Mosque Blasts: Ukrainian Student Pleads Guilty

By David Crabtree, Midlands Correspondent

A Ukrainian man has pleaded guilty to murdering a Muslim pensioner and plotting to carry out a string of explosions near mosques.

Pavlo Lapshyn, a postgraduate student from Dnipropetrovsk, appeared at the Old Bailey charged with the murder of 82-year-old grandfather Mohammed Saleem as he walked home from a mosque in Birmingham in April.

He also admitted causing an explosion on July 12 near the Kanzal Iman mosque in Tipton, and engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts between April 24 and July 18 this year.

This included planting bombs near mosques in Walsall and Wolverhampton, researching locations to plant bombs and buying chemicals on the internet to make explosives.

Lapshyn, who arrived in the country only five days before the killing, later told police: "I have a racial hatred, so I have a motivation, a racial motivation and racial hatred."

The 25-year-old will be sentenced on Friday.

The Ukrainian was in the UK on a sponsored work placement at a software firm in the Small Heath area of Birmingham when he was arrested on suspicion of Mr Saleem's murder nearby on July 20.

The father-of-seven was stabbed three times yards from his house on April 29, which prompted an outpouring of grief from the community.

The site of the murder and explosions

While Lapshyn remained at large, he plotted the planting of devices near three mosques. With each attack the homemade bombs, with timing devices, became ever more powerful.

In the attack on the mosque in Tipton, Lapshyn loaded the device with nails. Luckily no one was injured.

The bomb exploded at 1pm, the time worshippers would normally be at Friday prayers. Because of Ramadan the prayers were put back to 2pm and police said this may have saved a lot of people from death or serious injury. 

No one was injured by any of the explosions.

Lapshyn has been described as a "lone actor" with no apparent affiliation to any extreme right wing groups.

The self-radicalised racist believed that a series of explosions would spread more panic and fear. 

In police interviews he said: "I would like to increase racial conflit ... because they are not white and I am white."

Police trawled through thousands of hours of CCTV to track Lapshyn's movements.

When he was arrested, bomb-making equipment, including chemicals components from mobile phones were found at his flat.

Detective Superintendent Shaun Edwards said: "The words of the interviewing officers were calm, calculated and committed.

Nails found at the site of the Tipton blast (Pic: West Midlands Police)

"He is a man with hatred of non-white people, coupled together with his skills in relation to creating bombs and actually being in the country for five days and to murder someone.

"From his premises he had other devices, other components of devices. He could have carried on with his campaign. If it wasn't for that intervention at the time he was arrested, this could have been much worse."

Speaking outside court, Mr Saleem's daughter Shazia Khan said it was "a relief not to have to sit through a long and tedious trial and listen to horrific details of this violent crime".

"Our dad was a lovely, kind man who left prayers for the last time that night. He did not do anything to deserve this horrific killing other than being a Muslim.

"He was targeted simply because of his faith. His beard and his clothing represented who he was. Pavlo chose to kill him that night with only that intention in mind.

"Hopefully he will get the sentence that he deserves and he will never be able to commit crimes like this again."

She added that when she saw Lapshyn in court, she pitied him: "We just looked at him and we felt pity. He looked pathetic. He looked frightened and stressed."

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Missing Girls: Police Search For Newport Pair

Concerns are mounting for the welfare of two teenage girls who went missing from the same area on the same day.

Police are searching for Shannon Bladen, 14, and Jessica Brant, 13, who disappeared from the Alway area of Newport, South Wales, last Wednesday.

Gwent Police said there is no evidence to suggest the cases are linked, but the possibility has not been ruled out.

Shannon was last seen at 7.55am when she left home to catch a bus to school.

She is described as 5ft 1in and of slim build with dyed black shoulder-length hair.

She was wearing the Newport High School uniform of black trousers and black polo top with yellow shoulders, and a grey hooded jumper with a denim jacket over it.

She was carrying a red and white Betty Boo bag containing a blue hooded jumper.

Jessica went missing at around 3.30pm on the same day.

She is 5ft 3in and of medium build, with dyed black shoulder-length hair which, when she was last seen, was tied in a ponytail.

When she disappeared she was wearing leggings and a khaki green jacket with what has been described as a lumberjack pattern on the arms.

A police spokeswoman said: "We have no information to suggest they are linked in any way but it has not been ruled out as a possibility.

"Obviously they have been missing for some days now and concern is rising for their welfare."

Officers want anyone with any information about the whereabouts of either girl to call Gwent Police on 101.

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Gaddafi's Widow Wants Dictator's Body Back

The widow of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has demanded that the United Nations and the European Union help her recover the remains of her husband and their son Mutassim.

In a letter published on the website of Voice of Russia radio on the second anniversary of the deaths, Safiya Gaddafi also called on the African Union to investigate their deaths.

Saif al Islam appears in court in September.

Gaddafi and his son were captured and killed by rebel fighters on October 20, 2011, during the uprising that toppled his 40-year-old regime.

Their bodies were displayed in the port of Misratah and then buried in a secret desert location.

"All the members of the UN Security Council, the European Union and everyone who has direct or indirect connection with this murder must tell where the remains of these martyrs are and allow their relatives to bury them in a proper way," she wrote in the letter.

The widow also demanded that the African Union launch an investigation into the killings, and appealed to the international community to help her contact her son Saif al Islam, who was captured by rebels in November 2011 in southern Libya.

"I demand that the world community should help me to come in touch with my son Saif al Islam, who has been isolated from all members of our family from the moment of his arrest," she wrote.

He has been held by a group of former rebels in the western Libyan town of Zintan since his capture, and is awaiting trial over his alleged role in trying to suppress the 2011 uprising.

He appeared in court in Libya last month accused of breaching national security. He is also expected to face war crime allegations.

Libyans queued in Misratah to view the bodies of Col Gaddifi and his son

Mrs Gaddafi and three of the former dictator's children - Aisha, Hannibal and Mohammed - fled to Algeria in August 2011 as rebel forces seized Tripoli, before part of the family was granted asylum in Oman this year.

Another of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi, fled to Niger in September 2011.

Mutassim and another two of Gaddafi's sons were killed in the 2011 conflict - Saif al Arab died in a Nato air strike, and Khamis was killed in fighting in August that year.

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Scotland: Two Boeing 747 Planes In Near Miss

Two jumbo jets with around 1,000 people on board were just 100ft from crashing over Scotland because pilots confused their flight instructions, it has emerged.

The two Boeing 747s were 30 miles north of Glasgow and preparing to cross the Atlantic when an air traffic controller spotted they were moving closer together.

The UK Airprox Board report shows the two planes heading towards each other

He immediately ordered the plane on the left to make a left turn and the one on the right to make a right turn to move them further apart.

But they did the opposite - bringing the two passenger jets closer together.

When the danger was first spotted the 747s were 10 miles apart, but within a minute they were three miles away and still closing in.

A crash was only averted when the two pilots on each aircraft saw each other and took evasive action, with one plane climbing and the other diving.

At one point, one plane was just 100ft above the other.

Details of the incident, which occurred on June 23 this year, were revealed in a report by the UK Airprox Board, which examines near misses in UK airspace.

Investigators are at a loss to explain how the crews of both aircraft either misheard or misinterpreted their orders.

The report said: "It was apparent that both crews had taken each others' instructions, and the board found it hard to determine why this had occurred; unfortunately no human factor report was available from either crew.

At one point the two jets were only 100ft apart in height

"The board was surprised that all four pilots had misheard or misinterpreted the avoiding action instructions despite at least one of the crews reading them back correctly.

"One airline pilot member wondered if there could have been call-sign confusion; this was discounted because they were not similar ... the transmissions were clear on the RT recording."

The board said the danger was needlessly increased because the planes had earlier been ordered by air traffic control to fly at the same height of 34,000ft.

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Npower Energy Bills Up 11% Before Christmas

Energy giant npower has announced an increase in household tariffs of 9.3% for electricity and 11.1% for gas.

The price rise will be imposed from December 1.

Chief executive Paul Massara said: "This has been a really hard decision for us and I know this news will not be welcome.

"Nobody wants to see their bills go up particularly when household budgets are being squeezed.

"We've tried to protect customers for as long as possible but the truth is we simply cannot hold off any longer.

"There are many external costs which are increasing your bills, including Government schemes and the actual cost of buying energy."

The company is the third of the so-called big six energy firms to raise prices in recent days.

On Thursday, British Gas become the second major supplier of household energy to announce a rise in its prices - by an average 9.2%.

The company said its electricity and gas prices would rise by 10.4% and 8.4% respectively from November 23 - affecting 7.8 million households.

Rival SSE announced a price hike almost two weeks ago, raising its bills by 8.2% from November 15.

Prime Minister David Cameron has called the latest increase "disappointing" and urged households to try to save money by switching suppliers.

But critics say it is more important to lock into a fixed tariff to avoid future rises.

E.ON, Scottish Power and EDF Energy are the other big providers and are yet to make announcements on their winter pricing.

The price boost by npower came after the Government confirmed a deal for EDF to build Britain's first nuclear power station in a generation.

But the Chinese-backed plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset is not expected to be commissioned until 2023 at the earliest.

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Graham Buck Murder: Man Jailed For Life

By Tom Parmenter, Sky Correspondent

A man has been jailed for life after he admitted murdering a Good Samaritan who had gone to the aid of his neighbour – a convicted paedophile – during a robbery.

Ian McLoughlin, 55, was ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years for the murder of pensioner Graham Buck, 66, in Hertfordshire in July.

Mr Justice Sweeney said he was barred from passing a whole life term because of a European judgement that deemed such sentences a breach of human rights.

"However, even for a man of 55 years of age, the minimum term of years must be a very long one indeed."

Speaking outside court, Mr Buck's wife Karen said she was pleased with the sentence but "at the end of the day it does not change anything".

"Graham's death has left a massive hole in many people's lives and he will be missed but not forgotten," she said.

In court Mr Justice Sweeney read part of her victim impact statement:

"His family, friends and I will never be able to make sense of what happened. There was no justifiable reason and we will be left with that thought, and of his pain and suffering, for the rest of our lives," the statement read.

"I'll never forget the feeling of shock and numbness when I was told he'd been killed."

She said telling her daughter news of the death was "the worst act I have ever had to carry out in my entire life".

McLoughlin had been released from a murder sentence and went straight to visit an elderly man who he had met earlier in prison.

The court heard how McLoughlin had intended to steal money from Francis Cory-Wright, who was jailed for 30 months for indecently assaulting a 10-year old boy in the 1970s.

He tied the 86-year-old up in his home in the village of Little Gaddesden, near Berkhamsted.

During the violent struggle, Cory-Wright called out for help. His neighbour Mr Buck tried to intervene but was met on the driveway by McLoughlin who stabbed him.

Another neighbour described how Mr Buck's throat had been slashed "wide open" in the attack.

He died on his front lawn, with his pet dog sitting beside him.

The killer then went on the run hiding in London before being arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police in Tottenham.

He later told officers he intended to hurt Cory Wright but he regretted his attack on Mr Buck.

He said: "I'm not sorry for what I did to the nonce, but I'm sorry for what I did to the pensioner."

McLoughlin was on day release from prison where he was serving a life term for the murder of Brighton barman Peter Halls, whom he stabbed multiple times in 1992.

He had previously been jailed for the manslaughter of Len Delgatty, 49, in 1984, whom he hit over the head with a hammer after a row, before leaving his body in a cupboard.

Mr Buck's family said that shortly before the murder he had travelled to Poland to see relatives and to meet his newborn granddaughter.

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Maria: Roma Couple Charged With Abduction

A Roma couple have been formally charged with abducting a mystery blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in Greece.

The pair, named in local papers as Hristos Salis, 39, and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40, were escorted into the back of a courthouse in Larissa from a police van.

Their friends and family waited at the front of the building, with reporters and TV satellite crews, as a dozen police officers stood guard. No press were allowed into the court.

The couple told the investigative magistrate the girl's biological mother gave the little girl to them as a baby because she could not look after her.

They deny charges of abduction and procuring false documents relating to the girl's birth certificate.

One of their lawyers, Constantinos Katsavos, told reporters outside court: "It was an adoption that was not exactly legal but took place with the mother's consent." 

