Britain's Mo Farah wins 5,000m World Championship gold

 
Farah held off the challenge of Lagat to win 5,000m gold 
 

Britain's Mo Farah produced a blistering final lap to win the 5,000m at the World Championships in Daegu.

Farah, who won the 10,000m silver last week, covered the final 400m in 52.87 seconds to win in 13 minutes, 23.36.
Bernard Lagat of the United States and Ethiopia's Imane Merga challenged down the final 100m but Farah held on.
"I'm very proud," said Farah. "I've made a lot of sacrifices, moving away from home and I'm glad I made that choice because it's working."
Farah, who has made huge improvements since moving with his family to Oregon at the start of the year to be coached by Alberto Salazar, kept himself out of trouble at the back of the pack for the first 2,000m in a slow-paced race but moved up to second in the last kilometre.
And as the pace quickened on the final lap, he refused to let anyone move past him as he kicked off the bend and ran away from the field in the final 50m.
Mo's wife, Tania Farah told BBC Radio 5 live: "I'm speechless. I'm still shaking. It's a huge relief because I know he wanted this one.
"I think he learned from last week. He saved that little bit extra for the final 100m and that obviously worked.
"Moving from one side of the world to the other is a big change. Life as we know it has changed completely but it's been worth it."

Stepping Hill saline deaths: Police to interview 500 more

 

Police said there had been no further incidents of contamination at Stepping Hill Hospital since 16 July

Police investigating the deaths of patients at Stockport's Stepping Hill Hospital still have about 500 people to question, they have revealed.

Charges were dropped on Friday against Rebecca Leighton, 27, a nurse who had been in custody since July, accused of contaminating saline at the hospital.
Greater Manchester Police said they were investigating 40 cases of contamination including seven deaths.
They compared the scale of the inquiry to the 1996 IRA Manchester bomb probe.
Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney said: "This investigation is without doubt one of the most complex investigations that our most senior detectives have ever worked on, comparable in size and scope to the Manchester bomb inquiry."
Police were initially looking into the deaths of five patients at the hospital. Two were later dropped from the investigation but four more suspected victims have since been identified.
Of the seven deaths, the force said there were two confirmed cases where there was a "high probability" the deaths were caused by contaminated products.
Police said they had 700 people they wanted to interview, which included staff, visitors to the hospital and patients, among them potential victims. They said they had so far spoken to about 200 of them.

 

All charges against nurse Rebecca Leighton were dropped on Friday

 

Mr Sweeney said: "To give some kind of understanding of the scale of this investigation, within the auspices of Greater Manchester it is one of the most complex and challenging investigations that we've faced.
"That comes about as a result of dealing with firstly an extremely difficult crime scene to manage, where we are working within the confines of a very busy hospital with many hundreds of people who come through that hospital, particularly medical staff, visitors and patients who have access in various degrees to products within the hospital."
Miss Leighton, from Heaviley, was released from HM Prison Styal, in Cheshire, on Friday afternoon after being told the charges against her, relating to the alleged tampering of saline ampoules, saline bags and medical products and theft of medication from the hospital, had been dropped.
Prosecutors said there had not been "sufficient evidence" for the case to go ahead.
Following her release, Mr Sweeney said: "At the time that Rebecca was charged there was sufficient evidence in our view, and equally importantly, the view of the Crown Prosecution Service, to bring charges around contamination and theft.
"The (reason for the) decision to discontinue is that the evidence we had at the time has not built towards the crown court phase, so that we could bring a case at this point."Click to play

Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney said there was "sufficient evidence" to bring charges at the time

The police said officers were in contact with Miss Leighton to guarantee her safety and "to try and help her back into the community".
Miss Leighton, in a statement read by her solicitor Carl Richmond, thanked her family, friends and members of the public who "never doubted my innocence during this living nightmare".
The statement said: "I've been in a living hell and was locked up in prison for something I had not done.
"It was so frustrating for me knowing that the person who actually carried out these terrible acts is still out there.
"My life has been turned upside-down. All I ever wanted to do was to pursue a profession in nursing and care for my patients."
The three patients whose deaths police are known to be investigating are Tracey Arden, 44, Arnold Lancaster, 71, and Derek Weaver, 83.
Four more suspected victims have yet to be named but their families are aware the cases have been referred to police by the coroner.
The alarm was first raised when a higher than normal number of patients were reported to have "unexplained" low blood sugar levels.
Mr Sweeney said there had been no further incidents of contamination since 16 July.
"It will take a number of weeks to complete the investigative process, the forensic process and most importantly the medical analysis which needs to take place," he added.
The IRA bombing of 15 June 1996 - to which police said the Stepping Hill inquiry was comparable in size - devastated the busy shopping area of Manchester city centre and left about 200 people injured.

Libya: UK forces should be proud of role, says Cameron

 

The RAF is in action over Libya, enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians from pro-Gaddafi forces

David Cameron has said UK forces should be "very proud" of what they achieved in Libya and said the US saw Britain as its "strongest and most staunch ally".

The prime minister said there were a lot of armchair critics, but Americans were "very impressed" by what UK and European forces had achieved.
He also said there were "many similarities" between Libya and Syria.
But he said there was not the same level of international support for a tougher stance against Syria.
Speaking after co-hosting a summit on Libya with France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Cameron said the UK had played a significant military role in the Nato-led operation to protect Libyan civilians from Col Gaddafi's forces.
He said: "A lot of armchair generals who said you couldn't do it without an aircraft carrier, they were wrong.
"A lot of people who said Tripoli is completely different to Benghazi, the two don't get on, they were wrong. People who said this is all going to be an enormous swamp of Islamists and extremists, they were wrong. People who said we were going to run out of munitions, they were wrong.
"We should be proud of what our forces did."
'Right decision' Speaking on the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Cameron insisted the UK had been "punching at our weight or even above our weight" in the conflict with the RAF carrying out around a fifth of all strike sorties against Muammar Gaddafi's forces.
He added: "I really want to challenge this idea that somehow the Americans see us a weak ally, they don't - they see us as their strongest and most staunch ally."
The PM also defended decisions made in the defence review, and said that the UK "did not suffer" from not having an aircraft carrier during the military operation in Libya.

"We took the decision to keep the Tornado because it is such a capable aircraft, proved once again in Libya, and to go ahead with building the aircraft carrier but to accept that there was going to be a gap between now and then.

"I believe it's the right decision, and there was a lot of military evidence to say that was the right decision," he said.
He went on to say that in future the UK would have "one of the most capable aircraft carriers anywhere in the world".
The prime minister also said intervention to support the revolution was justified and in the UK's national interest.
But he said Libya "was a Libyan triumph" and it "wasn't a foreign force that knocked down Gaddafi... Libyans did it themselves", and that was one of the reasons that Tripoli was "getting itself back together again in relatively good order".
"This wasn't done to them, they did it and so they are rapidly mending it," he said.
'Tougher approach' He added that Col Muammar Gaddafi was a "monster" and intervening was "the right thing to do... there was a moral imperative to stop slaughter".
Speaking about Syria, Mr Cameron said: "Like Libya you have got a dictator who is doing dreadful things to his people."

But he acknowledged there were "problems" in securing United Nations backing for adopting tougher sanctions against the Syrian state.
"The problem is there isn't the same backing in the Arab League, there isn't the same backing internationally.
"In fact we are having problems at the United Nations even getting a strong resolution that says tougher sanctions and travel bans and asset freezes, all the things that we in Europe are putting in place," he said.
Mr Cameron said the UK had been in the "vanguard of arguing for a tougher approach" and had called on President Bashar al-Assad to stand down.
He went on to say he had had "good conversations" with some members of the Arab League, and some were toughening their stance "because they realise that what he is doing is appalling".
"They realise that he had his chance to demonstrate he was in favour of reform and he has completely failed to do that," he said.
Thursday's 60-nation conference in Paris considered what assistance the international community could provide to the country after months of fighting and the overthrow of Col Gaddafi.
Those present included UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as senior figures from Libya's interim political authority, the National Transitional Council.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox defends armed forces cuts

Forces minister Nick Harvey says they have to try and bring the defence budget into balance

Cuts being made to the armed forces will mean Britain's defence capability can grow later in the decade, Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said.

