'Website helped UK terrorists communicate'

An Islamist website has spent months publishing letters written by Muslim extremists jailed for serious terror offenses, a British newspaper reported today.

The Sunday Times says the now-defunct site muslimprisoners.com carried dozens of letters written by Islamist radicals involved in what the paper described as "virtually every plot against Britain in recent years."

The site was inaccessible today, the Times said it was pulled down after the paper contacted its administrator, but cached versions of several letters were still available online, including one purportedly written by Roshonara Choudhry, the young student jailed in 2010 for stabbing a British lawmaker in an attack she says was carried out on behalf of "the people of Iraq."

The handwritten letter, on what appeared to be official British prison stationary, captured Choudhry's appreciation for what she said was the support she'd received from fellow Muslims.

"I thought everyone would condemn my actions," she wrote in a letter addressed to someone she called "Brother Mohammed," who she believed had been at her sentencing hearing. "It literally took my breath away when I heard your voices."

Choudhry didn't appear to express any remorse for the attempted assassination, recalling the "euphoria" she said she felt when she was sentenced.

"The security officers that were accompanying me kept asking me, 'Why are you smiling? Why do you look so happy?'" In an email, the Justice Ministry said that it wasn't challenging the authenticity of the letters.

"Prisoners can send correspondence, but their mail is routinely monitored," the ministry said in a statement. "Where it is inappropriate mail will be stopped."

The ministry said its offender management system "recognises the risks posed by extremist offenders and those who seek to radicalise others," noting that high-security prisons had the help of a dedicated counter terrorism unit.

Alcohol seen killing 200,000 Britons in next 20 years

Up to 210,000 people in England and Wales will be killed prematurely by alcohol over the next 20 years, with a third of those preventable deaths due to liver disease alone, health experts warned Monday.

Other alcohol-related deaths will be due to accidents, violence and suicide, or from chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, strokes, heart disease and cancer, the experts warned in a projection study in the Lancet medical journal.

Yet Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians and one of the lead authors of the work, said it was "entirely within the power of the UK government" to take steps to tackle Britain`s drink problem and "prevent the worst-case scenario of avoidable deaths."

The experts pointed to measures taken in the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, which they said saw alcohol consumption fall by a third in two years with a resulting 12 percent drop in the rate of alcohol-related deaths.

The warning comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron promised last week to crack down on excessive drinking, calling it a "scandal" that costs the taxpayer-funded National Health System an estimated 2.7 billion pounds ($4.3 billion) a year.

Alcohol abuse and the harmful health effects of heavy or binge drinking are not only a British problem, but take their toll in many other mainly wealthy nations around the world.

A study last week found that 7.5 million children in the United States - more than 10 percent of child population - live with an alcoholic parent and are at increased risk of developing a host of health problems of their own.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some 2.5 million people die each year from the harmful use of alcohol, accounting for about 3.8 percent of all deaths worldwide.

Steps to curb alcohol use feature three times in the WHO`s top 10 "best buys" for public health policies to reduce the burden of chronic diseases, which kill 36 million people a year worldwide.

The U.N. health body says restricting access to alcohol bought at retail outlets, enforcing bans on alcohol advertising and raising taxes on alcohol would have an enormous health impact.

Britain`s Cameron said last week he would look at the issue of alcohol pricing but has so far stopped short of agreeing to set a minimum price. His government is due to set out a new alcohol strategy later this year.

The new projection is a slight improvement on what the same team of researchers predicted a year ago, when they suggested a worst-case scenario of up to 250 000 avoidable alcohol-related deaths over the following 20 years. But while they acknowledged that any improvement is good news, the authors said this small change was hardly cause for celebration.

Gilmore, who worked with Nick Sheron from University Hospital Southampton on the alcohol death forecasts, questioned whether Cameron`s government could "afford to duck effective action on alcohol" that would "have such a positive impact on crime and disorder, work productivity, and health."

"The UK government will have to withstand powerful lobbying from the drinks industry, but the potential prize of reversing this tragic toll of alcohol-related deaths is there for the taking," the two doctors wrote.

'Facebook for women' Pinterest is fastest-growing social site

A vision board-styled social photo sharing website Pinterest has become one of the fastest-growing social sites, and is increasingly becoming popular among women, according to a report.

The website, that increased its market share by 68 per cent in January in the UK, has hit 12 million unique visitors in the US, the fastest social network ever to hit the figure.

According to Techcrunch, 97 per cent of Pinterest's one million Facebook likes are from women.

Earlier data from Experian Hitwise put the figure at 58 per cent female in December, driven by the photo-sharing site's focus on arts and crafts, The Daily Mail reports.

The site, which is a 'pinboard' where users share images and links about their interests, was launched in March 2010.

