World News joined 1

[JohnCenaFan28]

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the creation of a Palestinian state is in the best interests of Israel and its citizens.

On the first French state visit to Israel in 12 years, he said a peace agreement would allow the two peoples to live in peace and security.

Mr Sarkozy is to hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Meanwhile, Israel has slightly eased its blockade of Gaza, following a truce with Palestinian militant group Hamas.

An Israeli spokesman said 90 truckloads of food and commercial goods were being allowed into Gaza via the Sufa crossing on Sunday. Normally about 60 trucks make the journey.

'Agreement possible'

Correspondents say the French president's admiration for Israel is in contrast to his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who was widely seen as pro-Arab.

Mr Sarkozy, accompanied by his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was greeted on arrival at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Speaking at the airport, Mr Sarkozy said: "I have always been and will always be a friend of Israel...

"An agreement is possible, tomorrow, and that agreement would allow the two peoples to live side-by-side in peace and security."

"I am more convinced than ever that the security of Israel will only be truly guaranteed with the birth of a second state, a Palestinian state."

From the airport, France's first couple headed to Jerusalem for talks with Mr Peres, followed by dinner with Mr Olmert.

On Monday, Mr Sarkozy is due to address Israel's parliament, the Knesset. He plans to travel to the West Bank town of Bethlehem for talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

UN nuclear inspectors have arrived in Syria to investigate claims that it was building a nuclear reactor.



The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) four person team will spend three days examining the al-Kibar site in the desert in northern Syria.

The site was bombed by Israeli jets in September 2007. The ruins were bulldozed after the attack.

Israel and the US have said the installation was a nuclear plant in the making - a charge denied by Damascus.

Speaking on his departure, the deputy chief of the IAEA, Olli Heinonen - who is leading the team of inspectors - said they would meet their Syrian counterparts on Sunday evening.

After that, he said, they would start "looking for the facts".

Syria has welcomed the inspection but insists that it will be limited to the al-Kibar site.

In April, Washington released pictures purporting to show North Korean experts inside the construction, which it said closely resembled a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon.

Syria has repeatedly denied it has any nuclear weapons programme, or any such agreement with North Korea.

Syrian officials have said the bombed site was an unused military facility under construction, but deny that it had anything to do with a nuclear programme.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has criticised both what he saw as a US delay in releasing information on the Syrian site and Israel's bombing of the site before his agency could inspect it.

Ahead of the visit, Mr ElBaradei called on Syria to show "absolute transparency" and to give the inspectors access to all sites they wished to see.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya television, he said: "We have no evidence that Syria has the human resources that would allow it to carry out a large nuclear programme.

"We do not see Syria having nuclear fuel."

BBC News

[Black Widow]

MANILA, Philippines - Typhoon Fengshen has killed at least 155 people in the Philippines in a torrent of flashfloods and landslides, the head of the Philippines Red Cross, Richard Gordon, told local radio on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The death toll from the typhoon could rise sharply after a ferry with some 845 people on board capsized off an island in the central Philippines with few survivors found so far.

Only 10 wave-battered survivors are known to have made it to land, just hours after the ferry, brought to a virtual halt by the storm, suddenly tilted and went belly up in about a half-hour around noon Saturday.

Six bodies, including a man and woman who had bound themselves together, washed ashore on a high tide awash with children's slippers and life jackets. The dead were believed to be among the passengers or crew of the MV Princess of Stars, which initially ran aground off central Sibuyan island Saturday, then capsized, said Mayor Nanette Tansingco of San Fernando on Sibuyan island.

"I sent a speed boat to check," Nanette Tansingco, a mayor of the coastal town of Romblon province, told local radio. "They saw the boat upside down with a big hole in the hull."

Navy and coast guard ships battled huge waves and strong winds Sunday to reach the area.

"The ship sank 3 km from the shoreline. So far, we have only found four dead, no survivors," Congressman Eleandro Madrona said on radio, Reuters reported.

A local mayor also reported the ship had capsized and said passengers in life jackets were seen bobbing in the sea.

