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.

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TWO families are rejoicing after two men held in a Spanish prison were set free after four-and-a-half months

 

Kyle Thain, 24, and James Harris, 29, have been released on bail from Font Calent jail in Alicante.

This has left family members and friends overwhelmed – and they haven’t given up hope of getting them back to Britain for Christmas.

Kyle’s brother Jay, 29, said: “This is the best I have felt in a long while. It’'s amazing news.”

Sharon Harris, 56, Kyle’s mother, and husband Dave, 58, sold their Southend home to help fund the legal fight.

Yesterday, £8,000 was transferred to Spain for each of the lads’ bail.

Kyle of Sandringham Road, Southend, and James, of Pelham Road, Southend, have been held without charge since July 8. They are accused of attempted murder after two men were stabbed during a bar brawl near Alicante, close to where they were staying on a lads’ weekend away. They were arrested as they went to board the flight home.

The two pals have always maintained their innocence and insist they did not even set foot in the bar where the violence took place. Their families are convinced there has been a terrible case of mistaken identity.

Kyle and James are now due to leave prison today once funds have cleared. Jay and Sharon will fly out tomorrow where they will be reunited with Kyle and James who will stay with James’s mother Kate Burgess who has been in Spain since their arrest.

The decision on bail was finally made after a judge was presented with evidence that has been available all along.

Jay said a previous solicitor had told a judge that Kyle and James had pictures of them at their apartment around the time of the bar fight.

The new solicitor apparently put the time and date stamped pictures in front of the judge and said they convinced him it was sufficient evidence to at least release Kyle and James from jail.

A previous bail application in September was denied earlier this month and Kyle’s mum Sharon said she was beginning to prepare for Christmas being a “non-event”.

But now the two families are looking forward to trying to clear the names of Kyle and James once and for all.

Jay, also of Sandringham Road, added: “This is a really positive step in the right direction.

“The aim is to try and get them bail to the UK and to continue fighting for the case to be dropped completely.”

Since Kyle and James were arrested family and friends in south Essex have rallied in support with fundraising events netting thousands of pounds for the legal fight.

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Spanish savings bank directors suspected of fraud

 

Spanish savings bank has fired two directors and is investigating two former executives for allegedly syphoning off €20 million ($26.5 million) into secret pension funds, the bank said Saturday. The board of directors of Caixa Penedes bank had "required the departure" of its president, Ricard Pages, and director general Manuel Troyano. It said both men had agreed to leave, the bank said in a statement. The decision comes after state prosecutor for the northeastern region of Catalonia, Teresa Compte, said her office was investigating all four on suspicion of involvement in illegal activity. Regional newspaper La Vanguardia said the case was the first time prosecutors had investigated senior executives for "criminal responsibility" in their handling of a savings bank. The prosecutor named the other two former executives as Joan Caellas and Jaume Jorba. Caixa Penedes along with partners Cajamurcia, CajaGRANADA and SA NOSTRA owns Banco Mare Nostrum, S.A. (BMN). The group received €916 million ($1.21 billion) in restructuring aid from the Bank of Spain's Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB). The fund was set up to aid institutions meet higher reserve requirements and is aimed at strengthening their finances and quelling fears that Spain might be Europe's next country to need a bailout. Caixa Penedes said its board "disapproved of the content, method, lack of transparency, unusual nature and disproportionate size" of the remuneration package the four directors had helped themselves to. The pension funds were set up in another institution without the knowledge of Caixa Penedes's board. Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, spokesman for trade union Comisiones Obreras said that if the money could be recovered it could help offset the €45 million ($59.53 million) in wage bill savings BMN had recently said it would seek from its work force. He said many BMN employees are members of Comisiones Obreras. The investigation comes as Spain is burdened with an unemployment rate of 21.5 percent — nearly 5 million people out of work — the eurozone's highest. The country's borrowing costs have also risen to an almost unsustainable level of 7 percent interest rate on 10-year bonds. An auction of 12- and 18-month bonds last week also went badly, with Spain forced to offer very high interest rates to investors.

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A woman claiming to be the ex-wife of Colonel Gaddafi's captured son Saif al-Islam has emerged in Ukraine with extraordinary stories alleging domestic violence and womanising.

