensers led him to explore the possibility of using high-pressure steam directly from boilers. This line of research was brought to an abrupt end when Watt successfully served him with an injunction to stop his modifications in 1796. He only had to wait four years to begin his work once more, however, and in 1801 his patience won out. On Christmas Eve he sent his first full-sized road locomotive up Camborne Hill. In fact, if you’re from Cornwall you may have heard the folk song of the same name, which was inspired by this event. Trevithick’s finest moment came three years later at a mine in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Here the very first full-scale working steam locomotive travelling at a whopping 8 kilometres an hour (5 miles per hour) pulled 10 tonnes of coal and 70 men 15 kilometres along the cast-iron tracks. Unfortunately the tracks were built for horses to pull loads on, and weren’t ready for the extra weight of the 7-tonne engine. They cracked. This was a recurring and, for Trevithick, unsolved problem and his engines met with little commercial success. He then travelled to South America to work at a Peruvian silver mine . On his return to England more than a decade later, he was refused a government pension in 1828, despite other inventors fighting his corner. This engineering genius of the railways eventually died in poverty at the Bull Inn in Dartford and was carried to a pauper’s grave by a group of local factory workers. People in science Physics Engineering Google doodle Google guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …