An Irish tourist was convicted of endangering a packed holiday flight yesterday after the court heard he had started a “bar-room brawl” at 38,000 feet.
Patrick Connors was also found guilty of affray, along with his companion, Francis Coyle.The three-week trial heard that “all hell broke loose” after Connors tried to attack a Jamaican passenger and Coyle joined in, forcing the captain to to divert the Jamaica-bound Airtours flight to expel the two and the other 10 members of their group at Norfolk, Virginia.In court, one passenger had described them as “animals”, who had been drunken, abusive and foul-mouthed.Of the five who were eventually charged with related offences, only Connors and Coyle were convicted yesterday.The jury at Hove Crown Court found Connors, 36, guilty of endangering an aircraft and affray. They cleared Coyle, 40, of the first charge but convicted him of affray.Both men were remanded in custody before sentencing on 11 August.. Arms made in Britain are still being shipped into war zones via “friendly” countries, it was confirmed last night as the Government published its annual report on arms exports. Arms made in Britain are still being shipped into war zones via “friendly” countries, it was confirmed last night as the Government published its annual report on arms exports.
Anti-arms trade groups highlighted examples of fears about the “end use” of British made arms as it became clear that a legislation promised after the “Arms to Iraq” scandal was unlikely to be passed before the general election.Margaret Beckett, the Leader of the House of Commons, has left the legislation, which would place stricter controls on where British-made weapons end up, out of this autumn’s legislative programme. The move has provoked protests from both the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Stephen Byers.There will be a new register for arms brokers, sources said yesterday, but that is unlikely to require primary legislation. The new “end use” law may well have to wait until after the general election.British arms given licences for shipment to non-controversial countries are still being shipped elsewhere, though, as they were during the “Arms to Iraq” scandal when arms with an “end use” certificate for Jordan were paid for by Iraq.The Qatari government confirmed that arms worth £7.5m sold to it by British Aerospace were destined for the Algerian army, which has waged an eight-year war against Islamist rebels.

Although there is no arms embargo on Algeria, Government policy says Britain will not sell weapons that might fuel conflict or lead to internal repression.The campaign group Saferworld highlighted the case of Land Rover, which exports parts for assembly in Turkey. A factory there makes armoured combat vehicles which have been sold to Algeria and to Pakistan, to which British export licensing was suspended last year. The group also drew attention sales of CS gas, submachine guns and tear gas to the Maldives, heavy machine guns, small arms and ammunition to Antigua and Barbuda and gun components to the Cayman Islands.The value of Britain’s arms sales dropped by more than half last year from £1.9bn to £900m. Britain’s share of the world arms market dropped from 26 per cent to 22 per cent, but it remained the second-biggest exporter behind the US and ahead of Germany and France.Paul Eavis, director of Saferworld, said the Government had made more information available this year, but added: “I will be deeply disappointed if no new legislation governing arms exports is forthcoming in this Parliament.”Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, accused Labour of “failing the ethics test”. He said: “It is profoundly disappointing that the principal outcome of the Scott Inquiry for up to date arms export legislation has not yet been implemented.”Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, has refused for a third year to sign the report, despite the demand of a Parliamentary committee that she should do so. The Government has failed to implement a demand that Ms Short should be allowed to object to an arms export licence that would damage a country’s development.In their introduction to the report, Mr Cook, Mr Byers and the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon said it reinforced Britain’s position as one of the most transparent nations on arms.. Little girls who play aggressive boys’ games or who act out violent stories are more likely to have problems at home and at school than boys who behave in the same way.

Little girls who play aggressive boys’ games or who act out violent stories are more likely to have problems at home and at school than boys who behave in the same way.
Research based on analysing the play of five-year-old twins shows that although some aggressive behaviour is normal for boys it is more likely to indicate trouble at home and long-term behavioural problems for girls.Child psychiatrists believe the findings, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, could lead to new ways of detecting and dealing with early signs of behavioural problems in young girls.Researchers from the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, in Denver, Colorado, analysed 652 sets of twins while they were telling and acting out more than 5,000 different stories.Dr Kim Kelsay, a psychiatrist and author of the study, said: “Children might pick up one of the dolls and smack the other or insert aggressive themes into their tales, including death and murder.”However, when girls did tell aggressive stories, their behaviour at home and school tended to reflect it. When girls tell more aggressive stories it could be a sign of trouble”. They found no such link in boys.The researchers gave the children small plastic gender and ethnicity-specific dolls to help them create stories and gave them themes, such as discovering that the pet dog was missing, giving a gift to a parent or stealing a biscuit, and asked them to finish it in their own words and actions.The researchers scored the children on how well their story flowed, whether it made sense and embellishments made, and levels of aggression in terms of play and words. Parents and teachers were then asked to fill out questionnaires on the children’s overall behaviour.The findings showed that generally girls had more coherent and less aggressive stories and play than boys. “Some aggression in stories is normal, but it might be more concerning when girls tell aggressive stories than when boys do,” Dr Kelsay said. “Kids are working through issues in their play and if a parent senses something disturbing they shouldn’t inhibit the play, but instead find out more about what’s causing it.”In general, most of the children assessed did not have a clinical level of behavioural problems but Dr Kelsay found that girls with repeated aggressive and incoherent stories had more behavioural difficulties and problems than the boys who played aggressively.Dr Sebastian Kraemer, a leading child psychiatrist from the Tavistock Clinic, London, said concern about girls’ behaviour depended on the level of aggression displayed.

“Our threshold for anxiety about boys’ aggression is higher as we expect them to be more aggressive, hyperactive and difficult,” he said.”On its own aggression in girls is not something to worry about, but if they start torturing animals then there would be concerns. This is rather different from just playing boyish games, which is a perfectly normal thing for little girls to do.”. After a 10-month independent investigation, a former U.S. senator has concluded that the blame for the catastrophe at Waco that killed 80 people rests solely with Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh.