Rail Firm Urges Legal Action Against Cyclists

Written By Unknown on Senin, 13 April 2015 | 20.49

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French state railway company SNCF has called for legal action against cyclist in the famous Paris-Roubaix race who cheated death when they ignored barriers to cross tracks.

A number of riders in the peloton rode through the level crossing - which clipped several riders as it came down - seconds before a high-speed train passed.

Some even ignored a police motorcyclist who ordered a large group of competitors to stop as the TGV train approached.

SNCF has filed an official complaint with police.

"Several riders deliberately crossed a level crossing, which is against all safety regulations," the company said in a statement.

"Millions of TV viewers were able to watch this unauthorised crossing which was extremely serious and irresponsible, that could have ended in tragedy.

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Gallery: Bradley Wiggins' Tour In Pictures

Wiggins rounds the arc d'triomphe in Paris.

In the overall leader's yellow jersey, he heads up the Champs-Elysees.

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Chris Froome, Wiggins, Richie Porte and Edvald Boasson Hagen ride together in the final stage of the Tour.

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Wiggins congratulated by teammate Michael Rogers after winning.

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Team Sky help to celebrate the win.

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"SNCF has decided to lodge a legal complaint and will leave it up to the investigation to determine who was responsible and we regret that such foolhardiness took place."

The group of around 30 riders crossed the tracks in the Wallers region, around 87km (54 miles) from the end of the race.

Race organisers said the leading riders did not have enough time to stop and there no plans to take action against any of the cyclists.

"The peloton was 10m away when the barrier started to close. By neutralising the race for a few moments to not penalise those who stopped, we respected the spirit of the rule," Guy Dobbelaere, president of the jury of race commissioners, said.

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Gallery: Rise And Rise Of Bradley Wiggins

Wiggins celebrates on the finish line after the final 20th stage of the 99th Tour de France.

Celebrating his overall victory Tour on the Champs Elysees in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

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In 2006, three riders were disqualified for going through a closed railway crossing.

SNCF says it spends 30 million euros (£21.6m) a year trying to reduce accidents of level crossings.

After the latest incident the peloton regrouped, allowing riders left behind to catch up as they neared the finish of the 151-mile race.

Sir Bradley Wiggins finished 18th in his final race for Team Sky, 31 seconds behind winner John Degenkolb, from Germany.

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Written By Unknown on Minggu, 12 April 2015 | 20.49

A British boy who died in a skiing accident while on a family holiday in the French Alps was skiing alone at his own request, according to reports.

The seven-year-old, who has been named in reports as Carwyn Scott-Howell from Talybont-on-Usk in Powys, fell around 160ft from a cliff to his death in the alpine resort of Flaine on Friday.

He had been skiing with his mother, brother and sister but is understood to have asked to ski the day's final descent on his own.

His family became worried after he failed to reach the bottom of the slopes, prompting a search which ended when his body was discovered around three-and-a-half hours later.

The circumstances around the incident are still being investigated by the authorities, with some reports suggesting the boy was instead somehow separated from his family.

There have been reports that the boy was not skiing on his own, and had instead gotten lost from the group he was with.

Michel Ollagnon, an officer with the Bonneville mountain rescue service, said the boy's body was spotted off his expected course by rescuers in a helicopter on Friday evening.

Police chief Patrick Poirot, the head of the mountain rescue division in the nearby town of Annecy, was quoted in the Daily Mirror saying: "Specialists are at the scene to try and determine exactly what happened and understand every element that led to this tragedy.

"Hypothetically we think that, after losing his parents, the little boy didn't know where to go and skied in the wrong direction.

"He's just seven-years-old.

"He left the marked ski slope and probably skied to the top of a cliff.

"He then stopped, removed his skis, walked a little way and then fell.

"He fell 50 metres."

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said they were aware of the death and are providing consular assistance.

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Conservatives Promise To Cut Inheritance Tax

The Conservatives have said they will take family homes out of inheritance tax by introducing a new allowance which effectively increases the threshold for tax to £1m.

David Cameron said that if his party wins the 7 May election, parents will be offered a new £175,000 allowance to enable them to pass property on to children tax-free after they die.

For properties worth more than £2m, the allowance will be gradually tapered away so that those worth more than £2.35m do not benefit.

Full coverage: General Election 2015

Inheritance tax is currently payable at a rate of 40% on the value of an estate above the £325,000 threshold - or £650,000 if a couple takes advantage of the existing allowance.

It is thought around 22,000 families will benefit from the move by 2020 and Mr Cameron said the costs would be paid for by a £1bn raid on pension tax relief for people earning more than £150,000.

Mr Cameron said: "We will take the family home out of inheritance tax.

"That home that you have worked and saved for belongs to you and your family.

"You should be able to pass it on to your children. And with the Conservatives, the taxman will not get his hands on it."

