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The surprising reason that hunting big game could be good for conservation

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cecil the lion

There’s something rather tragic about a dead big cat; an apex predator reduced to something akin to a battered teddy crossed with a shagpile carpet.

So it’s easy to understand the anger over Cecil, the Zimbabwean lion killed by Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota.

Piers Morgan’s tweet, announcing “I’d love to go hunting for killer dentist Dr Walter Palmer, so I can stuff him on my office wall”, is typical of the digital castigation now being heaped on the American.

I wonder, then, what his critics would make of Kirkpatrick, whose head and skin lie by my desk as I type.

He’s an Indian leopard, seven foot from head to tail, his face twisted into a sardonic snarl, who took 34 human lives before he met his demise in 1934 with a bullet from the local district commissioner. Would they condemn his killing or that of the leopard of Rudraprayag, shot by Jim Corbett in 1926 after it had eaten 125 souls?

The circumstances and motives differ of course but highlight the complexity that surrounds hunting, both abroad and here in Britain.

Many hunters think other African countries should follow South Africa’s example and encourage well-organised, controlled culling of species, so giving them a value to those that live with them. They argue that a rhino, like anything else, will eventually die of old age, so why not allow an elderly beast to be shot and charge fees that can be used to fund effective anti-poaching measures?

That argument fails to convince those who find any form of hunting repugnant, who condemn anyone who hunts as “barbaric”, a term routinely used against those who follow fieldsports here. But being an “animal lover” does not automatically make you a good conservationist.

hunting africaThose celebrating the SNP’s scuppering of the Conservatives’ attempt to bring foxhunting legislation into line with Scotland should ponder why foxes are not made a protected species in this country. It’s simply because such a measure would carry no credence with real conservationists. Even the RSPB controls foxes, along with other opportunistic predators.

Nola, a critically endangered 40-year-old female northern white rhino, is shown at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, California in this January 8, 2015 handout photo released to Reuters May 12, 2015. REUTERS/Ken Bohn/Copyright San Diego Zoo Safari Park/Handout  The RSPB accepts, albeit reluctantly, that populist conservation thinking, while cuddly, does not work in a small country where there’s no such thing as a “natural environment”.

In the UK we spend £480 million annually on agri-environment schemes yet in the past 50 years alone, 60 per cent of 3,148 species studied in Britain have declined, one third of them seriously.

Unpalatable as it may be to sentimentalists, the only places where you will find thriving populations of lapwings and other ground-nesting birds, such as curlews and grey partridges, are on estates with diligent gamekeepers who control our flourishing hordes of carrion crows, magpies, rats and foxes.

As someone whose primary motivation for hunting is to put something delicious on the table – and I do love a warm woodpigeon salad – I don’t quite understand Walter Palmer’s desire to shoot a lion with a bow and arrow .

But when I’m at the Game Fair this weekend, along with the thousands of others who use their own money to improve our rivers, moors and woodlands, I know I’m with the people that really make the world a better place.

Jonathan Young is Editor of ‘The Field’

This article was written by Jonathan Young from The Daily Telegraph and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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A bombshell report on a secret track and field blood testing database claims a shocking number of distance runners are doping

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London 2012 Olympics

Athletics has been rocked by another drugs scandal following claims that one in three medalists in distance events at the sport’s most prestigious competitions returned suspicious tests.

In an explosive documentary by German broadcaster ARD, it was also alleged that at least one in six of the distance runners to have medalled at World Championships and Olympic Games are drugs cheats.

The network, which last year sent shock waves through athletics following an investigation into an alleged doping epidemic in the sport, obtained what it claimed to be a secret database created by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The documentary, Doping – Top Secret: The Shadowy World of Athletics, focused on a list of more than 12,000 blood tests from around 5,000 athletes. According to the programme, they found 800 athletes competing over distances between 800 metres and the marathon registered blood values deemed suspicious or even highly suspicious.

Ten of the medals at London 2012 were said to have been won by athletes who returned dubious test results.

The documentary alleged that seven British athletes have suspicious blood passports. British athletes were also said to have lost out in major events to competitors who were under suspicion.

However, Mo Farah recorded no abnormal tests. The British double Olympic champion has been forced to insist on his innocence after his coach Alberto Salazar was recently the subject of doping allegations in a Panorama documentary. The American has strenuously denied all of the allegations against him.

The findings in this latest programme were analysed by two of the world’s leading experts in blood doping, Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto.

Parisotto said: “Never have I seen such an alarmingly abnormal set of blood values.”

Ashenden told the programme: “Often, two out of the three medallists had probably engaged in blood doping ­during their career.” Criticising the IAAF for catching and punishing only a tiny fraction of these athletes despite being aware of the scale of the problem, ­Ashenden accused it of “a shameful ­betrayal of their primary duty to police their sport”.

He added: “It suggests to me athletics is in the same diabolical position ­today that professional cycling was in 20 years ago.” The IAAF told the programme it strongly disputed that the blood values involved proved doping.

The sport’s superstar, Usain Bolt, recorded no abnormal tests. Only last week, while competing in London, the 100 metres world-record holder declared his intention to repair athletics’ reputation as a result of successive doping scandals.

The documentary claimed that athletes are increasingly undergoing blood transfusions and EPO micro-dosing programmes to boost the red cell count and increase their stamina.

Ashenden said the files demonstrate athletics now faces a “diabolical” scandal akin to the one that ruined cycling’s reputation following the revelations of Lance Armstrong’s doping regime.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) said it was "very alarmed" by the latest claims which would "shake the foundation" of clean athletes across the globe.

Wada president Sir Craig Reedie said: "Wada is very disturbed by these new allegations that have been raised by ARD; which will, once again, shake the foundation of clean athletes worldwide."

The revelations follow the historical claims made in the BBC’s Panorama against Salazar’s Nike’s Oregon Project in the United States.

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Former top CIA official: Waterboarding was ‘torture’

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CIA

A former top CIA official has reportedly become the most senior agency figure to say he is "comfortable" with using the word "torture" to describe so-called enhanced interrogation techniques deployed against al-Qaeda suspects in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, who was Executive Director of the CIA, the agency's third most senior position, between 2001 and 2004, was asked if he thought waterboarding and painful stress positions amounted to torture.

He told BBC's Panorama programme:"Well, let's put it this way, it is meant to make him (the suspect) as uncomfortable as possible. So I assume for, without getting into semantics, that's torture. I'm comfortable with saying that."

Last year the CIA was accused in a US Senate report of exceeding its authority in the use of torture and lying to Congress about it.

President Barack Obama said some of the actions detailed in the report "constituted torture" and were "contrary to our values".

But senior CIA officials, present and former, have maintained that the techniques used were legal at the time and should therefore not be called "torture".

In the wake of the Senate report Michael Hayden, CIA Director from 2006 to 2009, told The Telegraph the report had been "politicised" by Democrats and was "designed to shock".

