Tees Pride 10k: Thousands take part in this year's run in Middlesbrough

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In pictures: Middlesbrough Tees Pride 10k 2014

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The sun was shining as thousands of runners pounded the streets of Middlesbrough for the annual 10k run.

This year the was the tenth anniversary of the Taylor Wimpey Tees Pride 10k run which and thousands of people took part.

Crowds gathered in the streets to cheer on the runners.

The race was won by Ethiopian paralympian Wondiye Indelbu, 26, who lives in Middlesbrough.

He said: “I came third last year so it is fantastic to be able to win this time.

“It has been a great day.”

Paul Garrens, 41, an operations manager from Marton Road, Middlesbrough, ran the race dressed as Elvis.

He said: “This is the first time I have done this in fancy dress.

“I am raising money for Teesside Hospice. It is a great atmosphere and the weather couldn’t have been better.”

Rebuilding Gaza will take 20 years

JERUSALEM: An international organization involved in assessing post-conflict reconstruction says it will take 20 years for Gaza’s battered and neglected housing stock to be rebuilt following the war between Hamas and Israel.

The assessment by Shelter Cluster, chaired by the Norwegian Refugee Council with the participation of the UN refugee agency and the Red Cross, underscores the complexities involved in an overall reconstruction program for the Gaza Strip, which some Palestinian officials have estimated could cost in excess of $6 billion.

Any effort to rebuild Gaza will be hindered by a blockade imposed by Egypt and Israel since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. