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UK: Ex-Soldier Faces Jail for Handing in Gun

This Is Surrey Today
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:45 EST

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty".

Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday - after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: "I didn't think for one moment I would be arrested.

"I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets."

The court heard how Mr Clarke was on the balcony of his home in Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, when he spotted a black bin liner at the bottom of his garden.

PressTV
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:51 EST

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has criticized the country's raw-material based economy and urged a speedy modernization of the 'whole' system.

Medvedev scolded the Soviet era economic and governance policies and pledged to overhaul the country's political and financial institutions which, he stated, have been built on a primitive infrastructure.

The Russian leader who was delivering his annual state of the union address before the country's economic and political elite at the presidential palace at the Kremlin on Thursday, pledged to fight corruption, deal with "unprincipled" officers in law enforcement and called for a change in the country's foreign policy agenda.

He also hinted at the possibility of liberalism without resorting to chaos and instability in Russia's polity, noting, "Instead of the archaic society, in which the leaders think and make decisions for everyone, we will be a country of intelligent, free and responsible people."

RIA Novosti
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:32 EST

A 25-year old man was killed, dismembered, eaten and parts of his body sold to a nearby fast-food stand in the Perm region of the Russian Urals, criminal investigators have reported.

According to the official site of the local Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's office, three homeless men killed the victim out of "personal enmity."

"They stabbed him several times with a knife and a hit him with a hammer. The victim died at the scene of the crime," the site reports.

Steve Doughty
Mail Online
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:53 EST

More than 100 rapists have been let off with a police caution, it was revealed yesterday. The 111 cases included 66 incidents of child rape.

The extent to which police forces have handed cautions to rapists, whose crime carries a maximum sentence of life in jail, was made public as Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced a full-scale review of the system of punishing crime with cautions and on-the-spot fines.

Mr Straw acted after a weekend when senior police chiefs and the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC called for curbs on the use of out-of-court punishments.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson also condemned the 'uncontrollable increase in cautions' and said that on-the-spot fines, now often used to punish offences such as shoplifting, 'in the public's minds equate to a parking ticket.'

Berlusconi changing the law again

Nick Squires
Telegraph.co.uk
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:26 EST

Silvio Berlusconi came under fire on Tuesday for a controversial proposal to reduce the length of time trials can last, in a move condemned by his critics as a way for him to eliminate at a stroke his own legal entanglements.

The prime minister's most important ally, faction leader Gianfranco Fini, said a bill would be introduced to parliament which would propose capping the length of Italian trials, which can currently last more than a decade.

The Italian justice system is in desperate need of reform - official figures show that there is a backlog of 3.6 million criminal cases and 5.4 million civil cases.

But there is little doubt that the proposal to change the country's statute of limitations would also benefit Mr Berlusconi, 73, who faces two corruption trials which are due to start this month.

An MP from the opposition Democratic Party, Donatella Ferranti, said parliament should reject any "tailor-made laws" designed to let Mr Berlusconi off the hook.

Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti-corruption investigator and the leader of the small Italy of Values opposition party, described the proposed changes as "criminal". A colleague, Felice Belisario, said: "This is just a masked trick to save the prime minister."

Larry Elliott
Guardian.co.uk
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:55 EST

The head of Britain's climate change watchdog predicted today that households will need to spend up to £15,000 on a full energy efficiency makeover if the government is to meet its ambitious targets for cutting carbon emissions.

Warning that Britain needs to step up its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases after picking all the "low-hanging fruit", Adair Turner said radical steps would be needed for electricity generation, cars and homes.

Amid growing concern that next month's Copenhagen climate change summit could end in bitter failure, the chairman of the government's climate change commission warned against using the drop in emissions caused by the longest recession since the 1930s as an excuse to relax in the fight against climate change.

Andrew Porter & Louise Gray
Telegraph.co.uk
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:02 EST

A total of 10 new nuclear power stations will be built that could supply up to 25 per cent of the country's power needs.

Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, announced the expansion of Britain's nuclear power capability yesterday in the face of opposition from environmentalists and concern from consumer groups, who warned fuel bills could rise to pay for building programme.

Comment: Meanwhile his brother the foreign secretary does everything to block Iran's plans for nuclear energy.

The Conservatives attacked the plans for being "10 years too late."

Mr Miliband told MPs that the first new power plant should be operational by 2018. They will be built on the sites of old nuclear power stations or those soon to be decommissioned and the Government hopes it could mean that by 2025, nuclear will generate a quarter of the country's electricity - compared to 13 per cent now. Environmentalists however, claim this is optimistic and the new nuclear power stations will generate considerably less power than the Government hopes.

Alan Travis
Guardian.co.uk
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:44 EST

© Ian Nicholson/AP
Professor David Nutt speaks at the Science Media Centre in London after his dismissal from the government's drug advisory body.

Scientists quit after meeting home secretary after sacking of Professor David Nutt

Three more government drug advisers resign over the home secretary's sacking of Professor David Nutt as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).

The three all resigned after a face-to-face meeting with Alan Johnson, the home secretary, which was called in an attempt to heal the rift between the scientists and the government over Nutt's sacking.

The loss of three more members of the council brings the total who have gone to six out of an original membership of 31 the home secretary appointed to advise him on drugs policy. Many of those remaining, who include police officers and judges, are there as representatives of organisations and are unlikely to tender personal resignations.

The three further resignations came from across industry and academia. Ian Ragan was appointed to the ACMD in February last year, and is director of a consultancy for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, CIR Consultancy Ltd.

Mark Ballard
Computer Weekly
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:59 EST

Protracted extradition proceedings have turned UFO hacker Gary McKinnon into a nervous wreck who is on medication to quell his suicidal tendencies, his mother, Janis Sharp, told MPs yesterday.

In the light of Gary McKinnon's hearings, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee has questioned whether the Human Rights Act is fit for purpose.

The Human Rights Act is so exacting that Gary McKinnon's risk of suicide might not be sufficient to engage its protections and prevent his extradition.

The threat of extradition was having a detrimental effect on McKinnon's mental health, said Janis Sharp, McKinnon's campaigning mother.

Chris Smyth
Times Online
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:10 EST

A woman who suspected her 68-year-old husband of propositioning teenagers on the internet posed as a schoolgirl to lure him into a trap.

Cheryl Roberts, 61, created a false profile and pretended to be 14 as she exchanged intimate messages with him in a chat room. After he asked her for sex she reported him to the police.

David Roberts found out that he had been making advances to his own wife only after being arrested. He admitted that he had hoped to have sex with the "schoolgirl".

On Wednesday he was ordered to attend a programme for sex offenders as part of a three-year community order. He was also banned from contacting children on the internet and will have to register as a sex offender. Mrs Roberts was praised by a children's charity for reporting her husband.

Comment: Bridgend is an unusual place indeed - have a look at the following selection of articles. You may also like to search for the name of the town in our search box...

Woman found dead in 'suicide county'
UK: Bridgend hanging is 23rd suicide in area in 20 months
Bridgend Suicides Linked to Cell Phone Towers

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