Breast implant scandal: taxpayers face £100 million bill

 

Harley Medical Group (HMG), responsible for one in three operations using the French-made implants, said it would go out of business if made to meet the full cost of removal. HMG's position makes it more likely the other two main players, Transform Cosmetic Surgery and The Hospital Group, will also ignore pleas for private clinics to pay for surgery. Should they follow HMG's lead, the bill to taxpayers could feasibly top £100 million as the NHS will be forced to perform the corrective surgery.The big three firms are likely to have performed around two thirds of enlargement operations using faulty implants in Britain. There are around 40,000 women in the UK who have been fitted with the controversial implants and operations to remove them cost around £3,000. Mel Braham, chairman of HMG, claimed the Government had the "moral responsibility" to pay for removal operations, as the regulator meant to ensure the safety of medical devices had failed in its duty.

Iran car explosion kills nuclear scientist in Tehran

 

BBC's Mohsen Asgari: "It seems a motor cyclist pasted a bomb to his car which he was in with two other passengers Continue reading the main story Iran nuclear crisis Undeclared pursuit? Q&A: Nuclear issue Key nuclear sites Sanctions' impact Watch A university lecturer and nuclear scientist has been killed in a car explosion in north Tehran. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an academic who also worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and the driver of the car were killed in the attack. The blast happened after a motorcyclist stuck an apparent bomb to the car. Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years, with Iran blaming Israel and the US. Both countries deny the accusations. Continue reading the main story Analysis Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent The assassination on Wednesday of another Iranian nuclear scientist may now prompt Iran to try to respond in kind. The murder in Tehran of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan comes on top of a sophisticated cyber sabotage programme and two mysterious explosions at Iranian military bases, one of which in November killed the general known as 'the godfather' of Iran's ballistic missile programme. No-one is claiming responsibility for these attacks but Iran blames its longstanding enemy, Israel, and occasionally the US. Whoever is behind them, Iran is clearly being subjected to an undeclared campaign to slow down its nuclear programme. Frank Gardner's analysis in full Iran's Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state television that the attack against Mr Ahmadi-Roshan would not stop "progress" in the country's nuclear programme. He called the killing "evidence of [foreign] government-sponsored terrorism". Local sources said Wednesday's blast took place at a faculty of Iran's Allameh Tabatai university. Two others were reportedly also injured in the blast, which took place near Gol Nabi Street, in the north of the capital

Two-thirds of smokers try to quit in new year

 

Two-thirds of smokers in the UK, approximately six million people, will try and quit the habit in January, but half of them will fail within a week, new research suggests. According to the study, commissioned by Pfizer Limited in support of its Don't Go Cold Turkey disease awareness campaign, one in ten of these attempts will not last beyond 24 hours. Typically, smokers admit to having unsuccessfully attempted to quit three times before, with 51 per cent confident they can kick the habit in the next six months. Some 45 per cent say they attempt to quit by 'going cold turkey' or giving up the immediately and relying on willpower, however only three per cent of these people are found to be smoke free after a year. Nearly a quarter of former smokers recommend that people trying to quit consult a healthcare professional. Dr Sarah Jarvis, BBC medical correspondent and practising GP, said: "Even a brief conversation with their healthcare professional or local stop smoking service can increase [a smoker's] chances of success by up to four times, compared to going 'cold turkey'. "People should consider how they can positively influence their chances of quitting." According to Cancer Research UK, 86 per cent of lung cancer deaths are caused by tobacco smoking.

5 UK men on trial for allegedly distributing leaflets calling for gay people to be killed

 

Five men are on trial in Britain for allegedly distributing leaflets calling for gay people to be killed, charged under a new law that makes such actions a hate crime. The men allegedly gave out flyers titled “The Death Penalty” that showed a noose and said gay people would be punished. Two other leaflets were used to publicize a protest against a gay pride march in the central English city of Derby in 2010. 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? inShare The Crown Prosecution Service said Wednesday this was the first prosecution for stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, under the law that took effect in March 2010. It has long been illegal to incite hatred over disability, race or religion. The maximum penalty for the crime is seven years in jail. Prosecutors said Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, handed out leaflets near a mosque in Derby and also stuffed them into mailboxes. Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema called the leaflets “frightening and nasty.” “These five defendants were part of a small group of men who distributed horrible, threatening literature, with quotations from religious sources and with pictures on them, which were designed to stir up hatred and hostility against homosexual people,” she said.

Twitter has complained about changes made by Google to integrate its social network Google+ into search results.

 

The new feature, called Search plus Your World, will automatically push results from Google+ up the search rankings.

Tweeting on the news, Twitter's lawyer Alex Macgillivray described it as a "bad day for the internet".

Google is determined to push its social network in the face of continued rivalry with Facebook.

The current changes were about even greater personalisation, it said. It already includes personal search history in its search algorithms.

The three changes are:

• Personal Results - which enable users to find information such as Google+ photos and posts, both their own and those shared specifically with them, that only they will be able to see on their results pages
• Profiles in Search - both in autocomplete and results, users will be able to find people they are close to or might be interested in following
• People and Pages - helps users find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable people to follow them with just a few clicks.

"Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of webpages, images, videos, news and much more," said Amit Singhal in the firm's official blog.

"But clearly, that isn't enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they've shared with you, as well as the people you don't know but might want to... all from one search box," he added.

Twitter's general counsel Alex Macgillivray tweeted in response to the changes: "Bad day for the internet. Having been there, I can imagine the dissension @Google to search being warped this way."

Mr Macgillivray had previously been employed at Google.

Twitter expanded his point in an official statement.

"For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results any time they wanted to find something on the internet.

"Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results.

"We're concerned that as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users."

Google hit back at the criticisms.

''We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions," it said in a statement.

This refers to a technical barrier which makes it difficult for Google to rank Twitter information, a spokeswoman explained.

There is also little sharing between Google and its other big rival Facebook.

Search expert John Battelle said in his blog post that social search would mean little until the two settled their differences and offered consumers what they really wanted - Facebook data integrated with Google's search.

"The unwillingness of Facebook and Google to share a public commons when it comes to the intersection of search and social is corrosive to the connective tissue of our shared culture," he said.

Europe Banks Hoarding Cash Resist Draghi Bid to Avoid Crunch

 

Banks are hoarding the European Central Bank's record 489 billion-euro ($625 billion) injection into the banking system, thwarting attempts by policy makers to avert a credit crunch in the region. Almost all of the money loaned to 523 euro-area lenders last month wound up back on deposit at the Frankfurt-based central bank instead of pouring into the financial system, ECB data show. Banks will use most of the three-year loans to meet their refinancing needs for this year and next, analysts at Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc estimate. “It's illusory to think that the measure will translate into credit generation,” Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management in Paris, said in an interview. “It will assuage some of the anxiety banks have regarding their liquidity needs. But they've engaged into a massive overhaul of their strategy and shrinkage of their balance sheets, which is, coupled with the deteriorating economy, not compatible with increasing credit.” Governments are urging European banks to keep lending to companies and individuals while requiring them to raise an additional 114.7 billion euros of core capital by June to weather a deepening sovereign-debt crisis. Instead of raising equity, most lenders across Europe have vowed to meet capital rules by trimming at least 950 billion euros from their balance sheets over the next two years, either by selling assets or not renewing credit lines, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ECB Deposits That has stirred concern among policy makers that banks will cut lending and throttle growth in the euro region. Banks have been parking almost all extra liquidity from the ECB loans back at the central bank. Barclays Capital estimates firms used 296 billion euros of the Dec. 21 three-year loans to replace maturing shorter-term ECB borrowings. That left only 193 billion euros of additional money for the financial system. Overnight deposits with the ECB have jumped by about 223 billion euros since the loans to a record 486 billion euros, suggesting the central bank funds haven't so far reached customers. Banks account for about 80 percent of lending to the euro area, making them “crucial to the supply of credit,” according to recently installed ECB President Mario Draghi. By contrast, U.S. companies rely more on capital markets for financing, selling bonds to investors. Refinancing Needs The ECB lending, and a follow-up loan offering on Feb. 28, won't ease the pressure on banks to shrink, say analysts including Huw van Steenis at Morgan Stanley in London. “The ECB loans will largely be used to pre-fund 2012 and some of 2013's bank refinancing needs, but it will not stimulate lending,” Van Steenis said. They will “just stop it falling off precipitously.” Euro-area banks have more than 600 billion euros of debt maturing this year, the Bank of England said in its financial stability report last month. The first ECB loan offering should help cover about two-thirds of that amount, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts say. Morgan Stanley's Van Steenis estimates banks may reduce assets by as much as 2.5 trillion euros in two years, a process known as deleveraging. The volume of loans to households and companies in the 17- nation euro area shrank in November for the second consecutive month, the ECB said on Dec. 29. Loans were still up 1.7 percent over the year-earlier period, slowing from a 2.7 percent increase in the 12 months through October. Merkel, Sarkozy When granted, loans are getting costlier for borrowers. Since July, interest margins have increased, with investment- grade borrowers in Europe paying an average of 91.6 basis points more than benchmark rates, up from 84.4 basis points during the first half of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. “We must avoid a credit crunch for our economies,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said on Jan. 9. “The recent measures by the European Central Bank on a long-term lending facility for the banks are welcome in this context.” The European Banking Authority, which oversees the region's regulators, asked banks on Dec. 8 to retain earnings, curb bonuses and raise equity to boost core capital before resorting to cuts in lending. The EBA followed both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in urging banks to keep lending. Sarkozy said on Oct. 27 that he had asked firms to shift “almost all” of their dividends into strengthening balance sheets and to make bonus practices “normal.” Merkel said on Oct. 9 she was “determined to do whatever necessary to recapitalize the banks to ensure credit to the economy.” ‘No Credit Crunch' Bankers have said they haven't restricted lending and that demand for credit is slowing as growth slows. “All banks I talk to keep lending to small- and medium- size enterprises and households,” Christian Clausen, president of the European Banking Federation, an industry association, said on Dec. 9. “That part of the bank will keep rolling.” There is “no credit crunch,” Frederic Oudea, chief executive officer of Societe Generale SA, France's second- biggest lender, and chairman of the French Banking Federation, said last month. “The reality is that credit is available,” he said in an interview on BFM radio on Dec. 16. Even so, companies across Europe say credit is tightening. ‘Double Punch' In France, where credit to the private sector increased by 3.7 percent in November compared with a year earlier, the majority of the country's company treasurers said they encountered “very strong tensions” in negotiating bank loans, with more than 50 percent of respondents saying the process led to more expensive terms, according to a December survey by the French Association of Corporate Treasurers. The majority of those polled said obtaining bank financing was “as difficult as at the end of 2008,” after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed. U.K. banks expect to toughen their criteria on loans to companies and households in the first quarter because of strains in the wholesale funding market, the Bank of England said Jan. 5in its fourth-quarter Credit Conditions Survey. Belgian credit growth slowed to 3.1 percent in the 12 months to the end of October, from 3.6 percent at the end of September, the country's central bank said on Dec. 12. In Italy, some companies with annual sales of 30 million euros to 40 million euros are charged as much as 10 percent interest on loans, Emma Marcegaglia, chief of the country's Confindustria lobby group, said in an interview on Dec. 20. Lending to businesses and consumers grew at the weakest pace in a year, the Bank of Italy said today. Draghi's Priority With the ECB's injection, “deleveraging may happen in a more orderly way, but it doesn't mean it will be painless,” said Alberto Gallo, head of European credit strategy at RBS. Banks are faced with high long-term financing costs, a deteriorating economy and difficulties raising capital, he said. “It's what I call the double punch: A combination of negative growth and banks' deleveraging will affect lending activity.” Even the ECB's Draghi, who has made it one of his priorities is to keep credit flowing into the economy, said the central bank's loan offerings may fail to achieve that goal. “Monetary policy cannot do everything, but we're trying to do our best to avoid a credit crunch that might come from a lack of funding,” Draghi said Dec. 19 at the European Parliament in Brussels. “We have to be extremely careful here, because there may be other reasons that create a credit crunch.” Draghi may be wary of the U.S. experience with multiple rounds of bond purchases. That so-called quantitative easing hasn't stimulated lending, Natixis's Waechter said. ‘Kick the Can' “Lending really picked up when the economy got better,” he said. The ECB cut its forecast for euro-area economic growth in 2012 to 0.3 percent on Dec. 8 from a September prediction of 1.3 percent. The central bank expects the economy to expand 1.3 percent next year. In the U.S., almost all categories of bank lending fell in 2009 and 2010 and didn't start improving until last year, when the Federal Reserve stopped its second wave of quantitative easing, according to data by the U.S. institution. Banks increased their holdings of Treasury and agency securities in 2009 and 2010, showing they were using the Fed's cheap money to own safe government paper. Because quantitative easing tends to improve capital markets first, the healing will be even slower in Europe given its reliance on banks for borrowing, according to Gallo.

Switch to olive oil for better health

 

Indian households should completely switch to olive oil as a cooking medium as its nutritional value is very high, it is rich in monounsaturated 'good' fats and, when used daily, can bring instant and easy wellness to a family's diet, celebrity chef and noted cookery expert Nita Mehta says. "Even though we have such a wide range of olive oils in our market, people don't seem to use them because of their mental block that the flavour of olive oil doesn't gel with Indian flavors," Mehta said at the launch here Satuday her latest book, "Indian Cooking With Olive Oil".

Four senior British police officers are under investigation over allegations of misconduct for partaking in a gangland killing case, news reports said.

Staffordshire Police launched an inquiry into the murder of amateur footballer Kevin Nunes, 20, who was gunned down in a country lane in 2002, British media reported. 

Nunes, a drug dealer who had been on the books of Tottenham Hotspur, was shot dead in an execution style killing after a gang dispute. 

His killers, Levi Walker, Antonio Christie, Adam Joof, Michael Osbourne and Owen Crooks were all jailed for life after being found guilty of murder by a jury at Leicester Crown Court. 

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will look into the handling of the investigation into case of the four officers, including the lead on police ethics. Five men were jailed in connection with the killing in 2008. 

The IPCC confirmed that formal notice of investigation had been served on “a number of former and serving Staffordshire Police officers”. 

Meanwhile, Northamptonshire Police Authority confirmed that its force's chief constable Adrian Lee and deputy chief constable Suzette Davenport were being investigated. 

Lee is also the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers' ethics portfolio.

teenager who murdered a 16-year-old schoolboy outside a pub in Stretford has denied his motive was revenge for another gangland killing.

 

A teenager who murdered a 16-year-old schoolboy outside a pub in Stretford has denied his motive was revenge for another gangland killing. Moses Mathias told Manchester Crown Court he intended to commit a robbery but instead fired at a vehicle carrying Giuseppe Gregory out of "fear for my life". He said he did not learn of the death in May 2009 until the next day. Àt the age of 15 he later went on the run. Mathias, now 18, remained at large until he was arrested in Amsterdam earlier this year on a European Arrest Warrant after a joint investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and GMP. He was flown back to the UK in June and four months later admitted the murder of the youngster who was gunned down in the early hours of May 11 in a car outside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. In March 2010, Mathias's associates Njabulo Ndlovu and Hiruy Zerihun, then aged 19 and 18, were jailed for life and ordered to serve minimum terms of 21 years and 23 years respectively after they were convicted of Giuseppe's murder. Their trial heard the pair carried out the attack in revenge for the murder of Zerihun's boyhood friend Louis Brathwaite, also 16, who was shot dead in a betting shop in Withington, south Manchester, in January 2008. They were affiliated to Fallowfield Man Dem, a splinter group of the notorious Gooch Gang, who targeted Giuseppe and his friends because of their association to the rival gang the Longsight Crew. Mathias, of no fixed address, also admitted possessing - with Zerihun and Ndlovu - an imitation firearm, a self-loading pistol, a .32 pistol and six .32 bullet cartridges. But now he has argued the basis of his plea and claimed he did not know Louis Brathwaite, saying in evidence that the plan was to enter the pub and "rob the tills".

two years of crisis and bank debt in Europe, the roaring euro party is over.

 

