Bali Court Upholds Briton's Death Penalty

A British grandmother sentenced to death in Bali for trafficking cocaine has lost her appeal.

Lindsay Sandiford, 56, was sentenced to capital punishment in January for taking almost 5kg (10.6lb) of the drug onto the island.

She launched an appeal but on Monday the Bali High Court ruled the original punishments was "accurate and correct" and confirmed it.

Sandiford, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, has 14 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court also rejects her plea, she can seek a judicial review of the decision from the same court.

After that, only the president can grant her a reprieve.

The sentence would see her shot by a firing squad.

Sandiford after her arrest at Bali airport

The Government said it was disappointed at the High Court's decision.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The UK strongly opposes the death penalty and has repeatedly made representations to the Indonesian government on this matter."

Sandiford was arrested in May 2012 at Bali airport when customs officers found the drugs, worth £1.6m, in her luggage.

She said she had been forced to smuggle the drugs into Bali from Thailand by a criminal gang and that the safety of her children was at risk.

She has cooperated with the police and local authorities, which has led to other arrests.

January's death sentence came as a shock because prosecutors had recommended a 15-year jail term.

Sandiford's lawyer has said the punishment is out of proportion, given she has admitted her crime, expressed regret and helped police in the investigation.

Paul Beales (L), Rachell Dougall and Julian Ponder received jail sentences

But the court ruled she had damaged Indonesia's hard-line stance on drugs, as well as Bali's reputation as a tourism destination.

Three other Britons arrested in connection with the case received lighter punishments.

Julian Ponder was sentenced to six years in jail after being found guilty of possessing cocaine in his luxury Bali villa.

Rachel Dougall was sentenced to 12 months for failing to report Sandiford's crime, and Paul Beales received four years for possession of hashish but was cleared of drug trafficking.

Indonesia enforces stiff penalties for drug trafficking, but death penalty sentences are commonly commuted to lengthy prison terms.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kayaker Rescues Family From Sinking Car

A kayaker rescued a family-of-five from a river after the vehicle they were travelling in veered off a cliff into the water and nearly hit him.

The family's SUV slammed into a concrete bollard then hit a tree and a boulder before the wreckage ended up in the middle of the river.

Mark Divottori, who was kayaking in the American River near Sacramento in North California, said the out-of-control vehicle hit the water just behind him.

He told local channel KCRA: "It was fortuitous that they didn't actually land on me. I was kayaking right there moments before they plunged off the cliff."

The three children managed to take off their seatbelts and swim from the car. Mr Divottori ferried them to safety.

However, the driver of the car was unable to get out of the vehicle and was pinned upside down with his wife trying to hold his head above water, according to the KCRA report.

He was eventually rescued by El Dorado County firefighters but suffered serious injuries in the crash, which happened on Saturday.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Disability Benefits: New System Rolled Out

By Siobhan Robbins, Sky Reporter

A petition calling on Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to live off £53 a week has been handed in to his office - as major changes to disability benefits are rolled out.

New claimants in parts of northern England will now receive Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in place of the old Disability Living Allowance (DLA), which critics say will leave many worse off.

The new system which includes face-to-face assessments and regular reviews will take at least two years to roll out across the country.

Iain Duncan Smith: Old system is "ridiculous"

Steven Sumpter from Worcestershire, who suffers from ME and diabetes so finds walking painful, told Sky News he was worried about the future.

Previously, to get disability benefit he had to prove he was unable to walk 50m, but that will be changed to 20m.

He said he fears in the future he will lose half of the money he receives and the subsidised car he relies on.

"It means every single trip to the shops and the doctor will turn into maybe three hours of effort and that will leave me in bed, exhausted and in pain for days afterwards," he said.

The Government insists DLA was outdated and the changes mean those who really need support will now receive it.

Mr Duncan Smith has described the previous system as "ridiculous".

"We've seen a rise in the run-up to PIP. And you know why? They know PIP has a health check. They want to get in early, get ahead of it. It's a case of 'get your claim in early'," he told the Daily Mail.

He added that rigorous new health checks for claimants were "common sense".

Some charities have already expressed concerns that it will mean 600,000 people miss out on support.

Chief Executive of Scope, Richard Hawkes, admitted changes were needed but claimed the Government was motivated by cost cutting.

"The Government has already announced how much the Disability Living Allowance budget is going to be reduced, they've already announced how many people are going to lose DLA and they're introducing a test which is going to provide them with the results they want to reduce those costs.

It'' not right, it's not fair," he told Sky News.

PIP will initially be introduced for new claimants in northwest England, Cumbria, Cheshire, northeast England and Merseyside.

Campaigners handing in the IDS petition at Caxton House, central London

Meanwhile, welfare reform campaigners have delivered a petition bearing 450,000 names to the Department of Work and Pensions.

Mr Duncan Smith was challenged to live on £53 a week after a market trader on a radio show said that was all he had to live on despite working 50 to 70 hours a week.

Asked whether he could live on £53 a week, the former army officer, who now earns around £1,600-a-week after tax replied: "If I had to I would."

The Cabinet minister has since dismissed the campaign as a "complete stunt".

Musician and part-time shop worker Dominic Aversano, who started the petition on campaigning website Change.org, said: "I don't think Mr Duncan Smith has a choice about whether to listen to the petition because so many people have signed it.

"I think it has changed the debate around welfare cuts. I was surprised because I didn't think we would have such a large response. I am delighted."

As well as the Personal Independence Payments, other reforms, including a below-inflation 1% cap on working-age benefits and tax credit rises for three years, have already come into force.

Around 660,000 social housing tenants deemed to have a spare room will lose an average of £14-a-week in what critics have dubbed a "bedroom tax".

Trials of a £500-a-week cap on household benefits are also due to begin in four London boroughs.

Chancellor George Osborne insisted on Sunday that the public was behind his changes to the benefits system.

Mr Osborne also said he felt "angry" that too much money was being "spent in the wrong way in our welfare system".

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

North Korea: Putin In 'Chernobyl' Warning

By Mark Stone, Yeonpyeong island

Vladimir Putin said a war in Korea could be more devastating than the Chernobyl disaster - as Pyongyang was warned against another nuclear test.

The Russian President said he was "worried about the escalation on the Korean peninsula, because we are neighbours".

And Mr Putin, who also praised a US decision to postpone a planned missile test as part of efforts to reduce tensions, said he feared a situation worse than that in Chernobyl after a nuclear accident that was later linked to thousands of deaths.

"If, God forbid, something happens, Chernobyl which we all know a lot about, may seem like a child's fairy tale," he said.

"Is there such a threat or not? I think there is ... I would urge everyone to calm down ... and start to resolve the problems that have piled up for many years there at the negotiating table."

His intervention came after United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the North not to carry out a new nuclear test - saying it would be a "provocative" act.

South Korea raised fears that a fourth test was due amid reports of increased activity at the main atomic test site Punggye-ri, but later backtracked.

Its Defence Ministry said: "We found there had been no unusual movements that indicated it wanted to carry out a nuclear test."

North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un

Mr Ban said: "The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea cannot go on like this, confronting and challenging the authority of the (UN) Security Council and the international community.

"I am urging them to refrain from taking any further provocative measures."

China's Foreign Ministry also said it wanted peace on the Korean peninsula, not war, adding a proper solution to the crisis was the responsibility of all parties.

The Pentagon has already strengthened its missile defences in response to the repeated threats made by Pyongyang in recent weeks.

However, the New York Times has reported that a more thorough plan - setting out a limited but forceful response to any future provocation - has been drawn up by the US and South Korea.

It said US officials had outlined a "counter-provocation" plan that would see a "response in kind" that would hit the source of any North Korean attack with similar weapons.

Meanwhile, North Korea said it was withdrawing all workers and suspending operations at its joint industrial zone with South Korea, the only surviving symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

South Korea has appealed for North Korea to allow access to the Kaesong joint industrial park, six miles inside its borders.

The North has banned South Korean managers and personnel from crossing the border to enter the complex since last Wednesday.

So far 13 of the 123 South Korean firms operating there have been forced to halt production due to fuel and raw material shortages.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nutella Heist: 5.5 Tonnes Of Spread Stolen

Thieves in Germany have stolen 5.5 tonnes of Nutella, the chocolate-hazelnut spread.

