Party drug meow meow kills one young Briton a week

At least one person a week dies after taking the dance drug mephedrone, it emerged last night.
Known as ‘meow meow’, it was legal until last April and has been linked to nearly 100 deaths in the past two years.
The figure emerged in a report by government drug advisers, who warn that taking ‘legal highs’ is like playing Russian roulette because users often have no idea what is in them.
Professor Les Iversen, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, called for new laws to deal with the ‘uncontrolled market’ in legal highs.
He said these substances were luring non-drug users into risking their health. Many wrongly believed anything that had not been banned was safe.
The report reveals it is not uncommon for students to make money selling legal highs directly to their peers or through websites.

Prof Iversen said many of those buying the substances were people who would ‘never dream of going to a back-street drug dealer, but who are happy to take out their mobile phone and credit card and order it to be delivered to their home’.
He added: ‘There is a whole group of people who have started using drugs who before would not have dreamed of doing that.’
Mephedrone – which is taken in powder form, often as a substitute for cocaine – is now a class B drug after its use was criminalised last year.
But in the months before the ban came into force, use of the drug spiralled among clubbers, with some surveys suggesting up to 40 per cent had tried it.
The report found mephedrone caused or contributed to 42 deaths in the UK between late 2009 and October 20 this year. Tests are still being carried out in another 56 suspected cases.
But this may underestimate the true scale of the problem as mephedrone leaves the body quickly after use.
In May last year Rebecca Cardwell, 19, a care worker from Colne, East Lancashire, died after taking mephedrone. She suffered from acute liver failure after collapsing within hours of buying a wrap of the drug for ￡5.
Mephedrone has also been implicated in a number of deaths where users have become depressed and committed suicide.
Prof Iversen said growing numbers of young people were being taken to hospital after using legal highs.
He added: ‘Users are playing a game of Russian roulette. They are buying substances marked as research chemicals.
‘The implication is that you should do the research on yourself to find out whether they’re safe or not.
‘This is a totally uncontrolled, unregulated market.’ The report says children under 16 are most at risk of serious harm from legal highs.
It calls for a new U.S.-style drug law banning any substances similar to those already outlawed.

It says a new body should be established to promptly ban new drugs brought on to the market.
The report urges ministers to put pressure on countries such as China to crack down on websites known to be exporting legal highs to Britain.
Maryon Stewart, whose 21-year-old daughter Hester died after taking the legal high GBL before it was criminalised in 2009, called on ministers to invest in education programmes.
She said: ‘These crazy chemists are making millions while our kids are being harmed.
‘We need to raise awareness and educate children so they know just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s safe.’

Sydney's Opera House: Easy on the Eyes, Not the Ears

According to legend, when Danish architect Jorn Utzon entered a 1957 competition to design an opera house in Sydney, his sail-like sketches did not make the cut. Eero Saarinen, a Finnish-born architect on the judging panel, found his revolutionary designs in the scrap pile, fished them out and told the jury he'd found their winner. Today the Sydney Opera House is Australia's most famous building, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the world's busiest performing-arts centers, attracting some 4.5 million visitors a year. There's just one glitch: it looks much better than it sounds.

Music insiders have been grumbling about the building for years. Edo de Waart, the former chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, once threatened to boycott the building because of the bad acoustics. Matt Ockenden, an Australian bassoonist, has likened listening to a performance in the Concert Hall to watching it on a 1980s-era television. (See the 11 most endangered historic places.)

A study released this summer confirmed their doubts. A survey of musicians, critics and audience members published in August by Limelight, an Australian music magazine, rated the Sydney Opera House's Opera Theatre as having the worst acoustics out of 20 major venues. The building's Concert Hall also scored poorly, earning a dismal 18th place.

Richard Evans, the chief executive of the Sydney Opera House, wasn't surprised by the results: "We all know about the issues with the Opera House." There have been some acoustic upgrades, he said, but the space is not as "terrific" as it could be. The Opera Theatre is not sufficient in size to produce a good acoustic for opera performances. In the Concert Hall, sawtooth wall panels need to be flattened "so the sound doesn't bounce around," Evans said. The hall also needs an acoustic ceiling over the stage platform, but there are technical difficulties with suspending something so heavy from the roof — not to mention the architectural heritage issues of changing the interior of an icon so radically. (See pictures of Australia.)

The building's acoustic quirks date back to 1967, when New South Wales' Premier Robert Askin decided that the smaller sail, which was supposed to be a theater, should house the opera, and the larger sail, which was to house the opera, should be a concert hall. (At the time, symphonies drew in more crowds than operas did.) As a result, today's Concert Hall has 1,000 seats too many, while the Opera Theatre has a famously tiny pit.

