Harry Potter Actor Found Dead In Death Valley

British actor Dave Legeno, who played a villain in three of the Harry Potter films, has died while hiking in California's Death Valley.

Police said Legeno, 50, was found by another pair of hikers and that he appeared to have died of "heat-related issues".

The actor played werewolf Fenrir Greyback in Harry Potter and had roles opposite Brad Pitt in Snatch and Christian Bale in Batman Begins. He was also due to appear in the forthcoming film Sword Of Vengeance.

Legeno was also a professional boxer, wrestler and martial artist.

Legeno played a werewolf called Fenrir Greyback in Harry Potter

A sheriff's department spokesman said: "It appears that Legeno died of heat-related issues, but the Inyo County Coroner will determine the final cause of death.

"There are no signs of foul play."

Fellow Harry Potter star Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy, paid tribute to his colleague.

Legeno was also a professional boxer

"Gutted to hear the sad news about Dave Legeno. He was a true Big, Friendly, Gentleman. Was a pleasure every time we met #BFG #DaveLegeno," he wrote.

Felton also posted a picture on Instagram of a publicity poster for the Harry Potter films, saying: "Dave Legeno. It was always a pleasure. He was a great talent with a heart of gold and always had time."

California's Death Valley is the hottest national park in the US

Death Valley is a basin that lies 282ft below sea level and is the hottest national park in the US.

It is near the border of the states of California and Nevada and covers an area of some 3,000 square miles (7,800 sq km).

Average temperatures in July are around 48C (116F).

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'Omar The Chechen' Should Come Home, Says Dad

By Katie Stallard, Moscow Correspondent, in Pankisi, Georgia

The father of ISIS commander Omar al Shishani has told Sky News his son felt rejected by his country when he left to fight jihad.

With his distinctive red beard, al Shishani has become one of the most recognisable faces of a group now notorious for extreme brutality in its pursuit of an Islamic state across large swathes of Iraq and Syria.

But his father remembers a young man who was never particularly religious, but who always wanted to be a soldier.

Born in the remote Pankisi Gorge in Northern Georgia, an area once seen as a stronghold for Chechen militants, his real name is Tarkhan Batirashvili.

When he was younger, he worked as a shepherd boy in the hills above the gorge, where he reportedly first met Chechen fighters, crossing the Caucasus mountains to fight Russian forces across the border.

Al Shishani was 'tormented' when he was not allowed back in the army

"He was a very good boy, very well behaved," Timur Batirashvili remembers.

"Always very intelligent, very nice, he hated when people lied.

"Do you know what I think now? I didn't know my son. I didn't know him at all."

Tarkhan joined the Georgian army and served in the Russia-Georgia war in 2008. His father said he seemed happy, that he had found his place in the world.

Mr Batirashvili says he son told him to convert to Islam and hung up on him

He was due to be promoted to become an officer, and told his father their lives were about to change, that he was going to earn so much more money.

But then he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and admitted to hospital, after which he was discharged from the army on medical grounds.

He tried and failed to get back in - Mr Batirashvili said he was "tormented" - sent from office to office to no avail.

'Omar the Chechen' comes from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge

A few months later he was arrested and sent to prison for possession of illegal weapons.

"When he came back from prison he was really thin," Mr Batirashvili said.

"He lost his colour in prison, and he told me, 'Father, this means that this country doesn't need me.'

"I haven't seen him ever since. He felt really bad, he was really angry.

"He made a pact that if he left the prison alive he would start a holy war for God.

"'I will start a holy war in the name of God', he said, and that's what he's doing right now."

He reappeared in Syria last year under a new name, Omar al Shishani - which translates as Omar the Chechen - and became the leader of an al Qaeda-inspired group, The Army of Emigrants and Partisans, before pledging his allegiance to ISIS.

Mr Batirashvili said his son phoned him once, asking whether everything was okay, and whether he was praying to God.

When he replied that he was praying to Saint George, a Christian saint, al Shishani told him he should convert to Islam and hung up.

We asked him what he would say to his son if he could speak to him now.

He said: "Come back home. I am an old man. I need to be taken care of, I need to be looked after. Come home."

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Ukraine Rights Abuses Flagged Up By Amnesty

By Lisa Holland, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Hundreds of people have been abducted and subjected to horrific beatings in the troubled eastern region of Ukraine, according to campaign group Amnesty International.

After the collapse of the pro-Russian government of President Yanukovych in February this year, Russia seized control of Crimea and separatists in the east of the country have been fighting Ukrainian government forces, prompting the biggest East-West showdown since the Cold War.

Amnesty International gathered information on abductions and attacks such as beatings and torture meted out to activists, protesters and journalists as Kiev lost its hold over the region.

A soldier looking out from an armoured vehicle in eastern Ukraine

"With hundreds abducted over the last three months, the time has come to take stock of what has happened, and stop this abhorrent ongoing practice," said Amnesty's Denis Krivosheev.

There are no comprehensive or reliable figures for the number of abductions - Ukraine itself says there were nearly 500 cases between April and June 2014, but the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission for Ukraine says it recorded 222 cases of abductions in the last three months.

Amnesty says most are being carried out by armed separatists, with the victims often subjected to beatings and torture. But it says there is also evidence of a smaller number of abuses by pro-Kiev forces.

A pro-Russian separatist in the eastern town of Donetsk

It says abductions have taken place across eastern Ukraine in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"Now that pro-Kiev forces are re-establishing control over Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and various other places in eastern Ukraine, new captives are being released almost daily with an increasing number of disturbing cases emerging," said Mr Krivosheev.

"It is time that these are meticulously documented with perpetrators brought to justice with victims awarded compensation."

Hanna, a pro-Ukrainian activist, told Amnesty International how she was abducted by armed men in the eastern city of Donetsk on May 27.

Ukraine troops took control of Slavyansk

She said she was held for six days before being released in a prisoner exchange. She described how she was violently interrogated.

"My face was smashed, he punched me in the face with his fist, he was trying to beat me everywhere, I was covering myself with my hands," she said.

"I was huddled in the corner, curled up in a ball with my hands around my knees. He was angry that I was trying to protect myself. He went out and came back with a knife."

The eastern town was badly shelled last week

Hanna showed scars on her neck, arms and legs where she says she was sliced with the blade: there is a stab wound in her knee, her right index finger is still heavily bandaged in a plastic splint.

She also described how her interrogator made her write a separatist slogan on the wall, in her own blood.

While most abductions appear to have a "political" motivation, there is clear evidence that abduction and torture is being used by armed groups to exert fear and control over local populations. People have also being abducted for ransom.

President Poroshenko was elected in May

Sasha, a 19-year-old pro-Ukrainian activist, fled to Kiev after he was abducted by separatists at gunpoint in Luhansk. He said he was beaten repeatedly for 24 hours.

"They beat me with their fists, a chair, anything they could find. They stubbed out cigarettes on my leg and electrocuted me. It went on for so long, I couldn't feel anything anymore, I just passed out," he said.

He was finally released after his father paid a $60,000 ransom (£35,010).

There are allegations of atrocities on both sides.

One local government official in Mariupol, who wished to remain anonymous, told Amnesty International how they heard a captive separatist fighter wailing in pain at the hands of pro-Kiev forces who were seemingly trying to extract information about the separatists.

The report was published as Ukrainian officials said a missile attack in by pro-separatist fighters may have killed at least 30 soldiers and border guards, with final figures possibly even higher.

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Middle East: Complex Web Of Friends And Foes

Rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel at dawn. The opening of a new front for Israel already engaged in an escalating air campaign in the Gaza Strip? No.

Neither the Israelis nor Hezbollah, which has an arsenal of 100,000 rockets and controls southern Lebanon, are that stupid.

The missile attack on Israel's north was an attempt by Sunni militants to spark a confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel that both know would be a zero sum.

Why would Sunnis, in all probability descendants of Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel, want to do that?

It's Hezbollah, a Shia movement, after all, that has been a major conduit of experts, funding and modern rockets to Hamas, a Sunni organisation, in Gaza. Hamas and Hezbollah are allies.

Hamas has condemned the Hezbollah-backed regime of Bashar al Assad

But only when it comes to fighting Israel.

In Syria, Hamas has condemned the Assad regime, which like Hezbollah is backed by Iran.

Sunnis of Palestinian descent are among volunteers who have joined rebel groups fighting Damascus, while Hezbollah has sent thousands of its best fighters to the frontlines to defend the regime of Bashar al Assad.

There is a logic at work here.

If Sunni groups in south Lebanon can sucker the Israelis into a war with Hezbollah they could enjoy the double whammy of reduced pressure on Gaza, and the use of Israel's devastating air power against Hezbollah, the Sunni's enemies in Syria.

No better example of an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.

It won't happen because both Hezbollah and Israel, foes who have the greatest respect for one another, saw through the plot some time back. It's not the first time it has been tried.

But it does signal just how the Middle East's tectonic plates of conflict have shifted and can overlap.

