Bus thief went on 30-mile rampage
10 hours 39 mins ago (December 19, 2009) - AP
Shane Oldroyd, 27, of Ossett, West Yorkshire, stole the single-decker Arriva bus from Wakefield bus station in August and took it on a rampage through the city's streets, ploughing into other vehicles and street signs on the way.
At Leeds Crown Court, Judge Kerry Macgill jailed Oldroyd indefinitely to serve at least three-and-a-half years.
CCTV footage, shot from a West Yorkshire police helicopter which tracked the bus through Wakefield city centre and surrounding towns, captured Oldroyd driving on the wrong side of the road, sideswiping other cars and destroying traffic lights as the bus smashed into them.
Oldroyd's friend Sarah Smith, 20, was travelling with him on the bus.
Detective Inspector Paul O'Dowd, of Wakefield District CID, said: "Clearly this was a very dangerous act. They caused damage to a large number of vehicles and it is extremely lucky that no-one was seriously injured.
"Police acted to stop the bus as soon as it was safe to do so with minimal risk to members of the public. It was brought to a satisfactory conclusion by the two being apprehended and put before the courts."
At an earlier hearing Oldroyd pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking and damaging a Mercedes car, and being reckless as to whether life was endangered. He also admitted driving without insurance, driving over the alcohol limit and failing to stop after an accident.
Friday, December 18, 2009
MFUNGWA WA MIAKA 35 AACHIWA BAADA YA VINASABA KUDHIHIRISHA UKWELI
DNA clears Fla. man after 35 years behind bars
He is longest-serving prisoner exonerated by genetic tests, attorneys say
Steve Nesius / AP - Imetoka MSNBC
James Bain outside the Polk County Courthouse in Bartow, Fla., after his release from prison on Thursday.
Innocent man freed after 35 years in prison
Dec. 18, 2009: An innocent Florida man walks free today after serving 35 years for a rape he didn't commit. NBC's Jennifer Leigh reports.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
updated 2:40 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2009
BARTOW, Fla. - James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.
Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.
Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.
"Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost," said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Florida Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. "Today is a day of renewal."
Bain spent more time in prison than any of the 246 inmates previously exonerated by DNA evidence nationwide, according to the project. The longest-serving before him was James Lee Woodard of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
As Bain walked out of the Polk County courthouse Thursday, wearing a black T-shirt that said "not guilty," he spoke of his deep faith and said he does not harbor any anger.
'I'm not angry'
"No, I'm not angry," he said. "Because I've got God."
The 54-year-old said he looks forward to eating fried turkey and drinking Dr Pepper. He said he also hopes to go back to school.
Friends and family surrounded him as he left the courthouse after Judge James Yancey ordered him freed. His 77-year-old mother, who is in poor health, preferred to wait for him at home. With a broad smile, he said he looks forward to spending time with her and the rest of his family.
"That's the most important thing in my life right now, besides God," he said.
Earlier, the courtroom erupted in applause after Yancey ruled.
"Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order," Yancey said. "You're a free man. Congratulations."
Thursday's hearing was delayed 40 minutes because prosecutors were on the phone with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. DNA tests were expedited at the department's lab and ultimately proved Bain innocent. Prosecutors filed a motion to vacate the conviction and the sentence.
"He's just not connected to this particular incident," State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge.
Innocence Project's cause
Attorneys from the Innocence Project of Florida got involved in Bain's case earlier this year after he had filed several previous petitions asking for DNA testing, all of which were thrown out.
A judge finally ordered the tests and the results from a respected private lab in Cincinnati came in last week, setting the wheels in motion for Thursday's hearing. The Innocence Project had called for Bain's release by Christmas.
He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness identification, though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy's uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.
The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.
Click for related content
Read more news from across the U.S.
The jury rejected Bain's story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.
Florida last year passed a law that automatically grants former inmates found innocent $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. No legislative approval is needed. That means Bain is entitled to $1.75 million.
He is longest-serving prisoner exonerated by genetic tests, attorneys say
Steve Nesius / AP - Imetoka MSNBC
James Bain outside the Polk County Courthouse in Bartow, Fla., after his release from prison on Thursday.
Innocent man freed after 35 years in prison
Dec. 18, 2009: An innocent Florida man walks free today after serving 35 years for a rape he didn't commit. NBC's Jennifer Leigh reports.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
updated 2:40 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2009
BARTOW, Fla. - James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.
Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.
Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.
"Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost," said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Florida Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. "Today is a day of renewal."
Bain spent more time in prison than any of the 246 inmates previously exonerated by DNA evidence nationwide, according to the project. The longest-serving before him was James Lee Woodard of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
As Bain walked out of the Polk County courthouse Thursday, wearing a black T-shirt that said "not guilty," he spoke of his deep faith and said he does not harbor any anger.
'I'm not angry'
"No, I'm not angry," he said. "Because I've got God."
The 54-year-old said he looks forward to eating fried turkey and drinking Dr Pepper. He said he also hopes to go back to school.
Friends and family surrounded him as he left the courthouse after Judge James Yancey ordered him freed. His 77-year-old mother, who is in poor health, preferred to wait for him at home. With a broad smile, he said he looks forward to spending time with her and the rest of his family.
"That's the most important thing in my life right now, besides God," he said.
Earlier, the courtroom erupted in applause after Yancey ruled.
"Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order," Yancey said. "You're a free man. Congratulations."
Thursday's hearing was delayed 40 minutes because prosecutors were on the phone with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. DNA tests were expedited at the department's lab and ultimately proved Bain innocent. Prosecutors filed a motion to vacate the conviction and the sentence.
"He's just not connected to this particular incident," State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge.
Innocence Project's cause
Attorneys from the Innocence Project of Florida got involved in Bain's case earlier this year after he had filed several previous petitions asking for DNA testing, all of which were thrown out.
A judge finally ordered the tests and the results from a respected private lab in Cincinnati came in last week, setting the wheels in motion for Thursday's hearing. The Innocence Project had called for Bain's release by Christmas.
He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness identification, though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy's uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.
The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.
Click for related content
Read more news from across the U.S.
The jury rejected Bain's story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.
Florida last year passed a law that automatically grants former inmates found innocent $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. No legislative approval is needed. That means Bain is entitled to $1.75 million.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
MLIMA KILIMANJARO UNAPOTEZA THELUJI ASILIA
Deforestation threatens Kilimanjaro ice cap
3 hours 33 mins ago
Reuters Katrina Manson
*
Buzz Up!
* Print Story
At the foot of Africa's snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, images of the mountain adorn the sides of rusting zinc shacks and beer bottle labels, but the fate of the real version hangs in the balance. Skip related content
Related photos / videos
A fresh dusting of snow sits atop mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania Enlarge photo
As politicians and lobbyists try to thrash out a new climate deal in Copenhagen, experts in Tanzania say local land practices must increasingly take their share of the blame for the rapid shrinkage of the ice on Kilimanjaro's peak.
According to one recent U.S. scientific study, the cap on Africa's highest mountain may disappear by 2033.
"The forest itself is the key element in this. It completely affects the amount of rain running off the mountain," said Jo Anderson, director of Ecological Initiatives, an environmental consultancy based in northern Tanzania.
"Less vegetation; less rain. We're seeing local human impacts directly." With less rainfall on the lower slopes, there is also less snow on the summit.
Anderson said forests that have disappeared in the past 30 to 40 years on Kilimanjaro's lower slopes -- cut down by villagers for charcoal and open farmland -- were just as much to blame as rising temperatures worldwide.
Batilda Burian, Tanzania's environment minister, told Reuters that the east African country was losing 91,500 hectares (226,100 acres) a year, of its 33 million hectare total.
"It is a huge problem and most of it is happening because people don't have energy supplies so they are cutting down the trees to make charcoal," she said.
CARBON OFFSET PILOT
Burian said Tanzania, which has sent a delegation of 25 people to the Copenhagen summit, has been widely affected by climate change, from rising sea water levels, destruction of coral reefs and increased incidences of malaria in places previously too cold for mosquitoes.
"Because of a four-year drought 345,000 of our 1 million livestock here in Tanzania have been killed, most of them in one area, challenging the livelihoods of the people," she said.
Zakaria Kessy, a 45-year-old mountain guide standing at Kilimanjaro's base camp as a group of German tourists arrived to down to a congratulatory bottle of champagne, said he had seen big changes during his 18 years on the job.
"The snow used to start at 3,600 metres when I started, but now it's only at the very top," he said of the mountain, which rises 5,896 metres high.
