Now the "Wait" is over, London lifting curtain on 2012 Olympics

LONDON (AP) — Britain is greeting the world with an extravagant celebration that includes Bond, the Bard and a Beatle — and a formal welcome from no less a figure than its jubilee queen.

London's seven-year countdown to the 2012 Olympic Games came to a crescendo Friday night with what promised to be a stunning, imaginative, whimsical and dramatic celebration of the host country.

One of Britain's most successful contemporary movie directors, Oscar winner Danny Boyle, was presiding over a three-hour stadium spectacular highlighting the U.K.'s history and impact on the world.

The parade of nations was expected to feature most of the roughly 10,500 athletes — some planned to stay away to save their strength for competition — marching behind the flags of the 204 nations taking part.

Greece had the lead, as the spiritual home of the games, and Team Great Britain was last, as host. The tradition of athletes marching into the stadium by nation at the opening ceremony began at London's first Olympics, in 1908.

It fell to Queen Elizabeth II to formally declare the games open. Last month, the nation put on a festive Diamond Jubilee — a small test run for the games — to mark her 60 years on the throne, a reign that began shortly after London's last Olympics, in 1948.

The Olympic cauldron will be lit with a flame that was kindled May 10, at the birthplace of the anciest Olympics in Greece, from a reflection of the sun's rays off a mirror.

Since then, 8,000 torchbearers, mostly unheralded Britons, have carried the flame on a 70-day, 8,000-mile journey from toe to tip of the British Isles, whipping up enthusiasm for a $14 billion Olympics taking place during a severe recession.

The identity of the last torchbearer, the one to light the cauldron, was kept secret — remarkable given the intense scrutiny at what have been called the first social media Olympics.

Speculation focused on Roger Bannister, the first man to run a four-minute mile, in 1954, and on rower Steve Redgrave, among others.

Boyle's $42 million show, with 15,000 volunteers, promised to take the expected global television audience of 1 billion on a rich and textured journey through British history.

There were live animals to portray a romanticized vision of a green and pleasant land and darker, grittier segments dwelling on the industrial might upon which Britain built a global empire and shaped world history.

Boyle's challenge was daunting: To be as memorable as Beijing's incredible, money-no-object opening ceremony of 2008.

He drew from Shakespeare, British pop culture, literature and music, and other sources of inspiration that will speak to — but perhaps at times baffle — not just Anglophiles but people across the globe.

One segment featured the actor Daniel Craig as James Bond, and former Beatle Paul McCartney was to lead a sing-along.

For Jacques Rogge, it was his last time as president of the International Olympic Committee to watch the Olympic flag being raised at an opening ceremony. He will step down in 2013 after completing the maximum two terms.

Besides the thousands of athletes and performers, 60,000 spectators were expected to pack Olympic Stadium. Political leaders from around the world, U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters, and a sprinkling of European and celebrity royalty were also attending.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Downing Street website also taken down by Anonymous

The Anonymous collective has vowed to target British Government sites every week, bringing them offline by overloading them with traffic.

So-called “hacktivists” were able to launch their cyber attack on Saturday night despite announcing it days in advance, raising questions about the effectiveness of Whitehall internet security.

The British branch of Anonymous – a loose global collective of computer hackers who often target law-enforcement websites – first advertised “#OpTrialAtHome” last Monday.

The Anonymous hacking network uses as a logo the mask from the comic V For Vendetta

A poster featured the photos of three British citizens who have been sent to the US to face trial – Gary McKinnon, Richard O’Dwyer and Christopher Tappin – together with the slogan “Fight extradition”.

It included the address of the Home Office website and the direction to “charge ya lazers” on Saturday at 9pm GMT.

Supporters would understand this to be an order to join in a “distributed denial-of-service attack” on the website, in which thousands of computers are used to send a flood of requests to visit the victim’s homepage, causing its servers to buckle under the demand.

At the appointed hour, Anonymous Twitter feeds ordered followers to “fire your Laz0rs”, and soon reported “Tango Down” as the target was hit.

Screenshots showed that the Home Office website was inaccessible from 9pm and service was reportedly patchy until Sunday morning.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Home Office website was the subject of on online protest last night.

“This is a public-facing website and no sensitive information is held on it. There is no indication that the site was hacked and other Home Office systems were not affected.

“Measures put in place to protect the website meant that members of the public were unable to access the site intermittently.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and take measures accordingly.”

The activists also brought down the Downing Street website at about 10.30pm, but a spokesman for the Prime Minister said it only lasted for a “couple of minutes” and there was no suggestion of it being hacked into. The Ministry of Justice denied the hackers’ claims that its website had also been taken offline.

Anonymous explained on Twitter: “It’s a digital protest which is different [from] hacking. UK want their government to listen. We can do it as long as it takes.

“Selling your citizens to foreigners is not acceptable! We are Anonymous, we do not forget, we do not forgive.”

Another message from the group said: “EXPECT a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) every Saturday on the UK Government sites.”

Source: Telegraph

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Titanic items to be sold 100 years after sinking

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Items as small as a hairpin and as big as a chunk of the Titanic's hull are among 5,000 artifacts from the world's most famous shipwreck that are to be auctioned in April, close to the 100th anniversary of the disaster.