The explosion of sectarian Muslim war between Sunni and Shia in Syria, which has spread into Iraq and has destabilised Lebanon, has become the defining clash in a new age of chaos.

Rival regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran use proxies to vie for influence and control.

The Saudis have become increasingly nervous of the spread of a Shia crescent from Tehran through Baghdad to Damascus and south Lebanon.

But Tehran has also used enemy forces to bolster the positions of its allies.

According to intelligence sources Muhsin al Fadhli, once a senior al Qaeda figure based in Iraq has taken up an operational roles inside Syria - at the instigation of the Iranian government.

Why would Tehran release someone to fight a key client an ally in Damascus?

Because radical groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have fought harder against fellow rebel groups than they have against the Assad regime.

Tehran has split the rebels.

But now ISIS threatens Iran's client government in Baghdad showing that an enemy's enemy may be a friend from time to time, but will remain an enemy.

This may be complicated but there is no excuse for stupidity in the Middle East. Failure to comprehend this can be fatal.

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World Cup Ticket Scam Suspect 'Not Fugitive'

A British man accused of running a World Cup ticket touting operation is not a "fugitive", according to his company.

Brazilian police said on Thursday they considered Ray Whelan to be "on the run" after he left his Rio de Janeiro hotel.

However, his employer, Match Services, believes Mr Whelan's movements within Brazil were not restricted under the terms of his release.

Mr Whelan is suspected of supplying tickets to a touting gang working at the World Cup.

He is a director of Match Services, a subsidiary of the Byrom Group which owns Fifa's ticket and hospitality rights,

Mr Whelan was first arrested on Monday

A statement from the firm said: "Match must emphasise its understanding that the terms of Ray Whelan's previous release did not restrict Ray Whelan's movements, provided he stayed within Brazil.

"We do not believe that the term 'fugitive' is appropriate under the circumstances as he is presently with his lawyer.

"We understand that any accused in Brazil has the fundamental right to resist a coercion that he believes to be arbitrary and illegal."

CCTV footage of Mr Whelan shows he did not rush from his hotel, added the company.

Mr Whelan was first arrested on Monday on the basis of telephone taps in which he was heard discussing $25,000 (£14,500) cash deals for ticket packages with Lamine Fofana, an Algerian suspected of being the conduit for hundreds of tickets.

He was released on bail on Tuesday morning but on Thursday a judge approved an arrest warrant, a precursor to his being formally charged.

Match says it is confident the charges against Mr Whelan will be rebutted

Under the order he was to be taken into custody along with 10 other suspects.

Officers went to his hotel, the upmarket Copacabana Palace, but found he had left by a staff entrance an hour earlier.

Police later said in a statement: "Teams from the 18 Precinct (Flag Square), coordinated by the delegate Fabio Barucke, were at the Copacabana Palace Hotel on the afternoon of Thursday, to comply with probation warrant issued by the court against Raymond Whelan.

"According to the delegate, the English fled out the back door of the hotel and is now considered a fugitive."

Mr Whelan's whereabouts still appear to be unknown.

Match says it has not spoken to him or his lawyer since they left the hotel and therefore "cannot comment on his circumstances".

"Ray Whelan has not yet been granted the due process of a fair trial," said the company. "Match remains absolutely confident that any charges raised against Ray will be rebutted."

Match has previously described the arrest of Mr Whelan as "arbitrary and illegal" and accused the police of failing to understand the ticket and hospitality market.

They say Mr Whelan could not be expected to know that touting suspect Fofana was banned from buying products, and that while cash deals are unusual it is not a breach of the rules.

Mr Whelan surrendered his passport as a condition of his bail and is not permitted to leave Brazil.

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North Carolina's Outer Banks 'Ban' Rising Seas

By Dominic Waghorn, US Correspondent, Washington

Politicians in the United States have been accused of trying to make rising sea levels illegal.

When scientists in North Carolina predicted global warming will cause a rise of at least a metre by the end of the century in the seas off the Outer Banks it caused uproar among businesses and property owners.

The Banks are a 200-mile (320-km) long, narrow and very low-lying spit of land stretching into the Atlantic Ocean. 

They are hugely popular with holidaymakers and hugely vulnerable to global warming.

Willo Kelly says the science on the sea-level rise was biased

A metre's sea rise would inundate most of it. Just the possibility of it happening is a threat to property values. 

Householders, developers and the real estate industry pressured the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly to introduce a new law saying the 100-year prediction should be ignored and making it illegal to use it for planning purposes in the Outer Banks.