Nadia, a blue-eyed brunette claims to have met him when she worked as a stripper in a top Moscow nightclub, and says she is currently in hiding, fearing for her life.

She claimed that as she prepared for marriage to Saif, she had to fly to Paris to have an operation to 'restore' her virginity. '

'The doctor proved my innocence in the presence of Saif's aunt. Then I embraced Islam,' she added.

'I tried to have a normal family, but Saif wanted to live as a single man with lovers and orgies,' she said in a Ukrainian newspaper interview.

While there is no proof of her claim of have married and divorced Saif after two years, her claim appears to be taken seriously in Russia and Ukraine.

If she is who she says, she could be a key witness at his trial whether it is in Libya or under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

One aspect of his trial is likely to be his alleged friendship with a number of prominent British figures, including Prince Andrew, Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson.

High life: Nadia claims playboy Saif loved luxury and money and was a womaniser. He is pictured here at the Viennese Opera Ball in 2006

'Our house looked like more as bordello: a lot of his friends and a lot of women,' she said.

'We got married under religious traditions, I embraced Islam for that, but nobody treated me as the mistress of the house.

'There was no respect at all. My husband tried to make me a submissive Eastern woman, and I couldn't stand that attitude.

 

 

'That broke me, ate me from inside. And what's more important, Saif took drugs and he couldn't control himself when he was under narcotics.

 

 

 

'He had certain sexual perversions in sex, for example, he liked to do it in public. I understood that we couldn't live together.'

Nadia, who is believed to be 29, claimed that their relationship ended after a furious row in a restaurant which culminated with him beating her and throwing her out of a window but she miraculously survived.

She claimed she was in a coma for 47 days, and that Gaddafi - who acknowledged her but never started a conversation with her - was outraged by his son's behaviour.

Gaddafi was known to have employed Ukrainian nurses in his medical team, but until now it was not known his second son has a wife from the former Soviet country.

Arrested: Sair al-Islam Gaddafi sitting with his captors in Obari airport on Saturday

Of Gaddafi himself she said: 'About me being in hospital, he was in a fury. He kicked Saif away to the desert. It could spoil the reputation of the family that was already not so clean.'

She left Libya and returned to Moscow. 'The last time he came was in 2008, and he suggested that we lived together again ~ but I was cold to him by that time.'

Nadia said she was working in Moscow until 2010 but a mutual friend then told her to disappear or she could face danger.

She claimed that Saif could not have replaced his father. 'He was afraid of his father, as of fire. And Gaddafi, I think, despised him for internal weaknesses.'

The fall: Saif al-Islam sits after his capture, with his fingers wrapped in bandages and his legs covered with a blanket, at an undisclosed location

Playboy Saif loved luxury and money. She said: 'He was cheating on me all the time.'

Nadia - it is not known if this is her real name - is apparently in hiding in the Crimea where she says she is fearful of his enemies. 'I don't know any secrets, but still I'm scared,' she said.

She claims not to be rich but for Saif 'it was all in a day's work to spend $20,000 (USD) at a restaurant.

'When we separated I had only luxurious earrings which I managed to sell for $1million. I lived in Moscow on this money. Now almost nothing is left.'

Her most recent interview was with Ukrainian paper Respubika. It was made shortly before his capture.

'I thought Saif would turn my life into an Eastern fairytale,' she said. 'It didn't work.'

 

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Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you

 

Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it. So runs the slogan. Would you? Here's interim (that's reassuring) chief executive Sam Weihagen doing his safe-as-houses routine: "It's business as usual. We are trading within all our covenants. We have all the protection in place like any other travel company, and customers should not worry at all." Well, not quite like any other travel company. Thomas Cook of course holds an Air Travel Organisers' Licence from the Civil Aviation Authority which means customers should get their money back in the event of calamity. But the simple fear of being stranded a week after passengers of Austria's Comtel Air had to bribe pilots with £20,000 just to return to Birmingham is bound to unsettle would-be customers. There's a circle at work here and it is vicious. Given the choice between a similarly priced holiday with Thomas Cook or, say, Thomson, why would you risk the former? To counteract this, Thomas Cook might have to slash prices. That will eat into margins, cut profits and put banking covenants at risk. It might very quickly find it needs to borrow even more money. The company insists: "This is a robust business that has a strong future". We'll see.

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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 drinking whisky as well. An empty whisky bottle was found in the boot of the car. "At the time of the collision he was heavily under the influence of alcohol. His ability to drive would have been severely impaired." Pless was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving after the jury heard he left her dead in the road in Wyberton Fen, Lincs. He was told he faces a long jail term. The judge also called for his deportation.

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Thomas Cook is running low on cash and has begun talks with its banks

Thomas Cook planes parked at Munich airport last year. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images

Thomas Cook is running low on cash and has begun talks with its banks, in an effort to increase its borrowings to tide it over the slow Christmas season.

Shares in the tour operator fell by more than three quarters on Tuesday morning after it admitted that trading has "deteriorated" in recent months. It is now seeking to borrow more in the short term, and has postponed the publication of its financial results until the talks are concluded.

Shares in the company, which abruptly lost its chief executive three months ago, tumbled by more than 75% to 9.3p at one stage.

Tour operators tend to run low on cash in the slower winter months, but even so, the news stunned the City. Only last month, Thomas Cook said it had agreed a further £100m in short-term funding from its banks explicitly for the winter lull.

A spokeswoman said that discussions with banks were merely a "prudent" and "pro-active" move. Thomas Cook still has cash in the bank, she said, but wants to be prepared for any unexpected shocks over Christmas. All customer orders are protected by the ATOL protection scheme and equivalent programmes, she added. "Thomas Cook still has cash on the balance sheet, but because conditions have deteriorated further [since October], particularly around trading, some of that extra funding has been used up. Thomas Cook feels it needs more headroom to be prudent," she said.

Interim CEO Sam Weihagen added: "It's business as usual. We are trading within all out business, and financial, covenants, we have all the protection in place like any other travel company, and customers should not worry at all."

The company is seeking roughly £100m more in its latest talks. It made the decision to renew talks with banks on financing after realising the scale of the recent downturn in an internal trading update meeting yesterday.

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Chicago cops accused of working for Latin Kings held without bond

 

Two Chicago police officers accused of committing armed robberies at the will of alleged Latin King members were ordered held without bond Monday. Alex Guerrero, 41, and Antonio C. Martinez Jr., 40, were the ones in handcuffs Monday afternoon, appearing before a federal judge in orange Porter County jumpsuits. The duo were named in a 46-page indictment unsealed Friday that alleges a racketeering conspiracy among fifteen Latin King gang members or associates. Guerrero's attorney, Kevin Milner, fought for his client to be on home detention. He said his clients' parents offered to put up their $175,000 Chicago home for their son's pretrial release. "For Mr. Guerrero to violate his bond, his parents would be on the street homeless," Milner said. "I've known Mr. Guerrero for 15 years. He would rather slit his wrists than do that to his parents." Milner claimed there was no evidence against Guerrero, and that the father of six had no criminal record. According to the indictment, Guerrero and Martinez Jr., committed armed robberies of drug dealers in Illinois and Indiana while in uniform and under the guise of performing legitimate police operations. They allegedly turned over the drugs and money to the Latin Kings in exchange for about $10,000 in kickbacks. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Nozick argued that Guerrero and Martinez were dangers to the community after using Chicago police vehicles, service weapons and uniforms to rob people at gunpoint. Nozick also said Guerrero was a flight risk, as his wife has family in Mexico and he faces up to life in prison.  Magistrate Judge Andrew Rodovich ordered Guerrero held without bond. Milner said they were disappointed with the decision, and that his client would be sitting in jail for at least a year pending trial for a crime he did not commit.  "I don't know who will give him that year back," Milner said. Martinez Jr., did not contest being held pending trial.

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Police on the Costa del Sol were yesterday hunting a gang who stole £1million of cocaine from a warehouse where authorities held seized drugs before destroying them.

Police on the Costa del Sol were yesterday hunting a gang who stole £1million of cocaine from a warehouse where authorities held seized drugs before destroying them.

The thieves used laser equipment to cut through the metal doors of the store in the docks at Malaga, the capital of the southern Spanish holiday coast. 

They struck when there were no security guards on duty and  it had been left to the paramilitary Civil Guard to watch the building.

The drugs were being stored in a warehouse in Malaga when the thieves struck

 

Drugs seized by police and customs are stored there for tests to be carried-out before the courts issue orders to destroy them.

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Prison for man who left €5,000 bill at Marbella hotel

 

A MAN has been sentenced to a year in prison for failing to pay a bill of more than €5,438 at a luxury Marbella hotel. He had been staying at the Marbella Club on the Golden Mile for a week in September 2003 and during the stay, used different services which amounted to €5,438, which he left without paying. The hotel made a formal complaint but the trial wasn’t held until this year mainly due to difficulties locating the man. He admitted that he has stayed at the hotel but had refused to pay the bill because he thought it excessive for the services he had received. His lawyer maintained that he attempted to reach an agreement with the hotel, which the manager claims that he had shown no intention of paying, and that until the day of the trial, when he handed in €3,349, he hadn’t received any money from him. The judge considered that the man had intended to commit fraud and he was sentenced to two years in prison and the payment of the bill plus interests. He appealed, and Malaga Provincial Court, although maintaining that he intended to commit fraud, reduced the sentence by one year because he had attempted to repair some of the damage by bringing a large part of the money he owed to the trial to give to the hotel.

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Gang targets wealthy diners

 

Diners at some of the city's most popular restaurants had their credit card details stolen by waiters working for gangs, who targeted customers with American Express black cards, then spent millions of dollars on expensive clothes and vintage wine, it is alleged. The cards of wealthy customers at Smith & Wollensky, the Capital Grille and Wolfgang's Steakhouse restaurants were allegedly "skimmed" and used to buy Rolex watches, Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel handbags. Almost 30 people have been charged with crimes, including racketeering, conspiracy and grand larceny, after the alleged fraud ring was broken by police in Manhattan. Seven waiters at the restaurants are alleged by prosecutors to have been recruited by Luis Damian "D.J." Jacas, the 41-year-old alleged ringleader, and equipped with card-copying devices. They were instructed to focus on customers with premium credit cards, including the American Express black card, so that expensive purchases would not trigger alerts to customers. "The thieves were very selective, waiting until they were handed cards with extremely high or unlimited credit," said Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance.

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Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart supermarket fortune and the the 10th richest woman in the United States, opened a spectacular fine art museum in her home town

Architect Moshe Safdie looks out of a window next to a large red untitled magnifying disk sculpture by artist Fred Eversley at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Photograph: Danny Johnston/AP

When Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart supermarket fortune and the the 10th richest woman in the United States, opened a spectacular fine art museum in her home town, she might have expected plaudits and gratitude. It hasn't quite worked out that way.

The long-awaited opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art in Walton's home town of Bentonville, Arkansas, has provoked mixed reactions. Some have celebrated the unveiling of a significant new private art institution, but many have criticised the decision to spend $1.4bn of company and family foundation money as the retail colossus cuts back its workers' benefits.

Protesters at the museum have informally joined forces with the Occupy Wall Street camps across the US and point to growing ties between the Occupy movement and established trade unions.

The museum, which opened last weekend and features a survey of American art from Benjamin West to Georgia O'Keefe, from Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol, and from Joan Mitchell to Walton Ford, has also come under criticism from within the art establishment for both inflating values and buying masterpieces from impoverished art institutions without giving local institutions a chance to match Walton's offer.

While historians point out that this is little different from 19th-century robber barons such as Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie amassing vast collections of European art and bringing it to America, the prospect of hundreds of masterpieces in rural Bentonville, two hours' drive from Tulsa, is still controversial.

Walton, at 62 the youngest of Walmart founder Sam Walton's four children, started buying specifically for the project in 2005. The Moshe Safdie-designed institution, which sits in 120 acres of dogwood trees and trails minutes from downtown Bentonville, already has 440 works on display and 800 in storage.

"We set market records for very few pieces that we purchased," says curator, David Houston. "But there is latent criticism from an east coast elite that bringing a famous painting like Thomas Eakins's [$68m] Gross Clinic to Arkansas is itself an act of cultural vandalism. We're bringing art to the public, but it's a different kind of public, and there are social and political connotations to that."