Nearly a century after the April 15, 1912, sinking of the ocean liner that hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, a New York City auction is being readied by Guernsey's Auctioneers & Brokers.

This 1998 image provided by RMS Titanic, Inc., shows a 17-ton portion of the hull of the RMS Titanic as it is lifted to the surface during an expedition to the site of the tradegy. The piece along with 5,000 other artifacts will be auctioned as a single collection on April 11, 2012 100 years after the sinking of the ship. (AP Photo/RMS Titanic, Inc.)

That auction house has garnered headlines in the past by selling off such historical curiosities as prized Beatles photos, famous jewels of the late Princess Diana, beloved Jerry Garcia guitars and a police motorcycle used in the Texas motorcade when John F. Kennedy was slain. But nothing as titanic as the so-called Titanic collection.

On April 11, all of the salvaged items are to be sold as one lot in what Guernsey's President Arlan Ettinger describes as the most significant auction ever handled by that house.

"Who on this planet doesn't know the story of the Titanic and isn't fascinated by it?" he asked. "Could Hollywood have scripted a more tragic or goose-bump-raising story than what actually happened on that ship?"

"It is as poignant to my 12-year-old son as it is to me and generations before me. There's no end to the fascination about it."

The auction will be conducted 100 years plus a day after the Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, embarking on the ill-fated maiden voyage that had New York as its destination.

The collection was appraised in 2007 at $189 million, including some intellectual property alongside the myriad items plucked by remote controlled probes from the pitch-black depths, some 2 and ½ miles below the ocean's surface.

Those artifacts include the massive hull section called "The Big Piece" as well as personal belongings of passengers and crew, such as a mesh purse and eyeglasses. A bronze cherub that once adorned the Grand Staircase is also among the collection, as are fine china, table settings, bottles and ship fittings — even the stand upon which the ship's wheel stood.

By court order, the items cannot be sold individually and must go to a buyer who agrees to properly maintain the collection and make it available for occasional public viewing. The sale is subject to court approval.

Ettinger and officials with RMS Titanic Inc., which salvaged the artifacts from the Titanic wreck, spoke to The Associated Press in advance of a media preview Thursday in New York. The AP first reported on the auction Dec. 29, based on financial filings by RMS Titanic.

The planned sale also could include a trove of archaeological data and visuals of the wreck, as well as the only detailed map of the vast ocean floor where all the artifacts were scattered after the Titanic's sinking.

The Titanic's sinking claimed the lives of more than 1,500 of the 2,228 passengers and crew. An international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard located the wreckage in 1985, about 400 miles off Newfoundland, Canada.

The research materials could be a road map to future salvage expeditions because of the new information they provide on the wreck site.

"We are opening the door of opportunity for the future of the Titanic," said Brian Wainger, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions Inc., of which RMS Titanic is a division.

But the clock is ticking on thousands of additional artifacts embedded in a 3-by-5-mile section of ocean floor around the wreck, an area subject to a century of extreme ocean conditions such as cold temperatures and treacherous currents.

"I think it's fair to say that we have only touched the surface," Wainger said.

The deteriorating hulk of the Titanic is off limits to salvage.

The auction is subject to approval by a federal judge in Virginia whose jurisdiction for years has given oversight to legal issues governing the salvage of the Titanic. The Titanic treasures were amassed during seven risky and expensive trips to the wreck.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, who has overseen the case from her Norfolk courtroom, has called the Titanic an "international treasure." She has approved covenants and conditions that the company previously worked out with the federal government, including a prohibition against selling the collection piecemeal.

The court conditions also require subsequent owners to make the artifacts available "to present and future generations for public display and exhibition, historical review, scientific and scholarly research, and educational purposes."

Wainger and Ettinger declined to speculate on who might bid on the collection.

"You hate to be in the position of being a fortune teller or clairvoyant," Ettinger said. "I, for one, would be very surprised if there wasn't international interest."

Wainger said, "Any individual can fall in love with any of the different artifacts because so many of them are personal. When you read the personal stories you recognize the tragedy."

Premier Exhibitions has been displaying the Titanic artifacts in exhibitions worldwide. The items were recovered from the shipwreck in expeditions in 1987, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2004.

RMS Titanic, which has overseen the artifacts for 18 years, said the public company decided to auction the collection in response to shareholders' wishes that the "company go out and make money."

"It's better to be in the hands of a private institution that doesn't have the same short-term profit obligations that a public company has," he said.

In 2010, RMS Titanic collaborated with some of the world's leading experts in the most technologically advanced expedition to the Titanic, undertaking the first comprehensive mapping survey of the vessel with 3-D imagery from bow to stern.

The most striking images involved the 3-D tour of the Titanic's stern, which lies 2,000 feet from the bow.

A camera in a remote-controlled submersible vehicle skimmed over the stern, seemingly transporting viewers through scenes of jagged rusticles sprouting from the deck, a length of chain, the captain's bathtub, and wooden elements that scientists had previously believed had disappeared in the harsh, deep ocean environment.

The expedition fully mapped the wreck site, documenting the entire debris field for the first time.

"Titanic" director James Cameron also has led teams to the wreck to record the bow and the stern.

