Mother jailed for life...[ 568 ]

Mother jailed for life after giving son lethal heroin injection

Frances Inglis, who gave her brain-damaged son a lethal heroin injection to end his "living hell" was given a life sentence after being found guilty of murder today.

Telegraph co.uk.,,Published: 3:14PM GMT 20 Jan 2010

Frances Inglis, left, said she killed her son Thomas to end his suffering .--- Photo: CENTRAL NEWS

Frances Inglis, 57, said she killed her 22-year-old son Tom to end his suffering after he sustained severe head injuries when he fell out of a moving ambulance.

But despite giving a tearful and emotionally-charged account to jurors of how she had "no choice" and had done it "with love", she was found guilty of both murder and attempted murder.

A judge had earlier told the jury to put emotion aside, and told them no one had the "unfettered right" to take the law into their own hands. She was jailed for life with a minimum term of nine years.

Inglis, of Dagenham, east London, was first charged with trying to kill her son in September 2007, before going back and succeeding in November 2008.

During the trial Inglis wept as she described her despair at the "horror, pain and tragedy" of her son's helpless condition.

"For Tom to live that living hell – I couldn't leave my child like that," she told the Old Bailey.

She admitted ending her son's life but said: "I did it with love in my heart, for Tom, so I don't see it as murder."

Miranda Moore QC, prosecuting, said: "It would be a hard-hearted person who didn't have sympathy for her position.

"It is a tragic case but it is not a defence to murder to end someone's life to put them out of their misery."

The jury reached its verdicts by a majority of 10 to two after deliberating for more than six hours.

There were cries of "shame on you" from the public gallery as they were read out.

U.K. bans direct flight from Yemen..[ 567 ]

Gordon Brown announces ban on direct flights from Yemen to Britain

Gordon Brown has announced a ban on direct flights from Yemen to Britain following the attempted Christmas Day Detroit bomb attack.

TELEGRAPH Co.,UK.,, Published: 12:59PM GMT 20 Jan 2010

The Prime Minister said the ban on direct flights would remain in place until new security measures were put in place in the Middle Eastern country.

The ban comes amid security fears following the attempted bombing of a passenger plane on December 25th 2009 by a man allegedly radicalised in Yemen.
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Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate explosives on the plane as it came in to land in Detroit, was a student in London but came into contact with al Qaida in Yemen.

Yemen was an "incubator and potential safe haven for terrorism", Mr Brown said.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Brown also announced the creation of two new terror watch lists as part of a package of measures aimed at beefing up border security.

One new list will contain the names of individuals prohibited from flying to and from the UK.

The second, longer list will include lower risk individuals who will be subjected to special screening before they can board planes heading for the UK.

Mr Brown also pledged that all major ports and airports would be covered by the Home Office's e-borders scheme by the end of this year.

Under the £1.2 billion programme, passengers must provide detailed personal information when buying their tickets so they can be checked against watchlists before flying.

Mr Brown said: "We have agreed with Yemenia Airlines - pending enhanced security - that they suspend their direct flights to the UK from Yemen with immediate effect.

"We are working closely with the Yemeni government to agree what security measures need to be put in place before flights are resumed.

"I hope that flights can be resumed soon - but the security of our citizens must be our priority."

Yemen carrier Yemenia Yemen Airways, which had been operating two flights a week between London and Yemen, said it had suspended services last week.

The decision was made after the UK Government demanded flights stop in Cairo to be unloaded and checked.

A London-based spokesman for the airline, Farouk Burhan, said: "The UK Government said we could only carry on flights if we landed at another country's airport en route and completely unloaded the plane, including cargo, before having everything checked.

"We used to fly non-stop between London and Yemen and, more recently, we have been flying via Cairo.

"We would have had to unload at Cairo and we decided we could not comply with this request."