Anderson, who has climbed the peak with tourists 58 times in the past 14 years, hopes a new focus on the importance of forest carbon schemes, touted at Copenhagen, will bring respite.
He is piloting a scheme under which tourists who fly in on carbon-spewing planes and take safaris in gas-guzzling 4x4 cars can offset the impact by contributing to the preservation of a local 50-hectare community forest. It is due to receive its first payment of $3,000-$4,000 (1,800-2,400 pounds) soon.
"I have never really considered the carbon cost of coming here," said German trekker Beatrice Macias, 37.
"It is in everyone's psyche that there's snow almost at the Equator," Anderson said of Kilimanjaro, which rakes in $50 million a year for the tourism-dependent country.
"It is pretty much the defining feature of the mountain for people coming to climb it."
Burian said she hopes plans for a widespread scheme that rewards developing countries for preserving or replanting their forests, called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), will make headway in Copenhagen.
"I have much hope that the REDD programme will really assist us stop the destruction of the forests," she said.
(Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Dominic Evans.
3 hours 33 mins ago
Reuters Katrina Manson
*
Buzz Up!
* Print Story
At the foot of Africa's snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, images of the mountain adorn the sides of rusting zinc shacks and beer bottle labels, but the fate of the real version hangs in the balance. Skip related content
Related photos / videos
A fresh dusting of snow sits atop mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania Enlarge photo
As politicians and lobbyists try to thrash out a new climate deal in Copenhagen, experts in Tanzania say local land practices must increasingly take their share of the blame for the rapid shrinkage of the ice on Kilimanjaro's peak.
According to one recent U.S. scientific study, the cap on Africa's highest mountain may disappear by 2033.
"The forest itself is the key element in this. It completely affects the amount of rain running off the mountain," said Jo Anderson, director of Ecological Initiatives, an environmental consultancy based in northern Tanzania.
"Less vegetation; less rain. We're seeing local human impacts directly." With less rainfall on the lower slopes, there is also less snow on the summit.
Anderson said forests that have disappeared in the past 30 to 40 years on Kilimanjaro's lower slopes -- cut down by villagers for charcoal and open farmland -- were just as much to blame as rising temperatures worldwide.
Batilda Burian, Tanzania's environment minister, told Reuters that the east African country was losing 91,500 hectares (226,100 acres) a year, of its 33 million hectare total.
"It is a huge problem and most of it is happening because people don't have energy supplies so they are cutting down the trees to make charcoal," she said.
CARBON OFFSET PILOT
Burian said Tanzania, which has sent a delegation of 25 people to the Copenhagen summit, has been widely affected by climate change, from rising sea water levels, destruction of coral reefs and increased incidences of malaria in places previously too cold for mosquitoes.
"Because of a four-year drought 345,000 of our 1 million livestock here in Tanzania have been killed, most of them in one area, challenging the livelihoods of the people," she said.
Zakaria Kessy, a 45-year-old mountain guide standing at Kilimanjaro's base camp as a group of German tourists arrived to down to a congratulatory bottle of champagne, said he had seen big changes during his 18 years on the job.
"The snow used to start at 3,600 metres when I started, but now it's only at the very top," he said of the mountain, which rises 5,896 metres high.
Anderson, who has climbed the peak with tourists 58 times in the past 14 years, hopes a new focus on the importance of forest carbon schemes, touted at Copenhagen, will bring respite.
He is piloting a scheme under which tourists who fly in on carbon-spewing planes and take safaris in gas-guzzling 4x4 cars can offset the impact by contributing to the preservation of a local 50-hectare community forest. It is due to receive its first payment of $3,000-$4,000 (1,800-2,400 pounds) soon.
"I have never really considered the carbon cost of coming here," said German trekker Beatrice Macias, 37.
"It is in everyone's psyche that there's snow almost at the Equator," Anderson said of Kilimanjaro, which rakes in $50 million a year for the tourism-dependent country.
"It is pretty much the defining feature of the mountain for people coming to climb it."
Burian said she hopes plans for a widespread scheme that rewards developing countries for preserving or replanting their forests, called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), will make headway in Copenhagen.
"I have much hope that the REDD programme will really assist us stop the destruction of the forests," she said.
(Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Dominic Evans.
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