John Brennan, the current CIA director, has admitted a small number of officers used “abhorrent techniques” which should be "repudiated by all" but has vehemently defended the agency against allegations of torture.

At the time of the report he said: "They (CIA officials) carried out their responsibilities faithfully and in accordance with the legal and policy guidance they were provided. They did what they were asked to do in the service of their nation".

Katherine Hawkins, National Security Fellow at OpenTheGovernment.org, a leading transparency group that has demanded more government accountability on the CIA's torture programme, welcomed the latest development.

She said: "It's obvious that it was torture but CIA leadership has until now refused to use that word, even under the Obama administration. So this is a small step towards candor." 

This article was written by NICK ALLEN and PETER FOSTER from The Daily Telegraph and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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Israel places Jewish extremist in detention without trial

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Left-wing protesters write slogans on signs before a protest condemning Friday's arson attack in the West Bank, at Rabin square in Tel Aviv August 1, 2015.

Israel has detained the first Jewish extremist under tough new regulations allowing Jews suspected of terrorism to be imprisoned without trial.

Mordechai Meyer, 18, from the East Jerusalem settlement of Maale Adumim, has been subjected to six-months administrative detention, reportedly for suspected involvement in an arson attack on an iconic Christian church in Galilee in June.

The order detaining him was signed by Moshe Ya'alon, the defence minister, after the Israeli attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, approved the use of administrative detention following a fire-bomb attack last Friday on a Palestinian home in the West Bank that killed a one-year-old child and left his parents and brother fighting for their lives.

Administrative detention has previously only been widely applied to suspected Palestinian militants. The Israeli security cabinet agreed to extend it to Jewish suspects amid widespread outrage over last week's arson in the West Bank village of Duma.

Police said on Wednesday that they had still had no leads identifying the culprits for the Duma attack and issued an appeal for information along with a mobile phone number for members of the public to call.

Israeli officials did not specify the reason for Mr Meyer's detention, which will initially last six months and came two days after he had been placed under house arrest. But Israeli media reported that it related to an alleged involvement in the June 18 fire attack that badly damaged the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes on Lake Kinneret, marking the site where Jesus is believed to have performed a miracle of feeding 5,000 people.

Mr Meyer is also suspected of arson attacks on other Palestinian and Christian properties, including the Dormition Abbey on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, according to media reports.

He is one of three hardline activists to be arrested in recent days. Another, Meir Ettinger, 23, said to have been the Israeli police's most-wanted extremist suspect, was arrested on Tuesday.

Far-right activist Meir Ettinger (C) attends a remand hearing at the Magistrates Court in Nazareth, Israel August 4, 2015.A lawyer for Mr Ettinger, the grandson of Meir Kahane, a notorious militant rabbi who was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1990, complained that his client had been subjected to "illegal" harsh interrogation methods, including being shaken, previously only used against Palestinians.

A third suspect, Eviatar Slonim, was arrested by police near the Israel town of Beit Shemesh on Wednesday. He was previously charged in 2011 with a mass stone throwing incident at the home of a Palestinian family.

Reuven Rivlin - the Israeli president, who called in the police after receiving on-line hate mail in response to his condemnation of the Duma attack - issued a plea for restraint on the internet as well as within the security forces on Tuesday.

"In the moment before you send that cutting article, share that vitriolic post, before carrying out an on-line lynch – consider for a moment, on the other side is a human being," Mr Rivlin said at a memorial service for a former deputy police commissioner, who committed suicide after a public smear campaign. "So too, in the moment before you disperse an angry protest, before going out to make an arrest, before the use of force and authority – let us remember that on the other side there is a human being."

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Video of former US President Harry Truman justifying the atomic bomb to Japanese victims emerges

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Still from the video of former US President Harry Truman talking to a Japanese victim of the atomic bomb

A tape of former US president Harry Truman meeting a group of Japanese Atom bomb victims in 1964 has surfaced, showing the president justifying the nuclear bomb as a way to rapidly end the Second World War.

The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper obtained taped footage of a meeting between the man who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a group of survivors suffering from the effects of radiation exposure.

The tape is approximately two and a half minutes in length, and shows Mr Truman talking to Dr Takuo Matsumoto, the leader of a nine-member peace group from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the presidential library in Independence, Missouri in May 1964.

The meeting took place almost 19 years after the bombings.

In the footage, Dr Matsumoto, who witnessed the deaths of over 350 girls and 18 staff at Hiroshima Girl’s School where he was president, wishes Mr Truman a happy 80th birthday, and complements him on his youth and health.

Neither Mr Truman nor Dr Matsumoto directly refer to the Atom bomb, though the former president alludes to the bombings in a round-about fashion by saying, “the objective that you’re interested in was to end the war in such a way that there would not be half a million killed on each side.”

nagasaki bombThen in tones reminiscent of the no-nonsense attitude for which he became famous, the former president concludes, “and that is all there was to it.”

Elsewhere, Mr Truman was not so circumspect. His public papers note that he said, “The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold.”

In a follow-up sequence, where Dr Matsumoto is interviewed by the local media, he reveals that he suffers from Leukemia as a result of the A-bomb. He never criticizes Mr Truman or the US.

In 2012, Truman’s grandson visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clifton Truman Daniel, told Kyodo News that he believed he had an obligation as the president’s grandchild to make an effort to prevent nuclear arms being used again.

He also noted that, contrary to popular opinion, his grandfather was horrified by the destructive power of the bomb

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Elizabeth Warren gave a speech that's bound to make American women wish she were running for president

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Elizabeth Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren has given the sort of speech that’s bound to make American women wish she was running for President.

Warren spoke to her colleagues on the Senate Floor this week and attacked Republican proposals to cut down on funding for women’s health-care centres.

“Do you have any idea what year it is?” she asked. “Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s? Or the 1890s? Should we call for a doctor?

“Because I simply cannot believe that in the year 2015, the United States Senate would be spending its time trying to defund women’s health-care centres.

“On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. The Republicans have had a plan for years to strip away women’s rights to make choices over our own bodies.”

It’s no wonder that her speech has already had more than 69,000 views on YouTube.

She criticised the fact that for almost 40 years the federal government has prohibited funding for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening danger.

“Just to be clear,” she said, “even though the abortions performed at Planned Parenthood [the US’s biggest provider of abortion services] are safe and legal, the federal government is not paying for any of them. Not – one – dime.”

In her speech, she also attacked the Republicans for voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act - to reduce the cost of healthcare for individuals - more than 50 times, including the parts that require insurers to cover contraception.

She also criticised the fact that an anti-human trafficking bill was delayed earlier this year because of a debate around abortion.

Warren ended her speech saying:

“I want to say to my Republican colleagues — the year is 2015, not 1955, and not 1895. Women have lived through a world where backward-looking ideologues tried to interfere with the basic health decisions made by a woman and her doctor, and we are not going back. Not now, not ever.”

A day after Warren’s speech, Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush said he “misspoke” when he suggested major cuts in women’s health programmes.

