Mickeys

A skydiver has survived plunging 3,000ft to the ground after a parachute jump went disastrously wrong.

Lareece Butler Picture from Lareece Butler's Facebook page

Lareece Butler, 26, suffered only bruises, a broken leg and concussion when she slammed into the ground, entangled in her chute.

The parachute was attached to the plane by a static line and was supposed to open after she leapt from the aircraft.

But instead, Miss Butler became caught up in the lines, spiralling to Earth as her terrified boyfriend looked helplessly on.

Doctors said her survival was “nothing but divine intervention, nothing short of a miracle”.

She is in a stable but serious condition in hospital following the incident in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Joos Vos, the manager of the EP Skydiving Club, said: “She was trained in all facets she needed to enjoy and perform a safe static line jump.

“Lareece exited the aircraft at 3,000ft (about 1,000m) performing a static line jump in an unstable body position which resulted in an entanglement of the main parachute with her harness.”

Family members told South African media Miss Butler was pushed out of the aircraft after refusing to jump – a claim rejected by the club.

Mr Vos said Miss Butler, who was an inexperienced skydiver, did not release her emergency parachute as she had been trained to do.

An investigation has been launched.

story from SkyNews

Secret letters that could prove Dr Crippen’s innocence may explain the Government’s refusual to allow the executed killer’s exhumation, according to the family’s lawyer.

This waxwork model of Dr Crippen was photographed in 1913

Hawley Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison for the murder of his wife Belle 100 years ago.

Buried with him in his unconsecrated jail grave were letters from his mistress Ethel Le Neve, who was acquitted of being an accessory to his crime.

“Is there something in those letters that the authorities fear?” asked lawyer Giovanni di Stefano.

Mr di Stefano is asking the High Court for a judicial review of two recent legal decisions.

The Ministry of Justice has refused to let Crippen’s body be exhumed and repatriated to his native United States.

And the Criminal Cases Review Commission has turned down an application for an appeal against Crippen’s conviction.

Both organisations appear to argue that the man driving the two bids – second-cousin-three-times-removed James Crippen – is too remote a relative to have a genuine interest.

Mr di Stefano said: “The concept that a man executed 100 years ago cannot be exhumed and given a proper burial is frankly absurd.

“We are having to go to judicial review and that will be a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

The lawyer argues that recent forensic tests in the United States suggest that the body found in Crippen’s cellar was not that of his wife, but the remains of a man.

And he warns that the old practice of burying executed prisoners in unconsecrated ground could now constitute discrimination.

story from SkyNews

Outraged parents have hit out at a school in Birmingham after pupils discovered CCTV cameras in the school’s toilets.

Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood

Youngsters at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood claim they returned from half-term to find staff had installed the cameras without notifying them or their parents.

Some parents are furious at what they say is a “total invasion of privacy” and claim some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities.

One mother whose teenage daughter attends the school is concerned the footage could fall into the wrong hands.

She told the Sunday Mercury: “She came home from school and told me security cameras had been installed in the girl’s toilets but we didn’t know anything about it.

“You would expect the school to have consulted parents first yet we received no information and no letters have been sent home explaining this decision.”

Grace Academy claims the cameras only cover the sink areas and have not yet been activated.

Privacy campaigners warn of the psychological effects of overuse of CCTV

School principal Terry Wales told Sky News: “It’s to safeguard our youngsters, many schools are using cameras now.

“We had a parents’ forum last night, we explained the arrangements and the parents were satisfied.

“We’ve found that when it comes to health and safety, children want to feel secure.”

But privacy campaigners warned about the psychological effects of the feeling of being watched, even if cameras are not switched on.

Dylan Sharpe from Big Brother Watch told Sky News: “Children are entitled to privacy like anyone else.

“We’re raising a generation of children accustomed to being constantly watched and monitored, whether cameras are switched on or not.”

Grace Academy already has 26 CCTV cameras watching other parts of the school.

The incident is the latest row to erupt between schools and parents who are concerned about safeguarding their children’s privacy.

