500,000 passengers allowed to enter Britain on Eurostar without border checks

 Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons that border security checks at ports had been suspended regularly and applied inconsistently for more than four years. Mrs May also said students from low risk countries had been allowed to enter Britain even when they did not have visa clearance. She said the practice was unlawful and discriminatory. John Vine, the independent chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, launched an investigation after it emerged the UK's border checks were being relaxed at ports and airports without ministerial approval. His report found that border staff went "over and beyond" any scheme approved by ministers. It also discovered that the biometric chip reading facility had been deactivated on 14,812 occasions at a number of ports between January and...

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Spending on health per patient in Spain is down ten percent in two years

 The spending cuts in the health service are causing a deterioration in patient care, as the regions reduce the budget by 5 billion €. The cost per inhabitant has fallen 10% over the past two years, waiting lists are getting longer, and a shortage of beds and a lack of payment to suppliers is ever more common. Supplies are also being rationed. Unions claim there are some hospitals which are rationing the use of bandages. There are already hospitals which no longer operate in the afternoons, and emergency departments are often saturated. All the staff has met the brunt of the cuts, there have also been cut backs on medicines, technology and maintenance. Professionals and patients are starting to notice the cuts. At the Ramon y Cajal emergency department in Madrid, some 100 workers...

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Teenagers jailed for south London murder

 teenager accused of two gang murders at the age of 16 has been sentenced to a life term. Jordan Williams was told on Thursday he would serve a minimum of 18 years for murdering Daniel Graham, 18, who was stabbed 24 times in 45 seconds. Williams, who turned 17 last month, was part of a gang which attacked Graham as he stepped off a bus on 29 January last year. Williams was later arrested for the murder of promising athlete Sylvester Akapalara, 17, who was shot dead in Peckham, south London, a month before. But a jury cleared him of that killing, which resulted in Sodiq Adeojo, 20, being jailed for a minimum of 30 years, also on Thursday. Williams, Colin Aghatise, 16, and Lennie John, 24, all from Peckham, were found guilty on Wednesday at the Old Bailey of murdering Graham. Williams...

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Hells Angel charged over Sydney ice labs

 Police say they have charged a senior member of the Hells Angels bikie gang over the discovery of two illegal drug laboratories earlier this week. The 33-year-old man was arrested with an alleged Hells Angels associate on Wednesday afternoon at an apartment block at North Ryde, in Sydney's north-west. Police say they found drugs and a loaded handgun at the unit. The apartment was raided by officers investigating the discovery of two methylamphetamine labs on Tuesday in the city's south-west at Catherine Field and Narellan. Specialists from the Drug Squad's Chemical Operations Team are still working to dismantle the equipment and chemicals used in the manufacture of ice. Both men arrested yesterday have been charged with drug manufacture and other drug offences, while one has been charged...

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1993 £1m Felixstowe heist: Suspect Eddie Maher was 'bankrupt'

 A man wanted in Suffolk over a £1m heist in 1993 had been declared bankrupt with debts of more than $30,000 (£19,000), American court papers have revealed. Eddie Maher, 56, originally from Essex, was arrested on 8 February after being found in Ozark, Missouri. Mr Maher had $85 (£54) in his bank account when he filed for bankruptcy in 2010. He is due in court in America on 22 February for a preliminary hearing. Anonymous tip-off Mr Maher disappeared in 1993 after a security van packed with cash was taken from outside a bank in Felixstowe. The former security guard, who had been living in South Woodham Ferrers when he disappeared, has been charged with immigration and firearm offences in the United States. Bankruptcy papers filed in November 2010 revealed Mr Maher had got into financial...

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Let’s clear up a few things about Whitney Houston.

  First of all, she left a last will and testament. It was drawn up after her divorce from Bobby Brown, according to my sources. Daughter Bobbi Kristina is her likely main heir. Despite dire reports, Houston also was not bankrupt or broke. Even though she didn’t have a publishing legacy–others wrote her songs–she did have money from album sales and touring. She likely had advances, too, from various deals with Sony (formerly Sony BMG) dating from 2000. She made a lot of money–at least $35 million gross–from touring Europe and Asia in 2010. Sony is shipping and selling millions of her records right now. And while there may not be a lot in the vaults of unreleased material, there will be enough to do some kind of souvenir album. Her estate in Mendham, New Jersey has been on the market...

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Whitney Houston's Funeral To Be Streamed Live Online

 Whitney Houston's funeral will be streamed live on the internet so fans can pay their final respects to the legendary singer. The Greatest Love Of All hitmaker, who was found dead in her hotel room last weekend, is to be laid to rest at her childhood church in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday (18th February). Following confirmation that the ceremony will be a private, invite only event, Houston's publicist Kristen Foster has announced that The AP are allowed to film the service and stream it on their website - with the footage also available to broadcasters via a satellite. The 48-year old's body was flown from Los Angeles to New Jersey on Monday (13th February) ahead of the planned service at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark where she sang as a child with her cousin, Dionne Warwick....

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Shyness could be defined as a mental illness

 Under changes planned to the diagnosis handbook used by doctors in the US, common behavioural traits are likely to be listed as a mental illness, it was reported. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders could also include internet addiction and gambling as a medical problem. Although the guidelines are not used in the UK, experts said they feared it would affect thinking on the subjects. "We need to be very careful before further broadening the boundaries of illness and disorder," Simon Wessely, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, told the Daily Mail. "Back in 1840 the census of the United States included just one category for mental disord...