The Conservatives promised a £1m inheritance tax threshold in the 2010 election, but were blocked by Liberal Democrats from implementing it when in coalition.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky's Murnaghan programme it is the "wrong priority" and "won't affect 90% of estates".

She said: "They are talking about a £140,000 tax cut for properties that are worth around £2m at a time when you've got families still losing their homes because of the bedroom tax, at a time when pensioners and families have had to pay more VAT."

Meanwhile, Labour has revealed its plans to crackdown on tax-dodgers if it wins the election, hoping to cut avoidance and evasion by at least £7.5bn a year by the middle of the next Parliament.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said it would take a Labour government to "call time" on the Tories' "lax approach", adding that Labour would set targets for HMRC to reduce tax avoidance by at least £7.5bn a year.

He said: "We will close the loopholes the Tories won't act on, increase transparency, toughen up penalties and abolish the non-dom rules.

"And our first Budget will make sure that, following an immediate review of HMRC, it has all the powers and resources it needs to come down hard on tax avoidance and evasion."

Conservative Treasury minister David Gauke said: "Ed Miliband and Ed Balls turned a blind eye to aggressive tax avoiding and evading for 13 years when they were in charge - they were the tax avoiders' friends."

The Lib Dems have also set out their tax plans, promising "light at the end of the tunnel" with moves to eliminate Britain's deficit by 2017/18.

Nick Clegg said his plan has "a heart as well as a brain", trying to drive home his claim that his party will cut less than the Conservatives and borrow less than Labour.

Spelling out plans for a consolidation totaling £27bn by 2017/18, made up of £12bn in additional tax, £12bn in public spending reductions and £3bn in welfare cuts, Mr Clegg challenged the other parties to spell out in similar detail how they would balance the nation's books.

He said: "We are going to spread the burden of finishing the job of fixing the economy fairly across society.

"Yes that means more cuts, but it also means asking the wealthiest to pay their fare share too."

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Islamic State's Trail Of Historical Oblivion

The ancient city of Nimrud is just the latest piece of history to be wiped from the map as Islamic State fighters continue their trail of destruction through Syria and Iraq.

The Sunni extremist group has released a video appearing to show black-clad militants smashing up artefacts before razing the 3,000-year-old Assyrian site in a mushroom cloud of dust and destroyed treasures.

Their mission is made clear with one fighter saying: "God has honoured us to remove all of these idols and statues."

IS, which holds a third of Iraq and Syria, has been destroying Christian, Jewish and Islamic shrines in its self-declared caliphate because it says they promote idolatry and violate its interpretation of Islamic law.

But with these acts of cultural cleansing, apparently in the name of religion, IS is accused of hypocrisy with authorities claiming its fighters are looting archaeological sites to fund their atrocities.

:: Nimrud

Many relics from Nimrud, which was founded in the 13th century BC and was one of Iraq's most famous archaeological sites, are in foreign museums.

But a number of giant statues, depicting winged beasts with human heads, and stones friezes have now seemingly been turned into fragments by IS explosives.

The militants are believed to hold around 15% of the 12,000 registered archaeological sites in Iraq - a country dubbed the "cradle of civilisation" for its ancient historical importance.

And historians fear none of them are safe, and similar destruction may be taking place in IS-controlled areas of neighbouring Syria.

:: Hatra

A week ago, IS released another video apparently showing the bulldozing of 2,000-year old Hatra, some 70 miles southwest of Mosul, in northern Iraq.

Hatra like Nimrud, 20 miles away, is a UNESCO world heritage site, and their destruction was condemned as a "war crime" by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

The footage shows jihadists apparently destroying artefacts with sledgehammers and rifles at the fortress city, dating back to the Seleucid empire, which controlled a large part of the world conquered by Alexander the Great.

:: Khorsabad

Last month, IS reportedly pillaged the ancient archaeological site of Khorsabad, some 10 miles northeast of Mosul.

Khorsabad was built as a new capital of Assyria by King Sargon II shortly after he came to power in 721 BC and abandoned after his death in 705 BC.

With an 80ft-thick wall and seven gates, it was renowned for shedding light on Assyrian art and architecture.

:: Mosul

In February, IS released a video of fighters smashing statues in Mosul's city museum.

It also shows a man in black drilling through a winged bull, an Assyrian protective deity dating back to the 7th century BC, at a nearby archaeological site.

A caption says the artefacts did not exist in the time of the Prophet Mohammed, and were put on display by "devil worshippers" - a term used by IS to describe the Yazidi minority in Iraq.

The same month, IS reportedly destroyed more Iraqi history by torching thousands of books and rare manuscripts in the Mosul Library.

UNESCO said burning the tomes, which included 18th-century manuscripts and Ottoman-era books, could be "one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history".

