Greenpeace Arrests: Dutch Take Russia To Court

By Katie Stallard, Russia Correspondent

Representatives of the Dutch government have appealed to an international maritime court to try to secure the release of the Arctic Sunrise and its crew.

The Greenpeace ship, which was sailing under the Netherlands flag, was seized by Russian security forces in September after a protest near an arctic oil rig.

Thirty people on board, including two freelance journalists, a cook and the ship's doctor were arrested at gunpoint and taken to a pre-trial detention centre in Murmansk.

Last week, without explanation, they were transferred to a prison in St Petersburg.

Initial charges of piracy have reportedly been downgraded to hooliganism, an offence punishable by up to seven years in prison. But Greenpeace said the original charges also remain in place.

Russian security services seize Arctic Sunrise

The Dutch government has applied to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to order the immediate release of the ship and its crew.

Based in Hamburg, the tribunal was set up to resolve global maritime disputes.

Russia had already said it would not take part in the hearing, and does not accept decisions that concern its national sovereignty.

The tribunal's website says its has no means to enforce its decisions.

But Greenpeace legal counsel Daniel Simons told Sky News the Netherlands had a very strong case, and it would be more appropriate for Russia to contest the issue of jurisdiction in court.

He said: "Russia has failed to indicate any legal basis for the boarding and detention of the vessel and those persons on board.

"So I think there's every prospect the tribunal will order their release, pending the arbitration case that the Netherlands has filed against Russia."

The Netherlands insists the ship was in international waters when it was stormed.

Inside the detention centre in Murmansk

Russia has said it was in its exclusive economic zone, endangered a Russian oil platform, and should be subject to Russian laws.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since the incident.

The Netherlands and Russia celebrate 400 years of cultural ties this year.

That is not quite going according to plan.

Two weeks after the Arctic Sunrise was seized, a Russian diplomat was arrested and, he has claimed, treated roughly by police in The Hague.

Ten days later, a senior Dutch diplomat was assaulted in his Moscow flat.

Now Russian public health officials are investigating concerns about the safety of imported Dutch tulips and cheese.

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told reporters ahead of the hearing: "The Netherlands is hoping now that all this, eventually, will mean that pending a final solution of the issues, the crew will be released and that also the ship is going to be released."

"Our interpretation of the law of the sea is that nothing happened which justifies the crew being in prison.

"The judge must now decide."

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Venice: Liners To Steer Clear Of Historic Centre

Cruise ships are to be diverted away from Venice's historic centre from 2016 - although concerns have been raised about the proposed new route for the vessels.

The Costa Concordia disaster in January 2012 has increased pressure on the authorities to keep liners away from the central Giudecca canal and St Mark's Basin.

At present they pass within 300m (330 yards) of St Mark's Square, providing a stunning view from aboard the vessel but a jarring sight from the shore.

The MSC Magnifica passes near St Mark's Square

A commission made up of government ministers and local officials has approved plans to dig a new canal so ships can enter the lagoon from the west, avoiding the historic centre.

The Venice Port, which campaigned successfully to preserve the existing passenger terminal, estimates the project will take two years to complete.

Venice Mayor Giorgio Orsoni said the decision "finally inverts the tendency toward gigantism in the lagoon."

A campaign group opposed to the cruise ship traffic in Venice called it "a first victory for our movement".

But they are concerned about the environmental impact of the new canal, claiming it could have "devastating" consequences, and are to press for another route.

View of the Magnifica from the shore

In the meantime, cruise-ship traffic is to be reduced by 20% from January, while smaller ferries will be banned from passing through Venice altogether.

It is claimed this will reduce the amount of traffic in front of St Mark's by one quarter.

From November 2014 ships larger than 96,000 tons, with a capacity of 3,000 to 3,500 passengers, will also be banned from the city.

St Mark's Square

In the last 15 years Venice has become one of the world's top cruise destinations, with up to nine turnarounds a day in high season.

