Four police officers were stabbed as they dealt with a disturbance today in Kingsbury, north London.

The incident is believed to have happened at the Kingsbury Halal Butchers just 100 yards from Kingsbury Tube station and in a busy shopping street.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘Police were called at approximately 8.40am to a disturbance in Kingsbury Road, Kingsbury.

Crime scene: The multiple stabbing is believed to have taken place at Kingsbury Halal Butchers

Cordoned off: Metropolitan Police officers at the scene of the attack, with a paramedic's kit visible in the foreground

 

‘Officers attended and attempted to speak with a man, who subsequently attacked them.

 

 

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• Child rapist used 'human rights' to fight deportation - then struck again

 

‘Four officers were injured during the incident and have been taken to hospital.

‘A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in custody at a north London police station.’

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed to MailOnline that all four officers are in a stable condition.

One sustained a stab wound to the stomach, another sustained head injuries and a stab wound to the arm, a third was wounded in the leg while a fourth suffered a broken hand.

Further down from Kingsbury Halal Butchers on the other side of the roundabout Ketan Vyas, the manager of the VB and Sons cash-and-carry store, described how a man aged 30 to 40 had burst into his shop chased by police.

Shock: The attack happened in broad daylight on a busy shopping street

Stabbing: The area has been sealed off by police, with one man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder

He went on: 'He picked up some cans of beans and threw them at the police and then carried on running out of the store and down the road.

'There were a lot of police after him. He was only in here for a few seconds. Fortunately no staff were harmed.'

Shopkeeper Girish Modha said: 'A man was shouting at police in a small alleyway next to a hairdresser's shop which neighbours mine.

'He grabbed a piece of fluorescent tubing and brandished it at police. He then ran down Kingsbury Road, going into a cash-and-carry shop. At one point I think he threw a brick and smashed a police car window.

'He then ran round the roundabout and carried on towards the Tube station. He went into a butcher's, got a knife and that's when the stabbing took place.'

A worker at a Carphone Warehouse store opposite the butcher's said: 'After the incident I saw about eight police officers on top of a man. Ambulances arrived to take away the injured policemen and the man was also taken away.'

Sky's Martin Brunt tweeted that one of the officers was stabbed in the stomach and that the attacker went 'berserk'. 

Eyewitnesses told Bottr that police were called after a man began to attack people 'randomly' .

Brunt added that the suspect had been shouting in the street in 'quite a disturbed way', which led to 999 calls being made.

The Kingsbury Roundabout in north London where the incident happened

Injured: Four police officers have been taken to hospital to be treated for knife wounds, according to Scotland Yard, after being attacked at Kingsbury roundabout

Olympia Logofagul, 24, who works at the Kings Coffee shop on Kingsbury Road, said: 'I was working and I saw some police officers standing outside.

'There were a lot of officers, more than five but no more than 10.'

A spokeswoman for London Ambulance Service said they took five patients to hospital, all conscious and breathing.

She said: 'We were called at 8.50 this morning to an incident in Kingsbury Road.

'We sent two single responders in cars, four ambulance crews and a duty officer.

'We treated five patients, they were all conscious and breathing, and they were taken to hospital.'

Kingsbury Road - a busy thoroughfare in north-west London and normally jammed with shoppers on a Saturday morning - was deserted either side of the roundabout, with police having blocked off the road in both directions.

 

The hairdressers, Mr Modha's sweet shop and a chemist were cordoned off.

There are 30 police cars and 15 ambulances attended

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi after his capture, his fingers wrapped in bandages and his legs covered with a blanket

. Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the fugitive son of Libya's deceased former dictator, has been arrested in southern Libya, according to officials from the country's new government.

Libyan state TV reported that Saif has arrived in captivity and unhurt at an army base in the town of Zintan, 90 miles south-west of Tripoli.

Muammar Gaddafi's second and highest-profile son was captured along with several bodyguards by fighters near the town of Obari in Libya's southern desert, said the interim justice minister and other officials.

Saif was said to be in good health, according to the justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi.

"We have arrested Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in [the] Obari area," the minister told Reuters.

Saif was captured near the southern city of Sabha with two aides trying to smuggle him out to neighbouring Niger, militia commander Bashir al-Tayeleb said.

Zintan, a base for forces in the Nafusa Mountains which played a key part in the storming of Tripoli in the summer, is reported to have crowds dancing in the streets and waving the Libyan flag.

There are reports that an angry mob tried to storm the plane on which Saif was taken to the western mountain town of Zintan, the home of one of the largest revolutionary brigades in Libya.

