Harry Potter Actor Found Ded In California

One of the villains from the "Harry Potter" movies British actor Dave Legeno has died while hiking in Death Valley, according to TMZ reports.

Legeno's body was found by a pair of hikers on Sunday in an area so remote. A CHP helicopter was called in to remove the corpse.

50-year-old Legeno played the werewolf Fenrir Greyback in the 'Harry Potter' movies. He was also in the film, "Snatch."

The Inyo County Sheriff's Department (in California) says it appears the actor died of heat related issues ... and may have been dead for 3-4 days before his body was discovered. Summer temps in Death Valley are known to go over 120 degrees.

BRITISH VARSITIES WOO ELITE STUDENTS WITH CASH, IPADS

TOP universities are to offer inducements including free mini iPads and laptops, tickets to celebrity lectures and rent rebates as they prepare to battle for Britain’s brightest students

   According to the Sunday Times of London, when the A-level results are announced today, those with high grades will find themselves in a buyers’ market as many of Britain’s elite universities will, for the first time, enter clearing — the process whereby students are matched to spare places.

     Scholarships worth thousands of pounds will also be dangled in front of teenagers, to persuade them to trade up from lower-ranking universities.

     Vice-chancellors at leading universities such as Keele, Southampton, Exeter and Sussex will be taking advantage of a ministerial decision to allow them to recruit unlimited numbers of applicants with grades of ABB and above. A survey of universities by Deloitte reveals that more than a quarter have ambitious plans for expansion.

     Others, however, will be trying to fill half-empty courses shunned by students who want certainty about getting value for their £9,000-a-year fees.

     Don Nutbeam, the vice-chancellor at Southampton, said: “We are competing with 20 or 30 other universities for the most talented. It will be a genuine market place with students using it to try to get a better offer

GERMANY SUMMONS BRITISH ENVOY OVER SPY CLAIMS

THE British ambassador in Berlin has been called in by Germany's Foreign Ministry to respond to spying allegations.

The UK Independent newspaper says the British embassy in Berlin may be…

HOW AFRICA CAN LEAD IN ENERGY, OTHER SECTORS, BY UNECA CHIEF

THE Executive Secretary of the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Mr. Carlos Lopes, has urged African ministers to be guided by a moral compass of ensuring the “greatest good for the greatest number” of people of the continent.

    Lopes, who made the call while addressing ministers at the Africa Regional Consultative Meeting on the Sustainable Development Goals, explained that sustainable development is about reframing the global development agenda in ways that would give both present and future generations the autonomy to be active forces in their own destinies. “
    “Africa has within its reach, the capacity, the people, resources and opportunities to lead the way on sustainable development,” he was quoted as saying in a statement made available to The Guardian.
   The UNECA chief also proposed opportunities in three sectors where Africa can lead.
   In the energy sector, Lopes said evidence is mounting that Africa’s need to expand its capacity to generate power can be met through renewable energy technologies that deliver clean and sustainable energy supplies. 
    “Overcoming the barriers that prevent the development of renewable energy in a context of climate change will depend largely on improving the policy and institutional environment in Africa,” he said. 
    He added that inclusive green growth is a frontier that could focus on affordable renewable energy services, the promotion of green jobs and the reduction of poverty. 
   According to him, agriculture sector holds the key to unlocking Africa’s growth potential, to attain the seven per cent threshold. “
    He said leveraging the continent’s agricultural sector is critical given its growing population and an ever-increasing demand for food.

EGYPT;S COURT REJECTS BROTHERHOOD'S APPEAL AGAINST BAN

An Egyptian court on Wednesday turned down an appeal by the Muslim Brotherhood against a previous court ruling that banned the group and seized its funds, official news agency MENA reported. A court decided late September to ban all activities of the Islamist group as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and to confiscate its assets and funds. The decision is seen as one of the interim authorities' move to crack down on the Brotherhood after former President Mohamed Morsi was toppled by military on July 3 in response to mass nationwide protests against his single year rule. According to the ruling, the cabinet will form an independent panel to temporarily supervise and manage the money, until the court gives an irrevocable verdict. MENA said Counsellor Ezzet Khamis was appointed as the head of the committee. The Egypt's oldest Islamist group was dissolved on Oct. 

