Monday 21/12/2015
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Miss Universe: Miss Colombia mistakenly crowned as winner
The host of the Miss Universe has apologised after mistakenly naming the wrong woman as winner, leaving Miss Colombia empty-handed.
After the error, Ariadna Gutierrez was instead declared runner-up and surrendered her crown to Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.
MissUniverse2015 became Twitter's biggest trend of the night as social media users expressed their disbelief.
Ms Wurtzbach has since told reporters that she wishes Ms Gutierrez well.
"I'm very sorry, I did not take the crown away from her and I wish her well in whatever she wants to pursue after this pageant," she said.
Ms Gutierrez also addressed fans in a backstage video that has been shared on the pageant's official page.
She said: "Everything happens for a reason so I'm happy for all that I did."
At the end of the night in Las Vegas, Ms Gutierrez was named first runner-up followed by Olivia Jordan from the United States.
The host Steve Harvey responded, saying it was "his mistake" and he would take responsibility for not reading the winning card correctly.
He made another mistake when he misspelled both Colombia and the Philippines in an initial tweet. The tweet was later deleted.
"I'd like to apologize wholeheartedly to Miss Colombia & Miss Philippines for my huge mistake. I feel terrible," he tweeted in a second attempt. The message was re-tweeted more than 70,000 times.
"I don't want to take away from this amazing night and pageant. As well as the wonderful contestants - they were all amazing."
'Miss Information'
Shock and disbelief erupted online following the incident.
"Talk about awkward," described one Twitter user who "couldn't help" but find the gaffe "hilarious".
Another user, Mark Critch from Canada, said: "And the winner is - Miss Information."
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TV pictures showed a fire in a field and mangled and charred debris of the plane.
Junior Civil Aviation Minister Mahesh Sharma told the Press Trust of India news agency that "all 10 [passengers] onboard BSF plane that crashed in Dwarka [are] dead".
Suraj, an eyewitness, told reporters that the plane hit a wall, caught fire and crashed in a field outside the airport.
"There were about 10 people on the flight. I saw two bodies. There were some labourers working on the ground where the plane fell," he said.
More than a dozen fire engines and emergency workers have been rushed to the spot to douse the blaze.
The last major crash in India happened in the city of Mangalore in May 2010, killing at least 160 people.
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Thursday 24/12/2015
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Saturday 26/12/2015
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Shock and disbelief erupted online following the incident.
"Talk about awkward," described one Twitter user who "couldn't help" but find the gaffe "hilarious".
Another user, Mark Critch from Canada, said: "And the winner is - Miss Information."
Facebook users also expressed their opinions on a post shared on the pageant's official page.
It was shared more than 62,000 times and received more than 17,000 comments from viewers across the world.
"That was poorly handled. Both of these gorgeous ladies deserve an apology because that was embarrassing for both of them. I literally felt both of their pain," read a top comment by Lemmy Cliff.
"That was the most annoying Miss Universe contest ever," said another commenter Andres Felipe Arbelaez. "The host was horrible and Miss Colombia should have won."
Pageant fans from the Philippines also began to express anger at the incident.
"Our Miss Philippines didn't get her shining moment," said a fan on Facebook. "It feels like she and our country were robbed of the winning moment, shame!"
While some Twitter users remained upset over the mistake, others began to tweet out messages of support.
"Don't feel terrible. Everyone makes mistakes," said Pedro Da Cunha.
"To err is human... to forgive is divine," said another user in reply to Mr Harvey's apology.
In an incident apparently unconnected to the competition, at least one person was killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into a crowd next to the Miss Universe venue.
http://www.bbc.com
Tuesday 22/12/2015
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India plane crash: Ten die in Delhi's Dwarka district
A light aircraft has crashed on take-off near the airport in the Indian capital, Delhi, killing 10 people.
The Beechcraft King Air plane chartered by India's Border Security Force (BSF) came down after hitting a wall in Dwarka district and burst into flames.
The plane was carrying members of the border patrol force, officials said.
In May 2011, 10 people died after a small medical ambulance aircraft flying a critically ill patient crashed in Faridabad town near Delhi.
Tuesday's incident occurred as the twin-engine plane was on its way to Ranchi in the eastern state of Jharkhand from Delhi's international airport.