In the week since Crystal Bridges opened, it has already seen 5,000 registered visitors. "Sheer curiosity and hunger for an institution like this bears out Alice Walton's vision," Houston says.

Ben Waxman, spokesman for the union-affiliated Making Change@Walmart, said: "Opening a huge, opulent museum in the middle of nowhere while the company is cutting health insurance for its employees is troubling. It sends the message Wal-Mart doesn't care about them."

The issues of wealth distribution that have brought art into conflict with the labour movement at Crystal Bridges have also been on display at Sotheby's during the billion-dollar modern, impressionist and contemporary sales earlier this month in New York.

Since August, when Sotheby's dismissed 43 unionised art handlers, its salesrooms have been besieged by Teamsters union members, bearing an inflatable rat and a fat cat banker with a cigar in one hand and throttled worker in the other. "The company is having its most profitable year in 267 years and they locked us out in the middle of our contract," said Teamsters member Phil Cortero. "Sotheby's represents the richest people in the world. When you lose your shirt down on Wall Street you come and hock your stuff here."

Increasingly, the Teamsters are joined by Occupy Museum activists, chanting "We are the 99%!" They protest that the multimillion dollar art handled by auction houses is used to maintain and transfer the wealth of the 1%.

Outside Christie's, which is not involved in the dispute, Los Angeles property developer Eli Broad, one of America's wealthiest men, confirmed as much to the New York Times. "People would rather have art than gold or paper," he said.

OWS Labor Outreach member Mike Friedman said that Occupy had no problem with the art itself. "But at a time when we're seeing cutbacks in health and education spending, we're seeing the transfer of wealth by way of tax cuts and subsidies to an elite who use excesses of that transfer to buy these magnificent works of art."

With the end of the Zuccotti Park sit-in, Occupy says it plans to initiate focused protests against cultural institutions associated with big Wall Street donors. It has singled out Lincoln Center, home to the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and New York fashion week, which is financially supported by Tea Party funder David Koch.

Back at Crystal Bridges, Houston argues that it will take years to see the full effect of how the Walton family has used its wealth. The family foundation is active in a whole variety of charitable activities, many of them educational, he says. "Their intent is not to create a shrine to an individual or even a family. Their goal is to create a tremendous cultural resource in this part of the world."

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I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! contestant Freddie Starr has been taken to hospital after suffering a severe allergic reaction in the jungle

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant Freddie Starr has been taken to hospital after suffering a severe allergic reaction in the jungle. According to the Daily Mail, Starr started feeling sick after completing the Greasy Spoon Bushtucker trial with The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright and doctors were called to assess the 68-year old's condition. An ITV spokesman has since confirmed the comedian's illness, stating: "Freddie Starr was taken unwell in the jungle. He was immediately attended to by on-site medics and taken to hospital where he was assessed by doctors." They added: "He will remain in hospital overnight as a precaution, and further tests continue. However, Freddie is in great spirits and keeping nursing staff entertained." A show-insider Down Under also explained to the newspaper that Starr's bout of ill-health has nothing to do with his well-documented heart problems, explaining: "Doctors have told us that it’s highly unlikely that what’s happened is related to any pre-existing condition, cardiac or otherwise." "They think he’s had a severe allergic reaction, but they may not be able to pinpoint the cause. The reaction could be due to a spider bite, he might have reacted badly to a leech or a tic, or even a snake he hadn’t noticed." They continued: "He might have reacted badly to the bark of a tree he leant on, or a leaf he touched in passing. Doctors are testing all of these things. The jungle is an alien environment for most of us, but the show is always prepared for all eventualities and this is no exception." "The unpredictability of the jungle is what sets this programme apart from other shows. The element of jeopardy is always there. However, the  celebs are watched 24-hours a day by a huge team of people." The Mail's source added: "There are dozens of cameras on the celebs, as well as 24-hour security in the camp and a huge crew around them. There are also on-site medics around the clock." As for weather the gruesome bug eating task was to blame, the mole claimed: "The foods are all tested on people before they reach the celebrities." "Extreme precautions are taken and bush tucker like the cockroaches are all bred hygienically. It’s unlikely that this is the cause of his reaction, but tests are continuing and we can't rule out anything."