More condemned notices will appear in future, say environmentalists

Willo Kelly led the NC-20 consortium of local businesses lobbying government on the issue. 

She insists they were motivated by concerns the scientists were biased.

"They did not conduct scientific research," she says. "They did a literary review of the science that was out there on sea level rise.

Most scientists say US coast sea levels will rise by at least 100cm by 2100

"It appears they were biased. It seems to be cherry picked information. There was no conflicting science in their review."

But critics say the lobbying had more commercial and less altruistic motives, and was an attempt to safeguard property prices and local interests.

An overwhelming majority of scientists predict sea levels will rise by at least a metre up and down the coast of the US by 2100.  

One academic says the Outer Banks politicians are living in denial

One of them is Professor Orrin Pilkey, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences, at Duke University in North Carolina.

He says the people of the Outer Banks and their politicians are living in denial. 

It is impossible, he says, for politicians simply to legislate that a scientific prediction should be ignored.

A panel of scientists has been instructed to work on a new prediction

"All up and down the East Coast, Gulf Coast and West Coast it's all the same and still they stick their heads in the sands," he says.

The body responsible for coastal management on the Outer Banks, the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC), has struck a compromise. 

The slender barrier islands span much of the North Carolina coastline

Another panel of scientists has been instructed to work on a new prediction for sea levels in 30 years not 100. 

It will report every five years.

The deputy chair of the CRC, Renee Cahoun, insists there is no cause for undue alarm despite the ominous scientific forecasts

"I think we've seen changes on the Outer Banks back and forth over the past 100 years," she says.

The islands are close to where the Wright brothers made their first flight

"I'm saying that when you live here you have a lot better feel of what's happening locally."

But critics say what is on its way will be very different to anything the Outer Banks has thus far endured. 

They are warning a 30-year outlook could be misleading.

Nearly 58,000 people live on the Outer Banks

Sea levels are predicted to rise exponentially. 

The increase in levels is only expected to accelerate after 30 years. 

Coastal residents joined forces with climate sceptics to attack the science

Investors and prospective property buyers may end up misinformed if they are told about the risks only for the next three decades.

But the new law's supporters say a 30-year prediction will be easier for people to relate to and for local authorities to use for planning.

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Croc On A Plane: Reptile 'May Have Caused Crash'

An escaped crocodile may have caused a plane crash which killed a British pilot and 18 others, an inquest has heard.

Chris Wilson died when the jet he was co-piloting plunged to the ground during a routine flight across the Congo in August 2010.

No cause for the crash has ever been established but an inquest was told a crocodile may have sparked a stampede by roaming around the aisles moments before the aircraft came down.

It is thought the plane, which was travelling from Kinshasa to Bandundu, may have nosedived as passengers and crew members ran from the reptile.

Assistant Coroner David Dooley said it was "apparently quite normal" for animals to be carried on the plane, adding: "It was used like a taxi in this regard."

"There is apparently a video of the crocodile being taken out of the plane," he told the hearing at Gloucester Coroner's Court.

"(Investigators) think it may have frightened the cabin crew member and she ran forward, with the other passengers following.

"The weight shift caused by the panic may have affected the plane, causing it to nosedive or stall."

Mr Wilson moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010 after giving up his job as a cabin crew member to follow his dream of becoming a commercial pilot.

The 39-year-old worked for local company Filair but is said to have become increasingly concerned about the flying ability of co-pilot Danny Philemotte, who owned the firm.

In a statement read to the court, his brother, Martin, said:  "Every time he flew with Mr Philemotte, there was always one incident or another.

"He said he didn't want to fly with him anymore.

"He said if it wasn't for the fact they could see where they were going, they wouldn't ever get anywhere because Mr Philemotte couldn't read the instruments.

"He said he didn't know how Mr Philemotte was still alive (because) his flying was so bad."

Timothy Atkinson, an air accident investigator, said he had reviewed evidence from the Congolese authorities but was unable to draw any definitive conclusions because they were not given the plane's black box data recorder.

"There is no evidence suggesting an engine failure or a nose dive, although I cannot be sure without looking at the plane," he told the court.

"The accident appears to have the hallmarks of a stall and spin, which may have been from a variety of causes.

"Essentially, it fell out of the sky."

Mr Dooley recorded an open conclusion, saying a lack of witnesses and data from the black box "have only resulted in vague guesses as to what happened".

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China's 'Star' Anchorman Disappears Before Show

A popular Chinese television news presenter has disappeared from his nightly show, just weeks after his boss was detained on suspicion of taking bribes.

