Austria: 'Ice Lady Hid Lovers' Body Parts'

A woman has gone on trial for allegedly murdering two men and concealing their body parts in concrete under her ice cream parlour.

Goidsargi Estibaliz Carranza Zabala, dubbed the "Ice Lady" in Austrian reports, has been charged with shooting dead her husband in 2008 and new partner in 2010.

Described as the "trial of the year", prosecutors allege she then sliced up the bodies of Holger Holz and Manfred Hinterberger with a chainsaw and hid the pieces in concrete that she mixed in a cellar under her shop in Vienna.

Carranza, who is in her 30s, is accused killing her husband when he refused to leave after she revealed she had a lover, the Austrian Independent reported.

The online news outlet adds she allegedly murdered her boyfriend two years later after discovering he was seeing other women. She took shooting lessons and courses in mixing concrete and bought a new chainsaw before the killing, it is claimed.

Human remains were discovered by chance during maintenance work in June 2011.

After fleeing to Italy, Carranza, who has joint Spanish-Mexican citizenship, was captured and later extradited.

When arrested, Carranza was two months pregnant by another man, whom she married in prison in March this year.

The baby was born in January but the boy was immediately taken away from her and is now reportedly being looked after by Carranza's parents in Barcelona.

The Austrian Independent said a 140-page report into her mental state ruled she is fit to stand trial for the double murder after she admitted to a court psychiatrist: "I could kill again."

The report also said Carranza, now in a unit for the "mentally abnormal", was dangerous and was like a "princess ... who just wants to be 'rescued' by a man".

"She intends to confess. She has already told the court-appointed expert everything that she did, as she also did when she was arrested by the Italian police," Werner Tomanek, one of her defence lawyers, told news agency AFP.

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Gaza Conflict: Rockets 'Hit Israeli Town'

Gaza: The Moment Media Buildings Were Hit

Updated: 11:11am UK, Monday 19 November 2012

By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent, in Gaza City

An orange flash lingered, windows bulged pregnant, and burst - the bang came last. It's odd the things you notice in the blink of an eye.

We had chosen to sleep on the floor in a small room in the Sky studios in central Gaza City for our own safety.

The previous two nights had been interrupted every few minutes with the cataclysmic detonations of airstrikes near the hotel we had picked in the north of the city.

Hamas has rocket firing points not far from the hotel, a training ground, and the home of Ismail Haniye, the Hamas Prime Minister, were about 500 yards away.

One can only take a few nights of the "waterbed effect" - when the shock waves of nearby blasts seem to liquefy the mattress and its occupant flows on to the floor.

More fools us.

Mick Deane, Sky's veteran cameraman, News Editor Tom Rayner, and I convinced ourselves the Sky Arabia studios that we were borrowing were well known to the Israeli Air Force, and would never be targeted.

At around midnight on Saturday, we might have taken a hint. A building about 100 yards away was hit twice.

Our local colleagues reacted with horror. Eight journalists were injured, one losing a leg - they were from two Arab TV Channels.

Ambulances screeched up and down the streets while we considered out options.

We had none.

It was too dangerous to leave in the middle of the night, we risked being picked off as militants by an Israeli drone.

Surely they would not hit us here, we reasoned, they have good intelligence?

We wrapped ourselves in the miraculous, dream coat-coloured polyester blankets that are ubiquitous in the Third World, and tried to catch up on missed sleep.

An hour after dawn, the first flash, the bubbling windows.

We struggled into our dirt-stiffened clothes to figure out how badly hit we were and look for any injured.

As I approached the stairwell leading to the floor above and the roof, another blast drove a wall of choking dust down at me and I spun away.

Water poured out of burst mains on the roof and cascaded down the outside of the building.

Later, Israeli military officials said a Hamas communications facility had been "surgically targeted" on the roof above us and especially small munitions used to destroy it.

Air strikes have become an everyday experience for Gazans. Except we were luckier than many.

Gaza's trapped population has endured raids against 1,000 targets across this tiny coastal enclave. After a house was hit, the death toll shot up to around 60, with some 300 wounded.

The majority, medical officials say, are civilians.

Just like the Sky News team, Gazans don't know where they can be safe.

Hamas or other militants use rocket launching sites that are tucked into residential neighbourhoods to fire at Israel.

Gaza is so densely populated it's difficult to see how the militants could find anywhere to use their weapons that did not endanger civilians. Equally, however hard Israel tries to avoid hitting the innocent, it surely has and surely will.

