Four police officers were stabbed as they dealt with a disturbance today in Kingsbury, north London.

The incident is believed to have happened at the Kingsbury Halal Butchers just 100 yards from Kingsbury Tube station and in a busy shopping street.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘Police were called at approximately 8.40am to a disturbance in Kingsbury Road, Kingsbury.

Crime scene: The multiple stabbing is believed to have taken place at Kingsbury Halal Butchers

Cordoned off: Metropolitan Police officers at the scene of the attack, with a paramedic's kit visible in the foreground

 

‘Officers attended and attempted to speak with a man, who subsequently attacked them.

 

 

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‘Four officers were injured during the incident and have been taken to hospital.

‘A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in custody at a north London police station.’

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed to MailOnline that all four officers are in a stable condition.

One sustained a stab wound to the stomach, another sustained head injuries and a stab wound to the arm, a third was wounded in the leg while a fourth suffered a broken hand.

Further down from Kingsbury Halal Butchers on the other side of the roundabout Ketan Vyas, the manager of the VB and Sons cash-and-carry store, described how a man aged 30 to 40 had burst into his shop chased by police.

Shock: The attack happened in broad daylight on a busy shopping street

Stabbing: The area has been sealed off by police, with one man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder

He went on: 'He picked up some cans of beans and threw them at the police and then carried on running out of the store and down the road.

'There were a lot of police after him. He was only in here for a few seconds. Fortunately no staff were harmed.'

Shopkeeper Girish Modha said: 'A man was shouting at police in a small alleyway next to a hairdresser's shop which neighbours mine.

'He grabbed a piece of fluorescent tubing and brandished it at police. He then ran down Kingsbury Road, going into a cash-and-carry shop. At one point I think he threw a brick and smashed a police car window.

'He then ran round the roundabout and carried on towards the Tube station. He went into a butcher's, got a knife and that's when the stabbing took place.'

A worker at a Carphone Warehouse store opposite the butcher's said: 'After the incident I saw about eight police officers on top of a man. Ambulances arrived to take away the injured policemen and the man was also taken away.'

Sky's Martin Brunt tweeted that one of the officers was stabbed in the stomach and that the attacker went 'berserk'. 

Eyewitnesses told Bottr that police were called after a man began to attack people 'randomly' .

Brunt added that the suspect had been shouting in the street in 'quite a disturbed way', which led to 999 calls being made.

The Kingsbury Roundabout in north London where the incident happened

Injured: Four police officers have been taken to hospital to be treated for knife wounds, according to Scotland Yard, after being attacked at Kingsbury roundabout

Olympia Logofagul, 24, who works at the Kings Coffee shop on Kingsbury Road, said: 'I was working and I saw some police officers standing outside.

'There were a lot of officers, more than five but no more than 10.'

A spokeswoman for London Ambulance Service said they took five patients to hospital, all conscious and breathing.

She said: 'We were called at 8.50 this morning to an incident in Kingsbury Road.

'We sent two single responders in cars, four ambulance crews and a duty officer.

'We treated five patients, they were all conscious and breathing, and they were taken to hospital.'

Kingsbury Road - a busy thoroughfare in north-west London and normally jammed with shoppers on a Saturday morning - was deserted either side of the roundabout, with police having blocked off the road in both directions.

 

The hairdressers, Mr Modha's sweet shop and a chemist were cordoned off.

There are 30 police cars and 15 ambulances attended

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Four police officers stabbed in north London

 

Four police officers were stabbed as they tried to detain a man after a disturbance in north London, Scotland Yard said on Saturday. Police said officers were called to an incident shortly before 9 a.m. on the main road in Kingsbury where they had tried to speak to a man before he ran into a butcher's shop and grabbed a knife. "Officers followed the man in an attempt to detain him and were subsequently assaulted," Chief Superintendent Dal Babu told reporters. "Four male police constables suffered stab injuries during the incident and have been taken by the London Ambulance Service to hospital." One was stabbed in the stomach, a second suffered head injuries and stab wound to his arm, the third was stabbed in the leg, and the last sustained stab wounds to a hand and also suffered a broken hand. Witnesses told media the suspect had been shouting at police beforehand and up to 10 officers had tried to calm him down. A 32-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and is being quizzed at a police station in the area.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn has demanded to be questioned by judges investigating an alleged prostitution ring, after media reports linked him to the case.

 Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

He is keeping a low profile in Paris, has grown a white beard, and polls show he is the least popular politician in France.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, forced to quit as head of the IMF and shelve aspirations to become the next French president, had hoped to find solace in France after criminal charges were dropped against him in New York over the alleged attempted rape of a hotel cleaner. But he is dominating the front pages again after his name was linked to a high-profile investigation into an alleged prostitution ring at a luxury hotel in Lille.

The Hotel Carlton affair centres on allegations of pimping at top hotels in the northern French city, where women from France and massage parlours in Belgium were allegedly supplied for hotel customers and local officials. Eight people are under formal investigation, including a senior police officer, a local barrister and businessmen. Five have been imprisoned as the inquiry continues.

