SCOTLAND'S failure to tackle the scandal of sex trafficking is exposed in a damning report today.

Baroness Helena Kennedy believes sex-trafficking victims are being let down by Scots law The report demands a crackdown on the organised crime gangs behind the vile trade and lifts the lid on how the victims of trafficking and exploitation have been let down.Leading human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy, who wrote the report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is critical of the Scottish government, the police and other law enforcement agencies.The report looks into all aspects of human trafficking but focuses explicitly on "commercial sexual exploitation".A source close to the inquiry said last night: "This is Scotland's...

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Marvel character, Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto, has apparently infringed the copyright of the King of Spain

Marvel character, Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto, has apparently infringed the copyright of the King of Spain in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, with the Zarzuela Palace claiming the X-Men villain's alternate costume is identical to the military uniform worn by King Juan Carlos.Representitives for the Zazuela Palace have contacted the Spanish distributor of the game in the region, Koch Media, to warn them of possible copyright infringement.This isn't the first time the Spanish Royal's has stamped their feet over the strong resemblences, as Marvel faced a similar dispute when Magneto first donned the uniform in The Pulse: House of M Special X-Men ...

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New ecstasy fears after two dead and one seriously ill following club weekend

 The clubbers, aged 20 and 21, died within hours of each other at the same hospital after attending separate dance music events at Alexandra Palace in north London over the weekend. Another 20-year-old man, also thought to have attended an event at the venue, is also being treated at the same hospital where he is said to be in a serious but stable condition. Last night Scotland Yard issued a special appeal to any young people who may have taken drugs at or before either of the events to seek immediate medical attention amid fears dealers may have been peddling an ultra-strong batch. It comes just a week after the charity Drugscope, which monitors trends in underground the drug trade, warned of an alarming rise in the popularity of ecstasy which dominated the 1990s rave scene but fell...

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Ecstasy alert after club deaths

 wo young clubbers suspected of taking ecstasy died after separate dance music events at London's Alexandra Palace, police said. The men, aged 20 and 21, were admitted to a north London hospital on Sunday and were pronounced dead within seven hours of each other. The 21-year-old is thought to have attended an all-night party called Bass Culture, which started on Friday and continued into Saturday. The 20-year-old is believed to have attended a night called Epic, starting on Saturday night and running into Sunday. A second 20-year-old man who was also believed to have attended the event on Saturday night was admitted to hospital as well and remains in a serious but stable condition. The Metropolitan Police said the cause of the deaths and injury was yet to be established but confirmed...

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Police were in dark over foreign axe killer living in UK

 COPS did not know an East European axe murderer was living in the UK until he caused a killer car crash, a court heard yesterday. Intars Pless, 34, hacked through a friend's throat in his native Latvia, then moved to Britain after he got out of jail. But Lincoln Crown Court heard police can only check a foreign national's record if they break the law here. So Pless's horrific crime came to light only after he drove into moped rider Valentina Planciunene, 37, while over twice the limit. Stuart Lody, prosecuting, told the court: "On the night of Valentine's Day he decided it would be a perfectly good idea to drink a very large quantity of whisky. Surprised "He and a friend spent a considerable period of time drinking whisky and driving around. "During the driving he was possibly...

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U.K. tax falls on overseas property investors

 Overseas property owners based in the UK are about to be targeted by a new HM Revenue & Customs "affluent unit", which has been set up by the British government to address what it sees as tax avoidance by the rich.Photo 20minutos.es What next I wonder?? A new team of 200 taxation investigators and specialists has been established by HMRC to identify wealthy individuals who, amongst other things, own land and property abroad … such as a holiday home. OPP understands that the tax attack unit will concentrate on overseas property assets first, and then switch its attention to UK-based commodity traders (who have been accused of helping to drive up food prices,) before looking into the number of UK residents who hold offshore investment accounts. HMRC says that it will be using...

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British woman falls off hotel balcony when having sex

 There has been another case of balconing in Spain, this time in Adeje, Tenerife, and with the twist that the victim was having sex with her husband at the time she fell. The British tourist who fell several metres then got her ankle caught between the bars of an internal staircase was left hanging there, head down and totally naked until the emergency crews arrived. 49 year old A.M.A.M. had been having sex with her husband against the railings on one of the public areas of the hotel and in the frenzy, the railings gave way. The husband called the emergency services and the local and national police arrived with a fire crew. After their initial surprise, the managed to release the woman’s trapped right leg, and she was taken for observation to the Hospitén S...

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is pictured sitting in a plane in Zintan after his capture in Libya's rugged desert.

Photograph: Ismail Zitouni/ReutersThe man who led the fighters that captured Saif al-Islam has said that the late dictator's son tried to escape arrest by pretending to be a camel herder."When we caught him, he said, 'My name is Abdul Salem, a camel keeper,'" said commander Ahmed Amur on Sunday. "It was crazy."His unit, from Zintan's Abu Bakar al-Sadiq brigade, had been patrolling the vast southern desert of Libya for more than a month when it was given a tip-off late last week that Saif al-Islam was close to the town of Obari."We knew it was a VIP target, we did not know who," said Amur, who worked as a professor of marine biology...

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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,...

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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...

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private jets waved through customs and immigration checks

Home Secretary Theresa May (Pic:PA)THERESA May was fighting for her job last night after damning new documents fuelled the scandal of lax security at our borders.Advertisement >>Leaked emails showed that thousands of private jet passengers were allowed into the UK without going through immigration or customs.They also revealed the Home Secretary relaxed checks at airports on at least 2,500 occasions this summer.And the Mirror can reveal passport applications are being secretly subjected to a controversial new “postcode lottery” trial scheme.The High Risk Applications scheme is based on fraud statistics. Staff were given a list of postcodes...

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jailed for 30 years for gunning down a rival drug dealer outside Wandsworth Prison in South London

Last week Rupert Ross, son of a Kings Road boutique owner, was jailed for 30 years for gunning down a rival drug dealer outside Wandsworth Prison in South London. In the days that followed the killing – with the police on his trail and his best friend already dead in a revenge shooting – 30-year-old Ross befriended investigative journalist Wensley Clarkson and in a series of videotaped interviews talked about the murder, his privileged background and the terrifying world of drugs, guns and gangs.Holding court: Waring a T-shirt for his interview with Wensley Clarkson, Rupert Ross seemed since but described the gang world with cold relishOn the...

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woman from Valletta was today jailed for two years and three months after she admitted to smuggling 12 pieces of cannabis grass hidden in dates into prison

A 27-year-old woman from Valletta was today jailed for two years and three months after she admitted to smuggling 12 pieces of cannabis grass hidden in dates into prison last Sunday.Miriam Caruana, who was taking the drugs to her Arab boyfriend who is an inmate, also admitted to conspiring to smuggle drugs, aggravated possession of cannabis and committing the crime within a 100 metres of a youth club.She pleaded guilty to relapsing and committing the crime during the operative period of a suspended jail term.Magistrate Doreen Clarke jailed Ms Cremona two years for this crime and brought into force a three month suspended jail term.Police inspector...

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Work to build the new terminal on the Gibraltar side of the border is practically complete

The joint use of the airport was agreed back in 2006The Gibraltar border - EFE The Gibraltar Government has met its obligations under the Tripartite Agreement made with the UK and Spain in Córdoba in September 2006 regarding joint use of the airport.Work to build the new terminal on the Gibraltar side of the border is practically complete with just a freight warehouse still under construction along with facilities for private planes.But on the Spanish side there is still a lack of agreement between AENA, the Spanish Airports Authority, and the La Línea de la Concepción Town Hall on the concession of the land which will allow the construction...

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