The only advice Israel's military give to Gazans is to try to stay away from Hamas installations and personnel.

But, as we spent several hours trying to figure out how to do that, we drew a blank.

Hamas is the government here. It runs the schools and other ministries. Its security officers are on every street corner, and its guerrilla fighters experts at concealment.

Nowhere is safe.

So we are back at our hotel in the north of the city enduring the orange flashes, the bulging windows, the nauseating process of actually counting luck.

Just like everybody else.

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Teen Paralysed In Car Crash Gets £23m Payout

A teenager who was paralysed in a car crash that killed her mother is to receive record compensation worth £23m.

Cheltenham Ladies College pupil Agnes Collier, now 17, was left with no use of her legs and little function in her arms after the March 2009 accident on the A436 in Gloucestershire.

Damages were awarded against the insurers of motorist Anthony Norton, who caused the accident when he pulled out of a side road, causing the car Ms Collier was travelling in to be hit by an oncoming lorry.

Composed of a £7.25m lump sum plus annual payments of £270,000, the damages are believed to be the highest ever for personal injury, topping the previous record of £12.2m.

The youngster's 48-year-old mother Karen Hood, a teacher, died in the crash and her older brother Rufus suffered a serious head injury, from which he has made a good recovery.

In November 2009, Norton, of Andoversford, Gloucestershire, pleaded guilty to causing death by driving without due care and attention and was sentenced to six months' jail suspended for a year, banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to do 300 hours unpaid community work.

Agnes's father, investment banker Dominic Collier, and stepmother Jannene, were at London's High Court for the hearing.

Agnes's counsel, William Norris QC, told Mr Justice MacDuff that she was a "truly remarkable young lady" and a very bright girl who had done astonishingly well in returning to school and taking her AS-levels.

The burden of overwhelming tiredness and the need to use a scribe had affected her exam results to some extent and she was unlikely to achieve the university place she had hoped for, but she already had one offer and was set on a career.

"Her determination is extraordinary, but she has been blessed with a family who are thoroughly supportive, and her stepmother has been a tower of strength," Mr Norris said.

Ben Browne, QC for the insurers, said it was a tragedy for the entire family, of Naunton, near Cheltenham, starting with the grievous blow of the loss of a devoted wife and mother.

He said: "On top of that, they had to contend with the injuries to Agnes, which were at the very highest level of severity.

"It is difficult to imagine how the family was going to cope with those terrible blows coming together, but it is enormously to their credit that they have coped and managed to give Agnes a quality of life which would have been really unimaginable in the early days following this tragedy."

After the hearing, the family's solicitor, Paul Paxton, of Stewarts Law, said the award would be paid out over her lifetime.

He added: "While it is a lot of money, Agnes's needs are great and she needs those for the rest of her life.

"The family want to be able to move on with their lives now this chapter has closed."

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South African Found Guilty Of Dewani Murder

By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent

The man found guilty today of the murder of honeymooner Anni Dewani is the last of the South African killers to face justice.

Xolile Mngeni protested his innocence throughout the three-month trial but was convicted as the "trigger man" - the man who fired the fatal shot which killed Anni on November 13, 2010.

Two of the men accused of being his accomplices are already serving lengthy prison sentences after entering into plea bargains.

But both Zola Tongo and Mziwamadoda Qwabe had implicated Mngeni and both claimed they had been hired by Anni's new British husband Shrien Dewani to kill his bride during a fake hijacking in Gugulethu township.

Xolile Mngeni has been found guilty of shooting Anni Dewani

Mngeni claimed he was not there during the shooting, but Western Cape High Court judge Robert Denney did not believe him.

He told the court: "I am satisfied that the accused has committed the crime of murder.

"Mngeni did not take the court into his confidence. He came with a rather late alibi which proved unconvincing."

The court heard how Mngeni's left palm print was found on the car in which Anni's body was found. Her watch, bracelet and mobile phone were also discovered in Mngeni's friend's shack.

The National Prosecuting Authority believes without doubt that Mngeni was part of a conspiracy to kill 28-year-old Anni Dewani.

Taxi driver Zola Tongo was jailed for 18 years for his role in the murder

She was fatally shot in the neck on the fourth day of her honeymoon in Cape Town two years ago.

Prosecutors said Mngeni, Qwabe and Tongo were paid 15,000 rand (£1,066) for the killing.

The court heard the couple went out for a night-time tour of the city's townships.

In CCTV footage taken from the Cape Grace hotel where they were staying, the couple are seen kissing and cuddling in the hours before her death.