‘TAYLOR BEHIND BARS IN BRITAIN ALONGSIDE NOTORIOUS MURDERERS, OTHERS’

IF the claims of the family of Liberia’s former warlord, Charles Taylor, are anything to be trusted, he is currently being held in one of Britain’s highest security prisons, alongside notorious murderers, terrorists, psychopaths and paedophiles.

    The facility, HMP Frankland, near the northeastern English city of Durham, houses 800 of the most dangerous offenders in the prison system and is the jail where double child-murderer, Ian Huntley, had his throat slashed by inmates three years ago.

     “He is being incarcerated in Frankland prison,” Taylor’s wife, Victoria Addison Taylor, told Agence France Presse (AFP) Wednesday.

    The revelation by Taylor’s wife was the first indication of the former president’s whereabouts.

    “They took him to this prison where high (risk) criminals, terrorists and other common British criminals are kept and he is being classified as a high risk prisoner... He is going through humiliation and you cannot treat a former head of state that way,” she added.

      It would be recalled that the 65-year-old former president in September lost his appeal over a catalogue of gruesome acts committed by the Sierra Leonean rebels he aided and abetted during that country’s 1991-2001 civil war – one of the most brutal in modern history.

     He was transferred to an unnamed prison in Britain last month.

     However, Frankland is the largest of five high-security prisons in England and Wales, where inmates included the two men jailed for the high-profile murder of British police officer, Sharon Beshenivsky.

    The prison previously held Harold Shipman, one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history, blamed for up to 250 murders, who hanged himself in HMP Wakefield in January 2004.

    Huntley, 39, jailed for life for the 2002 murders of 10-year-old school friends – Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman – was rushed to hospital in 2010 after being found lying in a pool of blood at Frankland, his throat slashed with a makeshift knife.

     In 2011, two prisoners disembowelled 23-year old Mitchell Harrison, who had been convicted for raping a 13-year old girl.

    Also, triple killer, Kevan Thakrar, stabbed three prison guards several months earlier while British Al-Qaeda activist, Eesa Bharot, needed a skin graft after he was attacked with hot oil and boiling water by fellow inmates in 2007.

    Taylor is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars after the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) in The Hague upheld his 50-year sentence in September.

    His landmark sentence on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity was the first handed down by an international court against a former head of state since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg in 1946.

    The British government had offered in 2007 to house Taylor in a British jail if he was convicted, and to cover the costs of his imprisonment.

    As Liberia’s president from 1997 to 2003, Taylor was accused of supplying guns and ammunition to rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone in a conflict notorious for its mutilations, drugged child soldiers and sex slaves.

      He was found guilty of supporting the rebels during a civil war that claimed 120,000 lives between 1991 and 2002, in exchange for “blood diamonds” mined by slave labour.

  Meanwhile, Taylor’s wife said she was getting information on her husband’s poor treatment from his British-based daughter from a previous marriage, Charlene Taylor, who has spoken to the former president once since he was moved to Frankland.

ISRAEL’S FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER ACQUITTED OF FRAUD

A Jerusalem court on Wednesday acquitted Israel’s former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman of fraud and breach of trust charges, paving the way for the right-wing lawmaker to return to his old job.

Lieberman stood down as foreign minister before parliamentary elections earlier this year to face the charges, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the portfolio himself as a temporary solution, pending the outcome of the trial.

Netanyahu telephoned Lieberman immediately after the verdict, congratulating him and telling him he was happy about his "return to the government of Israel," a statement from the prime minister's office said.

Lieberman, appearing outside the courtroom, said of the trial: ``this chapter is behind me...I will focus on the challenges ahead, and there are enough of them.’’

Lieberman heads the Israel Beiteinu party, which formed an alliance with Netanyahu's Likud party in the January elections.

As foreign minister, he was controversial because of his outspoken and hardliner views.

He has already dismissed the revived peace negotiations with the Palestinians, saying he does not believe in their chances of success.

Lieberman had been accused of appointing an Israeli diplomat as ambassador to Latvia as a way of thanking him for providing classified documents about a separate police investigation.

It was alleged that he illegally received millions of dollars from various foreign businessmen.

That separate investigation was closed last year due to insufficient evidence.

Wednesday's verdict came after 17 years of corruption allegations against Lieberman.

Opposition leader Shelly Yechimovich, of the left-of-centre Labour Party, said that in spite of the acquittal, she believed that Lieberman had at least broken ethical codes of behaviour.