The pair were taken by police van into the back of the courthouse

The court will decide whether the pair will be kept in custody pending trial or released on bail.

The mystery girl, known as Maria, was discovered living in a Roma camp near the Greek town of Farsala on Wednesday after a raid by police looking for drugs and weapons.

British police say there is no link between her case of and that of missing boy Ben Needham, who was 21 months old when he vanished on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

A prosecutor who accompanied police on the raid thought it odd that Maria did not look like her darker-skinned "parents".

DNA tests later confirmed the couple are not her biological parents.

The couple appeared at a court in Larissa

The pair claim they were given the child by a Bulgarian woman who was unable to look after her, two weeks after she was born on January 31, 2009.

Greek authorities have put out a worldwide appeal to help identify the youngster and find her real family.

Maria, who utters just a few words in Greek and Roma dialect, is being cared for in Athens by the Greek charity Smile Of The Child and is said to be "doing well".

Charity spokesman Panagiotis Pardalis told Sky News that Maria is still in hospital and waiting for medical examinations to be completed.

"She is talking to hospital staff and seems happy, and is playing with staff and showing normal child behaviour," he said.

Maria seen in a family video as a toddler

The Roma couple claim Maria is four years old, although medical and dental tests have confirmed she is a year or two older than that.

The little girl, dubbed the "blonde angel" by Greek media, will be transferred to one of the charity's homes when she leaves hospital.

The charity has been inundated with more than 8,000 calls about the girl from around the world, including from people in the US, Scandinavia, Australia and South Africa.

Some of the calls had specific details and have been forwarded to police.

Neighbours in Farsala's ramshackle Roma camp said Maria's real father had come to look for her soon after she was taken away by police.

Maria was found in a Roma camp in Farsala

Babis Dimitriou, chairman of the local Roma community, told The Daily Telegraph: "There was a Bulgarian husband and wife who were working around Greece in temporary jobs, who used to stay here sometimes.

"At one point they left the girl to be raised by the family here in the village.

"The family raised the child as if it was their own, although her father would come back every now and then to see her. The last time he visited was only five days ago, after the arrests had been made.

"All the other Roma here were telling the Bulgarian man to explain to the police that the girl was his, but he has now disappeared."

His account was backed by other residents, the paper reported.

The Roma community in Farsala is said to be anxious about the worldwide media attention the case is attracting.

In a country already devastated by economic crisis, the Roma in the camp make a living selling fruit, carpets, blankets, baskets and shoes at local markets.

They are already considered by some to be social outcasts, thieves and beggars, and they are now worried they will be stigmatised as kidnappers and child traffickers.

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Royal Gwent Hospital: Travellers Camp In Car Park

Hundreds of NHS workers, including doctors and emergency staff, have been blocked from parking at a hospital after French travellers set up camp in the staff car park.

Around 14 caravans arrived outside Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, south Wales, on Saturday.

A statement from Aneurin Bevan Health Board said parts of the car park would be closed for three days as talks between council bosses and travellers continued.

"We will ensure that security is available on site from 6am to 10pm every day to reassure and support staff during this situation," it said.

"I am sure you will appreciate there was nothing that we could do to stop this happening, but we are taking legal advice to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

"There is no quick legal solution but we are also working with the travellers to ensure they leave as soon as possible."

Terry Jones, 64, who was visiting a relative in hospital, told the BBC: "Someone could suffer because a doctor is late for their shift. It just shouldn't be allowed to happen.

"It may not be politically correct to say it, but these people never seem to think about the impact it will have on the rest of us. I hope they realise what a nuisance they are causing to the staff and move on soon."

More than 3,400 staff work at the hospital, which has approximately 774 beds and serves a population of more than 600,000.

The staff car park has 300 spaces, and the travellers have taken over 65 of them, the hospital said.

A hospital worker, who did not want to be named, said: "Finding a parking space is bad enough normally without this happening first thing.

"I find it infuriating this situation can be allowed to continue until the families decide to move themselves on.

"There are doctors and other medical staff who work on emergency cases around the clock.

"They are being forced to park some distance away all because a group of French travellers fancied the spot to set up camp."

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Plebgate Police Officers In Mitchell Apology

Three police officers have apologised for their conduct after meeting the former chief whip during the "plebgate inquiry".

The Police Federation have released a statement in which the officers say they are sorry for "poor judgement" in talking to the media after a meeting with Andrew Mitchell.

The statement has been issued on behalf of Inspector Ken MacKaill, of West Mercia Police; Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton, of Warwickshire Police; and Sergeant Chris Jones, of West Midlands Police.

The three officers have been under pressure to apologise to Mr Mitchell for their conduct since an Independent Police Complaints Commission report last week questioned their "honesty and integrity".

It concluded that evidence suggested the three had lied in media interviews about what Mr Mitchell had said in a meeting on October 12 last year to support police colleagues in London, who claimed he had called them "******* plebs" during a Downing Street row over his bicycle.

Mr Mitchell was stopped from cycling through the Downing Street gates

Following the report both David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May called on the officers to apologise for their actions.

However, the Police Federation statement stops far short of an outright apology to Mr Mitchell. Instead it said only: "We acknowledge the investigation's criticism relating to our poor judgement in talking to the media following the meeting with Andrew Mitchell, for which we take this opportunity to apologise.

"We would like to emphasise (as we did to the investigation) that in no way did any of us ever plan or intend to mislead anyone about what occurred during this meeting or otherwise."

The officers met with Mr Mitchell, Sutton Coldfield MP, as representatives of the local police federation but the IPCC found that in interviews afterwards there was "evidence to suggest" that officers gave a "false account" of the meeting - a meeting Mr Mitchell had recorded.

Mr Cameron had said the police should apologise to Mr Mitchell

The report found: "In the media and political climate of the day, I do not consider that the officers could have been in any doubt about the impact of their public statements on the pressure being brought on Mr Mitchell.

"As police officers, they had a responsibility to present a fair and accurate picture. Their motive seems plain: they were running a successful, high-profile, anti-cuts campaign and the account that he provided to them did not fit with their agenda."

Mr Mitchell quit the role of chief whip because of the scandal.

While he has admitted arguing with the officers on September 19 last year, he has always denied using the word "plebs", which was the politically charged element of the phrase that led for calls for him to resign.

Police officers involved in the incident have been accused of colluding to falsify evidence - adding the word "plebs" - in an attempt to make political capital out of the scandal at a time of police cuts.

The whole scandal has been seen as significantly damaging the public's trust in the police force.

CCTV of Mr Mitchell at the Downing Street gates

The officers found to be at fault by the IPCC will not be disciplined by the force for their part in the debacle.

Following the IPCC report, Mr Mitchell said: "It is a matter of deep concern that the police forces employing these officers have concluded that their conduct has not brought the police service into disrepute. Most people will disagree.

"It is a decision which will undermine confidence in the ability of the police to investigate misconduct when the reputation of the police service as a whole is at stake.

"My family and I have waited nearly a year for these police officers to be held to account and for an apology from the Police Forces involved. It seems we have waited in vain."

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Facebook Down: Users Unable To Update Status

Facebook has said it has fixed a problem which prevented users around the world updating their status or interacting with friends.

Some of the website's estimated 1.15 billion members were shown an an error message which read: "Couldn't update status. There was a problem updating your status. Please try again in a few minutes."

Some users also said they were unable to 'Like' posts, post comments or upload photos, although others experienced no difficulties using the website.

Hundreds of comments about the apparent service outage appeared on Twitter every few minutes during the outage.

A spokesman for Facebook said: "While performing some network maintenance, we experienced an issue that prevented some users from posting to Facebook for a brief period of time.

"We resolved the issue quickly and we are now back to 100%.

"We're sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused."

Michael Allen, a director at Compuware Corporation, which tracks internet down time using its Outage Analyzer tool, said the technical problems would have had an "enormous impact" on millions of people.

He said at least 3,500 other websites were affected, "although the actual number is likely to be far greater".

"This is because many other businesses and websites are connected to Facebook through the integration of its services," he said.

"For example, Facebook is used to enable people to login to many other sites and applications."

Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook has around 700 million daily active users, according to its own figures.

It stores more than 100 petabytes (107 billion megabytes) of photos and videos at its three US data centres in Oregon, North Carolina and Iowa, as well as a fourth in Lulea, Sweden.

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