Tenerife: Two Britons Injured In Explosion

Two British people were among four injured after an explosion in a hotel pool bar on the island of Tenerife.

A woman suffered serious burns to her face and scalp in the blast in Adeje, on the south-west coast of the island, on Friday evening.

Her eight-year-old British daughter was also injured and treated for less severe neck burns.

Two other women - a Belgian national aged 38 and a 34-year-old Spaniard - suffered minor burns and were taken to hospital.

A staff member at the Bahia Principe Costa Adeje hotel confirmed to Sky News there was an explosion on Friday.

A spokesman said the British woman's husband and a second daughter had avoided injury, but were "obviously in shock".

He said: "This was an accident and we still are not sure what went wrong - we are awaiting the investigation of the judicial police.

"The explosion took place in a metal buffet container by the pool which uses a flammable gel to keep food warm.

"The swimming pool is now open again and the hotel is back to normal. We would like to wish those who were injured a speedy recovery."

Ross Browning, editor of Canarian Weekly, told Sky News: "It's awful what's happened and with so many people around, in many ways it's probably a miracle that only five people have been injured.

"The woman has been transferred to La Candelaria in the north of the island with what is being described locally as severe burns to the face, neck and scalp."

A statement from local government in Adeje said: "At 4.09pm on Friday emergency services were called to an explosion in a machine in a poolside bar at a hotel in the town of Adeje, with several people suffering from burn injuries.

"Emergency resources were immediately mobilised. Fire crews attended to inspect the zone, but their intervention was not necessary."

Initial reports had claimed a British man suffered minor abrasions in the blast, but this was denied by a hotel spokesman.

A Foreign Office (FCO) spokesperson said: "We are aware of an incident involving two British nationals and are providing consular assistance.

"We are currently checking, but based on what we know so far there was no British man injured in the explosion."

Adeje is a popular holiday resort, with nearby sandy beaches such as Playa de Las Americas and Los Cristianos well-known to British tourists.

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NatWest 'Hit By Fourth Online Banking Glitch'

NatWest has been hit by a cyberattack, leaving customers unable to access online accounts.

The bank's online banking service was disrupted after it was deliberately bombarded with internet traffic.   

Twitter users tweeted to say they could not access their bank accounts to pay bills or transfer money.

@TomGilchrist wrote: "Do other banks computer systems/services go down as much as NatWest? I assume not. Time to move banks I think."

@AleexReid tweeted: "Just joined Santander. Fed up with NatWest. Another computer failure tonight. #welldone."

A NatWest spokesperson said: "Due to a surge in internet traffic deliberately directed at the NatWest website, some of our customers experienced difficulties accessing our customer web sites this evening.

"This deliberate surge of traffic is commonly known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

"We have taken the appropriate action to restore the affected web sites. At no time was there any risk to customers. We apologise for the inconvenience caused."

At the beginning of December all of RBS and NatWest's systems went down for three hours on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

The group chief executive Ross McEwan described that glitch as "unacceptable" and added: "For decades, RBS failed to invest properly in its systems.

"We need to put our customers' needs at the centre of all we do. It will take time, but we are investing heavily in building IT systems our customers can rely on."

RBS and NatWest also came under fire in March after a "hardware fault" meant customers were unable to use their online accounts or withdraw cash for several hours.

A major computer issue in June last year saw payments go awry, wages appear to go missing and home purchases and holidays interrupted for several weeks, costing the group £175m in compensation.

This latest problem is the fourth time in 18 months RBS and NatWest customers have reported problems with the banks' services.

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Warning After 'Speckled Rolex' Ecstasy Death

An urgent warning about a yellow ecstasy tablet known as "speckled rolex" has been issued after a man died at a house party in Northern Ireland.

Police said the victim was confirmed dead at a house in Twinbrook, Belfast, at around 7.40pm on Friday night.

His identity has not been released.

Four other men have been taken to hospital, where their condition is said to be stable.

The death has been linked with the drug and a post-mortem examination will be carried out later on Saturday.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is appealing for anyone in possession of tablets to dispose of them immediately.

It comes after eight deaths in Belfast and Antrim earlier this year were linked to the taking of "green rolex" tablets, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

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Reflected Eye Photos Could Help Solve Crime

Reflections in the eyes of people who feature in photographs could increasingly be "mined" to help solve crimes, researchers say.

Zooming in on high-megapixel images can capture recognisable images of the person taking the photo, or other people present at the time.

An experiment by the University of Glasgow's psychology department found that faces of onlookers could be identified even from small, poor quality reflected images.