He said : “With regards to women’s health funding broadly, I misspoke, as there are countless community health centres, rural clinics, and other women’s health organizations that need to be fully funded.”

It also comes as reports suggest that Hillary Clinton is falling out of favour with women voters, over perceived scandals that have tarnished her Presidential campaign.

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A race car driver and a model were robbed of $464,000 after burglars reportedly piped anesthetic gas through their air conditioning

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jenson button girlfriend

F1 star Jenson Button and his wife have been gassed in their holiday villa in the south of France by a gang of burglars, according to reports.

The 35-year-old racing star and his partner, model Jessica Michibata, 30, were rendered unconscious by the gang, which stole her $387,000 engagement ring on Monday night.

It is believed they piped anesthetic gas into the property through its air-conditioning vents before entering the villa in Saint-Tropez.

A source told the Sun newspaper: "Police have told Jenson they're convinced the burglars gassed the house using the air-conditioning units.

"Jenson is convinced that's what happened too. The burglars were in the same room as him and Jessica, rifling through all their drawers.

"But they weren't disturbed at all because the effects of the gas gives the burglars free rein."

There were reportedly three other people in the property at the time who were also affected by the gas.

f1 jenson button

Everyone in the property was in bed when the incident happened and first realized the next morning when they discovered the house had been ransacked.

The source added: "It was a terrifying experience for them to know these criminals were actually in the room with them."

Police officials in France say there have been numerous raids on exclusive properties using the same methods.

It is believed the intruders stole property worth $464,000.

Detective are investigating the possibility a two-man criminal team may have staked out the property.

A spokesman for Jenson told The Sun: "Two men broke into the property whilst they all slept and stole a number of items of jewelry including, most upsettingly, Jessica's engagement ring.

"The police have indicated that this has become a growing problem in the region with perpetrators going so far as to gas their proposed victims through the air-conditioning units before breaking in.

"Whilst unharmed, everyone involved is unsurprisingly shaken by the events."

Detectives are reviewing CCTV footage in the area to try to catch the culprits.

jenson button

The McLaren driver and Michibata married in Hawaii last Christmas at a ceremony in Maui.

On New Year's Eve both the former Formula One world champion, from Frome, Somerset, and the Japanese-Argentine model tweeted: "Happy New Year from Mr & Mrs Button!! We're excited to see in the New year with family and loved ones, we hope you're too!"

After meeting in 2008, the couple's relationship experienced ups and downs and they split for a short time in 2010 before getting back together.

Last January his father, John, a guiding force from his son's early days as a child racer in karting competitions through to his F1 world championship victory in 2009, died at his home in the French Riviera.

In the past five years there have been numerous attacks on caravans and camper vans in service stations across Spain and France where people have been gassed and then burgled.

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South Korea vows to make North pay a 'harsh price' for border blasts that maimed two soldiers

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In this Aug. 9, 2015, photo provided by the Defense Ministry, South Korean army soldiers patrol near the scene of a blast inside the demilitarized zone in Paju, South Korea.Seoul to resume propaganda broadcasts into communist North Korea after United Nations investigators blame Pyongyang for planting landmines that maimed two soldiers from South

Military tensions along the heavily-fortified frontline on the Korean peninsula have soared as South Korea vowed to make the communist North pay a “harsh price” after landmines maimed two soldiers.

Seoul’s defence ministry accused the North of planting three landmines that rocked a border patrol unit at the demilitarised zone (DMZ), a 2.5 mile wide buffer strip of land that separates the two Cold War foes.

United Nations forces that monitor the ceasefire at the DMZ also blamed the North for laying the mines, saying that they appeared to be new devices planted along a known South Korean patrol route.

South Korea’ s Joint Chiefs of Staff threatened that its military would make North Korea "pay a harsh price proportionate for the provocation it made". Seoul’s high command described attack as a "baseless act" and "wanton violation" of non-aggression accords and urged the North to apologise for the attack and punish those responsible.

The two countries remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.

As an immediate response, South Korea vowed on Monday to resume propaganda broadcasts across the world’s most heavily-armed border for the first time in 11 years.

The move would infuriate the North, which is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of the regime of Kim Jong-un . The South said the broadcasts would only be part of its unspecified retaliation.

The landmine blasts appear to be first direct attack on South Korean soil since December 2010 when the North shelled the border island of Yeonpyeong, killing two civilians and two soldiers and triggering brief fears of a full scale conflict.

One soldier underwent a double leg amputation, while the other had one leg removed, after the incident last Tuesday.

north korea kim jong un"We are certain they were North Korean landmines planted with an intention to kill by our enemies who sneaked across the military border," said Kim Min-Seok, a military spokesman in the South.

The border zone is a heavily-mined region. But the US-led UN Command said that it had conducted a special investigation into last week's blasts and concluded the devices were North Korean "wooden box" land mines placed on a known South Korean border patrol path.

"The investigation determined that the devices were recently emplaced, and ruled out the possibility that these were legacy landmines which had drifted from their original placements," it said in a statement.

The incident comes at a sensitive time, with both Koreas preparing to celebrate the 70th anniversary on Aug 15th of the peninsula's liberation from Japanese rule.

Talk of trying to organise a joint commemoration fizzled as Pyongyang refused to consider such an event because of Seoul's annual joint military exercises with the United States.

North Korea will indeed use the 70th anniversary to establish a fresh divide with the South. The state news agency has declared that it will set its clocks back by 30 minutes on Saturday to create a new Pyongyang time-zone as a gesture against “wicked Japanese imperialists”.

Both North and South currently use the same time-zone as Japan – nine hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. It was adopted by the Japanese colonial rulers in 1912.

“The wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time while mercilessly trampling down its land with 5,000 year-long history and culture and pursuing the unheard-of policy of obliterating the Korean nation,” the KCNA news agency declared.

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Mexico City is not a safe haven for journalists anymore

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Journalists, photographers and activists hold up pictures of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa during a protest against his murder at the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City, Mexico August 2, 2015.Ruben Espinosa's murder has brought fear to journalists in Mexico City - a place once considered a refuge from the violence affecting reporters elsewhere in the country.

In a Mexico City cemetery reporter Pedro Canche looks haggard as he lays a hand-written note among yellow flowers on the grave of a young colleague.

“I owed it to him to come here because we’re in the same state of persecution,” he says, eyes scanning the empty graveyard for anyone lurking in the nearby trees.

He’s paying his respects to , a 31-year old photojournalist murdered in Mexico City on July 31. He was killed along with four women, including an activist, in a flat in a calm middle-class neighbourhood. All the bodies showed signs of torture, some of the women had been raped, and all had execution-style shots to the head.

Journalists are killed here so often it’s rarely front-page news – with 88 killed since 2000, Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Americas for reporters. But the circumstances around Mr Espinosa’s murder make it a grim turning point for the profession.

Until just a few weeks ago, Mr Espinosa had been living in Mexico’s gulf coast state of Veracruz. He covered protests and environmental issues for various outlets, including the country’s investigative weekly Proceso.

Relatives of late photojournalist Ruben Espinosa mourn at a cemetery in Mexico City, August 3, 2015.Veracruz has wracked up a grisly toll of slain journalists under Governor Javier Duarte : 14 since 2010. As in other states in Mexico, journalists are frequently co-opted or paid off by organized crime to white wash news about crime and corruption. Refusal can mean death.

Far from protecting media workers in his state, the governor warned them at a July press event, "Behave yourselves please, I ask of you."

In June of this year, Mr Espinosa became certain he was being followed. He took the same escape route as scores of frightened journalists before him: he fled to the capital.

Only a four-hour drive away from his base Xalapa, chaotic Mexico City might seem an odd choice for a man fleeing for his life. But the thronging capital had remained a stronghold of safety while swathes of Mexico were engulfed in drug war violence. Progressive politics and the anonymity of co-habiting with 20 million people have made it a relative sanctuary.

The city’s role as a place of respite has been growing with attacks against journalists skyrocketing under President Enrique Pena Nieto. In the last three years, Article 19, the international press freedom group, has helped relocate 70 internally displaced journalists here.

Like Ruben Espinosa, Pedro Canche is one of them.

His coverage of social protests in his home state of Quintana Roo landed him in prison on sabotage charges, which were dropped after he’d spent nine months behind bars. He was constantly afraid someone would come for him. His only weapon was a pencil, literally.

"I figured at least I could take someone’s eye out," he said.

As soon as he was released Mr Canche fled to Mexico City.

"When I got here I felt like, phew, finally… I felt free as a bird in the capital."

But the first murder of a journalist exiled to the capital, his friend Mr Espinosa, is a game-changer.

Down in Veracruz it’s the same for another reporter. Noe Zavaleta regularly worked with Mr Espinosa and they were close friends. Mr Zavaleta’s predecessor at Proceso magazine was strangled, but Mr Espinosa’s murder has hit him harder, shaking his belief that the capital could always be his ‘Plan B’.

“Same as everyone I thought that when I had a problem, a threat, harassment, I’d go to Mexico City, no question,” he said, in shock two days after Mr Espinosa’s funeral. “We’d say what’s the worse that can happen there, we’d get lost on the metro?”

The murders push Mexican journalists even further to the edge and many are already rethinking their safety net and those of their families.

A photographer places his camera next to wreaths during the funeral service of late photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, at a cemetery in Mexico City, August 3, 2015.“If from here we presume Mexico City is no longer safe, the whole panorama changes. I don’t have all the elements to be able to tell if it’s safe or not safe,” said Dario Ramirez, director of the Mexico branch of Article 19.

That judgment is all the harder to make here because there is deep distrust of the government’s will to defend journalists and of their killings. Not one of the 13 murders of journalists from Veracruz has been successfully investigated.

At a press conference two days after the murders, Mexico City’s top prosecutor made no mention of the threats Mr Espinosa had received, but rather said he had left Veracruz to pursue work. Despite the execution-style killings, he cited robbery as a line of investigation.

At Article 19, this was no surprise to Dario Ramirez.

“The first thing [the government] do is try is undermine any direct link to freedom of expression. They try to remove the journalistic component.”

Many journalists were quick to take to the streets in protest; some raising their cameras in defiance, others laying them down.

On Thursday Rodolfo Rios, chief prosecutor, told the Televisa network that they had arrested and charged one of three men recorded by surveillance cameras leaving the apartment building where the killings occurred. The bodies were found a few hours later by a roommate of two of the victims.

A relative of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa stands next to his coffin and a picture of him during the wake in Mexico City, Mexico August 2, 2015.Daniel Pacheco Gutierrez, 41, faces charges of murder, femicide and aggravated robbery in a gang, according to a statement by the city prosecutor.

Mr Rios said the he had acknowledged being in the apartment, but the prosecutor wouldn't comment on whether the suspect confessed to any crime. He added that the suspect had previously served nearly 10 years in prison for rape and causing injuries.

The other two men remain at large.

In the Mexico City cemetery beside Mr Espinosa’s grave, Mr Canche feels the city can’t be a refuge for him anymore.

Before the murder, he had been considering a permanent move to the capital from his home state. There he’s afraid that another prison sentence or worse awaits him. He hangs tin cans around his house, hoping the noise will alert him to intruders.

He ponders emigrating, running through a laundry list of countries that might give him asylum. He’s not sure what else to do.

“We can stay and let this turn us all into kamikaze journalists.”

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Julian Assange reportedly set to be cleared as sex allegations expire

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Julian AssangeClaims made in Sweden against the Wikileaks founder will reach their five year expiry date next week

Julian Assange is expected to be cleared of three sexual assault claims next week after spending so long in hiding in Britain that the allegations have expired, it has emerged.

The Wikileaks founder has been seeking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than three years at a cost to the taxpayer of around £12 ($18.7) million.

He is avoiding extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over the alleged crimes, which include violent sexual assault.

Within a week, three of the four claims he faces will have reached their five year expiry date under Sweden’s statute of limitations.

As a result Mr Assange, 44, is due to be cleared, Swedish prosecutors told the Times.

Mr Assange, who denies the sex claims, fears that he will be extradited on to the US to face charges relating to the huge leaks of sensitive data.

Hugo Swire, the FCO minster, told The Times that the situation was “deeply unsatisfactory and costly”.

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Dr. Dre admits to assaulting women

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dr dre beatsRapper Dr. Dre has admitted that some of the past allegations against him regarding the physical abuse of women are true — and says he regrets it.

Dr. Dre’s dramas took up most of the '90s.

If he wasn’t rapping about the dark side of "gangsta life," he was at the centre of rumours about abuse.

In 1991, he was accused of assaulting TV host Dee Barnes, who stated Dre“began slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall near the stairway."

She sued for millions in damages, and they settled out of court.

At the time Dre boasted he“just threw her though a door” — but then a year later, he reportedly told magazine The Source, “I didn’t do s---.”

Around the same time, he was dating Michel’le, his former fiancée who he now has a child with.

She’s recently accused him of physically abusing her, and even "shooting at" her during an argument, but hasn’t taken legal action.

“He shot at me … I left the bullet in the hole, and it went out — it was in the door, and then it went through the side of the wall in the bathroom,” she told Vlad TV.

“But he never tried to shoot me anymore. Thank God. But the beatings were — it was a lot … His last wife, I just couldn’t do it anymore. It’s too much.

“I had already waited out the babies, the baby mamas, the hookers, the hos. I was growing up, and I was just going, ‘There’s gotta be something better.’”

It’s never been clear how much of this is true. But Dre has finally spoken up and addressed some of these allegations around abuse and assault.

He’s admitted that some of the rumours are true, and he has been guilty of violence against women.

He told Rolling Stone magazine: “I made some f------ horrible mistakes in my life.

dr dre at coachella 2012

“I was young, f------ stupid. I would say all the allegations aren't true — some of them are.

“Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really f------ up.

“But I paid for those mistakes, and there's no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again."

His admission is huge — especially considering how rare it is for a celeb to speak up about breaking the law, or abusing women.

Take Chris Brown. He has a domestic-violence conviction but has never publicly admitted his actions.

In the UK, former footballer Ched Evans is a convicted rapist who has served a two-and-a-half year jail sentence.

But he has consistently denied sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman and, unlike Dre, has never spoken about regret.

There’s nothing Dre can say that will undo the pain and trauma these women have been subjected to, but admitting his actions and learning from them is a start.

But the same can’t be said of fellow rapper Ice Cube, who was also in the notorious hip-hop group N.W.A with Dre.

To promote "Straight Outta Compton," a film about N.W.A, Cube told the same magazine that "upstanding women" shouldn’t be offended by any misogyny in the group’s music — but "despicable females" should:

“If you're a bitch, you're probably not going to like us. If you're a ho, you probably don't like us. If you're not a ho or a bitch, don't be jumping to the defence of these despicable females.

“Just like I shouldn't be jumping to the defence of no punks or no cowards or no slimy son of a bitches that's men. I never understood why an upstanding lady would even think we're talking about her."

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There's trouble in Assad's stronghold

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latakia rocket attackTwo people were killed and 14 injured in the attack in the coastal heartland of Bashar al-Assad, signalling the start of a new phase in Syria’s intractable war

Rebels launched a deadly rocket attack on Latakia, the coastal heartland of President Bashar al-Assad, on Thursday as part of a milestone attempt to overrun the government's most precious territories.

Islamist fighters have forced government troops to the very edge of Sahl al-Ghab, a fertile plain sitting at the base of the mountains where Mr Assad's ancestral village of Qardaha is located .

Two people were killed and 14 injured in Thursday's rocket attack, which hit Latakia's city centre and waterfront. State television ran footage of smoke billowing out of charred vehicles, apparently from the site of the explosions.

The area is home to Syria’s Alawites, an esoteric Muslim minority sect from which a disproportionate chunk of the state apparatus, including the Assad family, hails.

Rebel fighters from the Army of Conquest, an umbrella group of Islamist factions including the dominant Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, are now eyeing the nearby town of Joreen as an entrance point to Latakia’s mountains.

“The battle continues, the crowds are ready – prepared for the battle of Joreen,” said Ahmed Qura Ali, a spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham.

Syria map

Four and a half years into Syria’s civil war, pressure on the regime is ratcheting up. Increasingly reliant on the funding of its foreign allies, it has been forced to retrench operations outside of its eastern strongholds.

Experts said the attack on Latakia signalled the start of a new phase in Syria’s intractable war.

“The rebels have wanted to achieve this for a long time, not because they wanted to target Alawite heartlands, but because they wanted to exert the same leverage that the Assad regime has had on villages and towns across Syria,” said Hassan Hassan, an associate fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House.

The Army of Conquest said on Thursday that it had targeted Latakia in order to put pressure on the forces loyal to the regime as they have battled for control of Zabadani, a one-time rebel stronghold in southwestern Syria and former retreat for wealthy Damascenes .

Hizbollah and Syrian troops have been trying to fully capture the town, near the border with Lebanon, for more than a month. After unprecedented mediation from Iran and Turkey, backers of regime and rebels respectively, the warring parties announced a ceasefire in Zabadani and two villages close to Latakia on Wednesday.

Video footage from Zabadani on Thursday appeared to show rebel troops and Hizbollah militiamen, standing just metres apart.

A Hezbollah member reacts while Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah talks on a screen during a televised speech at a festival celebrating Resistance and Liberation Day, in Nabatiyeh May 24, 2015.  REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

On Wednesday, Syrian pro-government daily newspaper Al-Watan reported that reinforcements were on their way to the area around Latakia, "in preparation for the zero hour”.

In Latakia, there was consternation and fear. "You're all thieves, outside you are stealing everything, and now you come and attack us and maim us?" railed one resident in a pro-government news outlet.

Among Syria’s Alawite community, Mr Assad faces rising criticism for turning its sons as cannon fodder . In some cases, mothers have hidden their sons to avoid a compulsory draft; others have recently taken to the street in protest.

The regime increasingly relies on local militia with higher salaries, often funded by foreign allies. “The thinking is that the people fighting in these areas are defending their land so they won’t run away like people did elsewhere,” said Mr Hassan.

 

SEE ALSO: Syrian Kurds now say they now control territory the size of Qatar and Kuwait combined

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Warren Buffett's favorite valuation measure says stocks are overvalued

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warren buffettAfter enjoying six years of strong returns from equity markets, increasing numbers of professional investors are becoming more bearish and taking money off the table.

Should British investors follow suit? Perhaps so, according to one valuation measure.

There are plenty of different ways to ‘value’ a market. The four most basic and widely used – price to earnings, Cape, price to book and dividend yield - are explained here. Telegraph Money'sstock market map has compared these main measures of value against long-term averages.

But it could also pay to look at a less familiar measure - one used by the world's most famous investor, Warren Buffett.

It calculates whether the value of a country’s stock market is worth more or less than its annual economic output.

A figure of over 100pc suggests the market is overvalued, while those that score below 50pc are considered a bargain.

It is a simple and rather blunt measure. The logic, however, is sound - that the companies in a country, in general, will not be able to all outpace economic output of that country for long.

In an interview with Fortune Magazine in 2001 Mr Buffett said: “It is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment. And as you can see, nearly two years ago (before the tech crash) the ratio rose to an unprecedented level. That should have been a very strong warning signal.”

How does the measure value global stock markets today

AJ Bell, the broker, crunched the numbers for the 14 biggest global economies, to find out which countries are overvalued, neutral or cheap.

The results, detailed in the chart below, show that America and Britain are the most expensive stock markets.

At the other end of the table Russia, India and Brazil are deemed the three cheapest countries to buy today.

Screen Shot 2015 08 18 at 8.30.46 AM

It is worth pointing out that the measure has some critics. They argue that large businesses, particularly those listed on developed stock markets, often make more of their money internationally than in their domestic market.

So it can therefore be misleading unless you also compare the market's valuation today with its own history.

But even allowing for this, the test shows both America and Britain to be expensive. The Wilshire 5000, the US index viewed as the fairest to use because it is home to the most companies, has never been more expensive.

It scores 133pc, much higher than previous peaks in 2000 and 2007, of 112pc and 104pc respectively.

Screen Shot 2015 08 18 at 8.31.39 AM

Britain’s FTSE All Share index valuation is also high by historic standards, at 124pc. Although this is marginally below its 133pc peak in 2000.

Russ Mould, of AJ Bell, said: “The data suggest that if corporate profits do come under pressure (owing to a recession, for example) then the US and UK markets could be left looking a bit exposed on the downside.

“According to Mr Buffett, once profits rise above GDP investors need to be careful. This makes sense as very few firms manage to make supra-normal returns for long: either the competition catches up with them, the customers revolt and demand lower prices or the regulator intervenes.”

Screen Shot 2015 08 18 at 8.32.08 AM

How investors can profit

For investors who aren't scared off, the simplest and cheapest way to invest is via tracker funds.

These are available for many markets around the world from companies such as Fidelity, Vanguard, SPDR and iShares.

The last two specialize in “exchange-traded funds” or ETFs, which are traded on the stock market just like a share. For the major markets you can pay a total annual charge on a tracker of 0.1pc or even less.

SEE ALSO: How Warren Buffett avoids major bear markets

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Tony Blair is holding 'secret talks' on a long-term Hamas-Israel ceasefire

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Tony Blair

Tony Blair has become a go-between in talks with Hamas aimed at securing a peace deal for Israel, it has been reported.

The former prime minister was banned from meeting Hamas officials in his role as head of the Quartet group of Israeli-Palestinian mediators.

However, he resigned in May and has since reportedly held two meetings with the Hamas's leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Doha.

The talks are apparently aimed at securing a deal that would guarantee Israel an eight or 10 year truce in exchange for the Gaza Strip blockade, that has been in place since 2007, being lifted.

Israel on Monday denied it was engaged in any talks with Hamas. "Israel is officially clarifying that it is not holding any meetings with Hamas, neither directly, nor via other countries or intermediaries," the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday insisted talks were underway and accused Hamas of effectively endorsing the separation of Palestinian territories.

"There have been negotiations and they are on the verge of reaching an agreement about a truce of eight to 10 years," Riad al-Malki, Palestinian foreign minister, said.

The agreement would see Israel lift its blockade of Gaza and "allow maritime passage" to nearby Cyprus, Mr Malki told France 24 television.

"We don't know if it will happen tomorrow or in a month," he said, adding that "there are mediators who are doing their utmost to reach this agreement".

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks during an interview with Reuters in Doha October 16, 2014.The Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas's rival, said Mr Blair was acting as a mediator in the talks.

"The Hamas-Blair agreement ... paves the way for division and the isolation of the Gaza Strip," said Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf.

This, he added, would help "Israel to achieve its goal of preventing the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders" and including Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, he told Palestinian radio on Monday night.

Since 2007, Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been under the control of the rival administrations of Hamas and Fatah, respectively.

Hamas sources recently admitted an "exchange of ideas" via third parties, but officials have told AFP on condition of anonymity that the topics discussed were "solely humanitarian, not political".

Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, reported that Mr Blair held talks with Mr Netanyahu before his first visit to Doha to meet Mr Meshaal.

A 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in July-August 2014 killed about 2,200 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side, and destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes in Gaza.

Israel says its nine-year blockade on the impoverished territory is essential to prevent militants from obtaining materials to fortify military positions and build rockets they could fire at the Jewish state.

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NOW WATCH: Jeff Sachs: Here's why the Middle East is going to get a lot worse

World's oldest message in a bottle washes up in Germany after 108 years at sea

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The oldest message in a bottle in the world, found by the Winkler family

A message in a bottle thrown into the sea 108 years ago by British scientists has been discovered washed up on a beach in Germany.

It is believed to be the oldest message-in-a-bottle ever found.

Marianne Winkler, a retired post office worker, found the message from the past while on holiday with her husband on the North Sea island of Amrum.

Mrs Winkler found the bottle in April, but was shy of publicity and the full story has only now emerged.

“It’s always a joy when some one finds a message-in-a-bottle on the beach,” she told the Amrum News, a local website.

“Where does it come from, who wrote it, and how long has it been travelling on the winds, waves and currents?”

But when Mrs Winkler stumbled on her message-in-a-bottle, she had no idea quite how old it would turn out to be. Written on a piece of paper inside were the words “Break the bottle”.

“My husband, Horst, carefully tried to get the message out of the bottle, but there was no chance, so we had to do as it said,” Mrs Winkler said. Inside they found a postcard with no date but a message promising a reward of a shilling to anyone who returned it.

One of George Parker Bidders bottles used to elucidate ocean currents.The message, in English, German and Dutch, asked anyone who discovered the bottle to fill in some information on where and how they found it. The return address was the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth.

“We did as it asked, and the story took its course,” said Mrs Winkler. The couple sent the postcard to Plymouth in an envelope to avoid it getting damaged in the post.

“It was quite a stir when we opened that envelope, as you can imagine,” Guy Baker, communications director at the Marine Biological Association, said.

It turned out the bottle was one of 1,020 released into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 by George Parker Bidder, a former president of the association. Bidder released the bottles as part of a project to find out about deep sea currents.

The bottles were specially designed to float just above the sea bed, so they would be carried by the currents deep below the surface.

“It was a time when they were inventing ways to investigate what currents and fish did,” Mr Baker said. “The association still does similar research today, but we have access to technology they didn’t have, such as electronic tags.

George Parker Bidder who released the bottle into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 as part of his research.“Many of the bottles were found by fishermen trawling with deep sea nets. Others washed up on the shore, and some were never recovered.”

With the data from the bottles that were found, Bidder was able to prove for the first time that the deep sea current flowed from east to west in the North Sea.

He also discovered that plaice generally swim against the deep current – valuable commercial information for the fishing trade.

“Most of the bottles were found within a relatively short time,” Mr Baker said. “We’re talking months rather than decades. The association had long given up hope of any more being traced.

“It’s not as if they come in and dribs and drabs,” Mr Baker said. “I don’t know when one was last sent in, but I don’t think it was for very many years.”

It is thought the postcard Mrs Winkler discovered may be the oldest message-in-a-bottle ever found. “We’re still waiting for confirmation from the Guinness Book of Records,” Mr Baker said.

The current record-holder spent 99 years and 43 days at sea. It was released in 1914 as part of a similar scientific experiment and found in 2013 in a fishing trawler’s net.

he Winklers with the shilling and letter found in a bottleThe discovery of an older message-in-a-bottle was claimed in Germany last year, but has not been recognised yet.

That message was released by a German hiker in 1913, and had been missing for 101 years. But Dibber’s message-in-a-bottle would beat both of them. “We think this bottle was one of the last batch he sent out, in 1906, so that would make it 108 years old,” said Mr Baker.

It is impossible to tell whether the bottle has been at sea for all that time, or was washed up long ago and buried in sand, or even lay simply unnoticed, he said. But the association made sure of one thing: Mrs Winkler got the shilling reward promised in the note.

“We found an old shilling, I think we got it on eBay,” said Mr Baker. “We sent it to her with a letter saying ‘Thank you’.”

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Apple is replacing some blurry iPhone 6 Plus cameras (AAPL)

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iPhoneIt is less than a month until Apple is expected to unveils its new iPhone, but the company is recalling a number of 6 Plus models due to faulty cameras.

Apple has launched an “iSight camera replacement programme” after a number of devices were found to produce blurry images using the main camera on the back of the phone.

It said the problem affected “a small percentage” of the 5.5-inch iPhones sold between September last year and January. The problem also falls within a limited range of serial numbers.

If a camera is faulty, Apple will replace it.

How to check

Apple is encouraging users who believe their camera is faulty to tell the company on the official support page.

To find your serial number, go to Settings -> General -> About on your iPhone, and the serial number is around halfway down. You can tap and hold to copy the number.

Enter the serial number on the support page to check if it is eligible. If it is, you can take it into an Apple Store (with an appointment) or send it off to tech support.

Apple is urging users to back up their iPhone beforehand. Apple will replace the camera, rather than the whole phone.

Apple makes a lot of the fact that the iPhone is the world's most popular camera, and the next iPhone, expected to be called the 6s, will reportedly go further into high-end territory.

Prominent Apple blogger John Gruber has claimed that the next iPhone will have "the biggest camera jump ever", with a "weird two-lens system" that could see it rival DSLR cameras.

Apple blog The Michael Report recently claimed that the camera will be able to record 4K quality video.

SEE ALSO: Apple is fixing a ton of problems with Apple Music

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NOW WATCH: Vertical video is the future and you better get on board now

3 Americans receive France's highest civilian award after thwarting a train attack

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French President Francois Hollande (L) awards U.S. Airman First Class Spencer Stone (C) with the Legion d'Honneur (the Legion of Honour) medal as U.S. National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos applauds during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, August 24, 2015.French President Francois Hollande has awarded the Legion d'Honneur to the four men, Americans Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler, and Briton Chris Norman, who overpowered a gunman on a train in France. He pinned their medals to their chests and embraced them on both cheeks, as is customary.

The mothers of Stone and Skarlatos flew to Paris and attended the ceremony.

Hollande thanked the four for their bravery and also paid homage to the 28-year-old French professor who was the first to tackle the gunman but did "not want his name to be made public," a reaction Hollande said he understood.

"We are here to honor four men who, thanks to their bravery, managed to save lives," Hollande said. "They showed what could be done in terrible circumstances.

"In the name of France, I would like to thank you for what you have done. The whole world admires your bravery. It should be an example to all of us and inspire us. You put your lives at risk in order to defend freedom.

"You averted what could have been a true carnage," Hollande continued. "You behaved like soldiers but also as men, responsible men."

French President Francois Hollande (R) awards U.S. student Anthony Sadler (C) with the Legion d'Honneur (the Legion of Honour) medal as British businessman Chris Norman looks on during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, August 24, 2015.He said he would award the medal to Mark Moogalian, the American-born French academic who is still in a hospital with gunshot wounds, as soon as possible.

Hollande thanked train staff and the emergency services for their role in responding to the emergency.

The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, and the American ambassador, Jane Hartley, also attended the ceremony along with Manuel Valls, the French prime minister.

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NOW WATCH: VIDEO: Watch the men who helped overpower a gunman on a Paris-bound train tell their story

Putin's war on European food is facing a huge backlash in Russia's second largest city

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CheeseKremlin stunt to destroy imports of banned European foods backfires in city that suffered starvation in World War Two

It is one of the stranger witch hunts of modern times: a crusade against food that has seen Russian officials launch a feverish hunt to bulldoze Western-made produce.

For the Kremlin, the decision to destroy French cheeses and Polish apples smuggled into the country is a matter of sovereignty - an attempt to wage economic war on the countries that sanctioned Russia after the annexation of Crimea.

But for a great many in the city of St Petersburg, it is an incomprehensible and deeply upsetting strategy that brings back painful memories.

“It simply makes my heart bleed to see it. When you remember what happened here, when you have seen a child asking for food and known that you have nothing to give it, such waste is simply incomprehensible,” said Ludmilla Smirnova, a St Petersburg pensioner and veteran of the siege of what was then known as Leningrad.

Now 83, Mrs Smirnova was eight years old when the Luftwaffe blew up the vast food warehouses in the southwestern district of Leningrad where she lived with her mother and sister.

The destruction was part of a deliberate Nazi strategy of starving the surrounded city into submission, and the effects were immediate and catastrophic.

“Everything in the warehouses was burned, and food just vanished from the shop shelves - we were feeling the hunger from the beginning,” she recalled.

“My mother and sister and I crawled over the remains of the warehouses, gathering grains of sugar, whatever scraps of bread, anything we could find,” Mrs Smirnova said. “And that was just the first month.”

RussiaOver the coming winter, the family would survive on rations of a few hundred grams of “bread” - infamously often made up of inedible items like sawdust - a day. By spring the cats, dogs, and song birds in the parks had vanished - they had all been eaten. Neighbours, especially the elderly and children, died by the dozen, and by the time the two-and-a-half year siege, nearly three quarters of a million non-combatants - including Vladimir Putin’s elder brother - had died of starvation or related diseases.

It is an ordeal seared in Russia’s national memory, and as such, the recent sight of food being destroyed as a propanda stunt has left many, including instinctive supporters of Mr Putin, appalled.

The decree ordering the destruction of embargoed Western produce came into force on August 6. The move toughens a ban on some foods from the EU, US, Australia, Canada, and Norway, which was introduced in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on Russia for the annexation of Crimea.

Officials said that 600 tons of sanctioned goods were destroyed in the first week of the campaign, and announcements of further "busts" now come almost daily, in a manner normally reserved for governments running "war-on-drugs" campaigns.

On Friday, food inspectors claimed to have seized 280 kilograms of suspect goods from an Ashan supermarket in Samara, including French goose liver pate and canned Latvian sprats. Earlier in the week, the interior ministry announced a joint operation with the FSB, the main successor agency to the KGB, had broken up a £20 million international "cheese ring" smuggling contraband dairy produce in Moscow and St Petersburg.

A man walks with a Russian flag after an A number of films have emerged of bulldozers ploughing into mountains of cheese and lorry loads of nectarines being poured into a landfill site. Meanwhile, in the most ridiculed episode so far, bumbling officials held what amounted to a kangaroo court for three frozen, shrink-wrapped Hungarian geese found in a village shop in Tatarstan. A verbal order for the poultry's immediate destruction, delivered in stumbling bureaucrat-ese, was then carried out by bulldozer.

It is easy to ridicule - and many on the Russian internet have done just that. But for religious leaders, anti-poverty campaigners, and blockade survivors like Mrs Smirnova, the destruction is far from a laughing matter.

Those most directly affected include Stepan Dmitriev, a 36-year old Muscovite who has been on the streets for five years.

Largely dependent on handouts of food, he says the policy of destruction has tested his respect for Mr Putin.

“I never respected Mr Putin until he brought back Crimea, and then I realized he is a genius,” he said, as he queued for food at an outreach centre run by the Moscow government on a recent evening.

“And you know what? Even we tramps are prepared to do our bit. I’d be happy to tighten my belt and go hungry if it means we have Crimea.”

“But I really struggle to understand why he decided to do this,” he said. “I’ve thought about it and thought about it and I just cannot understand. We’re really hungry here. Maybe he just doesn’t understand.”

