Facebook fan page for dead UK killer disappears
A Facebook fan page that glorified a dead killer was removed by its creator Thursday after it drew sharp criticism from Britain's prime minister and put the social networking site in an uncomfortable situation.
The Facebook site "R.I.P. Raoul Moat You Legend" had attracted 38,000 fans, scores of comments praising Moat — and outrage from politicians. Facebook had refused to remove the page even after Prime Minister David Cameron had condemned it, saying there should be no public sympathy for a "callous murderer."
Shrugging off the mounting pressure, Facebook said the page, while controversial, did not violate its rules. But its creator, Siobhan O'Dowd, took it down, saying she was surprised by the negative reaction.
"To be honest, I didn't think this would be the kind of reaction I would get," O'Dowd said.
Facebook confirmed it had not removed the page. Another similar Moat tribute page remained, with more than 9,000 fans.
O'Dowd said she was planning to start a new Moat page, and did not explain how it would be different from the old one.
"We don't condone what he did, as what he did was wrong," she said. "I feel sorry for the families, but he was still a human being at the end of the day."
Moat, a former bouncer, had just been released from a prison term for assault when he shot his ex-girlfriend, killed her new lover and seriously wounded a policeman. After a week on the run, he took his own life Friday when cornered by police.
Cameron's spokesman, Steve Field, said the government had spoken to Facebook about the page, and Cameron praised Conservative lawmaker Chris Heaton-Harris for demanding that Facebook remove the page.
"I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man," Cameron told the House of Commons on Wednesday. "It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer — full stop, end of story."
For many, however, that was not the end of the story. From 18th-century highwaymen to outlaws like Jesse James, criminals have long attracted romantic mythology and public support. The presence of Internet sites like Facebook allows those emotions be seen worldwide, and almost instantaneously.
Moat sparked one of Britain's biggest police manhunts and a media frenzy after his shooting attacks in northeast England. While on the run he "declared war" on police and vowed "I won't stop until I'm dead."
His hours-long standoff with police was carried live Friday on TV before he apparently shot himself. Police acknowledged firing stun guns at Moat in the final minutes and the police watchdog is investigating his death.
Dozens of bouquets and cards have been left at the spot where Moat died, many by strangers.
Many more wrote tributes on the now-vanished Facebook page. The comments ranged from angry to obscene to apparently heartfelt. Fans declared that Moat "one of the few remaining reasons Britain is still great," sympathized that "love got the better of you" and praised him for being someone who "would rather die like a soldier than live like a coward."
Some accused the police of persecuting Moat. Others blamed his ex-girlfriend, whom he shot and seriously wounded.
The page was not entirely pro-Moat — some posters condemn both the killer and his Facebook fans.
Aric Sigman, a psychologist who has studied the biological effects of social networking, said the online outpouring reflected a new and alarming phenomenon — "recreational, virtual grief."
He said sites like Facebook allow strangers to "hold hands virtually and amplify and consolidate their personal feelings, using this news item as a vehicle for their own emotional issues."
"It is being used to amplify and elevate views which in the real world we would all feel are not constructive or healthy," Sigman said.
Facebook defended the Moat tribute page, saying it could help provide a forum for debate.
"Facebook is a place where people can express their views and discuss things in an open way as they can and do in many other places, and as such we sometimes find people discussing topics others may find distasteful," the company said in a statement Thursday. "However that is not a reason in itself to stop a debate from happening."
Facebook regularly removes content that violates its terms, including material that breaks the law, incites violence or is "hateful, threatening, or pornographic."
In February, Facebook removed the profiles of 30 British prison inmates at the government's request after several incidents in which prisoners reportedly used the site to organize crime or taunt others.
Heaton-Harris said some of the comments on the Moat fan page incited hatred.
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The bottom of the iPhone sports a speaker (left) and a microphone (right) flanking the dock connector. One loudspeaker is located above the screen as an earpiece, and another is located on the left side of the bottom of the unit, opposite a microphone on the bottom-right. The iPhone 4 includes an additional microphone at the top of the unit for noise cancellation, and switches the placement of the microphone and speaker on the base on the unit—the speaker is on the left.[33] Volume controls are located on the left side of all iPhone models and as a slider in the iPod application.
The 3.5 mm TRRS connector for the headphones is located on the top left corner of the device.[34] The headphone socket on the original iPhone is recessed into the casing, making it incompatible with most headsets without the use of an adapter.[35][36] Other generations eliminates the issue with a flush-mounted headphone socket. Cars equipped with an auxiliary jack allow for handsfree use of the iPhone while driving as a substitute for Bluetooth.
