The coffins carrying departed members of Boston’s Irish-American clan back across the Atlantic for burial in the land of their fathers were unusually heavy. But no one suspected a thing.

“We were able to get at least five rifles, a couple of handguns, and some ammunition under a corpse,” recalled Patrick Nee, an IRA sympathiser and lieutenant of the infamous Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger. “Caskets were ideal for smuggling”.

While enforcing a murderous protection racket around the city’s south side, Bulger and Nee’s Irish-American mob were also running guns to the boys back home.

Bulger, 83, is likely to spend his final days in jail after this week finally being convicted of carrying out 11 murders and leading a lucrative crime network before going on the run from the FBI for 16 years.

His two-month trial shed light on the unique underworld of “Southie”, the blue-collar district where prosecutors told the jury at Boston’s federal courthouse that he and his Winter Hill Gang “ran amok”.

Yet it was his support for the Irish republican campaign against Margaret Thatcher’s government more than 3,000 miles away that led directly to one of the most gruesome killings of his career.

Nee, who moved to Boston as a boy from a Gaelic-speaking village in County Galway, was excused from testifying after indicating he would exercise his right not to incriminate himself. But in a memoir, he revealed the full details of the murder, and how it came about after the gang organised one of the biggest weapons shipments to the IRA.

“Whitey loved being associated with the IRA and the cause of Irish freedom,” Nee recalled in his book, Criminal and an Irishman, The Inside Story of the Boston Mob and the IRA. “I think he liked the legitimacy a political cause gave him.”

Living on streets dotted with IRA murals and drinking in pubs where hats were passed round to raise money for the families of IRA prisoners, Bulger’s enforcers saw themselves as freedom fighters as much as gangsters. “I was a criminal with a passion: to drive the British out of Ireland,” added Nee.

Early on, thousands of dollars taken during the gang’s shakedowns of bookmakers were funnelled to Ireland through the local representative of Noraid, the Irish republican charity in the US.

However, Bulger was urged to think bigger by Joe Cahill, one of the Provisional IRA’s founders, during a meeting at The Three Os, the gang’s favourite pub, nicknamed “The Bucket of Blood”. Cahill, banned from the US over a conviction for murdering a policeman in Belfast in the 1940s, was sneaked into Boston on a coach full of fans returning from an ice hockey match in Canada.

“Lads,” Cahill told them, after showing a propaganda video of British troops and RUC officers firing rubber bullets at crowds, “we need your help.” Soon they were shipping 30 rifles, 25 pistols, 10 blocks of C-4 plastic explosive and 2,500 rounds of ammunition to Ireland under the false floor of a Dodge van.

The mission’s success thrilled the gang and made them more ambitious. One Sunday in 1983 Bulger, Nee and others met John Crawley, a 26-year-old IRA man who had returned to Ireland after serving in an elite unit of the US Marines. They hatched a plan to buy a boat, fill it with weapons and sail it all the way to Ireland.

Over the following months they assembled a seven-ton arsenal costing some $500,000 – $1.12 million (£720,000) today – after extorting the money from drug-dealers.

The hoard comprised 163 assault rifles, 71,000 rounds of ammunition, a ton of military explosives, and a dozen bullet­proof vests. To the astonishment of IRA commanders struggling to obtain weapons at home, they bought much of it from advertisements in the pages of Shotgun News.

Other items were obtained from IRA sympathisers around the US – 25 mini machine-guns from a gang in Philadelphia, a dozen shotguns from a contact in New York – before being transferred to bags treated to protect them from the Irish peat bogs in which they were to be buried.

One September night in 1984, the shipment was loaded on to a fishing boat the gang had bought and renamed Valhalla, after the heavenly destination for martyrs of combat in Norse mythology.

The core gang had been joined by a handful of newcomers, including John McIntyre, a 31-year-old marine mechanic and drug smuggler. His loose tongue after a few drinks worried the older mobsters, but they accepted that given his seafaring expertise, “he was the guy with balls enough to cross the Atlantic”.

Six vans delivered the weapons to the dock in Gloucester, 35 miles north-east of Boston. Finally, three minutes after midnight, the crew set sail.

Following a terrible journey, the weapons were transferred to an Irish boat, which was intercepted by Irish authorities after a tip-off from a British mole inside the IRA. The Valhalla got away and back to Boston. But the very next day, the gang’s problems began.

McIntyre was caught trying to enter his estranged wife’s house. When police logged his details, an outstanding drink-driving charge showed up. Near breaking point after his harrowing six-week boat trip, and facing a weekend in the cells, he started to talk. “I’d like to get out of here,” he pleaded. “And I’d just like to start living a normal life.” Soon he was telling police the story of the Valhalla.

Unfortunately for him, as word of his disclosures spread through US agencies, it reached John Connolly, an FBI man who was running Bulger as an informant against rival gangsters. He promptly tipped off the mob boss.

McIntyre was lured to Nee’s brother’s house on the pretext of delivering beer to a party. Dragged to the basement, he was chained to a chair by Bulger, who demanded to know what he had disclosed, while a rope was tightened around his neck.

Eventually the torture from Bulger, who was waving his MAC-10 machine pistol, became too much, according to another mobster, Kevin Weeks, who gave evidence at Bulger’s trial last month. “Jim says to him, 'do you want one in the head?’,” he recalled. “And he says, 'yes, please’.”

After Bulger obliged, McIntyre’s teeth were extracted with pliers to prevent identification. Bulger “had to go upstairs and lie down” after “the release of sexual excitement from killing exhausted him,” claimed Nee, who dug a 5ft hole in the ground and buried the body, which was only found 16 years later.

Bulger was this week convicted of killing McIntyre and 10 others during his reign as king of Boston’s underworld, which ended in 1994 when, tipped off by Connolly that he was about to be arrested, he fled for California, where he was found hiding in 2011.

Weeks, who testified extensively against Bulger, his former boss, spent five years in jail for drug and racketeering offences, but is now free.

Nee, who was jailed for his part in the Valhalla mission, still lives in South Boston.

He denies persistent rumours that he too is a protected FBI mole.

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Girls may be outraged by this, but the man in charge of admissions at Oxford University believes boys do better in exams like science because they are better at taking risks.

“It depends on the subject discipline,” says Mike Nicholson, the director of undergraduate admissions. “We have generally seen male students tend to be much more prepared to take risks, which is why they do well in exams.

“Generally, female students are risk-averse, and will tend to take longer to think about an answer. If it’s a multiple-choice question, male students will generally go with their gut feeling. Girls will try and reason it out.”

What impact does that have on the results? “Obviously, if you are using timed multiple-choice assessments, that has a bearing on the likelihood of the female students even finishing the section, when the boys have whizzed through it.”

He admits to talking in “broad brush strokes” — but Thursday’s A-level results revealed that seven out of 10 students who sat English papers this year were girls, while eight out of 10 in physics exams were boys. There was an increase in both trends, widening the gender gap in a year when record numbers of students passed their A-levels.

Most university admissions offices are frantically busy with clearing and adjustment, but the dull grey block where Mr Nicholson is based is eerily quiet.

“Phones will be ringing off the hook elsewhere,” says the 44-year-old, who was recruited from the University of Essex in 2006.

“We put so much of our effort into selecting students when they first apply, we don’t need to do an awful lot at this end of the process.”

There were 17,500 applications for 3,200 places at Oxford this year. Almost everyone offered a place accepts it.

“Our main aim at this point is to stop people getting in touch with us if they want to come here through adjustment. We don’t have any vacancies.”

The lull gives him a chance to talk frankly about the way the education system is working — or not. “The issue with teachers is that there has never been a period of stability in what they are expected to teach,” he says.

“The reforms in 2010 introduced things like extended projects and the A-star grade, which were very good changes, but they are still bedding down. Now we are already talking about new change for 2015.”

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, plans to scrap the AS-level which assesses students in the first year of sixth form. Cambridge University is strongly opposed to the move, saying it offers a useful pointer to what the student might achieve — and on behalf of Oxford, he agrees.

“It is really helpful for many students to have a checkpoint part way through their studies to get a handle on how well they are doing.” If they are not assessed then, there is “a tendency to take their foot off the gas”.

Crucially, he says, good AS results can be a revelation to those who think that studying somewhere like Oxford is beyond them.

“They only begin to think about it once they’ve got a string of As at that level. It gives them the confidence to think Oxford is within their reach. Our biggest concern is that the proposed reforms could undo an awful lot of work that has been going on in the higher education sector to encourage students.”

Most of all, though, Mr Nicholson wants the Government to stop changing the goalposts. “If schools were left to get on with their job, and teachers were supported and recognised for the professionals that they are, then actually we would probably be fine.”

So we’re not fine, then? “Attainment is not evenly spread.”

The divide between North and South is growing, says Mr Nicholson.

“Eight per cent of students in Newcastle last year got three As or better at A-level,” he says. “In Reading, it was 35 per cent. There were nine kids in Hartlepool who got three As. There were over a thousand kids in Hampshire who did the same.”

That’s because the population is not evenly spread, he says, and educationalists need to acknowledge it.

“It’s fair to say that a student who achieves three A-stars at GCSE in a school where nobody has ever achieved one, ever, is probably showing more potential than a student who does the same in a highly-selective academic school, where most of their students are getting six, seven, eight A-stars. We take that into account.”

Mr Nicholson went to a comprehensive in Gateshead and was the first in his family to go to university. He read history and English at Sheffield, before beginning a career in education that included 20 years at Essex. He doesn’t look much like a don, in his open-necked shirt.

“Frankly, this is quite an intimidating place,” he admits. “I came here at 38 as the director of admissions, and I was intimidated. You look at the buildings. It’s a place that has got a lot of history and a lot of prestige. It’s a bit overwhelming at times.”

A fresh eye was what they wanted. “I came in with a brief to look at what we did from an external perspective, because I had not been part of the system.” Currently, at Oxford, 58 per cent of the UK intake is from the state system and 42 per cent is independently-educated.

“We are actually more about asking: 'How many students from disadvantaged backgrounds are we supporting?’,” he says.

“One of the least-known facts about Oxford is that 10 per cent of our students come from households with incomes under £16,000.

“Even more interestingly, 30 per cent of those students are independently educated. They are on an academic scholarship at an independent school - so if we were to have a bias against independent schools, we would be running the risk of losing some excellent students who are there on academic merit, where the social mobility has been provided by their education.”

The university was accused of being biased the other way a few days ago, when it emerged through a Freedom of Information Act request that students with A-star results at A-level were nine per cent more likely to be accepted at Oxford if they came from independent schools.

This is misleading, says Mr Nicholson. “At the point we are making our decision, we don’t know who has got the A-stars. All we can go on is predictions. The story did not take into account any of the other factors we use to select students.”

Oxford chooses the next generation of undergraduates before they have even taken their A-levels, through aptitude tests that they sit in their schools, followed by interviews specific to their subject. “Contrary to the myth, those are not about whether you know how to use a fork correctly.

“It’s, 'so, you want to be an engineer? Tell me how you would build a bridge.’”

Those who get through tend to achieve the promised grades.

“We are looking for the best students we can find. It is not in our interests to take students on the basis of anything other than their potential to do incredibly well at Oxford,” says Mr Nicholson.

“That is not restricted to a particular school type, or social class or ethnicity or background or whether they are from the North or the South. Our entire reputation as a world class university depends on getting the best and the brightest we can.”

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A pair of identical twins have both appeared in court charged over the rape of a woman as they cannot be told apart by their DNA.

Mohammed and Aftab Asghar were arrested after forensic evidence taken from the scene linked the alleged crime with one or both of them.

Prosecutors charged both siblings as they were unable to tell which one of them was the alleged sex attacker.

The pair, aged 22, were expected to enter pleas when they appeared alongside each other in the dock at Reading Crown Court, Berks.

But police and the Crown Prosecution Service are still trying to determine whether they should continue to pursue the case against both men, and prosecutor Sandra Beck requested more time for the Crown to pursue particular lines of inquiry.

She said: "It is an unusual case. They are identical twins. The allegation is one of rape.

"There is further work due...It may mean that only one of the defendants faces trial."

No details were divulged about the circumstances of the alleged offence, which is said to have occurred on November 5, 2011.

Ms Beck confirmed a trial date had already been set for December 2.

The twins, from Reading in Berks, have meanwhile been granted conditional bail.

Identical twins share matching DNA but have different fingerprints, according to the Forensic Science Service.

The Asghar case is not the first time this has posed a problem for investigators.

In February, two identical 24-year-old twin brothers were held in Marseille, France, by police hunting a rapist as their genetic codes were so similar that normal DNA tests could not tell them apart.

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A young British tourist has had one of her legs severed after being run over by a taxi on a New York sidewalk.

The 23-year-old woman, named locally as Sian Green, was undergoing surgery to save her other leg following the accident near the Rockefeller Center on Sixth Avenue, in midtown Manhattan.

She was visiting New York from England with a friend, with whom she was walking and eating hot-dogs as the taxi struck. The driver was said to have claimed he swerved to avoid a cyclist.

Dozens of passersby promptly came to the woman's aid including Mohamed Elsayed, a 34-year-old food seller on the same square, who rushed over with a cooler full of ice with which to pack the woman's severed left leg.

"It was a terrible scene," he told The Telegraph. "She was thrown into the bushes. She was screaming. Most of her leg was just there on the sidewalk, underneath the cab. We did all we could to help."Fathy Mosad, a 22-year-old hot-dog seller, said minutes earlier he had served the two women hot-dogs with ketchup and mustard. "They were beautiful girls, smiling and so happy to be in New York," he said. "It's crazy what happened next."

The woman was also assisted by Dr Mehmet Oz, a well-known American television medic, who happened to be in the area.

Max Crespo, a pizza restaurateur who was passing with his girlfriend, the supermodel Heide Lindgren, also rushed to the victim's side and performed first aid. "We were telling her 'everything is going to be OK'," he said. "I think my boyfriend might be Superman," Lindgren said on Twitter.

However onlookers hailed as the day's hero Dave Justino, a 44-year-old plumber working on a nearby pharmacy, who removed his belt and used it as a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding from the victim's right leg, which was said to have almost been severed.

"David Justino took action," Dr Oz said later on his Facebook page. "With the help of NYC first responders, who are the best in the world, the woman was treated and rushed to a local hospital. I applaud the quick thinking and heroic actions of David and the first responders".

The woman could be heard screaming in video footage filmed by workers in office buildings overlooking the crash site, while witnesses appealed for someone to call 911. She was taken by ambulance to New York's Bellevue hospital.

Elliot Rodriguez, a cleaner who witnessed the crash, told The Daily Telegraph the taxi had been going at about 50 miles per hour. "At the speed he was going he just lost control," said Mr Rodriguez. "It happened so fast."

The driver, whose impact smashed a huge stone slab from a raised flower bed to the pavement, was not immediately arrested. However police said they were investigating the crash.

The Rockefeller Center is one of New York's most popular tourist attractions, drawing millions of visitors for the views across the city offered from its roof.

The center, which is home to the NBC broadcasting network as well as other major businesses, is also renowned for the public ice rink it houses every winter.

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Ferran Adrià is without question one of the world’s most influential chefs. In 1983 he arrived at the Catalonian restaurant elBulli to undertake a work placement, rapidly rising up the ranks to become co-owner of the establishment in 1990. Taking responsibility for the restaurant’s development, he introduced the mantra ‘creativity means not copying’ and set about introducing provocative new cooking techniques and challenging new dishes.

Under his leadership, elBulli was voted the world’s best restaurant five times by Restaurant magazine and it received over 2million reservation enquiries for each summer season that it was open. Confirming just how unorthodox his work has been, he is now the subject of the world’s first exhibition dedicated to a chef and his restaurant. On show at London’s Somerset House until September 29, elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food examines ‘the art of cuisine and cuisine as art’, taking a behind-the-scenes look at elBulli’s cooking laboratory and examining the enduring influence Adrià’s innovations and techniques have following the restaurant’s 2011 closure.

In a restaurant, my opinion as a diner is no more important than the opinion of any other diner – just because I’m a chef doesn’t change that - but I suppose what I can do is consider places as a professional and perhaps I notice things that others wouldn’t. There are lots of variables that affect a restaurant experience and how it should be interpreted. It’s important to consider how many people you go with. If I want to have a gastronomic experience I never go in a group larger than four – it’s impossible. If you do, you end up talking about things that have nothing to do with the food and sometimes you don’t even know whey you’ve gone to that particular restaurant. When I dine somewhere for professional reasons I’m looking for the vanguard. I’m looking for somewhere that provides something new and if I go to a restaurant that says it is one of the most creative in the world then I’m very demanding. A venue can only claim to be at the forefront when it’s breaking new ground.

Astrid y Gastón, Lima

Latin America is a very interesting culinary destination with thousands of good restaurants at the moment, but a country there that’s particularly good for cuisine is Peru . In Lima, Astrid y Gastón is constantly providing something new. As I said, when I go to somewhere for professional reasons that’s what I look for – if I was relaxing I could just go to a little café or bar on the beach somewhere and keep it simple and enjoy it like everyone else. I’m friend’s with Astrid y Gastón’s proprietor Gastón Acurio and his restaurant serves inventive Peruvian-Mediterranean cuisine.

Mibu, Tokyo
Mibu seats just eight and you can’t make a reservation so it can be hard to get in here. It’s not cheap either but that’s not to say it’s elitist. It offers a unique dining experience, one of the most incredible in the whole world. I’ve been about seven or eight times and have become good friends with the owner – I’ve been there when it was closed and they actually opened for us. The restaurant serves Japanese food but it’s got nothing to do with what people think of when they think of Japanese food – it’s another world beyond that. If you want to go on a trip that’s focused on food then Japan is a great destination and a visit to Mibu is always a performance, it’s incredible.

41°, Barcelona

I should begin by saying I’m not being at all objective when I recommend 41° : it is a project operated by my brother Albert. But even so it provides one of the most interesting dining experiences I’ve had in recent years and, as Alberta and I worked at elBulli together, you can still smell traces of that restaurant here. 41° is a small place with 16 covers and it presents a dialogue between the cocktail-bar world and gastronomy. The cocktails here aren’t just for easy drinking, they’re here to accompany the food and are very sophisticated and very interesting. In the western world we tend to have wine with a meal and we’ve opened that to include beer and, from that, the question arose as to whether there’s something else that could accompany food. The restaurant serves 41 different dishes that are combined with cocktails. The menu tells you which cocktails go with which dishes and the whole experience looks at the debate about what you should drink with your food.

Pujol, Mexico City

Mexican cuisine is one of the best in the world – without any doubt. Some people may find that surprising because if you try Mexican food outside of Mexico it loses the detail. Pujol is led by head chef Enrique Olvera and it is an excellent showcase for Mexican gastronomy.

Morocco

Spices for sale in Marrakech. Image: Fotolia

I think it’s very interesting to look at what’s happening in Morocco now. It seems chefs there are taking advantage of the region’s culinary history and producing really interesting things. I wouldn’t want to recommend a specific restaurant as I think you really have to go and see what’s happening for yourself and the concepts that are being considered there are being applied quite broadly.

For hundreds of years, Arabic cuisine was the most cultured and progressive and if you look back at this heritage and return to the origins of its development, you’ll see how many of the techniques that began there are now taken for granted. Like the use of sugar, for example. When you’re trying to create a kind of identity-based cooking the Arab world has a lot to draw from, to discover and rediscover. I think chefs in Morocco are starting to become more aware of that heritage and things are happening there now.

SEE ALSO: The 45 Best Restaurants In America >

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Under Mr Carney’s fresh leadership, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee explained that it would set a new target of waiting until UK unemployment dropped below 7pc, something it doesn’t expect until 2016, before raising interest rates above their current historic low.

It also outlined three “knock-out” clauses or caveats – including higher than expected inflation, and a sense that financial stability was being put at risk by lax monetary policy – that could allow them to overrule that radical new forward guidance.

Interesting developments in the financial markets mean, however, there is still much to be debated since Mr Carney’s first MPC minutes emerged.

Setting aside the complexity of the reported unemployment rate which is, in many aspects, a lagging indicator, the success of the “forward guidance” policy hangs on the assumption that the central bank actually has a greater ability at forecasting the future than the collective capacity of the global markets. It also assumes that the UK’s own markets, especially for bonds and currency, are insulated from events elsewhere.

But, as things stand, it seems as though the markets are either not especially confident about the Bank’s forecasts or the markets believe that the risks of the Bank’s “knock-out” clauses being triggered are quite high.

It is also the case that American and global markets, given the renewed steep rise in bond yields in recent days, are also weighing the possibility that there is an increased likelihood of an imminent exit from the US Federal Reserve’s own forward guidance in the form of a tapering of QE.

Earlier this year, I wrote about my memories of the 1994 bond market meltdown and just how much it left a mark on me, very brief though it may have been. These past couple of weeks have again acted as a reminder of the sensitivity of seemingly disconnected markets to rising US bond yields, whether they be gilt yields in the UK or equities in India.

This is all especially interesting given that, in essence, some form of forward guidance is already being practised by the world’s largest central banks, including the Federal Reserve in the US, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, as well as our own in Britain.

At the same time, I am reminded of the great financial market adage, one that has at least become the belief for many that are interest rate-related traders – “Never Fight the Fed”. It is a concept I was introduced to in my earliest working days and was something well worth remembering in the early parts of that 1994 bloodbath when the Fed started to raise interest rates.

But I am also reminded of the comments of one of the world’s leading investors who said to me a few years ago that, on the contrary, some of his most successful periods came when he decided that the Fed was wrong. He believed that the best time to fight the Fed was just before it changed its mind about the state of the economy and moved along a different path from the one markets had been conditioned for.

So, which is it to be this time?

Does the smart investor simply follow what the Bank of England and other central banks seem to be telling us, and take the opportunity to invest in some of the opportunities possibly being created?

Or does one go with the flow and await a change of view from the central banks? And, for the Bank and its new Governor, are they going to risk backing up their statement with action and not just words, even taking into account the risk that events in the US bond market could overwhelm that?

I have to say that these all seem pretty difficult calls right now, and I don’t envy those who are obliged to put their money on the line, so to speak, to make a decision.

Perhaps the reality is that the data will end up determining what the right decisions are.

But, as always, by the time more data are released, the markets will already have either confirmed their recent bearish behaviour in bond markets, or reversed it.

If I were a member of our central bank, I would certainly want to see another month’s worth of data before making too strong a judgment. A repeat of last month’s very strong improvements, followed by Friday’s upwards revision of UK GDP for the second quarter, would suggest a degree of momentum behind the recovery that neither the Bank nor the consensus had expected.

On the other hand, if the August PMI monthly surveys in manufacturing, services and construction give back some of their strength, I would probably want to reiterate the same forward guidance message that the Bank originally laid out.

What can be stated with certainty is that the first days of next month will be very interesting, as all this data, here and overseas – but especially in the US with their monthly ISM reports and the payrolls – is rolled out.

September is often a pretty roller-coaster month for financial markets but this year is shaping up to be even more so than normal, notably for the so-called emerging markets.

Many of them, especially those troubled with large and rising current account deficits, have suffered badly on the back of rising US bond yields. Some of their policymakers must be praying that the US economic recovery continues, but not at a pace that will keep frightening the bond markets.

There is possibly also another twist. If the US and China are rebalancing their economies in the manner that some evidence suggests, then the large marginal purchasers of US Treasuries of recent years – the Fed itself and the Chinese – will have stopped buying.

Over the longer term, this is probably a good thing. The return of US bond yields towards the 4pc to 5pc mark would be consistent with the signs of a healthier US economy, but there may be more days, and even weeks, when it might well not feel like it.

Jim O’Neill is former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and chairman of education charity Shine (www.shinetrust.org.uk)

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Japan is planning to introduce Internet "fasting" camps staffed by education experts who will help children overcome their addiction to the online world.

More than 500,000 Japanese children between the ages of 12 and 18 are believed to be addicted to the internet, although the ministry of education here says it is difficult to get accurate figures on the scale of the problem.

"It's becoming more and more of a problem," Akifumi Sekine, a spokesman for the ministry, told The Daily Telegraph. "We estimate this affects around 518,000 children at middle and high schools across Japan, but that figure is rising and there could be far more cases because we don't know about them all."

The ministry is planning a comprehensive research project into internet addiction in the next fiscal year and has asked the government to fund immersion programmes designed to get children away from their computers, mobile phones and hand-held game devices.

"We want to get them out of the virtual world and to encourage them to have real communication with other children and adults," Mr Sekine said.

The ministry is proposing to hold "fasting" camps at outdoor learning centres and other public facilities where children will have no access to the Internet.

The youngsters will be encouraged to take part in outdoor activities, team sports and games, with psychiatrists and clinical psychotherapists on hand to provide counselling should the transition back into the real world prove too traumatic.

Internet addiction is blamed for sleep and eating disorders in growing numbers of young people in Japan, while extreme cases have led to symptoms of depression and deep vein thrombosis, more commonly associated with passengers in cramped conditions on long-haul flights.

Studies suggest that an obsession with online activities is also having an impact on children's school performances.

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The communist state announced its plans to attract more tourists, promising the introduction of new flights to Pyongyang from China, Southeast Asia and Europe, according to North Korean state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Direct air travel to the country is currently limited, with China being the main entry point.

"Abundant in tourism resources, the North has a bright future to develop tourism," Jo Song Gyu, director of the state-run International Travel Company, told KCNA in a meeting with overseas travel companies from China, Britain, Germany and other countries.

Koryo Tours, a British-run, Beijing-based travel company specialising in tours to North Korea, said tourists would now be welcome to visit the country “all year round”. In previous years, North Korea had closed its borders from mid-December to mid-January each year, according to the operator.

"The country will stay open to tourists all year round,” the company said in a statement on its website and “you can now spend Christmas and New Year's Eve in the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)."

North Korea is expecting to recruit the help of foreign experts to manage its restaurants, resorts and hotels which will be renovated “at the world's level" featuring new fitness centres and duty-free shops, said Jo.

Its main tourist areas, including Paektu Mountain, Kumgang, Chilbo and Wonsan, "will be run in the form of a special zone for tourism” and all relevant activities and logistics such as “passage through boundaries, customs, taxes, communications and investment protection will go by the DPRK's relevant law on special zones as well as the international rules," he added.

One of the most reclusive countries in the world has generated a surge in interest despite the threat of nuclear war in recent years.

Britain’s Regent Holidays, the Bristol-based company that pioneered trips to North Korea, reported a 400 per cent increase in inquires from people wanting to visit the communist regime earlier this year.

The company saw a big leap in the number of holidaymakers travelling to the country, with numbers doubling in the last three years.

In May, Chinese news agencies reported North Korea may be opening its borders to day-trippers, allowing visitors to cross from Dandong City in China to Sinuiju, North Korea's largest border town.

The Telegraph’s Nigel Richardson also travelled to North Korea a few weeks after the premiere of a controversial Panorama programme on the country earlier this year, describing it as “the most secretive, eccentric, thought-provoking, frightening and – yes – amusing destination on earth”.

“Contrary to what you might think it's not hard to get in. Neither is it dangerous to be there, so long as you're not wilfully stupid,” he added.

The Foreign Office states that most visits to North Korea are trouble-free and that there is no immediate increased risk or danger to those living or travelling there. But it does warn the situation could change quickly.

It also advises British nationals to register with the British Embassy in Pyongyang on arrival. It is not possible for holidaymakers to enter from South Korea.

For more advice on travel to North Korea, visit gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice.

SEE ALSO: But what you won't see are North Korea's horrifying prison camps

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Barack Obama could take military action against Syria without waiting for British support, senior Obama administration officials said, as David Cameron faced waiting until next week for a Commons vote sanctioning any air strikes.

The abrupt halt in British momentum towards military action left the diplomatic choreography in chaos and US officials "livid" with the British, according to Western diplomatic sources at the United Nations in New York.

However US officials said on Thursday Mr Obama would not be constrained by waiting for a British parliamentary vote or by trying to forge a consensus at the United Nations where an "intransigent" Russia has made clear it would veto any resolution to use force.

Asked whether the US would "go it alone" without Britain, a White House spokesman quoted William Hague saying that the US was "able to make their own decisions", adding that the administration appreciated UK support for a strong response to the chemical weapons attacks.

"We've also seen an acknowledgement from the Foreign Secretary about the United States' right and ability to make our own foreign policy decisions that are in our national security interest," said Josh Earnest, the White House deputy press secretary.

Mr Obama, who spoke with some senior members of the US congress on the Syria debate, is due to leave for Sweden next Tuesday, followed by the G20 summit in Russia on Thursday and Friday, potentially narrowing the timetable for action.

Analysts said the Mr Obama was highly unlikely to unleash the targeted missile strikes while alongside the Russian President Vladimir Putin, forcing a choice of acting either before next Tuesday or after the G20 summit closes next weekend.

"Why would you launch when Putin is sitting there? You either go before the trip to Russia or after and my guess is before," said Barry Pavel, a former White House defence official, adding the US could launch attacks over the weekend once UN inspectors have left Damascus.

"Britain is important diplomatically, but not required, and not required militarily. The White House could move ahead without the British," Mr Pavel added.

Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, said on Thursday the UN inspection team in Syria would finish its work on Friday and meet him in New York on Saturday to discuss their findings.

Mr Ban confirmed their timetable after speaking on the telephone to Mr Obama when he urged the US president to allow the inspectors to finish their work and report back. "I told him [Mr Obama] that we will surely share our information and our analysis," he said.

The White House, however, said that the UN inspectors' mandate was not to allocate blame but only to establish whether chemical weapons had been used – a fact that had been agreed to by all sides.

Mr Obama's dilemma over whether to act without direct British support follows Mr Cameron's embarrassing climb-down on Wednesday over whether a Commons vote would be required to sanction UK military involvement.

"The Americans are livid with us," said one Western diplomat, who added British officials were astonished that the Prime Minister could have made such an "enormous miscalculation" amid such high stakes.

A furious-looking Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, refused to answer questions on Thursday as she left a meeting of the Security Council permanent members, but later said on Twitter that the Syrian regime "must be held accountable, which the Security Council has refused to do for two years", adding "The US is considering an appropriate response."

Mr Obama said on Wednesday there was "no doubt" the Assad regime was behind the chemical weapons attacks that killed at least 350 people, arguing that a "limited" strike would send a clear message to Assad to "stop doing this" and be beneficial to long-term US national security interests.

The administration said it was preparing to publish a declassified intelligence dossier last night. Officials told the Associated Press that the assessment was not a "slam dunk", however Mr Earnest said that both Democrat and Republican senators briefed on the classified intelligence had accepted that Assad was responsible for the attacks.

"I have no interest in any open-ended conflict in Syria, but we do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on weapons like chemical weapons that could threaten us, that they are held accountable," Mr Obama told the US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

However high profile voices, including the Republican speaker of the House John Boehner and Donald Rumsfeld, the former Defense Secretary who was the architect of intervention in Iraq, said the administration not yet properly justified an attack on Syria.

"There really hasn't been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation," Mr Rumsfeld told Fox News, adding that Mr Obama's indecision over Syria over the last two years had left a "vacuum" in the Middle East.

Seeking to justify the national security interest, Mr Obama also said that the US could be at direct risk of proliferation of Syrian chemical weapons, a contention that was challenged by those opposing military action.

Although facing calls from some members of Congress for a British-style debate on whether to take military action, Mr Obama is not constrained in the same way as a British prime minister.

Senate aides told The Daily Telegraph that Congress was split three ways on Syria, between anti-war Democrats and isolationist conservatives against action, hawkish neo-conservatives who want to see Assad forcibly removed and an emerging middle ground.

"This emerging third group supports a limited strike targeting the unit or brigade responsible for the chemical weapons strike," the aide said, "and as with all things, the middle ground is usually where the American people are."

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Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop is the hot favourite to take the top job at Microsoft, after Steve Ballmer announced his intention to retire last week.

Ladbrokes is offering 5/1 odds on Elop - who spent two years at Microsoft before joining Nokia - being chosen to replace Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft.

Elop joined Microsoft in 2008 as head of its business division, which is responsible for the Microsoft Office suite of products. The Canadian was then appointed CEO of Nokia in 2010, becoming the first non-Finnish director in Nokia's history.

The following year Elop announced that Nokia would adopt Microsoft's Windows Phone as its primary smartphone operating system. On the strength of this partnership, Microsoft recently overtook BlackBerry as the third-largest smartphone operating system, after Google Android and Apple iOS.

The latest odds from Ladbrokes has Elop as the favourite, ahead of Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner (6/1), former president of Microsoft's Windows Division Steven Sinofsky (8/1) and Julie Larson Green (8/1), executive vice-president of Microsoft's devices and studios business.

Outside bets include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey taking charge (40/1), Microsoft founder Bill Gates making a return to the company (50/1), or Tim Cook swapping control of Apple for its rival (100/1).

Steve Ballmer, who is 57, last week announced his intention to retire as chief executive of Microsoft within the next 12 months, once a successor has been chosen.

Ballmer has worked for Microsoft for 33 years and is currently overseeing the transformation of Microsoft into a devices and services company.

"There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time," Ballmer said in a statement. "We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction."

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A journalist’s partner who was detained carrying thousands of British intelligence documents through Heathrow airport was also holding the password to an encrypted file written on a piece of paper, the government has disclosed.

In a written statement handed to the High Court in London, a senior Cabinet Office security adviser said it showed “very poor judgment” by David Miranda and other people associated with him.

Senior judges agreed to issue a court order which allows Scotland Yard to continue to examine data from nine electronic devices seized from Mr Miranda on August 18.

But the terms of the order were widened so police have specific permission to analyse whether Mr Miranda, and others, have breached the Official Secrets Acts or a section of the Terrorism Act 2000 which make it an offence to possess information which may be useful to terrorists.

Mr Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, a journalist with the Guardian newspaper who has made a series of controversial disclosures on US and British spying capabilities based on information from the former US intelligence employee Edward Snowden .

Scotland Yard announced last week they had launched a criminal investigation.

The government’s statement claims possession of the documents by Mr Miranda, Mr Greenwald and the Guardian posed a threat to national security, particularly because Mr Miranda was carrying a password alongside a range of electronic devices on which classified documents were stored.

Keeping passwords separate from the computer files or accounts to which they relate is a basic security step.

Oliver Robbins, the deputy national security adviser for intelligence, security and resilience in the Cabinet Office, said in his 13-page submission: “The information that has been accessed consists entirely of misappropriated material in the form of approximately 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents.

“I can confirm that the disclosure of this information would cause harm to UK national security.

“Much of the material is encrypted. However, among the unencrypted documents ... was a piece of paper that included the password for decrypting one of the encypted files on the external hard drive recovered from the claimant.

“The fact that ... the claimant was carrying on his person a handwritten piece of paper containing the password for one of the encrypted files ... is a sign of very poor information security practice.”

He added: “Even if the claimant were to undertake not to publish or disclose the information that has been detained, the claimant and his associates have demonstrated very poor judgement in their security arrangements with respect to the material rendering the appropriation of the material, or at least access to it by other, non-State actors, a real possibility.”

The government has been forced to assume that copies of the information held by Mr Snowden, who worked for the US National Security Agency, are now in the hands of foreign governments after his travel to Moscow via Hong Kong, Mr Robbins said.

Disclosure of the material could put the lives of British intelligence agents or their families at risk, the court heard, and the general public could also be endangered if details about intelligence operations or methods fell into the wrong hands.

Another statement by a senior officer from Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, SO15, disclosed police have so far only reconstructed 75 of the 58,000 classified documents which Mr Miranda was carrying.

In her statement to the court Detective Superintendent Caroline Goode said the encrypted files were “extremely difficult to access”.

Mr Miranda’s computer hard drive contained 60 gigabytes of data of which only 20 have been accessed so far, she said, and police have established the documents contained material that was classified to the “highest levels”.

It was also confirmed for the first time that GCHQ, the government’s listening post, is helping Scotland Yard decrypt the files seized from Mr Miranda.

Both sides agreed to a temporary court order continuing until a full hearing takes place in October.

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, said: “Mr Robbins makes a number of unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims in his witness statement.

“The way the government has behaved over the past three months belies the picture of urgency and crisis they have painted.”

He said officials in this country and the US had delayed contacting other organisations about GCHQ material, including the New York Times.

“This five week period in which nothing has happened tells a different story from the alarmist claims made by the government in their witness statement,” said Mr Rusbridger.

“The Guardian took every decision on what to publish very slowly and very carefully and when we met with government officials in July they acknowledged that we had displayed a ‘responsible’ attitude.

“The government’s behaviour does not match their rhetoric in trying to justify and exploit this dismaying blurring of terrorism and journalism.”

Gwendolen Morgan, Mr Miranda’s solicitor, said: “Given the vague doomsday prophesies which the police and Home Office have put before the court, our client decided that the full hearing in October was the better forum in which to argue these fundamental issues of press freedom.

“He hopes that - in open court - the defendants’ assertions will be fully tested.”

Mr Miranda said in a statement: “I am bringing this case because I believe that my rights have clearly been violated by UK authorities, and that basic press freedoms are now threatened by the attempted criminalization of legitimate journalistic work.”

Mr Greenwald said: “The UK Government is incapable of pointing to a single story we have published that has even arguably harmed national security.

“The only thing that has been harmed are the political interests and reputations of UK and US officials around the world, as they have been caught engaging in illegal, unconstitutional and truly dangerous bulk surveillance aimed at their own citizens and people around the world, all with little accountability or transparency - until now.

“The government’s accusation that we have been irresponsible with the security measures we took with the materials with which we are working are negated by their own admission that they have been unable to obtain access to virtually any of the documents they seized from Mr Miranda because, in the government’s words, those materials are ‘heavily encrypted’.”

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: “As previously stated the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command is now carrying out a criminal investigation, which is at an early stage.”

SEE ALSO: Glenn Greenwald's Partner Was Carrying A Stunning Amount Of Sensitive Documents When He Was Detained

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The first cell of Syrian rebels trained and armed by the CIA is making its way to the battlefield, President Barack Obama has reportedly told senators.

During a meeting at the White House, the president assured Senator John McCain that after months of delay the US was meeting its commitment to back moderate elements of the opposition.

Mr Obama said that a 50-man cell, believed to have been trained by US special forces in Jordan, was making its way across the border into Syria, according to the New York Times.

The deployment of the rebel unit seems to be the first tangible measure of support since Mr Obama announced in June that the US would begin providing the opposition with small arms.

Congressional opposition delayed the plan for several weeks and rebel commanders publicly complained the US was still doing nothing to match the Russian-made firepower of the Assad regime.

Mr McCain has been a chief critic of the White House's reluctance to become involved in Syria and has long demanded that Mr Obama provide the rebels with arms needed to overthrow the regime.

He and Senator Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican foreign policy hawk, emerged from the Oval Office meeting on Monday cautiously optimistic that Mr Obama would step up support for the rebels.

"There seems to be emerging from this administration a pretty solid plan to upgrade the opposition," Mr Graham said.

He added that he hoped the opposition would be given "a chance to speak directly to the American people" to counter US fears that they were dominated by al-Qaeda sympathisers.

"They're not trying to replace one dictator, Assad, who has been brutal... to only have al-Qaeda run Syria," Mr Graham said.

