10,000 border arrests due to screening system

 10,000 criminals including rapists and murderers have been held at the UK border thanks to a screening system begun in 2005, a minister has said. Air and sea carriers using UK ports and airports submit passenger and crew details electronically to the e-Borders screening system, prior to travel. It results in about 52 weekly arrests, Immigration Minister Damian Green says. He praised the UK Border Agency and police for the scheme, which covers up to 55% of journeys to and from the UK. "By checking passenger and crew information before travel, law enforcement agencies can apprehend those trying to evade justice," Mr Green said. "From 2013 the new dedicated Border Policing Command, part of the National Crime Agency, will further strengthen security at the border, providing leadership...

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The Italian ship Montecristo, which was hijacked by Somali pirates before being stormed by British commandos

 Photo: REUTERS9:45AM GMT 30 Oct 2011A legal ban on weapon-toting protection staff will be relaxed so that firms can apply for a licence to have them on board in danger zones.The Prime Minister said radical action was required because the increasing ability of sea-borne Somali criminals to hijack and ransom ships had become "a complete stain on our world".He unveiled the measure after talks at a Commonwealth summit in Australia with leaders of countries in the Horn of Africa over the escalating problem faced in waters off their shores.Under the plans, the Home Secretary will be given the power to license vessels to carry armed...

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Posted in: legal ban on weapon-toting protection staff will be relaxed so that firms can apply for a licence to have them on board in danger zones.

The Occupy London Stock Exchange protest encampment outside St Paul's Cathedral.

Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty ImagesChristian groups have drawn up plans to protect protesters by forming a ring of prayer around the camp outside St Paul's Cathedral, should an attempt be made to forcibly remove them.As the storm of controversy over the handling of the Occupy LondonStock Exchange demonstration deepened on Saturday, Christian activists said it was their duty to stand up for peaceful protest in the absence of support from St Paul's. One Christian protester, Tanya Paton, said: "We represent peace, unity and love. A ring of prayer is a wonderful symbol."With senior officials at St Paul's apparently intent...

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Two British tour operators who come to Spain go bust

 Two British tour operators who bring tourists to Spain have gone bust. Romano Travel ceased operations on October 26, a day after Airborn Limited. Romano Travel specialized in package holidays to Spain and Turkey and had been operating for 30 years. There were no more than half of dozen or so pending bookings from the Buckinghamshire firm which was fully protected with an ATOL licence and was a member of ABTA. Airborn Limited operated as Airborn Direct and Holiday Hero, and was based in Romford, Essex. It sold packages to Spain, Cyprus and Turkey, and sold its products to other operators. The CAA says there are many clients who have purchased flights with the firm using a credit card, and these flights should be operating normally. If in doubt passengers can confirm with the airli...

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Spain no longer the main destination for Brit's second homes

 A new survey carried out by the HomeAway holiday rentals company and real estate group Savills International has concluded that Spain is no longer the first choice among the Brits for their second residence. 1,700 British property buyers were questioned. More Britons now prefer France because of its better economic stability and the moderation in its house prices. 40% of Brits who buy in Spain later rent out the property, sometimes obtaining an income of as much as 34,500 € a year, but 24% still say that Spain is the place they have chosen for retirement. Despite the change away from purchasing a second home, Spain continues to be the most popular holiday destination for the Brits. In France, Italy and Switzerland the British purchasers usually opt for restored old properties, while...

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Malaga on the Mediterranean coast, in the Southern Spanish region of Andalucia, was the city you avoided

The city of Malaga on the Mediterranean coast, in the Southern Spanish region of Andalucia, was the city you avoided. An industrial port encircled by a tired ring of Franco-era low-rise apartment buildings, it was always the city tourists dashed by on their way to Torremolinos or Marbella further down the Costa Del Sol.Being out of favor from the 1970s onwards – when torrid overbuilding ruined the Spanish coast – has served Malaga well, and the tired city around the old port has gone through a revival in recent years: The pedestrian-only squares and streets are washed clean, filled with a mix of fashionable shops selling Ermenegildo Zegna suits...

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Five arrested for road rage attack in Madrid

 National Police have arrested five people, two of them underage, for a brutal road rage attack in a tunnel on the M-30 motorway in September. They were taken into custody after they were identified on video footage from security cameras in the tunnel. The aggressors were travelling in two vehicles on the evening of September 17, and were seen on film chasing another car into the tunnel, speeding ahead and cutting across it to bring it to a halt. The eight occupants of the two cars are then seen getting out of their vehicles and dragging the three people travelling in the third car out onto the roadway. They are beaten and kicked, and their car is vandalised. Some personal items were also stolen and one of the victims was stabbed in the back. The reason for the attack was because the...

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32 arrests in luxury car scam in Spain

 National Police in Spain have arrested 32 people accused of stealing 25 vehicles worth over a million € from counties such as Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland, to be sold on in Spain. The sale of the vehicles were helped by official dealers and the gang even had the collaboration of workers at several ITV/MOT centres which issued certificates to say the vehicles had no signs of being manipulated. The Ministry of the Interior says that the gang was made up mainly of Hungarians, Romanians and Spaniards, and the vehicles were sold on with false documents in dealers in Madrid, Santander, Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia, Alicante, Cuenca, Almería, Córdoba, Jaén and Grana...

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Spain's first private airport goes bust

 Spain’s first private airport has closed. The Ciudad Real Airport was opened in December 2008, considering that it could act as a Madrid overflow for residents in the south, but that just has not happened. The very last flight, operated by Vueling and with just 45 passengers, took off for Barcelona on Saturday at 2,45pm. The airline lasted less than a year at the Ciudad Real airport which has been dogged by bad luck from the start. It had problems with the environmental agency in 2005 as it is located in a special bird protection area, there were complaints that as much as 50% of the building works were illegal, it needed a continued supply of capital, and the intervention of the Bank of Spain in the CCM Castilla La Mancha savings bank revealed more irregularities. The airport closes...

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Man stabs three people to death in Valencia

 A man has stabbed three people to death and injured another two in a hamlet close to Valencia. It happened in Castellar-Oliverar to the south of the city on Friday night at about 9pm. A 48 year old is reported to be very seriously hurt and is in the intensive care unit of the La Fe Hospital. Another 44 year old man has injuries to his back and head, and is stable in the General Hospital. Two of the dead are father and his 13 year old son, while the third is a female pensioner. 33 year old local resident and neighbour to the dead and injured, named as J.P., has been arrested in connection with the triple homicide. Municipal sources say the man carried out his attacks in several flats connected to the stairway of his block after ringing the door bells. A local policeman then saw the...

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Brussels is stifling City of London, Cameron claims

 David Cameron signalled new European battles ahead as he pledged to resist alleged attempts by Brussels to shackle the City of London in red tape. The Prime Minister echoed claims that the emergence of a two-tier Europe following the financial crisis could result in a wave of EU directives that would harm the Square Mile. The Government has said it is determined to prevent the 17 members of the eurozone acting as a bloc to thwart the interests of the 10 EU states, including Britain, that have retained their own currenci...

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Qantas grounds all flights

 Australia’s Qantas Airways grounded its entire fleet on Saturday over a bitter labour dispute in an unprecedented move that prompted the government to warn it feared for the airline’s future and would seek action to end the dispute. EDITOR’S CHOICE Strikes cost A$15m-a week in lost sales - Oct-28 US airlines earnings hit by fuel costs - Oct-27 Lufthansa scales back passenger forecasts - Oct-27 Virgin eyes tie-up with Etihad on BMI - Oct-14 Qantas overhauls lossmaking international operations - Aug-16 Qantas said it would lock out all employees from Monday night in a dispute affecting 70,000 passengers and 600 flights on one of the country’s biggest travel weekends. The grounding does not affect Qantas’ budget airline Jetstar or code-share flights on other airlines. Passengers...

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Ruth Madoff reveals suicide pact after £40bn fraud

 Come what may, Mrs Madoff is still managing to keep up appearances. But behind her designer outfit and reassuringly expensive haircut, she's anxious to remind the world that life as the spouse of a $65bn (£40bn) conman isn't always plain sailing. In her first interview since her husband Bernie oversaw the collapse of the family investment house almost two years ago, Ruth revealed the couple attempted suicide in the immediate aftermath of his arrest. It was the night before Christmas 2008. The Madoffs, once the toast of New York society, were confined to their Manhattan penthouse, coming to terms with the fact that his Ponzi scheme had wiped out the life savings of several thousand investors, including many close friends and family members. "I don't know whose idea it was, but we...

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Yemeni women burn veils to protest regime

 Yemeni women defiantly burned their traditional veils Wednesday in protest of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrations. Thousands of women gathered in the capital, Sanaa, said witnesses. They carried banners that read: "Saleh the butcher is killing women and is proud of it" and "Women have no value in the eyes in Ali Saleh." They collected their veils and scarves in a huge pile and set it ablaze -- an act that is highly symbolic in the conservative Islamic nation, where women use their veils to cover their faces and bodies. It's the first time in the nine months of Yemen's uprising that such an event has occurred. Inspired by Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman's Nobel Peace Prize this month, more and more Yemeni women have taken to the streets and...

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Villages all but wiped out as storms batter Italy's 'Cinque Terre'

 The worst affected region was Liguria, with at least two of the five World Heritage-listed 'Cinque Terre' coastal villages cut off as a result of roads being washed away. The walking trails and picturesque fishing villages of the Cinque Terre attract hundreds of thousands of international tourists, but two of them – Vernazza and Monterosso – were severely affected as rivers of mud poured down from the hills behind them. The mayor of Monterosso said the fishing village had all but been wiped out. "Monterosso no longer exists," Angelo Betta told an Italian news agency. Huge amounts of mud had swept through the tiny settlement, causing an "unimaginable disaste...

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A LARGE crowd of Rebels Motorcycle Club members turned out at St Peter's Cathedral yesterday for the funeral of a member.

Rebels comfort each other outside St Peter's Cathedral. Picture: Dean MartinDozens of motorbikes lined Pennington Tce, North Adelaide, as more than 100 people gathered for the 1.30pm service for James Sean "Pappa" Petterson.Members of rival motorcycle clubs, including the Finks, also attended the service.A convoy of Rebels members on motorcycles were given a police escort to the service and flanked the hearse as it left the cathedral.Uniformed and plainclothes police kept a watchful eye over proceedings from outs...

