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Mostrando postagens com marcador The Guardian. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador The Guardian. Mostrar todas as postagens

quarta-feira, 16 de janeiro de 2013

Queda de helicóptero em Londres faz dois mortos...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/16/helicopter-crash-in-vauxhall-live-updates

Vauxhall helicopter crash leaves two dead: live updates from London

LIVE• Helicopter hits crane on St George Wharf tower in fog
• Aircraft plunges to ground and bursts into flames
• Several cars in the area catch fire
• Two people taken to south London hospital

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Kate Hoey, MP for Vauxhall, has been speaking to the BBC. She has called for an "inquiry into the increasing numbers of helicopters flying around London" among so many new high-rise buildings.
"The river is a kind of motorway for helicopters, but the noise of course is horrendous sometimes, when we get a lot of helicopters hovering," she said. "Maybe we've come to take it almost for granted that people have the right to take their helicopter over London at any time and I think we may have to look at that."
Reader Chris Jones has sent this picture of The Tower on St George Wharf. He writes: " Can you see any lights on this tower or the crane – and how high above the tower the jib is elevated"?
The retired construction professional suggested that lights should have been visible "as air traffic close to the heliport is foreseeable". 

View of The Tower on St George Wharf
View of The Tower on St George Wharf. Photograph: Chris Jones
A workmate of a man who was supposed to be in the crane when the helicopter struck, but was in fact on the ground, has told the BBC that he was going to play the lottery because he felt so lucky. 
The owners of Battersea Heliport have confirmed that the pilot of the helicopter had requested to divert and land at Battersea shortly before the crash because of bad weather. 
Updated 
The pilot of the helicopter which crashed in central London had requested to divert and land at London Heliport at Battersea due to bad weather, a spokesman for the owners of the heliport said today
Vauxhall MP Kate Hoey has said the crash should lead to a review of helicopter flights over the capital.
"You just have to think how dreadful it would have been had the helicopter landed on the huge apartments at the side of the road. We could have been facing a catastrophe," she told BBC News.
"The river is the motorway for helicopters. We are always going to need some helicopter use ... But I think maybe we have to come to take it almost for granted that people have the right to take their helicopter over London at any time. We may have to look at that."
Hoey said she had opposed the building of the 22-storey St George development.
"We do need to recognise that having a different skyline in London means that things may have to be different about who can go where. The regulations are very clear about helicopters not to be flown less than 500ft from structures and so on."
The details of the second death in the crash remains unclear, with police seemingly hesitant to give further information before next of kin are informed. At the moment we only know that the pilot of the helicopter was killed; the other fatality was in "close proximity to the helicopter". 
Updated 
Eyewitness Nic Walker said the helicopter crashed on to the street outside his house, setting a car on fire.
He said: "I was awake in bed and heard a helicopter. I was aware of some funny sounds and then a loud engine noise, then a huge bang.
"I flung open my window and looked out to see fire across the street. I pulled on some clothes and ran out to help.
"There were two people injured on my side of the fire. I think one was a motorcyclist. One seemed to have an eye or brow injury.
"I ran down with a guy to check the car. No driver but we couldn't get close enough to see the back.
"I took a guy down to check the car was empty but had to pull back from fire and explosions.
"That car was later gutted by the fire. There were secondary explosions going on so we had to get back. It was smokey as hell too."
He added: "The crane operator was about to go up. The scaffolders evacuated to here told me there isn't a crane big enough in the UK to get the wreckage down."
Police believe the plane, which took off from Redhill, was on its way to Elstree in north London when it was diverted.
Updated 
A spokesman for the London mayor, Boris Johnson, said: "This is clearly a major incident involving considerable numbers of emergency service personnel.
"The mayor's thoughts are with the families of the two victims and with those injured.
"The mayor has spoken with Met police commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe and transport commissioner Peter Hendy.
"He remains in close touch with all his commissioners and he will continue to monitor the situation closely."
Updated 
The St George Wharf development, site of the crane which was hit by the helicopter, is 22 storeys high. More detail here.
David Cameron's official spokesman said: "Clearly the prime minister
is very saddened to learn of the fatalities and injuries in this
accident."
There were currently no plans for a statement in the House of Commons,
and investigations would be led by the "usual agencies", said the
spokesman in a daily briefing to political reporters.
Met Police commander Neil Basu is answering questions about the crash. He confirms there were two fatalities and nine wounded. One of the fatalities was the pilot, the other was in the proximity of where the aircraft came down.
Police were called by a member of the public at 8am, he says.
Of the wounded, five were taken to hospital, and four were treated on the scene but did not require hospital treatment.
No one was working on the crane at the time of the crash. Asked whether the warning light on top of the crane was not working properly, Basu says that will form part of the investigation.
The helicopter was a commercial flight which took off in Surrey.
St George's Wharf is part of the Nine Elms development in south-west London.
Updated 

quarta-feira, 12 de dezembro de 2012

Impressionante iceberg é filmado se quebrando na Groelândia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2012/dec/12/chasing-ice-iceberg-greenland-video

Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed - video


domingo, 2 de setembro de 2012

Tony Blair deve ser desafiado sobre a guerra do Iraque, diz Desmond tutu

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/02/tony-blair-iraq-war-desmond-tutu

Tony Blair should face trial over Iraq war, says Desmond Tutu

Anti-apartheid hero attacks former prime minister over 'double standards on war crimes'
Tony Blair in London
Tony Blair has strongly contested Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s views. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war.
Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided "than any other conflict in history".
Writing in the Observer, Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran.
"The then leaders of the United States and Great Britain," Tutu argues, "fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us."
But it is Tutu's call for Blair and Bush to face justice in The Hague that is most startling. Claiming that different standards appear to be set for prosecuting African leaders and western ones, he says the death toll during and after the Iraq conflict is sufficient on its own for Blair and Bush to be tried at the ICC.
"On these grounds, alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague," he says.
The court hears cases on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. To date, 16 cases have been brought before the court but only one, that of Thomas Lubanga, a rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been completed. He was sentenced earlier this year to 14 years' imprisonment for his part in war crimes in his home country.
Tutu's broadside is evidence of the shadow still cast by Iraq over Blair's post-prime ministerial career, as he attempts to rehabilitate himself in British public life. A longtime critic of the Iraq war, the archbishop pulled out of a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair, who was paid 2m rand (£150,000) for his time, was attending. It is understood that Tutu had agreed to speak without a fee.
In his article, the archbishop argues that as well as the death toll, there has been a heavy moral cost to civilisation, with no gain. "Even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.
"Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?" Blair and Bush, he says, set an appalling example. "If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth?" he asks.
"If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?"
In a statement, Blair strongly contested Tutu's views and said Iraq was now a more prosperous country than it had been under Saddam Hussein. "I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.
"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre. We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.
"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time.
"In short, this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.
"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with the child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."
• This article was amended on 2 September 2012 to remove an incorrect paragraph concerning ongoing criminal proceedings at The Hague