While the iPhone is compatible with normal headphones, Apple provides a headset with additional functionality. A multipurpose button near the microphone can be used to play or pause music, skip tracks, and answer or end phone calls without touching the iPhone. A small number of third-party headsets specifically designed for the iPhone also include the microphone and control button.[37] The current headsets also provide volume controls, which are only compatible more recent models.[38] These features are achieved by a fourth ring in the audio jack that carries this extra information.
The built-in Bluetooth 2.x+EDR supports wireless earpieces and headphones, which requires the HSP profile. Stereo audio was added in the 3.0 update for hardware that supports A2DP.[28][29] While non-sanctioned third-party solutions exist, the iPhone does not officially support the OBEX file transfer protocol.[39] The lack of these profiles prevents iPhone users from exchanging multimedia files, such as pictures, music and videos, with other bluetooth-enabled cell phones.
Composite or component video at up to 576i and stereo audio can be output from the dock connector using an adapter sold by Apple.[40] iPhone 4 also supports 1024x768 VGA output via a dock adapter. The iPhone did not support voice recording until the 3.0 software update.[28][29]
Team of UK scientists track Europe’s ash cloud
When ash spews from an Icelandic volcano, 10 British scientists using laser sensors, satellite pictures and a specially equipped jet must tell the world where it's going.
The grit can block flight paths and shut airports, so the fate of millions of travelers, and billions in revenue, rides on the projections of the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Exeter, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of London.
Their British base — one of nine global volcanic ash advisory centers — has been on high alert since Iceland's Eyjafjallajokul (pronounced ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) volcano erupted in April, shutting down global travel for five days. It has caused sporadic disruptions since then, closing London's Heathrow and Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport — two of Europe's busiest hubs — over the weekend.
One rattled airline executive — Ryanair's Michael O'Leary — has already attacked the "imaginary black plumes" predicted by the team's computing models, which he blames for prompting excessive caution and wrongly curtailing air traffic.
"When you get a big volcanic event it gets very, very busy and very, very stressful," said Tony Hall, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Alaska Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Anchorage.
"These things can go on for weeks, or months — it can be a very stressful time," said Hall, who has had contact with his colleagues in London since Eyjafjallajokul's eruption.
Sarah Jackson, the British center's atmospheric dispersion group manager, said the scientific model used to predict the spread of ash — and other dangerous particles — was developed to track contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster.
In a video produced by the office to explain its work, she said the modeling uses latest available data and then takes into account wind patterns and the effects of turbulence, ash settling on the ground, and washout caused by rain or snow.
But, the scientists themselves acknowledge their predictions can be sketchy, and warn that long-term forecasts are rarely correct. They caution that all estimates of ash movement can quickly become outdated as wind patterns change.
Keith Groves, executive director of Britain's Met Office — the country's national weather forecasting service, and a commercial arm of the defense ministry — said the scientists use sophisticated equipment and have a strong record in their assessments.
"We're quite confident that we're producing accurate and useful predictions," Groves said, in a video produced by his office.
The British staff tracked emissions from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires in the first Gulf War and a major 2005 fire at an oil depot north of London, the biggest blaze in Europe since World War II.
To predict the path of the ash, they scrutinize reports from Iceland, sift through reports from airline pilots flying over Europe — known as pireps — and consult satellite and polar orbiter imagery of the ash cloud. Data is also collected from laser sensors, called lidar — or light detection and ranging, based around Britain and used commonly in atmospheric research and to monitor cloud particles.
More data comes from research flights, including a jet owned by Britain's Natural Environment Research Council — used almost daily through April to test the composition of the ash clouds, check the size of the ash particles and monitor levels of sulfur dioxide.
Those flights have sometimes been perilous — on May 4, a journey from southern England to Scotland was aborted after sensors detected a rising levels of ash particles. Ash can clog jet engines.
Hall said staff at the volcanic ash centers input data into computers running weather and ash dispersion modeling software. Resulting maps showing where ash clouds are likely to travel are then either hand drawn, or printed.
Scientists keep in regular contact with their overseas counterparts by e-mail and phone, updating each other about their latest predictions.
Through April, British forecasters prepared 18-hour projections of the movement of ash across Europe, as regulators carefully monitored the safety of the continent's airspace. Beginning last week the ash experts have also published five-day forecasts, on the orders of Britain's new government.