They stole the jars from a parked trailer in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld.

The haul of Nutella, which is manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero, is worth around 16,000 euros (£13,600).

5.5 tonnes of Nutella is worth £13,600

Police said that an unknown number of culprits made off with the spread over the weekend.

Germans news agency dpa reported that thieves had previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Margaret Thatcher: Falklands Was Defining

When the strutting head of a military junta General Leopold Galtieri invaded the Falkland Islands, most Britons had to rush to their atlases to find out just where the islands were.

The government appeared to be equally taken by surprise - so much so that the Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington resigned.

There followed a frantic round of shuttle diplomacy, brokered by the Americans.

To the astonishment of people in Britain, to the dismay of the Argentinians, and to the amazement of the Americans and the rest of the world, Britain assembled a task force to sail to the South Atlantic.

It looked like Lord Palmerston's Gunboat Diplomacy had returned, that Britain was somehow trying to recapture its colonial past, a final hurrah of an Empire on which the sun had set decades before.

The crisis became a defining moment of Margaret Thatcher's premiership, and changed her image and her political fortunes.

Before April 2, 1982, when the junta in Buenos Aires ordered the invasion of the Falkland islands - called Las Malvinas by the Argentines - opinion polls showed her to be the most unpopular Prime Minister ever.

After British forces recaptured the Falkland islands and South Georgia her popularity soared, allowing her to call a general election in 1983 which she won by a landslide.

Margaret Thatcher and husband Denis in Stanley in 1983

As so often in military conflict, the line between triumph and disaster was thin.

Had things gone wrong, her time in office would have come to a hasty end and modern British political history would have taken an alternative course - leading to a very different present.

Mrs Thatcher established and chaired a small war cabinet, officially called the ODSA Overseas and Defence committee, South Atlantic, to take charge of the conduct of the war.

Within days of the invasion, the ODSA had authorised and dispatched a naval task force to retake the islands.

Despite the effectiveness of the Argentine air force with its Exocet missiles and some serious military setbacks for the British, including the sinking of the Sir Galahad which was carrying the Welsh Guards in San Carlos Water, British troops first took back South Georgia, and then the Falklands.

Fortunately for the British, many of the French-made Exocets failed to detonate.

In bloody night-time hand-to-hand fighting, the Argentine army conscripts proved little match for the highly-trained British Paras and Royal Marine Commandos.

The Gurkhas, in particular, struck terror into the hearts of Argentine troops who were cold, wet, miserable and demoralised, dug in on the windswept Falklands hills.

Argentina surrendered on June 14, and the Union Jack was hoisted in the Falklands capital Port Stanley by exhausted but jubilant troops.

The conflict cost the lives of  255 British servicemen and 3 Falkland Islanders.

Some 649 Argentinians died, half of them after the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano on May 2 in the most controversial military action of the war.

British troops fighting in the Falklands during the conflict

Mrs Thatcher was criticised in parliament and, famously, on television by a member of the public for the decision to sink the Belgrano, which reports said was sailing away from the Falklands at the time.

She maintained that the Argentine cruiser had posed a threat to British forces.

She was also criticised for neglecting the defence of the Falklands , allowing the Argentinian junta the opportunity to invade in the first place - neglect which led Lord Carrington to resign.

Overall, however, she was perceived as a highly capable, committed, and above all successful war leader, and the "Falklands factor" , along with a bitterly divided Labour Party, undoubtedly paved the way for her subsequent general election victory.

In the years after the conflict, Mrs Thatcher often referred in public and in private to the "Falklands spirit", reflecting her nostalgia not only for her popularity at the time, but also her preference for the streamlined and efficient decision-making of the military and a small war cabinet rather than the drawn-out and often painstaking deal-making of cabinet government in peacetime.

The Falklands revealed many of the qualities that marked Mrs Thatcher's time in office - her determination, her conviction that she was right, and her abrasive dismissal of anyone who questioned that conviction.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Margaret Thatcher Dies: Tributes Pour In

How Thatcher Changed History

Updated: 3:51pm UK, Monday 08 April 2013

By Adam Boulton, Political Editor

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first, and so far only, female Prime Minister. She was a transformative leader who reversed conventional wisdom that Great Britain's national decline was inevitable.

