Olympics: Now there’s a block of flats you wouldn’t break into! Surface-to-air weapons to form an Olympic ring of steel to protect the Games
By John Hutchinson
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Being told the block of flats where you live will also be the home of surface-to-air missiles may leave many bewildered, and no doubt apprehensive.
But as these pictures show, the Fred Wigg Tower in Waltham Forest, London, has been chosen as one of six sites around London to form a ‘ring of steel’ to safeguard the Olympic Games.
And whilst The Army will be needed to protect and operate the weapons if required, they might also have to be on their toes to ward off any potential thieves who might target the run-down looking buildings.
Repurposed: The Fred Wigg Tower in Waltham Forest, London, has been chosen as one of six sites around London to form a ‘ring of steel’ to safeguard the Olympic Games
Now there’s a sight: The army placed a surface-to-air missile on top of the Fred Wigg tower block
Scene: It’s unlikely any flat thieves will fancy taking on a surface-to-air missile
They would certainly get a fright when faced with these powerful weapons.
Military chiefs have said that they hoped to ‘allay people’s fears’ as they unveiled surface-to-air missiles which could be deployed at six sites across London during the Olympics.
And whilst many residents have voiced their opposition to any plans for their residences to be used to as a weapons site, it seems the government are pressing ahead with their security initiatives.
The Rapier and smaller High-Velocity Missiles would be used as ‘prudent measures’ to safeguard the Games and would be protected by armed police, the joint air defence team said.
Action stations: The army have a practice of how the surface-to-air missiles would be stationed, and if necessary, used to protect the games
In the line of fire: A London bus drives past surface to air missiles at an army cadet base in Blackheath, southeast London
The weapons were showcased at Blackheath Army Cadet Centre, in south east London, as part of a massive 2012 security test on land, sea and in the air.
Colonel Jon Campbell, commander of the Joint Ground Based Air Defence, said: ‘We have done as much as we can to allay people’s fears.
‘The Rapier system has a world-class radar on it and is particularly good at picking up low and slow-moving objects in the sky.
‘It means we’re able to get the very best picture of what is happening in the skies of London.’
Launch site: The Army will station soldiers and high-velocity surface-to-air missiles on the Lexington Tower Water Building, seen centre, in East London
Air Vice Marshall Stuart Atha added: ‘We want the focus to be on Usain Bolt this summer and not us. We’re very proud to be part of this plan to deliver a safe and secure Olympics.’
The Lexington Building in Tower Hamlets as well as the Fred Wigg Tower in Waltham Forest, both in east London, have been identified as potential sites for the High Velocity Missiles.
Rapier missiles would be positioned on Blackheath Common and in Oxleas Wood, both in south east London, and at William Girling Reservoir Chain in Enfield and Barn Hill at Netherhouse Farm in Epping Forest, both in north London, should the Air Security Plan be approved by the Government.
Col Campbell said the sites had been chosen to avoid having weapons inside the Olympic Park.
He said: ‘We’re trying to de-militarise this and let the sport do the talking. The Lexington Building is the best available location away from the Olympic Park.’
Blackheath, one of six positions that could be used to home missiles during the Olympics
Oxleas Wood at Shooters Hill, Woolwich may have a station for surface-to-air missiles
The William Girling Reservoir, Enfield, is another possible site for missile deployment
Netherhouse Farm, in Barn Hill, Epping Forest, has also been earmarked to protect London
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Categories: News Tags: Block, break, flats, form, games, into, Olympic, Olympics, Protect, ring, Steel, Surfacetoair, There's, weapons, wouldn't
I’ve axed Labour’s ‘patio tax’ so no more homes will be pushed into higher band because of improvements, says Eric Pickles
By Steve Doughty
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The ‘patio tax’ which jacked up council tax bills for homes with garden improvements, good neighbourhoods and picturesque views has been scrapped, ministers said yesterday.
In future, no-one will have their house pushed into a higher band for council tax because it has a den in the garden or is next to a golf course, according to new rules for state valuers.
