Shot Ex-Congresswoman Pays Visit To Newtown

Former US Representative Gabrielle Giffords has visited the Connecticut town where a gunman killed 26 people at an elementary school last month.

The former Arizona congresswoman met with Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra, US Senator Richard Blumenthal and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman.

Ms Giffords, accompanied by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, spent about half an hour at the local town hall.

Later she was planning to meet family members of some of the Newtown victims, said a spokesman for Ms Wyman.

Gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six staff members in a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on December 14.

Ms Giffords was left partially blind and with a paralysed right arm and brain damage after being shot in the head by a gunman at a constituent meet-and-greet outside a Tucson grocery store in early 2011.

Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty and was sentenced in November

Arizona's chief federal judge and five others were killed in the attack and 12 people, in addition to Ms Giffords, were wounded.

The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, pleaded guilty to 19 charges and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.

Ms Giffords has made few public appearances since the shooting. She came face-to-face with Loughner when he was sentenced in November.

She retired from Congress last year to focus on her recovery.

She has also become a symbol for gun control advocates in the increasingly heated debate over firearms.

On the day of the Newtown massacre Mark Kelly said it should lead to better gun control.

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Oscar Ceremony Will Celebrate James Bond

A tribute to the James Bond films will be included in the Oscar ceremony next month, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the franchise.

"We are very happy to include a special sequence on our show saluting the Bond films on their 50th birthday," said the ceremony's producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron in a statement.

"Starting with Dr No back in 1962, the 007 movies have become the longest-running motion picture franchise in history and a beloved global phenomenon."

Skyfall, the 23rd and latest film about the suave spy, played by Daniel Craig in his third outing, is breaking box-office records worldwide.

Over the decades a number of 007 films have been nominated for the coveted golden statuettes - albeit generally in technical or minor categories - and there has been talk that Skyfall could draw another nod or two when the nominations are revealed on Thursday.

Goldfinger won Bond's first Oscar, for sound effects, in 1964

But in any case Britain's most famous spy is guaranteed a turn in the Oscars spotlight at the 85th Academy Awards show on February 24.

Over Christmas Skyfall became the first film ever to take £100m at the British box office. Globally it has taken more than $1bn (£813m).

And this week the latest Bond, by Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, became the first 007 movie to make it onto the shortlist of best film nominees of the Producers Guild of America (PGA).

It joined already Oscar-tipped films like Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and Iran spy drama Argo.

The PGA top prize winner has gone on to the win the Best Picture Oscar 16 times in the last 23 years, the Hollywood Reporter noted. The winners will be announced on January 26.

Few expect Skyfall to win any major Oscar prizes but there has been speculation that it could secure a Best Song nod for Adele's theme tune.

The 1964 film Goldfinger won an Oscar for sound effects, while the following year Thunderball won for special visual effects.

The Oscars will be presented on February 24 at the Hollywood & Highland Centre in LA and televised live in more than 225 countries.

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Bluefin Tuna Auctioned For Record $1.7m

A bluefin tuna has sold for a record $1.76m (£1.1m) at a Tokyo auction - nearly three times the previous high.

In the year's first auction at Tokyo's sprawling Tsukiji fish market, the 222kg (489lb) tuna caught off north eastern Japan sold for 155.4m yen.

The fish's tender pink and red meat is prized for sushi and sashimi. The best slices of fatty bluefin - called "o-toro" - can sell for 2,000 yen ($24) per piece at upmarket Tokyo sushi bars.

The Japanese eat 80% of all bluefin tuna caught worldwide, and much of the global catch is shipped to Japan for consumption.

The auction took place at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market

The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said "the price was a bit high," but that he wanted to "encourage Japan".

He went on to serve the fish to customers on Saturday.

However environmentalists have warned that stocks of the fish are being depleted worldwide amid strong demand for sushi.

"Everything we're hearing is that there's no good news for the Pacific bluefin," said Amanda Nickson, the director of the Washington-based Pew Environmental Group's global tuna conservation campaign.

The tuna was later served to diners at Mr Kimura's restaurant

"We're seeing a very high value fish continue to be overfished."

Stocks of bluefin caught in the Atlantic and Mediterranean plunged by 60% between 1997 and 2007 due to rampant, often illegal, overfishing and lax quotas.

Although there has been some improvement in recent years, experts say the outlook for the species is still fragile.

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Australia Bushfires Rage Across Tasmania

Australia's prime minister has promised help to dozens of people who have been made homeless by a series of bushfires sweeping the south of the country.

Hundreds of residents have been forced to leave their homes in the island state of Tasmania, with fires breaking out across the region amid blistering temperatures and high winds.

Around 80 buildings have been destroyed in and around the small town of Dunalley, east of the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, including the town's school, police station and bakery.

Officials are investigating reports that one person has been killed in the blaze, but there have been no confirmed deaths or injuries from the fire.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said: "For those who have lost their homes - a devastating experience, and we will be working with them, as will the state government to support people through.

"There are media reports that a life has been lost - I'm not in a position to confirm that, but bushfires are very dangerous things," she added.

The heatwave sent the temperature in Hobart soaring to a record high of nearly 42C on Friday.

