Eastbourne Pier Fire Treated As Suspicious

The fire that gutted much of Eastbourne Pier is being treated as suspicious, Sussex Police have said.

"As a result of our investigation we have received information to suggest that the fire may have been started by someone, either deliberately or accidentally, and our investigation is now focusing on that line of enquiry," said Detective Inspector Mark O'Brien.

"A temporary scaffold platform has been erected adjacent to where the fire is thought to have broken out in order to enable scenes of crime officers and fire investigators safe access to the area."

The PM and Chancellor see the charred structure

The news came after Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne visited the resort, pledging £2m to the town to help it recover following the fire on the landmark attraction.

Fire investigators had earlier said they were not sure what caused the fire, indicating it would take some days before they could discover what had happened.

Passers-by stop to look at the damage

A large part of the 144-year-old Grade II-listed structure was reduced to a skeleton on Wednesday as plumes of smoke rose high into the sky above the resort.

Up to 80 firefighters attended, pumping water on to the burning structure from the coast, the beach and from underneath.

The fire took hours to bring under control

It was eventually brought under control shortly before 8pm, with around 30 firefighters staying at the scene overnight.

On Thursday, local MP Stephen Lloyd said it was possible that the pier could reopen as soon as next year.

"There is real damage but I'm confident that it can be repaired," the LibDem MP said.

Up to 80 firefighters worked for hours to put out the flames

"It's very much still standing and I'm very hopeful and confident that it will be reopening next year and be back in business."

Eastbourne is the latest in a series of Victorian piers to suffer major fire damage.

In 2003, the 148-year-old West Pier in Brighton was reduced to a mangled mass of metal by two major fires within two months.

The pier in one piece, pictured in 2010

And in Eastbourne's neighbouring town of Hastings, the Grade II-listed pier was almost destroyed in a fire in 2010 following years of neglect.

Southend Pier in Essex was badly damaged by fire in 2005 and Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare was wrecked by a blaze in 2008.

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Facebook Crashes: Something Goes Wrong Again

Facebook, the world's most popular social network, crashed briefly for the second time in nearly two months, affecting users worldwide.

The site, which has 1.3 billion users around the world, apologised for the service disruption with an online message, saying: "Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can."

It is unclear how long precisely the outage lasted, for users reported different levels of access to it as the site slowly came back to life.

Initial reports of it going down appeared on Twitter at around 5pm (EST), with the outage appearing to last under an hour.

Some people joked about the crash on Twitter, saying: #Facebook just went dead. The Apocalypse is here - run for the hills!"

facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

Another tweeted: "Facebook and Instagram are down on your wedding day, engagement announcement or birth of a 1st child? You just might need to reschedule it."

One wrote: "#facebookdown. Please remain calm and do not attempt to interact with human beings."

And as more and more people were able to log back onto the site, the comments on Twitter continued, with one person posting: "Facebook is working again. You all can now resume your normal lives of staring at your phones for hours on end.."

During the outage, Facebook said in a statement, "We're aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."

It is unclear why the problem occurred, but on its platform status page while it was working to resolve the issue, its developers said it was experiencing "increased errors/latency on all platform surfaces".

They added: "Facebook is currently experiencing an issue that is affecting all API and web surfaces. Our engineers detected the issue quickly and are working to resolve it ASAP."

Facebook went down was on June 19 and it was offline for around half an hour before it started functioning again.

It also crashed in the US in February this year, after previously going offline for four hours in October last year due to network maintenance.

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Down's Baby Abandoned With Surrogate Mother

A Thai surrogate mother has received more than £45,000 in donations to care for her baby after an Australian couple refused to take him when they found out he has Down's syndrome.

More than 1,600 people around the world have now given money to a website set up to help six-month-old Gammy, who was born with a congenital heart condition.

His impoverished mother Pattharamon Janbua, 21, says she was offered the equivalent of £6,500 by a surrogacy agency to have a baby for an anonymous couple in Australia.

Three months after a doctor injected the Australian woman's fertilised egg into her uterus, she discovered she was pregnant with twins.

The agency promised her another £930 to have the second child.

