UK Explorer: Green Campaigning Has Failed

By Tom Rayner in Ushuaia, Argentina

One of Britain's leading polar explorers has told Sky News that decades of campaign efforts to get people engaged with climate change have failed.

Robert Swan, who was the first man to walk to both the North and South poles, was speaking in Argentina on the eve of the launch of his latest expedition to Antarctica - one which he hopes will help turn the tide of public apathy towards green issues.

He said: "People are really sick and tired of seeing pictures of another glacier melting, another forest dying.

"This whole approach of the doomsday scenario is not working because people switch off and they think - 'well we can't do anything'.

"It's not working, this whole showing endless pictures saying there is a problem, I think anyone in the real world knows there's a problem, what we've got to do now is say, how can we inspire people?"

Mr Swan will be leading a group of 80 young people from 28 countries across the world to the Antarctic Peninsula.

His mission is to impress upon them the importance of maintaining the current international legal frameworks that protect the frozen continent from mining and drilling for energy resources.

Mr Swan hopes the expedition members will take plans of action back to their own countries after seeing Antarctica for themselves.

"We've got 80 people coming together to get a really good story that they can take back with them. They can go to Antarctica, come back, and then inspire people with ideas about change and solutions, not doomsday scenarios."

Made up of high-flyers from industry, business, banking, politics, NGOs and education, the expedition is comprised of young people from across the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa and America.

Some have had travel paid for by their companies or organisations, others have personally raised money through private sponsorship to pay for a place on the expedition.

The group, described as 'decision-makers of the future', will travel from the most southerly city in the world, the Argentinian port of Ushuaia, across the notoriously stormy sea channel known as Drake's passage, and then finally onwards to the Antarctic Peninsula.

Mr Swan's campaign is known as 2041 - a reference to the year when the international community could begin to re-evaluate the international treaty and environmental protocols which currently ban all exploitation of Antarctica's natural resources.

The continent, which is governed by an international treaty and not owned by any one state, is known to have significant reserves of minerals such as iron ore and coal, and scientists believe there are likely to be oil and natural gas reserves too, although they have not yet been identified.

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Sinkhole Swallows Man: Search Called Off

Rescuers have ended their effort to find the body of man swallowed by a sinkhole at his home in Florida.

The house will now be demolished, public safety officials said. 

"Our data has come back, and there is absolutely no way we can do any kind of recovery without endangering lives of workers," added Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico.

Earlier, a recording of a woman's frantic 911 call pleading for help after the sinkhole swallowed her relative under his bedroom emerged.

Jeff Bush, 37, is thought to have died after vanishing when the ground opened up in Seffner, east of Tampa Bay.

Five other people were at the property as the floor began to fall through into the hole estimated to be six metres across and six metres deep.

But no-one else was injured at the "seriously unstable" house.

A relative telephoned the emergency services to raise the alarm.

Screaming, she said: "Yes, we need the ambulance and cops ... he's stuck under the house. The house just fell through."

The woman was asked: "What happened to the house?"

She replied: "The bedroom floor just collapsed, and my brother-in-law is in there, he's underneath the house."

Jeff Bush is presumed dead

Mr Bush's brother Jeremy said he jumped into the hole but could not see his sibling.

He had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy who reached out and pulled him to safety as the ground crumbled around him.

"The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save my brother," Mr Bush said. "But I just couldn't do nothing."

He added: "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him."

Mr Bush went on: "All I could see was the cable wire running from the TV going down into the hole. I saw a corner of the bed and a corner of the box spring and the frame of the bed."

Before the search was abandoned, engineers found the soil in the slowly growing sinkhole around the home was very soft and believed the entire property could eventually be swallowed up.

A dressing table and a television set had vanished down the hole, along with most of Mr Bush's bed.

County administrator Mike Merrill described the home as "seriously unstable".

He said no-one can go in the house because officials were afraid of another collapse and losing more lives.

Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water.

They are so common that state law requires home insurers provide coverage against the danger.

Mr Bush said someone visited the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes.

"He said there was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," he said.

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Mokhtar Belmokhtar: Gas Terror Chief 'Killed'

Belmokhtar: Profile Of Mr Marlboro

Updated: 12:54am UK, Sunday 03 March 2013

By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent

He was known as Mr Marlboro because of his cigarette smuggling. The French intelligence service called him "The Uncatchable".

Born in central Algeria in 1972, Mokhtar Belmokhtar grew obsessed with Jihadi ideology in his teens. At 19 he volunteered to fight alongside the mujahedeen in Afghanistan.