Under the new measures the number of cruise ships berthed at one time will be limited to five and passage will only be allowed at sunrise and sunset.

The Costa Concordia capsized after striking rocks off close to the Italian island of Giglio in January last year. Thirty-two people were killed in the disaster.

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Kerry's $75m Bid To Boost Middle East Talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged an extra $75m ($46m) in aid to help Palestinians, as he arrived in the Middle East to join peace talks.

Designed to boost Palestinian public support for the faltering negotiations, the additional cash is intended to create jobs and improve roads, schools and other infrastructure.

The announcement came as Mr Kerry met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of attempts to overcome the host of problems hindering the talks.

"I am very confident of our ability to work through them," he told reporters as he opened the meeting in a Jerusalem hotel.

Palestinian protesters during a demonstration as Kerry visited Bethlehem

"That is why I am here. This can be achieved with good faith and a serious effort on both sides."

He also urged both Mr Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who he met later in the day, to make "real compromises and hard decisions."

Senior Palestinians say an Israeli plan announced last week for 3,500 more settler homes in the occupied West Bank represents a major obstacle in the negotiations.

But Mr Netanyahu claimed the Palestinians' behaviour posed a greater threat to the discussions.

"I am concerned about the progress because I see the Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crises, continuing to avoid, run away from the historic decisions that are needed to make a genuine peace," he said.

Mr Kerry also met Mahmoud Abbas

He said he hoped Mr Kerry's discussions in Jerusalem and with Mr Abbas "will help steer (the negotiations) back to a place where we could achieve the historical peace that we seek."

Speaking after meeting Mr Abbas, Mr Kerry reaffirmed the US' view of the settlements as "illegitimate".

Meanwhile, Palestinians held demonstrations in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, holding banners demanding an end to the settlements and criticising 'Israeli occupation and apartheid'.

On the sidelines of the peace talks, Israel has released half of the 104 Palestinian prisoners it pledged to free under a US-brokered deal to draw Mr Abbas back to negotiations that Palestinians abandoned in 2010 over settlement building.

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Wins Poll

Chris Christie has been re-elected as New Jersey governor in a landslide victory over his Democrat rival.

Mr Christie won 60.5% of the vote against 38% for Barbara Buono, with 99% of precincts reporting.

The 51-year-old Republican - whose popularity soared after his response to Superstorm Sandy last year - is seen as a possible 2016 presidential contender. 

The margin of victory makes Mr Christie the first Republican in 25 years to receive more than 50% of the vote in the state, which voted overwhelmingly in favour of President Barack Obama last year.

Mr Christie told supporters: "We have a big, big win tonight.

"I did not seek a second term to do small things. I sought a second term to finish the job - now watch me do it."

Mr Christie, who attracted national attention by working closely with Mr Obama after the storm that devastated the New Jersey coastline, said Sandy had brought people together.

He said: "The spirit of Sandy will stay with us well beyond the days that the recovery will take. I will govern with the spirit of Sandy."

Speaking around 40 minutes after polls closed on Tuesday night, Ms Buono told her supporters she had called Mr Christie to congratulate him.

In Virginia, former top Democratic Party official Terry McAuliffe defeated Ken Cuccinelli, the state attorney general.

Mr Cuccinelli's campaign was damaged by his ties with the Tea Party movement, which was widely blamed for instigating last month's federal government shutdown.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers voted to elect Democrat Bill de Blasio as their new mayor.

And Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was re-elected to a second term, defeating three little-known challengers. Mr Reed is perhaps best known for his strong support of Mr Obama.

In Boston, Congressman Martin Walsh narrowly defeated fellow Democrat John Connolly in a hard-fought race to succeed long-time mayor Thomas Menino.

Final results posted on the city's website showed Mr Walsh with 52% to 48% for Mr Connolly.

And in financially troubled Detroit, Mike Duggan defeated Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon. The city was taken into bankruptcy in July by emergency manager Kevyn Orr.

In Seattle, Ed Murray, who led the successful campaign to legalise gay marriage in Washington state, became mayor after defeating incumbent Mike McGinn.

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Helicopter Suicide: Passenger Leaps To Death

A man has died after plunging 750ft into the sea from a hired helicopter in an apparent planned suicide.

Passenger Gregory McFadden jumped to his death during a 30-minute tour of the coastline in Orange County, California.

Horrified witnesses watched as Mr McFadden fell into the sea near Balboa Pier at Newport Beach before lifeguards pulled him from the water and tried in vain to resuscitate him. 

Helicopter pilot Chuck Street told how his son Corbin, 25, desperately tried to stop his passenger from leaping to his death.

He told KCAL9: "During the flight he kept asking to go higher and higher ... 'can you fly right here along the shore?'

The man plunged to his death near Balboa Pier at Newport Beach

"My son was starting to get suspicious. When they got towards the Balboa Pier, he started to take his seatbelt off and he started to open the door.

"My son said, 'what are you doing, what are you doing?'

Mr Street said Corbin reached out and tried to grab his passenger, while continuing to fly the aircraft.

He said: "The guy started to kinda struggle. The aircraft kinda pitched up. My son had his hand on his shirt, his shirt ripped. And then the guy just went out the door."

The helicopter involved in the incident

A Huntington Beach police helicopter found the victim in the water and directed lifeguards and the Orange County Sheriff's Department Harbor Patrol personnel to the scene.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported that the passenger opened the helicopter door and jumped.

Mr Street said police found a suicide note on Mr McFadden, who was confirmed dead in hospital.

James Politano was among dozens of people who saw what happened.

Chuck Street said his son tried to stop the man from jumping

He said: "I saw the door open. I thought it was a bird. Halfway from the helicopter, the legs opened. (I thought), 'Oh, it's a human being!' 

Mr McFadden's brother told KCAL9 by phone that his brother was a loner who struggled with mental illness, a severe throat disease and depression. 

The helicopter, which was ordered to land at John Wayne Airport after the incident, was registered to Emerald City Aircraft Leasing Inc. in Port Orchard, Wash.

The death is being investigated as a possible suicide.

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Obamas Surprise Visitors To The White House

President Obama and the First Lady have surprised visitors to the White House as tours resumed after seven months.

The Obamas, along with their dogs Bo and Sunny, personally greeted delighted families as they filed through the building, where guided tours had been halted by budget cuts in March.

Mrs Obama told one family: "We are so glad you are here. We are so glad they're (the tours) back." 

President Obama told a smartly-dressed eight-year-old boy that he looked "raffish" with a pocket square he was wearing.

And he joked with a girl of four that he had only missed her recent birthday party because he was busy with the government shutdown.

Cameras captured the delighted reactions of White House touers

The president asked another girl if he had more grey hair than a waxwork of him she had seen earlier on her trip.

The tours, which were cut back as part of sequestration cuts, are returning for three days a week instead of five.

The US Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting the president and White House, said last March that cancelling the tours was necessary so officers normally responsible for securing the tours could be reassigned to other security posts at the White House.

That move reduced overtime costs and the number of days off the Secret Service faced as a result of the budget cuts.

The current tour schedule is guaranteed until January 15, when a budget deal to keep the US government going expires.

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Curtis Warren Ordered To Repay Millions

A drugs baron has been ordered to pay back almost £200m within a month after what is believed to be Europe's largest confiscation order.

Curtis "Cocky" Warren, one of Europe's most notorious drug dealers, is serving a 13-year sentence for plotting to smuggle cannabis with a street value of £1m into Jersey and is due for release from Belmarsh prison in January.

The 50-year-old former Liverpool nightclub bouncer has been warned he must hand over the money within 28 days or face a further 10 years behind bars.