Last year police were called to a school in Salford after parents were horrified to discover children had been filmed changing into their PE kit.

Although the footage was not misused, police seized the film after negotiating with the school.

In 2007 it was revealed schools had fingerprinted thousands of primary school children without their parent’s consent.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families later ruled that if schools want to obtain and store biometric data from children, consent is not required from parents.

story from SkyNews

A motorcycle gang has done a smash and grab on a London jeweller, making off with fistfuls of gems and watches in the middle of the day.

A motorcycle gang smashes the window of a West End jewellers in broad daylight and makes off with gems worth £50,000 each.

Five bikers mounted the pavement and screeched to a halt outside Mappin & Webb’s Piccadilly store in the West End.

They boldly spent five minutes beating through the reinforced glass windows with a sledgehammer and helping themselves to the goods, worth at least £50,000.

And when astonished passers-by stopped to look, the gang members drove their bikes at them to ward them off.

When the glass broke, it set off the store’s alarm system and poured anti-theft smoke out of the shop.

Amazingly, one man walked right past the robbers as if nothing was happening just as one of the group was leaning into the window and swiping jewels from the display.

The gang then sped off. They have not yet been traced by police.

Forensic officers and police examining the scene have cordoned off a large section of Old Bond Street, famed for its expensive jewellers.

The small holes demonstrate the strength of the reinforced glass

The same jeweller’s Regent Street store was raided at least three times in 2008. In one attack a Vauxhall Vectra was driven through the front doors and security gates.

In 2006 two teenagers were jailed after stealing goods worth about £26,000 from Mappin & Webb in Fenchurch Street.

The business holds two royal warrants and acts as silversmith to the Queen and Prince Charles.

The groups of thieves previously responsible have been dubbed “Fagin’s Kitchen” gangs after police discovered some members were aged in their early teens.

story from SkyNews

Pretoria – With only 93 days to go before the start of the 2010 World Cup, residents of Mamelodi-East near Pretoria during violent protests on Tuesday threatened to disrupt the tournament.

They are demanding that the government immediately supply them with houses, electricity, running water and flushing toilets.

“If the government could spend millions of rands and prepare for the World Cup so quickly, it’s a disgrace that people are still living in squalor in squatter camps,” Vusi Nkosi, a resident, said on Tuesday.

A schoolgirl armed with stones walks towards a police vehicle in Tsamayaweg, Mamelodi-East.

“The soccer means nothing to us because we won’t be able to watch it anyway, since we don’t have electricity.

“This time we will fight and toyi-toyi like the ANC taught us.”

Over 6 000 people live in seven squatter camps in close proximity to each other in Mamelodi-East.

Riotous residents have been blockading Tsamaya Road, Hector Peterson Street and Hans Strijdom Avenue with burning tyres and rubbish since 20:00 on Monday.

On Tuesday the police repeatedly tried to disperse the crowd by firing rubber bullets at them and firing live rounds in the air.

Several people were hit by rubber bullets.

Johannes Maheso, police spokesperson, said four men were arrested.

This protest followed similar demonstrations in Hammanskraal, Soshanguve and Brits.

Veronica Mphahlele, a community leader, said the government promised in 2000 that they would be given permanent houses and land of their own.

“It’s 10 years later and we’re still in the same position. All they do is send police to come and shoot at us.”

The residents are accusing council members, the police and the metro police of illegally selling land and houses intended for the poor to enrich themselves.

(continue reading…)

An American man is claiming R12.6m from the Monateng Safari Lodge outside Pretoria after he fell on a wet stoep.

US citizen Michael Francis Klesh walks with a stick to the North Gauteng Court in Pretoria.

Michael Francis Klesh, 55, a marketing specialist, says in his court documents that he fractured a vertebra and broke his left wrist. He was supposedly in shock for three to four months.

He is claiming R12 627 650 from Monateng after he fell outside his accommodation unit on the afternoon of January 19 2008.

Klesh alleges there wasn’t sufficient protection from rain water on the stoep and that there was no warning that the tiles might be slippery or dangerous when they’re wet.