 Greeks are emptying their bank accounts, Italians are proposing that the Roman Catholic Church begin to pay nearly $1 billion in property taxes on lucrative hotels and businesses, and in the UK, protesters sans jobs have settled near 10 Downing in the wake of the nation’s biggest general strike in years. Spain has seen well-dressed panhandlers in Madrid. The Netherlands report higher bankruptcies and lower exports. French banks are cutting thousands of jobs. And in bailed-out Portugal, two religious and two civil holidays – weekdays off – will now fall on weekends, even as healthcare costs there have suddenly doubled in many hospitals. All across Europe, the severity of belt-tightening and public anger has brought a new stream of “austerity stories” to the fore: job cuts and their effect, new instances of ethnic hate, worry about social stability. Rising right-wing violence The majority of these stories flow out of Europe’s southern tier, the “less competitive” economies. Two Senegalese street traders in a Florence market were shot and killed Dec. 13 by a right-wing fanatic and three wounded. Higher piles of uncollected garbage sit on Greek streets and there’s an increase of drugs and crime there. Immigrants who used to be welcome labor five years ago in Greece, Italy, and especially in Spain, are now subject to heavy ID checks and public frowns, and there are more spasms of violence by vigilante groups. At times, the surly climate means that “Anyone who might pass for migrant runs the risk of being beaten up,” says Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch Europe. “There’s a gloomy mood… in ordinary neighborhoods that I visit… worry about jobs, benefits, social security and the cost of living,” says Pap Ndiaye, social historian at the Paris School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. “On top of that, minorities are concerned about backlash or adding problems to the general population. A few years ago, minorities with degrees were leaving France for Great Britain but now the UK is no longer so hospitable. Now we are seeing a phenomenon of looking to the Americas. More professionals are moving to Montreal, for example… with no plans to come back to France.” Belt-tightening across the spectrum To ease austerity, Greece is selling ferryboats to Turkey and what appear to be third-world items like string, used auto parts, and TV antennas to improbable places like the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands. Italy this week said it will release some 3,300 prisoners with less than 18 months on their sentence – remanded to their homes – to save an estimated $500,000 a day. As Greece ekes out its EU bailout loans quarterly – the next tranche is still under negotiation – ordinary folks are depleting their bank accounts. The governor of the Greek central bank, Georgios Provopoulos, recently told parliament, "In September and October, savings and time deposits fell by a further 13 to 14 billion euros. In the first 10 days of November, the decline continued on a large scale.” The effect is to reduce the ability of banks to lend, he said. Some of the austerity effect may be indirectly positive. In Spain, archeologists outside Seville are glad that the building craze of the past 10 years has been halted, since planned shopping centers were to be erected on unexplored Copper Age settlements. Spanish police have also cracked down on a sophisticated forgery ring that was printing 50 euro notes out of a canning factory. In Italy, the 950 members of parliament that make nearly $200,000 a year are expected to cut their pay as the new government of Mario Monti seeks to deal with a cumulative 1.9 trillion euros in debt. Italy’s politicians earn twice that of French and German counterparts, and four times that of Spanish. Strains in northern Europe Yet various stresses and strains owing to new fracturing in Europe are not restricted just to the southern tier. Britain reports a 17-year high in unemployment even as EU figures show it has the 2nd highest living standard in Europe. London riots last August took place mainly among have-nots. Prime Minister David Cameron decided last week to opt-out of a German-French-engineered intergovernmental EU treaty designed to force discipline on EU states and stop future crises, seen as possibly isolating Britain. The decision highlighted an earlier decision by the town council of Bishop’s Stortford to alter an official 46-year old “sister city” or “twinning” relationship with the German town of Friedberg, near Frankfurt. The council is made up of mostly Tory or “euroskeptic” politicians and critics chided the town for downgrading the sister city status at a time of drift of European unity. More pertinently, perhaps, official November figures in the Netherlands, a more competitive state, show that some 610 businesses declared bankruptcy, an increase of 85 from October, and up from an average of roughly 500. Meanwhile, Dutch exports declined for the first time in two years in October. Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told reporters this week the country faces recessionary times and said there “are no taboos” in what may be cut in the budget. “We felt this coming. It is certainly not positive,” he said. “There are no easy times ahead of us.” The Netherlands will cut an estimated $24 billion under austerity measures, though the Freedom Party of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders says it will not vote for cuts without a promise to end some $6 billion in foreign development aid.

Brits who invested their savings in their adopted countries may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes if banks call in loans

Marbella, Andalusia, Spain (pic: Getty)

EMERGENCY evacuation plans for Brits living in Spain and Portugal are being drawn up amid fears of the euro collapsing.

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The drastic proposals emerged as a former Security Minister warned expats could be left stranded and destitute by the break-up of the single currency.

Brits who invested their savings in their adopted countries may not be able to withdraw cash and could even lose their homes if banks call in loans, worried ministers are warning.

The Foreign Office is preparing to bring them back from Spain and Portugal if the two countries are forced out of the euro, triggering a banking collapse.

A million Brits live in Spain and 50,000 in neighbouring Portugal – plus a million in the other eurozone countries.

And Baroness Neville-Jones, who only stepped down as a minister in May, called the situation “very, very worrying”.

The Tory peer – who once chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee for MI5, MI6 and other security agencies – said: “Spain is clearly a vulnerable area. If that happens, one of the things that will happen in a crash of that kind, is that the banks would close their doors. You would find that there are people there, including our own citizens, a lot of them, who couldn’t get money out to live on. So you would have a destitution problem.”

British planes, ships and coaches could be sent to pluck our citizens from debt-ridden Spain and Portugal

Commenting on the evacuation plans, she added: “I think they are right to be doing that. I think this is a real contingency that they need to plan against – very, very worrying.”