Gammy has a congenital heart condition Pic: Hope For Gammy

A month later, doctors doing routine checks discovered one of the babies had Down's syndrome.

They told the Australian parents, who said they did not want to take the boy, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

"They told me to have an abortion, but I didn't agree because I am afraid of sin," Ms Pattharamon told the paper, referring to her Buddhist beliefs.

She gave birth to Gammy and his healthy twin sister in a Bangkok hospital five months later.

But the couple took only his sister back to Australia, leaving Ms Pattharamon unable to pay for critically-ill Gammy's medical bills.

Speaking from her village in Thailand's Chonburi province, she told the Sydney Morning Herald that when she looks at Gammy, she feels guilty and sorry for him.

"But I think this is not a bad karma ... it's good karma that make us be together," she said.

"I would like to tell Thai women - don't get into this business as a surrogate.

"Don't just think only for money ... if something goes wrong no one will help us and the baby will be abandoned from society, then we have to take responsibility for that."

Money is being raised to pay for Gammy's medical bills

Ms Pattharamon says she agreed to be a surrogate mother to pay off her family's debts and the arrangement was set up through an agency.

They said the child would be looked after by an Australian man and his Asian wife, who could not conceive a baby themselves.

Ms Pattharamon, who has not met the couple, says she is still owed £1,300 by the agency.

Her case was taken up by Thai newspapers. It sparked outrage on social media and a fund-raising campaign was organised to help her.

Shannon Castle, a poster on Gammy's campaign page, wrote: "Down syndrome or not how can they possibly justify separating him from his twin sister?! Absolutely appalling."

Another, Jenny Bridge, said: "Makes me feel ashamed to be an Aussie."

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Gatwick Fliers Advised Over Swissport Problems

Passengers at Gatwick are being advised to pack essential items in their hand luggage ahead of more possible disruption at the airport this weekend.

Baggage-handling company Swissport is under fire after many travellers reported waiting several hours for their bags to make it off planes last weekend.

Some were even told to go home without their luggage and the airport hit out at the company, saying it had "failed to meet standards".

A spokeswoman for travel organisation Abta said: "We hope people can pass through Gatwick smoothly this weekend. But if people are concerned it would be a good idea for them to put essential items in their carry-on bags.

"Both Gatwick and Swissport are putting on extra people and we are confident this should help address the problem."

Swissport has called up 40 extra staff to help, and Gatwick itself is also drafting in extra manpower to help ease any delays during one of the airport's busiest weekends.

However, it is understood that Swissport is using staff on zero-hours contracts who could be reluctant to work unsocial hours.

The baggage problem was at its worst late on Saturday evening and into the early hours of Sunday.

Gatwick Airport is scheduled to have one of its busiest weekends

Swissport, which operates at 263 airports in 45 countries, has denied the problems at Gatwick were down to zero-hours workers.

Richard Sargent, 23, a wheelchair basketball player for Team GB who returned on Sunday from holiday in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh, had to wait more than four hours for his wheelchair.

"I was left stranded in baggage reclaim. I was not asking for special treatment, just to be able to freely move around the terminal and use the toilet," Mr Sargent told the Daily Telegraph.

Swissport denied problems were due to zero-hours contract workers

Some 276,000 passengers are expected to use the airport this weekend and Swissport says it is doing all it can to avoid a repeat of the delays.

It said: "Nothing that has happened during the past week gives an indication that this weekend will cause the baggage chaos being suggested.

"In order to accommodate the expected higher level of movements this weekend, Swissport has continued its policy of recruitment to Gatwick and increased its ramp staff accordingly."

It added: "The summer peak season puts pressure on all baggage handling companies.

Gatwick, in West Sussex, is currently lobbying for an extra runway

"Swissport is disappointed that we have fallen below our standards during this time and will do all possible to ensure the travelling public are not inconvenienced in any way."

Willie Walsh, the boss of the company that owns BA and Iberia, has also defended Swissport.

He told Sky News: "I think Swissport is a good company - they provide us with services around the world.

"To be fair to them, it's not all their fault because Gatwick was affected by some adverse weather which meant schedules were running well off plan and aircraft were arriving at a time where they did not have resources in place."