The Titanic exhibit is among several operated by Premier Exhibitions, which bills itself as "a major provider of museum-quality touring exhibitions." Its offerings have included sports memorabilia, a traveling Star Trek homage and "Bodies," an anatomy exhibit featuring preserved human cadavers.

Source: The Associated Press

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Protesters storm London building

The BBC's Jon Sopel says protesters entered Panton House - report includes protester footage from inside the building

Anti-capitalist protesters have attempted to occupy a building near Piccadilly Circus in central London.

Protesters got on to the roof of the Panton Street building

About 60 protesters, thought to be part of Occupy London Stock Exchange (OLSX), tried to get into Panton House on Panton Street, off Haymarket.

Riot police entered and cleared the building and 21 arrests have been made.

An OLSX spokesman said protesters were targeting Mick Davis, chief executive of mining company Xstrata, which has offices in the building.

He said they were targeting Mr Davis because he was one of the highest paid chief executives from FTSE 100 companies in the past year.

Occupy London supporter Karen Lincoln said: "Mick Davis is a prime example of the greedy 1% lining their own pockets while denying workers pensions."

An Xstrata spokeswoman said: "All executive pay is approved by the company's shareholders and is linked to company and individual performance.

"Last year Xstrata delivered its second best financial performance since inception, with an 86% increase in profits, record cost savings, improved safety performance and total shareholder returns substantially greater than the FTSE 100 average."

Police said the incident was isolated and not related to the march and rally in support of public sector workers "which passed off peacefully".

A total of 21 people were arrested for a variety of offences including burglary, aggravated trespass, criminal damage and assault on a police officer.

'Shame on you'

The protesters gathered at Piccadilly Circus just before 15:30 GMT.

Most were held at bay by police but a few got inside and went on to the roof, where officers moved in to clear them.

Police vans were seen pulling up at the scene in Haymarket while protesters were contained in the area outside Panton House.

Police sealed off the area around Panton Street and marched through the 200 to 300 protesters, to shouts of "shame on you".

Police told the protesters by megaphone announcement from a van: "You are being contained because we fear an imminent breach of the peace will occur.

"You will be released as soon as possible."

Police said they were in the process of making a number of arrests for aggravated trespass.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "At approximately 15:50 GMT a containment was put in place outside Panton House, Haymarket, to prevent disorder by a group of protesters outside the building.

"Some protesters have entered the building and officers are in the process of making arrests for aggravated trespass."

Since the Occupy movement protests began in New York, in September, a protest camp has been set up by the group in the City of London.

The City of London Corporation is currently taking legal action to move the protesters from outside St Paul's Cathedral.

Members of the group have also taken over an empty office block in Hackney, east London, belonging to Swiss Bank USB.

The group say they are protesting against capitalist greed.

Source: BBC

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Kohli secure emphatic India victory

A series of double-strikes at vital junctures in England's innings helped India limit the visitors to a below-par total in good batting conditions at the Feroz Shah Kotla and secure a 2-0 lead in the five-ODI series. The first occurred at the beginning of the innings, the second at the halfway stage and the third at the start of the slog. They forced England to revert to a watchful approach, when they had been well placed to surge, leaving India's batsmen with a modest chase on a fast outfield with small boundaries.

Virat Kohli made England's 237 look like very little at the
Feroz Shah Kotla © AFP

Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir made short work of it. After surviving a fiery new-ball spell from Steven Finn and helping India build after the early loss of the openers, both batsmen settled down to score with a fluency that had been visible only in patches in England's innings. Their 209-run partnership, during which Kohli raced to a century and Gambhir made a half-century, helped achieve the target of 238 with eight wickets in hand and 13.2 overs to spare.

The ease with which India chased on a dewy evening put their bowlers' effort, and that of Vinay Kumar who took a career-best 4 for 30, in perspective. India inflicted the first double-strike within the first two overs. Alastair Cook hoped to make best use of a pitch he felt would get slower as the match progressed but his duck was a setback to those plans. The fourth ball off the match, from Praveen Kumar, was short and wide and Cook cut it straight to Ravindra Jadeja at point. While Praveen was fortunate to strike with an ordinary delivery, Vinay Kumar produced a sharper ball in the second over to dismiss Craig Kieswetter - it bounced and seamed away from the right-hand batsman and took the outside edge of the tentative prod to a wide first slip.

The second brace of wickets occurred in the 25th and 26th overs. Bopara didn't pick a straighter one from R Ashwin and was lbw and Kevin Pietersen, who had found his fluency after a slow start, drove at and edged a wide ball from Umesh Yadav to give MS Dhoni a low catch.

Despite being reduced to 0 for 2 and 121 for 5, though, England hit boundaries regularly and had partnerships that helped them recover. What they didn't do well was take singles and twos - there were 172 dot balls in the innings. India would have only 108 dot balls in theirs. The first partnership, between Bopara and Pietersen, was worth 73, and the second, between Jonny Bairstow and Samit Patel, 86. All of those batsmen, in addition to Jonathan Trott, began to create problems for India but no one stayed long enough to cause significant damage.

Bairstow and Patel had led England to 207 in the 42nd over, when they also fell in successive overs - the third and decisive double-strike. Patel got a skiddy delivery from Yadav that kept low and struck him plumb in front, while Bairstow was caught on the long-off boundary. He had hit Jadeja hard and far but Kohli took the catch at head height just inside play. England had slumped to 211 for 7 and this time there was no recovery. The tail, which had caused India so many problems in England, did not contribute.