In the central city of Cebu, where Princess of Stars was meant to dock, dozens of relatives maintained a vigil at a small passenger terminal, waiting for news.

"The last time I heard from my son was on Friday evening when the ship left Manila. He texted to say he was coming home," said Celecia Tudtud, a mother of four.

"I really hope he's ok," she said, wiping away tears.

Rescue attempts fail
Rescue vessels aborted an initial attempt Saturday to get to the MV Princess of Stars after it ran aground near Sibuyan, but efforts resumed amid stormy weather Sunday, coast guard chief Vice Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo said.

Fengshen lashed the central Philippines for about four hours Saturday, setting off landslides and floods, knocking out power, and blowing off roofs from houses.

Packing sustained winds of 74 miles per hour and gusts of up to 93 mph, the typhoon shifted course Sunday to the northwest and battered the capital Manila at dawn, chief government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said.

"Iloilo is like an ocean. This is the worst disaster we have had in our history," Iloilo province governor Neil Tupaz told local radio.

In southern Maguindanao province, at least 14 people drowned in flash floods Saturday, including 10 who were swept away from riverside homes, said provincial administrator Norie Unas. Five others were missing.

A 50-year-old man and his 10-year-old grandson were killed when a landslide buried their hillside shanty in Cotabato city Saturday, Mayor Muslimin Sema said. Authorities recovered the body of a farmer, one of three people reported missing in neighboring Cotabato province.

Ferry's engine failed
Meanwhile, the 23,824-ton ferry was "dead in the water" after its engine failed around noon Saturday, Tamayo said.

Port captain Nestor Ponteres said the ferry's owner, Sulpicio Lines, had lost radio contact with the ship and the fate of its passengers remained unknown.

"A lot of efforts have been done to send off rescue boats, but we really can't get through the very rough weather," Tamayo said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo directed the defense and local government departments to stand by for relief and rescue missions before she left for the United States late Saturday.

A coastguard vessel was trawling the waters Sunday around the ferry, which is upside down with only its bow above the waves, trying to confirm reports some passengers had made it to a small island.

"We are hoping more people will have reached the shoreline," Tamayo told Reuters.

At least two other coastguard vessels were en route to help in rescue efforts and Tamayo said he hoped divers would be able to scour the submerged ship later on Monday.

He said there was no sign fuel was leaking from the ferry but said an oil-spill response team would arrive with one of the two coastguard ships before dawn on Monday.

Thousands evacuated
In Capiz, more than 2,000 houses were destroyed in the provincial capital and officials were struggling to make contact with communities further afield.

"We got hit real bad this time," said Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippines' Red Cross.

After battering Manila on Sunday, Fengshen spun out into the South China Sea on Monday. The storm was en route to Taiwan, where it could make landfall in the next few days

More than 30,000 people were being housed in evacuation centers in the centre and south of the archipelago.

An archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, the Philippines is hit by an average of 20 typhoons a year. Officials said neck-deep flood waters had risen further with a high tide, forcing the evacuation of 5,000 people in Sultan Kudarat township in southern Shariff Kabunsuan province, near Cotabato city.

Officials ordered the evacuation of more than 117,000 people from areas prone to floods and landslides in central Albay province. But many returned home by midday Saturday after the typhoon missed the area.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council reported flooding, landslides and power outages caused by toppled power pylons in many areas in the southern and central Philippines. More than 100 domestic flights were canceled because of the typhoon.



Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[Black Widow]

Two boys aged 10 and 12 have been stabbed in a London street attack, Scotland Yard said.

The schoolfriends were knifed in Penrose Street, Walworth, during an apparent attempted robbery.

They had been approached by two older youths just before 3pm yesterday.

Both victims required hospital treatment for their wounds.

The 12-year-old was later discharged with minor injuries while his friend was kept in overnight, but his condition is not serious.

Police later arrested a 15-year-old boy close to the scene and took him to a south London police station for questioning.

Meanwhile, an 18-year-old man is in hospital after being stabbed in the abdomen near a cinema in Wednesfield, Wolverhampton.

The attack followed a confrontation between two groups of young men last night.

Police say the victim, who made his own way to hospital, is in a stable condition.