Morris Baslian, Klesh’s legal representative, said Klesh and the defendant reached a verbal agreement when Klesh booked his accommodation by phone on January 10 2008.

When he arrived on January 14, he was given a piece of paper to sign “which is at best an offer and not a contract”.

The receptionist said the document was a “mere formality”.

Baslian said the defendant is relying on the indemnity clause in that document, which was not a condition of the original agreement (when Klesh made his booking).

The indemnity clause is also “hidden” in the document.

At the bottom of the document the signatory agrees to abide by Monateng’s rules and regulations, and gives consent for their vehicle to be searched.

Baslian said the indemnity clause should have been pointed out to the signatory.

Since the receptionist said the document is merely a formality, Klesh had no reason to suspect or believe that it would contain any conditions.

(continue reading…)

Since he was elected president of the ANC Youth League two years ago, Julius Malema has apparently not paid any tax.

Julius Malema

In addition, not one of the four companies of which he was still a registered director and shareholder, complied with tax regulations.

It also transpired that his engineering company SGL at the end of last year was awarded an additional 13 contracts by the Polokwane municipality.

This was apart from the tenders of more than R140m that SGL received from another eight municipalities in Limpopo between 2007 and 2009.

An inquiry last month found that construction on all of these contracts was extremely shoddy or never completed.

ID leader Patricia De Lille learned confidentially that Malema’s companies also had not received certificates to verify that their tax matters were in order.

City Press apparently learned that the SA Revenue Service has appointed a senior investigation team to look into Malema’s affairs.

Malema recently said that Sars was welcome to investigate him and said he was being targeted.

taken from News24

Supermodel Naomi Campbell says she wants to move on from an incident in which she was accused of assaulting a chauffeur after he said he regretted involving the police.

Campbell says she will not be 'held hostage to her past'

New York City driver Miodrag Mejdina had told police that Campbell hit him from behind as she sat in the back seat of a luxury 4×4.

He claimed his head struck the steering wheel of the black Cadillac Escalade.

But now he has said through his lawyer that he got “angry and over-reacted”, the incident was “blown out of proportion” and he wanted to apologise to Campbell “for causing that to happen”.

He is not pressing charges.

Campbell, 39, issued a statement, saying: “On Tuesday, March 2, I was accused of unacceptable behaviour towards a driver in New York.

“I have worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I will not be held hostage to my past.

“I try to treat everyone with respect and I am pleased the driver has apologised. I would like to put the last few days behind me and move on.”

The catwalk diva has faced a series of lawsuits and criminal cases including accusations of attacking household employees and two police officers at London’s Heathrow airport.

taken from SkyNews

More than 1,000 people have been trapped on two passenger ferries and two cargo ships stuck in ice in the Baltic Sea off Sweden’s east coast.

The vessels, which were among about 50 ships stuck firm – some for several days – in the thick Baltic ice, have now been freed.

The Swedish Maritime Administration and ice-breaking vessels mounted a rescue but were unable to reach the vessels immediately because of gale-force winds around the Stockholm archipelago and the Finnish island of Aland.

Speaking before the ships were freed from the ice, Peter Lindquist, spokesman for the rescuers, said: “As soon as they break the ice, it freezes over again.”

Helicopters and military hovercraft had been on standby in case rescuers needed to evacuate the vessels.

The cruise ships involved have been named as the Amorella, a passenger ferry with 943 people on board, the smaller Via Mare ferry carrying 66 people, the roll-on-roll-off ferry Sea Wind with 32 people and the Regal Star, a cargo ship with 56 people on board.

Two other ferries that got stuck in the ice were able to break free earlier.

“It has been a lot colder than normal in the southern parts of the Baltic sea, but in the north all is normal with normal levels of ice,” Tommy Gardebring of the Maritime Search and Rescue Centre in Gothenburg said.

