Foreign Office urges Britons to leave Yemen while they can

Anyone with British relatives or friends in strife-torn Yemen is being urged to contact them and plead with them to get out of the country while they still can.The emotional warning issued by the Foreign Office yesterday is another sign that the credit that Yemen's long serving President has in Whitehall has run out. It was coupled with a veiled warning from a Foreign Minister, Alistair Burt, that, if his troops continued killing civilians as he clings to power, he could face trial in an international court.The urgency of the Foreign Office advice suggests that Yemen is now classed alongside Libya and Somalia, where civil government collapsed 20 years ago, as one of the three most dangerous places in the world&nb...

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POLICE were last night trying to contact the family of a young French walker who apparently died of hypothermia on the Ben Nevis tourist path.

The man, who was in his early 20s, was with a friend, attempting to reach the summit of Britain's highest mountain on Sunday.Shortly after 7:30pm police in Fort William were alerted that the walker was in difficulties after becoming ill.he time he and his friend were at 2,800ft on the 4,409ft mountain, at Carn Mor Dearg, above Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe, also known as Half Way Lochan.Two mountain rescue teams from Lochaber and RAF Kinloss were scrambled, as was a helicopter from Stornoway Coastguard.The man was found suffering from hypothermia. Rescuers had to carry him by stretcher more than 200ft below the cloud base so he could be airlifted off the mountain by the helicopter.He was flown to Belford Hospital in Fort William, where medical staff fought to stabilise him, but he was declared...

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Passengers mutiny after seven hour runway wait

The scene on a Middle East Airlines plane erupted into chaos this weekend when passengers were forced to wait almost seven hours on the runway. Two take off slots were missed from London Heathrow Airport because of thunderstorms, prompting a Lord of the Flies-style mutiny, according to reports.The Beirut-bound plane was originally scheduled to leave the London hub at 13:00, but was prevented from doing so because of bad weather. At 17:00 the 230 passengers were then told that another slot had been missed, meaning they would not now be able to take off until 19:30.Police had to be called onto the aircraft when the angry passengers began to take their frustration out on the airline staff. According to reports, some people began pushing and shoving and using abusive language. The airline staff...

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A person in Britain has been diagnosed with a lethal strain of E.Coli that has already killed five people in Germany.

Almost 300 people in northern Germany are in hospital and around 500 more are being tested for the infection.Organic cucumbers from Spain are thought to be the source of the bacteria, but travellers to Germany are also being advised to avoid eating raw tomatoes and lettuce.The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease centre, said 60 cases had been reported in the last 24 hours alone, and infections have also been confirmed in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.Britain's Health Protection Authority has confirmed that three German nationals who travelled from the country fell ill after entering Britain.One of the cases has been confirmed as having the infection which is causing this outbreak.A spokeswoman for the HPA said the outbreak in Germany was "very, very serious" and that although...

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Three people in Britain have been diagnosed with a lethal strain of E.Coli that has already killed five people in Germany.

Almost 300 people in northern Germany are in hospital and around 500 more are being tested for the infection.Organic cucumbers from Spain are thought to be the source of the bacteria, but travellers to Germany are also being advised to avoid eating raw tomatoes and lettuce.The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease centre, said 60 cases had been reported in the last 24 hours alone, and infections have also been confirmed in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.Britain's Health Protection Authority has confirmed that the two UK victims are Germans who travelled from the country and fell ill after entering Britain.A third UK victim has been struck down with similar symptoms but is still undergoing tests.A spokeswoman for the HPA said the outbreak in Germany was "very, very serious"...

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More than 270 people in Germany have fallen seriously ill because of potentially deadly bacteria, which has been found in imported Spanish cucumbers, officials said Friday.

The Robert Koch Institute, the national disease centre, said more than 60 new cases of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) had been reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 276. Two people have died.The Ministry of Consumer Affairs said a nationwide special warning had been issued, adding that investigations were underway to track the origin of contaminated vegetables which have been ordered withdrawn from the market.German authorities have identified organic cucumbers from Spain as a source of the bacteria, a strain of E. coli, which has also led to food poisoning in Sweden, Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands.Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner was to speak by telephone with her Spanish counterpart about the issue later Friday, her spokesman told a regular news conference."The...

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Skype issued an update that fixes a glitch in its Windows version that locked out some of its customers.

Following some downtime yesterday, Skype issued an update that fixes a glitch in its Windows version that locked out some of its customers.The company said it will release a fix for Macs today — though the more technically inclined can follow instructions posted on its site Thursday.To get the Windows solution, simply download the latest version of Skype.While Windows, Mac and Linux users were hit by the bug, those using Skype on their phones and televisions should not have been affec...

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Pilots wrestled with the controls of an Air France (AIRF.PA) airliner for more than four minutes before it plunged into the Atlantic with its nose up, killing all 228 people on board

Pilots wrestled with the controls of an Air France (AIRF.PA) airliner for more than four minutes before it plunged into the Atlantic with its nose up, killing all 228 people on board, French investigators said on Friday.Aviation industry sources told Reuters pilots appeared to have acted contrary to normal procedures in raising, rather than lowering, its nose in response to an alert that the plane was about to lose lift or, in technical parlance, 'stall'.But they said information from black boxes hauled up from the Atlantic floor earlier this month was still incomplete.The 2009 emergency began with a stall warning two and a half hours into the Rio-Paris flight and nine minutes after the captain had left the cockpit for a rest period.Shortly before, a junior pilot had told flight attendants...

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