After 8.2 overs of the chase India were 35 for 2. England had been exactly the same in their innings. Tim Bresnan had dismissed Parthiv Patel and Ajinkya Rahane, but he wasn't England's most dangerous bowler. Finn was.

Finn clocked speeds of 150 kph and above consistently in his first spell. He beat Kohli with sheer pace after inducing an edge that went past slip for four. In the 10th over, Gambhir edged Finn past his stumps to the fine-leg boundary while attempting a cover drive. With three slips in place there was a huge gap between cover point and mid-off and Gambhir was aiming for it. He tried to steer once again, and Finn watched the outside edge fly wide of third slip once more. There was a third boundary in the over - Gambhir clipped a half-volley off his pads through square leg. Finn's frustration began to show and India began to pull away fast.

The other England bowlers caused no problems. Kohli pulled Jade Dernbach with a trace of arrogant dismissiveness, he drove Ravi Bopara with grace through cover, and Gambhir cut Graeme Swann behind point to bring up the 50-partnership off 42 balls.

Kohli reached his half-century off 45 balls, Gambhir got to his off 62. Both batsmen were level on 58 after 25 overs but thereafter Kohli began to race ahead with frequent boundaries and a constant turning over of the strike. He got to his century off only 89 balls with a deft glance off the pads against Jade Dernbach. He celebrated his seventh ODI hundred with a fist-pump. A few overs later, Kohli was fist-pumping again, after smashing Dernbach through midwicket to finish the game.

Source: ESPN EMEA Ltd.

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JEMIMA KHAN: DEFEND WIKILEAKS AND JULIAN ASSANGE

VIDEO COPYRIGHT Silvana de Faria 

This is a unseen video. This is one footage you will never see on major news networks

There is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it. 

- Julian Assange 

Wikileaks deserves protection, not threats and attacks 

Public Rally: Defend Wikileaks 

Monday 7 February • 7.00pm 

Conway Hall • 25 Red Lion Square 

London WC1R 4RL

Source: Internet

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British police face public anger as riots rage

LONDON (AP) — Britons swept up, patched up and feared further violence Tuesday, demanding police do more to protect them after three nights of rioting left looted stores, torched cars and blackened buildings across London and several other U.K. cities.

Police said they were working full-tilt, but found themselves under attack — from rioters roaming the streets, from a scared and worried public, and from politicians whose cost-cutting is squeezing police numbers ahead of next year's Olympic Games.

London's Metropolitan Police force vowed an unprecedented operation to stop more rioting, flooding the streets Tuesday with 16,000 officers, nearly three times Monday's total.

Although the riots started Saturday with a protest over a police shooting, they have morphed into a general lawlessness that police have struggled to halt with ordinary tactics. Police in Britain generally avoid tear gas, water cannons or other strong-arm riot measures. Many shops targeted by looters had goods that youths would want anyway — sneakers, bikes, electronics, leather goods — while other buildings were torched apparently just for the fun of seeing something burn.

Police said plastic bullets were "one of the tactics" being considered to stop the looting. The bullets were common in Northern Ireland during its years of unrest but have never before been used in mainland Britain.

But police acknowledged they could not guarantee there would be no more violence. Stores, offices and nursery schools in several parts of London closed early amid fears of fresh rioting Tuesday night, though pubs and restaurants were open. Police in one London district, Islington, advised people not to be out on the streets "unless absolutely necessary."

"We have lots of information to suggest that there may be similar disturbances tonight," Commander Simon Foy told the BBC. "That's exactly the reason why the Met (police force) has chosen to now actually really 'up the game' and put a significant number of officers on the streets."

The riots and looting caused heartache for Londoners whose businesses and homes were torched or looted, and a crisis for police and politicians already staggering from a spluttering economy and a scandal over illegal phone hacking by a tabloid newspaper that has dragged in senior politicians and police.

"The public wanted to see tough action. They wanted to see it sooner and there is a degree of frustration," said Andrew Silke, head of criminology at the University of East London.

London's beleaguered police force called the violence the worst in memory, noting they received more than 20,000 emergency calls on Monday — four times the normal number. Scotland Yard has called in reinforcements from around the country and asked all volunteer special constables to report for duty.

Police launched a murder inquiry after a man found with a gunshot wound during riots in the south London suburb of Croydon died of his injuries Tuesday. Police said 44 officers and 14 members of the public were hurt, including a man in his 60s with life-threatening injuries.

So far more than 560 people have been arrested in London and more than 100 charged, and the capital's prison cells were overflowing. Several dozen more were arrested in other cities.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it had teams of lawyers working 24 hours a day to help police decide whether to charge suspects.

Prime Minister David Cameron — who cut short a holiday in Italy to deal with the crisis — recalled Parliament from its summer recess for an emergency debate on the riots and looting that have spread from the deprived London neighborhood of Tottenham to districts across the capital, and the cities of Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol.

Cameron described the scenes of burning buildings and smashed windows as "sickening," but refrained from tougher measures such as calling in the military to help police restore order.