He was speaking on the day 930 RAF and 920 Army personnel are being told they are being made redundant - including 750 compulsory redundancies.
The Army and RAF will eventually cut 7,000 and 5,000 posts respectively.
Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy said the cuts went too far and were the result of a rushed defence review.
But Mr Fox blamed the "incompetence" of the Labour government for the cuts and said the UK would still have strong forces.
He said: "The extra money we have allocated for the equipment budget from 2015 will allow our defence capability to grow in the second half of the decade."
He said the previous Labour government "left the nation's finances broken" and a "£38bn black hole" in the defence budget.
The tough measures would bring the budget largely into balance for the first time in a generation, he said.
"Of course redundancies are always sad news, but we will continue to have strong and capable forces and we appreciate the hard work of our brave armed forces," said Mr Fox.
'Free of conscience' The MoD is looking to shed 22,000 posts over the next four years - more than half through redundancies.

I don't believe Mr Cameron and those involved in making the decision to cut the Armed Forces are fully aware of the true cost and impact that the stroke of their pens will have on those who have served them so proudly”

Wife of an active serviceman

 

The Army employs just over 100,000 service personnel while the RAF has 40,000.

The MoD has said personnel receiving the operational allowance, because they are serving in Libya and Afghanistan or are preparing for, or have recently returned from operations, will be exempt from the cuts unless they apply.
No RAF pilots or ground crew involved in operations over Libya will be forced to leave in this round of redundancies.
Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey said: "I have put the question inside the ministry (of defence) and I have been told that nobody currently involved in the Libyan operations on the RAF will find themselves being made compulsorily redundant.
"It is possible that one or two of them may have volunteered, in which case they may or may not defending whether they are people we think we can spare."
But Mr Murphy said: "They say it isn't through choice, but the government has decided to cut the deficit as quickly as it has, and this is a consequence of a deficit reduction plan that's going too far and a defence review that went far too quickly."

Armed forces' cuts

• Army: 920 redundancies rising to 7,000 out of 100,000
• RAF: 930 redundancies rising to 5,000 out of 40,000

He said the deficit could be reduced more carefully in a way that did not leave the UK without an aircraft carrier, a decision which had left "people across the world scratching their heads".

He added: "I think that it's a politics and policy free of conscience and free of right and wrong and that's the type of thing that's absolutely ludicrous."
Conservative MP and former Army colonel, Patrick Mercer, agreed the cuts were going too far.
"We've never needed our combat forces more than we need them at the moment. The future is extremely uncertain," he said.

Questions of morale
 
There had been plenty of volunteers for redundancy - which was likely to raise more questions about morale.
In the Army, 870 soldiers volunteered for redundancy, but only 660 have been accepted, our correspondent said.
This means that 260 Army personnel who did not apply for redundancy will be forced out of a job, he said.
More than half of those compulsory redundancies - 150 - will be Gurkhas.

 

The armed forces is looking to shed 17,000 posts over the next four years

 

In the RAF there were 620 applications for redundancy, said our correspondent, 440 of them have been approved. That means most redundancies - 490 - will be compulsory, he said.
The Royal Navy will announce details of its redundancies later this year.
Members of the armed forces accepted for voluntary redundancy will serve six months' notice, while those forced out will serve a year.
Gurkha Justice Campaign founder Peter Carroll strongly criticised the redundancies, calling them "short-sighted" and said it risked "undermining the 200-year history between Britain and Nepal."
"It is particularly unfair that such a large number of Gurkhas are going against their own wishes. These are people who, as individuals, have given many years of loyal service to the UK," he said.
Eviction Servicemen and women and their families have been contacting the BBC with their reaction.
One person who works at RAF Lossiemouth said a huge split had occurred in the air force between those who wish to leave and those who are being forced.
They said the MoD was forcing people out of their jobs by refusing to renew the contracts of those whose original nine-year contract had come to an end, a decision which was "more disgusting than voluntary redundancies".
The wife of a serviceman whose active service has seen him deployed to Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, said: "On the final day of service all those made redundant will not only be unemployed, many with no transferable skills, but they also then have only three months in their homes before facing eviction.
"I don't believe Mr Cameron and those involved in making the decision to cut the Armed Forces are fully aware of the true cost and impact that the stroke of their pens will have on those who have served them so proudly."
And someone who is serving in the Falkland Islands said people on duty there were also in the frame for redundancy.

Wootton Bassett marks the end of repatriations

The town of Wootton Bassett has held a special service to mark the end of military repatriations there.