The investigation raises questions about the links between police and business figures and the underworld of sex work in France and Belgium. Prostitution involving people over the age of 18 is not illegal in France but pimping and living off the benefits of it is.

The affair took a new turn after Strauss-Kahn's name came up in statements made to investigators, according to a series of leaked transcripts published in the French media in recent weeks.

Businessmen were alleged to have paid women to travel to Paris and the US to take part in "soirées" with Strauss-Kahn at his own request, including when he was head of the IMF and tipped to become the next French president. Le Monde reported that one senior French police officer had travelled twice to Washington DC last year with businessmen, including the head of a Lille-based construction firm, to accompany a group of women who worked in massage parlours in Belgium to see Strauss-Kahn. The former head of the IMF was said to have received three visits from the group in Washington. The last visit ended on 13 May, the day before he was arrested over the attempted rape of a hotel maid in New York.

The senior Lille police officer and two businessmen deny involvement in prostitution.

The first evening organised for Strauss-Kahn was said to have taken place at a luxury Paris hotel in 2009. One sex worker, whose testimony was published by the weekly Le Point, described being accompanied by businessmen on the train from Lille to Paris to meet Strauss-Kahn, who was wearing a bathrobe, and others in a duplex hotel apartment with a pool. She said she was paid €900 (£770) by a businessman on the way back to Lille that night. Other alleged encounters took place in 2010.

A Belgian sex worker in her 30s, known as Jade, told the French newspaper, Nord Eclair, she was taken to Washington for an encounter with Strauss-Kahn in a hotel in January 2010 and paid by businessmen on her return to France. She said Strauss-Kahn showed her around the IMF building and posed for a photograph with her in his office the next day.

But the saga took another twist this week when French media, including Liberation and Le Point, published text messages allegedly sent by Strauss-Kahn to a businessman in the case, which are being investigated by police. In one message, Strauss-Kahn, then head of the IMF, asked if the man wanted to accompany him to a "magnificent" swingers club in Madrid, suggesting he bring "material" – thought to mean women. In another, he said he was taking a girl, "une petite", to clubs in Vienna and would the man like to come with a "demoiselle", or "Miss". A few days later he asked if the "suite with pool" had been booked. The text messages do not explicitly refer to prostitution.

Strauss-Kahn issued a statement through his lawyers on Friday demanding to be interviewed by investigative judges in the case as soon as possible, and denouncing a "media lynching". The statement said Strauss-Kahn was ready to "explain himself" not before the tribunal of public opinion but "in front of those running the judicial inquiry". Last month, his lawyers urged judges to interview him so he could answer what he deemed "hasty and malevolent" accusations.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told the Guardian he had no comment to make on the case. He said his client had not yet been interviewed by investigators.

If Strauss-Kahn had consenting, paid-for encounters with sex workers aged over 18, it would not be a crime in France. But the publication this week of text messages to one businessman mentioning meetings with other top Socialists, raised questions about whether the men could expect political access or favours in exchange for providing what one had termed "girlfriends, meaning prostitutes" for him.

One businessman in the case said he paid for flights and costs. He is believed to have spent thousands of euros of company money on organising soirées for Strauss-Kahn, putting receipts marked with the initials DSK through his expense accounts. He told investigators Strauss-Kahn had not paid for anything.

The French media questioned Strauss-Kahn's behaviour during a period in which he was tipped to become the next president of France. "The net is tightening around DSK," said the daily Le Parisien on Friday.

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Sarah Harding has completed her 2-month stint in rehab

Sarah Harding's ex Calum Best is glad she got the help she needed

 

 

The Girls Aloud star, 29, was treated for alcohol abuse and depression after calling off her engagement to DJ Tom Crane, 31.

Sarah and Tom were due to marry next summer after getting engaged this New Year.

'They've been in regular contact throughout her time away but only on the phone. They've spoken most days and it seems like they could have a chance of giving it another shot,' a source tells the Sunday Mirror.

Sarah's ex Calum Best, 30, is glad that Sarah got professional help.

'Everyone has their dark times, but Sarah's strong and will come out of this period even stronger, he told us last month

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Ex-policeman jailed over VAT fraud

 