The US announced in June, following the first allegations the Assad regime had used chemical weapons, that it would send light arms to the rebels but refused to provide anti-aircraft missiles and other heavy weapons.

American concerns were born partly out of the experience of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when CIA weapons given to the anti-Russian mujahideen were later used by the Taliban.

SEE ALSO: Syria's Assad Warns The Middle East Is A 'Powder Keg'

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This astonishing film will leave you at once entranced and terrified.

Dir: Jonathan Glazer; Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams

Bones, nerves, blood and meat: if you heave open a copy of Anatomy of the Human Body, by Henry Gray, or simply fall out of a tree, it soon becomes clear that we are all made of the same stuff underneath. Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin (see the trailer here ), which was shown in competition at the Venice Film Festival earlier today, presents us with a person who isn’t.

This is Glazer’s third film and his first for nine years since Birth, a mesmerisingly strange romance starring Nicole Kidman that premiered at Venice in 2004. Back then, that film was enthusiastically booed, and Under The Skin, which is loosely based on a book by Michel Faber, has followed proudly in its footsteps.

At this morning’s screening, delegates were twitching, tutting, wriggling and scratching, as if Glazer’s film was turning the air in the cinema to vaporised acid. When the credits rolled, the farmyard noises began, although if my legs hadn’t been so wobbly and my mouth so dry, I would have climbed up on my seat and cheered.

So the film is certainly divisive: but would you expect anything else from an almost wordless science-fiction thriller in which Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who lures lonely and/or horny Glaswegians into her van and turns them into Scotch broth? In Faber’s book, the alien is called Isserley, and she works for an intergalactic corporation who harvest meaty hitchhikers for their muscles, which are a delicacy back home.

But with a butcher’s precision, Glazer has trimmed away the story’s fat and gristle, and the operation is presented as something far stranger, and less readily explicable. A motorcyclist, credited as The Bad Man and played by the professional road racer Jeremy McWilliams, could be Johansson’s immediate supervisor – but Glazer largely leaves you to make sense of his images by yourself, or simply to wallow in them when you can’t.

The film was shot on location in Glasgow and the Scottish Highlands, much of it undercover and on the hoof. Johansson, who appears in a tangled black wig and is not immediately recognisable, went into nightclubs and shopping centres followed by hidden cameras, and the reactions of the people in the background are entirely real and authentic. In one sequence she trips and falls on what I think is Buchanan Street, and passers-by cluster round to help. Johansson’s cool bemusement at this simple, human response is one of the most chillingly inhuman things I have ever seen.

She takes care to pick off men who won’t be missed: lonely souls out late at night with no girlfriends or wives to come looking for them. They get into her van, and the next we see of them they are walking into a black room, naked and visibly aroused, tempted forward by Mica Levi’s metronomic score and Johansson’s impossible body: you might almost be watching an ancient fertility rite.

As her victims move towards her, they start sinking downwards, until finally their head slips under the floor like the surface of an oil slick. What happens next we see only once, although the images in Under the Skin are not shaken off easily, and once is definitely enough.

Johansson is nothing short of iconic here; her character is a classic femme fatale in the film noir tradition, down to the plump red lips and deep fur coat, but with a refrigerated nothingness at her core. She looks at her fellow cast members as if they are from another planet – which is, of course, exactly as it should be. Even the Scottish landscape looks alien: dawn mist rolls across lochs like curls of space dust.

Glazer’s astonishing film takes you to a place where the everyday becomes suddenly strange, and fear and seduction become one and the same. You stare at the screen, at once entranced and terrified, and step forward into the slick.

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There are fears that up to 20,000 may have been allowed to die of disease or starvation in the run-up to the closure of the camp at the end of last year.

The suspicion has emerged from a newly-released report by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) detailing the situation in penal colonies as Kim Jong-un consolidated his power after taking over as leader from his father, Kim Jong-il who died in 2011. Now the group that is demanding an inquiry into their fate.

The Washington-based organisation gleans information from defectors from the North, including former guards and the occasional survivor of a prison camp, as well as examining satellite imagery.

It focused much of its attention on Camp 22, a vast compound that sprawled across more than 770 square miles, making it larger than London.

The report, North Korea's Hidden Gulag: Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps, reveals that two camps have been shut down in the last year but that 130,000 individuals are still being held in penal labour colonies across the country.

"Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal to the regime," the report states.

"They are deemed 'wrong-thinkers', 'wrong-doers', or those who have acquired 'wrong-knowledge' or have engaged in 'wrong-associations'."

Detainees are "relentlessly subjected to malnutrition, forced labour, and to other cruel and unusual punishment," the report says, with thousands more forcibly held in other detention facilities.

"North Korea denies access to the camps to outsiders, whether human rights investigators, scholars, or international media and severely restricts the circulation of information across its borders," the study added.

At Camp No. 22, in North Hamyong Province, in the far north-east of the country, the prison population shrank dramatically in the months before its closure, probably in December 2012.

Reports suggest that a severe food shortage meant that little was passed on to inmates and that numbers dwindled rapidly from 30,000 to 3,000.

Defectors told investigators that as many as 8,000 prisoners may have been transferred to other camps in North Korea's network of gulags, but there are no suggestions that any inmates were released - implying that they may have succumbed to a harsher than usual prison regime.

"North Korea's 2009 currency devaluation (whereby camp authorities were reportedly unable to purchase food in markets to supplement the crops grown in the camps), combined with bad harvests, resulted in the death of large numbers of prisoners after 2010," the report states.

"If even remotely accurate, this is an atrocity requiring much closer investigation."

A United Nations commission of inquiry held hearings in Seoul and Tokyo late last month to examine reports of human rights abuses in the North, including the abduction of foreign nationals, although Pyongyang insists that it respects the human rights of its citizens and refused to allow members of the commission to visit specified sites.

Roberta Cohen, co-chairman of HRNK, called for the International Red Cross to be granted access to the camps as soon as possible.

"An accounting of the fate and whereabouts of all of North Korea's political prisoners, including those missing and those who have died in detention, should be of highest priority to the UN commission of inquiry and the entire international community," she said.

The organisation has stated that it fears the North Korean regime will attempt to erase evidence of atrocities or eliminate surviving prisoners.

Very few North Koreans who have managed to escape from prison camps and to freedom outside the country's borders, but those who have tell of terrible suffering.

Inmates - who can be imprisoned for life, along with three generations of their families, for anything deemed to be critical of the regime - are forced to survive by eating frogs, rats and picking corn kernels our of animal waste.

Activists say that as many as 40 percent of inmates die of malnutrition, while others succumb to disease, sexual violence, torture, abuse by the guards or are worked to death. Men, women and children are required to work for up to 16 hours a day in dangerous conditions, often in mines or logging camps.

Anyone sent to a North Korean labour camp is unlikely to ever leave again, analysts say, while a failed attempt to escape brings execution.

A recent report by South Korea's National Human Rights Commission suggests that the majority of inmates were caught attempting to flee the country in search of food or work, instead of being incarcerated for their political beliefs. Others were detained after being overheard praising South Korea.

NOW: See what life is like for those locked up in North Korea

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Syria's rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's soldiers agree on next to nothing. They've killed each other by the tens of thousands in a war mired in stalemate. But they're now agreed on one thing. The military strike America is preparing will not change anything.

For the rebels, the attack will be too little, too late; a strike so long delayed that it will destroy only empty buildings and broken warplanes.

For the government and its troops, it would be a petulant volley of Western frustration, born of the lies America has told the world about Assad's responsibility for firing chemical weapons and of its determination to overthrow him.

The soldiers I meet on the front lines are defiant. "When they send their rockets we'll shoot them out of the sky," says one grizzled fighter, raising his battered Kalashnikov rifle in the air. When I ask them what weapons they have to take down the cruise missiles likely to be fired, they assure me they have secret weapons that will do the job.