She will be remembered for curbing the trade unions, privatising state-owned industries, leading Britain to victory in the Falklands War, and as US President Ronald Reagan's staunch ally in confronting the Soviet Empire.

Mrs Thatcher is now ranked alongside Sir Winston Churchill (her hero) and Clement Attlee as one of Britain's most important 20th century prime ministers, but the "Iron Lady", as she was nicknamed, was a deeply divisive figure, openly hated by many, especially those from industrial heartlands, which she sent to the wall.

She ended her 11-year premiership quite literally in tears, thrown out not by the voters but by the very Conservative MPs she had led to three successive general election victories.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on October 13, 1925, the daughter of a grocer and alderman from Grantham in Lincolnshire. She idolised her father but seldom even mentioned her mother.

A clever and ambitious grammar school girl, she won a place at Oxford University to study chemistry, going on to work in industry as a research chemist - working in the team that invented Mr Whippy ice cream.

She had determined political ambitions as well, fighting Dartford for the Conservatives unsuccessfully in the 1950 and 1951 general elections.

Her consolation was to meet and marry Denis Thatcher, a prosperous businessman and Tory activist.

With typical efficiency, Mrs Thatcher gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, Mark and Carol. She did not enter parliament until 1959 as the member for Finchley, a North London constituency she held for 23 years until her retirement.

In 1967 Tory leader Edward Heath invited her to join his shadow cabinet and made her education secretary following his unexpected triumph over Harold Wilson in the 1970 general election.

The rising star told a television interviewer that she did not expect to see a woman prime minister in her lifetime but she attracted less favourable publicity when she cancelled free school milk, becoming known as Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.

Ted Heath lost the two elections in 1974 and was forced out as leader after a protracted period of party infighting.

Margaret Thatcher only stood against him after her mentor Sir Keith Joseph declined to run. An outsider in many ways, she was nonetheless elected Conservative Party Leader in 1975.

Prime Minister Callaghan took over from Wilson, but Labour's left-right tensions spilt over into protracted industrial unrest.

Mrs Thatcher stormed into Downing Street on May 4, 1979, following a Conservative election campaign which focused on the economic paralysis of the nation during the so-called Winter of Discontent.

On the steps of Number 10 she quoted St Francis and promised to bring unity. But the British economy plunged still further, unemployment trebled to more than three million. London and Liverpool suffered inner city riots.

After two years in office, Margaret Thatcher was one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers ever. She was rescued by Argentina's military junta in 1982.

Against the advice of her ministers and most military commanders she ordered a task force 3,000 miles into the South Atlantic to recapture the Falkland Islands from Argentine invaders. 

The Conservatives returned to power in the 1983 general election with an increased majority.

Mrs Thatcher moved on to confront what she called the "enemy within", eventually defeating a bitter and confrontational year-long miners' strike over pit closures, unwisely called by NUM leader Arthur Scargill without a ballot of his members.

Irish Republican terrorists murdered two of Mrs Thatcher's closest political colleagues Airey Neave and Ian Gow. And in October 1984 five friends and colleagues were killed when the IRA blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party Conference.

Margaret, the wife of her close political ally Norman Tebbit, was among those victims crippled for life.

Yet a year later Mrs Thatcher and her counterpart Garret Fitzgerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which would ultimately provide the diplomatic basis for the end of The Troubles.

Mrs Thatcher also became a prominent and pugnacious figure on the world stage. She secured the rebate on Britain's contribution to the European Community and pressed for an open market.

Her decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Britain led to the Greenham Common protest but it was also part of the arms build-up which ultimately broke the Soviet Union and brought down the Iron Curtain.

Mrs Thatcher was quick to spot the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as "a man I can do business with". But for his two terms as American President Ronald Reagan was Mrs Thatcher's closest ally - on foreign affairs and on economic and social policy.

Her economic ideology was unswerving. She believed in a smaller state, lower taxes, self-reliance and people being left to spend "their own money".

Her government sold or "privatised" state-owned "nationalised" assets - first council houses then shares in gas, electricity, water and telecommunications and "the big bang" de-regulating banking and the City of London.

She won a third election in 1987 with another huge majority but like many long-serving successful leaders, she began to believe her own publicity, epitomised in her most famous quotation: "The Lady is not for turning".

Domineering and unwilling to listen, she alienated many of her ministers and MPs.

By now Michael Heseltine had resigned from government and established himself as a leader-in-waiting. He exploited growing discontent over two issues: the proposed Community Charge or Poll Tax, and hostility to Europe.

Anti-poll tax demonstrations brought some of the worst street violence in living memory.

Her stubborn opposition to further European integration provoked first the resignation of her chancellor Nigel Lawson, then, fatally, of her deputy prime minister Sir Geoffrey Howe.

She stood down in November 1990, after failing to secure the overwhelming support of MPs in yet another Heseltine-inspired leadership contest on the very night European leaders were celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

One of Prime Minister Thatcher's last achievements was persuading the new US President George Bush senior not to "go wobbly" following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Mr Heseltine failed to seize the crown and instead the Conservative party united around John Major, Thatcher's relatively obscure preferred successor.

In 1992, Mr Major led the Tories to victory over Neil Kinnock's Labour yet again.

In her retirement, the Queen made Mrs Thatcher a member of the Order of the Garter and appointed her Baroness in the House of Lords. Her husband Denis received a hereditary knighthood.

Sir John Major sometimes complained of "back seat driving" as the former PM relished the movie title "The Mummy Returns".

The next Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair never bothered to hide his admiration for her decisive style of leadership but there was widespread astonishment when the newly-elected Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited her back to Downing Street for tea in her honour.

More recently, Meryl Streep won an Oscar for a portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in the Hollywood movie 'The Iron Lady'. But the film also depicted unflinchingly the politician's descent into senile dementia, hastened by the death of her beloved husband, Denis.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Margaret Thatcher: Obituary Of 'Iron Lady'

By Adam Boulton, Political Editor

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first, and so far only, female Prime Minister. She was a transformative leader who reversed conventional wisdom that Great Britain's national decline was inevitable.

She will be remembered for curbing the trade unions, privatising state-owned industries, leading Britain to victory in the Falklands War, and as US President Ronald Reagan's staunch ally in confronting the Soviet Empire.

Mrs Thatcher is now ranked alongside Sir Winston Churchill (her hero) and Clement Attlee as one of Britain's most important 20th century prime ministers, but the "Iron Lady", as she was nicknamed, was a deeply divisive figure, openly hated by many, especially those from industrial heartlands, which she sent to the wall.

She ended her 11-year premiership quite literally in tears, thrown out not by the voters but by the very Conservative MPs she had led to three successive general election victories.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on October 13, 1925, the daughter of a grocer and alderman from Grantham in Lincolnshire. She idolised her father but seldom even mentioned her mother.

A clever and ambitious grammar school girl, she won a place at Oxford University to study chemistry, going on to work in industry as a research chemist - working in the team that invented Mr Whippy ice cream.

She had determined political ambitions as well, fighting Dartford for the Conservatives unsuccessfully in the 1950 and 1951 general elections.

Her consolation was to meet and marry Denis Thatcher, a prosperous businessman and Tory activist.

With typical efficiency, Mrs Thatcher gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, Mark and Carol. She did not enter parliament until 1959 as the member for Finchley, a North London constituency she held for 23 years until her retirement.

In 1967 Tory leader Edward Heath invited her to join his shadow cabinet and made her education secretary following his unexpected triumph over Harold Wilson in the 1970 general election.

The rising star told a television interviewer that she did not expect to see a woman prime minister in her lifetime but she attracted less favourable publicity when she cancelled free school milk, becoming known as Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.

Ted Heath lost the two elections in 1974 and was forced out as leader after a protracted period of party infighting.

She became Conservative Party leader in 1975 and won the election in 1979

Margaret Thatcher only stood against him after her mentor Sir Keith Joseph declined to run. An outsider in many ways, she was nonetheless elected Conservative Party Leader in 1975.

Prime Minister Callaghan took over from Wilson, but Labour's left-right tensions spilt over into protracted industrial unrest.

Mrs Thatcher stormed into Downing Street on May 4, 1979, following a Conservative election campaign which focused on the economic paralysis of the nation during the so-called Winter of Discontent.

