Fugitive Edward Snowden Asks Russia For Asylum

The US intelligence whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has applied for temporary asylum in Russia, according to his lawyer.

The former National Security Agency worker has been holed up at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since June 23 after leaking details of US surveillance programmes.

Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said he had met Snowden on Tuesday and "the application has been filed with the Russian authorities".

Wikileaks, the whistleblowing website, has been supporting Snowden and confirmed in a post on Twitter: "Edward Snowden today has filed for a temporary protection visa with Russia's ministry of immigration."

Snowden speaks to human rights activists last week

Washington has urged Moscow to return the 30-year-old to the US, where he is wanted on espionage charges after revealing details of secret surveillance programmes.

Speaking to human rights activists last week, after three weeks of silence, Snowden said he planned to apply for temporary asylum in Russia until he had won "safe passage" to Latin America, where three countries have offered him political asylum.

Snowden has been able to remain at the airport transit lounge for so long after fleeing Hong Kong, because technically it is not Russian territory.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear that Snowden can only stay in Russia if he "stops damaging our US partners".

Sky's Moscow Correspondent Katie Stallard said that Snowden's application for asylum was a "PR coup for Russia".

"It makes Russia look like the only country strong enough to stand up to the US and protect this young man but also that he (Putin) is doing the US a favour," she said.

There have been protests across the world in support of Snowden

"Yes he might be going to take this man in but he will do so by shutting him up by stopping him from passing on any more of America's secrets so it's a bit of a win: win for the Russian President."

However, a Kremlin spokesman said shortly after the asylum bid that the final decision on the matter did not rest with the president.

On Monday, Mr Putin accused the US of "trapping" Snowden in Russia, saying no other country wanted to take him because of pressure exerted by America.

Snowden has consistently made it clear that he does not intent to stay in Russia but eventually wants to move to a Latin American country.

However, the prospects of him successfully travelling there appear limited.

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Breivik-Linked Neo-Nazi In France Terror Arrest

A neo-Nazi linked to Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has been arrested in France on suspicion of plotting a terror attack.

Kristian Vikernes, known as Varg, was arrested at dawn at his home in the town of Salon-la-Tour, in the central Correze region.

As officers searched his home for weapons and explosives, the French interior ministry warned he may have been preparing a "major terrorist act".

Suspicions were raised after his French wife, Marie Cachet, bought four rifles, leading to fears he could turn to violence. She has also been arrested.

Officials said she had a legal firearms permit when she made the purchases but investigators are now looking into what the rifles were for.

Norwegian Anders Breivik killed 77 people in July 2011

Vikernes, a convicted murderer from Norway who is close to the neo-Nazi movement, has in the past received a copy of a manifesto from Breivik, setting out the far right militant's ideology.

Breivik killed 77 people in a bombing in central Oslo and a shooting spree on a nearby island in July 2011. He was imprisoned for the maximum 21-year term last year.

On his website, Vikernes discusses Breivik's manifesto, but also criticises him for killing innocent Norwegians.

Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto outlined his planned crusade against Muslims, who he said were taking over Europe and could only be defeated through a violent civil war.

Vikernes, a heavy metal musician and writer, was convicted in 1994 of stabbing a man to death in Oslo and burning down several churches.

He was released in 2009 and moved to France with his wife and three children.

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India Schoolgirls Raped: Eight Men Arrested

Eight men have been arrested over the abduction and gang-rape of four young girls from a convent boarding house in eastern India.

The girls aged between 12 and 14 were taken from the hostel in Jharkhand state by men armed with knives, who then assaulted them in a nearby forest.

"We have made some arrests and we are interrogating eight persons accused in the case," said police superintendent YS Ramesh.

"These girls are shocked and frightened after the incident," he said, adding that police would press for a speedy trial if the men were charged over the crime.

The school principal told police that the gang had locked him and other teachers in a room at the school run by a Christian missionary in the state's Pakur district.

The men then entered the dormitory and took away the four girls, all from a local tribal community, police said.

Medical tests on the girls confirmed they were raped.

India faces intense scrutiny over its efforts to curb violence against women following the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi last December.

The death sparked protests across the country throughout December and January.

Parliament has passed laws aimed at protecting women better, including doubling the minimum prison sentence for gang-rape to 20 years.

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Heathrow Dreamliner Fire Probe Looks At Beacon

By Mark White, Home Affairs Correspondent

Investigators are examining the possibility a battery within an emergency locator component may have been to blame for a fire on an Ethiopian Airlines 787 Dreamliner at Heathrow Airport.

The fire last Friday caused extensive damage to the rear section of the plane, near the tail fin.

A team from Britain's Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB) is looking at a number of components, including the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), which is positioned in the upper rear part of the aircraft, near to the spot where the fire broke out.

The ELT is manufactured by the US electronics firm Honeywell.

