Morsi loyalists shot dead in Cairo
By Anonymous on Jul 08, 2013 03:20 am 8 July 2013 Last updated at 01:02 ET 
At least seven people have been killed after the army raided a sit-in staged by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo, reports say.
One eyewitness from the Muslim Brotherhood told the BBC the army used live ammunition to disperse the crowds in the eastern Nasr City district.
Dozens of people were injured and taken to a nearby makeshift hospital.
Mr Morsi, Egypt's first Islamist president, was removed by the army last week after mass protests against him.
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Crash plane 'tried to abort landing'
By Anonymous on Jul 08, 2013 12:24 am 7 July 2013 Last updated at 18:11 ET 
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Passenger Ben Levy: "It happened in a flash, nobody was worried about anything"
The Boeing 777 that crash-landed at San Francisco airport was "significantly below" its target speed near the runway and the pilot tried to abort the landing, US investigators say.
The pilot of the Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul requested a "go around" 1.5 seconds before the crash, they say.
The plane with 307 people came down short of runway on Saturday, killing two people and injuring dozens.
The aircraft apparently hit a sea wall, ripping off its tail.
Passengers and crew escaped down emergency slides as it burst into flames.
'Everything is on the table' At a news conference on Sunday, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chief Deborah Hersman said aircraft speed was below the planned 137 knots (158mph; 254km/h) as it approached the runway.
Citing information both from the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, she said there was a call to increase the speed about two seconds before the impact.
The pilot then requested a "call to go around" and not land, Ms Hersman added.
"We have to take another look at the raw data and corroborate it with radar and air traffic information to make sure we have a very precise speed.
"But again, we are not talking about a few knots here or there. We're talking about a significant amount of speed below 137," she said.
Asked about possible reasons for this, Ms Hersman stressed that "everything is on the table" and "it is too early to rule anything out".
The head of the South Korean airline, Yoon Young-doo, earlier said he was not ruling out human error but said the pilots were experienced veterans.
Mr Yoon apologised "deeply" for the effect the accident had had on all those involved, bowing in front of TV cameras at a Seoul news conference.
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Eyewitness Ki Siadatan: "[The plane] seemed like it was out of control"
"Currently we understand that there were no engine or mechanical problems," he said.
Asiana confirmed that two female Chinese teenagers died in the crash. They had been seated at the back of the aircraft.
They are believed to be the first-ever fatalities in a Boeing 777 crash.
The twin-engine aircraft has a good safety record for long-haul and is used by many major carriers.
The only previous notable crash occurred when a British Airways plane landed short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport in 2008.
Continue reading the main story 
Smoke billows from the burning plane after it crash-landed on San Francisco International Airport's Runway 28L
More than 300 people were on Asiana Airlines Flight 214, which had taken off from South Korea's capital, Seoul
Firefighters and rescue teams were quickly at the scene
The tail fin broke off during the crash and could be seen lying on its side apart from the main wreckage
Fire engines could be seen spraying a white fire retardant into gaping holes in the wrecked plane's roof
Continue reading the main story Five people are in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital, hospital spokesperson Rachael Kagan said. Three others are being treated at Stanford Hospital.
Altogether 181 people were taken to hospital, mostly with minor injuries.
There were 291 passengers and 16 crew on board, Asiana said.
Nationalities on board included 141 Chinese, 77 South Koreans and 61 US citizens, the airline said.
All of the passengers have been accounted for.
Continue reading the main story Boeing 777 fact sheet
- Twin-engine jet launched in June 1995
- One of the world's most popular long-distance planes
- Seats between 300 and 380 passengers
- Has flown around five million flights
- Often used for nonstop flights of 16 hours or more
- Prior to Asiana crash, only one fatal accident when a crew member died during a re-fuelling fire at Denver International Airport in September 2001
Footage of the scene showed debris strewn on the runway and smoke pouring from the jet, as fire crews sprayed a white fire retardant into gaping holes in the craft's roof.
One engine and the tail fin were broken away from the main wreckage.
Quick evacuation Passenger Ben Levy said there had been no warning of problems, although the plane appeared to be coming in too fast and too low.
"It happened in a flash, nobody was worried about anything," he said.
But once the aircraft crashed, "there was chaos, disbelief, screaming".
"My seat had been pushed to the floor, it was a mess everywhere," Mr Levy recalled.
Nevertheless, people "calmed down pretty quickly" and evacuated the plane without pushing or stepping on each other.
Meanwhile another passenger, David Eun, tweeted a picture of people evacuating down the plane's emergency inflatable slides and wrote: "I just crash landed at SFO. Tail ripped off. Most everyone seems fine. I'm ok. Surreal..."
A witness to the crash, Ki Siadatan, said the plane "looked out of control" as it descended over San Francisco Bay to land just before 11:30 (18:30 GMT).
"We heard a 'boom' and saw the plane disappear into a cloud of dust and smoke," he told the BBC. "There was then a second explosion."
Arrivals and departures at the airport have been suspended since the incident.
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Read in browser » Wimbledon win the pinnacle - Murray
By Anonymous on Jul 07, 2013 02:57 pm By Aimee Lewis BBC Sport at Wimbledon
Andy Murray said winning Wimbledon to end Britain's 77-year wait for a men's champion was the "pinnacle of tennis".
The 26-year-old Scot converted his fourth championship point to beat top seed Novak Djokovic 6-4 7-5 6-4 in what Murray described as a brutal match.
"Winning Wimbledon, I can't get my head around that. I still can't believe it's happened, this one will take a while to sink in," said the British number one.
"I think that last game will be the toughest I'll play in my career."
- Wimbledon is Murray's second Grand Slam title after he won the 2012 US Open
- It is the 36th time a British man has won the Wimbledon singles title - more than any other nation
- Fred Perry was the last British man to win Wimbledon, completing a hat-trick of wins in 1936
- Harold Mahony was the other Scotsman to win the Wimbledon singles title in 1896
- Murray is the most successful British man in terms of Grand Slam match wins with 113, ahead of Fred Perry on 106
- Fred Perry won eight Grand Slam titles - three Wimbledons, three French Opens, one US Open and one Australian Open
- Murray has reached seven Grand Slam finals, behind Fred Perry on 10
Murray squandered three match points from 40-0 and saw off three Djokovic break points before the world number one netted a backhand to end a gruelling contest lasting three hours and 10 minutes.
"Winning Wimbledon is the pinnacle of tennis, the last game almost increased that feeling," added Murray, who is also the Olympic and US Open champion.
"That last game pretty much took everything out of me. I worked so hard in that last game, they will be the hardest few points I had to play in my life. Some of the shots he came up with was unbelievable.
"I didn't know what was going on [during that last game]. There were a lot of different emotions at that time.
"I think that last game will be the toughest game I'll play in my career ever."
Murray, Scotland's first Wimbledon singles champion since Harold Mahony in 1896, thanked his coach Ivan Lendl for believing in him.
"He stuck by me through some tough losses and he's been very patient with me, I'm just happy for him," he said.
"He's always been very honest with me and told me exactly what he thought and in tennis that's not easy to do in a player coach relationship.
"He's got my mentality slightly different going into matches."
Highlights - Murray wins Wimbledon title
Read in browser » Curriculum 'to match world's best'
By Anonymous on Jul 08, 2013 03:29 am 7 July 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent 
The changes to the national curriculum will be introduced in autumn 2014
A revised national curriculum for schools in England is to be published later, with the aim of catching up with the world's best education systems.
Prime Minister David Cameron says this "revolution in education" is vital for the country's economic prosperity.
The changes will include fractions for five year olds and teaching evolution in primary schools.
Labour said the curriculum should be written by experts and not depend on ministers' "personal prejudices".
Teachers' unions have warned that the timetable for implementing the changes in autumn 2014 is "completely unrealistic".
Head teachers have also asked whether politicians should be so directly involved in deciding what is taught in the classroom.
'Engaging and tough' The re-written national curriculum, to be published on Monday, will set out the framework for what children in England's state schools should be taught between the ages of five and 14.
However, academies - which are now a majority of secondary schools - will not be required to follow the curriculum.
"This is a curriculum that is rigorous, engaging and tough," said the prime minister.
Education Secretary Michael Gove said the new-look curriculum would provide the "foundation for learning the vital advanced skills that universities and businesses desperately need - skills such as essay writing, problem-solving, mathematical modelling, and computer programming".
He promised that an emphasis on "getting basic skills right" and more rigorous content would help England's schools perform more strongly against international competitors.
In maths, there will be an expectation of a higher level of arithmetic at an earlier age. There will be a requirement for pupils to learn their 12 times table by the age of nine, rather than the current 10 times table by the age of 11.
The emphasis on international competitiveness will see design and technology being linked to innovation and digital industries. Pupils will learn about 3D printing and robotics.
Inventor Sir James Dyson commented: "The revised curriculum will give young people a practical understanding of science and mathematics, where they design, make and test their own product ideas - real problem solving."
Computing will also be linked to the digital start-up and apps culture, with pupils being taught coding and how to create their own computer programs.
In science, there is a shift towards scientific knowledge and a more robust sense of content and away from what is described as "vague, abstract statements".
There have been suggestions that when the final version is published on Monday it will have cut back on the amount of historical information expected of pupils, but there will still be an increased emphasis on English history and national identity.
But opponents say the proposed changes would create an outmoded, over-long list of facts, dates and famous figures.
Core knowledge Anthony Seldon, head master of Wellington College, welcomed the idea of a more demanding curriculum, saying that "young people shouldn't be patronised by work that was too easy".
"Factual knowledge is essential," he said, providing the "building blocks" for more advanced ideas in subjects in the sciences, arts and humanities.
He says it is important for all youngsters to learn a common core of knowledge.
"It can get too fluffy to say 'It's all on the internet,'" said Dr Seldon.
Brian Lightman, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said that heads shared the aspiration for high standards, but warned of the practical problems of implementation.
One year to implement such ambitious proposals effectively alongside the vast number of concurrent reforms is a tall order."
He also questioned the level of political involvement in the process.
"Drafting a curriculum is a highly specialised and professional task. Unlike previous versions of the national curriculum, which were drafted with a heavy involvement of teachers and school leaders, these proposals have been driven and closely directed by politicians without that professional input."
He said the government needed to take "urgent steps" to include head teachers in implementing the changes.
Mary Bousted, leader of the ATL teachers' union, accused the education secretary of wanting to "steamroller ahead" with rushed changes.
"The timescales to which he is operating are completely unrealistic. He shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how much planning is needed to bring in a totally new curriculum and new exams for children in all age groups at the same time."
Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said that Mr Gove should "listen to the experts and not try to write it himself based on his personal prejudices".
He said: "We need a broad and balanced curriculum that prepares young people for the modern world and gives teachers in all schools the freedom to innovate."
Read in browser » Olympic cyber attack fears detailed
By Anonymous on Jul 08, 2013 12:46 am 7 July 2013 Last updated at 21:13 ET 
By Gordon Corera Security correspondent, BBC News 
Fears that the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony might have come under cyber-attack have been detailed by officials for the first time.
The concern was that the lights could have been turned off during the ceremony.
The threat did not materialise, but officials have told the BBC they put extensive precautions in place.
It comes amid fears about the vulnerability of Britain's national infrastructure to cyber-attack.
The head of the government's surveillance centre GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban, says reconnaissance has taken place in cyberspace and there is a "realistic threat", which his intelligence agency is working with partners to try to counter.
A phone call from GCHQ at 04:45 is not the ideal way of being woken on the day of the Olympic opening ceremony if you are head of cybersecurity for the Games.
"There was a suggestion that there was a credible attack on the electricity infrastructure supporting the Games," Olympic cyber security head Oliver Hoare, who received the call, told BBC Radio 4 - in the first interview an official has given on the events that day.
"And the first reaction to that is, 'Goodness, you know, let's make a strong cup of coffee.'" If the lights had gone off during the opening ceremony, with close to a billion people watching, the impact would have been enormous.
When it came to risks to the Games, cyber attacks had been lower down the list than terrorism, which could cause real loss of life, but extensive testing had still taken place for a range of different possibilities.
This included precisely the scenario that raised concerns on the opening day. "We'd tested no less than five times the possibility of an attack, a cyber-attack, on the electricity infrastructure," said Mr Hoare.
Ticking clock This would prove vital in ensuring an effective response from a team that stretched across government, the Olympic organisers Locog and private sector service providers such as BT.
The initial response to the threat came from the Olympic Cyber Co-ordination Team (OCCT), based at MI5 headquarters in Thames House.
There were two priorities. The first was to investigate how credible the threat might be. The information had come in overnight and was based on the discovery of attack tools and targeting information that it was thought at the time might relate to the Olympics.
While this investigation continued, officials also put in place contingency plans in case the attack materialised. Time was not on their side. "The clock was absolutely ticking," recalled Mr Hoare, who worked first for the Olympic Delivery Authority and then the Government Olympic Executive.
He, and others interviewed for the story, declined to speak in detail about the preparations put in place. "We effectively switched to manual, or had the facility to switch to manual. It's a very crude way of describing it. But effectively we had lots of technicians stationed at various points," he said.
In the afternoon a meeting was held in the Cabinet Office briefing room (although it was not a formal meeting of Cobra, the government's emergency response committee), chaired by deputy national security adviser Oliver Robbins, where different partners could join in videoconferencing from places such as the Olympic Park.
Contingency plans were discussed and ministers informed. Confidence grew that if the threat materialised it could be dealt with.
Vulnerability Mr Hoare recalls a conversation an hour or so before the opening ceremony, in which he asked someone how the situation looked. "Good news," the individual replied. "If the lights go down we can get them up and running regardless within 30 seconds."
That did not entirely reassure Mr Hoare. "Thirty seconds at the opening ceremony with the lights going down would have been catastrophic in terms of reputational hit," he said. "So I watched the opening ceremony with a great deal of trepidation."
Other officials said, although they were confident every contingency had been prepared for, that did not prevent some nerves. "You wouldn't be human if you didn't have butterflies," one recalled.
Mr Hoare said that watching at home with his family, who did not know about the threat, he twitched every time the lights dimmed.
In the end the threat turned out to be a false alarm. But it does highlight a growing fear about the vulnerability of Britain's critical infrastructure to cyber-attack.
'Technical reconnaissance' Increasing numbers of services are being connected to the internet, from power stations through to smart meters in people's homes. This brings many benefits and efficiencies for people's daily lives but also provides a new access point for those seeking to do harm, whether bedroom hackers or foreign states.
"We have seen technical reconnaissance of parts of our critical national infrastructure, yes," Sir Iain told the BBC. "Not to such an extent that we would raise a red flag but certainly we've seen an interest, an intentional interest, in parts of that infrastructure."
The GCHQ head said that the UK, along with its allies, was looking at how compromises and penetrations might occur and how to guard against them.
This year the UK is expected to launch its first national computer emergency response team (Cert). Until now, the UK has had government Certs but not a broader national team, unlike many other countries.
The real challenges on critical infrastructure, as with the Olympics, lies in the meeting point between government and private sector and ensuring that the right people with the right technical expertise are in the right place.
Under Attack - The Threat From Cyberspace is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 8 July at 20:00 BST.
Read in browser » Canada train blast site 'a war zone'
By Anonymous on Jul 07, 2013 07:06 pm 7 July 2013 Last updated at 18:04 ET 
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper: ''It looks like a warzone here''
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the part of Lac-Megantic impacted by Saturday's crude oil explosion looks like a "war zone".
At least five people died when runaway train cars packed with crude oil derailed and blew up early on Saturday.
Some 30 buildings had been completely incinerated by fires which engulfed the historic centre, said Mr Harper.
Police are trying to find 40 missing people: a nearby bar was said to have been crowded at the time of the blast.
The fires have been so intense and have burnt for so long that Quebec police warn some bodies may never be recovered.
The five bodies found are so charred they have been sent to Montreal for identification, police say.
Two of five cars that exploded were still ablaze earlier on Sunday. A one-kilometre exclusion zone was set up amid fears of more pressurised containers exploding.
"This is an enormous area, 30 buildings just completely destroyed, for all intents and purposes incinerated,'' Harper said. ``There isn't a family that is not affected by this.''
Investigation pledge Visited the affected area on Sunday, Mr Harper said an "unbelievable disaster" had befallen Lac-Megantic, which is around 250km (155 miles) east of Montreal.
Saturday's pre-dawn explosion sent a fireball and black smoke into the air, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 people.
"This is an enormous area, 30 buildings just completely destroyed, for all intents and purposes incinerated," said Mr Harper. "There isn't a family that is not affected by this."
He added: "There'll be investigations to ascertain what's occurred and make sure it can't happen again."
Continue reading the main story 
One witness said the fireball that followed the derailment was "like an atomic bomb"
Two of five cars that exploded were still ablaze nearly 36 hours later
About 30 buildings - including some of the town's most historic structures - were obliterated by the blast
People whose homes have been badly damaged are being sheltered at a nearby school
Prayers were said for victims of the disaster during Mass services in the surrounding area
Continue reading the main story Firefighters had been battling the flames with water and a fire retardant, but were staying at least 1,000 ft from the burning tankers for fear of more blasts, Lac-Megantic Fire Chief Denis Lauzon told reporters earlier on Sunday.
"We lost the bibliotheque [library] which had all the memories of people here - it's a mess," said Chief Lauzon.
People whose homes have been badly damaged were being given shelter at a nearby school.
The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train had been parked in the village of Nantes - about 7km (four miles) from Lac-Megantic - during an overnight driver shift-change, said a company spokesman.
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Eyewitnesses say the streets "were filled with fire"
Its 73 cars carrying pressurised containers of crude oil somehow became uncoupled from five locomotive engines, gathering speed as they rolled downhill before derailing in the heart of Lac-Megantic.
Bernard Demers, who runs a restaurant near the blast site, said the fireball that followed the derailment at around 01:00 (05:00 GMT) on Saturday was "like an atomic bomb", the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The train had been travelling from the Bakken Field in North Dakota to a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick.
Montreal, Maine & Atlantic owns more than 800km (500 miles) of track serving Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick.
A picturesque lakeside town that is home to some 6,000 people, Lac-Megantic is close to the US border with Maine.
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