The bodies of 345 service personnel have passed through the Wiltshire town in the past four years.
At 19:58 BST the townsfolk watched their union jack being lowered and blessed. It will be taken to RAF Brize Norton where repatriations will resume.
In recognition of its role in marking such flights, the town will be renamed Royal Wootton Bassett in the autumn.
More than 1,000 people lined the high street in the town to take part in the Sunset Service which started with the chiming of the bell at the Church of Saint Bartholomew.
The mayor then addressed the town and said the service was the "last full measure of devotion" to those who had died.
War veteran Peter Gray lowered the flag with his grandson. It will be laid on the altar in the church overnight before being presented to the people of Oxfordshire on Thursday.
The first service took place in April 2007 when the bodies of military personnel began arriving at the nearby RAF base at Lyneham.
'Best of British' Then, it was a few members of the local branch of the Royal British Legion (RBL) bowing their heads as the funeral corteges passed.
Now hundreds of residents turn out to pay their respects before the bodies are taken on to Oxford.
The last and 167th repatriation through Wootton Bassett took place on 18 August when the body of 24-year-old Lt Daniel Clack, of 1st Battalion The Rifles, was returned to the UK.

We felt it was appropriate to mark the passing of responsibility from Wootton Bassett to Oxfordshire ”

Councillor Paul Heaphy Mayor of Wootton Bassett

 

The town gradually became a focal point for those wishing to acknowledge the sacrifice of military personnel, and went on to attract international attention.

During Prime Minister David Cameron's first US visit, President Barack Obama said the townsfolk's solemn tributes marked "the best of British character".
Dr Peter Caddick-Adams, a military expert at Cranfield University, said Wootton Bassett had shown the nation it was at war.
"They've taught us the meaning of sacrifice, and I think we'd forgotten it," he said.
Speaking in 2009, the then mayor, Councillor Steve Bucknell, said: "We've been careful throughout this process not to get involved in the politics of the war.
"These repatriations are simply about the soldiers and their families and the support we give to the armed forces."
During Wednesday's service, the union flag will be lowered and then taken to be flown in a memorial garden at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire where future repatriation flights will land.
'Gives us closure' The mayor of Wootton Bassett Paul Heaphy, who will hand over the flag, said: "We felt it was appropriate to mark the passing of responsibility from Wootton Bassett to Oxfordshire and we felt it would be wrong not to recognise what has happened over the last number of years.

"We've had requests from the community to pull something together, so we have created this ceremony which hopefully people will feel fitting."
Anne Bevis, repatriation liaison officer with the RBL in Wootton Bassett, said: "The ceremony will bring closure to us, with the handing over to Brize Norton, it sort of ties it all up nicely and gives us closure, otherwise it is left high and dry."
The town of Carterton, near Brize Norton, is to continue the tradition started at Wootton Bassett with the creation of a special area where grieving families and local people can pay their respects.
It is expected to be used for the first time next week when the body of a Royal Marine serving with 42 Commando who was killed on Tuesday is flown home from Afghanistan.

Great white sharks 'could be in British waters'

 

Great whites can migrate distances of thousands of kilometres each year

Great white sharks could be "occasional vagrant visitors" to waters around the British Isles, according to an expert.

Richard Peirce, chairman of the Shark Trust, said the conditions and availability of prey made British waters an ideal hunting ground for the feared predator.
Mr Peirce said: "The real surprise is that we don't have an established white shark population, because the conditions here mirror those in parts of South Africa, Australia and northern California.
"Research has shown that white sharks tolerate water temperatures in a range which would make British waters perfectly suitable for this species."
British waters are home to many species of predatory sharks including blue and mako sharks which have been spotted off southwest England in the summer and threshers and porbeagles which are year-round residents.
There have also been sightings of other sharks in British waters over the summer. Earlier this month fisherman Jim Millar spotted a 15ft (4.5m) thresher shark off Dartmouth in Devon, where they are very rarely seen.
Another fisherman caught a 300lb (21 stone) porbeagle shark off the coast of Donegal, Republic of Ireland, last month.
And there were two separate sightings of what was believed to have been an oceanic whitetip shark, a species also known to attack humans, in St Ives, Cornwall, in June, although very few shark experts believe the sightings were oceanic whitetips.
Mr Peirce believes it is only a matter of time before proof is found that the species at the top of the marine food chain, the great white shark - Carcharodon carcharias - is occasionally present in British waters.