He missed most of the fighting there as the Soviets withdrew as he arrived but he did encounter senior members of what was to become al Qaeda - receiving training in a Jalalabad base.

In the early 1990s he returned to Algeria to join Islamic militant groups. He served them as a quartermaster - rapidly rose to dominate operations in the south of the country during the Algerian civil war.

Described by the then head of France's Territorial Surveillance Directorate (Direction de la surveillance du territoire – DST) as Algeria's link to al Qaeda, Belmokhtar maintained strong links to the movement's core in Pakistan.

But he was a vital element in the expansion of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). A franchise of the Jihadi movement AQIM was seen as the poorly performing franchise during the last decade. 

But Belmokhtar forged links with Tuareg rebels in the south Sahara from Mali to Niger and into Mauritania.

He rapidly expanded a criminal empire to fund his political and military operations from smuggling cigarettes, diamonds, drugs and people into Europe.

He further stuffed his war chest with funds from hostage taking operations. In 2003 he was implicated in the kidnapping of 32 Europeans in the Sahara.

In 2008, he took control of negotiations for the release of two Austrian hostages. And in 2009 took control of two Canadians kidnapped in Mali and released by him for allegedly £3m and freedom for several of his associates from Malian jails.

Robert Fowler was a UN special envoy in Mali when he was kidnapped and then handed on to Belmokhtar.

He described the man who has now projected himself on to the world stage from the relative obscurity of the Saharan wastes.

"He is very cold. Very business-like. I was afraid for my life all the time. I was afraid for my life when I woke up in the morning and when I went to sleep at night. He is a very serious player," Mr Fowler told ABC News in the US.

Belmokhtar's movement got a huge boost from the collapse of the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

The Tuareg fighters he had employed from Niger, Mali and Chad, fled his service carrying with them vast stockpiles of heavy weapons and bringing many years of combat experience.

This influx of new weapons and fighters allowed for al Qaeda-related groups to capture much of northern Mali and establish closer links between groups from Mauritania to Somalia and into the Arabian Peninsula.

Some intelligence agencies believe that Belmokhtar fell out with the AQIM leader in the north of Africa, Abdulmalek Droukel.

But al Qaeda is a franchise. Its strength lies in fragmentation. A devolved series of groups are harder to infiltrate or destroy than one large organisation.

Al Qaeda expert Aaron Zelin describes this as "controlled fragmentation".

French intelligence services had been trying to kill or capture Belmokhtar for more than a decade. They believed that he had the capacity to mobilise French citizens with their roots in North Africa for terror operations inside Europe.

After France launched its war against Islamists in Mali, many of whom are connected to Belmokhtar, his organisation which calls itself "The Masked Ones", vowed to continue attacks against western targets in Africa and beyond.

Belmokhtar's attack in Algeria meant his name was heard more widely as his movement posed a strategic threat to Europe's energy supplies.

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Mugabe Has Huge Party To Mark 89th Birthday

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has held a lavish celebration to mark his 89th birthday, treating thousands of supporters to a feast of music, food and poetry singing his praise.

Mugabe cut an 89kg (40 pound) cake - one of many presented to him - and released 89 balloons into the sky during the event at a stadium in the northeastern mining town of Bindura.

Africa's oldest leader turned 89 on February 21.

The nation's central bank governor donated 89 cows to the president, who sported a bright red cap with his year of birth - 1924 - in green numbers,

Mugabe walked around and waved at the crowd of about 10,000 people, flanked by his wife Grace and two children.

He showed no sign of fatigue as he delivered an hour-long speech packed with his trademark anti-Western rhetoric and promises his ZANU-PF party would win an upcoming election.

"Forward with winning elections, down with imperialism," said Mugabe.

He has ruled the southern African nation since independence in 1980, and last year accepted his party's nomination to run for re-election.

Mugabe militants and loyalist security services are blamed for human rights abuses and vote rigging in previous elections over the past decade.

About 1.5 million Zimbabweans rely on food aid in the troubled economy.

Officials of Mugabe's party reportedly collected donations of $600,000 (£400,000) for the occasion.

Parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled later this year, possibly around July. The last elections in the country, held in 2008, were marred by violence.

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Hosni Mubarak Retrial Date Set For April

A retrial of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak – who was jailed for life for his role in the deaths of protesters in 2011 - is to open on April 13.

Mubarak, former interior minister Habib al Adly and six top security chiefs will be retried on orders of the Court of Cassation, the country's top appeals court, over the hundreds of killings during the 2011 uprising which ousted him from power.