An AAIB spokesman told Sky News: "We can confirm that Honeywell have been invited to join the investigation.

"The Emergency Locator Transmitter is one of several components being looked at in detail as part of the investigation and it would be premature to speculate on the cause of the incident at this stage."

Dreamliner flights were grounded in January after a battery fault

Although investigators appear to have ruled out a recurrence of faults within the main battery system, which grounded the entire Dreamliner fleet worldwide earlier this year, the battery attached to the Emergency Locator Transmitter is being viewed as a possible source for the fire.

The ELT is designed to send out an emergency signal in the event of an aircraft accident, helping to lead rescuers to the crash site.

The transmitter is powered by a non-rechargeable lithium-manganese battery.

The focus on the emergency beacon will raise concerns among executives at the plane's manufacturer Boeing, who have already had to embark on a hugely expensive exercise to improve to reinforce the Dreamliner's main battery systems in the wake of the earlier faults.

The fire damaged Ethiopian Airlines plane has been moved to a hangar at Heathrow as investigators continue their examination.

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Dangerous Water Leak In Astronaut's Helmet

An astronaut has been forced to abort a spacewalk after water started leaking into his helmet, drenching his eyes, nose and mouth.

Italian Luca Parmitano was less than an hour into a planned six-hour outing on the International Space Station when he reported the liquid building up inside his headgear and the dangerous problem was getting worse.

Mr Parmitano, 36, told flight controllers in Houston: "My head is really wet and I have a feeling it's increasing."

At first, he thought it was sweat because of his exertion on the job, but he was repeatedly assured that was not the case.

His US colleague Christopher Cassidy, who was also taking part in the spacewalk to perform cable work and other routine maintenance, said it might be water from his drink bag.

It looked like a half-litre of water had leaked out and the water eventually got into Mr Parmitano's eyes. That was when Nasa ordered the two men inside.

Mr Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, helped him back into the station's airlock. The water was drenching his nose and mouth, and he had trouble hearing radio contact.

The American astronaut, who is a veteran spacewalker midway through a six-month stint on the station, quickly ran through check lists, packed up equipment and also went back in.

It was Parmitano's second spacewalk

He said: "It's a lot of water. It's saturated and in his eyes and mouth."

Mr Parmitano, who works for the European Space Agency, could no longer use his suit's communications system.

Mr Cassidy kept a close eye on his partner while the chamber was re-pressurised.

Crew members then removed the Italian's helmet.

"You can see some of the water floating away that had built up inside Luca's helmet," a commentator said as live images were broadcast on Nasa TV.

Mr Cassidy, 43, added: "He looks miserable, but OK."

The cause of the leak was not immediately clear.

It was the second spacewalk for Mr Parmitano, an ex-test pilot and air force officer.

Last Tuesday, he became the first Italian to conduct a spacewalk, more than a month after moving into the space station.

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Panama: North Korea Ship 'Smuggling Weapon'

Panama has stopped a North Korean ship which it claims was trying to illegally sneak sophisticated missile equipment through the Panama Canal.

Panamanian authorities boarded the ship suspecting it was carrying drugs.

However, when they searched it they discovered "undeclared weapons of war" among a shipment of brown sugar, according to Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli.

The North Korean captain attempted to kill himself and violence broke out among the 35-strong crew as the ship was raided, according to Mr Martinelli.

The president posted a photograph of the cargo on his Twitter account and said: "The world needs to sit up and take note: you cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal."

He told Radio Panama: "We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for search and inspection.

Leader Kim Jong-Un has threatened to use missiles to attack the US

"When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment, and that is not allowed."

The ship, called the Chong Chon Gang, is currently being held by the Panamanian authorities.

Hugh Griffiths, an arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the seized ship is called Chong Chon Gang and has been on the institute's suspect list for some time.

He said the ship had been caught before for trafficking narcotics and small arms ammunition. It was stopped in 2010 in the Ukraine and was attacked by pirates 400 miles off the coast of Somalia in 2009.

Mr Griffiths' institute has also been interested in the ship because of a stop it made in 2009 in Tartus - a Syrian port city hosting a Russian naval base.

North Korea has yet to respond to the incident, however, previously the government in Pyongyang has branded such seizures as a 'double standard'.

North Korea believes it has the right to ship weapons in the same way that most other countries do on a regular basis.

Weapons analysts at IHS Janes' said that the equipment was a fire control radar for surface-to-air missiles and suggested it could have been sent to North Korea by Cuba for an upgrade. It was suggested that it would then have been returned to Cuba and the sugar could have been payment for the services.

The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacfic

Earlier sources familiar with North Korea's weapons capabilities had suggested it was an anti-ship missile.

North Korea and Cuba are ideologically allied as communist nations and both are seen as politically isolated from the rest of the world. However, arms shipments between the two countries are rare.