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Madonna stalker escapes

  A stalker who made violent threats against Madonna has escaped from a secure mental hospital in California. Robert Dewey Hoskins fled the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk without his medication last Friday according to police, who only revealed the disappearance on Thursday. Hoskins was jailed for ten years after stalking the pop star around California, and reportedly threatened to cut her "from ear to ear" if she did not agree to marry him. He was arrested in 1995 after scaling the walls of Madonna's Hollywood estate and being shot twice by her security guards. Madonna alleged that he had scaled the fence several times, and that the incidents had left her having nightmares. The stalker made similar threats against Halle Ber...

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Syria bloodshed is outrageous, says Obama

 President Obama has accused Syrian government forces of responsibility for "outrageous" bloodshed and called again for Bashar al-Assad to step down as troops sealed off of a rebel stronghold in the city of Homs and bombarded it using tanks, helicopters and artillery. Speaking after a White House meeting with the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, Obama spoke briefly on Syria. He said: "We both have a great interest in ending the outrageous bloodshed that we've seen and see a transition from the current government that has been assaulting its people." His comments come as the international community struggles to find a common voice with which to confront President Assad. Eyewitnesses said roads in and out of Baba Amr, in the south-east of Homs, were blocked, preventing the evacuation...

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Barclays caps bonuses at £65,000

 Barclays announced on Friday that it was capping cash bonuses at £65,000 as it reported a 3% fall in profits to £5.9bn. The bank also admitted it may miss the targets it had set itself for making returns to shareholders. Providing more detail about bonuses than usual, the bank said that the value of bonus per group employee was down 21% year on year to £15,200, while the average value of bonus per employee at Barclays Capital, its investment banking arm, was down 30% to £64,000 - just below the value of the cap. The bank said that annual bonuses for executives and its eight highest paid employees were down 48%. Chief executive Bob Diamond received a bonus in shares of £1.8m in 2010 so, if he is in line with the average, this might indicate that his bonus would be around £900,000. ...

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Two arrested in connection with Cabopino stabbing

 Two people have been arrested in connection with the stabbing to death of a man whose body was found in Cabopino in the early hours of Tuesday week. The 26 year old received three stab wounds in his back after an argument in a bar. Diario Sur reports that two arrests have been made but that the investigation remains open. Police will have to establish which one of the two arrested men was the main player in the aggression. It seems there was an argument at about 1,20am close to the Bar Mesón 24 horas in Marbella, and it was the waiter there who called the police after finding an injured man on the ground. An ambulance went to the scene, but the medics could do nothing to save the victim who had suffered three stab wounds and a blow to the head. The victim was of Ecuadorian origin but...

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Amy Winehouse coroner 'not qualified'

 The family of singer Amy Winehouse have said they are "taking advice" following news that the coroner who oversaw her inquest has resigned. Camden Council has confirmed that Suzanne Greenaway had stood down because she had not been a lawyer in the UK for the required five years. The council said she had been appointed "in error" by her husband Andrew Reid, the coroner for inner north London. Ms Greenaway ruled that Winehouse, 27, died from accidental alcohol poisoning. She returned a verdict of misadventure. The Office for Judicial Complaints has begun an inquiry into Dr Reid's conduct. Letter of apology In a statement, Winehouse's relatives said: "The Winehouse family is taking advice on the implications of this and will decide if any further discussion with the authorities is...

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The great Asian gold theft crisis

 Two small faces pull the curtain back in a side room and peer round to see who is at the door. After they run back inside, their mother, Mrs Rashid, unlocks the front door. Five weeks ago, she came home one evening to find the door ajar. The downstairs floor of her house was relatively untouched but upstairs the bedrooms had been ransacked – drawers opened, wardrobes emptied, clothes and belongings scattered everywhere. "It was such a huge shock," she says, sitting on the sofa, her voice breaking slightly. Her husband, Mr Rashid (neither want to give their full names), a big man sitting across the room, shakes his head. "They took it all," he says. The thieves who broke into this semi-detached house in Earley, near Reading, stole around £70,000-worth of gold jewellery. To those who...

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Malaya case hears dramatic statement from Fidel San Román

 The constructor, Fidel San Román, who is now 72, on Monday ratified, one by one, all the payments which the prosecutor considers he made to Juan Antonio Roca, the man who was the Municipal Real Estate Assessor in Marbella Town Hall. As the Malaya case continues in Málaga, the amounts paid by San Román totalled 3.08 million € and were given in exchange for first occupancy licences for the properties he had built in the town. It was a dramatic statement to the court. ‘When the homes were ready to be handed over to the purchasers, the Town Hall told us that the money was needed, and if not paid, things could not move forward’, he said talking about a development of 800 apartments. He told the court that in 2005 alone he paid Roca more than three million € in ‘white physical cash taken...

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Five Britons in court in UK for Mallorca pyramid fraud

 Five British citizens are in court in the United Kingdom shortly for having allegedly set up a pyramid selling fraud which resulted in 70 residents of Calvià on Mallorca being defrauded out of 12 million €. They are alleged to have captured 150 investors in several countries, promising enormous profits on the stock market from a company called Gilher Inc. The accused are charged with massive fraud, money laundering in Panama and the Seychelles, although they are all claiming innocence. The Serious Fraud Office says the operation started in 2001 and has named the main accused as 60 year old John Hirst, from Brighouse, and Richard John Pollet from Poole, both of whom had luxury villas in Calvià with an active social life. They were members of Mallorca Cricket Club and the Rotary Club,...

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