“However, in the worst-affected areas, the ice breakers that normally operate haven’t been able to cope with the ice…”

taken from SkyNews

Police are quizzing six people over the kidnap of a five-year-old British boy in Pakistan and believe he will be returned safely within hours, Sky News has been told.

Sahil's mother Akila Naqqash at her home in Oldham

One of those being questioned is a taxi driver booked to take Sahil Saeed and his father Raja Naqqash Saeed to the airport ahead of their return to the UK.

Sky’ Asia correspondent Alex Crawford said she believed mobile phones stolen by the kidnappers may have been traced by officers.

She added that it was well known that police in Pakistan had a “reputation for brutality” and had been implicated in previous kidnappings.

Sahil, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was taken from his grandmother’s house in the Punjab region on Thursday morning by men wielding guns and grenades.

The attackers subjected the family to a six-hour ordeal and are said to have demanded a £100,000 ransom for the boy’s return.

Pakistani police investigator Raja Tahir Bashir said officers were working on leads.

“God willing, we will recover the boy very soon,” he said, declining to give further details.

Crawford said Pakistani police carried out a series of raids during the night.

“Five men were arrested overnight from different parts of Jehlum and there’s a suggestion that they have some links or at least know the kidnappers.

“That’s on top of a sixth man, a taxi driver, the man who was booked by Raja Naqqash Saeed to pick them up from the house in Jehlum and take them to the airport.”

Referring to corruption in the police in Pakistan she added: “The Punjab police are known for their brutality.

“There’s a level of corruption, not only in the Punjab police but also throughout the entire Pakistan police authority.

(continue reading…)

Vineyards under threat from government-controlled mining company.

Government-controlled mining company, African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC) (Ltd) has applied to the Department of Mineral Resources for the right to explore several areas of both Stellenbosch and Tygerberg for ore.

Some of the main wineries likely to be affected include Jordan Estate, Mooiplaas, Zevenwacht and De Grendel and the area concerned also covers a great deal of the Bottelary Hills Renosterbos Conservancy as well. Tielman Roos, owner of Mooiplaas and the chairperson of the Bottelary conservancy area, said he was concerned about the application from an ecological and tourism point of view, whilst George Sieraha, chairman of the Durbanville Community Forum, expressed the fear that the application was an attempt to expropriate land for low-cost housing by stealth.

In a statement issued yesterday, chairman of the prestigious Cape Winemakers Guild, Johan Malan from Simonsig, was strongly opposed to any such development at all. He pointed out that not only would the proposed mining activities destroy the UNESCO registered Bottelary Hills Renosterbos Conservancy and the vineyards that attract large numbers of tourists to South Africa every year; it would also result in the loss of employment and income for a great many families working on the wine farms in these areas.

Malan goes on to say ‘Pristine and unique terroir coupled with great winemaking skills are the usual credentials for great wines and mining in the winelands will damage the reputation of South African wines in the international market. The long term benefits of protecting the natural beauty of the winelands will far outweigh the short term advantages of mining.’

Gary Jordan, whose farm is one of those threatened by the proposed exploration, has set up a Facebook page Stop Mining Our Winelands to garner support and share information. All protests and comments from interested and affected parties must be registered by 9th March 2010 and all information on how to do so is available on the page.

taken from News24

South Africa is in danger of becoming a major hub for drug trafficking, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Thursday.

The office’s Jonathan Lucas said at the release of the International Narcotics Control Board’s annual report: “West African syndicates had recently become major drug traffickers after Central American cartels began using them due to difficulty with their traditional routes.

“Increased surveillance on traditional routes had made them become unprofitable.”

He said if these new routes through West Africa were successfully dealt with by the authorities, Central American cartels would again look for other alternatives.

“When they are diverted, will they come to South Africa? Maybe.”

There was also a danger the 2010 World Cup would worsen drug trafficking.

Law enforcement and customs officials would be under pressure due to massive tourist inflows during the tournament.

Central Drug Authority deputy chairperson David Bayever said: “We are aware it is going to be a big problem for us.”

He described trafficking cartels as “well-researched guys that know where the loopholes are”.