The court agreed in January on a retrial for the 84-year-old, who appealed against his life sentence for involvement in the deaths.

In January, an ailing Mubarak who has been treated for fractured ribs and fluid in the lungs at a Cairo military hospital, was also interrogated over fresh charges of corruption.

He is accused of accepting gifts worth seven million Egyptian pounds $1m (£670,000) from the country's flagship state newspaper Al Ahram.

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World Cup 2022 Could Be Moved To Winter, Fifa

A senior Fifa official has admitted for the first time that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar could be moved to winter.

The finals were awarded by the world governing body in 2010 and are due to be held in the summer months when the temperature can reach more than 40 degrees Celsius.

European football boss Michel Platini has repeatedly said the competition needs to be held in winter, when the average is a far less intense 17 degrees.

Now Fifa's general secretary Jerome Valcke has become the first senior official to say the event could be moved if strong medical advice is received to support it.

Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke said the finals could be moved

Speaking at the meeting of the International Football Association Board - which governs the laws of football - he said: "Maybe the Fifa Exco (executive committee) will say based on medical reports or whatever: 'We really have to look at playing the World Cup not in summer but in winter'."

Qatar's winning bid caused a major stir in world football with critics arguing it would be impossible to freeze football leagues for a World Cup in December or January.

However, Mr Valcke believes that the timeframe for any decision could be extended to 2015.

"I am not saying that the case is closed but what I'm saying is as long as we have not fixed the international calendar all alternatives are open," he said.

"I can tell you there is no working group within Fifa thinking and working on what it means to move the World Cup from summer to winter for the time being.

"The international calendar has been agreed for 2015 to 2018, meaning that we kept open all potential for the period 2019 to 2022. We have time."

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Assad Hits Out At UK Government In Interview

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has heavily criticised the British government, calling it "shallow and immature".

In an interview with The Sunday Times, he dismissed any suggestion that Britain could help to resolve the conflict saying: "We do not expect an arsonist to be a firefighter."

He said Britain was not trusted by many in the Middle East, saying its has been viewed as "unconstructive" in the region for centuries.

"There's no contact between Syria and Britain for a long time.

"You cannot separate the role from the credibility, and you cannot separate the credibility from the history of that country.

"To be frank, Britain has played famously in our region (an) unconstructive role in different issues, for decades, some say for centuries."

He added: "How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role while it's determined to militarise the problem?

"How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better, more stable, how can we expect them to make the violence less when they want to send the military supply to the terrorist?

"I think they are working against us, and they are working against the interests of the UK itself.

"This Government is acting in a naïve, confused, and unrealistic manner. If they want to play a role they have to change this, they have to act in a more reasonable and responsible way."

But Foreign Secretary William Hague said the interview was "one of the most delusional" by a modern leader.

"This is a man presiding over this slaughter, and the message to him is that we, Britain, are the people sending food and shelter and blankets to the people driven from their homes and families in his name.

"We are the people sending medical supplies to try to look after people injured and abused by the soldiers working for this man, President Assad.

"And Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy, who's a soft-spoken diplomat, said this week that Assad thinks and is told by his inner circle, that all this is an international conspiracy, not the actual rebellion and revolt of his own people.

"So I think this will go down as one of the most delusional interviews that any national leader has given in modern times."

He also confirmed more direct assistance would be given to the Syrian opposition.

Earlier this week the Syrian Government said it is ready for talks with its armed opponents.

However, Syrian rebel leader Selim Idris said there could be no negotiations unless Mr Assad stepped down and leaders of the army and security forces were put on the trial.

The UN estimates that around 70,000 people have been killed since fighting began in Syria almost two years ago.

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Zoo Hopes Fluffy Bear Cub Will Raise Millions

Buffalo Zoo in New York state is hoping a fluffy three-month-old cub called Luna will help raise $4m (£2.65m) for a new polar bear exhibit.

The playful cub was introduced to the public on Friday, as the zoo announced the next phase of fundraising for an $18m (£12m) exhibit.

Over the past two years, the zoo has raised $14m, and now staff are hoping the recent arrival will help raise the remaining amount.

Luna was born on November 27 and has been hand raised by the zoo's veterinary technician and keepers.

Her parents, Anana and Nanuq, had to be relocated as the zoo's previous, century-old polar bear enclosure no longer met current national standards.

Buffalo Zoo keeper, Alice Rohauer, who served as a surrogate mother for the little bear, said Luna was "a handful", but "fun to take care of".

Polar bear cub Knut became a huge attraction at Berlin Zoo

The Buffalo Zoo said it is one of only two zoos in North America to have polar bear births in 2012.

The cub is still too small to exhibit but she is visible via closed-circuit television at the zoo on weekday afternoons.

Her mother Anana, who did not display maternal instincts, now resides at the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago.

Luna's father, Nanuq, is at Columbus Zoo, in Ohio.

Updates about the polar bear cub can be found on its website, or on the Zoo's Facebook page.

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Porn: Mayor Pulls Plug On X-Rated Web Surfing

By Nick Pisa, Sky News Reporter

A fed-up Italian mayor has pulled the plug on the internet in council offices after discovering employees spent the working day trawling porn sites.

Narcisio Buffoni, 60, was furious when he discovered that several of his staff were using their work stations to watch the hardcore websites, some for as long as six hours a day.

Mr Buffoni of Montignoso, near Massa Carrara, has now ordered that all computers have web access denied, with connections limited to the council's internal system only.

Mr Buffoni said: "All I am prepared to say is that there has been an improper use of the internet within the council offices - that's why there is no access to the web.

"I am not prepared to go into the details of what the sites visited were, other than to say they were not work related and not ethical. It was restricted to a limited amount of staff, not all 74 employees.''

According to reports in the Italian media some of the employees would clock on at 8am and then spend as long as six hours surfing pornographic websites, only stopping when the town hall building closed for lunch.

As the wi-fi was also non-encrypted and had no password, locals would also gather outside the building to log on and surf the web.

Mr Buffoni, who has been in office for two years, has decided that he will take no disciplinary action against the council employees involved.

The case does no favours for the traditional view of many of Italian local government employees who have long had a reputation for laziness and being work shy - with numerous attempts by central government in Rome to try and clean up their act.

In 2008 the then public administration minister Renato Brunetta launched a clampdown which claimed to have halved the number of sick days claimed by public employees by 50%, although the initiative is said to only have had a short-term effect.

Among incidents uncovered at the time were a council worker who punched his time-card, then went boar hunting - only to get found out when he got shot in the leg and had to be rushed to hospital.

Another who went on sick leave was actually discovered to have been on a long vacation in Kenya, claiming that the sun would help speed up her recovery from a sprained back.

More recently the mayor of the southern Italian town of Bari took to exposing lazy employees by posting pictures of them on his Facebook site below the question: "Why are these people not working?"

But the slacking is not just limited to Italians - an investigation at the Vatican once revealed how dozens of civil employees there would also clock in and then leave to go out shopping or spend the day with friends and families when they should have been at their desks.

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Immigration: Parties Accused Of Point-Scoring

Britain has been accused of political point-scoring over fears that a large number of migrant workers from Romania and Bulgaria will arrive when restrictions are relaxed.

Responding to reports that the British Government is considering ways to limit migration from the two newest EU members, Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean condemned the move as "fundamentally wrong".

Speaking on Sky News' Murnaghan he said, "It is always very easy to win supplementary points, votes, electoral advantages using the already classic topic of migration".

He added that he did not expect a "huge presence" of Romanians in the UK after January 1, 2014.

He added had "received official assurances from the British government that points to Directive 38 of the European Union (relating to free movement between member states) will be respected".

Bucharest, the capital of Romania

Migration Watch UK has forecast that 250,000 people from Romania and Bulgaria will arrive in Britain by 2019 after restrictions on workers from the countries are removed at the end of this year.

European Union rules allow citizens to stay in the UK for up to three months. To stay longer they must be able to prove they are working, studying or are self-sufficient.

A YouGov poll commissioned by the Murnaghan programme found that around two thirds (64%) of British adults thought Romanians and Bulgarians should not be allowed the same working rights in Britain as those from other EU countries. A similar number (65%) were worried about the curbs being relaxed.

Both these figures rose to three quarters among Conservative voters.

Immigration was one of the single big issues which impacted the outcome of the Eastleigh by-election last week.

The Liberal Democrats retained the seat, but the Conservative Party was pushed into third place by the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) - which advocates withdrawal from the European Union.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said Romanian citizens could be attracted by Britain's benefits system.

"We are signed up to the European Union and all the while we are members of it, there is nothing we can do to control the number of people that come here from any other European country and their immediate entitlement to the entire social security system of this country," he said.

He added "I'm not against Romania or Romanians but I do think the point has come with youth unemployment at 22% for us to say enough's enough, let's have a controlled migration policy into Britain and not an open door."

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