Conditions had eased across much of the region on Saturday, but fire officials warned that the danger from some of the fires remained high.

"We reached catastrophic fire danger ratings at times," Tasmania fire service chief officer Mike Brown said.

Bushfires are common seasonal hazard during the Australian summer.

In February 2009, hundreds of fires across the state of Victoria killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

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China Weather: Ships Stranded As Sea Freezes

Temperatures in China have plunged to their lowest in almost three decades, freezing coastal waters and trapping 1,000 ships in ice.

Since late November the country has withstood average temperatures of -3.8C, 1.3C colder than average and the chilliest for 28 years.

The bitter cold has even frozen the sea in Laizhou Bay on the coast of Shandong province in the east, stranding nearly 1,000 ships, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Transport around the country has been severely disrupted.

More than 140 flights from the state capital airport in central Hunan province were delayed, while heavy snowfall forced the closure of some sections of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway, the newspaper said.

Temperatures in the north east fell even further, reaching a 43-year low of -15.3C, about 3.7C below normal.

One truck driver in southeastern Jiangxi province, caught in a three-mile queue caused by a pileup, said the extreme cold had caught him by surprise.

"I didn't expect such a situation, so I've brought no warm coats or food. All I can do now is wait," said Yao Xuefeng.

The cold weather has seen prices of food including pork rise, according to official data.

Pork prices have risen by more than 5%, triggering fears of price hikes during forthcoming festivals.

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Six Tourists Killed In Snowmobile Crash

By Nick Pisa, Sky Reporter

A mother and her daughter were among six Russians killed after their snowmobile crashed through a safety barrier and fell 300ft in the Italian Alps.

Two others were seriously injured in the late night tragedy, which police have blamed on excessive speed and icy conditions on the Mount Cermis in north east Italy.

Officials said the run is usually lit at night but it had closed early because of the icy conditions, and was shrouded in darkness when the accident happened on Friday night.

The group were on black run known as Olimpia 2, and were returning to their two separate hotels after a night out.

Members of the Italian Alpine rescue team took part in the rescue operation

Police said that some of the group were thrown from a trailer – not intended for passenger use - which was being towed by the snowmobile.

The snowmobile itself also had too many people on it.

A police spokesman added that the force of the impact threw the group from the trailer and snowmobile and into an area of rocks and thick forest.

A helicopter was called in to airlift the dead and injured from the mountain and one of those hurt was taken to the nearby hospital at Cavalese, while the other was flown to nearby Trento.

Local officials said the accident was caused by an "irresponsible act"

The dead - two women and four men - were named by police as Larissa Pshenichnaya, 51, the manager of the Sporting Hotel in Cermis and Liudmila Iudina, 48, who was killed along with her daughter Julia, 25, while her 17-year-old son Boris was seriously hurt.

The other victims were named as Irina Kravchenko, 45, Denis Kravchenko, Viacheslav Sleptsov, 52, while the other seriously injured man was are Azat Agafarov 47.

Those hurt do not have "life threatening injuries".

Police said that all of the group apart from Pshenichnaya and Agafarov were tourists from Krasnodar in southern Russia.

The group were in Italy to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 6 and the area is popular with Russian tourists who flock to the mountains every year.

Alcohol tests will be carried out on the two survivors.

Cermis mayor Silvano Welponer said: "I'm very sad that six people have lost their lives but at the same time this was an irresponsible act - they were on a closed black run at night, when they should not have been there. They chose to be there. It was not a mistake."

Witness Cesare Perini said: "We were coming down Olimpia 3, a run which was open and lit when all of a sudden a police snowmobile came racing up the slope with its lights flashing and siren on.

"When we got down to the bottom a policeman told us to get off the piste. The ski lift operator said the run was closing because there had been fatalities up the mountain."

In 1998, a US Marine jet, flying low on a training run from a nearby air base, accidentally sliced a ski gondola's cable on Mount Cermis, sending the cable car crashing to the ground and claiming 20 lives.

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India Gang Rape Victim's Friend Speaks Of Attack

The male friend of the Indian gang rape victim has spoken for the first time of how he tried to save her and begged her attackers to stop the "cruelty that should never be seen".

He broke his silence as New Delhi district magistrate Namrita Aggarwal confirmed that the five men charged with the victim's rape and murder will appear before her for the first time on Monday.

The victim's 28-year-old male companion said getting on to a private bus that night, because they could not find a rickshaw to take them home, was "the biggest mistake I made".

Speaking in public for the first time, he hit out at the hospital treatment his 23-year-old friend received, the police and at passers-by for failing to help after they were thrown naked from the bus following the two-and-a-half-hour ordeal.

Press gather outside the district court in New Delhi

The software firm employee said that the woman was left naked and bleeding in the street for nearly an hour before a police van arrived to help.

"What can I say? The cruelty I saw should not be seen ever. I tried to fight against the men but later I begged them again and again to leave her," he told AFP.

"I was not very confident about getting into the bus but my friend was running late, so we got into it.

"This was the biggest mistake I made and after that everything went out of control.

The "driver and the other men raped my friend and hit her in the worst possible ways in the most private parts of her body.