Met Office spokesman John Hammond stressed the new five-day charts are only an indication of the likely volcanic activity, and said that long term predictions of wind patterns are notoriously unreliable.
Some tour operators and airlines say they're skeptical that the scientists can make any accurate long term predictions.
Frances Tuke, a spokeswoman for ABTA, the Association of British Travel Agents, said the new charts can only go so far to eliminate travelers' uncertainty.
"It is helpful, but we do have to give it a degree of caution. Our experience has shown so far that this is quite a dynamic situation that can change rapidly," she said.
But Ryanair's O'Leary said the new charts should be scrapped, and the entire process of predicting the ash cloud's movement overhauled.
"It is frankly ridiculous that the flight plans of millions of air passengers across Europe are being disrupted on a daily basis by an outdated, inappropriate and imaginary computer-generated model and it is time that these charts were done away with," he said.
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A cloud is a visible mass of droplets, in other words, little drops of water or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity, such as masses of material in space called interstellar clouds and nebulae. Clouds are studied in the nephology or cloud physics branch of meteorology.
On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm (0.00039 in) in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. They thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance at the cloud base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may appear colored accordingly. Clouds look darker in the near-infrared because water absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.
Israel to replace ‘Mossad officer’ expelled by UK
The Israeli diplomat who is to be expelled from Britain over the alleged forgery of British passports connected to the killing of a top Hamas militant, is a Mossad officer who will be replaced by the Jewish state, Israeli media reports said on Wednesday.
Downing Street on Tuesday declared the unnamed diplomat persona non grata after a police investigation found that Israel stole the identities of 12 British citizens to make the fake passports.
Public radio and other Israeli media said the diplomat was an officer in the Mossad spy agency and would be replaced "soon" by another intelligence officer.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he was "very disappointed" by the expulsion, but a senior official said the Jewish state would not retaliate.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were "compelling reasons" to believe that Israel was behind the forgeries used by the team which killed Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai in January.
"I've asked that a member of the embassy of Israel be withdrawn from the UK as a result of this affair and this is taking place," he told parliament.
The Foreign Office declined to specify the position of the expelled diplomat, but reports in several British newspapers said the diplomat was believed to be Mossad's station chief in London, without citing sources.
The killing of Mabhuh has been widely blamed on Israel, which has declined to comment on the affair in line with a longstanding policy of ambiguity.
The suspects used the identities of 12 Britons, as well as Australian, French, German and Irish nationals. Interpol has issued arrest notices for 27 suspects wanted by Dubai in connection with the killing.
Many of the forged passports bore the names of Israelis of dual nationality who appear to have been the victims of identity theft.
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Some disagreement exists over the meaning of the word "Hamas".[citation needed] Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic phrase حركة المقاومة الاسلامية, or Harakat al-Muqāwama al-Islāmiyya or "Islamic Resistance Movement". In Arabic the word "Hamās" translates roughly to "enthusiasm, zeal, élan, or fighting spirit".[39] The initial consonant is not the ordinary /h/ of English, but a slightly more rasping sound, the voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/, transcribed as <ḥ>; it is for this reason that speakers of Hebrew frequently use the voiceless uvular fricative /χ/, the equivalent sound for most Hebrew speakers.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing formed in 1992, is named in commemoration of influential Palestinian nationalist Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. Armed Hamas cells sometimes refer to themselves as "Students of Ayyash", "Students of the Engineer", or "Yahya Ayyash Units",[40] to commemorate Yahya Ayyash, an early Hamas bomb-maker killed in 1996.
Three Alstom chiefs arrested in UK corruption probe
Three members of the board of French engineering group Alstom in Britain have been arrested on suspicion of bribery and corruption, the Serious Fraud Office said Wednesday.
"Three members of the board of Alstom in the UK have been arrested on suspicion of bribery and corruption, conspiracy to pay bribes, money laundering and false accounting," said a SFO statement.
The three, arrested in raids at nine locations across Britain involving over 150 police and SFO officials, "have been taken to police stations to be interviewed" by the anti-fraud agency, it added
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country,[10][11] spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland.[12][13] Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. The largest island, Great Britain, is linked to France by the Channel Tunnel.
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and unitary state consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.[14] It is governed by a parliamentary system with its seat of government in London, the capital, but with three devolved national administrations in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland respectively. The Channel Island bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies, which means they are constitutionally tied to the British monarch but are not part of the UK.[15] The UK has fourteen overseas territories,[16] all remnants of the British Empire, which at its height in 1922 encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface, the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies.
The UK is a developed country, with the world's sixth largest economy by nominal GDP[17] and the sixth largest by purchasing power parity.[18] It was the world's first industrialised country[19] and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries,[20] but the economic and social cost of two world wars and the decline of its empire in the latter half of the 20th century diminished its leading role in global affairs. The UK nevertheless remains a major power with strong economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence. It is a recognised nuclear weapons state and has the fourth highest defence spending in the world.[citation needed] It is a Member State of the European Union, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, G8, G20, NATO, OECD, and the World Trade Organization.
Michael Johnson Arrested !!!
michel johnson
Manchester City midfielder Michael Johnson is under investigation for an alleged assault on a Manchester United fan at a nightclub in December.
The victim of the assault was apparently singing United songs in the 42nd Street nightclub in the center of Manchester.
Johnson apparently took exception to this and is said to have head-butted the victim, 22, who later flagged down a passing patrol car in the street to report the incident.
Johnson, also 22, has been tipped as a rising star and has captained England at Under-19 and Under-21 level.
However, injuries have dogged his progress over the last few years and he is currently out of action again after rupturing knee ligaments earlier in the season.
He has now been arrested on suspicion of a Section 47 assault and been bailed until April 14.
"Just after 1am on Sunday 6 December 2009, a patrol car was flagged down and an officer was told a man had been assaulted. The 22-year-old victim reported that he had been assaulted in 42nd Street nightclub," a Greater Manchester Police spokesman said, according to The Press Association.
"The man had a cut to the face but no other injuries.
"A 22-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm, a section 47 assault, and remains on police bail until 14 April 2010 as inquiries continue.
"Two other men, aged 21 and 22, have been interviewed under caution to assist inquiries."
UK’s Iraq inquiry turns focus to Bush officials
Britain's inquiry into the Iraq war will seek meetings with former members of the Bush administration after taking evidence from Tony Blair and other key British officials, the panel's chairman said Monday.
John Chilcot, head of the inquiry, confirmed that he hopes to obtain evidence from officials in the United States, but did not name specific individuals, or specify if his panel hopes to put questions to former President George W. Bush himself.
"We cannot take formal evidence as such from foreign nationals, but we can of course have discussions with them," Chilcot said, bringing to a close the inquiry's first set of public evidence sessions.
The hearings began in November and have seen Blair, current MI6 intelligence agency chief John Sawers, the head of Britain's military Jock Stirrup and a host of ministers and government officials offer testimony.
Chilcot said his panel will question British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Development Secretary Douglas Alexander in a second set of hearings before summer, and also make plans to gather evidence from U.S. officials and military veterans.
"We will be holding a number of meetings and seminars with a range of individuals, British and non-British ... these could include veterans from the Iraq campaign and officials from the former American administration," Chilcot said.
Inquiry spokesman Rae Stewart said no decision had yet been made on who would be asked to meet with the inquiry panel, or when and where any sessions would take place.
David Sherzer, a spokesman for Bush, declined to comment when asked if any request had so far been made to the former president, or whether he would cooperate if asked.
Several sessions have focused on the accusations that Blair offered Bush support for an invasion as early as April 2002 — a year before legislators approved Britain's involvement.
Britain's former ambassador to the U.S., Christopher Meyer, told the inquiry that Bush and Blair used a meeting that April at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, to "sign in blood" an agreement to take military action in Iraq. However, in his testimony, Blair's former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, denied any agreement had been made and called Meyer's account unreliable.
Lawrence Freedman, a military historian who sits on the inquiry's five-member panel, indicated in questioning that Bush had advised Blair he planned to topple Saddam Hussein even if the despot cooperated with United Nations weapons inspectors.
"Can you start by confirming that you knew that military action was planned by the US for the middle of March, come what may?" Freedman asked ex-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a hearing Monday. "You were copied in, presumably, to reports of conversations between the prime minister and the president?"
Details of private correspondence between Blair and Bush have been provided to the panel, but have not been released publicly.
Chilcot said his team had been granted access to tens of thousands of government documents, many highly classified. "They allow us to shine a bright light into seldom-seen corners of the government machine," he said.
Some lawmakers have demanded that letters between Blair and Bush should be made public, but the government has declined.