Officials are braced for a nightmare scenario where thousands end up penniless and sleeping at airports with no means of getting home. Planes, ships and coaches could be sent, with some expats being brought out through Gibraltar.

The Foreign Office could offer small loans while piling pressure on the banks to give Brits access to their funds.

Spanish and Portuguese banks guarantee the first 100,000 euros deposited by savers but many put limits on withdrawals in a crisis.

A powerful credit rating agency downgraded 10 Spanish banks last week, while another warned over the weekend the debt crisis was threatening to spiral out of control.

Spanish king forced son-in-law to quit job in 2006

 

 

King Juan Carlos told his son-in-law in 2006 to cut ties with a company now mired in corruption allegations, an official at Spain's royal palace said Sunday. Authorities are probing the activities of a non-profit company run by Inaki Urdangarin between 2004 and 2006. "(The king) ordered him to stand down from his activities and he sold his shares," said the official, who works at the royal palace's press office, confirming reports in the Spanish press. "He was told he shouldn't work for himself and it would be better if he worked overseas." Urdangarin, 43, also known as the Duke of Palma de Mallorca, now works for Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica in Washington, where he lives with with his wife, Infanta Cristina. The scandal, the first to hit Spain's royal family in years, centres on Urdangarin's time at the helm of the Instituto Noos, now suspected of siphoning off money from contracts paid by the regional government of the Balearic Islands, where the institute is based. The royal palace did not uncover any lies or fraud in 2006, the source said. However, a royal legal advisor found signs the Noos institute was possibly involved in commercial activities not consistent its non-profit mission. On December 12, the royal palace froze Urdangarin out of official activities over the scandal. The royal family traditionally maintains a discreet profile in Spain, where Juan Carlos is widely respected, credited with guiding the country to democracy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. The scandal has nevertheless caused anger at a time when ordinary Spaniards are being squeezed by spending cuts and a lack of jobs, with an unemployment rate of 21.5 percent. 

Spain's longest-serving inmate received a government pardon yesterday that saw him and his family convinced that he would walk free immediately

After 35 years in jail and eight successful breakout attempts, Spain's longest-serving inmate received a government pardon yesterday that saw him and his family convinced that he would walk free immediately – only for him to remain behind bars.

Since 1976, Spanish courts have found Miguel Angel Montes Neiro guilty of more than 30 robberies and armed burglaries, many committed while on the run. But even as a spokesman for the Spanish government, Jose Blanco, confirmed yesterday that Montes Neiro, 61, had received a pardon for two of his multiple crimes, another outstanding sentence – for robbery and illicit possession of firearms – will see him remain in jail.

Montes Neiro, from the province of Granada in southern Andalusia, was predictably delighted when news of the pardon broke yesterday lunchtime, telling his family by phone: "Don't come to the prison gates when I get out, I want to walk the first two or three kilometres so I can feel the fresh air like a free man."

However, it emerged that his pardon was only partial and that a court review of a 13-year sentence was still pending.

Montes Neiro spent his first night in the cells in 1966, aged 16, when he was arrested for stealing a packet of cigarettes. His first formal sentence came a decade later for desertion – but not before he had spent 10 days in army prison for stealing a sub-machine gun.

During his numerous breakouts, the most recent in 2009 when he spent two hours on self-imposed parole to attend the wake for his mother, Montes Neiro found the time to marry twice and have two children – and to commit a string of hold-ups and kidnaps.

Montes Neiro's record is as varied as it is long. He has been convicted of beating up hostages on three occasions, and he once formed part of a gang that broke into a Granada home and threatened to cut off a man's thumb unless his wife revealed the location of his safe.

His escapes include one from a maximum security prison in the Spanish colony of Ceuta in 1979, but perhaps his most dramatic breakout came in 1981: after hanging himself in a staged suicide bid, breaking two ribs, he escaped from prison hospital in a taxi.

On the run for a total of three years, his repeated recapture was facilitated by his tendency to remain in or near his home town. His one spell abroad, in Morocco, ended when he returned to Granada because he missed his family.

Spanish, Italian police smash drug smuggling ring

 

Spanish and Italian police made five arrests while busting a drug-trafficking ring that for years smuggled cocaine from South America to Europe, investigators said on Friday. The group arranged for narcotics to be put on merchant ships headed to Europe. Just before the vessels arrived at their destination, the smugglers would dump cocaine packages overboard, Spanish police said in a statement. Members of the gang waiting in inflatable boats would then pick up the cocaine and take it to shore, from where it was distributed to customers in Spain and Italy, officials said.Two members of the group were detained in the Italian port city of Genoa in March in a joint operation by Spanish and Italian police. Police detained another three members of the group, including its leader, three months later in the northwestern Spanish coastal region of Galicia. "During the search of the home of the ringleader, police found a vault camouflaged behind the wall of the cellar, which housed security cameras that monitored the rest of the house as well as two large safes, cash, valuable watches, computer equipment and documents," police said in the statement. Police also seized 55 kilos (120 pounds) of cocaine, three cash-counting machines and five cars. Spain is the main gateway to Europe for cocaine from Latin America and for cannabis from north Africa

The top ranks of the Government are now coming to the conclusion that the break-up of the euro is inevitable.

 

 I understand that Hague, like the Chancellor, now believes this will happen soon. Osborne told Cabinet colleagues on Monday that the Merkel-Sarkozy plan for greater fiscal discipline within the eurozone was no solution to the current  crisis. Rather, he said, ‘it was like standing over a man having a heart attack and telling him that to avoid one in future he should do more exercise and cut down on cholesterol’. This view that the euro is unlikely to survive is why there are, so far, few worries about Britain being isolated by the eurozone bloc and its allies. The Government is also confident that the differences between the countries in the single currency will remain – that the Netherlands and Finland will continue to take a more liberal attitude to financial services and the single market than the French and the Italians. But there’s little doubt that Cameron’s decision to wield the veto changes Britain’s relationship with the other members of the European Union. The days of Britain carrying on down the same route as the rest of Europe, just at a slower pace, are now over. As one of Cameron’s closest allies says: ‘We are now, inevitably, en route to a very different destiny.’ ... but one rift is healing, at least Labour’s failure to capitalise on the weakening economy has led to renewed tensions within the party’s ranks. Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, is the target of much of this backbiting. Shadow Cabinet sources complain he is more interested in justifying his record in office than winning the argument about what to do now. Balls’ detractors argue that his bellicose statements are drowning out Ed Miliband’s message.

MALAGA professor has been sentenced to a year in prison after telling a student she would only pass if she had sex with him.

 

 The pupil, who had failed the last exam of her teaching degree, had gone to see her teacher because she was worried about her situation. The professor assured her he would ‘find a solution’ and asked for the pupil’s phone number. He later phoned her and told her to come to his house at 7.30 in the evening. When she arrived he locked the door and said that in order to pass she would have to have to have sex with him and when she tried to leave, he started trying to touch her breasts. Thankfully the girl had brought back-up after growing suspicious about the private meeting. Her sister, brother-in-law and a friend heard her shouting and started banging on the door – at which point her professor let her go. The pupil was admitted to Carlos Haya hospital the following day with anxiety. The professor, who has also been ordered to pay his pupil 2,000 euros in compensation, was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment at the Provincial Court.

I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations.

 

I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my “rights” try to move in, and they, too, can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my “rights,” as well as my expectations, by asking myself, “How important is it, really? How important is it com­pared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety?” And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level—at least for the time being.   -- Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 452 (3rd Ed.) -- Acceptance Was The Answer, Alcoholics Anonymous, page 422 (4th Ed.)

The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking

Suspects accused of selling guns and drugs.

Authorities collared 38 Bronx and upper Manhattan gangbangers Wednesday after a two-year probe into a notorious crew, officials said.

The alleged members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang all face charges of racketeering, narcotics conspiracy and gun trafficking, authorities said.

The undercover investigation — which involved officers from the NYPD, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Homeland Security — netted about $25,000 worth of drugs and 12 firearms in Wednesday’s raid, police said.

One weapon recovered, a Mac-11 machine gun, was painted the same shade of green the gang uses in its colors.

Federal prosecutors said the crew committed and planned violent acts, including murder, to protect its turf from rival gangs that include the Bloods, Crips, the Latin Kings and Dominicans Don’t Play.

“We believe we put a big dent in the Trinitarios gang,” said Capt. Lorenzo Johnson, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Bronx gang squad.

Six people who were connected to the gang members were also arrested, police said. Authorities were still looking for about 12 other members of the gang.

Prosecutors said the Trinitarios sold firearms, including semiautomatic rifles, a shotgun and handguns, and transported them across state lines.

Numerous members of the Trinitarios who were arrested are also members of a smaller splinter gang, the Bad Boys, prosecutors said.