Officials fear more than 112,000 manuscripts and books, some of which were registered on a UNESCO rarities list, may have been lost.

In July last year, IS apparently razed a Muslim shrine in Mosul, said to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who in the Bible and Koran is swallowed by a whale.

Residents said militants ordered everyone out of the Mosque of the Prophet Younis, or Jonah, then blew it up.

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IS Blows Up Ancient City As 'Propaganda Tool'

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Islamic State militants have continued their "cultural cleansing" of Iraq and Syria - this time blowing up the ancient city of Nimrud.

A video posted online appears to show the terror group's fighters smashing artefacts at the 3,000-year-old site near Mosul in northern Iraq.

Militants are seen with large barrels of powder in a room lined with gypsum slabs, beautifully carved with representations of Assyrian figures.

The explosion sends a huge mushroom cloud into the sky and turns yet another important part of history to dust and fragments.

Fighters hack away at statues with sledgehammers and carve them up with angle grinders, claiming God had "honoured" them by "removing and destroying everything that was held to be equal to him and worshipped without him".

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Gallery: Images Of The 3,000-Year-Old Assyrian Site

The 3,000-year-old site on the banks of the Tigris river was once the capital of the world's most powerful empire, the Assyrians. European archeologists first excavated the site in the 1840s

Statues, sections of palaces and gold items were unearthed at the site. Some of its best-known monuments include these winged bulls with human faces, known as lamassus

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Many of its artefacts were on display in the Baghdad Museum, but disappeared during the Gulf War in the 1990s. It was presumed they had been looted

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However, after the 2003 Iraq invasion by allied forces, the items were found safe. They had been locked away in a secret vault in the city, submerged in sewage water

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The collection includes hundreds of gold and gem-studded jewellery items

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A militant speaking at the end of the destruction says: "Whenever we are able in a piece of land to remove the signs of idolatry and spread monotheism, we will do it."

:: Islamic State's Trail Of Historical Oblivion

Nimrud was founded in the 13th century BC and contains one of the most famous archaeological sites in a country dubbed the cradle of civilisation.

It was such an important city that it was on UNESCO's tentative list of world heritage sites.

The attacks, which follow similar destruction of archaeological sites in Iraq and Syria earlier this year and in 2014, have been widely criticised.

Middle East expert Professor Fawaz Gerges, from the London School of Economics, described IS as a "social epidemic" that is "culturally cleansing" an area the size of the UK.

He told Sky News that militants had caused "catastrophic" damage to Iraq's - and the world's - cultural heritage.

"(They have) been systematically destroying ancient relics and cultural artefacts both in Iraq and Syria," he said. "The United Nations has called what IS are trying to do 'war crimes'.

"They have a puritanical sense of an ideology that believes in cultural cleansing - not just people, but even art and culture. They want to purify the land - to establish a totalitarian ideology."

He said the jihadists are using the video as a "powerful propaganda tool" to counter set-backs on the battlefield.

"They believe that ancient relics, museums, are basically idols. Idols that basically substitute idols for God," he said.

"These particular videos are designed for the hardcore, for the ... jihadists who believe in this particular ideology ... It's part of a propaganda, part of their ideological nightmare, it's part of a puritanical, severe interpretation of Islam."

Abdulamir Hamdani, an archaeologist from Stony Brook University in New York, said of Nimrud: "It's really a very important site in the history of Mesopotamia.

"Many of Assyria's greatest artistic treasures came from this site."

Nimrud is the later Arab name given to a settlement originally called Kalhu, and was plundered by Western explorers.

It was also looted and damaged during the 2003 US invasion.

Most of Nimrud's most valuable artefacts were moved long ago to museums in Mosul, Baghdad, Paris and London.

But giant "lamassu" statues - winged bulls with human heads - and sculptures were still on site.

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Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 11 April 2015 | 20.48

CCTV footage reportedly showing the men behind the Hatton Garden jewel heist has emerged, after it was revealed the police initially failed to go to the scene despite being alerted by an alarm.

The 17-minute video purportedly shows at least six men arriving at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company's building in London's jewellery quarter on Good Friday.

The Daily Mirror, which obtained the footage, reported that the group made two separate visits before leaving in a white van on Easter Sunday with the contents of 72 safety deposit boxes in wheelie bins and bags.

Scotland Yard is examining the footage, and has insisted it was already aware of the video before it was published by the newspaper.

The spokesman added the force has "not made any links" between the heist and an underground fire in the Holborn area days earlier which caused widespread power outages and road closures.

Police are also continuing to investigate why a call from a security firm about the alarm was graded in a way that meant officers did not consider it worthy of a response.

It was not until Tuesday morning that the raid - one of Britain's biggest - was discovered.

The police could face compensation claims running into the millions because officers failed to respond to the alarm, it has also been claimed.

An industry source told the Daily Telegraph insurers could take civil action to recoup losses if they have to pay out to customers.