Despite these threats, SA’s drug problem remained primarily a domestic one, with alcohol and dagga use being well above global averages.

“Cannabis use was three times the global average in South Africa and its alcohol consumption put it in the top 10 of countries.”

Bayever said drugs and substance abuse problems were the underlying causes of such ills as HIV/Aids, violence and crime.

“It is not the result of these problems, but the cause of them. In order to deal with these problems we need to handle substance abuse.”

Most of South Africa’s cannabis was grown in Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa, said the office’s national co-ordinator Johan Kruger. The region was actually a net exporter of cannabis to other countries.

Bayever said an additional problem would be the extension of school holidays during the World Cup. In addition to being at risk for substance abuse, children may also be lured into prostitution.

“Our youth are going to be on holiday and they are going to be targeted to become prostitutes,” said Bayever.

taken from News24

Today is Friday, March 5, the 64th day of 2010. There are 301 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

• 1496 – England’s King Henry VII commissions John and Sebastian Cabot to discover new lands.
• 1684 – Holy League of Linz is formed by Holy Roman Empire, Poland and Venice against the Turks.
• 1770 – Crowds and British troops clash in Boston, an incident that becomes known as the Boston Massacre and hastens American Revolutionary War.
• 1798 – French forces occupy Bern, Switzerland.
• 1867 – An abortive Fenian uprising against English rule takes place in Ireland.
• 1868 – US Senate is organised into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson.
• 1933 – The Nazi Party wins 44% of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.
• 1939 – The Republican government of Spain flees to France after their forces are cornered by the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
• 1946 – Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in United States.
• 1953 – Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dies. Some 2 000 people are crushed to death in the crowd during the funeral.
• 1960 – President Sukarno suspends Indonesia’s Parliament.
• 1962 – European extremists in Oran, Algeria, raid prison and kill several Muslim political prisoners.
• 1966 – British airliner hits Japan’s Mount Fuji, killing all 124 people aboard.
• 1970 – Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty goes into effect after 43 nations confirm ratification.
• 1974 – Ethiopia’s leader Haile Selassie, confronted by continued unrest, agrees to constitutional convention to create new system of elected democratic government.
• 1990 – South Africa sends troops to Ciskei homeland to suppress mob attacks on factories and shops after military coup there ousted authoritarian president.
• 1991 – Iraq hands over what it says are the last 35 prisoners from the Gulf War.
• 1993 – General Philippe Morillon of France, commander of the UN mission to Bosnia, goes to the city of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, and the Serbs halt their attack on the besieged city.
• 1995 – Pierre-Claver Rwangabo, the governor of Rwanda’s southern province Butare, is assassinated in an ambush. The prime minister blames soldiers of the defeated Hutu-led government living in Zaire.
• 1996 – US President Bill Clinton sends sophisticated bomb-detection equipment and technical experts to Israel to help battle a deadly wave of terrorism.
• 1997 – Representatives of North Korea and South Korea meet for the first time in 25 years, for peace talks in New York.
• 1998 – Dozens of soldiers from an elite Colombian counterinsurgency battalion are killed in a surprise attack, one of the Colombian military’s worst defeats by leftist rebels.
• 1999 – International mediators say the strategic town of Brcko in Bosnia, held by Serbs since the start of the Bosnian war, should be transferred to joint Serb, Muslim and Croat control.
• 2000 – Thirty-five years after police beat and bloodied voting rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, modern-day civil rights activists trace the same path with Bill Clinton – a white Southerner who credited that march for his rise to the presidency.
• 2001 – A stampede breaks out during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Medina, Saudi Arabia, killing 35 Muslims.
• 2002 – Boris Berezovsky, once one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, accuses the Russian Federal Security Services of perpetrating a series of bombings in Moscow in 1999 that was blamed on Chechen terrorists.
• 2003 – Foreign ministers of France and Russia threaten to veto a UN Security Council resolution by the United States, Britain and Spain that declares Iraq had missed its last chance to disarm peacefully.
• 2005 – A team of US and Ethiopian scientists discovers the fossilised remains of what they believe is humankind’s first walking ancestor, a hominid that lived in the wooded grasslands of the Horn of Africa nearly 4 million years ago.
• 2006 – At least 100 000 protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra march to the Thai leader’s office after a boisterous rally accusing him of corruption and abuse of power.
• 2007 – The UN Development Programme says that it suspended its operations in North Korea because Pyongyang failed to meet conditions set by the agency’s board following US allegations that UN aid money was being diverted to Kim Jong Il’s regime.
• 2008 – Police shoot and kill a man armed with explosives who took 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus in northern China.
• 2009 – In harsh critcism of his successors, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev likens Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party to the worst of the communists he once led and helped bring down.