"The crash took place at around 09:50 India time (04:20GMT) moments after the technicians lost contact with ground control," AK Sharma, chief of Delhi Fire Services, told AFP news agency.
TV pictures showed a fire in a field and mangled and charred debris of the plane.
Junior Civil Aviation Minister Mahesh Sharma told the Press Trust of India news agency that "all 10 [passengers] onboard BSF plane that crashed in Dwarka [are] dead".
Suraj, an eyewitness, told reporters that the plane hit a wall, caught fire and crashed in a field outside the airport.
"There were about 10 people on the flight. I saw two bodies. There were some labourers working on the ground where the plane fell," he said.
More than a dozen fire engines and emergency workers have been rushed to the spot to douse the blaze.
The last major crash in India happened in the city of Mangalore in May 2010, killing at least 160 people.
http://www.bbc.com
Wednesday 23/12/2015
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens receives belated Critics' Choice nomination
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been added to the nominations for the Critics' Choice best picture award.
The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) chose to add the film to the 10 nominees it announced last week.
The decision was made, its president said, because "many members felt [it] deserves to be in our consideration".
The best picture prize is the only award the new Star Wars film will be in contention for at the Critics' Choice awards ceremony on 17 January.
The move is unusual but not unprecedented, as Cast Away was belatedly added to the nominations list in 2000.
The Force Awakens, which opened in cinemas last week, was not shown early enough for BFCA members to vote for it in the initial awards ballot.
Members were polled this week to see if they would have voted it as one of their top five films of the year had they seen it before the voting deadline.
"The results were such that it was obvious this was a movie that would have been in the top 10 if it had had the chance," BFCA president Joey Berlin told Screen Daily.
He said adding the film to the best picture nominees was considered to be "the best compromise in the best interests of the movie, members and our audience".
"It would be foolish to suggest that the incredible popularity of the film isn't a factor," Berlin admitted in another interview with Variety."And I can't deny that this is also a good thing for the Critics' Choice Awards show.
"But it's really the popularity of the film amongst the critics, that it's getting such good reviews."
According to Box office Mojo, the new Star Wars film has now made more than $610m (£409 million) at the global box office.
Cast member Peter Mayhew - aka Chewbacca - was among those to alert his Twitter followers to the Critics' Choice organisers' change of heart.
Mad Max: Fury Road has received the most nominations from the critical body, which included George Miller's action film in 13 different categories.
http://www.bbc.com
Thursday 24/12/2015
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Children, described as the "forgotten victims of domestic violence", have been put at the centre of a Christmas campaign by the charity Refuge.
It said some 750,000 children witness domestic violence each year, which can have a "profound and lasting impact".
The charity has launched avideo campaign on Facebook , encouraging viewers to raise funds and awareness by sharing the hashtag #givethemrefuge.
The launch comes as Refuge's specialist services face possible funding cuts.
One in four women in the UK experience domestic violence, and two women are killed each week by a partner or ex-partner in England and Wales, the charity said.
Refuge's video shows a girl unwrapping presents while being filmed by her sister, but the children end up abandoning their presents to run away from a violent argument between their parents.
Abusive father
An unnamed 22-year-old abuse victim said the fictional video was similar to her own childhood memories of living in "daily fear and terror" after witnessing her father "abuse, threaten and intimidate" her mother.
"It was only after a frantic phone call I had with my father that I knew he would fulfil his threat to 'smash her brains against the wall' and kill my mother," she said.
She eventually escaped to a refuge with her mother and brother, where they were supported by Refuge, she said.
"Not only did the refuge give us safety, anonymity and a place to overcome our trauma and rebuild our lives, but my brother and I had the opportunity to enjoy our childhood and also start over," she said.
Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, said more than 3,300 women and children were supported by the charity, with children making up about two-thirds of people in the charity's accommodation.
She added that the charity was "fighting to raise funds to keep its services running".
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Friday 25/12/2015
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Beijing security: 'Possible threat to Westerners' governments warn
The UK and US governments have issued a warning about possible threats against Westerners in the Chinese capital Beijing on or around Christmas Day.
British and Us officials say they have received information of possible threats in Sanlitun, which is a busy bar and shopping district.
The Australian and French governments have also urged their citizens to remain vigilant.
Beijing police have issued a yellow security alert in the city.
A yellow alert is the second lowest level in China's four-level security alert system.
The alert means there will be increased security checks in shopping areas, and rubbish bins in public areas will be checked every 30 minutes, state news agency Xinhua reports.
There was an increased police presence in Sanlitun on Thursday, with armed police deployed outside shopping malls.
There were no further details from French, Australian, US and UK officials.
Beijing police said in a microblog post (in Chinese)that they had implemented the yellow alert in Beijing's large and medium sized shopping areas to "maintain social order".
The Sanlitun area, in Beijing's Chaoyang district, contains many bars and restaurants popular with foreigners.
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France beheading attack: Suspect Yassin Salhi kills himself
A French terror suspect who decapitated his boss and tried to blow up a gas plant in June, has been found dead in prison near Paris.
The authorities said Yassin Salhi, 35, had killed himself.
He was being held in Fleury-Merogis prison, south Paris.
Prosecutors regarded Salhi as a militant Islamist, but the delivery driver maintained that he was motivated by a grudge against his employer.
Salhi had been placed in solitary confinement pending his trial, but was not considered a suicide risk.
On 26 June he drove his van into a building containing flammable liquids at the Air Products factory near the city of Lyon.
There was a blast shortly afterwards and the decapitated body of Salhi's boss, was found nearby.
His head - reportedly bearing Arabic inscriptions - had been hooked on to factory railings, alongside two flags, also with Arabic writing on it.
Salhi had been under surveillance for being a suspected radical Islamist between 2006 and 2008, officials said.
http://www.bbc.com
Sunday 27/12/2015
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Iraqi forces have entered a former government compound in Ramadi, from where Islamic State (IS) group militants have been resisting an army offensive, sources have told the BBC.
The source said troops had entered one building and were planning to push cautiously through the rest of the huge compound amid fears of explosives.
IS militants are believed to have fled to the north-east of the city.
The government has been trying to retake Ramadi for weeks.
The mainly Sunni Arab city, about 55 miles (90km) west of Baghdad, fell to IS in May, and was seen as an embarrassing defeat for the army.
In recent days, troops have been picking their way through booby-trapped streets and buildings as they pushed towards the city centre, seizing several districts on the way.
They were reported to be within a few hundred yards of the former provincial administrative headquarters on Saturday.
When sniper fire from the compound stopped, and aerial surveillance detected no human activity, a group of Iraqi soldiers moved in, the source said.
They reportedly entered what used to be the city's department of health, housing a blood bank.
The Iraqi military believes the militants have headed north-east; fighting meanwhile is reported to be under way to the south-west of the compound.
The operation to recapture Ramadi began in early November, but has made slow progress, mainly because the government chose not to use the powerful Shia-dominated paramilitary force that helped it regain the northern city of Tikrit, to avoid increasing sectarian tensions.
Concern remains for the plight of hundreds of families who have been trapped on the frontline, the BBC's Thomas Fessy reports from Baghdad.
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Sunday 27/12/2015
Today I read..
Iraqi forces have entered a former government compound in Ramadi, from where Islamic State (IS) group militants have been resisting an army offensive, sources have told the BBC.
IS militants are believed to have fled to the north-east of the city.
The government has been trying to retake Ramadi for weeks.
The mainly Sunni Arab city, about 55 miles (90km) west of Baghdad, fell to IS in May, and was seen as an embarrassing defeat for the army.
In recent days, troops have been picking their way through booby-trapped streets and buildings as they pushed towards the city centre, seizing several districts on the way.
They were reported to be within a few hundred yards of the former provincial administrative headquarters on Saturday.
When sniper fire from the compound stopped, and aerial surveillance detected no human activity, a group of Iraqi soldiers moved in, the source said.
They reportedly entered what used to be the city's department of health, housing a blood bank.
The Iraqi military believes the militants have headed north-east; fighting meanwhile is reported to be under way to the south-west of the compound.
The operation to recapture Ramadi began in early November, but has made slow progress, mainly because the government chose not to use the powerful Shia-dominated paramilitary force that helped it regain the northern city of Tikrit, to avoid increasing sectarian tensions.
http://www.bbc.com