The Daily Mirror footage is from a camera that centres on a doorway, with an adjacent intercom, at the bottom of a set of stairs that leads to the street.

A number of men appear wearing high-visibility jackets, builder's hats, gloves and dust masks and carrying orange tool boxes and holdalls.

Others in the group are dressed in blue overalls and gloves.

Three men with their faces covered are seen taking wheelie bins in and out of the building.

A white van is seen pulling up shortly before 7am on Sunday, the newspaper reported, and once the bins and bags are loaded into it, the group get in and drive away.

Police have insisted it is too early to say if the handling of the call about the alert would have had an impact on the outcome.

But the revelations have led to anger from potential victims, who spoke of their shock that the police "just weren't there".

Michael Miller, from Knightsbridge, who may have lost £50,000 in uninsured jewellery, said: "I am just so shocked and disappointed to hear the police didn't answer that alarm.

"I mean before, we thought maybe the police didn't even know about that but now we know that they knew something was wrong.

"This completely changes things, the knowledge that something could have been done.

"The police pride themselves on being somewhere in a couple of minutes, but on this occasion they just weren't there."

A store owner near the scene, who did not wish to be named, said: "It's just shocking that someone didn't answer that call that came in when the alarm went off.

"You think what on earth isn't a high priority call if it's isn't a safe deposit alarm going off in there.

"I know they're investigating, but really what is the good of that when the damage is done?"

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Murray 'Excited' As Hail Batters Wedding Venue

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Crowds have gathered outside the cathedral where Andy Murray wll today wed his long-time girlfriend Kim Sears - as hailstones and showers battered the venue.

The couple exchange vows at Dunblane Cathedral before a reception at Cromlix House, the hotel owned by the 27-year-old tennis player.

The UK number one tweeted a picture of an umbrella in what appears to be a preview of the day in emojis on his Twitter account.

The tweet also features a picture of a church, a ring, a kiss, cake and drinks including beer, cocktails and wine.

It ends with hearts, a face throwing a kiss and several Zzzz icons for sleep.

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Gallery: Dunblane Ready For Murray's Big Day

Andy Murray tweeted a preview of the wedding in symbols on his Twitter account

Local shops in Dunblane High Street are putting up decorations in support of local boy Andy Murray ahead of his wedding to Kim Sears at Dunblane Cathedral

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Connor Wilson, from Bennetts Butchers, with their sweetheart burgers, made in honour of the happy couple

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They also have a special sausage available

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John Hill Butchers has also put on a display...

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Rain showers are forecast for 4pm, when the ceremony is expected to take place.

Murray's mother Judy discussed the bad weather on social media, initially tweeting: "Hailstones. Marvellous."

A few hours later she tweeted: "Snowing. White wedding."

Despite the weather many fans began to gather outside the 12th-century cathedral this morning, sheltering under umbrellas.

Brenda Watson travelled from Ochiltree in Ayrshire with her friend to join in the celebrations.

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Gallery: Dunblane Venue Hosts Love Match Reception

Cromlix reopened in spring 2014 as a five star hotel owned by Wimbledon champion Andy Murray

The hotel has 15 luxury rooms, including five suites, each individually designed

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She said: "We forgot our hats but we're hoping the sun will shine for Andy and Kim.

"We're so excited about seeing them and the atmosphere is great, it's been well worth coming."

Yesterday Andy Murray shared his excitement as he left the wedding rehearsal at the cathedral.

Asked if he was excited about the big day he responded: "Very."

Proud locals have been putting bunting up and one butcher has even produced special heart-shaped burgers for the occasion.

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Gallery: A Look Back...

The future Wimbledon champion showed early promise with a tennis racquet in his hands

A fresh-faced Kim Sears watches Andy with his mother Judy and her tennis coach father Nigel (R) early in the couple's relationship at the 2006 Stella Artois championships in London

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The ceremony will be conducted by Reverend Colin Renwick.

Murray revealed recently he will have three best men: his brother Jamie, and friends Ross Hutchins and Carlos Mier.

Sussex-born Sears, 27, who has been dating the tennis player for nine years, will have four bridesmaids.

Murray will don his kilt, but the style and design of Sears' bridal gown remains a secret.

Dunblane will also be playing host to several big names in the tennis world, as well as some other celebrities.

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Gallery: 2013: Dunblane Celebrates Murray Wimbledon Triumph

Andy Murray's home town of Dunblane erupts with joy as its favourite son makes tennis history. The fans shouted Murray's name and jumped up and down when he won match point

Murray raced to a straight sets win over the Serbian world number one Novak Djokovic

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Former British number one Tim Henman is expected to attend, as is comedian James Corden.

Murray and Sears, an English literature graduate and artist, met as teenagers through tennis circles - she is the daughter of tennis coach Nigel Sears.

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