Thought For Today:
More tears have been shed over men’s lack of manners than their lack of morals – Helen Hathaway, American writer (1893-1932).

info from News24

The powerful earthquake that killed hundreds of people in Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth’s axis and made days slightly shorter, a Nasa scientist has said.

Chile and the Andes mountains, as seen from Space Shuttle Columbia in 1994

Richard Gross, a research scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated how much the axis may have changed in position following the the disaster.

More than 700 people died and two million are estimated to have been affected by the 8.8-magnitude tremor and subsequent tsunamis.

The quake, the most powerful to hit the nation in 50 years, sent shockwaves out from the epicentre 70 miles from Chile’s second city, Concepcion.

Buildings and roads collapsed and 500,000 homes have been left severely damaged.

Six aid workers died when a plane carrying them to Concepcion crashed.

The team was on its way to help organise accommodation for those left homeless by the disaster.

Soldiers were sent to patrol Concepcion’s streets after mobs set fire to shops and started looting them, hindering attempts to rescue survivors.

Devastation after the Chile quake

If the planet’s axis did shift by 8cm during the quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Mr Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that is the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation.

The quake shifted the Earth’s axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude tremor off Indonesia that started the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, according to Mr Gross.

This was partly because the fault line responsible for the quake in Chile “dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake”, he said.

The different angle made Saturday’s tremor more effective at moving Earth’s mass vertically and shifting the planet’s axis, Mr Gross continued.

The 2004 quake in Asia, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused the Earth to move by around 7cm.

It chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, Nasa said.

story from SkyNews

More than 5,000 people have posed naked on the steps of the Sydney Opera House – in the name of art.

Huge numbers outside Sydney Opera House

It was the latest project by American photographer Spencer Tunick, who has organised similar displays of naked humanity all over the world.

The volunteers turned up before dawn and found the cloudy conditions were a little cooler than they would have liked, especially as many of them had to stand around naked for two hours.

They were instructed to wave, lie down, and embrace someone standing next to them, in a display to mark the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival.

One participant, Steven Anglier, said: “I thought it could be a bit awkward at first to dress down and have people looking at you.

“But it’s funny because, when you’re naked but everybody else is naked, you feel like you’re dressed up because everybody looks the same, so no one is looking at no one else.

“It’s really a weird experience because you think there could be something sexual behind, but there’s not.”

But Mr Tunick admitted that some found it embarrassing when he asked them to embrace and kiss someone next to them.

Exotic dancers at the photoshoot

“It was difficult to get the straight participants to embrace the gay participants and vice versa, so, I was very happy that that last set up finally got done and everyone came together, united, friendly kiss, a loving kiss in front of this great structure.”

Grant Denyer, a weather presenter from Channel 7 who was broadcasting live from the Opera House, was persuaded to shed his clothes and join in.

One of those intending to take part was Amanda Burke, who is pregnant with twins and was due to give birth several hours after the nude photoshoot.

Many were shy to begin with, including two exotic dancers who are used to taking off their clothes for a living.

They told Sky News: “It was more nerve-wracking getting naked with everybody else than what we normally do.

“Normally we have no problem, but we were all excited and nervous and giggly.”

Even after the shoot was completed, many people kept their clothes off, wandering naked around the Opera House and posing for their own pictures.

story from SkyNews