former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described the case as an unprecedented attack on the Revenue. "The case has taken 25 man-years to investigate." Cranswick was recruited to play his role in the MTIC (missing Trader intra-community) fraud by others. Also known as carousel fraud, it involves importing goods from other EU states which are then sold through contrived business-to-business transactions. Cranswick, of Danby Road, Kiveton, Sheffield, admitted conspiracy to cheat HMRC at a hearing last month. After the sentencing, Exchequer Secretary David Gauke said: "This Government will not tolerate dishonest people stealing public money. "This sentence shows that those who try to commit fraud need to think again - HMRC will find you and the courts will punish you. "The additional £917m we have invested in HMRC will see more cases like this successfully prosecuted, sending a clear and powerful message." The judge said the sentencing exercise was to punish the offending and deter others. "The figures in this case are astonishing, they reveal the blatant nature of the fraud," he said. Between June 2005 and February 2006, I2G supposedly carried out almost 6,000 deals, with a turnover of £2.4 billion. Sentencing Cranswick, the judge said: "You were immediately before this fraud a serving police officer. Almost unbelievably you retired from the police force and became the organiser of this fraudulent operation. "You set up the company, you clearly accepted the direction of others - the organisers who are not before this court." Outside court, HMRC said Cranswick went "from rags to riches" soon after retiring, having been heavily in debt as a police officer. A spokeswoman said: "He made lavish improvements to his home, rented a luxury apartment in the Spanish town of Marbella and paid for private schooling and tennis lessons for his children. "Cranswick claimed that in the first six weeks of trading Ideas 2 Go had turned over more than £527 million. "The company had traded over £47 million before they even got round to opening a bank account for the business." HMRC assistant director for criminal investigation Paul Rooney said: "As a police officer Cranswick knew full well that he was breaking the law, yet, motivated by greed, he chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money. "He now has to pay a very high price for his poor judgment and lack of integrity. "This was a sophisticated fraud designed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds of tax, but it started to unravel when our investigations identified sales for more than 50,000 mobile phones, which the manufacturers hadn't even begun producing in their factories." Cranswick nodded as the judge passed sentence, and gestured to members of his family in the public gallery as he was led away. Also sentenced after admitting conspiracy to cheat the Revenue were Thomas Murphy, 27, of Dinnington, who was jailed for four and a half years; Cranswick's brother-in-law, Darren Smyth, 42, from Beech Road, Maltby, and Brian Olive, 56, from Buttermere Close, Doncaster, who were sentenced to three years and four months each; and former housing officer Andrew Marsh, 28, from Sheffield, who was jailed for two years and eight months. Cranswick's 44-year-old sister, Clare Reid, married to Smyth, was handed a nine-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work after admitting two counts of false accounting. Cranswick styled himself as a singer-songwriter and can be seen on his website strumming a guitar to a song called Hit And Miss with the opening lines: "I'm in trouble, falling down a hole. How I got here, I won't ever know." He was lead singer with an indie band called Not The Police.

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How a Financial Pro Lost His House

 

ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was shaky, I went to take out the trash. He wrote a book based in part on lessons learned by losing his Las Vegas home in the housing crisis. There was this enormous window that looked right in on the kitchen table, and through it I could see my wife, Cori, and our four children eating dinner. It was dark outside, so they couldn’t see me, and I just stood there looking at them. After a while, I pulled up a bucket and I sat on it, just watching my children eat. I found myself wishing that I could get back there, connected to the simple ordinary stuff of my family’s life. And as I sat and watched, filled with longing and guilt, two questions kept arising: How did I get here? And how am I going to get out of this? There are many stories these days of people who lost their financial bearings during the housing boom and the crisis that followed, but my story is a bit different from most. I’m a financial adviser. I get paid to help people make smart financial choices, and I speak and write about personal finance issues for this publication and others. My first book comes out in January, “The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things With Money” (Portfolio, a Penguin imprint). The thing that few people know, though, is that I learned a lot of this from experience. I made a bunch of mistakes, the very same ones that I now go around warning people to avoid. So this is the story of how I lost my home, the profound ethical questions that arose along the way, and what my wife and I learned from the mistakes that led us to that point. It made me better at what I do, but it wasn’t much fun getting there. Like most financial stories, this one is personal. It starts with me getting into the financial services industry more or less by accident. I answered an ad in 1995 that I thought was for a job related to “security” (as in security guard) but was in fact related to “securities.” That’s how little I knew about the stock market. A few months later I found myself working a phone at a Fidelity Investments call center. Things went well, and by 1999 I was a Merrill Lynch financial adviser and a certified financial planner. By then, we also owned a house in Salt Lake City. We’d bought it two years earlier, with a $25,000 down payment. A few years later, an opportunity arose to form a partnership with a successful Merrill adviser in Las Vegas. The place was on our top 10 list of never-move-to cities because we had always associated it with the Strip. But Cori and I were looking for an opportunity to have an experience somewhere else, and we met some great people when we visited the city. I took the job, and we moved down there. That was May 2003. Housing prices were already crazy, so we rented. But our neighborhood had zero character and lots of cookie-cutter houses. Within a few weeks, we were looking for a place to buy. I felt we could afford around $350,000. We called a real estate agent named Mitch, who had signs on all the bus stops: Talk to Mitch! He picked us up in a gold Jaguar, and suddenly we were looking at houses that listed at $500,000 or more. It felt a little crazy to be shopping for houses that cost half a million dollars, but my income was growing rapidly. Everywhere I looked, people were being rewarded for buying as much house as they could possibly afford, and then some. There was this excitement in the air, almost like static. I started to think that if I didn’t buy a house right then, I would never be able to afford one. At moments during our house hunt, I felt in my gut that something wasn’t right. We’d go to open houses for $400,000 homes and see lines of couples in their late 20s — younger than we were — waiting to get inside. I kept wondering where all the money was coming from. How did all these people make so much?

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BOTTOM five most hated airports

5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines

 

Wear a helmet -- the first collapsed ceiling in 2006 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility, NAIA brings the term “Stuck in the 1970s” to a new level.