Rui Chenggang, a business journalist who works for the state-run broadcaster CCTV, was taken from his workplace by prosecutors, according to financial news magazine Caixin.

He was missing from the newscast he co-anchors, although producers kept two microphones wired up for the show.

It comes two months after CCTV's financial news director Guo Zhenxi was detained as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption.

Mr Guo once praised Mr Rui as the station's "star anchor", telling the New York Times his reporter was, for the first time, "examining the health of the nation" through a television programme.

Mr Rui, who is known for his nationalistic streak, has interviewed numerous political and business leaders during his career, amassing more than 10 million followers on his social networking account.

He once formed a campaign group to remove a Starbucks coffee shop from Beijing's Forbidden City and raised eyebrows when he claimed he could represent all of Asia at one of US President Barack Obama's news conferences in 2009.

As well as his prime-time role at CCTV, Mr Rui is a columnist for Beijing Youth Daily and sits on the board of the China National Symphony Orchestra.

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Russian Tourist 'Raped In Sharm El-Sheikh'

Police have arrested a minibus driver for allegedly raping a Russian tourist in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

The suspect was driving the woman and her husband back to their hotel after a night-out when he pretended the vehicle had broken down, officers said.

He then tricked the Russian man into getting out of the minibus before speeding off with his wife.

The 23-year-old suspect attacked the woman, 36, and left her on the side of the road, according to Egyptian news website Ahram Online.

In March, a British businesswoman was allegedly raped in a five-star hotel in the same resort.

The woman, aged in her 40s, said she was sexually assaulted by a security guard who escorted her to her room.

The Egyptian government recently passed a law imposing harsher penalties for sex attacks.

President Abdel Fattah al Sisi vowed to crack down on such crimes, after footage appeared in the world's media of men sexually assaulting a woman during a rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Thirteen men are to stand trial over the attack.

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Gaza Conflict: Hague Calls For Ceasefire

A Complex Web Of Friends And Enemies

Updated: 5:06pm UK, Friday 11 July 2014

By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor

Rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel at dawn. The opening of a new front for Israel already engaged in an escalating air campaign in the Gaza Strip? No.

Neither the Israelis nor Hezbollah, which has an arsenal of 100,000 rockets and controls southern Lebanon, are that stupid.

The missile attack on Israel's north was an attempt by Sunni militants to spark a confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel that both know would be a zero sum.

Why would Sunnis, in all probability descendants of Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel, want to do that?

It's Hezbollah, a Shia movement, after all, that has been a major conduit of experts, funding and modern rockets to Hamas, a Sunni organisation, in Gaza. Hamas and Hezbollah are allies.

But only when it comes to fighting Israel.

In Syria, Hamas has condemned the Assad regime, which like Hezbollah is backed by Iran.

Sunnis of Palestinian descent are among volunteers who have joined rebel groups fighting Damascus, while Hezbollah has sent thousands of its best fighters to the frontlines to defend the regime of Bashar al Assad.

There is a logic at work here.

If Sunni groups in south Lebanon can sucker the Israelis into a war with Hezbollah they could enjoy the double whammy of reduced pressure on Gaza, and the use of Israel's devastating air power against Hezbollah, the Sunni's enemies in Syria.

No better example of an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.

It won't happen because both Hezbollah and Israel, foes who have the greatest respect for one another, saw through the plot some time back. It's not the first time it has been tried.

But it does signal just how the Middle East's tectonic plates of conflict have shifted and can overlap.

The explosion of sectarian Muslim war between Sunni and Shia in Syria, which has spread into Iraq and has destabilised Lebanon, has become the defining clash in a new age of chaos.

Rival regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran use proxies to vie for influence and control.

The Saudis have become increasingly nervous of the spread of a Shia crescent from Tehran through Baghdad to Damascus and south Lebanon.

But Tehran has also used enemy forces to bolster the positions of its allies.

According to intelligence sources Muhsin al Fadhli, once a senior al Qaeda figure based in Iraq has taken up an operational roles inside Syria - at the instigation of the Iranian government.

Why would Tehran release someone to fight a key client an ally in Damascus?

Because radical groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have fought harder against fellow rebel groups than they have against the Assad regime.

Tehran has split the rebels.

But now ISIS threatens Iran's client government in Baghdad showing that an enemy's enemy may be a friend from time to time, but will remain an enemy.

This may be complicated but there is no excuse for stupidity in the Middle East. Failure to comprehend this can be fatal.

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