Haiti, new panic[ 566 ]

Strong aftershock shakes Haiti, week after earthquake

A strong aftershock has rocked Haiti, sending screaming people running into the streets, eight days after another quake devastated the country. BBC Wednesday, 20 January 2010 The extent of the damage is not yet known. The magnitude 6.1 tremor struck west of Port-au-Prince at 0603 local time (1103 GMT). An estimated 200,000 people died in last Tuesday's quake and another 1.5 million were made homeless. Despite an international aid operation, supplies are slow to reach survivors. However, international teams are still rescuing people alive from the rubble, including a 69-year-old woman pulled from the ruins of a church in the capital. The US military has defended its handling of the rescue operation, as aid groups complained of long delays in getting vital supplies of food, water and medicine. Haitian President Rene Preval said aid delivery was the main problem now. Help came "very fast," Mr Preval told a French radio station. "When it arrives, the question is: where are the trucks to transport it, where are the depots?" Fresh panic The US Geological Survey said Wednesday's tremor was centred 35 miles (56km) north-west of the capital. It struck at a depth of 6.2 miles (9.9km), but was too far inland to generate any tsunamis in the Caribbean. We were forced to buy a saw in the market to continue amputations Loris de Filippi Medicins Sans Frontieres Mass amputation fears How to manage a crisis In pictures: Haiti one week on US opens doors to Haiti orphans Battle against the looters Some buildings already weakened by last week's quake collapsed and wails of terror filled the air as frightened survivors poured out of unstable buildings, a BBC correspondent in the region said. Although some aid has started to reach desperate survivors, hundreds of thousands are still without food or water, a full week after the disaster. Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said its cargo plane with 12 tonnes of medical supplies had been turned away from the congested Port-au-Prince airport three times since Sunday. It said five patients died from lack of the supplies it carried. "We were forced to buy a saw in the market to continue amputations," the group's Loris de Filippi told the Reuters news agency in Cite Soleil. But the US military has defended its efforts in the face of vast logistical challenges. "We're doing everything in our power to speed aid to Haiti as fast as humanly possible," said Gen Douglas Fraser, head of US Southern Command. He said they plan to start using two other airports, at Jacmel in Haiti and San Isidro in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, in the coming days.

Russian fighter over Iran's sky [ 565 ][

Russian fighter jet allowed to fly over Iran

Now in Baku: 15:39 (GMT+04:00), Wednesday, 20 January , 2010

Iran has agreed to allow a Russian fighter jet to use its airspace to get to an international air show in Bahrain, Press TV reported with reference to a Russian website .

On Tuesday, RIA Novosti quoted an official of the Iranian Embassy in Moscow as saying that the Su-27 Flanker fighter had been cleared to fly to Bahrain via Iran's airspace.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had complained earlier in the day that Iran had refused to let the plane use its airspace to take part in the Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS) 2010.

It said permission had initially been granted, but when the plane approached Iran's airspace, the Islamic Republic's authorities banned it from entering "for unknown reasons."

However, according to some other media reports, the Su-27 was supposed to be transported to Bahrain by a cargo plane.

NASA : Haiti's earthquake analysis...[ 564 ]

Topography Along the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden Fault, Haiti

NASA , Posted January 14, 2010

At 4:53 p.m. local time on January 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Hispaniola Island, just 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Besides its strong magnitude, the earthquake’s shallow depth of roughly 8.3 kilometers (5.2 miles) ensured that the densely populated capital suffered violent shaking.

This map shows the topography and tectonic influences in the region of the earthquake. Lighter colors indicate higher elevation. Black circles mark earthquake locations determined by the U.S. Geological Survey, and circle sizes correspond with quake magnitudes. Dozens of aftershocks followed the main quake. Red lines indicate fault lines.

The epicenter of the quake appears just south of the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden Fault, the southernmost of two major east-west-trending faults that bear the stress of the convergence of the Caribbean and North America tectonic plates in this location. Though faults are weak spots or fractures in the Earth’s crust below the surface, very often there are topographical clues to their presence. In this case, the presence of the fault is indicated by long, straight valley cutting through southern Haiti, just south of Port-Au-Prince. The Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden Fault is a strike-slip type fault, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward with respect to the North America plate.