On the steps of Number 10 she quoted St Francis and promised to bring unity. But the British economy plunged still further, unemployment trebled to more than three million. London and Liverpool suffered inner city riots.

After two years in office, Margaret Thatcher was one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers ever. She was rescued by Argentina's military junta in 1982.

Against the advice of her ministers and most military commanders she ordered a task force 3,000 miles into the South Atlantic to recapture the Falkland Islands from Argentine invaders. 

The Conservatives returned to power in the 1983 general election with an increased majority.

Mrs Thatcher moved on to confront what she called the "enemy within", eventually defeating a bitter and confrontational year-long miners' strike over pit closures, unwisely called by NUM leader Arthur Scargill without a ballot of his members.

Irish Republican terrorists murdered two of Mrs Thatcher's closest political colleagues Airey Neave and Ian Gow. And in October 1984 five friends and colleagues were killed when the IRA blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party Conference.

Mrs Thatcher with US President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1987

Margaret, the wife of her close political ally Norman Tebbit, was among those victims crippled for life.

Yet a year later Mrs Thatcher and her counterpart Garret Fitzgerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which would ultimately provide the diplomatic basis for the end of The Troubles.

Mrs Thatcher also became a prominent and pugnacious figure on the world stage. She secured the rebate on Britain's contribution to the European Community and pressed for an open market.

Her decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Britain led to the Greenham Common protest but it was also part of the arms build-up which ultimately broke the Soviet Union and brought down the Iron Curtain.

Mrs Thatcher was quick to spot the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as "a man I can do business with". But for his two terms as American President Ronald Reagan was Mrs Thatcher's closest ally - on foreign affairs and on economic and social policy.

Her economic ideology was unswerving. She believed in a smaller state, lower taxes, self-reliance and people being left to spend "their own money".

Her government sold or "privatised" state-owned "nationalised" assets - first council houses then shares in gas, electricity, water and telecommunications and "the big bang" de-regulating banking and the City of London.

She set BT on the road to privatisation

She won a third election in 1987 with another huge majority but like many long-serving successful leaders, she began to believe her own publicity, epitomised in her most famous quotation: "The Lady is not for turning".

Domineering and unwilling to listen, she alienated many of her ministers and MPs.

By now Michael Heseltine had resigned from government and established himself as a leader-in-waiting. He exploited growing discontent over two issues: the proposed Community Charge or Poll Tax, and hostility to Europe.

Anti-poll tax demonstrations brought some of the worst street violence in living memory.

Her stubborn opposition to further European integration provoked first the resignation of her chancellor Nigel Lawson, then, fatally, of her deputy prime minister Sir Geoffrey Howe.

She stood down in November 1990, after failing to secure the overwhelming support of MPs in yet another Heseltine-inspired leadership contest on the very night European leaders were celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

One of Prime Minister Thatcher's last achievements was persuading the new US President George Bush senior not to "go wobbly" following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Mr Heseltine failed to seize the crown and instead the Conservative party united around John Major, Thatcher's relatively obscure preferred successor.

Leaving Downing Street for the last time in 1990

In 1992, Mr Major led the Tories to victory over Neil Kinnock's Labour yet again.

In her retirement, the Queen made Mrs Thatcher a member of the Order of the Garter and appointed her Baroness in the House of Lords. Her husband Denis received a hereditary knighthood.

Sir John Major sometimes complained of "back seat driving" as the former PM relished the movie title "The Mummy Returns".

The next Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair never bothered to hide his admiration for her decisive style of leadership but there was widespread astonishment when the newly-elected Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited her back to Downing Street for tea in her honour.

More recently, Meryl Streep won an Oscar for a portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in the Hollywood movie 'The Iron Lady'. But the film also depicted unflinchingly the politician's descent into senile dementia, hastened by the death of her beloved husband, Denis.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Lynda Spence: Two Guilty Of Torture Murder

By James Matthews, Sky News Scotland Correspondent

Two men have been convicted of murdering a woman who they locked up and tortured over a two week period.

Lynda Spence, 27, was tied to a chair and had her thumb and little finger cut off, her hands burned with an steam iron and her knee caps broken with a golf club.