"People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding," Cameron told reporters after a crisis meeting at his Downing Street office.

Parliament will return to duty on Thursday, as the political fallout from the rampage takes hold. The crisis is a major test for Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government.

A soccer match scheduled for Wednesday between England and the Netherlands at London's Wembley stadium was canceled to free up police officers for riot duty.

A wave of violence and looting raged across London on Monday night, as authorities struggled to contain the country's worst unrest since race riots set the capital ablaze in the 1980s. Groups of young people rampaged for a third straight night, setting buildings, vehicles and garbage dumps alight, looting stores and pelting police officers with bottles and fireworks.

Rioters, able to move quickly and regroup to avoid the police, were left virtually unchallenged in several neighborhoods, plundering stores at will.

Silke said until police were seen arresting large numbers of rioters, it will be hard to control the rioting.

"People are seeing images of lines of police literally running away from rioters," he said. "For young people that is incredibly empowering. They are breaking the rules, they are getting away with it, no one is able to stop them."

Politicians visited riot sites Tuesday — but for many residents it was too little, too late.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was booed by crowds who shouted "Go home!" during a walkabout in Birmingham, while London mayor Boris Johnson — who flew back overnight from his summer vacation — was heckled on a shattered shopping street in Clapham, south London.

Johnson said the riots would not stop London "welcoming the world to our city" for the Olympics.

"We have time in the next 12 months to rebuild, to repair the damage that has been done," he said. "I'm not saying it will be done overnight, but this is what we are going to do."

Violence first broke out late Saturday in the low-income, multiethnic district of Tottenham in north London, after a protest against the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four who was gunned down in disputed circumstances Thursday.

Police said Duggan was shot dead when officers from Operation Trident — the unit that investigates gun crime in the black community — stopped a cab he was riding in.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting, said a "non-police firearm" was recovered at the scene, but that there was no evidence it had been fired — a revelation that could fuel the anger of the local community.

An inquest into Duggan's death was opened Tuesday, though it will likely be several months before a full hearing.

Duggan's death stirred memories of the bad old days of the 1980s, when many black Londoners felt they were disproportionately stopped and searched by police. The frustration erupted in violent riots in 1985.

Relations have improved since then but tensions remain, and many young people of all races mistrust the police.

Others pointed to rising social tensions in Britain as the government slashes 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) from public spending by 2015 to reduce the huge deficit, swollen after the country spent billions bailing out its foundering banks.

Many rioters appeared to relish the opportunity for violence. "Come join the fun!" shouted one youth as looters hit the east London suburb of Hackney.

In Hackney, one of the boroughs hosting next year's Olympics, hundreds of youths left a trail of burning trash and shattered glass. Looters ransacked a convenience store, filling plastic shopping bags with alcohol, cigarettes, candy and toilet paper.

Disorder flared throughout the night, from gritty suburbs along the capital's fringes to west London's posh Notting Hill neighborhood.

In Croydon, fire gutted a 140-year-old family run department store, House of Reeves, and forced nearby homes to be evacuated.

"I'm the fifth generation to run this place," said owner Graham Reeves, 52. "I have two daughters. They would have been he sixth.

"No one's stolen anything," he said. "They just burnt it down."

In the Clapham Junction area of south London, a mob stole masks from a party store to disguise their identities and then set the building on fire. In nearby Peckham, a building and a bus were set ablaze. Cars were torched in nearby Lewisham, and in west London's Ealing suburb the windows of each store along entire streets had been smashed.

A blaze gutted a Sony Corp. distribution center in north London, damaging DVDs and other products, and about 100 young people clashed with police in north London around Camden.

"We locked all the doors, and my wife even packed a bag to flee," said 27-year-old Camden resident Simon Dance. "We had Twitter rolling until midnight just to keep up with the news. We were too afraid to even look out the window."

Outside London, dozens of people attacked shops in Birmingham's main retail district, and clashed with police in Liverpool and Bristol.

On Tuesday, as Londoners emerged with brooms to help sweep the streets of broken glass, many called for police to use water cannons, tear gas or rubber bullets to disperse rioters, or bring out the military for support. Although security forces in Northern Ireland regularly use all those methods, they have not been seen on the mainland in decades.

Conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer said that policy should be reconsidered.

"They should have the tools available and they should use them if the commander on the ground thinks it's necessary," he said.

But the government rejected the calls, for now.

"The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon," Home Secretary Theresa May told Sky News. "The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities."

The riots could not have come at a worse time for police, a year before the Olympic Games, which Scotland Yard says will be the biggest challenge in its 182-year history.

The government has slashed police budgets as part of its spending cuts. A report last month by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary said the cuts — a third of which have already taken place — will mean 16,000 fewer police officers by 2015.

Opposition Labour lawmaker David Winnick said the government should scrap its plan to cut police numbers.

"I think it's absolute madness in view of what's happened over the last few nights," he said.

The force also is without a full-time leader after chief Paul Stephenson quit last month amid a scandal over the ties between senior officers and Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers, which are being investigated for hacking phone voicemails and bribing police for information. The force's top counterterrorism officer, John Yates, also quit over the hacking scandal.

Police representatives say officers are demoralized, and feel a sense of betrayal by politicians and their leaders.