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant Freddie Starr has been taken to hospital after suffering a severe allergic reaction in the jungle. According to the Daily Mail, Starr started feeling sick after completing the Greasy Spoon Bushtucker trial with The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright and doctors were called to assess the 68-year old's condition. An ITV spokesman has since confirmed the comedian's illness, stating: "Freddie Starr was taken unwell in the jungle. He was immediately attended to by on-site medics and taken to hospital where he was assessed by doctors." They added: "He will remain in hospital overnight as a precaution, and further tests continue. However, Freddie is in great spirits and keeping nursing staff entertained." A show-insider Down Under also explained to the newspaper that Starr's bout of ill-health has nothing to do with his well-documented heart problems, explaining: "Doctors have told us that it’s highly unlikely that what’s happened is related to any pre-existing condition, cardiac or otherwise." "They think he’s had a severe allergic reaction, but they may not be able to pinpoint the cause. The reaction could be due to a spider bite, he might have reacted badly to a leech or a tic, or even a snake he hadn’t noticed." They continued: "He might have reacted badly to the bark of a tree he leant on, or a leaf he touched in passing. Doctors are testing all of these things. The jungle is an alien environment for most of us, but the show is always prepared for all eventualities and this is no exception." "The unpredictability of the jungle is what sets this programme apart from other shows. The element of jeopardy is always there. However, the  celebs are watched 24-hours a day by a huge team of people." The Mail's source added: "There are dozens of cameras on the celebs, as well as 24-hour security in the camp and a huge crew around them. There are also on-site medics around the clock." As for weather the gruesome bug eating task was to blame, the mole claimed: "The foods are all tested on people before they reach the celebrities." "Extreme precautions are taken and bush tucker like the cockroaches are all bred hygienically. It’s unlikely that this is the cause of his reaction, but tests are continuing and we can't rule out anything."

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Phone hacking: the names of nearly 30 News International staff appear in Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks

Phone hacking: the names of nearly 30 News International staff appear in Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks, the Leveson inquiry has heard. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The names of 28 News International employees appear in notebooks belonging to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for theNews of the World, the Leveson inquiry into press standards heard on its first day at London's high court.

 

Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry also heard that Mulcaire wrote the words "Daily Mirror" in his notepad, which suggests he may have carried out work for the paper.

 

Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, told the high court that "at least 27 other News International employees" are named in Mulcaire's paperwork, as well as former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed for phone hacking along with the private investigator in January 2007.

 

Jay also told the inquiry, which began formal hearings at the high court on Monday: "The inquiry is beginning to receive evidence to indicate that phone hacking was not limited to that organisation [News International]."

 

He said the number of News International names and the scale of the activity indicated there was a culture of phone hacking at the company. "Either management knew what was going on at the time and therefore, at the very least, condoned this illegal activity," he said, or there was "a failure of supervision and oversight".

 

Mulcaire received a total of 2,266 requests from News International journalists, Jay said, 2,142 of which were made by four unnamed reporters. The most prolific of them made 1,453 of those requests.

 

A total of 690 audio tapes were also recovered from Mulcaire's office, Jay revealed, and there was a record of 586 recordings of voicemail messages intended for 64 individuals. The evidence was seized by Metropolitan police officers during a raid in 2006.

 

Mulcaire's 11,000 pages of notes mentioned 5,795 names, he confirmed, who could be potential phone-hacking victims.

 

Jay also said the inquiry had seen documents that suggest Mulcaire was hacking into phone messages ago as early as May 2001.

 

It had been thought until today that the earliest phone hacking by Mulcaire occurred in 2002. The new date is potentially significant because it falls before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

 

It has been alleged that News International instructed private investigators in the US to target relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, although no proof has so far emerged that this took place.

 

The Sun is also named in Mulcaire's notes, Jay said. Jude Law had cited the Sun along with its former sister paper the News of the World in his civil case against News International, although the Sun has since been dropped from his claim.

 

Several public figures are believed to be preparing civil cases against the Daily Mirror, but none have so far come to court.

 

The paper's publisher, Trinity Mirror, continues to insist that its journalists operate within the law and follow the Press Complaints Commission's code of conduct.