A statement from the State of Jersey's Law Officers' Department read: "The Royal Court of Jersey has today ordered that £198m be confiscated from Curtis Warren. It is believed to be one of the largest ever confiscation orders made in the British Isles and Europe.

"The confiscation proceedings are the result of several years of extensive investigation into the criminal career and financial affairs of one of Europe's most notorious organised criminals."

Prosecutors allege Warren was laundering £10m to £15m a week from smuggling drugs.

Warren arriving at court in 2009

The case primarily featured evidence related to cocaine trafficking between 1991 and 1996 which "generated huge sums of monies", the department said.

The shipments ranged from 500 kilos to multiple tonnes and gained "huge" profits, with a two-ton shipment of cocaine able to sell on the UK market for £40m wholesale, it said.

Warren became the first criminal to be the subject of a High Court move to protect the public last month.

Designed to prevent reoffending, it will impose restrictions on Warren's access to mobile phones and telephone kiosks as well as limitations on bank accounts.

Serious Crime Prevention Orders are normally made at Crown Court following a conviction but Warren was convicted in 2009 in Jersey, which is outside the jurisdiction of England and Wales.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said Warren coordinated a global drugs empire from his cell at Jersey's La Moye prison while awaiting trial between 2007 and 2009, where he was alleged to have used several illicit mobile phones to contact a network of associates in an attempt to continue his drug trafficking empire.

Some 35,000 calls across 41 countries between March 2008 and October 2009 involving Warren's mobile phones were analysed during the investigation.

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Jetman Yves Rossy Adds Mount Fuji To Conquests

Swiss aviator Yves 'Jetman' Rossy, whose jet-engine powered wings have taken him over some of the world's most awe-inspiring places, has added Japan's Mount Fuji to his list of conquests.

"It's a fantastic privilege to be a little mosquito flying in front of that big mountain," said the 54-year-old former Swiss air force pilot.

Mr Rossy circled the country's highest and most revered mountain nine times over a one-week period until last Sunday.

In each flight - lasting about 10 minutes - he dived from a helicopter, soared as high as 3,657 metres (12,000 ft) and parachuted back to earth from an altitude of around 800 metres.

The seasoned aviator, currently a captain with Swiss International Air Lines on sabbatical leave, said the 3,776-metre Mt Fuji had been an awe-inspiring location.

The aviator on his trip across the Channel

"It's really impressive. It's a perfect form, a huge mountain, a huge volcano, a presence that you can feel on the ground and also in the air."

The aviator designed and built his 60kg (132lb) jetman kit, comprising a backpack with carbon fibre wings spanning about two metres, powered by four attached jets modified from large model aircraft engines.

It can reach a speed of 300 kilometres per hour (185mph).

His previous stunts included crossing the English Channel, flying over the Grand Canyon and soaring above the scenic Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, as well as flying in formation with jet airplanes and a Spitfire fighter.

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Kercher Murder: Sollecito In Emotional Plea

By Tom Kington, in Florence

Raffaele Sollecito has denied murdering Meredith Kercher and begged for his life back, in a dramatic court room appeal to an Italian jury.

Speaking six years after the British student was killed in the Italian city of Perugia, 29-year-old Sollecito made the emotional plea to the appeal trial in Florence.

He appealed to the jury "as an Italian, like you, to have a life".

"Because I don't have a real life," he said, before thanking the jury while appearing close to tears.

During his 15-minute speech, which gripped the jurors after a morning of complex DNA results that often left them looking lost, Sollecito described his brief romance with co-defendant Amanda Knox as a "little fairytale".

He said the relationship was shattered when the pair were accused of fatally stabbing Ms Kercher in the house she shared with Knox, pushing the defendants into a "nightmare beyond imagination".

Meredith Kercher was found with stab wounds to the neck in 2007

"I have been described as a ruthless killer but I am nothing of the sort," he said, during a softly spoken and occasionally rambling speech.