Johnson said most of suspects were already “known to the department in some manner,” and had long terrorized several blocks in Washington Heights and parts of the Bronx, including Marble Hill.

“Anytime we can help the community feel safer is a good day,” he said.

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested

 

Glenn Mulcaire, the private eye at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives pursuing a fresh investigation into phone intercepts, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Officers working on Operation Weeting – the Metropolitan Police’s second probe into phone hacking at News International, which owned the now-defunct Sunday tabloid – announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a 41-year-old man who was being held on suspicion of conspiracy to hack voicemail messages and perverting the course of justice.  Mr Mulcaire is the 16th person to be arrested under the new operation, and has already served a six-month prison sentence in 2007 after pleading guilty to intercepting phone messages. He was arrested at his home in Surrey in a dawn swoop and held in a south London police station. Detectives on Operation Weeting have used the private investigator’s notebooks – which contain the names of nearly 5,800 potential victims and run to around 11,000 pages – as the basis for their investigation, trawling through the documents to identify those who may have been hacked. The hacking scandal was reignited this summer when it was revealed that the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail messages of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler after she went missing in 2002, leading her parents to believe that she was still alive. Last month, Mr Mulcaire released a statement through his lawyer, denying that he had deleted voicemail messages on Ms Dowler’s phone. “[He] did not delete messages and had no reason to do so,” the statement read. The Financial Times could not reach Mr Mulcaire’s lawyer for comment on Wednesday. Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and suspected hacking victim, told the FT he was “quite encouraged” that Mr Mulcaire had been taken in for questioning. “I always thought this was a logical next step, but not one [the police] would take unless they had sufficient fresh evidence to put to [Mr Mulcaire], and it seems now they do,” he said. News of the arrest came as lawyers for Andy Coulson, the News of the World’s former editor, argued in the High Court on Wednesday that the tabloid’s parent company should continue to pay Mr Coulson’s legal bills arising from the criminal investigation into phone hacking. It emerged during the course of Mr Coulson’s evidence that News Group Newspapers – a subsidiary of News International – had continued to reimburse Mr Coulson for legal fees relating to his involvement in the judge-led phone hacking inquiry and parliamentary select committee hearings. The court heard that Mr Coulson had received a letter from Tom Mockridge, the chief executive of News International, in August informing him of an “immediate cessation” of payments in relation to criminal legal fees.

Wife found Gary Speed's body, inquest hears

 

Wales football manager Gary Speed was found hanged at his home by his wife, an inquest was told today. The 42-year-old father-of-two was found dead at his Cheshire home on Sunday morning. Detective Inspector Peter Lawless, of Cheshire Police, told Cheshire coroner Nicholas Rheinberg that Speed's body was found by his wife Louise just before 7am. He said there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances and a post mortem examination found Speed's death was caused by hanging. Mr Rheinberg said: "I adjourn this inquest until January 30, 2012. The inquest will be heard in Warrington and will commence at 2pm." There was a huge media presence at the inquest in Warrington but members of Speed's family did not attend. The coroner asked the media to "respect the privacy" of Speed's family. Earlier today Welsh Assembly Members observed a minute's silence in the Senedd, Cardiff Bay, while flags continue to fly at half mast outside the Welsh Assembly buildings Ty Hywel and the Senedd. Speaking on behalf of the footballer's widow, Louise, and the family, Speed's agent and best man at his wedding Hayden Evans said last night they had been "overwhelmed" with messages of support and condolence. Tributes to the former Leeds United, Everton and Newcastle United midfielder, also poured in from a host of public and sporting figures, led by Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Cameron said: "I know he meant an enormous amount to people and people feel very, very sad on his behalf and on his family's behalf." The Football Association of Wales chief executive Jonathan Ford said the organisation had received messages from UEFA and FIFA, with the Welsh flag at FIFA House in Zurich flying at half-mast. Mr Ford said: "He was such a great person and he is such a loss." Tottenham winger Gareth Bale, one of the brightest talents in Speed's Wales side, said it was a "massive shock". "It is a tragedy, everyone still can't get their head around it and all our condolences go out to his family and his kids. It is a hard time," Bale told tottenhamhotspur.com. Supporters have left scarves, football shirts and flowers across several football stadiums - including Everton's Goodison Park, Leeds United's Elland Road, Newcastle United's St James' Park and The Millennium Stadium and Cardiff City Stadium, where Wales played their home games. The FAW has opened a book of condolences at its offices in Cardiff allowing fans to express their feelings about Speed's death.