Colin Coats and Philip Wade tortured and killed her after she conned them out of large amounts of money. Lynda's body has never been found.

One of her murderers boasted he suffocated her and severed her head.

Lynda Spence was tied to a chair for 13 days and tortured daily

The financial adviser, from Glasgow, duped a number of clients out of money to fund an expensive lifestyle. Coats was scammed for £85,000 on a non-existent property deal and she conned Wade's family out of £2,000.

The murder trial at the High Court in Glasgow heard how the pair, both aged 42, abducted Lynda on April 14, 2011, and took her to the attic of a flat in West Kilbride, North Ayrshire.

Wade carried a "torture kit" into the flat - a bag containing garden loppers, bandages, surgical tape and a bucket.

Lynda was tied to a chair with tape and wasn't allowed to leave the chair, being forced to defecate and urinate where she sat. 

The pair recruited two local drug-addicts whom they knew to watch over Lynda, between their daily visits.

Wade, at 6'6", was too tall to stand comfortably in the squalid attic but would watch as Coats carried out the torture.

Lynda had one of her toes crushed with the loppers and her thumb cut off, as well as the tip of a finger.  She was burned on the hands with a hot steam iron and was hit on the legs with a golf club.

After she had been held for around a fortnight, Lynda was killed and her body dumped. Her body has never been discovered despite extensive searches and the Police remain unsure how she was murdered.

However, Coats has since boasted to a cellmate about the murder. Peter Hadley, 28, said: "He said he had killed her, she had tape over her mouth and he held her nose until she died."

Coats said he "took personal satisfaction" because she owed him money and that, after she died, he cut her head off.

David Parker (left) and Paul Smith (right) admitted assault and detention

Coats and Wade had then driven in Lynda's silver Vauxhall Astra to Tignabruich, in Argyll and Bute, and asked a friend to lend them a boat, saying: "We have got something to get rid of."  Neither the car nor Lynda's body has ever been found.

Throughout her ordeal, Lynda was questioned by her killers for financial information.

Her answers led them to property developer John Glen, who Coats then contacted and threatened by showing him Lynda's thumb.

Mr Glen informed the police and that gave them the vital lead in the investigation into Lynda's disappearance.

The two men recruited to 'babysit' Lynda between torture sessions, 47 year-old Paul Smith and David Parker, 38, were originally charged with murder but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and holding the businesswoman against her will. 

They told detectives what had happened inside the flat. When forensic officers examined the property, it was clear that an extensive clean-up operation had taken place which included ripping up and replacing floorboards.

However, crucially, the killers had failed to notice a small spot of Lynda's blood beside the bath. It was the only trace of her found in the flat. Coats' fingerprint was also found on the bathroom door.

Mobile phone records also tracked their journey to Tignabruich.

Coats was already well-known to Police. In September 2010, he was convicted of an air-rage attack in which he punched a fellow passenger and kicked a crew member on an Easyjet flight from Glasgow.

In 1999, he was fined after being convicted of beating up his ex-wife. A year later, the Rangers fan was given a suspended prison sentence after beating up a Celtic fan in a London pub. 

In 2008, he was given two years probation for assaulting his ex-wife's sister and beating up an elderly man who had stopped to intervene.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More

Margaret Thatcher Dies After Stroke

Britain's first and only female prime minister Baroness Thatcher has died at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke.

Lady Thatcher's children Mark and Carol said their mother, who suffered bouts of ill health in recent years, died peacefully on Monday morning.

Downing Street, which joined Buckingham Palace in flying its flags at half mast, said the politician would be given a full ceremonial funeral with honours at St Paul's Cathedral.

Sky sources understand she died at the Ritz in central London where she had been staying since January following a minor operation.

It is believed her Belgravia home was not properly equipped for her recovery and she was invited to stay at the hotel by its owners, David and Frederick Barclay.

Prime Minister David Cameron led tributes from around the world, calling the former Tory leader "a great prime minister, a great leader, a great Briton".

He said: "As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn't just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she'll go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.

"Her legacy will be the fact she served her country so well, she saved our country and that she showed immense courage in doing so and people will be learning about what she did and her achievements in decades, probably centuries to come."