Jim Millar saw a thresher shark off the Devon coast, a rare visitor to the area

"Great whites are highly nomadic in movement around the north Atlantic so it's reasonable to say there's a good chance they may stray into British waters.
"I do suspect we do get the occasional vagrant visitor."
Mr Peirce claims he almost proved there is a great white occurrence in the UK with a photograph of a shark caught off the north east coast of Scotland.
"I sent the photo to some of the world's leading experts but as soon as they heard it was caught off Scotland they started looking at what else it could be."
Mr Peirce has investigated more than 80 reported sightings of great whites in British waters over the last 14 years but only seven were found to be credible.
'Compelling evidence' A fisherman in Cornwall reported a great white sticking its head out of the water, known as "spy-hopping" in the 1970s and fishermen onboard three different boats, also off Cornwall, described a sighting of a great white within three weeks of one another in 1999.
Mr Peirce said: "The reason the evidence is so compelling is that it's from independent witnesses who do not know each other on different boats.
"The problem is these things happen in a flash. Unless the shark jumps right out of the water or is caught, all we'll see is a dorsal fin sticking out the water.
"The closest capture of a great white was off La Rochelle (in western France) about 200 nautical miles from UK shores which is no distance to them."

In 5,000 hours of observing Seawatch SW has only seen one predatory shark

 

However Dr Russell Wynn, co-ordinator of the SeaWatch SW project and a senior marine scientist at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said the odds of a great white being found in British waters were extremely low as the creatures are very rare in the northeast Atlantic.
The SeaWatch SW survey team has spent more than 5,000 hours scanning the seas off southwest England in the past five years but the only predatory sharks seen have been single blues and threshers.
"The only large shark the public are likely to see is the harmless plankton-feeding basking shark, which can grow to over 10m long and is occasionally seen leaping out of the water," he said.
But Dr Wynn accepted there was a small chance of a great white sighting off the British coast.
"It's certainly not impossible that a great white could be seen or caught in British waters one day, as we know they occur off southwest Europe in very low numbers."
But despite the recent sightings, the opportunity of seeing sharks is decreasing year on year.
Research carried out by Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, in the Western Atlantic indicate serious depletions of more than 50% for many shark species.
Mr Peirce said: "Unless we do something about shark mortality in the Atlantic we won't be having this conversation in 50 years time."

Charity swimmers swept out to sea during Joss Bay race

Up to 80 people had to be rescued after they were swept out to sea during a charity swim to rise cash for the RNLI.

All the swimmers had been taking part in a 3.8km charity race round Joss Bay, Broadstairs, Kent on Saturday.
Dover Coastguards said they were called to the bay at about 10:30 BST and spent about two hours searching for all the missing participants.
Watch manager Gordon Wise said: "It could have potentially been a very serious event, a very serious problem."
He added: "When we got down there we found that there was a number of swimmers that had gone out, I understand the numbers are in the high upper tens.
"In the end through a search between two inshore lifeboats, rescue boats, and some paddle boarders which were part of the event, all people were brought ashore and accounted for.

I didn't realise the seriousness of it until I got back to shore”

Mike Jennings

 

"It was a long job. It went on for nearly two hours.

"There are some bad tides that run along there, rip tiding. Especially at the moment we are coming up to some of the highest tides of the year."
'Just un-swimmable' One swimmer, Mike Jennings from Gravesend, said just three people managed to finish the race.
He added: "I managed to struggle round two [laps]. The latter part of the second lap I did, it took me 10 minutes to swim 50 yards to get past the marker buoy.
"After that I felt the current pushing me rapidly back up the Thames [Estuary] . So I headed for the lighthouse on top of the cliffs there.
"I don't suppose anybody out there has got more experience than me and I literally swam for that lighthouse and just about made it back to where we started.
"Other people behind me were being swept up the Thames."
Mr Jennings added: "I didn't realise the seriousness of it until I got back to shore.
"They were still bringing them back at least an hour after I'd finished.
"I did two of the three laps and I realised that there was no way I going back out there for that third lap, just un-swimmable in one direction."
The race had been organised by event and coaching company VoTwo to raise funds for the RNLI.