For all the bravado, soldiers and citizens of the capital are watching events with growing concern. There are reports that a military radar system has been dismantled at Damascus International Airport; that missiles, tanks and aircraft have already been hidden; that Intelligence and Defence buildings have been emptied of vital computers. The Information Ministry has a new satellite television set-up in case the State Broadcasting building is attacked.

On Mount Qassioun, the hilltop overlooking Damascus, there are few soldiers to be seen, which is odd, because it is the site of huge military bases and of the artillery positions that have pounded suburbs like Daraya and Ghouta, where hundreds died in the chemical weapons attack.

One army commander trained in missiles at Mount Qassioun's base told me the Americans might hit the mountain but the soldiers and the key equipment would be deep inside; the cruise missiles would not penetrate.

Around the swimming pools of the rich areas of Damascus, the middle class and business leaders, or at least those of them who haven't chosen to flee, predict the unintended consequences of an American raid. If it destroys enough of the planes, airfields, helicopters and equipment that has given Assad a clear military advantage over the rebels, they say, America might give al-Qaeda linked groups the opening they need to push on to the capital and take down the whole regime. Many Christians and Sunnis, as well as Assad's key Alawite supporters, are concerned that the secular Syria they remember may be destroyed by an Islamist offensive on the back of American missiles.

But most believe the American strike will achieve little. Command buildings may be struck but the commanders are unlikely to be inside. It has been a week since I heard a MiG warplane fly over the capital, once a regular sound. No-one imagines they're still on the runways. As one rebel put it "the Americans will scratch the surface, hit five per cent of the regime's power and save face. That won't save us from another attack."

Meanwhile, the street fighting and the killing goes on. In Tadamon, a southern suburb of Damascus, I watched intense gun battles, bullets taking chunks off a mosque underneath pro-Assad fighters who've made 400 yards of progress against rebels in a year. One of the fighters is Abu Issa, 70, dressed in full camouflage. On a street strewn with bullet casings and stinking of rotting animals, he fires volleys of shots at the rebel positions just 50 yards away and breathes deeply as he walks back towards me. "I fought the Israelis in '67 and '73," he says proudly. "The Americans can shoot their missiles but they'll get nowhere. Our real enemy is over there, on the ground - al-Qaeda!"

An educated young commander, his English good, is genuinely puzzled. "How can it be", he asks me, "that America is going to fight us, on the side of al-Qaeda? How can America be against a secular country and for Islamists who kill their prisoners and dump their bodies in a well?"

Bill Neely is International Editor of ITV News

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As George Osborne insists the UK economy is 'turning a corner' here are other confident predictions through the years that turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

Stock Market Crash

American economist Irving Fisher confidently predicted that "stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau" in 1929. Unfortunately he made this statement just three days before the Stock Market Crash of the same year. Even as the Crash took hold followed by the Great Depression, Fisher continued to reassure investors that recovery was just around the corner.

iPhone

Mere months before the first iPhone was released in 2007 Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said, "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Apple has sold more than 116 million iPhones this year alone. Ballmer has soldiered on at Microsoft but it was announced last month that he is to retire within the year

Y2K bug

For years before the stroke of midnight heralded in the new millennium, analysts were convinced it would cause destruction. The American deputy Secretary of Defence John Hamre said it would be the "electronic equivalent of the El Nino." The mass hysteria stemmed from the fact that computer systems were built to record dates using only the last two digits of each year so they could recognise '77' as '1977' but '00' would set them into a tailspin. Hundreds of billions of pounds were spent on making software 'Y2K compliant' but all fears were unfounded with very few recorded malfunctions.

The Beatles

In 1962 the Beatles auditioned for Decca Records and were rejected. An executive told the band's manager Brian Epstein, "the Beatles have no future in Showbusiness." He went on to explain, "Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars, particularly, are finished." Decca records selected the local band Brian Poole and the Tremeloes for their label instead and the Beatles became one of the greatest bands of all time

Internet shopping

In 1966 Time Magazine imagined what the world might look like in the year 2000. Among other prediction it said: “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop – because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise." Online shopping has not turned out to be a flop- men and women flock to it. Currently UK online retail sales stand at approximately £586.6m per week

Sinking of the Titanic

Phillip Franklin, vice president of the White Star Line which produced the RMS Titanic predicted that it would never sink. He said: "There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers." On hearing of the Titanic's demise he simply said: "I do not understand it". Franklin was among many, including the ship's captain, who made the same prediction.

The Great Storm

The prediction that made Michael Fish famous was also the one that made him infamous, because it was wrong. In 1987 He cheerfully told BBC viewers that they had nothing to be concerned about after a woman had phoned to ask about whether a hurricane was on its way. He said: "Earlier on today, a woman rang the BBC and said she'd heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well if you're watching, don't worry – there isn't.". Mere hours later gale force winds of up to 122mph battered Britain, caused £1.8 billion of damage and killed 19 people. Fish has been dogged by questions about the Great Storm incident to this day but insists no one was to blame.

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As dedicated followers of cryptic crosswords will surely know, there is no substitute for experience when it comes to tackling a Telegraph Toughie. But a new scientific study has identified the key mental qualities which allow a select handful of crossword addicts to stand out among their peers.

So-called "fluid intelligence", or the ability to "make the mind jump through hoops" while solving problems, is directly linked to the ability to untangle cryptic clues, researchers found.

People with higher fluid intelligence are able to reason more quickly and logically, manipulate date more easily and have a better grasp of complex and abstract information.

Researchers from the University of Buckingham studied a group of 28 experienced cryptic crossword solvers, all with decades of experience, but some of whom were elite crossword champions while others simply solved the puzzles as a hobby.

The participants were given 45 minutes in which to solve a crossword, and also sat a test designed to measure their fluid intelligence.

Unsurprisingly the expert solvers were much more likely to finish the puzzle within the time limit, but they also scored significantly higher in fluid intelligence.

Dr Philip Fine, who led the study, said: "We think that cryptic crossword solvers as a whole may have an innate aptitude for problem solving, making cryptic crossword solving an attractive and rewarding pastime.

"But we also found that experience in itself doesn't fully explain the differences between expert and non-expert performance in this area. Higher problem solving ability appears to play a role in enabling elite solvers to excel."

People who regularly spend all day struggling over a fiendish clue should not feel downhearted, however.

"Most people don't set out to solve a puzzle at break-neck speed, and feel cheated if it doesn't offer them a little challenge," Dr Fine added.

"There's a lot to be said for tackling the crossword at a more leisurely pace, admiring the skillful construction of the clues and savouring that 'Aha!' moment when the penny finally drops."

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British operators specializing in Japan have described the decision to make Tokyo the host city of the 2020 Olympic Games as a huge vote of confidence in the country – and its safety.

They predict a significant increase in the number of people wanting to visit the country now that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has effectively declared that it believes the country is coping with the continuing radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant caused by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011.

Even before Saturday night’s vote in favour of the Japanese capital, many UK-based operators said they were having a bumper year in terms of people booking trips to Japan, with some saying they were heading for record breaking figures.

“The vote in favour of Tokyo will have a huge impact on people who had remained scared about what happened in 2011 and its continuing fallout,” said Regina Galkina of ViaJapan Holidays. “There is no way Tokyo would have been named the Olympic city if it was not safe. People with doubts will now be more inclined to go.”

Her views were echoed by James Mundy of Inside Japan, another specialist company. “The Olympic Committee would never have awarded the Games to Tokyo if they thought athletes and visitors would be exposed to radioactivity. This vote puts the problems in Tokyo into a wider perspective – and it has forced the Japanese government to act decisively.

“We always tell our clients that Fukishima is as far away from Tokyo as Bruges is from London. Also, radioactive readings from Tokyo are consistently less than in cities like London and New York.”

In the countdown to Saturday’s vote, renewed concerns were raised about radioactive material from Fukushima finding its way into the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assured members of the IOC that problems at the Fukushima nuclear plant were under control and that “it has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo.”

Even before the vote in favour of Tokyo, the number of British visitors to Japan had risen considerably. In the first seven months of this year some 111,300 Britons made trips to Japan, a 22 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2012 – and a higher number than the 107,391 who traveled there in the first seven months of 2010, the year before the earthquake/tsunami.