A motive has never been clearly explained for why Shrien Dewani would want his new bride killed and he is still in Britain fighting extradition to South Africa, claiming he will not get a fair trial.

Mngeni (L) and Mziwamadoda Qwabe on February 10

The legal battle is on hold while he receives treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder following the murder.

His health will be reviewed again in the London High Court on December 3 but the conviction of Mngeni in Cape Town is sure to intensify the pressure to send Dewani to South Africa to stand trial.

Anni's family said they were still going through turmoil.

Ashok Hindocha, her uncle, told Sky News from their home in Sweden: "There were four people in the car apart from Anni. Three of them have now been sent to jail.

"We have yet to hear what happened from the fourth (Shrien). We just want the truth. It is eating our family up from inside."

Mngeni, 25, will be sentenced on Wednesday.

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Prisoner Voting Ban: MPs To Debate Again

MPs are to be given another say on whether to give prisoners the vote, as the deadline for Britain to comply with a European ruling on the controversial issue looms.

The UK's current blanket ban on prisoners voting has been judged as unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and officials in Strasbourg have given the Government until Friday to comply with the ruling.

Last February, the Commons called by an overwhelming margin of 234 to 22 for the blanket ban to be maintained, while David Cameron has flatly ruled out the option of handing criminals back their democratic rights.

MPs will this week be given another chance to vote on the issue when the Government introduces a draft bill.

The bill, to be published on Thursday, will give MPs three options, according to The Daily Telegraph.

They will be votes for prisoners who have been imprisoned for four years or less, votes for prisoners who have been imprisoned for six months or less, or no votes for prisoners at all.

There is a risk that this week's Commons vote could set up another clash with the ECHR, which could fine the Government if it does not comply with its ruling.

Attorney General Dominic Grieve has warned against defying the Strasbourg court, saying its ruling imposes an international legal obligation on the UK.

But the Prime Minister has made it clear he would not be letting prisoners get the vote.

David Cameron told the Commons last month: "I do not want prisoners to have the vote, and they should not get the vote - I am very clear about that.

"If it helps to have another vote in Parliament on another resolution to make it absolutely clear and help put the legal position beyond doubt, I am happy to do that.

"But no one should be in any doubt: prisoners are not getting the vote under this Government."

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has said Parliament has the right in law to tell the ECHR that it does not accept its ruling.

But added there would be "consequences" for the UK's position in Europe if MPs do chose to defy the judgement.

In 2005, the ECHR said it was up to individual countries to decide which prisoners should be denied the right to vote from jail, but that a total ban was illegal.

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Jaguar Land Rover Launches China Expansion

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent

Jaguar Land Rover is to manufacture cars outside the United Kingdom for the first time.

The company has entered into a joint venture with one of China's largest car makers Chery.

The two firms began work to build a factory near Shanghai today.

"For the first time one of the most famous names in the British automotive industry, Jaguar Land Rover, is poised to begin manufacturing in a market outside the United Kingdom," the company's CEO Dr Ralf Speth said at the stone-laying ceremony.

"It seems only fitting that this new venture will take place here, in the People's Republic of China, the world's fastest-growing market for premium vehicles."

Kay Francis, the company's director of global corporate communications, told Sky News: "This is our first ever manufacture plant outside the UK."

"The facility here in China will include research and development, engine plants and production lines. Start to finish, the cars will be made in China," Ms Francis added.

Executives at Jaguar Land Rover have been in complicated negotiations with their counterparts at Chery for months.

Chery is a state-owned company and Chinese government approval was required before any deal could be signed.

The joint venture project was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission last month.

The first bricks of the new factory were laid at a ceremony in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, to the northwest of Shanghai.

Yin Tongyao, the president of Chery Automobile, and Dr Speth were both there.

"Soon, on this very site, will be a fully-fledged manufacturing plant, to create employment, stimulate the supply chain and develop game-changing environmental technologies for China. A total of 10.9bn renmimbi (£1bn) will be invested in this joint venture," Dr Speth said.

"In our shared vision with Chery, this partnership will offer Chinese customers the latest generation models from Jaguar and Land Rover, as well as vehicles designed specifically for Chinese customers," he said.

The company hopes that the first cars will roll off the production line in 2014.

It is understood the first vehicle to be built at the factory will be the Land Rover Freelander.

The company would not confirm that suggestion.

"We intend to build Jaguar and Land Rover branded products here... It's likely that a Land Rover badged vehicle will be the first to come out of the plant when it opens in 2014," Ms Francis said.