Gunfire is echoing across the capital, Tripoli, where large crowds have gathered in Martyrs' Square firing volleys of automatic fire in the air. "A great day, a great day," said Abdullah, a taxi driver, stuck in one of the traffic jams that built up around the square.

A Reuters reporter said a man who appeared to be Saif, but who refused to confirm his identity, was on a plane flown by militiamen to the town.

The man wore traditional robes with a scarf pulled over his face, but his features, visible despite a heavy black beard, as well as his rimless spectacles, conformed to pictures of the 39-year-old younger Gaddafi.

The man's thumb, index finger and another finger were heavily bandaged.

Libyan TV also showed him He is sitting by a bed and holding up three bandaged fingers as a guard looks on.

An anti-British backlash gathered pace in Germany yesterday as David Cameron and Angela Merkel struggled to disguise the gulf between them on how to tackle the eurozone crisis.

 

An anti-British backlash gathered pace in Germany yesterday as David Cameron and Angela Merkel struggled to disguise the gulf between them on how to tackle the eurozone crisis. The Prime Minister returned from talks in Berlin with the German leader having made little progress in agreeing emergency action to stop the financial contagion spreading. Tensions were inflamed after a close ally of Ms Merkel predicted Britain would eventually adopt the euro. The German media joined the clamour, with the mass-circulation newspaper Bild questioning whether it might be better for Britain to leave the European Union altogether. Behind the leaders' smiles at a joint press conference yesterday, they acknowledged fundamental differences remained on three key issues: * New eurozone rules. Ms Merkel called for "limited" changes to European treaties to impose fiscal discipline on the single currency but stressed negotiations should only be for eurozone members. Mr Cameron wants Britain involved in the talks because of the potential impact of the decisions on the UK; * Whether the European Central Bank should intervene to support the eurozone. Ms Merkel – backed by the German public – is fiercely resisting the move, which she fears would fuel inflation. But Mr Cameron insisted that all the eurozone's institutions had to "do what is necessary to defend it"; * Taxing financial transactions within the EU. Ms Merkel supports the step but Mr Cameron fears it would disproportionately hit the City and said it would work only if applied globally. The Prime Minister said: "It is obvious we don't agree on every aspect of European policy, but I am clear we can address and accommodate and deal with those differences." He also stressed the two leaders were "very good friends" and "absolutely" in agreement on the importance of completing the single market, budget discipline and stopping EU spending from rising by more than inflation. But shortly before Ms Merkel also paid tribute to the "strong bonds of friendship" between the countries, her veteran Finance Minister used less diplomatic language in which he seemed to predict the end of sterling. Wolfgang Schäuble told the news agency DPA it was Britain's right to remain outside the eurozone "for the time being". But he said it was a matter of time before non-eurozone states became convinced of the euro's advantages. "One day the whole of Europe will have a single currency and perhaps it will happen more quickly than many people on the British island think," he said. Meanwhile, in an article headlined 'The Sick Empire', Der Spiegel magazine described Britain's plans to eradicate its budget deficit by 2015 as "utopian". It added: "The situation on the island is more dramatic than in parts of the continent. It's bad news nearly every day. "But the British government gets away with it by proclaiming carry-on-as-usual policies and by blaming its economic stagnation on the eurozone." The war of words between Berlin and London erupted on Tuesday after Volker Kauder, Ms Merkel's parliamentary party leader, lambasted Britain for being too self-centred on Europe. "Just looking for their own advantage and not being prepared to contribute – that cannot be the message we accept from the British," he told a congress of his ruling conservatives. The former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, weighed in behind Mr Cameron last night as he condemned the financial transaction tax as "a heat-seeking missile...aimed at the City of London". He also warned of an "undemocratic" move towards eurozone fiscal union. In an interview with Al Jazeera, he also predicted "one or two countries" would be forced to quit the euro.

Virgin buys Northern Rock for £747m

 

Northern Rock has been sold to Virgin Money, for £747m, marking the first return to the private sector of a UK government-backed bank since the financial crisis. Virgin, the retail banking arm of Sir Richard Branson, will pay £747m in cash upfront – roughly half of the £1.4bn of government equity that was injected into Northern Rock following its collapse in 2007. The taxpayer could receive up to an additional £250m if the business is sold or floated in future. The sale of the “good” part of the bank marks a £400m loss for the government. The bulk of the funding for Virgin’s bid was provided by Wilbur Ross, the US billionaire investor, who owns a 20 per cent stake in the group. More ON THIS STORY Q&A How the deal affects you Lombard Branson risks Northern exposure Metro Bank has issued just 100 mortgages Good news for Lloyds as Co-op bids for branches On London UK domestic banks ON THIS TOPIC N Rock expects to make profit in 2012 Northern Rock to set off privatisation wave Hedge fund says Northern Rock call is wrong Virgin’s success follows an unsuccessful first attempt to acquire Northern Rock before its nationalisation almost four years ago. This time Virgin faced very little competition for the business, which includes 75 high-street branches, 1m customers and £14bn of mortgages. The sale signals the end for one of the most notorious brands in British high-street banking.

UK press in dock over phone-hacking, lawyer says

 

Britain's entire press stands in the dock at an inquiry into media standards, said a lawyer representing victims of press intrusion and phone-hacking by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World. David Sherborne, who is representing 51 "core participants" at an inquiry set up as the hacking scandal engulfed News Corp's British arm, said Wednesday that "tawdry" tabloids were guilty of blackmail, bribery and vilification. He said his clients had endured lies, harassment and other "despicable" actions from the press and that phone-hacking might only be the tip of the iceberg. "It is the whole of the press, and in particular the tabloid section of it, which we say stands in the dock," he said. "It is time we had change and by that I mean real change." The Leveson inquiry, due to last a year, will make recommendations which could have a huge impact on the industry and lead to tighter regulation and, at the least, an overhaul of the current system of self-regulation. Lawyers for Britain's major newspaper groups have already pleaded for the essence of that system to remain and said that if anything, the press needed more freedoms. But in a scathing and detailed attack on newspapers, particularly the notoriously aggressive tabloid press, Sherborne said: "We are here not just because of the shameful revelations which have come out of the hacking scandal, but also because there has been a serious breakdown of trust in the important relationship between the press and the public." "The press is a powerful body. They have a common interest and a self-serving agenda," he told the inquiry. Sherborne said revelations that a private detective, jailed for phone-hacking in 2007 along with the News of the World's former royal reporter, had carried out more than 2,000 tasks for the paper suggested that there were about 10 stories in the tabloid every week from the illegal practice. He listed details of some of those who had been targeted, starting with the parents of Milly Dowler, a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered. It was the revelation that her phone had been hacked while she was missing that changed attitudes to the issue. Within days, News Corp withdrew its bid to buy the 61 percent of broadcaster BSkyB it did not already own and its British newspaper arm News International closed down the 168-year-old News of the World. It also prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to order the inquiry.

UK economy forecast: Eurozone crisis dampens Bank’s growth estimate

 

THE Bank of England warned today that the eurozone debt crisis is the “single biggest risk” to the UK recovery as it forecast a dramatically increased threat of a double-dip recession next year. Its quarterly inflation report revealed a greater chance of the economy contracting in the first three quarters of 2012, compared with its August forecasts, as eurozone and banking concerns and squeezed household budgets continue to weigh on growth. The Bank slashed its central - or most likely - growth estimate to no more than 1 per cent in both 2011 and 2012 from previous forecasts of around 1.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively. The worsened prospects for the UK economy mean inflation is likely to fall far quicker than previously estimated, hitting the Government’s 2 per cent target in the second half of next year before falling to as low as around 1.3 per cent in 2013. Bank governor Sir Mervyn King warned the “journey to a more balanced world economy will be long and arduous”. He said UK economic activity will be broadly flat until the middle of next year and added that the country faces a “difficult economic environment”. Today’s report backs the City’s view that the Bank will keep interest rates on hold for the foreseeable future and add another £75 billion to its quantitative easing programme by February. Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: “Even the Bank’s downgraded growth forecasts still look optimistic to us - we expect zero growth next year.”

Euro zone crisis is tough going -- for traders

 

Life is not easy for the financial market traders who are making things so hard for euro zone policymakers. There are no pumped-up traders cheering from their screens as Italy's bond yields rise or as France gets sucked into a debt crisis which has already forced Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to seek international bailouts. The mood is weary and fraught. Bond traders see their own business throttled off by the same market forces that squeeze Italy's public finances and stir speculation about France's triple-A credit rating. "Things have felt almost as bad as it was back during the Lehman days in terms of liquidity - it is increasingly hard to get any business done and, to be honest, we think it is going to get worse," a London-based bond trader said. "Two-way markets have gone, the size of business you can get done at these bid/offer rates is minimal, bonuses and jobs are being cut. It's depressing and what is worse, there is no guarantee that anything is going to be better next year." Talk to fund managers and it is easy to see why a debt crisis which has mutated into an existential crisis for the euro is not translated into a bonanza for traders. "What if the currency union falls apart? Our premise is that it doesn't happen. (But) if you think that is going to happen, don't buy equities. Don't buy anything. Just go and hide," a London fund manager running money for institutional investors said. UNRELENTING STRESS As investors stampede to exit some euro zone bond markets, price swings have become bigger and the business of trading -- which relies on finding buyers or sellers before the market moves against you -- has become harder. "People are just exhausted because of the intensity of what is going on," said a bond salesman in London who has been working in the financial market for decades. "It is unbelievable stress and it is unrelenting. People are just hunkered down and working their socks off as everything is just more difficult -- hedging your risk, avoiding losses, everything." There is somewhat less gloom in equity markets, where investors are still trying to spot pockets of value. But the extent to which stock markets have been moving in lockstep with the price of Italian, Spanish, or French bonds in recent days means that trading behavior is far from normal even in equities. "Over the past few days there have very quiet periods punctuated by mad dealing frenzies," said Yusuf Heusen, sales trader at IG Index in London. "The quiet periods have been really very quiet as traders have not been taking on much risk other than to short the euro markets. The busy periods are absolutely manic as everybody wants to get on at the same time and generally same direction and sell offs are extreme as a consequence."

Bank governor Sir Mervyn King sent a stark message to political leaders as he flagged an unresolved eurozone debt crisis

 

Bank governor Sir Mervyn King sent a stark message to political leaders as he flagged an unresolved eurozone debt crisis as the "single biggest risk" to the economy. But despite cutting forecasts, some experts accused the bank of being too optimistic and have predicted another multibillion-pound injection into the economy as early as next month. In its quarterly inflation report, the bank slashed its central, or most likely, growth estimate to around 1% in both 2011 and 2012 - but compared to previous forecasts the Bank's projections reveal a greater chance of the economy shrinking in the first three quarters in 2012. The forecasts assume the problems in the eurozone do not deepen, quantitative easing is maintained at current levels and interest rates stay at record lows. The worsened prospects for the UK economy mean inflation is likely to fall far quicker than previously estimated, hitting the Government's 2% target in the second half of next year before falling to as low as around 1.3% in 2013. Sir Mervyn, who was formally knighted at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, said UK economic activity will be broadly flat until the middle of next year and added that the country faces a "difficult economic environment". The bank's report backs the City's view that interest rates will be kept on hold for the foreseeable future and another round of quantitative easing (QE) will be rolled out before February. But some economists were still not convinced. Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: "Even the bank's downgraded growth forecasts still look optimistic to us - we expect zero growth next year."

The addiction to drugs, food, alcohol, etc. is nothing compared to the addiction we humans have to thinking.

 

The addiction to drugs, food, alcohol, etc. is nothing compared to the addiction we humans have to thinking. Sitting quietly in silence is so foreign to most of us that the mind quickly starts thinking of its "problems" simply because it feels more "natural." We say we want peace, but because of our conditioning many of us actually feel more comfortable worrying. Worrying about what? Anything, the mind is not picky. -Michael Jeffreys

Take 5 seconds just to be quiet.

 

Take 5 seconds just to be quiet. Everything that disappeared in those 5 seconds for you, that’s what’s not real. So when you are not thinking, everything that disappears… that’s what’s not real. For most people, that’s about 99% of their whole experience of life… their whole world.

Take 5 seconds just to be quiet.

 

Everything that disappeared in those 5 seconds for you, that’s what’s not real. So when you are not thinking, everything that disappears… that’s what’s not real. For most people, that’s about 99% of their whole experience of life… their whole world.

If Life has no interest in the past, why should you?

 

If Life has no interest in the past, why should you? –Michael Jeffreys

It doesn't matter what it is--an atom, a thought, a sound, a situation, a body, a mental state, a plant a storm, a mountain, or a galaxy--everything that we know of is changing

 

It doesn't matter what it is--an atom, a thought, a sound, a situation, a body, a mental state, a plant a storm, a mountain, or a galaxy--everything that we know of is changing, either quickly or slowly. Inward and outward, big or small, there is only this shift and flux. If this is fully acknowledged, it may be realized that this is all that actually exists. No object or "thing" is ever truly formed anywhere. Nothing is ever established or defined. No thing ever comes to stay, to exist, to "be."

DREAMWARRIOR teaches how to become fundamentally present and how to arise in mastery of your mind and ego

DREAMWARRIOR teaches how to become fundamentally present and how to arise in mastery of your mind and ego, so that you are no longer involuntarily pulled out of Presence. teaches that the fully awakened state of consciousness is available now. It is not something that occurs in the future. It is already here, waiting to be revealed. As you awaken into the present moment, your thoughts will stop, your mind will fall silent, and you will awaken to an inner silence and peace that is beyond understanding. You will begin to encounter what the mystics and Masters have been speaking of for centuries.