 

A Trinity Mirror spokesman said the company has "no knowledge of ever using Glenn Mulcaire".

 

Jay said the Mulcaire notes showed a "thriving cottage industry" and the "scale of activity gives rise to the powerful inference that it must have occupied Mulcaire full time".

 

Outlining the vast remit of the inquiry, Jay described a "root and branch" investigation of the press that would not be cowed by the powerful range of institutions in the media.

 

He said the inquiry would consider granting "protected measures" to whistleblowers who were afraid of criticising their employer or speaking truthfully about press ethics.

 

The inquiry will not be limited to phone hacking, Jay said, adding that Leveson was keen to learn about all "unlawful and unethical" newsgathering methods, including subterfuge and blagging.

 

The former News of the World undercover reporter, Mazher Mahmood, has submitted written evidence and will give oral evidence to the inquiry at a later date, Jay said.

 

Opening the hearing, Leveson said he had "absolutely no wish" to stifle freedom of speech and expression, and that the inquiry would monitor media coverage to see if it appears that anyone who speaks out is being "targeted adversely".

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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!

 

 

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Sarah Harding has completed her 2-month stint in rehab

Sarah Harding's ex Calum Best is glad she got the help she needed

 

 

The Girls Aloud star, 29, was treated for alcohol abuse and depression after calling off her engagement to DJ Tom Crane, 31.

Sarah and Tom were due to marry next summer after getting engaged this New Year.

'They've been in regular contact throughout her time away but only on the phone. They've spoken most days and it seems like they could have a chance of giving it another shot,' a source tells the Sunday Mirror.

Sarah's ex Calum Best, 30, is glad that Sarah got professional help.

'Everyone has their dark times, but Sarah's strong and will come out of this period even stronger, he told us last month

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Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

 

former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described the case as an unprecedented attack on the Revenue. "The case has taken 25 man-years to investigate." Cranswick was recruited to play his role in the MTIC (missing Trader intra-community) fraud by others. Also known as carousel fraud, it involves importing goods from other EU states which are then sold through contrived business-to-business transactions. Cranswick, of Danby Road, Kiveton, Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC at a hearing last month. After the sentencing, Exchequer Secretary David Gauke said: "This Government will not tolerate dishonest people stealing public money. "This sentence shows that those who try to commit fraud need to think again - HMRC will find you and the courts will punish you. "The additional £917m we have invested in HMRC will see more cases like this successfully prosecuted, sending a clear and powerful message." The judge said the sentencing exercise was to punish the offending and deter others. "The figures in this case are astonishing, they reveal the blatant nature of the fraud," he said. Between June 2005 and February 2006, I2G supposedly carried out almost 6,000 deals, with a turnover of £2.4 billion. Sentencing Cranswick, the judge said: "You were immediately before this fraud a serving police officer. Almost unbelievably you retired from the police force and became the organiser of this fraudulent operation. "You set up the company, you clearly accepted the direction of others - the organisers who are not before this court." Outside court, HMRC said Cranswick went "from rags to riches" soon after retiring, having been heavily in debt as a police officer. A spokeswoman said: "He made lavish improvements to his home, rented a luxury apartment in the Spanish town of Marbella and paid for private schooling and tennis lessons for his children. "Cranswick claimed that in the first six weeks of trading Ideas 2 Go had turned over more than £527 million. "The company had traded over £47 million before they even got round to opening a bank account for the business." HMRC assistant director for criminal investigation Paul Rooney said: "As a police officer Cranswick knew full well that he was breaking the law, yet, motivated by greed, he chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money. "He now has to pay a very high price for his poor judgment and lack of integrity. "This was a sophisticated fraud designed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds of tax, but it started to unravel when our investigations identified sales for more than 50,000 mobile phones, which the manufacturers hadn't even begun producing in their factories." Cranswick nodded as the judge passed sentence, and gestured to members of his family in the public gallery as he was led away. Also sentenced after admitting conspiracy to cheat the Revenue were Thomas Murphy, 27, of Dinnington, who was jailed for four and a half years; Cranswick's brother-in-law, Darren Smyth, 42, from Beech Road, Maltby, and Brian Olive, 56, from Buttermere Close, Doncaster, who were sentenced to three years and four months each; and former housing officer Andrew Marsh, 28, from Sheffield, who was jailed for two years and eight months. Cranswick's 44-year-old sister, Clare Reid, married to Smyth, was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work after admitting two counts of false accounting. Cranswick styled himself as a singer-songwriter and can be seen on his website strumming a guitar to a song called Hit And Miss with the opening lines: "I'm in trouble, falling down a hole. How I got here, I won't ever know." He was lead singer with an indie band called Not The Police.