"Cuba is often cited alongside the DPRK as the two last hard-line communist holdouts, yet this is misleading in  several ways." Korean analyst Aidan Foster-Carter told Sky News.

"On the external economic front, it is the US - and only the US - that  applies closure to Cuba more than vice versa. Internally, Cuba is finally grasping the nettle of market reforms with a will, rigour, and honesty still wholly missing in North Korea."

North Korea is banned, under several United Nations resolutions, from importing and exporting all weapons, with the exception of small arms.

The UN has said the ban will remain in place until Pyongyang shuts down its nuclear weapons programme.

However, there is no suggestion that the weapons seized in Panama have any nuclear capability.

North Korea defiantly carried out its third nuclear weapons test in February and threatened to attack the United States in the most aggressive act yet by the leader Kim Jong-Un.

It led to banking sanctions being imposed by Washington on Pyongyang.

UN resolution 1718, ratified in 2006 bans North Korea from importing and exporting all weapons with the exception of small arms. The resolution was reaffirmed by the Security Council in March 2013 following North Korea's latest nuclear test and rocket launch. 

Following the 2006 resolution, the North Korean ambassador to the UN branded the ban a "double standard".

Pak Gil Yon told the Security Council: "It [is] 'gangster-like' for the Security Council to adopt such a coercive resolution against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, while neglecting the nuclear threat posed by the United States against his country.  It was a clear testament that the Council had completely lost its impartiality and was persisting in applying double standards to its work."

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NHS Report: Teams Sent In To 11 Failing Trusts

The Health Secretary has revealed that 11 hospital trusts listed in a shocking report of care failures have been placed under "special measures".

After the publication of Professor Sir Bruce Keogh's review into 14 trusts, Jeremy Hunt, speaking in the Commons, said we can "no longer ignore mediocre treatment".

All of the trusts have been ordered to act on recommendations made by health officials.

The review found that none of the hospitals investigated were providing "consistently high quality care to patients".

Sir Bruce Keogh said 'mediocrity is simply not good enough'

Mr Hunt told MPs: "No statistics are perfect but mortality rates suggest that since 2005, thousands more people may have died than would normally be expected at the 14 trusts reviewed.

"Worryingly, in half of those trusts, the Care Quality Commission - the regulator specifically responsible for patient safety and care - failed to spot any real cause for concern, rating them as 'compliant' with basic standards."

The trusts in special measures will be assessed, senior managers "not up to the job will be removed" and each hospital will be given a high performing organisation as a mentor, Mr Hunt said.

He also sought to blame former health secretary Andy Burnham for the failings, telling MPs the findings represented Labour's "darkest moment".

But Mr Burnham hit back, accusing the Health Secretary of "playing politics with people's lives", adding that the report was based on trust performances in 2011 and 2012, after the coalition had taken office.

Jeremy Hunt said he was 'deeply proud' of the NHS

Tameside General Hospital in Greater Manchester was one of the worst trusts in England.

The investigation found "insufficient levels of nursing staff", "poor supervision of junior doctors by consultants" and a "lack of compassion" from staff dealing with patient complaints.

Interim chief executive Karen James apologised to patients unhappy with the care they had received at the hospital.

"I feel disappointed that they have been unable to provide positive feedback," she told Sky News.

"However, what I want to do is involve patients in the next stage of our improvement programmes, so we need to take on board what they are saying about our services.

"What they feel and what they experience is absolutely key to us in actually addressing the fundamentals," she added.

Mr Hunt said where failures have been found in hospitals like Tameside "they have been confronted straight away".

Former health secretary Andy Burnham

Other examples of problems included patients being left unmonitored on trolleys for excessive periods, staff working up to 12 days in a row and low levels of clinical cover, especially out of hours.

Sir Bruce, NHS England's medical director, was asked to conduct a series of 'deep-dive' reviews into other hospitals with mortality rates which have been consistently high for two years or more after the Francis report into failures at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust.

He said: "Higher mortality rates do not always point to deaths which could have been avoided but they do act as a 'smoke alarm' indicator that there could be issues with the quality of care.

"Not one of these trusts has been given a clean bill of health by my review teams. These reviews have been highly rigorous and uncovered previously undisclosed problems.

"I felt it was crucial to provide a clear diagnosis, to write the prescription, and, most importantly, to identify what help these organisations might need to support their recovery or accelerate improvement."

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) welcomed the review and is calling for the recommendations to be implemented as a matter of urgency.

Karen James, interim chief executive at Tameside Hospital

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary, said: "There's an undeniable link between nurse staffing levels and patient mortality and we can't keep failing to address this issue.

"Only with the right numbers of nurses, with the right skills, can we ensure patients are looked after with dignity and compassion."

Hospitals in special measures:

North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Medway NHS Foundation Trust.

Hospitals not in special measures:

Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

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