The site is described as a visual version of Twitter.

Like Twitter, you can 'follow' users who share your interests, and quick, brief picture posts make up the bulk of posts on the site.

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, posts appear as a 'pinboard' of images built according to user interests.

Army chief General V K Singh will be on a four day visit of UK

Just three days after the Supreme Court rejected his plea to reconcile his birth date in official records as May 10, 1951, Indian Army chief General V.K. Singh is all set to undertake a four-day visit to Britain from today, indicating that he may not quit his post.

The Indian Army's official spokesperson said in a release here Sunday that Gen. Singh will be in Britain till Feb 17 to interact with the senior British military and civilian leadership and discuss defence related bilateral relations between the two nations.

"General V.K. Singh is undertaking a four-day tour to United Kingdom from Feb 14 to 17, 2012. During his visit, the army chief will be interacting with the senior military and civilian hierarchy and will discuss various defence related issues to strengthen existing defence ties with United Kingdom," the spokesperson said .

The Indian Army chief will be visiting the Land Warfare Centre in Salisbury Plains and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. During his visit to Land Warfare Centre, he will witness the training and preparation of British Army brigade preparing for induction into Afghanistan.

The last visit by an Indian Army chief to Britian was by Gen. Deepak Kapoor in March 2008.

India shares a healthy and cordial bilateral and strategic relations with Britain that are multi-faceted and have been strengthened over the years with regular exchange of visits at political, diplomatic and military levels.

A strong bilateral relationship is of priority to both countries for economic, commercial, historical and foreign policy reasons, and the large Indian diaspora in Britain.

"The visit by the army chief will add the necessary impetus to the existing defence relationship and broad-base it into a mutually beneficial partnership," the army spokesperson said.

India's relations in the field of defence with Britain have graduated to comprehensive defence cooperation to include courses and training for United Nations peace-keeping Operations, joint training including exercise in the fields of counter-terrorism including employment of special forces, and exchange of observers on each others' army exercises.

‘UK Parl to seek report on Indian student Anuj Bidve murder’

Amid an outrage over the killing of Indian student Anuj Bidve, a top British parliamentary panel will seek a full report on the circumstances of the "unprovoked" attack in Manchester earlier this week. Keith Vaz, the Labour Party MP and chairman of House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, expressed shock over the murder of 23-year-old Bidve on Monday.

"I will be asking for a full report on the circumstances of his death. Overseas students need to be reassured that the UK has taken every possible step to ensure such a tragic event will not happen again," said Vaz, the lawmaker from Leicester East.

"Most importantly, his family deserve to know the truth about the final moments of their much loved son," he said. Bidve, from Pune, was with nine Indian students when they were approached by two men in Salford. He was shot at close range after a "very short" conversation. Bidve was a student of Microelectronics at Lancaster University.

In a statement, Vaz welcomed the action taken by the Greater Manchester Police "on the shocking and deeply sad murder" in Manchester on Boxing Day. The British police has arrested a fourth person in connection with the killing of Bidve, who died following an "unprovoked" attack on Monday.

The unnamed man is the fourth arrest after another man and two teenagers were arrested in the last 24 hours. No further details were released about the three arrests. The cold blooded murder has sparked an outrage here, particularly among Indians. Many members of the minority community have demanded an exemplary punishment for those involved in the heinous crime.

The police have not ruled out racism as a motive for the killing. The two men who approached the group of students at Salford were described as white men.

Indian student enrolled at a British university killed in UK

An India student enrolled at a British university was shot dead today in what is described as an unprovoked attack by two white men, police said.

The Indian student, who has not been named, was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead early today morning. The Greater Manchester Police said the victim was aged 23, and was studying at Lancaster University. His parents in India have been informed of the incident.

"This appears to be an unprovoked attack and we can't establish a motive at this time. We are investigating every possible aspect and we are in the early stages of the investigation but we are not ruling anything out," Chief Superintendent Kevin Mulligan, divisional commander for Salford, was quoted as saying in reports.

The victim was part of a group of nine male and female students, all Indian, who were staying in a nearby hotel for a break in Manchester over the Christmas holidays.

They were heading towards the city centre when they were approached by two white men who were on foot. The killer approached, engaged the victim in a "very short" conversation, and about a minute later pulled out a handgun and shot the student in the side of the head. The victim collapsed to the ground as his killer ran away, the police said.

The gunman was described as white, in his mid-20s, of slim build and wearing a grey top. The other man was of a heavier build and wearing a black jacket. "We can confirm that the man killed in Salford early this morning is a 23-year old Indian post graduate student, who was studying microelectronics," a Lancaster University spokesman said.

"Our thoughts are with his family at this time, and counselling and support has been organised for his fellow students who are deeply upset," he said.