According to Kylie Clark of the Japan National Tourist Organization there has been a lot of “pent-up” demand from people who put off traveling to Japan while concerns about the post earthquake situation remained intense.

Another factor has been a significant reduction in the value of the yen: this year the Japanese currency has dropped from 120 yen to the pound in January to 156 yen today, so that although the country could still hardly be described as cheap, it is much more affordable.

“We have been having a bumper year,” said Mundy of Inside Japan. “Our sales are 20 per cent up and with all eyes now turning again towards Tokyo they are likely to rise further.”

Mundy is expecting a lot of interest next year, the 50th anniversary of the last time Tokyo hosted the Olympic Games in 1964 and also the 50th anniversary of the first Shinkansen (Bullet Train).

“After the terrible events of 2011 this vote is a huge boost for Tokyo,” he said. “And I am sure that just as people who visited in 2002 when the country hosted the Football World Cup, all those going for 2020 will return with a very different view of the city.”

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Charles Saatchi eschews conventional auction houses to sell his collection of Middle Eastern contemporary art online, says Colin Gleadell.

Charles Saatchi has chosen a new online-only auctioneer to sell works from his collection of Middle Eastern contemporary art this month, rather than a more familiar live auction at Sotheby’s, Christie’s or Phillips.

The 15 works, valued at more than £250,000, were exhibited in Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, held at the Saatchi Gallery in 2009.

The sale is being staged by the Auction Room, which was formed earlier this year by Sotheby’s former managing director of Europe, George Bailey, and is directed by Janet Rady, an independent expert in Middle Eastern art .

Forty works are currently viewable online, with estimates ranging from £1,200 to £80,000, and bidding has already begun on half of them. A popular lot is Hayv Kahraman’s pair of portraits, Carrying on Shoulder 1 and 2 from the Saatchi collection.

Since I last wrote about the artist’s work at Art Dubai in 2009, where her paintings were priced at $10,000 each, they have risen to nearly $100,000 (£62,000) at auction. An exhibition of her latest work which opens today at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York has already sold out, so bidding on this work is likely to exceed the estimated £36,000 to £40,000.

Equally interesting will be the artists who have had no exposure to auction before, such as Sohelia Sokhanvari, an Iranian artist who lives in England and was trained as a traditional miniature painter. In this sale she presents Shahrzad the Storyteller, the legendary Persian queen, in modern-day dress, using Iranian crude oil for shading, 22-carat gold and semi-precious pigments. Painted this year, it has an estimate of £4,000 to £6,000 and has had two bids up to £3,600 so far.

Next week, the 40 works will all go on view physically in two adjacent galleries in London’s Cork Street, prior to the sale closing on the evening of September 19. At 7pm, online viewers and bidders will hear Bailey’s voice as he runs through the final bids on each lot consecutively. Each lot will be given 40 seconds, unless a bid is made before the planned closure of the sale, in which case a rival bidder will be given a further 15 seconds to make their bid. When the bidding concludes, the sound of Bailey’s gavel will ring out as he declares the lot sold or unsold. He might also reveal the locations of the bidders to add some extra colour to the proceedings.

The whole process has been devised to replicate a live sale as far as possible. Unlike other online-only auction sites, such as eBay or Artnet, which simply act as a conduit between buyer and seller, the Auction Room employs specialists to catalogue lots and advise clients, and supervises collection and distribution of payment. An atypical feature is that there will be no publicly accessible records kept of individual sale results. So in theory, if Saatchi’s lots flop, it will be easier for him to reoffer them without the shadow of failure hanging over them.

Rady believes her sale fills a gap in the market, as none of the major salerooms are holding a contemporary Middle Eastern Art sale in London this year. Outside Europe there is increasing activity. The Ayyam Gallery in Dubai holds its 16th sale for young collectors next Tuesday, where prices range from $1,000 to $15,000, while the Tehran Auction, which held its second sale of contemporary art by Iranian artists in June, sold all 82 lots for $2 million. Next month, Christie’s holds its annual sale of Arab and Iranian art in Dubai, and will add an online-only sale to its two regular live sales for the first time.

Online only auctions are now sprouting up like mushrooms. In addition to newly formed operations such as the Auction Room and Paddle8 fine art online auction house, Christie’s is staging online sales this month for Andy Warhol fashion design, contemporary Asian prints, and Australian drawings, while Artnet is casting its net to cover contemporary African and Asian art, photography, street art, and “pop” art prints. All are aimed at the more affordable end of the art market, which the live auctions at the larger auctioneers do not cater for any more. For sellers, online is also a cheaper way to sell. The Auction Room, for instance, provides expertise but only charges 7.5 per cent to sellers, which is half the price charged by the larger auctioneers. In addition, there are no illustration, insurance or unsold lot charges to pay.

So the action online is really heating up. The big question, though, is what will sell? Saatchi is gambling that his lots will.

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When - and how - did the colour of washing machines and microwaves become cool?

It wasn’t long ago that if you saw a white car, nine times out of ten it would have orange stripes along its sides and flashing blue lights on its roof.

Black was the colour to have, and owning a white motor was a faux-pas akin to wearing socks of the same colour.

Car dealers even coined the term "60-day white" - a reference to the length of time that such vehicles would sit unwanted on their forecourts.

I remember well when, in the early Noughties, Jaguar delivered a white X-type press car to the car magazine I was working for. I won't list the insults: let's just say that neither my colleagues nor I had a kind word.

Then, suddenly, something changed, and in a matter of months white went from must-not to must-have. Sales figures from Audi - that most upwardly mobile and style-led of brands - show that it shifted only 119 white cars in 2006; in 2008 it sold 3,957 and in 2012 it sold more than 30,000, accounting for almost a quarter of sales.

A handful of aspirational models helped to turn the tide, among them the Audi TT, BMW M3 and Mk V Volkswagen Golf GTI. A new wave of car design also made a difference - out went curvy shapes and fussy details, in came sculpted sides and crisp edges. White helped to highlight the new look.

Then there's the "Apple effect" - the iPod and MacBook were at the cutting edge of design and if you wanted your product to look trendy and futuristic, white became the default choice.

Thing is, not all cars look good in white. Hot hatches and sports cars do; MPVs don't. Large SUVs often look like they should trekking across a war-torn desert plain with a UN badge on their side, while luxury saloons can come across a bit too "Saudi-spec".

Buyers in the Middle East, and other warmer climates, often choose white for a reason, of course: studies have shown that white cars reflect the sun better and heat up less quickly. There are other good reasons for choosing white, too. For starters, the old "oh, but it shows the dirt more" argument doesn't really wash when the colour of dried dirt (and road salt) is pale beige. And as someone that has, over the years, laboriously hand-washed hundreds of press cars for photo shoots (oh the glamour of being a motoring journalist), I can vouch for the fact that white cars are usually easier to clean, or at least get to appear clean.

But what of "60-day white"? If you buy a white car now will it be worth less than an equivalent black or silver one in a few years?

The experts say no - a spokesman for webyanycar.com said: "White is holding its value across the board better than anything else. It’s currently a more desirable colour and can increase value by up to 25 per cent.”

Mark Bulmer, research editor at car pricing experts CAP, adds: “White is moving back into the mainstream as a popular colour and we currently see no change in this for the foreseeable future.”

If white's popularity looks assured for the moment, it’s worth remembering that fashion is fickle and the next big thing is always just around the corner. If the colour of press cars is anything to go by (and it generally is) then it won’t be long before we'll all be rushing out to buy cars that are - wait for it - brown. Most manufacturers now offer their cars in various muddy hues, with names such as Burnt Oak, Copper Pulse and Mahogany Metallic.

In fact, a closer look at those Audi sales figures shows that white’s popularity has dipped slightly this year. Perhaps it's now too common, too conventional. What is the most popular colour of 2013 so far, then? Black, of course.

SEE ALSO: Jaguar's Brand New Sports Car Is An Incredibly Fun Ride

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