Monday, July 02, 2007


Most of the front pages this morning have photographs of the scene outside Terminal One at Glasgow airport.


The Mirror captures the moment


COPS SEIZE DOCTOR AND TERROR WIFE as it shows one of the suspects grappling on the ground with police.


THIS was the dramatic scene after a husband and wife were grabbed on the M6 by police hunting the London and Glasgow car bombers.
Six unmarked police cars forced the couple, believed to be a Lebanese doctor aged 26 and his 27-year-old wife, to halt near Sandbach services, Cheshire, on Saturday night.
Last night they were among five people being questioned.
One suspect is a doctor who crashed a blazing 4x4 Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow Airport with another man. Both are believed to be Iraqis.


CAR BOMBER IS BRITISH DOCTOR says the front of the Express

ONE of the car bombers involved in the plot to massacre thousands of Britons was a hospital doctor, it emerged last night.
And yesterday anti-terror police raided the home of another doctor said to be involved in the attack at Glasgow airport and the failed attempts in London.On a day of dramatic developments, the Army blew up a car at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, close to the airport. One of the bombers is said to have worked at the hospital.

TWO DOCTORS HELD says the Mail and the Sun headlines with

DOCTORS OF DEATH.

Amongst the Broadsheets,the Independent reports that


Hour by hour, the smoke clears


Police carried out a series of raids and made a number arrests across the country yesterday, while a car was blown up in a hospital car park during a day of dramatic developments after the terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow.
A controlled explosion was carried out at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where one of two men arrested at Glasgow airport, critically injured from his burns, was receiving medical treatment under armed police guard. Police said the vehicle was linked to the attack at the airport, where a burning Jeep was driven into the terminal on Saturday afternoon, as well as to addresses being searched near Glasgow.
The police and the security services stated that the two incidents in London and Glasgow were linked and that some members of the group that had carried them out remain free.
The man receiving treatment at the Royal Alexandra Hospital was the driver of the Jeep. Also under arrest is his 27-year-old companion.


Terror crackdown as doctors among arrests headlines the Telegraph


Cars were banned from approaching airport terminals last night as unprecedented security measures were enforced to combat a suspected al-Qa'eda bombing campaign.
The terrorist threat level was at "critical" - its highest - after two car bombs were found in London and a third, potentially devastating, attack was narrowly averted at Glasgow airport


The Guardian talks of the


Race to break terror cell


Police and the security services are still hunting for at least three members of an al-Qaida linked terrorist cell suspected of attempting to commit mass murder using car bombs in London and Glasgow. Counter-terrorism officers believe the cell has at least eight members, linked by a controlling "Mr Big".


As does the Times


HUNT FOR TERROR CELL


The terrorist group behind the latest wave of bombing plots has not yet been neutralised and other attacks could hit cities in the United Kingdom, security sources told The Times yesterday.
As the head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command confirmed that the two car bombs discovered in London and the blazing Jeep incident at Glasgow airport were linked, a source said: “There is a group of individuals out there who have the capability and the intent to carry out attacks in the UK.
“In our judgment it is very likely there will be further attacks.”

The Mail tells us that

Airports and shopping centres to be locked inside 'rings of steel'

Hundreds of high-profile destinations - rainging from airports to shopping centres - will be subject to "ring of steel" security measures as part of a huge crackdown.

Meanwhile according to the Times

Washington uneasy over Brown’s anti-war ministers


Gordon Brown’s appointment of ministers critical of the Bush Administration and the Iraq war has triggered unease in Washington after the departure of its close ally, Tony Blair.
Although the new Prime Minister emphasises his belief in the importance of Britain’s relationship with President Bush and the US, he has also delivered what one Pentagon source described yesterday as “some conflicting signals”.
The same source said that “eyebrows had been raised” over the decision to give a senior ministerial job at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to Lord Malloch-Brown, the former Deputy UN Secretary-General, who has attacked Mr Bush’s “megaphone diplomacy” and America’s attitude to multilateralism.

Staying across the Atlantic the Independent reports

Bush seeks Putin's help to block Iran's nuclear plans

President George Bush is expected to use a 24-hour summit with Vladimir Putin at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, to seek support from Russia for a proposal to ratchet up economic sanctions on Iran for its continuing refusal to halt uranium enrichment at its nuclear facilities.
With Mr Putin arriving for dinner last night, and more formal talks today, officials from both sides were lowering expectations of any far-reaching accords.
Indeed, the so-called "Lobster Summit" was widely billed as an attempt by both countries to ease frictions that have erupted across a range of issues.

Princes mark life of Diana with music reports the Telegraph on yesterday's other main event

Before a global TV audience of millions and 63,000 cheering, dancing fans packed into Wembley Stadium, they delivered what they had most wanted - a night of "energy and fun" to remember the joie de vivre of Diana, Princess of Wales."This event is about all that our mother loved in life," Prince William told the crowd. "Her music, her dancing, her charities and her family and friends."They have often said she would have been "the first up out of her seat and dancing".

The Sun describes the goings on as

BOOGIE ONE DERLAND adding that

KATE Middleton sat behind ex Prince William at last night’s spectacular Diana concert — singing along to Take That: “I want you back for good.”
Stunning Kate, 25, was moved by the lyrics of the band’s hit Back For Good just hours after an amazing cloak and dagger tryst with Wills.
The beauty left her Audi motor in a hotel car park — then made her way to his Clarence House home, The Sun can reveal.


LOVE IS IN THE HEIR AS KATE JOINS WILLS TO HONOUR DIANA says the Express


WILLIAM yesterday gave the clearest signal yet that his romance with Kate Middleton is back on – by welcoming her into the Royal Box for the Diana memorial concert.
Friends have revealed that the Prince and Kate, who apparently split up in April after almost five years together, have been seeing each other in secret. Friends claimed they kissed and made up just hours after announcing to the world that they were no longer an item. They decided to keep their reunion secret to enjoy time together out of the limelight – and because it would seem foolish to get back together so soon after a public break-up.

The Guardian reports from Wembley

They came with their plastic macs and Marks & Spencer carrier bags full of sandwiches, filing towards the enormous Wembley arch. It was to be a lighthearted celebration, the event's organisers had insisted, and certainly the snaking queue of couples and clumps of women of a certain age were ready for all the fun that Duran Duran, Brian Ferry and the English National Ballet could offer. "It's a brilliant lineup, so I'm anticipating some great music," said Wendy Armes from Buckinghamshire, sitting on the concrete steps, having passed through one body search queue and mustering her energy for a second.

WETTEST JUNE ON RECORD says the Mirror

BRITAIN was hit by severe flooding during what is likely to have been the wettest June on record - and forecasters predict that the downpours will continue.
The previous June rainfall record - set in 1980 - was 4.77ins (119.8mm) and officials say last month's downpours should make it the wettest since records began 93 years ago.
"After the rain on Friday and Saturday, that will almost certainly be the case," said the Met's Nick Ricketts.
He predicts more downpours to come for most of England and Wales over the next few days.

The Mail reports that
Floods are God's vengeance for our sins, warn bishops


The floods which claimed seven lives and deluged thousands of homes are the result of "moral degradation", senior Church of England bishops have said.
The warning comes as forecasters have predicted that the rest of the summer is also likely to be a wash-out - with just one day that will live up to the scorching summers of recent years.
While stressing that those affected were innocent victims, they claimed the devastation was the consequence of the West's decision to ignore Biblical teaching, with an "arrogant" world "reaping what we have sown".
Tide begins to turn for flooded villages says the Guardian
It was the great escape yesterday for Britain's flood-weary areas as a front of heavy rainfall disintegrated into fierce but brief showers which left river levels falling and inundated villages free to bale out. Heavy-duty pumps finally turned the tide in the battle to drain lakes of water in Bentley and Toll Bar at Doncaster in South Yorkshire, where troops and lifeboat crews joined firefighters from 15 services, including teams from Somerset and south Wales.
Staying with the same paper,it reveals
Mugabe invited to Lisbon summit despite ban
Portugal is prepared to invite President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to a summit of European and African leaders in Lisbon this year despite an EU travel ban and sanctions against the 83-year-old dictator and figures in his regime.
Senior officials in Portugal, which took over the six-month presidency of the EU yesterday, said they were not keen to welcome Mr Mugabe to the December summit, but would do so if that was the price of salvaging a meeting they see as their policy priority while in charge of the EU.
The other news event of the weekend is reported in the Telegraph
Thousands defy smoking ban in mass protest
Councils, which have the power to fine smokers who light up inside work places, pubs or any public building, admitted that not a single fine was issued as they tried to implement the ban in a "softly, softly" way.
One pub defying the ban was the Dog Inn in Ewyas Harold, near Hereford, whose landlord is Tony Blows, part of the campaign group Freedom2Chose. He argued that as his pub was also his home he should be entitled to smoke anywhere within it.
Ta-tar to pub & club smoking says the Sun
SMOKERS throughout England puffed away defiantly OUTSIDE pubs and clubs yesterday as the ban on lighting up in enclosed public places came into force.
They huddled in makeshift shelters to brave the rain — and the smug wisecracks from non-smoking pals INSIDE.
Stop-smoking helplines are flooded with calls reports the Mail
Record numbers of smokers are calling helplines trying to quit.
On the second day of the smoking ban, counsellors said they were overwhelmed by people trying to give up. The charity Quit reported calls to its helpline had trebled.
Government health advisers said they were braced for a rush this afternoon.
But as the last cigarettes were extinguished in pubs, bars and restaurants across the city, some protesters said they would never give in.
Nightclub owner Dave West, who has employed Tony Blair's wife Cherie Booth to challenge the ban, allowed his diners to smoke. He said: "It's like Churchill said - No surrender. I've been smoking so much I can barely breathe."
Finally the Times along with a number of other papers reports on some good publicity for the Piranah
It has the teeth for it – but this is no vicious gang killer
Piranhas have been unfairly demonised by Hollywood and are far from the voracious killers of popular imagination, research has shown. The South American fish have a reputation for ganging up in killer shoals to tear the living flesh from anything daft enough to swim within reach. But says the report
the fish, despite mouths bursting with sharp teeth, have been given a raw deal and, if not exactly cuddly, are more victim than villain.
Rather than form aggressive shoals of more than 50 fish to search and destroy larger animals in the waters of the Amazon, they group together as a defensive measure, said Professor Anne Magurran, of the University of St Andrews.
There are so many large predators, notably caiman and river dolphins, trying to eat them that they seek safety in numbers. “Contrary to popular belief — and their sharp teeth — piranhas are omnivores. They are scavengers more than predators, eating mainly fish, plant material and insects,”





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