He is not alone.

A recent poll by the Levada centre, an independent pollster, found just 40 percent of Russians support the policy of destruction, while 48 percent disapprove.

putin

More than 378,000 people have signed a petition on change.org calling on Mr Putin to end the destruction and redistribute confiscated food to the poor instead, and several deputies from the St. Petersburg city council have written to the Kremlin asking for the policy to be reversed.

Even the Communist Party, the second largest party in Russia’s parliament and usually a vocal supporter of the Kremlin in its confrontation with the west, has introduced a bill that would require confiscated food to be redistributed to the poor.

This is not simply a matter of principle. Russia is going through an economic downturn that has left millions struggling.

The number of Russians living in poverty, defined as those earning less than 10,400 rubles, or £97 a month, hit 23 million (about 16 percent of the population) in the first quarter of this year. That was up from 16 million in 2014.

With a combination of falling oil prices and international sanctions recently pushing the country into its second official recession since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, the situation is only set to deteriorate.

The Moscow city government says it is impossible to know exactly how many homeless people are living on the streets at any one time, although one official said the number was “probably in the tens of thousands.” 

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Assisted death is slowly turning into a 'fashionable' cause

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assisted dying

Britain is inching towards the legalisation of euthanasia.

Next month the House of Commons will debate overturning the ban on assisted dying– with the stipulation that the patient must have no more than six months to live, be able to make a “clear and settled intention” and have the approval of two doctors.

It sounds foolproof. It’s also backed by a growing number of high profile stories of people so ill, so desperate that it’s hard not to sympathise with their decision to circumvent UK law and go to Dignitas.

In an age when the boundaries of personal liberty are being pushed ever further, this seems like a rational and humane reform.

Except that it’s neither. It’s a terrible idea to base law upon individual cases of extreme circumstances . And while liberal reformers plea that they simply want to make the law reflect the realities of human experience, they overlook those human experiences that contradict their argument.

Nearly 80 doctors across the country have written to the Telegraph to warn that the proposal could “devalue the most vulnerable in society.” They say that they regularly encounter patients who: “are under pressure from within to remove themselves as a burden on their hard-pressed families.”

Sometimes that pressure does not come from within: “We do from time to time come across cases where there are signs of subtle pressures being exerted.” Libertarian reformers are often reluctant to acknowledge the sadder facts of life and the necessity of legal protection for the vulnerable. But these doctors write from positions of experience.

Their warning should be heeded.

Here are two scenarios that MPs should consider when voting on this bill. First, a man is told that he has cancer and it has spread throughout his body. He lives alone. He is frightened. He has never experienced surgery this invasive or pain this traumatic.

right to die

 

He doesn’t appreciate that the pain may be controllable – he’s confused and depressed.

There’s also no one around to tell him that doctors get things wrong all the time. In panic, he might reach the conclusion that he’s rather be spared months of suffering. He’d rather die.

This man’s choice is a desperate one shaped by pitiful circumstances.

What if he had been told by someone who loves him that there’s always hope? What if he’d been made to understand that the pain isn’t always unbearable, that it can be lived with and that he could even be given some relative comfort? Is he really committing assisted suicide because of his physical illness or because of his mental condition?

The second scenario is alluded to in the GPs letter. A woman is told her cancer is getting worse and she might have months to live. Her family are financially overstretched. They’ve never been very fond of her. They are told that they could make adjustments to their house at great expense to keep her at home or they could put her in social care, where they likely won’t visit.

The patient is scared. She doesn’t want to be any problem for her family. When she tries to raise the subject they give answers that seem like placating: “Of course we love you. Of course we’ll look after you.” She concludes that she can’t trust her family or else she doesn’t want her last months to be spent living with guilt at having cost them money. So she chooses to die.

This scenario reminds us of something libertarians too often forget: people do not make choices in isolation. That’s not how real human beings work. Their decisions are shaped by their material circumstances and by the attitudes of those around them. Finally, they are shaped by culture.

right to die assisted dyingFrankly, we run the risk of assisted dying becoming fashionable. That sounds glib, but it’s true. We are being bombarded with false statistics about over-population. We are told that social care is bad and under-funded (true in many cases but a good government could change this).

The elderly are not valued but depicted as useless, costly. Wealthy liberals hail assisted suicide as a solution to the problem of pain, although pain is a tragic reality of life.

We aren’t encouraged to leave ourselves open to hope and love. But they are realities of life, too. A friend recently lost his mother. He told me that in the course of her illness, the doctors repeatedly said that it was time to “let nature run its course”.

She repeatedly got worse only to recover and enjoy many more weeks with her family. He told me, emotionally, that he was so glad for that extra time. Isn’t it better to leave ourselves open to such wonderful possibilities than it is to choose death?

(Reporting by Tim Stanley)

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London is the most congested city in Europe

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London traffic

Capital overtakes Brussels to become the most gridlocked city on the continent

London has been named the most congested city in Europe, with motorists spending 12 working days a year sitting in traffic.

The capital has gradually climbed up the rankings since 2011 and this year overtook Brussels to clinch the top spot.

Inrix, the transport analysts, said that that London drivers spent an average of 14 hours more in traffic in 2014 compared with 2013.

Bryan Mistele, from Inrix, said: "For the third year running, traffic in the UK is up. The strong growth of the UK economy and rise in urban populations have resulted in an increase in the demand for road travel, significantly driving levels of congestion up across the country."

London was ranked eighth in 2011, but jumped to third in 2012 and second in 2013.

After the capital, the worst areas for UK traffic were named as Greater Manchester, Merseyside, greater Belfast and greater Birmingham. Drivers across the UK lost an average of 30 hours in traffic in 2014.

While drivers in London spend 12 working days or 96 hours a year stuck in traffic, those in Manchester lose 52 hours a year.

But the five most gridlocked roads in Britain are all in London, with drivers on the A217 said to lose 139 hours, or almost six days, a year sitting in jams.

It was followed by 9.5 miles of the A215 between in London between Albany Crescent in Camberwell and Shirley Road in Croydon which wastes 120 hours, and a 15 mile stretch of the A4 in London between Henlys Roundabout and Holborn Circus which wastes 113 miles.

The INRIX report says: "The UK economy grew by 2.8 per cent last year, its highest rise since 2006 and faster than any other major developed country and double the European Union average of 1.4 per cent.

"Levels of unemployment also decreased in 2014 by 21 per cent from 2013. These factors, which are driving up consumer spending as well as spurring roadwork and construction projects nationwide, had a big impact on traffic with an increase of private and commercial vehicles on the road and more people commuting to work by car."

Garrett Emmerson, from Transport for London, said: "We are seeing unprecedented increases in population and this, combined with strong economic growth and the consequent increase in building and construction, creates more traffic."

Belgium ranked as the most congested country, with drivers losing 58 hours to jams each year. It was followed by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and then Britain, where motorists on average lose 30 hours a year sitting in traffic.

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(Reporting by Victoria Ward)

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