Brown ordered the inquiry to scrutinize the case made for war and errors in planning for post-conflict reconstruction. Chilcot's panel will offer recommendations by the end of the year, but won't apportion blame or but establish criminal or civil liability.
UK: Talks to approve Taliban reconciliation plan
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says an international conference on Afghanistan will likely endorse plans to lure Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons.
Brown told a news conference Monday that plans for reconciliation with some of those currently fighting international troops would be addressed at talks in London Thursday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and international foreign ministers will attend to discuss future strategy.
Brown welcomed plans to reintegrate those who renounce violence. He says it is "right to believe that over the long-term we can split the Taliban."
The British leader says the conference will also confirm plans to rapidly increase the number of Afghan soldiers and police.
Israeli troops invade Gaza
An Israeli military delegation has canceled an official visit to Britain, officials said Tuesday, the latest in a string of politicians and army officials to put off travel to the U.K. because of fears of war crimes prosecution.
Israel complained that the practice, spearheaded by pro-Palestinian activists, is harming relations, and Britain's visiting attorney general said an urgent solution must be found.
The Israelis called off their trip because their British army hosts could not guarantee they would not be arrested, the Israeli officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Neither the Israeli military nor the British government would comment.
The incident underlined the effectiveness of a pro-Palestinian legal campaign to harass Israeli officials in the wake of war crimes allegations after Israel's devastating invasion of Gaza a year ago to stop rocket attacks.
Israelis brand the tactic "lawfare," which they denounce as warfare through distortion of laws and conventions. It has crimped the travel plans of many officials and put Israel on the defensive in international bodies.
In Britain, pro-Palestinian groups have forced Israelis to cancel trips for fear of arrest, taking advantage of Britain's "universal jurisdiction" law that allows prosecution of war criminals whose crimes have no direct connection with Britain.
Britain is one of the pioneers of the "universal jurisdiction" concept, but the British government is concerned that its application to Israel is badly straining relations between the two countries and has vowed to solve the problem.
Visiting British Attorney General Patricia Janet Scotland heard a stiff protest Tuesday from deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who called the situation "intolerable."
Later Tuesday, in a speech at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, she noted that the British government "is looking urgently at ways in which the U.K. system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again and is determined that Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the U.K."
In Britain, pro-Palestinian groups have condemned moves to reform the law.
"We believe no attempt should be made (to change the law)," said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain. "There's no reason why Israel should be singled out for special treatment. If they're accused of war crimes, we have a duty — and legislation — to prosecute."
Israelis charge the Palestinian use of the universal jurisdiction law is a distortion of its original intention — to prosecute war criminals whose own justice systems were incapable or unwilling to investigate their deeds. Though it has not satisfied international rights groups, Israel's military has investigated its own activities in the Gaza war and says it is still looking into a handful of cases.
Israeli experts charge that other examples of "lawfare" are condemnations by human rights groups and the U.N. of Israeli actions against Palestinian militants, especially last winter's military operation in Gaza that left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including many civilians, and caused widespread destruction.
Last month, pro-Palestinian activists persuaded a London judge to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli politician Tzipi Livni, who was foreign minister during the war in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn after Livni canceled her trip, but the matter strained relations between Britain and Israel.
The threat of arrest has forced several former security officials to call off trips to London, including a former general who had to hole up on an airplane at Heathrow Airport in 2005 to avoid arrest. Last fall, Defense Minister Ehud Barak fended off an arrest attempt by successfully arguing he had diplomatic immunity.
UK medical journal retracts flawed vaccine study
The retraction by The Lancet comes a day after a competing medical journal, BMJ, issued an embargoed commentary calling for The Lancet to formally retract the study. The commentary was to have been published on Wednesday.
The BMJ commentary said once the study by British surgeon and medical researcher Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues appeared in 1998 in The Lancet, "the arguments were considered by many to be proven and the ghastly social drama of the demon vaccine took on a life of its own."
Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent studies have found no proof that the vaccine is connected to autism, though some parents are still wary of the shot.
In Britain, vaccination rates for measles have never recovered and there are outbreaks of the disease every year.
Ten of Wakefield's 13 co-authors renounced the study's conclusions several years ago and The Lancet has previously said it should never have published the research.
"We fully retract this paper from the published record," Lancet editors said in a statement Tuesday.
Last week, Britain's General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for the children used in his study and acted unethically. Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.
For the study, Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son's birthday party, paying them 5 pounds each ($8) for their contributions and later joking about the incident.