 

At Terminal 1 all non-Philippine Airlines remain crammed despite serious overcapacity issues and a new and underused Terminal 3 is occupied by a few minor carriers. 

A rash of bad press this year (including a “Worst in the World” ribbon from Sleeping in Airports) was capped by a collapsed ceiling in T1, a paralyzing ground service strike at T2, and the usual charges of tampered luggage, filthy restrooms, seat shortages at gates, re-sealed water bottles sold in retail shops and an Amazing Race-style check-in routine spiked with bureaucracy, broken escalators, lengthy Dot Matrix passenger lists and creative airport departure fees. 

Read more on CNNGo: World's busiest airports announced

4. Toncontín International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

 

Over-priced corn chips will be the least of your worries.

When do the most common airport gripes about inefficiency, uncomfortable gate chairs, dirty floors and lousy dining options suddenly become irrelevant? When you’re preoccupied about whether your 757 will actually be able to stop before the runway does. 

 

Nestled in a bowl-shaped valley at 957 meters above sea level, Toncontín’s notoriously stubby, mountain-cloaked landing strip was recently lengthened another 300 meters following a fatal TACA aircraft overshoot in 2008.

Not enough though to avoid being named the “second most dangerous airport in the world” by the History Channel. 

Nepal’s hair-raising Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Himalayas is the top seed, but receives fewer gripes from its thrill-seeking Everest-bound clientele.

Read more on CNNGo: Shanghai Pudong International Airport: Fifth best in the world

3. London Heathrow, London, England

 

"You'll fly through departures -- at the speed of a penguin."

Depending on which of Heathrow’s five terminals one is funneled through, the average experience at the world’s third-busiest airport ranges from mildly tedious to "Fawlty Towers" ridiculous. 

 

With its rash of -- as they were politely called -- “teething problems” in bright and airy T5 (remember that riotous grand opening with 34 canceled flights?) and nicely matured problems in Ts 1, 2 and 3, the issues passengers are beset with run the gamut.

Parking messes. Busted baggage carousels. Deadlocked security lines. Long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of “last call” announcements. Realizations that getting out of Heathrow took longer than actually flying here from Madrid. 

In the airport “where the world changes planes,” it all boils down to a chronic inability to cope with this many people. Plans for a sixth terminal should help sever even more nerves.

2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States

 

It's not even a good spot for celebrity sightings.

If the world’s seventh-busiest flight hub was an old ballpark resting on the stale reputation of its Dodger Dogs and that great 1959 series, LAX might have some endearment value. 

 

But it’s an airport -- a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility and several publicized concerns about how its 1,700 takeoffs and landings a day can be sustained in a facility a fifth the size of healthier cousins like Dallas/Fort Worth. 

The unsupportive donut-shaped design -- it’s been called “eight terminals connected by a traffic jam” -- makes dashing between airlines feel like a diesel-scented cardio test. 

Plunked in the middle is the airport’s landmark Jetsons-style restaurant and only mentionable amenity, Encounter, but how does one actually get inside this place -- at least before being nailed for a petty traffic violation by some of the most ticket-hungry airport cops west of the Mississippi?

Read more on CNNGo: World's most terrifying airports

1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France

 

Don't expect to make friends during a storm closure.

“A great country worthy of the name,” President Charles de Gaulle once opined, “does not have any friends.” 

 

True or not, it’s this sort of attitude that has helped CDG become the most maligned major airport on earth. What’s fueling it? 

Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafés.

The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue. 

The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one commuter, “is like being in custody.”  

If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.

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Top five most hated Airports

10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil

 

Whether it's 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. this airport experiences round-the-clock rush hour.

Why is this place on our list after scoring third best airport in South America at the 2011 World Airport Awards? 

 

Because, shockingly enough, it turns out that corporate medal ceremonies aren’t always in sync with what people are thinking when they're standing in two-hour immigration lines, suffering routinely unannounced gate changes and paying through the teeth for a stale Brazilian cheese roll and beer inside an understaffed and over-aged aviation facility. 

In a country where flight delays (departing or arriving) are just part of the deal, some recent numbers would give pause to the most unflappable traveler at Brazil’s largest airport.

Just 41 percent of all flights leave on time. Only 59 percent of flights arrive on schedule, according to Forbes.  

São Paulo-Guarulhos has announced plans to add runways and terminals -- what airport hasn’t? -- but with nearly 30 million passengers traipsing through every year (the figure has reportedly doubled in under a decade) the urgency is palpable and, sadly enough, unsolved by upping prices at musty duty-free shops.

But does this really constitute bronze medal status? When the best unofficial advice for surviving Brazil’s pin-up airport is to try and learn a little Portuguese and not lose your temper, something’s gotta give. 

Read more on CNNGo: World's biggest airport planned

9. Perth Airport, Perth, Australia

 

Kick a dog while it's down: The Qantas strike didn't help PER's reputation.

If there’s one thing Australians love, it’s hating their airports.

 

But while the big guns in Sydney, Melbourne and also-rans in Darwin, Cairns and Hobart get routinely lambasted for various inefficiencies and rip-off tactics, passengers in Western Australia have a special place in their spleens for Perth. 

“The only advantage over some other airports is the lack of nearby combat,” notes one of several miffed passengers on airportquality.com. 

With a reviled pair of domestic terminals (home of two-hour taxi-line queues, atrocious check-in lines, overpopulated gates and meager lounges) and a slightly more palatable international terminal five kilometers away, Perth’s brittle facilities can be overwhelmed just by a trio of aircraft arriving within 20 minutes of each other. 

Now that an ambitious “billion-dollar” redevelopment project has been significantly scaled back, who would ever want to leave Changi for this place? 

Read more on CNNGo: Transit hotels: How to get to sleep during your stopover

8. Tribhuvan International, Kathmandu, Nepal

 

Don't look the officers -- or the dogs -- in the eye.

For a small airport in a pretty country, Tribhuvan has it all: the interminable weather delays of Boston Logan, the shoddy restroom maintenance of a Glasgow sports bar, the departure board sparsity of McMurdo Airfield and the chronic chaos of a kids' soccer match. 

 

Some airport improvements have been underway for the Visit Nepal 2011 tourism campaign, including things most passengers don’t much care about (e.g., the new helicopter base). 

The most serious beefs with Nepal’s only international airport revolve around its primitive yet officious check-in procedure, starring a roulette wheel of underpaid security agents. 

“Departure is an endless game of body searches and silly questions,” notes one passenger.

“Those who didn’t have their e-tickets printed out had to argue their way in,” says another, who was checked seven times and scolded for not having a baggage tag on a carry-on before eventually boarding. 

Never mind. The city’s markets and surrounding mountains are lovely.

7. John F. Kennedy International, New York, United States

 

Fans flooded the airport to welcome the 1964 British Invasion, but it seems they never left.

You’d think it would be one of the greatest humiliations any major airport would never allow itself to live down -- getting routinely abandoned by fed-up folks opting to fly out of Newark (Newark!) instead, where at least the ground staff cop less attitude and fewer people outside are pretending to be cab drivers.  

 

But, nah, JFK really couldn’t really care less.

Every year, more than 21 million passengers stumble through worn, mid-century terminals that peaked when The Beatles arrived in the United States and rooftop parking was all the rage; JFK proudly remains the world’s busiest international air gateway.

So if you’re not into a dim, surly, unbearably congested airport reeking with attitude and unapologetically long immigration lines -- good riddance. 

“JFK had a piece of my luggage sitting in a little detention room for bags -- for over a year,” notes one passenger. “No one noticed it was there, until finally an observant Air France employee wondered what the dusty little green bag in the corner was.” 

Read more on CNNGo: Secret Report: Singapore's Chiangi Airport world's favorite 

6. Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, Kenya

 

Can't be disappointed if you're not expecting much.

“As African airports go, it’s not that bad -- but as an international hub, it may be one of the worst out there.” 

 

This is the common refrain among travelers through JKIA, who either don’t have the heart or the expectations to give this dated aviation facility the kind of pounding reserved for the JFKs and Charles de Gaulles of the world. 

Saddled with a 1958 blueprint designed for 2.5 million passengers, JKIA receives close to twice that many. Hence the airport’s 2005, Three Phase, US$100 million expansion project which has seen long delays (something about the rain) and has been spinning its tires somewhere in Phase Two for the last few years. 

For now, that means business as usual: cramped spaces; long lines; inadequate seating; frequent power outages; tiny washrooms hiding up several flights of stairs; shabby duty free shops; overpriced food outlets; and business class lounges worthy of a shelter in mid-city Los Angeles.

Sure, it’s a breeze compared to Lagos. But it could be so much better. The confusing result: grateful disappointment?

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Fall of richest man in Ireland as Quinn is declared bankrupt

 

TROUBLED tycoon Sean Quinn, once Ireland’s richest man, was declared bankrupt yesterday at the High Court in Belfast. The 64-year-old businessman was granted a voluntary adjudication over an alleged E2.8bn debt owed to Anglo Irish Bank. It is believed to be one of the biggest bankruptcy orders of its kind ever made in either the United Kingdom or Ireland. Mr Quinn said he brought the application north of the border because he was born, reared and worked all his life in Co Fermanagh. But by declaring himself bankrupt in Northern Ireland it also means he only has to wait a year before going back into business – rather than 12 years in the Republic. He claimed to have been left with no alternative but to take the “drastic decision” over problems which stemmed from “ill-fated investments in Anglo”. The former billionaire was stripped of control of his manufacturing and insurance business empire in April. He had been plunged into financial trouble by purchasing bank shares which then became worthless. As a consequence, receivers were installed and he and his family lost any role in the management of the Quinn Group. Mr Quinn accepts that he owes around E194m to Anglo for property loans which he cannot repay. But the rest of the alleged debt, which relates to Contracts for Difference (CFDs) used to buy bank shares, is disputed. The Quinn family are currently suing Anglo, claiming the CFDs were tainted with illegality. Mr Quinn applied for voluntary bankruptcy through his lawyer and licensed insolvency practitioner, John Gordon of Napier and Sons. The order was granted during a brief hearing before a Master at the High Court in Belfast. Mr Quinn said in a statement: “I have done absolutely everything in my power to avoid taking this drastic decision. The vast majority of debt that Anglo maintains is owed is strenuously disputed. I cannot, however, now pay those loans which are due.” He added: “Following Anglo taking control of the Quinn Group of companies, which I and a loyal team spent a lifetime building, I find myself left with no alternative.” The businessman said he had “worked tirelessly” to find a solution to the problems. He claimed: “Anglo, and more recently the Irish Government, are intent on making scapegoats of my family and I.” According to him, the bank has attempted to avoid acknowledging “a lack of corporate responsibility, self-interest and lack of regulation that prevailed at the time”. His allegations are now the subject of High Court proceedings. Mr Quinn accepted: “I am certainly not without blame. I am not in the business of pointing fingers or making excuses. “However, recent history has shown that I, like thousands of others in Ireland, incorrectly relied upon the persons who guided Anglo and who wrongfully sought to portray a ‘blue chip’ Irish banking stock.” He said that he and his team had developed one of the most successful businesses in Irish history, with the group generating more than 5,000 jobs and contributing in excess of E1bn in tax revenues. Mr Quinn rejected any suggestion that he had brought down the empire. He also claimed: “Anglo has supported and promoted an ill-conceived and highly damaging receivership programme which I believe, if it continues on its current road, is destined for certain and catastrophic failure.” The statement added: “My family and I have been subjected to relentless negative media coverage over the past three years. “I have been portrayed as a reckless gambler who bet on a bank. I have never sought publicity, nor have I courted the media. “Sadly this now seems to have worked very much to my disadvantage, especially when compared with the sophisticated and massively expensive publicity campaign operated for, and on behalf of Anglo.

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Murdochs are not a mafia – but the family firm is in meltdown

 

There are times to push fine detail and finely timed memory losses aside and ask: what makes sense? And thus the fall and fall of the House of Murdoch continues. Young James is so smart, so smooth, such a master of dead bats and – yes! – detail. He's a clever lad. Why, then, did he act so stupidly? And why did those who were supposed to protect him, in loco parentis, do such a lousy job? We're not talking corporate governance here: we're talking family. Tom Watson may have pushed his mafia metaphor a tad too far at the committee grilling last week, but the family and its faithful, well-remunerated retainers are what matter most. See everything that Rupert has done over the last 20 years as family first and it all begins to fall into place. Take Les Hinton, the head butler at Wapping Abbey at the time. Did he brief Rupert Murdoch as Clive Goodman went to prison? How could he not have? Murdoch senior is always on the phone. He'd be chatting to editor Andy Coulson just as he'd chatted to News of the World editors down the years. Would Rupert have left his de facto heir to sink or swim in this rancid pool without full briefings and full protection? Of course not. Take Rebekah Brooks, the tabloid queen waiting to climb the management ladder when young James arrived. She'd been editor of the News of the World; she was editor of the Sun, just a few corridor yards away; Andy Coulson was her former deputy, her pick for the top, her boy. Didn't she see the perils post-hacking? Surely she wouldn't let James fall into the mire. Or take Colin Myler, the last editor of the News of the World, the Mr Clean chosen to clear up the whole damned mess. Hugely experienced, a previous editor of the Sunday and daily Mirror; an honourable guy who took the fall when a high-profile trial was stopped because people on his staff made mistakes. How did Myler come to Wapping, then? Because, after almost seven years' exile on Murdoch's New York Post, he was the safe pair of hands Rupert chose personally to put things back on track. And today? Les Hinton is history, dumped from Dow Jones as the family scrabbles after a safe haven. Rebekah is history, too, left with an office, a chauffeur and £1.7m to keep her warm. While Myler is suddenly the enemy, the loyalist inexplicably contradicting James about what James was told and siding with Tom Crone, the paper's equally suddenly reviled lawyer. Does any of this make the remotest human sense? If some revered TV scriptwriter (say Peter Morgan) wrote a series about newspaper life in which nobody gossiped, nobody got drunk, nobody told anyone anything, he'd be laughed out of the studio. The entire farrago doesn't hold for a second. With Scotland Yard knee-deep in unread emails, there's nil chance of that unsteady state ending any decade soon. Proof – in any bewigged form – will probably only emerge much later: but proof, in a thumbs-up or -down way, is commodiously available already. An over-protected fool or a desperate man cornered? It's a sad, sad choice, but amounts to much the same thing either way. Protectors didn't protect. Instead, they were jettisoned one by one. And perhaps the saddest – nay, tragic – explanation of what went on is also the most benign. James wasn't interested in tabloid blunders, or even playing executive chairman to them. He loved digital, TV, the future. He was bored, bored, bored by lawyers and their letters. His father, the dad who must be obeyed, had made him serve his time; but his mind kept wandering away to the fields he loved. There's the tragedy for the son and the family, but worst of all for Rupert. Those who didn't quite believe it in the summer must surely acknowledge it now: James Murdoch can never sit at his father's desk. The whole succession scenario is bust. The Murdoch hegemony stops here. No sentient shareholder is going to let the family run things hands-on any longer. Just sit back and cash the dividends. There may be more rumours about a Sun on Sunday come the dawn of 2012, but forget them. We can't even be sure there'll be a Sun if James's readiness to shut it (should more hacking be discovered) is tested. There won't be any clear, calm, imminent moment when, all passion spent, the Bun seems wholesome again. Trinity Mirror, its profits bulwarked by the greatest ever stroke of luck, can carry on smiling. The murk of 2011 will just linger on (oozing into view every time Tom Watson mentions a new private eye). Those who like strong medicine and stronger penalties against malfeasance may care to count the payback thus far. For Murdoch: no heir, no News of the World, some $90m (£56m) gone, a reputation and an influence lost, a family at war. For James: no glowing future. For many of the rest of the gang: no jobs and possibly no freedom either. Retribution doesn't come crueller than this. Hacking can damage your health, wealth, your nearest and dearest. Hacking has sundered the biggest media empire in the globe: and many things, including Wapping and, less joyously, the papers that remain, can never be quite the same again. ■ The News of the World may be dead and buried, but a dogged Max Mosley is still trying to drive a stake through its heart. About 3,000 copies of the Nazi orgy story that incensed him circulated in France so, three years after the event, he went to Paris, launched another privacy case and (last week) won. Triumph? Only up to a point. The court awarded €32,000 in all (€10,000 as a state fine, €7,000 (£27,000) as Max's damages and the rest as costs). That doesn't sound much, sniffed Britain's finest media eagles, barely worth putting on a wig and gown for in the Strand. His French lawyer thought Max had done pretty well – but the tariff, by Strand standards, is low, low, low. Whether it's under French law or the European Convention on Human Rights, you can make a point over the Channel, if you must: but you won't make a mint.

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Drug Smuggling Accused Border Guard Baljinder Kandola At Loss For Words At Trial

 

While one former Indo-Canadian border guard got five years for his part in a drug smuggling ring – another is currently on trial for his part in a different operation that brought millions of illicit drugs into Canada. Baljinder Kandola, a former Canadian border guard who was charged with being part of a cocaine-smuggling ring, was at a loss for words during much of his testimony on Tuesday to explain why he risked so much to help a millionaire auto-parts importer for nothing in return. Under cross-examination by Crown counsel James Torrance, Kandola said he agreed to wave his co-accused Shminder Singh Johal and associates in his three automotive companies through the border, helping them avoid inspection, reported the Province newspaper. Kandola — who worked at the Pacific Highway crossing from July 2001 until his arrest on Oct. 25, 2007 — admitted he made unauthorized use of Canadian Border Services Agency databases to come to the conclusion Johal had been subjected to inspections over the years unfairly. “He asked if I was able to wave him through,” Kandola told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly, who is hearing the case without a jury. “It would save him time and money, and he wouldn’t be harassed.” Torrance reminded Kandola of his testimony a day earlier, when he said he was risking his job, his pension and his standing in the Sikh community by breaking his oath to protect Canada’s borders. “What was [Johal] offering you in return?” asked the prosecutor. “He didn’t offer me anything,” replied Kandola. “In my mind he was bringing auto parts into Canada.” Torrance asked, “This [waving Johal through] was definitely something you shouldn’t do?” “Yes,” agreed the witness. “Then why would you want to help a successful millionaire businessman?” Kandola replied: “I don’t know, I’ve asked myself the same question.” Torrance turned to Kandola’s illegal use of the databases to come to the conclusion Johal was unfairly harassed. A “lookout” had been placed on Johal’s border crossings after a tip from the RCMP. “Did you not consider [Johal] was previously suspected of smuggling cocaine?” asked Torrance. “No,” said Kandola. “That was all cleared up by your queries [into the databases]?” “I guess so,” replied the defendant. Torrance then meticulously went through Kandola’s phone, text and CBSA database records to show that he called Johal to let him know when he was in position to wave him through the border and when the “lookout” was on or off during the wee hours of Feb. 10, 2007. Asked if he was paid by Johal when they met at a 7-Eleven store the next day, Kandola denied it. Kandola was arrested on Oct. 25, 2007, shortly after he waved through a car driven by Herman Riar that contained 208 kilograms of cocaine. Riar pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison. Kandola and Johal have pleaded not guilty to charges of drug smuggling, illegal firearms, conspiracy and bribing an official. The trial in New Westminster is scheduled to last three more weeks.

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Britain's FBI 'abandoned chasing crime Mr Bigs because it's too difficult'

 

The elite unit set up by Labour to fight major criminals has failed to catch crime bosses because it is ‘too difficult’ and may even have been infiltrated by the underworld, says a whistleblower. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is supposed to be Britain’s answer to the FBI. When it was launched, Tony Blair pledged the organisation would ‘make life hell’ for the country’s ‘Mr Bigs’. It recruited from the cream of the police, immigration, customs and MI5 and had more than 4,000 staff in offices all over the world.  But Tim Lee, a former intelligence officer with SOCA, claims the agency has been blighted by corruption and bureaucracy. Mr Lee, 58, who joined SOCA in Nottingham when it was formed in 2006, paints a damning picture of his five years in the organisation. He claims: An investigation into a crime boss was mysteriously dropped when a SOCA officer with alleged links to the suspect took over the running of the case. Allegations of serious sexual misconduct made by a female SOCA worker against a male colleague were covered up. Hostility arose between police, customs and immigration officers when operational units were first formed in 2006.

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B.C. skipper linked to cocaine shipment posed beside pile of cash

 

Just weeks before notorious B.C. skipper John Philip Stirling was caught near Colombia on a boat full of cocaine, he sent his neighbour in Chase — a community in B.C.'s Shuswap region — photos of himself lying on the floor beside a giant pile of money.

 

In the accompanying email, Stirling told Shawn Martin that he wouldn't repay cash he owed him despite being flush after a recent trip to the South American cocaine centre.

 

Bizarre details of Stirling's feud with his neighbours, Martin and his mother Myrna Beckman, over loans totalling $30,000 are laid out in a suit and counter-suit filed in August and September in Kamloops Supreme Court and obtained the Vancouver Sun.

 

Stirling was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard on Oct. 18 just north of Colombia with 400 kilograms of cocaine secreted aboard his sailboat. He is currently detained in a Miami Detention Centre where he told officials "there was nothing wrong with cocaine trafficking and that the United States should mind its own business."

 

"He further remarked that if Canada didn't have such high taxes, (he and his co-accused) could get legitimate jobs."

 

If allegations in the B.C. court documents are accurate, some in the town of 2,500 were aware of Stirling's plan to import cocaine.

 

Martin and Beckman, who live down the road from Stirling and his wife Marlene, say in their court claim they heard at a barbecue last March "that the plaintiff John Stirling was in Colombia setting up a massive cocaine deal."

 

Martin and Beckman said their efforts to get repayment on several loans to the Stirlings were met with threats and harassment.

 

They also said accusations by the Stirlings that the neighbours were the aggressors in the dispute are ridiculous — Martin has dwarfism and gets around with crutches and a wheelchair; his mother, 63, is his caregiver.

 

Both Martin and Beckman declined to comment to the Sun because their case is before the courts. Marlene Stirling did not return calls.

 

The documents show that Stirling, a 60-year-old convicted cocaine trafficker, struck first against his neighbours, filing a suit on Aug. 29 asking for $10 million in damages.

 

Stirling said in a brief synopsis that over the last two years, his disabled neighbour and mom have threatened the Stirlings "with bodily harm and death."

 

"The defendants have written the plaintiffs blackmail letters for money," Stirling wrote. "The defendants have caused anxiety, depression, stress, loss of sleep requiring medical care to the petitioners.

 

"The defendants have caused travel to become necessary from Colombia for John Stirling at great expense and loss from work to protect his family . . . The defendants have or have attempted to hire Hells Angels to cause murder or physical harm to the plaintiffs and have made statements by phone and email of that intent," the Stirling claim said.

 

The neighbours fired back in a detailed defence filed Sept. 14, denying all the allegations and making a counter-claim.

 

They said that, unlike Stirling, they have no criminal record and no connection to the notorious biker gang.

 

"The defendants do not know any Hells Angels or Hells Angels associates and have never had dealings with them or hired them to do anything," Martin and Beckman said, adding the only information they have about the Angels came from the Stirlings themselves.

 

"The plaintiff Marlene Stirling also told the defendants that two Hells Angels members sat at her kitchen table and had coffee on multiple different times," the documents said.

 

They said they learned in an Internet search of Stirling's 2001 bust on his fishing boat, the Western Wind, with 2.5 tonnes of cocaine owned by the Hells Angels. He was never charged.

 

Tensions escalated between the former friends in August, when Stirling "was back from Colombia and was bragging that he had two suitcases full of money containing in excess of $200,000," the mother-son team said.

 

Martin fired off an email, "asking John to pay the rest of the money the plaintiffs owed the defendants for loans from June 1, 2007, to Feb. 23, 2011."

 

On Aug. 23, Stirling sent his neighbours "an email with a picture of him laying on the floor of his Adams' Lake residence with a pile of money in front of him, holding a piece of paper with Aug. 19, 2011, written on it," the claim said.

 

The email said: "I told you if you waited you would have got paid, but since you didn't, you will never receive a dime and everyone else has been paid back for their investment but you."

 

They said Stirling warned them that he would go to court and ruin them if they didn't back off.

 

"The defendants have videotape evidence of the plaintiff John Stirling threatening to kill more than one person at gunpoint," the documents said.

 

"On Sept. 10, 2011, the defendants were informed that the plaintiff John Stirling has been seeking to hire people to burn down the defendants' house and cause physical harm to them."

 

Martin and Beckman said "a man calling himself Ryan showed up at the defendants' residence wearing a black leather jacket with a Hells Angel patch and was looking for the plaintiff John Stirling because John apparently owed this guy Ryan money."

 

Martin said in the court statement that he called Stirlings' house and warned Marlene that someone was looking for John "and that he sounded really p—ed off."

 

 

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