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Inbetweeners 'Killed' By New Film, Says Writer

By Hannah Stott, Entertainment Producer

The cast and writers of The Inbetweeners have said the sequel to their blockbusting first film will be the last we see of hapless teenagers Will, Jay, Simon and Neil.

Writer and director Damon Beesley was tight-lipped about the plot of the much-anticipated follow-up but told Sky News it would definitely be the group's final adventure.

"This is it, we are now killing them so it's like go and see this film. It's like a wake for The Inbetweeners," co-writer Iain Morris joked.

The Inbetweeners 2 sees the boys, made famous originally by the E4 sitcom, head to Australia as part of their endless search for women.

It was never intended that a second film would be made but the writers felt compelled after The Inbetweeners Movie set a record for the most successful opening weekend ever achieved by a comedy in the UK.

The boys take their shenanigans Down Under

Beesley said: "We genuinely talked about the end of The Inbetweeners being the last movie but solely because of the success of the first film we got to the point where people were saying to us, just fans, 'are you doing another film, you must be doing another one it was so successful'."

The four lead cast members Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison also had no intention of getting involved in a follow up.

Blake Harrison, who plays Neil, said: "It took quite a while, it was three years of the fans asking us to do another one and we kind of thought that would go away and people wouldn't be as interested in seeing another one as they were."

Simon Bird, geeky Will in the film, recalled: "We all met up to read the script that Iain and Damon wrote together and we definitely went into that meeting saying 'by the way this is not going to happen' and came out of it basically almost straight away agreeing to do it." 

The Inbetweeners ran for three series over two years and had a huge following. Viewers were endeared to this group of foul-mouthed adolescent lads with their futile crushes, drunken antics and sibling brawls.

"There's that general sense of being inadequate that I think many people are prey to," Joe Thomas, who took the role of Simon in the series and films, said.

"You feel like growing up other people seem to be more confident, seem to have done more, they seem to know what they are about. They've got a plan. The Inbetweeners don't have any of that." 

The Inbetweeners 2 gets its UK release on August 6.

:: Watch more from the interview with the writers and cast on Entertainment Week on Sky News tonight at 8.30pm or you can watch it any time on Catch Up in the Sky News section.

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Human Leg Found In Dublin Recycling Plant

Police are investigating after a human leg was found in a recycling plant in Ireland.

A worker found the severed limb at Thorntons plant in Killeen Road, Ballyfermot, west Dublin, on Thursday night.

Officers have closed off the area as forensic examinations take place.

A doctor sent to the plant confirmed the leg was human, but was unable to say whether it is from a woman or a man.

Thorntons operates recycling and recovery facilities in Dublin, Meath and Kildare. 

It employs more than 300 staff and operates a fleet of over 100 trucks.

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Drug Dealer Jailed After Schoolboy's Death

A dealer who targeted schoolboys has been jailed for five years for drug offences following the death of a youngster who took ecstasy.

Daniel Spargo-Mabbs, 16, of Croydon, died from multiple organ failure three days after taking the drug at a rave in Hayes, west London, in January.

Nicqueel Pitrora, of Croydon, admitted being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs on January 17.

He also pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of Class B drugs between January 1, 2013, and January 16, 2014, and possession of Class B drugs on January 21.

Judge Martin Edmunds QC told Pitrora at Isleworth Crown Court: "I keep well in mind that you are being sentenced for being concerned in supply and not for manslaughter but there can be no question that you bear a heavy weight of responsibility for the death of Daniel."

The judge told the court that Daniel's friends would call Pitrora from school, before waiting on street corners in their school uniforms to pick up cannabis they had ordered.

He said: "I am satisfied that you targeted such young people, providing them with a ready source of drugs, fully aware of their age and whatever the purchasers themselves may have thought.

"You were only yourself a few years older, but that is a considerable gulf in age."

Pitrora, 18, was sentenced to five years for being concerned with the supply of ecstasy, as well as two years and four months to be served concurrently for the supply of cannabis.

Daniel and five friends clubbed together to pay £80 for the drugs. He put what is believed to be half a gram into 500ml of water - with one witness claiming he may have drunk it in one go.