"I cannot tell you what I feel when I think of it. I shiver in pain," he said.

Fresh protests and prayers in the capital on Saturday

The man, who suffered a fractured leg and other injuries in the attack, recounted the savagery of the night of December 16 after he and his friend, who died from her injuries on December 29, had been to see a film in New Delhi.

He told the Hindi-language cable channel Zee News: "The occupants of the bus, which had tinted windows and curtains, had laid a trap for us. They were probably involved in crimes before also. They beat us up, hit us with an iron rod, snatched our clothes and belongings and threw us off the bus on a deserted stretch.

"The bus occupants had everything planned. Apart from the driver and the helper, others behaved like they were passengers. We even paid 20 (rupees) as fare. They then started teasing my friend and it led to a brawl. I beat three of them up but then the rest of them brought an iron rod and hit me. Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away."

"From where we boarded the bus, they moved around for nearly two and a half hours. We were shouting, trying to make people hear us. But they switched off the lights of the bus. We tried to resist them. Even my friend fought with them, she tried to save me. She tried to dial the police control room number 100, but the accused snatched her mobile away," he said.

Police have used water cannons and tear gas to dispel protesters

The attackers also violated the victim with an iron bar, causing the immense internal damage that lead to her death, before throwing them from the bus.

The friend said: "There were a few people who had gathered round but nobody helped. Before the police came I screamed for help but the auto rickshaws, cars and others passing by did not stop."

He said when police arrived: "We kept shouting at the police, 'please give us some clothes' but they were busy deciding which police station our case should be registered at."

"It took an hour and a half for us to be taken to hospital," he added.

The police have arrested six suspects - five men and a juvenile believed to be aged 17 - who were formally charged with murder, rape and kidnapping on Thursday.

A hearse carrying the body of the 23-year-old rape victim

The case has sparked massive protests across India, where statistics show a woman is raped every 20 minutes.

Protesters have called for all rape suspects to be hanged and want a better deal for women so the streets are safer and men who rape women are put on trial.

National crime records show that 228,650 of the total 256,329 violent crimes recorded in India last year were against women and rape cases more than doubled between 1990 and 2008.

Police in Delhi have filed charges against Zee News under laws which protect the anonymity of victims of offences such as rape. In India, the criminal justice system defines rape as a crime against the state, and it the responsibility of the state to defend the victim.

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Fashion Designer Missing As Plane Vanishes

Italian designer Vittorio Missoni, head of one of Italy's oldest fashion houses, was aboard a small plane that disappeared off the coast of Venezuela, a company spokeswoman has confirmed.

The Los Roques where the plane took off

The aircraft reportedly went missing shortly after take-off from the resort of Los Roques, a group of islands off the coast of Venezuela that is popular with tourists.

Also reported to have been on board were Mr Missoni's wife, Maurizia Castiglioni, another couple believed to be their friends, and two Venezuelan crew members.

"The Missoni family has been informed by the Venezuelan consulate that Vittorio Missoni and his wife are missing, but we don't know any more," said Maddalena Aspes, speaking on behalf of the company.

Venezuela's interior minister said the plane was expected at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas and was declared missing when it failed to arrive.

It is understood that Mr Missoni, 58, and his wife had spent Christmas and New Year at Los Roques.

According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the pilot of the Britten Norman BN2 Islander plane was 72-year-old German Merchan.

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Tsunami Warning Cancelled After Pacific Quake

A tsunami warning has been called off after an earthquake measuring 7.7 struck late on Friday in the Pacific Ocean off Alaska.

The quake was centred about 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Port Alexander at a depth of about six miles (10km), according to the US Geological Survey.

The tsunami warning had been issued for hundreds of miles of Alaskan and Canadian coastline, but the Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre later said there will be no widespread destructive wave.        

Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist from the Pacific Warning Centre said some small sea level changes were seen 100 miles south of the epicentre.

"The tsunami amplitude was 13cm which suggests there may be troublesome waves in the immediate area of the quake, but beyond that there is no hazard so we do not have a tsunami warning for anywhere else in the pacific," Mr Fryer said.

Homes were shaken in Alaska's state capital of Juneau some 205 miles (330 kilometers) away, The Juneau Empire newspaper reported. But there was apparently no major damage in the city, the largest in the area.

Juneau resident Archie Hinman told the Empire the quake "shook my Juneau home violently enough to awaken the entire family. No apparent damage."

The earthquake reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

A similar 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands, located just south of the current epicentre, last October. That quake did trigger a small Pacific tsunami which eventually reached the US state of Hawaii without causing any damage.

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France Plane Crash: Five Die Near Alps

Five people have died after their plane crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in the French Alps, police have confirmed.

The aircraft crashed in a forest in an uninhabited area outside Grenoble, a city that is the gateway to the mountain resorts of the Alps in southeastern France.

An official with the French gendarmerie said the plane crashed on Saturday shortly after it took off from Grenoble's airport.

It was not clear what kind of plane they were flying in but everyone aboard died, police said.

The plane had been due to stop in Spain before heading to Morocco where it was registered.

There were no immediate details of the cause of the crash or the identity of the passengers.

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