Constable Paul Deller, a 25-year veteran working in a police control center during Monday's violence, said the rioting was "horrific."

He acknowledged there were not enough officers on the streets to stop it, but said "we gave it everything we could."

Source:
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Previous Post: UK PM recalls Parliament for London riot crisis

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UK PM recalls Parliament for London riot crisis

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament from its summer recess Tuesday and nearly tripled the number of police on the streets after three days of rioting in London blossomed into a full-blown political crisis.

Cameron described the scenes of burning buildings and smashed windows in London and several other British cities as "sickening," but refrained from more extreme measures such as calling in the military to help beleaguered police restore order.

Instead, he said 16,000 officers would be on the streets of the capital Tuesday night, almost tripling the number that were out Monday night.

A property is on fire near Reeves Corner in Croydon, south London Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011. 
A wave of violence and looting raged across London and spread to three other major British cities on Tuesday, 
as authorities struggled to contain the country's worst unrest since race riots set the capital ablaze in the 1980s. 
(AP Photo/PA, Lewis Whyld) UNITED KINGDOM OUT, NO SALES, NO ARCHIVE

"People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding," Cameron told reporters after rushing home from an Italian vacation to chair a crisis meeting at his Downing Street office.

A wave of violence and looting has raged across London since Saturday, as authorities struggled to contain the country's worst unrest since race riots set the capital ablaze in the 1980s.

Some 525 arrests have been made in London alone and dozens were arrested in other cities. Police announced Tuesday that plastic bullets would be "one of the tactics" available to officers to quell the riots.

The riots also claimed their first death — a 26-year-old found shot dead in a car.

Parliament will return to duty on Thursday, as the political fallout from the rampage takes hold. The crisis is a major test for Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government, which includes Liberal Democrats who had long suspected its program of harsh budget restraints could provoke popular dissent.

In London, groups of young people rampaged for a third straight night, setting buildings, vehicles and garbage dumps alight, looting stores and pelting police officers with bottles and fireworks into the wee hours of Tuesday. The spreading disorder was an unwelcome warning of the possibility of violence during London's 2012 Summer Olympics, less than a year away.

England's soccer match Wednesday against the Netherlands in London's Wembley stadium was canceled to free up police officers for riot duty.

Cameron said leaves have been canceled for police in London, and reinforcements have been called in from all over the country. Armored vehicles were deployed in some of the worst-hit districts, but authorities still struggled to keep pace with the chaos unfolding at flashpoints across London, in the central city of Birmingham, the western city of Bristol and the northwestern city of Liverpool.

"The violence we have seen is simply inexcusable. Ordinary people have had their lives turned upside down by this mindless thuggery," police commander Christine Jones said.

London's police said 14 people were injured. It was unclear if the man who died had been among them.

The rioters appeared to have little unifying cause — though some claimed to oppose sharp government spending cuts, which will slash welfare payments and cut tens of thousands of public sector jobs through 2015.

But many were attracted simply by the opportunity for violence. "Come join the fun!" shouted one youth in the east London suburb of Hackney, where shops were attacked and cars torched.

Rioters were left virtually unchallenged in several neighborhoods and able to plunder from stores at will or attempt to invade homes. Restaurants and stores closed early across London again Tuesday, fearing more looting.

Graham Reeves, 52, stood dumbstruck in front of the smoldering ruins of his family store, the House of Reeves on Croydon in south London. The store is a local landmark run by his family for decades — he said his 80-year old father was hysterical when he heard the news.

"No one's stolen anything," Graham Reeves said. "They just burnt it down."

Disorder flared throughout the night, from gritty suburbs along the capital's fringes to central London's posh Notting Hill neighborhood.

Police said all London police holding cells were full and prisoners were being taken to surrounding communities. At least 100 have been charged, including an 11-year old. Police were also monitoring Twitter, and warned that those who posted messages inciting the violence could face arrest.

Three people were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a police officer was struck by a car in north London early Tuesday. About 44 police officers have been injured in the violence.

The images of London's violence recalled the 2005 riots in France, when hooded and masked youths fought police in three weeks of raging overnight battles in housing projects, confrontations that became a challenge to the French state itself.

Mass deployments of police eventually subdued the rioters, but tensions between French police and youth in the projects continue today, with periodic clashes between youths with Molotov cocktails and police with tear gas. French police say between 30 and 50 cars are set on fire during an average week. On the most fiery night of the 2005 riots, more than 1,400 cars went up in flames.

Violence in London first broke out late Saturday in the low-income, multiethnic northern district of Tottenham, where protesters demonstrated against the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four who was gunned down in disputed circumstances Thursday.

A brief inquest hearing into Duggan's death was being held Tuesday, though it will likely be several months before a full hearing.

Duggan's death stirred old animosities and racial tensions similar to those that prompted massive U.K. race riots in the 1980s, despite efforts by London police to build better relations with the city's ethnic communities.

But, as the latest unrest spread, some pointed to rising social tensions in Britain as the government slashes 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) from public spending by 2015 to reduce the huge deficit, swollen after the country spent billions bailing out its foundering banks.

Sony Corp. said a major blaze had broken out at its distribution center near Enfield, north London, damaging DVDs and other products. So many fires were being fought in the capital that Thames Water warned that some customers could face water pressure drops. In the Clapham Junction area of south London, a mob stole masks from a party store to disguise their identities and then set the building on fire.

Dozens of people attacked shops in Birmingham's main retail district, and clashed with police in Liverpool and Bristol.

"This is the uprising of the working class. We're redistributing the wealth," said Bryn Phillips, a 28-year-old self-described anarchist, as young people emerged from a store with chocolate bars and ice cream cones.

Some residents called for police to deploy water cannons to disperse rioters, or call on the military for support. They questioned the strength of leadership within London's police department — particularly after a wave of resignations prompted by the country's phone-hacking scandal.

Youths used text messages, instant messaging on BlackBerry phones and social media platforms such as Twitter to coordinate attacks and stay ahead of the police.

About 100 young people clashed with police in the Camden and Chalk Farm areas of north London on Monday night. In the Peckham district of south London, where a building was set ablaze along with a bus — which was not carrying passengers — onlookers said the scene resembled a conflict zone. Cars were torched in nearby Lewisham, and in west London's Ealing suburb the windows of each store along entire streets had been smashed.

"There's been tension for a long time. The kids aren't happy. They hate the police," said Matthew Yeoland, a 43-year-old teacher watching the unrest in Peckham. "It's like a war zone and the police weren't doing anything."

Police said Duggan was shot dead last week when police from Operation Trident — the unit that investigates gun crime in the black community — stopped a cab he was riding in.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting, said a "non-police firearm" was recovered at the scene. But the Guardian newspaper reported that a bullet in the officer's radio was police-issue, indicating Duggan may not have fired at the officer.

Duggan's partner, Semone Wilson, insisted that her fiance was not connected to gang violence and urged police to offer more information about his death. But she rejected suggestions that the riots were linked to protests over his death.

"It got out of hand. It's not connected to this anymore. This is out of control," she said.

The past year has seen mass protests against the tripling of student tuition fees and cuts to public sector pensions. In November, December and March, small groups broke away from large marches in London to loot. In the most notorious episode, rioters attacked a Rolls-Royce carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla to a charity concert.

However, the full impact of spending cuts has yet to be felt and the unemployment rate is stable — although it remains highest among youth, especially in areas like Tottenham, Hackney and Croydon.

Some residents insisted joblessness was not to blame. "It's just an excuse for the young ones to come and rob shops," said Brixton resident Marilyn Moseley, 49.

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Singer Amy Winehouse dies at age 27

LONDON (AP) — Amy Winehouse, the beehived soul-jazz diva whose self-destructive habits overshadowed a distinctive musical talent, was found dead Saturday in her London home, police said. She was 27.

Winehouse shot to fame in 2006 with the album "Back to Black," whose blend of jazz, soul, rock and classic pop was a global hit. It won five Grammys and made Winehouse — with her black beehive hairdo and old-fashioned sailor tattoos — one of music's most recognizable stars. But her personal life, with its drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders and destructive relationships, soon took over her career.

FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2007 file photo, British singer Amy Winehouse poses for photographs after being interviewed by The Associated Press at a studio in north London, Friday, Feb. 16, 2007. British police say singer Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her home in London on Saturday, July 23, 2011. The singer was 27 years old. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

Police confirmed that a 27-year-old female was pronounced dead at the home in Camden Square northern London; the cause of death was not immediately known. London Ambulance Services said Winehouse had died before the two ambulance crews it sent arrived at the scene.

Singer and actress Kelly Osbourne, who helped Winehouse check into a drug addiction treatment facility in 2008, was one of many who grieved for the singer on Twitter.

"I cant even breath right now im crying so hard i just lost 1 of my best friends. i love you forever Amy and will never forget the real you!" she tweeted.

The singer's father, Mitch Winehouse, had arrived in New York this weekend to prepare for his U.S. performing debut Monday night at the Blue Note jazz club, but upon receiving news of his daughter's death was heading back home to London to be with his family, his publicist Don Lucoff said.

An ambulance could be seen parked beneath the trees outside her London home, and the whole street was cordoned off by police tape. Officers kept onlookers away from the scene.

Last month, Winehouse canceled her European comeback tour after she swayed and slurred her way through barely recognizable songs in her first show in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Booed and jeered off stage, she flew home and her management said she would take time off to recover.

Winehouse was last publicly seen on at a London concert on Wednesday when she joined her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage. In that impromptu appearance, Winehouse danced with Bromfield and encouraged the audience to buy her album, before leaving the stage.

"I didn't go out looking to be famous," Winehouse told the Associated Press when "Back to Black" was released. "I'm just a musician."

But in the end, the music was overshadowed by fame, and by Winehouse's demons. Tabloids lapped up the erratic stage appearances, drunken fights, stints in hospital and rehab clinics. Performances became shambling, stumbling train wrecks, watched around the world on the Internet.

Born in 1983 to Mitch Winehouse, taxi driver, and his pharmacist wife Janis, Winehouse grew up in the north London suburbs, and was set on a showbiz career from an early age. When she was 10, she and a friend formed a rap group, Sweet 'n' Sour — Winehouse was Sour — that she later described as "the little white Jewish Salt 'n' Pepa."

She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, a factory for British music and acting moppets, later went to the Brit School, a performing arts academy in the "Fame" mold, and was originally signed to "Pop Idol" svengali Simon Fuller's 19 Management.