Daniel's mother told the court her son's death had left their family in a devastating "haziness".

She said: "It is like having a limb ripped off without any anaesthetic. It is like having an enormous wound but it is much worse.

"How can someone who has been such a part of my life, his mother for 16 years, not be there when I am?"

Daniel's brother Jacob added: "I feel like I could have treasured him more if only I had known that we would not have had him for so long."

Superintendent Des Rock, speaking outside court, said: "Pitrora has only shown remorse at the last moment for his actions.

"He will now spend time in prison where I hope that he will reflect on the devastation that he has caused.

"Daniel had his whole life ahead of him and when he set out that evening his family would have no idea of the tragedy that was about to happen."

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On 9/11 Eve, Clinton Spoke Of Bin Laden Miss

Audio has emerged of remarks Bill Clinton made just hours before the 9/11 attacks in which the former US President speaks of his missed opportunity to kill al Qaeda leader Obama bin Laden.

Mr Clinton was addressing a business meeting in Melbourne, Australia, on September 10, 2001, when talk turned to terrorism.

He told the audience: "I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden ... He's a very smart guy. I spent a lot of time thinking about him. And I nearly got him once.

"I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have had to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him.

"And so I didn't do it."

Osama Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011

The audio was recorded by former Australian Liberal Party leader Michael Kroger and aired by Sky News Australia.

Mr Clinton did order cruise missile strikes in August 1998 on an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that was suspected of bin Laden links.

But the Saudi militant had left the camp hours earlier, while the reliability of intelligence on the plant was later questioned.

The New York Times has previously reported that Mr Clinton approved strikes on bin Laden on at least three other occasions between 1998-2000, but the CIA pulled back because of doubts over the al Qaeda leader's actual whereabouts.

A cruise missile fired from afar would probably have been used

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, disputed Mr Clinton's version of events in the new audio.

He said he believed Mr Clinton was referring to an occasion in December 1998 when the al Qaeda chief went to visit Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Kandahar city, and ended up staying the night in the compound.

Mr Scheuer told Fox News: "The attack would've occurred in the middle of the night and it would've killed no one but Taliban people and Osama bin Laden and his crew."

As Mr Clinton spoke in Melbourne that day, bin Laden's hijackers were getting ready for their suicide mission to slam planes into New York City's World Trade Center.

Airliners also crashed in Washington DC and western Pennsylvania on a morning of mayhem that left more than 3,000 people dead. 

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Kidnapped Israeli's 'British Links' Investigated

Why Obama's Hands Are Tied Over Gaza

Updated: 4:38am UK, Friday 01 August 2014

By Dominic Waghorn, US Correspondent

On the day the White House said the Israeli military should do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the US confirmed it had agreed to supply the same military with more ammunition.

The Obama administration has hardened its criticism of the shelling of a UN school in Gaza calling it "indefensible" and saying there is little doubt the Israelis were responsible.

"We need our allies in Israel," said administration press secretary Josh Earnest "to live up to the high standards they have set themselves". Meanwhile those same allies were being invited to help themselves to more of the US arms stockpiles in Israel.

Duplicitous double standards or another sign of the complexity of US-Israeli relations? Depends on your point of view.

There is no doubt the Obama administration is concerned and frustrated by Israel's conduct. There is also no doubt the administration will continue to support it to the hilt for as long as required.

Frustrated not least because of the trashing of the US Secretary of State John Kerry by Israeli cabinet ministers and media after his efforts to broker a ceasefire.

The Obama administration has not hidden its fury at the personal attacks on America's chief diplomat by senior members of the Netanyahu government.

The mounting civilian suffering is a concern to the US, for humanitarian and diplomatic reasons.

What's left of America's standing in the Arab world is further undermined by gruesome pictures of slaughter caused by US-supplied weaponry being fired into Gaza.  

A lot has been made of the dysfunctional relationship of the two countries' leaders. 

Bibi and Barack have had more than their share of differences, and none of the political intimacy of George W Bush and Ariel Sharon. 

But these days Israel can take US support for granted far more than it could back then.