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Posted in: A LARGE crowd of Rebels Motorcycle Club members turned out at St Peter's Cathedral yesterday for the funeral of a member.

Gang ringleaders: Mehmet Sirin Baybasin (left) and Paul Taylor (Pic: PA)

 A GANG of drug dealers planned to flood Britain with £4 billion of cocaine - arranging the plot from a phone box.The Liverpool and London-based gangsters were planning to smuggle 40 tonnes of cocaine from South America by sea, hidden inside tins of fish and wooden pallets.Liverpool Crown Court heard that the drug would be bought at a "wholesale price" and then sold to other dealers who would dilute it and sell it on.If all the cocaine had made it to the streets of the UK and it was cut before being sold, the court heard it could have been worth around £4 billion.The head of the Liverpool operation used a phone...

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Posted in: GANG of drug dealers planned to flood Britain with £4 billion of cocaine,Gang ringleaders: Mehmet Sirin Baybasin (left) and Paul Taylor (Pic: PA)

Real IRA terrorist has been jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of buying weapons and explosives which he wanted to use to “kill Brits.

Michael Campbell (Pic: PA)A Real IRA terrorist has been jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of buying weapons and explosives which he wanted to use to “kill Brits.”Irishman Michael Campbell - brother of Omagh bomber Liam - was snared in a six year MI5 sting across three countries with agents pretending to be arms dealers.Yesterday he was finally jailed by a Lithuania court after spending three years awaiting trial and having been snared by an amazing MI5 undercover operation.Campbell, 39, was secretly filmed in a field in Lithuania pointing a high-power Barret sniper rifle which he later bragged he would use to kill British people.Michael...

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Posted in: Real IRA terrorist has been jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of buying weapons and explosives which he wanted to use to “kill Brits.

Cowell: Tweet for X Factor faves

 US X Factor judge Simon Cowell says he wants fans to use Twitter to vote for their favourite contestants. The Fox show has announced that from November 2, fans can cast a ballot by sending a direct message over Twitter to the official X Factor account. Viewers can also cast a ballot on the show's Facebook page and its official website. "It's a sign of the times," said Cowell, who believes more votes will come in as a result of expanding the process. "Sites like Twitter and Facebook give (the audience) a much bigger voice." Aside from social media, votes can be sent the old fashioned way, by making a phone call or sending a text message and by using a special App created for Verizon Android devices. Cowell uses the internet to gauge what people think of the series so far. He goes online...

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Netflix, the American media giant that streams blockbuster movies and TV series over the internet, is to launch on this side of the Atlantic.

Netflix will offer tens of thousands of films in the UK - including exclusive early access to new films. The move comes after a series of hiccups for the company in the U.S., including price hikes and a disastrous attempt to split off its DVD rental business into a new company called Qwikster. Neftlix lost 800,000 U.S. subscribers in the last quarter. In the UK, it will offer video streamed to PCs, TVs and consoles, rather than DVD rentals. Coming over to the UK. Netflix has signed a number of deals with leading film studios to have the first rights to offer blockbuster movies once they have finished their cinema runRobert Downey Junior...

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Sam, 20, said: "There is no way we will be going anywhere near where it happened. It's left us terrified of further repercussions. We're discussing security."

 Screen beauty ... Sam Faiers Billie added: "It's the only thing we can do to feel safe."A spokesman said: "It is being arranged. Whenever the girls feel it appropriate they will have security around them." Gesture ... Peri Sinclair takes flowers to sisters' houseLOUIS WOOD / THE SUN Replacement locks were fitted at their home yesterday after the thugs stole Billie's keys along with her £1,500 handbag, mobile, jewellery and shoes. She said: "We've been too scared to go out. I lost everything."The sisters — who run a boutique in Brentwood and are regulars on the Essex party circuit — are considering a trip out today. They will...

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Posted in: 500 handbag,jewellery and shoes.,mobile,Replacement locks were fitted at their home yesterday after the thugs stole Billie's keys along with her £1

McLaren driver Lewis, 26, says the X Factor supremo is one of the key reasons that his four-year romance with Nicole Scherzinger hit the skids.

Lewis Hamilton and Nicole Scherzinger (Pic:PA)IT’S just as well Simon Cowell likes fast cars – he might need to speed off sharpish if F1 race ace Lewis Hamilton claps eyes on him...McLaren driver Lewis, 26, says the X Factor supremo is one of the key reasons that his four-year romance with Nicole Scherzinger hit the skids.He reckons 52-year-old Cowell’s decision to offer Nicole, 33, a judging job on X Factor USA – replacing Cheryl Cole – put “immeasurable strain” on the couple’s relationship.Lewis has been tied up on the Grand Prix circuit while former Pussycat Doll singer Nicole’s own hectic schedule has prevented her from spending time with...

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Posted in: 26,McLaren driver Lewis,says the X Factor supremo is one of the key reasons that his four-year romance with Nicole Scherzinger hit the skids.