But Winehouse was never a packaged teen star, and always resisted being pigeonholed.

Her jazz-influenced 2003 debut album, "Frank," was critically praised and sold well in Britain. It earned Winehouse an Ivor Novello songwriting award, two Brit nominations and a spot on the shortlist for the Mercury Music Prize.

But Winehouse soon expressed dissatisfaction with the disc, saying she was "only 80 percent behind" the album.

"Frank" was followed by a slump during which Winehouse broke up with her boyfriend, suffered a long period of writer's block and, she later said, smoked a lot of marijuana.

"I had writer's block for so long," she said in 2007. "And as a writer, your self-worth is literally based on the last thing you wrote. .. I used to think, 'What happened to me?'

"At one point it had been two years since the last record and (the record company) actually said to me, 'Do you even want to make another record?' I was like, 'I swear it's coming.' I said to them, 'Once I start writing I will write and write and write. But I just have to start it.'"

The album she eventually produced was a sensation.

Released in Britain in the fall of 2006, "Back to Black" brought Winehouse global fame. Working with producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi and soul-funk group the Dap-Kings, Winehouse fused soul, jazz, doo-wop and, above all, a love of the girl-groups of the early 1960s with lyrical tales of romantic obsession and emotional excess.

"Back to Black" was released in the United States in March 2007 and went on to win five Grammy awards, including song and record of the year for "Rehab."

Music critic John Aizlewood attributed her trans-Atlantic success to a fantastic voice and a genuinely original sound.

"A lot of British bands fail in America because they give America something Americans do better — that's why most British hip-hop has failed," he said. "But they won't have come across anything quite like Amy Winehouse."

Winehouse's rise was helped by her distinctive look — black beehive of hair, thickly lined cat eyes, girly tattoos — and her tart tongue.

She was famously blunt in her assessment of her peers, once describing Dido's sound as "background music — the background to death" and saying of pop princess Kylie Minogue, "she's not an artist ... she's a pony."

The songs on "Black to Black" detailed breakups and breakdowns with a similar frankness. Lyrically, as in life, Winehouse wore her heart on her sleeve.

"I listen to a lot of '60s music, but society is different now," Winehouse said in 2007. "I'm a young woman and I'm going to write about what I know."

Even then, Winehouse's performances were sometimes shambolic, and she admitted she is "a terrible drunk." She acknowledged struggling with eating disorders and told a newspaper that she had been diagnosed as manic depressive but refused to take medication. Soon accounts of her erratic behavior, canceled concerts and drink- and drug-fueled nights began to multiply.

Photographs caught her unsteady on her feet or vacant-eyed, and she appeared unhealthily thin, with scabs on her face and marks on her arms.

There were embarrassing videos released to the world on the Internet. One showed an addled Winehouse and Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty playing with newborn mice. Another, for which Winehouse apologized, showed her singing a racist ditty to the tune of a children's song.

Winehouse's managers went to increasingly desperate lengths to keep the wayward star on the straight and narrow. Before the June concert in Belgrade, her hotel was stripped of booze. It did no good, and the concert was painful to watch.

Though she was often reported to be working on new material, fans got tired of waiting for the much-promised followup to "Back to Black."

Occasional bits of recording saw the light of day. Her rendition of The Zutons' "Valerie" was a highlight of producer Mark Ronson's 2007 album "Version," and she recorded the pop classic "It's My Party" for the 2010 Quincy Jones album "Q: Soul Bossa Nostra."

But other recording projects with Ronson, one of the architects of the success of "Back to Black," came to nothing.

She also had run-ins with the law. In April 2008, Winehouse was cautioned by police for assault after she slapped a man during a raucous night out.

The same year she was investigated by police, although not charged, after a tabloid newspaper published a video that appeared to show her smoking crack cocaine.

In 2010, Winehouse pleaded guilty to assaulting a theater manager who asked her to leave a family Christmas show because she'd had too much to drink. She was given a fine and a warning to stay out of trouble by a judge who praised her for trying to clean up her act.

In May 2007 in Miami, she married music industry hanger-on Blake Fielder-Civil, but the honeymoon was brief. That November, Fielder-Civil was arrested for an attack on a pub manager the year before. Fielder-Civil later pleaded guilty to assaulting barman James King and then offering him 200,000 pounds (US$400,000) to keep quiet about it.

Winehouse stood by "my Blake" throughout his trial, often blowing kisses at him from the court's public gallery and wearing a heart-shaped pin labeled "Blake" in her hair at concerts. But British newspapers reported extramarital affairs while Fielder-Civil was behind bars.

They divorced in 2009.

Winehouse's health often appeared fragile. In June 2008 and again in April 2010, she was taken to hospital and treated for injuries after fainting and falling at home.

Her father said she had developed the lung disease emphysema from smoking cigarettes and crack, although her spokeswoman later said Winehouse only had "early signs of what could lead to emphysema."

She left the hospital to perform at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in Hyde Park in June 2008, and at the Glastonbury festival the next day, where she received a rousing reception but scuffled with a member of the crowd. Then it was back to a London clinic for treatment, continuing the cycle of music, excess and recuperation that marked her career.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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