The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference

 

The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference--the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing. -A Course in Miracles

As Bill Sees It-Selfish? - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

 

" I can see why you are disturbed to hear some A.A. speakers say, 'A.A. is a selfish program.' The word 'selfish' ordinarily implies that one is acquisitive, demanding, and thoughtless of the welfare of others. Of course, the A.A. way of life does not at all imply such undesirable traits. "What do these speakers mean? Well, any theologian will tell you that the salvation of his own soul is the highest vocation that a man can have. Without salvation--however we may define this--he will have little or nothing. For us of A.A., there is even more urgency. "If we cannot or will not achieve sobriety, then we become truly lost, right in the here and now. We are of no value to anyone, including ourselves, until we find salvation from alcohol. Therefore, our own recovery and spiritual growth have to come first--a right and necessary kind of self-concern."

EasyJet pays maiden dividend after profit soars

 

EasyJet said on Tuesday it would pay a special dividend of 34.9 pence on top of an ordinary dividend of 10.5 pence, making a total payout of 195 million pounds. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyJet's founder and largest shareholder with 112.55 million shares, according to Reuters data, will get 51 million pounds. The company's shares were down 2.6 percent at 356.5 pence at 1110 GMT. The carrier had said in September it would return around 190 million pounds after "a robust" second half. The payout comes after Haji-Ioannou criticised plans to buy new aircraft. Sources close to Haji-Ioannou said he was still concerned about capital expenditure, which fell 1 percent to 478 million pounds, and may pile more pressure on the airline's board. The Luton, southern England-based company reported an underlying pretax profit of 248 million pounds, at the upper end of forecasts, on revenue 16 percent higher at 3.45 billion in the year to September. The rise was led by an 11.8 percent increase in passenger traffic -- with one million more people using easyJet for business travel -- and a 1.3 percent fall in underlying costs per seat. Looking ahead, industry body IATA expects airlines to suffer over the next year due to waning consumer confidence, sluggish international trade and high fuel prices. EasyJet chief executive Carolyn McCall echoed that caution. "The macroeconomic environment remains challenging for all airlines as weak consumer confidence across Europe slows the rate at which higher fuel prices and increased taxation can be passed onto passengers," she said. "Against this backdrop easyJet is taking a cautious approach to capacity deployment ... capacity in the first half of the year is planned to be flat, with growth of around 4 percent for the full year." Analysts have been calling for airlines to cut capacity to ease fierce price competition in Europe and improve paper-thin margins. EasyJet had been expected to report a full-year profit of 206-254 million pounds, with the average at 243 million, according to a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S poll. "The results are just ahead of our and consensus expectations and we would expect the cautiously confident outlook commentary to comfortably sustain 2012 consensus forecasts (213 million pounds)," said RBS analyst Andrew Lobbenberg, who holds a 'buy' rating on the stock. EasyJet's larger European peers have struggled to overcome high oil prices and sluggish demand. German group Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) and Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) have cut profit forecasts this year after results were battered by high fuel costs and slashed plans to expand capacity next year. EasyJet said around 45 percent of its winter seats had already been sold, adding first-half passenger revenue was expected to grow by mid-single digits. The airline's fuel costs rose a quarter to 917 million pounds during its 2010/11 year. At current fuel prices and exchange rates easyJet said it expected its fuel bill to rise around 220 million pounds in its 2011/12 year.

Gaga may once again have offended the pious as she emerged as a decapitated corpse from a confession box

Gaga may once again have offended the pious as she emerged as a decapitated corpse from a confession box, and that too with a crucifix in the background. No doubt the elaborate attire came off as she began to perform and came to a more natural avatar of fishnet stockings and a black lace bodice.

The Grammy-winner was clearly excited about performance when she tweeted earlier, "So excited to perform Marry The Night on X Factor UK tonight! Will sing my head off for England!! Almost time X-FACTOR! Also get ready monsters cuz #MarryTheNight officially impacts radio next week! Thanku to stations that added it early!"

Now we realise she meant it quite literally!

 

 

UK border checks are 'a bad joke', whistleblower claims

 

Under-pressure staff are said to be relying on false data and "massaging" official figures to mask the full extent of the immigration chaos at Britain's borders. The whistleblower, a middle manager who does not want to be identified, said UKBA staff lack the resources to track down asylum seekers. As a result, it is claimed, complicated immigration cases are being abandoned to save time, while detention centres employ a "one in, one out" policy that sees low-risk detainees released to allow more dangerous foreigners to be locked up. The whistleblower said British border checks had become "haphazard" and "a bad joke". "The whole place is a basket case," he told The Sunday Times (£). "Asylum seekers run rings around us and we are virtually powerless to do anything about it. It is depressing."