Sky News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Wow, that's horrible...

[Black Widow]

An estate agent who hatched a brutal revenge plot against her boss after being sacked has been jailed for 10 years.

Ambreen Gul, 23, lured Waqas Malik to her flat where he was tortured and ordered to raise a £200,000 ransom or be killed with his son.

She had recruited another sacked colleague and two other thugs to make him pay for her dismissal.

Mr Malik, 48, was kicked, punched and pistol whipped repeatedly.

Judge Deborah Taylor told Gul she had been motivated by "revenge and greed".

She added: "You have shown little remorse and you have consistently shown yourself as dishonest and manipulative, prepared to do and say anything to save yourself, even writing to Mr Malik in attempting to get him to change his mind about pursuing this case."

London's Southwark Crown Court heard that during a seven-hour ordeal, one of the captors stood on Mr Malik's head while another warned he would never see his family again unless he paid the cash.

He was told failure to raise the money would result in the executions of both himself and his 13-year-old son.

After being ordered to make several phone calls to his wife in a desperate bid to raise the funds, he was given a powerful sedative.

But the plot went wrong when he fell ill.

The court heard Gul panicked and ordered her bound, blindfolded and bleeding victim to be put in an office chair, wheeled into a waiting car and driven "almost unconscious" to his home.

Once there she told Mr Malik's wife that he was drunk and had sexually assaulted her before driving off.

The now "comatose" businessman was taken to hospital, where doctors found his face and head covered in bruises and cuts, and "ligature marks" on his wrists from the tape bindings.

Gul, of Hackney, east London, was sentenced with three co-defendants.

Mukshud Ali, 18, of Wilmington Gardens, Barking, Essex, who had also been sacked, was sentenced to seven years nine months in a young offenders' institution (YOI).

Quasim Ahmed, 21, of Westrow Drive, Barking, was jailed for eight years, and former West Ham under-17s footballer Shakib Chowdhury, 20, from Surbiton, Surrey, was sent to a (YOI) for eight-and-a-half years.

All four were variously found guilty or admitted falsely imprisoning the businessman between June 17-20 last year, wounding with intent, blackmail, having an imitation firearm with intent, theft and administering a "poison or noxious substance" with intent.

Gul had managed to entice her former boss - who spent four days in hospital after the ordeal - to her flat by pretending to be interested in buying his car and selling her home to him.


Sky News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[Black Widow]

Briton Neil Entwistle has been found guilty of murdering his American wife and baby.

The former IT worker remained expressionless as the verdicts were read out, and just closed his eyes and shook his head before looking down at the floor.

He shot dead his wife Rachel, 27, and their nine-month-old baby Lillian Rose on the four-poster bed in their home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, in 2006.

The court heard from 46 witnesses and the jury convicted him of first degree murder after two days of deliberations.

Entwistle, from Kilton, Worksop, will be sentenced tomorrow morning. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Sky News US correspondent Michelle Clifford said: "One telling thing is that Entwistle did not react to the verdicts - and neither did his parents.

"They, like everybody else, expected these guilty verdicts. All the sordid details of his life will now come pouring out."

The 29-year-old had a secret life, and trawled the internet for prostitutes, looking at websites about bankruptcy, killing and suicide before shooting dead his family in cold blood.

But outside court, his family, who stood by him through his arrest and trial, vowed to fight to clear his name - claiming he had been falsely convicted.

His mother Yvonne said: "We know that our son Neil is innocent and we are devastated.

"Our son will now go to jail for loving, honouring and protecting his wife's memory.

"We know the evidence points to Rachel murdering our grandchild and then committing suicide."

Elliot Weinstein, defending Entwistle, had suggested his wife shot baby Lillian before shooting herself.

He claimed Entwistle was simply a loving husband trying to "protect her honour" and cover it up by moving the gun away from where their bodies were found.

The court heard a post-mortem examination found Mrs Entwistle was shot in the forehead at close range.

Lillian was killed with a bullet which passed through her abdomen and lodged above her mother's left breast as she cradled her on the bed.


sky news

[JohnCenaFan28]

Interesting... wonder if they'll get him off?