The trial is the latest in a drawn out legal process that saw Knox, 26, and Sollecito convicted and jailed in Perugia in 2009, before being released after four years when they were cleared on appeal in 2011, only for that verdict to be overturned by Italy's supreme court this year.

While Knox has refused to travel from her home in Seattle to appear in court for the new appeal, Sollecito returned from a holiday in the Dominican Republic to appear at the fresh appeal, flanked by his father.

Sollecito said he was "proud" to come from a "good Italian family" which had taught him strong values and had never had legal problems.

"I have always been honest, but I have been called an assassin," he said.

He claimed he had been a reserved student at Perugia, had not been an "obsessive partier" and did not drink.

In an apparent reference to the now infamous photos of him kissing Knox at the crime scene, he apologised, telling the jury "I didn't take the situation seriously at the start".

From being one week away from obtaining his degree, he was plunged into six months in isolation followed by a spell in a maximum security jail, he said, adding: "I don't recommend it to anyone in the world. All my life was cancelled."

Sollecito apologised over this picture of he and Knox and kissing

Speaking without notes, Sollecito condemned the "hallucinatory persecution" he faced, complaining that police had believed a footprint found at the house was his before changing their mind eight months later.

Sollecito said he had never known Rudy Guede, the local drifter who was convicted for his role in the murder.

"I would not have had a minimal interest in committing this atrocious act against a 20-year-old," he said.

Sollecito has faced suspicions that he was preparing to flee Italy after he took a holiday in the Dominican Republic, which does not have an extradition treaty with Italy.

But his father said his decision to fly in for the hearing showed he had no plan to escape Italian justice.

Sollecito complained that he had been hounded by photographers.

"I need to defend myself in the media for the most banal thing," he said.

"I have tried to stay out of the limelight. And today I am here before you to get to know you and tell you the truth of this matter."

Sollecito's speech followed an explanation by two Italian police officers of the results of a test on a DNA trace carried out on a knife found at his flat, which prosecutors have argued is the murder weapon.

Amanda Knox has refused to appear at the appeal

The officers said the results allowed the police to "support, in an extremely significant manner, the hypothesis that genetic material of Amanda Marie Knox is present" in the trace.

An earlier police report decided that a separate trace could contain Ms Kercher's DNA, which was used to suggest that the knife was the murder weapon.

But that test was challenged as unreliable by a second analysis carried out during the first appeal.

The latest result on the separate trace has been seized by lawyers representing Knox and Sollecito as proof that the knife was used by Knox and Knox only in Sollecito's kitchen.

Carlo Dalla Vedova, a lawyer representing Knox, said: "This is just a kitchen knife."

But Francesco Maresca, a lawyer representing the Kercher family, said he was sticking by the initial report that found a trace of Ms Kercher's DNA on the blade.

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Call Of Duty: Ghosts Tops $1bn On First Day

The latest Call of Duty video game made more than $1bn (£621m) from its first day on sale, its publisher has confirmed.

Call of Duty: Ghosts went on sale worldwide on Tuesday and its debut eclipsed that of Grand Theft Auto V, which raked in $800m (£496m) on its first day in September.

At the time, the game beat the record for single-day games sales held by the last Call of Duty game, Black Ops II, which made $500m (£310m) in November 2012.

Fans queued overnight at hundreds of stores across the UK, which were open at midnight for the release of the 10th Call of Duty instalment.

The $1bn figure represented sales to retail store, which may not reflect consumer purchases, according to publisher Activision.

The last Call of Duty game made $500m in first day sales

Eric Hirshberg, chief executive of Activision, said the game "has delivered yet another epic thrill ride in the campaign, and what I think is our best multiplayer game yet".

The company claimed the series was "the largest console franchise of this generation".

The latest military shooter series is set in a desolate US, devastated by a satellite-guided "kinetic" weapon strike on San Diego.

Ghosts can be played on PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii U and Windows computers, and will also be available on other consoles in future.

The game is also compatible with smartphones and tablet computers.

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