General News
Land Registry: Land Registry, in response to concerns expressed about the potential misuse of scanned documents available electronically from Land Register Online (LRO), has decided that documents referred to on the register, for example mortgage deeds & leases, should no longer be available electronically from LRO.
Online access to these documents has been removed and members of the public wishing to inspect or have copies of any such documents can now do so by applying in writing to Land Registry. LRO only makes information available to view and it does not allowanyone to alter the register in any way.
HMRC: Two London based male teenagers are in the custody of Ghanaian authorities, having been arrested at Accra Airport on 2 November en route for London Gatwick. They were arrested under the joint HMRC / Ghanaian Operation Westbridge, after they were caught attempting to transport 3 – 4Kg of cocaine through Kotoka International Airport, Accra onto a London bound flight.
This project follows the success of Operation Airbridge, a joint UK / Jamaican initiative to catch drugs couriers with internal concealments of Class A drugs before they board planes from Jamaica.
Press release ~ Ghana Paves the way again ~ Drugs and crime programme Foreign & Commonwealth Office ~ A bitter pill to swallow ~ United Nations Office of Drugs & Crime Annual Drugs Report 2006
WO: Over £670m compensation has been paid to Welsh ex-miners and their families in recent months Wales Office Minister Huw Irranca-Davies has announced, saying: "Compensation payments in Wales have now reached a total of over £672m - £497.9m for respiratory disease and £174.8m for Vibration White finger (VWF) - which amounts to some £12.6m paid out since our last meeting in July.
This is the biggest personal injury scheme in legal history and I am grateful to the members of the monitoring group, who have helped ensure that progress in Wales is maintained”.
Met Office: Accurate & consistent forecasts from the Met Office helped the Environment Agency and emergency services take decisive action when England's east coast experience one of the highest storm surges & tides for several decades last week.
Meanwhile, studies of climate change at the Met Office Hadley Centre suggest that in the future the height of coastal floods is likely to increase, potentially causing more damage. The storm surge was one of the highest since the 1953 east coast floods, which claimed hundreds of lives. It was fortunate that the recent surge did not coincide with high tide times.