Volkswagen already manufactures VWs, Audis, Skodas and Seats in China

China has become Jaguar Land Rover's largest market and experts say it has not even begun to reach its potential.

Sales of the company's cars reached 53,000 there in the first nine months of this year - that's up 80 per cent from the year before.

The reason behind the boost is China's demand for luxury goods.

Jaguar Land Rover has sold 20,000 Range Rover Evoques this year alone.

The firm hopes to boost last year's record £1.5bn profits when the new Chinese factory begins work.

Building cars in China rather than importing them from the UK allows the company to avoid massive import duties.

Chinese-made vehicles can be sold for less and the hope is that more will be bought.

The company insists the expansion to China is in addition to their business in the UK and that no UK jobs will be lost as a result.

"Everything we do in China is in addition to our UK operation. We are not shifting production and it doesn't impact the head count and state of play of the plants in Britain," Ms Francis said.

Jaguar Land Rover does have a factory in Pune, India, but that acts simply as an assembly plant, constructing flat-packed cars which are manufactured in the UK.

Compared with other European car makers, Jaguar Land Rover is very late in expanding production to China.

Volkswagen began its first joint venture in China in 1984. Volkswagen Group China now manufactures VWs, Audis, Skodas and Seats in China with year-on-year record sales.

Ageing Volkswagens are a common sight in Beijing; a sign of just how long the company has been operating here.

Audi is now the favoured brand for the political elite in China. Black Audi A6 cars, manufactured in China, are seen all over Beijing.

Jaguar Land Rover says that as well as building cars identical to those built in the UK, it plans to build a new vehicle designed specifically for the Chinese market. 

"We may also build a brand of car that is a blend of the two: a car that is new and designed and developed entirely in China," Ms Francis said.

"Having Chinese research and development means we can tailor cars for Chinese tastes."

British brands are very popular in China. Combine that with the fact that China has an increasingly wealthy urban population and there are significant opportunities which could help strengthen the UK economy.

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John McAfee 'In His Compound In Belize'

Millionaire software mogul John McAfee, who is wanted for questioning over the death of his neighbour, claims he has been in his home in Belize all along.

Mr McAfee told CNBC he has been hiding in his compound for the last week - not on the run as previously believed.

"I am where I am most of the time. I am certainly inside my compound," he said.

Police want to question him as a "person of interest" about the murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull, who was shot last Saturday in the Central American country.

Belize Police Department spokesman Raphael Martinez told FoxNews.com the local police were aware of the latest claims from Mr McAfee and were investigating.

"That has been passed on to the police in San Pedro," Martinez said. "They are checking it out right now."

Police said McAfee has several buildings on his ocean front compound on Ambergris Caye, a stretch of island just off the Belizean shore dotted with resorts.

A Facebook page showing pictures of John McAfee

Mr McAfee earlier told Wired he hid out while police combed the property, burying himself in sand with a cardboard box over his head to breathe.

He denies killing Mr Faull whose body was found by his housekeeper in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to the head.

A dispute between the neighbours apparently involved several dogs that Mr McAfee kept at his beachside villa and that drew complaints from neighbours.

Asked if he knew anything about the murder, he told CNBC, "I had absolutely nothing to do with it and I did know him but just barely. We'd spoken perhaps 50 words in five years."

The tech guru said his relationship with the government has "never been good" and believes he's being targeted by police for this reason. He said he refuses to hand himself to police for fear of being killed.

Police officers carry the body of Gregory Faull

"I simply refuse to play by the rules. I am a foreigner, a rich foreigner, and I am expected to pay my dues which is to contribute to campaigns and give my dues. I don't like extortion and refuse to do that," he said.

The Belizean prime minister Dean Barrow expressed doubt about the 67-year-old's mental state, saying he was "extremely paranoid, even bonkers".

Describing the last week in hiding, he said, "They've been OK. You know, I don't have a lot of freedom of movement. The food is not the best. I have no television, I would like a television."

The McAfee founder now plans to dodge police until Mr Faull's killer is found.

"The ultimate goal is they will figure out who killed the man, they will have nothing to do with me, they will leave me alone... "

He said he hadn't contacted the US embassy because he didn't want to follow the same track as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

"What would happen? They will offer me some type of sanctuary where I will spend my days living in the embassy like poor Julian Assange was. Or when I leave the embassy I will be nabbed by police."

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Gaza: Israel Prepares To Widen Offensive

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is ready to "significantly expand" its Gaza offensive.

"We are extracting a heavy price from Hamas and the terror organisations," Mr Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on the fifth day of the conflict.

"The soldiers are ready for any activity that could take place."

On Friday, ministers doubled the current reserve troop quota set for the offensive to 75,000 in preparation for a possible ground invasion.

Some 30,000 soldiers have already been called up.

Israeli President Shimon Peres told Sky's Murnaghan programme that he does not see a ground invasion as an escalation of the conflict.

Some 30,000 Israeli soldiers have already been called up

"What we are doing is self defence," he said.

"What would you do in London if you would have 900 missiles aimed at your schools, at your homes, at your houses? Would you call it an escalation if you tried to stop it?

"We don't have any purpose to control Gaza or to go into Gaza.

"Basically our purpose is peace, their purpose is to destroy Israel. It is not an easy situation."

Foreign Secretary William Hague tells Sky News Murnaghan that Britain has warned Israel against a ground invasion.

"The Prime Minister and I have both stressed to our Israeli counterparts that a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support  and sympathy they have in this situation," he said.

"A ground invasion is much more difficult for the international community to sympathise with or support, including the United Kingdom."

But Mr Hague blamed Hamas for sparking the current conflict in Gaza.

"We call on Hamas again to stop the rocket attacks on Israel, it is Hamas that bears principal responsibility for starting all of this and we would like to see an agreed ceasefire - an essential component of which is an end to those rocket attacks."

Israel pounded Gaza from the air and sea overnight

US President Barack Obama said it was "preferable" for the crisis to end without a "ramping up" of Israeli military activity, but he blamed Hamas militants for causing the showdown.

"Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory," Mr Obama said, in Thailand.

Israel's bombardment of Gaza entered a new phase overnight, with the military shelling the Palestinian territory from the sea, as well as continuing its airstrikes.

On Sunday, five Palestinian civilians were killed in airstrikes, including four children ranging in age from one to seven, according to Ashraf al-Kidra, a Gaza health official. 

The deaths bring to 51 the number of Palestinians killed since the operation began on Wednesday. More than 400 people have been wounded in the strikes.

On the Israeli side, three civilians have been killed and more than 50 wounded by rocket fire.

Palestinians in Gaza this morning fired rockets at Tel Aviv for the fourth straight day. Police said two rockets were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome air shield.

Earlier Sunday, at least one rocket fired by Gaza militants landed in Ashkelon in southern Israel.

But a Palestinian official told AFP news agency that a truce was possible "today or tomorrow", after Egypt's President suggested that there could be a ceasefire soon.

Palestinian girls in the northern Gaza Strip

Mohamed Morsi said: "There are now intensive efforts through communication channels with the Palestinian side and with the Israeli side and there are now some indications that there is possibility of a ceasefire soon between the two sides."

 Israel has said it is not prepared to enter into a truce without guarantees the rocket fire will stop.

The latest Israeli strikes also hit two Gaza media centres housing the offices of Al Quds TV and Al Aqsa, both seen as sympathetic to Hamas. 

A Gaza press association said six Palestinian journalists were wounded, including an Al Quds employee who lost a leg. 

The media buildings hit were also being used by foreign journalists, including Sky News and ITN.

Tom Rayner, Sky News Middle East editor, said on Twitter: "There don't appear to have been any injuries following Israeli strike on international media building being used by Sky News, ITN and others."

Sky's Sam Kiley: "I think that this demonstrates just how dangerous and complex with aerial bombardment is."

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity". 

The attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida.

"This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

A Palestinian protester in West Bank city of Jenin

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel's blows Hamas "is still strong enough to destroy the enemy".

Israel military spokesman Yoav Mordechai warned that Israel would go after Hamas commanders Sunday, in addition to rocket squads, in "more targeted, more surgical and more deadly" attacks.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday, killing a leading militant of the Hamas Islamist group that controls Gaza and rejects Israel's existence.

Israel says it is trying to stop militants in the coastal enclave from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since the recent violence flared on Wednesday.

The Jewish state has launched more than 950 air strikes since then.

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Electoral Commission To Probe Police Vote

Low Turnout For Police Commissioner Polls

Updated: 7:33pm UK, Friday 16 November 2012

Dire turnouts have threatened to undermine the first ever police and crime commissioner elections, with as few as 10% of voters casting their ballots in some areas.

The Electoral Reform Society branded the elections a "comedy of errors" after a record low turnout left at least one polling station - in the Newport area - completely unused.