Mr Cameron was in Spain at the start of a European tour to push for a more flexible EU when the news broke but immediately cut short his trip.

The flag at Downing Street flies at half mast

It is understood that Lady Thatcher was consulted about details of the funeral arrangements and made clear that she did not want to lie in state.

The streets between Westminster and St Paul's will be cleared for the procession, the date of which is yet to be decided. The route will be lined with members of Armed Forces.

US President Barack Obama said that America would "never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan" and that she had "with moral conviction" helped to shape history.

He said: "With the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend. 

"As a grocer's daughter who rose to become Britain's first female prime minister, she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can't be shattered.  As prime minister, she helped restore the confidence and pride that has always been the hallmark of Britain at its best."

'Milk snatcher': Lady Thatcher is remembered for removing free school milk

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who was launching his local election campaign on Monday, cancelled the party's operations as a mark of respect.

He said: "She will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation.

"The Labour Party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "Margaret Thatcher was one of the defining figures in modern British politics.

"Whatever side of the political debate you stand on, no-one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served."

Newly elected and in Downing Street with husband Denis

Buckingham Palace added: "The Queen was sad to hear the news of the death of Baroness Thatcher. Her Majesty will be sending a private message of sympathy to the family."

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair called the ex-PM a "towering political figure" who exercised a huge influence over Britain and the world.

"Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast," he said.

He added: "As a person she was kind and generous spirited and was always immensely supportive to me as Prime Minister although we came from opposite sides of politics.

With David Cameron at Downing Street in 2010

"Even if you disagreed with her as I did on certain issues and occasionally strongly, you could not disrespect her character or her contribution to Britain's national life.  She will be sadly missed."

Former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major described his predecessor as a "true force of nature" and a "political phenomenon".

He said: "In government, the UK was turned around under - and in large measure because of - her leadership.

"Her reforms of the economy, trades union law, and her recovery of the Falkland Islands elevated her above normal politics, and may not have been achieved under any other leader."

Lady Thatcher, who made history by becoming Britain's first female prime minister in 1979, had become increasingly frail over the last decade.

'Shoulder to shoulder' with US president Ronald Reagan

She suffered several small strokes in 2002 and was advised not to accept further public speaking engagements.

Her apparent fragility when she did appear in public, especially after the death of husband Denis in 2003, led to frequent bouts of speculation about her health.

But MPs and friends who saw her regularly said she remained alert and interested in politics and she was not known to have deteriorated notably recently.

The former leader was admitted to hospital shortly before Christmas where she underwent an operation to remove a growth from her bladder but was allowed to return home before the New Year.

Lady Thatcher died at The Ritz, where she had been staying

As prime minister from 1979 to 1990, she has been credited with transforming a nation in one decade and putting Britain back among the leading industrial nations of the world.

Loved and loathed in equal measure, she crushed the unions and privatised vast swathes of British industry as she led the Tories to three election victories.

She was nicknamed the Iron Lady by a Russian journalist in 1976 for her opposition to Soviet communism.

The moniker stuck and privately she was thought to enjoy it. It also became the title of the 2011 biopic for which Meryl Streep won an Oscar.

"To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable," Streep said.

In Stanley, Falkland Islands, in 1983

Lady Thatcher was also memorably described by the then French president Francois Mitterrand with the back-handed compliment that she had the "eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe".

But perhaps the defining moment of her career will be the decision to send a taskforce to the Falklands on April 2, 1982 after Argentina invaded.

Despite her toughness, few will forget the pictures of Lady Thatcher leaving Downing Street for the last time with her husband, Sir Denis - tears in her eyes.

A woman who believed in hard work, she was the daughter of grocer Alfred Roberts and gained a degree in Chemistry at Oxford University, where she became president of the university's Conservative Association.

With son Mark (L) and daughter Carol (R) at her husband's funeral in 2003

Her first job was as a research chemist but in February 1951 she was adopted as Conservative candidate for Dartford and at a dinner that day she met the wealthy and divorced businessman, Denis Thatcher. They married later that year.

He supported her during her unsuccessful campaigns for the seat and during her studies to become a barrister. She qualified in 1953, the same year she gave birth to twins Mark and Carol.

23.38 | 0 komentar | Read More