When Ariel Sharon wanted to send his military into Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank in 2002 he personally asked Bush to let him do so and give him enough time to finish the job.

The destruction in Jenin is nothing compared to what Israel has wrought in Gaza and it has done so without needing to ask for American permission. 

There are many reasons for US support for Israel, some historic, others more current.

The US-Israeli relationship is one of the fundamental constants of American foreign policy in the Middle East. With a region in ferment and in a state of flux, that is more important to Washington than ever.

The Israeli lobby is also hugely powerful in the US. 

Capitol Hill has been called Israeli-occupied territory; such is the sway the Jewish state holds over US politicians.

Multifarious pro-Israel organisations, millions given to Israel supporters at election time and masterful use of the media all mean that is unlikely to change.

Israel has the same hold on everyday Americans as it has on politicians.

US public opinion has been overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel since the second intifada when the Palestinians began blowing up women and children on buses and since 9/11, which hardened US attitudes to violent Muslims of any description.

More often than not the US media is inclined to accept the Israeli narrative. 

Coverage of tunnels out of Gaza is a case in point.

When Israeli military PR shifted the focus from rockets to tunnels, US coverage followed.

Too much talk of rockets is a threat to Israel economically now the country's main airport is within range.

Israel now claims Hamas tunnels are their main casus belli.

There has been little questioning of Israeli claims they are a terrorist threat to women and children, when thus far they have only been used by Hamas militants for military purposes to target Israeli soldiers. 

US support of Israel is mirrored by the attitude of some Arab nations in the region.

Egypt's recent ceasefire plan angered Hamas by including many of Israel's demands and few of the Palestinians'.

The Saudis and Jordanians are also quietly cheering the Jewish state from the sidelines. 

Since the last major Israeli operation in Gaza the faultlines have shifted in the Middle East because of the deepening chasm among Muslims, between Sunnis and Shia. 

On one side, Iran and its allies, the Assad regime in Damascus, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

On the other Tehran's enemies in the Gulf and Egypt who are in no mood to help out Iran's Sunni allies, Hamas in Gaza. 

While much of the Middle East remains silent as the carnage continues in Gaza, Israel will assume it is carrying out the wishes of at least some of its neighbours.

Washington will continue dishing out carefully worded criticism if Israel keeps facing claims it has shelled children sleeping in UN buildings.

But it is not going to be reducing its support for its closest ally in an increasingly troubled region.

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Amazon Tribe Makes Contact With Outside World

A group of indigenous Amazon people has been filmed emerging from the Brazilian rainforest and making contact with the outside world.

Pictures and video released by Brazil's indigenous authority show the small group carrying bows and arrows walking along the banks of the Envira River, near the Peruvian border.

Experts said the indigenous people probably crossed the border from Peru because of increasing pressure from illegal logging and drug trafficking in their home area.

The people from the Amazon are from the Panoan linguistic group, and made contact with members of the Ashaninka native people.

They have been identified as members of a group known as the Rio Xinane.

The men accepted the offer of bananas

In one scene, an ethnic Ashaninka gives bananas to two of the tribe who come forward towards him. 

They take the fruit, communicate a little and then return to their bank.

The native people initially made contact with the Ashaninka on June 26 and were subsequently filmed four days later by a team from Brazil's Indian Foundation, Funai.

Two Panoan indigenous interpreters were brought in to communicate with them on the visit.

"They were whistling and making animal sounds," said one interpreter.

"They speak our language. I was so happy we could talk to each other."                  

The group was first spotted on June 26 and filmed on June 30

He said the group had come in search of weapons and allies.

"They described being attacked by non-native people and many died after coming down with the flu and diphtheria," he said.

Anthropologist Terri Aquino said the group had probably come in search of axes, knives and pots.

"This is a people looking for technology. It's important in their lives because there's an internal war among them and because of contact with non-indigenous groups," he said.

Funai said the group had come back out of the forest after their initial visit because they had contracted flu - a government medical team was sent to treat seven of them.

Rights group Survival International said the episode was extremely worrying, since influenza epidemics have wiped out entire tribes in the past.

The Brazilian Amazon has the largest number of uncontacted tribes in the world, estimated at 77.

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