The small pit makes it difficult for musicians to hear one another. "Where I sit as a bassoon player, I can't hear the basses and I can never hear the back of the viola sections," says Ockenden, who is associate principal bassoon at the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. Over the years, the pit has been extended back into the stage. "The more it was extended, the more problems it created," said Fergus Fricke, an honorary associate professor of architecture at the University of Sydney who has done some consulting work for the Sydney Opera House. It created more space, but there was little headroom and the sound that came out from under the stage was far from ideal. (See 10 things to do in Sydney.)

The Concert Hall, meanwhile, is too big and the sound gets lost in the 25-m-high ceiling. Acoustic upgrades in 1973 and 2009 have helped some, but the sound isn't full enough for many music lovers. "In the Concert Hall, you just want to turn the volume knob up, especially when you're sitting at the back," says Limelight editor Francis Merson.

The building can be upgraded — for a price. In March 2009, in a meeting with the Daily Telegraph, Nathan Rees, premier of New South Wales at that time, made headlines by saying that $1 billion should be invested into restoring the building and improving the acoustics. Then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd responded by saying that the project was not a government priority. Evans is now hoping to secure assistance from the state government in time for the building's 40th birthday, in 2013.

For now, performers work around the problem. "It's not the biggest pit in the world, but we make it work," says Lyndon Terracini, artistic director of Opera Australia. Next year, when Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt hits the stage, the 83-piece orchestra will play in an adjacent studio, not the cramped pit, and the music will be broadcast to the audience using state-of-the-art surround sound. "It's become almost fashionable to criticize the Sydney Opera House, but it's really not that bad," he says. "Ultimately, the problem with the Opera House is that it's one of the greatest buildings in the world. There is no way that its interior can live up to that."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097247,00.html#ixzz1bIhDe6sq

Horrific footage shows girl, two, run over TWICE as dozens of people ignore her lying stricken on the road

Video footage of a two-year-old girl being run over by a van and ignored by passers-by in China has sparked outrage after being posted online.
The graphic surveillance video of the incident in Foshan city, Guandong province, shows the girl run over by a van, which then drives off leaving her bleeding on a narrow street.
More than a dozen people walk or drive past the critically injured girl, named Yueyue, without going to her aid before she is run over by a second truck.
A woman - the 19th person to pass the girl - pulls her to the side of the street before her mother, a migrant worker in the city, rushes into the picture.
The girl, named online as Yue Yuem, is in a coma in hospital according to Xinhua news agency following the incident on October 13.
China Daily, the country's official English-language newspaper, said she had been declared 'brain dead' and could die at any time.

Both drivers who ran her over have been arrested, but internet users have flooded microblogs over the apathy of the people who left her to die.
China's economic boom and the growing disparity between the rich and poor have made changing social values a contentious topic, with some lamenting what they see as materialism replacing morals.
Yueyue's father Wang told Chinese television: 'Yueyue is so lovely. If I quarrelled with her mother and if her mother cried, she would tell us not to cry, she always tried to amuse us.
'I just hope my child will wake up and call me Dad again.'
On China's microblog service Sina Weibo, one user called the incident 'the shame of the Chinese people'.
Another user, under the name Xiaozhong001, wrote: 'Really, what is up with our society? I saw this and my heart went cold.
'Everyone needs to do some soul-searching about ending this kind of indifference.'
Many people in China are hesitant to help people who appear to be in distress over fears they will be blamed.
High-profile law suits have ended with good Samaritans ordered to pay hefty fines to individuals they sought to help.

WIFE OF ‘DEL BOY’ CROOK HID ￡5K IN HER KNICKERS

THE “cushty” lifestyle of a real-life Del Boy ended in jail when ￡5,000 stuffed in his wife’s knickers fell out as she was quizzed by police.
Ducker-and-diver Trevor Wales, who had managed to stash bank notes worth ￡7,000 in similar fashion, ran a thriving fake goods scam.
He had his own Rodney-style -sidekick in the form of gullible son Richard. And in keeping with TV’s Only Fools and Horses, the pair even drove around in a replica of Del’s three-wheel yellow Reliant, daubed Trotter’s Independent Trading.
They were on their way to becoming millionaires through their dodgy dealings when it was found they had been running a six-year counterfeit tobacco operation.
Wales, 54, and his 28-year-old son were jailed this week for failing to pay ￡200,000 in duty on imported illegal cigarettes. Their lucrative scams enabled them to buy two homes, as well as jet-skis, luxury cars, caravans and motorbikes.
When police first raided the house in Leeds that Wales shared with his wife Mary, 53, they discovered the semi had been renovated with a sprawling two-storey extension complete with gym.
Officers found over ￡16,000 in cash, prompting a detailed financial investigation into their dealings.
Police returned unannounced nine months later in December 2009, and as they arrested Mrs Wales they became aware that bank notes had begun dropping out of the bottom of her skirt. A bundle worth ￡5,000 had been stuffed inside her knickers.
When Det Con Carly North, who led the investigation, asked why she had the money in her underwear, she replied: “I did not want you to take it.” Son Richard, who lived nearby, had bought his house with a ￡27,000 cash deposit, then renovated it with a games room, plus a landscaped training area for his greyhounds.
Leeds Crown Court heard that the family had been dealing in fake and foreign tobacco between 2003 and 2009, raking in hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But in true Trotter-style they lived far beyond their means, blowing ￡47,000 at a city centre casino. Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford said Trevor and Mary Wales had a legitimate income of just ￡7,400 a year during the offending period, while their son had no income and occasionally claimed benefits.
He added: “The Wales family between them spent far more money than could be explained by their income. All three defendants in the dock to live well beyond their legitimate means.”
The barrister said ￡144,000 was paid into two of Mrs Wales’s accounts. Jet-skis cost the family ￡20,000, while a Mitsubishi Shogun was bought as a gift.
Judge Rodney Grant jailed Wales senior for two years and three months, and his son for 15 months. Mrs Wales – the banker – escaped with a suspended 12-month sentence.
Speaking after the case, Det Con North said: “I’d like to think Del Boy himself would have drawn a line well before the level of offending these family members got to.”

GIVE MARTIN JOHNSON ANOTHER GO? YES, HISTORY IS ON THE SIDE OF MARTIN

THEIR own history must tell the Rugby Football Union that the last thing they should be considering in the overwrought aftermath of England’s premature World Cup exit is dispensing with Martin Johnson as team manager.
Losing in the quarter-final is a failure. Of that there is no question, but so it was in 1999 when Clive Woodward survived calls for his head and was able to put his ’99 trauma to good use in plotting England’s 2003 triumph.
You can see the same again with All Blacks coach Graham Henry. The New Zealand Union controversially stuck with him after 2007 and now they are favourites to win four years later.
In Johnson’s debit column is that the English exit from New Zealand has occurred when he has had all the assistance in player availability and welfare that was denied to both his post-Woodward predecessors, Andy Robinson and Brian Ashton.
But when RFU professional rugby director Rob Andrew makes his choice, in the next six weeks he says, he has to be convinced that there is someone out there who can do a better job of heading up the England operation.
Johnson and Andrew are old playing partners who were in England sides together from 1993-98 as well as the 1993 Lions.
It was Andrew who, as elite rugby director, was responsible for supplanting Ashton with Johnson in 2008. But that change did come about under heavy pressure from on high – specifically Martyn Thomas when he was RFU chairman – and Andrew was uncomfortable with that action .
But the idea that he would consider doing something similar now, albeit with Johnson as the victim, is not only remote but ignores the close relationship they have had during Johnson’s tenure.
Johnson does not coach; he manages. So, for the most part, did Woodward. The far more meaningful question is whether Johnson should change, or even be made to change, the coaches at his disposal.
Here again he is on contentious ground. He retained Ashton’s coaching team – some, such as John Wells and Graham Rowntree, personal friends from Leicester – and never saw fit to change them.
His only addition was his Australian attacking coach Brian Smith, and even Smith is a Leicester old boy. The only outsider from this elite clique was, and is, defence coach Mike Ford.
He wants Johnson to stay. According to Ford, there is no one else remotely capable of taking charge of the England set-up with Johnson’s authority and reputation .
“What Johnno has done in the last three years is create a culture,” said Ford.
“It takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight.
“You have to keep Johnno at the helm. We are beginning to get a foundation under him. The RFU can’t go and appoint someone new again. Where are they going to find another guy with his sort of experience? We need to get that continuity. You have to have faith.”
There is an urgency about Andrew’s RFU review in that Johnson or any successor will have an England Six Nations squad of 32 to select on New Year’s Day.
The review will also be looking at Ford and the other coaches. “Will there be pressure to change? I expect so,” added Ford. “But whatever happens to me, I genuinely believe Johnno is the right man, so let him carry on and pick his own staff. If England keep him to the next World Cup, we are going to find some success.”
The England players unanimously agree.
“They would be absolutely foolish not to keep him in the role,” said scrum-half Ben Youngs.
“You can ask any of the 30 guys and they would say the same thing.”
Youngsters such as Youngs, 22, and prop Alex Corbisiero, 23, detect a clearer path to the 2015 World Cup under Johnson than any alternative.
“Every player in that dressing room wants Martin Johnson to stay,” said Corbisiero.
“He understands Test rugby and understands the players’ mindset. I hope he gets the chance to finish what he has started.”
Perhaps these are not the best judges . But even so, they are right.

AMANDA KNOX'S ITALIAN BOYFRIEND INVITED TO VISIT FAMILY IN US

The Knox family have invited him and his family to visit them in Seattle when the media furore has died down.
Dr Francesco Sollecito, speaking after his son returned home, said: “We each went our separate ways after the sentence but through my daughter I heard that Amanda’s stepdad invited us to Seattle. It is too soon to say whether we will go.”
The frenzy that greeted Amanda Knox’s homecoming yesterday was in stark contrast to the subdued return of 27-year-old Raffaele to his parents’ home after the appeal decision freed him from a four-year jail ordeal. He had previously been sentenced to 25 years for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
The wealthy doctor’s son, who met Knox while finishing a degree in computer science at Perugia University, declined to make a public statement.
But Dr Sollecito addressed reporters outside the family home in Bisceglie, near Bari on the southern Adriatic coast. He said: “He tried to sleep but he could only rest for a few hours, and he woke up before I did.
“We had breakfast together after all this time. He sat down at the table, had a coffee and ate some fruit – they are the small things that say so much, the things he hasn’t been able to do for four years.
“It’s as if Raffaele has been reborn. Today is a beautiful day and we’re enjoying it completely.”

Somalia bombing points to militants' grim goals

Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa, and— A suicide truck bombing that killed an estimated 70 people, including students hoping for foreign scholarships, underscores the intent of an Islamic militant group to ensure that Somalia remains ungovernable and a secure base for its global struggle against the West.

U.S. officials say the Shabab, which claimed responsibility for the bombing Tuesday in Mogadishu, the capital, appears to be strengthening its ties with Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen. They fear it also is increasing cooperation with an extremist network in Nigeria.

In Somalia, the Shabab has blocked aid to famine victims and is reportedly driving thousands out of aid camps in what experts say may turn into a death march back to their farms. Many are unlikely to survive the effects of hunger and disease, analysts say.

Such tactics are likely to worsen tension between Shabab clan leaders who want to fight Somalia's weak, internationally backed transitional federal government, or TFG, for territory and influence, and more extreme elements who seek only a base of operations against the West, experts say. The latter faction controls the group's finances, they say.

The Shabab's interest in maintaining Somalia as a platform for fighting the West doesn't require it to control the country, said one expert.

"If all Shabab has to do is prevent the TFG from exercising control over the capital, then these kind of attacks are all they need," said Ken Menkhaus, an associate professor at Davidson College in North Carolina.

The Shabab abandoned Mogadishu in August, in what some saw as a sign of military weakness. But it has regrouped and is using terrorist tactics to continue destabilizing the capital without the need to hold territory.

It has been implicated in previous bombings. It claimed responsibility last year for suicide attacks in Kampala, Uganda, that killed 76 people. Somali authorities also blamed it for a 2009 attack on a graduation ceremony of medical students, which killed 24 people, including government ministers, doctors and students.

Tuesday's bombing struck a compound where several government ministries, including half the Cabinet, are based. The blast shattered the front gate and left charred bodies scattered about. People used shawls and blankets to carry away the dead.

"I saw a nursing team putting human limbs onto a sack to carry away," said Mowliid Abdulkadir, surveying the smoke drifting across a scene of chaos.

"It was a horrific scene. We collected 70 corpses inside and on the road," said Ali Muse Sheik, an ambulance coordinator.

There were no reports of casualties among senior officials of the transitional government.

But in a country that has lacked a fully functioning government for two decades, the dead and wounded included some of the few people with real prospects: students waiting outside the Education Ministry for exam results. They were hoping for secondary-school scholarships in Turkey.

The commander of the police Criminal Investigations Department, Adullahi Hassan Barise, identified the bomber as a 20-year-old Kenyan, Asad Abdi Saed. He said the truck initially approached the CID building, opposite the government compound, but was turned away by guards.

The transitional government, which is backed by troops from the African Union, recently announced an ambitious 12-month road map leading to presidential and parliamentary elections next year. But few analysts believe the government is capable of sticking to that timetable.

The chaos in Somalia, even that not directly linked to the Shabab, is taking a toll on the region. The famine has sent thousands of starving people fleeing to refugee camps in neighboring Kenya. Pirates operating off the Somali coast have hijacked ships and kidnapped sailors for ransom. Recently, after security was tightened in Indian Ocean shipping lanes, kidnappers based in Somalia have grabbed European hostages from Kenyan beach communities.

Among the hard-line Shabab leaders are Muktar Abdirahman Godane, who trained in Afghanistan and issued a video in 2009 pledging loyalty to Osama bin Laden. Godane and another leader of the hard-line wing of the group, Ibrahim Haji Jamamee'aad, are from northern Somalia and are on a U.S. list of suspected terrorists.

Menkhaus predicted that the attack would deepen divisions in the movement. However, he said it would not necessarily shake the grip of the hard-liners.

"There's going to be a backlash amongst Somalis that will be pretty fierce, I think," he said. "For the moment, the hard-liners have been able to keep the other Shabab leaders in tow. They're indifferent to the costs of their policies on the Somali community.