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BOTTOM five most hated airports

5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines

 

Wear a helmet -- the first collapsed ceiling in 2006 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility, NAIA brings the term “Stuck in the 1970s” to a new level.

 

At Terminal 1 all non-Philippine Airlines remain crammed despite serious overcapacity issues and a new and underused Terminal 3 is occupied by a few minor carriers. 

A rash of bad press this year (including a “Worst in the World” ribbon from Sleeping in Airports) was capped by a collapsed ceiling in T1, a paralyzing ground service strike at T2, and the usual charges of tampered luggage, filthy restrooms, seat shortages at gates, re-sealed water bottles sold in retail shops and an Amazing Race-style check-in routine spiked with bureaucracy, broken escalators, lengthy Dot Matrix passenger lists and creative airport departure fees. 

Read more on CNNGo: World's busiest airports announced

4. Toncontín International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

 

Over-priced corn chips will be the least of your worries.

When do the most common airport gripes about inefficiency, uncomfortable gate chairs, dirty floors and lousy dining options suddenly become irrelevant? When you’re preoccupied about whether your 757 will actually be able to stop before the runway does. 

 

Nestled in a bowl-shaped valley at 957 meters above sea level, Toncontín’s notoriously stubby, mountain-cloaked landing strip was recently lengthened another 300 meters following a fatal TACA aircraft overshoot in 2008.

Not enough though to avoid being named the “second most dangerous airport in the world” by the History Channel. 

Nepal’s hair-raising Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Himalayas is the top seed, but receives fewer gripes from its thrill-seeking Everest-bound clientele.

Read more on CNNGo: Shanghai Pudong International Airport: Fifth best in the world

3. London Heathrow, London, England

 

"You'll fly through departures -- at the speed of a penguin."

Depending on which of Heathrow’s five terminals one is funneled through, the average experience at the world’s third-busiest airport ranges from mildly tedious to "Fawlty Towers" ridiculous. 

 

With its rash of -- as they were politely called -- “teething problems” in bright and airy T5 (remember that riotous grand opening with 34 canceled flights?) and nicely matured problems in Ts 1, 2 and 3, the issues passengers are beset with run the gamut.

Parking messes. Busted baggage carousels. Deadlocked security lines. Long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of “last call” announcements. Realizations that getting out of Heathrow took longer than actually flying here from Madrid. 

In the airport “where the world changes planes,” it all boils down to a chronic inability to cope with this many people. Plans for a sixth terminal should help sever even more nerves.

2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States

 

It's not even a good spot for celebrity sightings.

If the world’s seventh-busiest flight hub was an old ballpark resting on the stale reputation of its Dodger Dogs and that great 1959 series, LAX might have some endearment value. 

 

But it’s an airport -- a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility and several publicized concerns about how its 1,700 takeoffs and landings a day can be sustained in a facility a fifth the size of healthier cousins like Dallas/Fort Worth. 

The unsupportive donut-shaped design -- it’s been called “eight terminals connected by a traffic jam” -- makes dashing between airlines feel like a diesel-scented cardio test. 

Plunked in the middle is the airport’s landmark Jetsons-style restaurant and only mentionable amenity, Encounter, but how does one actually get inside this place -- at least before being nailed for a petty traffic violation by some of the most ticket-hungry airport cops west of the Mississippi?

Read more on CNNGo: World's most terrifying airports

1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France

 

Don't expect to make friends during a storm closure.

“A great country worthy of the name,” President Charles de Gaulle once opined, “does not have any friends.” 

 

True or not, it’s this sort of attitude that has helped CDG become the most maligned major airport on earth. What’s fueling it? 

Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafés.

The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue. 

The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one commuter, “is like being in custody.”  

If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.

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