It said it could end up being the lowest voter turnout ever in peacetime history.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the elections for the new commissioners had descended in to a shambles, with many voters taking to Twitter to describe the low turnout at their polling stations.

A UKIP MEP, John Bufton, even called for Home Secretary Theresa May to resign for presiding over a "shamefully low turnout".

In Wiltshire, the first force area to declare, the overall turnout was 15.8% as Tory candidate Angus Macpherson, a magistrate, won after a second round of voting ahead of Labour's Clare Moody.

But in one part of Wiltshire, Devizes, only 10.41% of voters took part.

Polling stations elsewhere across the country appeared to be equally as quiet as many people opted not to vote for the first generation of PCCs, despite about £75m being spent on the campaign.

Newport City Council confirmed to Sky News that no voters attended one of its polling stations, despite it being open for 15 hours from 7am to 10pm on Thursday.

Elsewhere, turnout was 11.42% in Wigan, 12% in Rochdale, 12.59% in Oldham and 12.49% in Manchester. For Greater Manchester as a whole it was 13.46%.

In Essex, just 12.81%% of voters took to the polls.

Even in Humberside, where Lord Prescott's name on the ballot paper raised the profile of the election, turnout was only 19.48%.

Sky's election analyst Michael Thrasher said the low turnout was "hardly surprising" given the elections were held in dark and chilly November "for an office that no-one has heard of" across unfamiliar police authority areas.

He said the numbers raised questions over the legitimacy of the office and those elected.

Mr Thrasher, a professor of politics at Plymouth University, added that it could end up costing as much as £13 per vote that was cast.

"When you work out how much it's going to cost per vote it becomes quite ridiculous," he said.

But policing minister Damian Green defended the turnout, saying it would improve in years to come.

He told Sky News: "I think it's likely with something new coming on that people will take time to get used to it.

"But I'm absolutely sure they will get used to it in the future and the measure of the success will be the difference they make to policing over the next few years."

Prime Minister David Cameron insisted police commissioners would have a mandate despite the low turnout.

He added: "Remember, these police and crime commissioners are replacing organisations that weren't directly elected at all."

Elections for the new office have been held in 41 police areas outside London.

The newly-elected police and crime commissioner will have the power to control budgets, set policing priorities, and hire and fire chief constables.

The Electoral Reform Society had predicted a turnout of 18.5% before the polls began, which would be below the previous record low in a national poll in peacetime - 23% in the 1999 European elections.

The society's chief executive, Katie Ghose, said: "This election has been a comedy of errors from start to finish.

"The Home Office has operated under the assumption that 'if you build it they will come'. Democracy just doesn't work that way.

"There have been avoidable errors at every step, and those responsible should be held to account."

One of the biggest problems has been that people are not prepared to put a cross beside the name of someone they know little, if anything, about.

Glenda Adcock from Great Yarmouth in Norfolk said she always votes, but not this time.

"I know nothing about the candidates or anything really so I'm not bothering," she said,

And while Bernard Jennings had decided he would take part, he agreed the information had been poor.

"I think they could have done a lot more to help people out so you have a better understanding of what everyone stands for," he said.

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Egypt School Bus Crash Leaves Dozens Dead

Fifty people have been killed after a train collided with a bus in a city south of the Egyptian capital Cairo.

A senior security official in Assiut, near the crash site, said 48 of the dead were children, aged between four and eight years.

One woman and a man, who was the bus driver, also died, he added.

The state news agency said another 15 people were injured. A medical source said as many as 28 were injured, 27 of them children.

"They told us the barriers were open when the bus crossed the tracks and the train collided with it," doctor Mohamed Samir said, citing witness accounts.

Distraught locals search through the wreckage at the crash site

He said the bodies of many of those killed were severely mutilated, indicating the force of the crash, which took place in the city of Manfalut, near Assiut, some 190 miles south of the capital.

President Mohamed Mursi ordered his ministers to offer support to the families of those killed.

Transport Minister Mohamed Rashad has offered his resignation as has the head of the railways authority, which President Mursi was considering, state media reported.

The governor of Assiut, Yahya Keshk, has ordered an inquiry.

Egypt's roads and railways have a poor safety record.

Egyptians have complained that successive governments have failed to enforce basic safety standards, leading to a string of deadly accidents.

Earlier this month, at least three Egyptians were killed and more than 30 injured in a train crash in Fayoum, another city south of Cairo.

In July, 15 people were injured in Giza, close to the capital, when a train derailed.

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