The zoomed-in images were only 27 to 36 pixels wide but participants could still reliably identify the face.

"For crimes in which the victims are photographed (eg, hostage taking, child sex abuse), reflections in the eyes of the photographic subject could help to identify perpetrators," say researchers Rob Jenkins and Chistie Kerr - who published their findings in the PLoS ONE journal.

"One possible extension of this technique would be to combine pairs of images recovered from the subject's two eyes," they add.

"In principle, these images contain the stereo disparity information required to reconstruct a 3D representation of the environment from the viewpoint of the photographic subject."

A high-end 39 megapixel Hasselblad camera was used in the experiment, while the onlookers were close to the subject and the room well lit.

However, as the study notes, with mobile phone cameras featuring ever-higher pixel counts the technique could become more useful to police looking to gather evidence from a crime scene.

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Footballer Needs Face Surgery After Attack

An amateur footballer's face will have to be rebuilt after he was knocked unconscious and beaten during a night out.

Richie Robins is understood to have been set upon by up to half a dozen men as he apparently stepped in to protect a woman.

The 21-year-old, who is first team goalkeeper for non-league Wivenhoe Town FC and a former Colchester United youth team player, was knocked out and fell to the ground at the start of the attack.

Essex Police said the beating continued while the student was lying on the floor unconscious.

Detective Constable Seff Manesh appealed for witnesses to the attack, which happened outside a Subway shop in Queen Street, Colchester, at 3.30am on December 21, to come forward.

He said: "This young man had been out with his friends after returning home from university for the Christmas holiday.

"We are aware of a disturbance involving a large number of young men and are examining CCTV to establish what happened and who was involved.

"This student has sustained some very nasty-looking injuries which will affect him for the foreseeable future.

"We're looking to speak with those bystanders who saw what happened and what started the melee."

A spokesman for Wivenhoe FC, who play in the Eastern Counties League Premier Division, said Mr Robins suffered "severe" injuries including fractures to his eye socket and cheek bones.

He added: "Naturally, everyone at Wivenhoe Town FC sends Richie their best wishes for a speedy recovery and hope that the people responsible for attacking him are quickly brought to justice."

Mo Osman, chairman and manager at Wivenhoe Town, told the Colchester Gazette Mr Robins had gone to the aid of a woman who was being harassed. He said he had not been drinking as he had a match the next day.

After the incident, Mr Robins was taken to Colchester General Hospital by paramedics and was due to see a specialist surgeon this week.

Essex Police said there were about six attackers who were described as black and in their late teens and early 20s.

Officers have arrested a 19-year-old man from Colchester in connection with the incident. He has been released on police bail.

Witnesses have been asked to contact detectives at Colchester police station on 101.

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Greenpeace Activists Arrive Home From Russia

Five Britons detained in Russia as part of the so-called "Arctic 30" have arrived home in the UK.

The five were arrested amid claims of hooliganism following a protest about oil drilling, and held in jail for two months.

They have since been granted amnesty under a new Russian law.

Greenpeace member Anthony Perrett, 32, of Newport, South Wales, arrived in London with fellow activists Alex Harris and Phil Ball, crew member Iain Rogers and freelance videographer Kieron Bryan.

They left St Petersburg earlier today and arrived in Paris this afternoon before travelling to London's St Pancras station on Eurostar to be met by their families.

Ms Harris said being imprisoned had been "terrifying" but that she took comfort from knowing she was one of 29 other people in the same situation.

And she told Sky News she would not give up on the Arctic: "I've gone through a lot for this campaign, I'm not going to stop now."

The activists were onboard the Arctic Sunrise

Mr Perrett told reporters: "It has been a strange few months, but it is over now and it is good to be back. We're
very relieved to be home, it's good to be back and speaking English, which has been sorely missed."

Asked whether it had been worth it, he said: "Well, look at the media that's here today. We're trying to spread the word to save the Arctic and I think we have done that job fairly well."

Ms Harris said she thought the Russian government let the Arctic 30 go to avoid global criticism in the lead up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

A sixth Briton, activist Frank Hewetson, has also been released and is travelling to another country.

The Arctic 30 - 28 activists and two freelance journalists - were arrested after Russian authorities boarded their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, during an anti-drilling demonstration in September.

The group were detained for protesting against an Arctic offshore oil rig owned by the Russian company Gazprom.

They were initially charged with piracy, but the charge was later changed to hooliganism.

They had their passports returned to them after being freed on bail by courts in St Petersburg, but initially did not have visas to leave Russia.

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Football: Standing May Return To Terraces

Standing on the terraces could return to all Football League divisions after a consultation document was sent to each of the 72 clubs.

Currently, standing is allowed in Leagues One and Two, but not the Championship, once a team has played there for three seasons.

The consultation paper, led by the Football League's new chief executive, Shaun Harvey, was sent to all clubs on Friday.

The Football Supporters' Federation (FSF) has campaigned for safe standing in recent years.

One solution would be to include hybrid rail seats that could be flipped up or down as required to allow safe standing behind chest-high rails.

Arsene Wenger says he would support safe standing

These are seen in the Bundesliga, such as at Borussia Dortmund's Westfalenstadion.

As yet, there have been no official discussions around safe standing in the Premier League, where all-seater stadiums have been compulsory since 1994.

David Gold, co-chairman of West Ham, said in the past week that he would "certainly consider" incorporating safe standing areas into the Olympic Stadium.

At Arsenal Arsene Wenger has said he agrees "100%" with safe standing while the chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, has said: "Why would you be against it, if you can do it safely?"

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Smacking Children Should Be Banned, Says Tsar

Parents should be banned from smacking their children, according to the Children's Commissioner for England.

Maggie Atkinson told The Independent it was her personal view that the law gives pets and adults more rights to be protected from violence than children.

Dr Atkinson said she favours a total ban on smacking, which would see parents face criminal action for corporal punishment.

Current rules make it illegal for a parent to smack a child if it leaves a bruise, but permit a lighter smack or "reasonable chastisement".

Dr Atkinson said: "Personally, having been a teacher, and never having had an issue where I'd need to use physical punishment, I believe we should move to ban it.

"Because in law you are forbidden from striking another adult, and from physically chastising your pets, but somehow there is a loophole around the fact that you can physically chastise your child."

She added: "It's a moral issue. The morals are that, taken to its extreme, physical chastisement is actually physical abuse and I have never understood where you can draw the line between one and the other."

Dr Atkinson, who has two adult step-children, said that despite her strong feelings about the issue, her office was not planning to fight for a ban next year.

She said in the current climate such a move would be "running up a blind alley".

Her comments are likely to re-open the debate about what constitutes "reasonable" punishment of children, the newspaper said.

Tottenham MP David Lammy said early last year that legislation surrounding the smacking of children needed to be relaxed so working-class parents could instil discipline in their homes without fearing prosecution.

He claimed that Labour's 2004 decision to tighten up the smacking law was partly to blame for last summer's riots, which erupted in his north London constituency.

The former education minister said: "Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour government, saying, 'You guys stopped us being able to smack our children.'

"I have to say when this was first raised with me I was pretty disparaging. But I started to listen.

"These parents are scared to smack their children and paranoid that social workers will get involved and take their children away."

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Millions Stress About Finances 'Every Day'

By Poppy Trowbridge, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

In the UK, 18.1 million people feel stressed about their finances every day, according to new research seen by Sky News.

Financial worries are even greater than concerns over health, or even job security, the data from MoneySuperMarket shows.

In a poll of 2,005 British adults, 19% said it is their current financial situation which is the main cause of stress, and a further 17% say it is their future financial situation.

Only 13% say they are most stressed out by their health, and 11% by their job.

Clare Francis, editor-in-chief at MoneySupermarket, said: "Anxiety about money is on the rise for many adults.

"We've experienced a difficult economic climate in 2013, with the cost of living rising, interest rates remaining low, rents remaining high, and wages remaining the same.

"Unfortunately, I expect that the New Year will be just as tough."

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's recently upgraded their estimates for UK growth to 1.4% this year and 2.4% next year, higher than its previous 0.8% and 1.5% forecasts.

Despite this, nearly 75% of those surveyed believe their money stress will get worse next year.

According to the research, 52% of adults said they frequently or occasionally worry about the state of their finances, with women worrying more than men.

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Weather: Ministers Hold Emergency Meeting

Ministers are urging councils to have plans in place for New Year flooding as weather misery continues for thousands of people.

A Downing Street spokesman outlined action to be taken after the Cabinet Office Briefing (COBR) held via conference call on Saturday.

Energy Minister Ed Davey is pushing UK Power Networks - which owns electricity lines in London and the south east - for a clear, public timeline for work to get the power back on, the spokesman said.

The Government has made emergency funding available to councils affected by severe weather and flooding and is urging them to have a clear plan in place if they could face flooding over the New Year.

Around 4,000 homes were still without power on Saturday morning, according to The Energy Networks Association (ENA).

More follows...

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