The move ordered by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles ends years of stealthy council tax increases achieved by state snoopers with instructions to charge for every possible advantage a homeowner might enjoy.
Communities Minister Eric Pickles has announced the end of the so-called ‘patio tax’
Officials from the Valuation Office Agency have been assessing homes by sheds, outbuildings, balconies and whether they have paved over their gardens to make driveways.
They have raised the council tax valuations of those in conservation areas, next to parks, and have even set the bills according to whether there is a bus stop nearby.
The Coalition has already put an end to prospects of a council tax revaluation of all homes in England, a large-scale exercise which would have used good views and new-built patios to squeeze major council tax rises out of every family.
But the scrapping of the patio tax will help homebuyers because all houses are automatically revalued for council tax every time they change hands.
The Valuation Office Agency was instructed to inquire into the small details of homes and use them to set council tax under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments.
Labour postponed any national revaluation, however, after heavy council tax increases in 2003 led to widespread protests and turned local taxation into a sensitive electoral issue.
The Valuation Office Agency have been developing a computer database which includes the extra amenities for every property in the country
Valuation officials continued to develop ways of increasing council taxes on homes using every conceivable amenity until the 2010 election.
Mr Pickles said: ‘We have called time on Labour’s patio police, and stopped their nosy parkers from their plans to hike taxes on England’s patios, gardens and sheds.
‘Despite their claims to the contrary, Labour have been caught red-handed secretly building up a council tax revaluation database to hike taxes on family homes and home improvements.
‘This Government has scrapped those tax hike plans and reined in the Big Brother council tax snoopers.’ The Valuation Office Agency, whose inspectors put a council tax value on homes every time one is bought and sold, have been developing a computer database which includes the extra amenities for every property in the country.
The database recorded ‘value significant codes’ and ‘dwellinghouse codes’ not only on the size and number of rooms in a home, but also on sheds and outbuildings, shared drives, gardens, patios, balconies, quiet roads, cul-de-sacs, conservation areas, neighbouring golf courses and parks, nearby bus stops, and the quality of the views from the property.
Bob Neill, the junior Local Government Minister, announced the scrapping of the patio tax in a written answer to MPs. Mr Neill said that a review had been under way into ‘whether less information could be collected without affecting the accuracy of banding decisions and the existing council tax lists.
‘This review of property attribute information established that there was scope for consolidation and for the cessation of a significant number of codes.’
The number of ‘value significant codes’ has been reduced from almost 70 to 20, he said.
Homes are currently valued for council tax on the basis of what they would have been worth in 1991, when the tax was first introduced.
Any revaluation would automatically mean big tax increases for properties in the southern half of England, which has seen the highest rises in property values over the past two decades.
Estimates say a revaluation would push up the council tax in England by more than 20 per cent, if increases happened on the scale that was experience in Wales when homes there were revalued in 2003.
Categories: News Tags: 'I've, axed, Band, because, Eric, higher, homes, improvements, into, Labour's, More, Patio, Pickles, Pushed, says, tax'
Daredevil pensioner Peggy McAlpine leaps into the sky aged 104 to become world’s oldest paraglider
By Leon Watson
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A daredevil centenarian has become the oldest person to take part in paragliding after taking to the sky aged 104.
Peggy McAlpine, who has two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, leapt from a 2,400ft peak in northern Cyprus.
She is now about to enter the Guinness Book of Records for the second time in five years as the oldest person to take part in the sport.
Scroll down for video
Head for heights: Peggy McAlpine leapt from a 2,400ft peak in northern Cyprus
Mrs McAlpine only took to the skies because the same record she set five years ago was broken by a 101-year-old American.
She told the Sunday Express: ‘I enjoyed every minute of it. It was better than the last time. I would certainly like to do it again – especially if anyone takes my record.’
The Stirling-born daredevil’s exploit was recorded on video and posted on YouTube. Following the incredible tandem leap Mrs McAlpine celebrated with a glass of Champagne.
Mrs McAlpine, who uses wheelchair, is now awaiting for the record to be confirmed by Guinness Book officials.
The latest record attempt – to reclaim the title taken by 101-year-old Mary Allen Hardison, from Utah, back in September – took place on April 14 on the Kyrenia mountain range next to St Hilarion castle.
Peggy said she ‘loved heights’ from a young age and recalled her first time on an aeroplane was as the passenger of aviation pioneer Sir Alan Cobham in the late 1920s.
Daredevil: Peggy, in the wheelchair, before her record-breaking leap into the sky
Peggy, in front of the parachute, sitting near the cliff-edge ready to go paragliding
Stirling-born Peggy riding tandem in the air in the skies of northern Cyprus where she lives
The pensioner, whose husband Thomas died of cancer in 1980, said she first got a taste for extreme sports at the age of 80 when her grandchildren talked her into trying bungee jumping at the Essex Show.
Mrs McAlpine, who now lives in Cyprus having moved in 2004, said: ‘I climbed to the top and looked down and saw the people like ants and my heart sank.
‘But I’d gone so far, I couldn’t stop. So I stepped on the platform and drew up my courage and leaped from the top.’
Safe: Peggy on the ground after her incredible leap into the unknown at the ripe old age of 104
Angela Gokasan, of paragliding company Highline Air Tours, told the Sunday Express: ‘Peggy completed her second flight with pilot Ozgur Gokasan, who was also her pilot the last time.
‘They were gliding above the clouds and landed to a crowd of family, friends, and the three witnesses required by the Guinness World Records.
‘We are over the moon to have flown her again. The stress was all worth it having seen her and Ozgur’s faces after landing. She is such an amazing woman.’
Categories: News Tags: aged, become, daredevil, into, Leaps, McAlpine, oldest, paraglider, Peggy, Pensioner, World's
Neil Heywood death: Gu Kailai ‘tried to smuggle £200k into Britain in hot air balloon deal’
- Gu Kailai struck deal with British firm to import giant balloon to China
- ‘Tried to funnel extra cash to fund son’s public school fees in the UK’
- Comes as authorities prepare to release her formal confession to murder
- She’s accused of ordering the poisoning of Neil Heywood last November
By Simon Tomlinson
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A suspect in the murder of businessman Neil Heywood struck a bizarre deal to import giant helium balloons to China in a bid to smuggle money into Britain, it was claimed yesterday.
Politician’s wife Gu Kailai asked a British firm to accept a secret £150,000 over-payment and to use the money to pay her son’s school fees at Harrow, a former company director said.
When the firm refused, the lawyer lost her temper and threatened to have its bosses thrown into jail by her powerful husband if they ever set foot in China.
‘Money-laundering’ bid: Gu Kailai (left), accused of murdering British expat Neil Heywood (right), reportedly tried to covertly transfer £200,000 into Britain to pay for her son’s education through a strange hot-air balloon deal
Murky dealings: Mrs Gu with husband Bo Xilai, the purged Communist leader of Chongqinq, and their son Bo Guagua. It is claimed Mrs Gu wanted to use the £200,000 to fund Guagua’s public schooling in the UK
Mrs Gu, 53, is in custody in China where she has been named as a suspect in the murder of Old Harrovian Mr Heywood, and she and husband Bo Xilai are at the centre of a corruption investigation.
Reports in China claim the 41-year-old British expat was poisoned with cyanide after he threatened to expose Mrs Gu for illegally siphoning a vast fortune out the country, while her husband was a rising star in the ruling Communist Party.
The case has prompted a political scandal in China and caused international embarrassment when Britain demanded a full investigation into Mr Heywood’s death.
It was reported at the weekend that Chinese authorities are expected to release a confession from Mrs Gu in an attempt to end the humiliating scandal.
Career in ruins: Mr Bo, who was suspended from the Politburo after the scandal surrounding Mr Heywood’s death broke, pictured with his son, Bo Guagua
LONDON LINK TO DEATH MYSTERY
Further evidence of Neil Heywood’s strong links with Gu Kailai has emerged, of all places, in an Edwardian mansion block where Princess Diana, right, once lived.
A £1.5million apartment in Coleherne Court, a block of more than 200 properties on the border of Earl’s Court and South Kensington in London, is reportedly owned by Mrs Gu.
According to The Sunday Times, neighbours say Harrow-educated Mr Heywood acted as keyholder for the two-bedroom flat on her behalf.
Reports that Mrs Gu had become Mr Heywood’s mistress have been denied, but their involvement together at Coleherne Court will fuel speculation about just how far their business dealings went.
It has been alleged that Mrs Gu ordered the murder of Mr Heywood because he was threatening to reveal her overseas dealings, which involved her trying to move large amounts of money out of China through him.
Princess Diana lived at Coleherne Court before marrying Prince Charles.
Company director Giles Hall told how Mrs Gu approached his firm, Vistarama, in 1998, when it ran the Bournemouth Eye, a tethered balloon which offered views from 500ft above the seaside town.
Mrs Gu said she was married to Bo Xilai, then mayor of Dalian, and she wanted the city to have a similar balloon.
As talks progressed she discussed importing hundreds of tethered balloons to China.
She was accompanied by Frenchman Patrick Devillers, her business partner, and occasionally by Mr Heywood, a consultant who was mentoring her son, Bo Guagua, to help him get a place at Harrow.
Mr Hall said: ‘She was a very cold, hard woman.
‘It was always apparent that she wanted things to be done quietly and secretly, and we had to sign a confidentiality agreement, which seemed bizarre.
‘Patrick said later that we would get our fingers burned if we were indiscreet.
‘He said it was best just to do the deal and not to ask too many questions about where the money came from.’
The tethered balloon deal for Dalian went ahead, but Mr Hall said payments came from a variety of sources, including the Dalian Free Trade Zone, private companies and Gu’s account with Coutts, the Queen’s banker.
‘Admission’: Chinese authorities are expected to release a formal confession from Mrs Gu to the murder of Mr Heywood at the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel (above) in Chongqing last November
SENIOR U.S. DIPLOMAT’S VISIT TO CALM TENSIONS
A senior US diplomat arrived in China last night on an emergency mission to calm rising tensions between the two superpowers.
Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell landed amid a diplomatic storm between Beijing and Washington after blind dissident Chen Guangcheng made a dramatic escape to reach the US Embassy and ask for asylum.
Beijing has yet to react to the embarrassing flight of Chen, 40, from putative house arrest last week. Instead, the government has ordered a media blackout and shut down all blogs and internet search engine references to Chen’s escape.
Chen has made a video addressed to China’s Premier, Wen Jiabao, pleading with him to arrest the officials who beat and tortured him.
He also feared ‘insane retribution’ on his family and supporters, including his mother, wife and young daughter. His escape comes just two months after the senior police chief who exposed Briton Neil Heywood’s murder, Wang Lijun, fled to a US consulate to seek asylum.
The Mail understands Mr Campbell’s arrival is part of an attempt to appease the Chinese by offering Chen passage to the US on medical grounds.
He told how Mrs Gu offered to make a £150,000 ‘extra payment’ on an air freight charge for a winch they needed for the Dalian balloon.
‘She said, “We have to get Bo Guagua into Harrow and we need you to pay the fees”.
‘I said we couldn’t afford to do that and she said, “No, we pay. We pay the company, you pay the school”.’
Mr Hall said his deal with Mrs Gu soured when the winch could not be shipped to Dalian and had to go via Beijing.
He added: ‘By the end, it was very apparent that there was corruption involved. She didn’t have to worry as long as everything went through Dalian, where her husband was in control.
‘When the winch was sent to Beijing, she was furious.
‘She said if any of us turned up in China she would get us locked up. Plainly she had the means to do it.
‘In Dalian they were all-powerful.
‘Everyone was scared to death of her there.’
It was also reported at the weekend that Dr Andrew Jackson, a London coroner, could ask Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke to allow him to hold an inquest into Mr Heywood’s death.
That would pave the way for Scotland Yard to be called in.
Categories: News Tags: £200k, Balloon, Britain, deal, death, Heywood, into, Kailai, Neil, smuggle, tried
BREAKING NEWS: Seven confirmed dead- including three children- as van crashes off overpass INTO the Bronx Zoo
- Driver was 45-year-old woman and the van was going ‘very fast’
- All seven passengers had to be extracted from the car and were pronounced dead at the scene
By Daily Mail Reporter
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Seven people died after their minivan plummeted 150ft from a freeway into the grounds of New York’s Bronx Zoo today.
The victims were Jacob Nunez, 85, Julia Martinez, 81, Maria Gonzalez, 45, and Maria Nunez, 39; and three young girls, 10-year-old Jocelyn Gonzalez, seven-year-old Niely Rosario and three-year-old Marly Rosario.
NYPD officials say that the 45-year-old woman was at the wheel of the white 2004 Honda Pilot when it vaulted off an overpass of the Bronx River Parkway, killing three generations of the same family.
Tragic: The wreckage of the minivan lies in the grounds of New York’s Bronx zoo. Seven people inside the van died after it fell 150ft from a freeway
Police and emergency workers investigated the Bronx crash, which looks to be the deadliest in New York in the past year
Investigation: The car crashed into a non-public, heavily wooded area of the zoo and was not near any visitors or exhibits
A police source told MailOnline all seven of the victims had to be extracted from the crashed vehicle and were pronounced dead at the scene.
Names of the family members have not yet been released.
Police say the van was headed south Sunday afternoon around 12:30pm on the Bronx River Parkway, a highway in the north of the city.
The vehicle then bounced off the median, crossed all southbound lanes over to the guardrail and fell as much as 150ft.
The car landed in a heavily-overgrown area of the Zoo grounds, which made the recovery difficult for emergency workers. One fire fighter even suffered minor injuries sustained on the scene.
‘It’s terrible, just carnage. The passengers didn’t stand a chance,’ an unidentified fire department source told The New York Post.
Vaulted: The car hit something on the highway which prompted it to go flying upwards off the overpass
Rescue work: Multiple emergency teams worked together to salvage clues from the scene
The Bronx Zoo, which is the largest metropolitan zoo in the world, is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
A representative for the Conservation Society told NY1that the crash did not take place ‘anywhere near the Bronx Zoo’s exhibits or visitors’.
‘The injuries were quite horrific. In 30 years I’ve seen something like this once or twice.’
-EMS deputy chief Howard Sickles
The crash took place in a non-public area of the south eastern portion of the Zoo.
It’s not clear what caused the van to go out of control, but police are speculating that the car was going very fast- with the exact speed still unknown.
The injuries were quite horrific,’ EMS Deputy Chief Howard Sickles told DNA Info.
‘In 30 years I’ve seen something like this once or twice. Everybody was taken aback by it because everybody has a relative, everybody knows a child and everybody has a grandparent. … It’s very upsetting.’
Emergency crews are still on the scene.
The southbound side of the highway was closed Sunday afternoon while police investigated.
Seven people- including three children- are confirmed dead after a van crashed off the Bronx River Parkway overpass near the Bronx Zoo
Area: It is unclear if all of the victims were inside the van or if they were pedestrians near the Zoo itself
Vehicle: The car involved in the crash was a white Honda Pilot, like the one shown here, which can hold up to eight passengers
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said that he will be ordering a safety examination by the relevant authorities in light of the accident.
This is the worst crash New York has seen in over a year, since 14 people died in a bus crash on Interstate 95 headed back from Mohegan Sun casino to Chinatown.
A similar- though non-fatal- accident occurred at the same spot last June when an SUV bounced off the guard rail and fell off the overpass. In that incident, two people inside the car were injured but there were no deaths.
‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this tragic time,’ Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.
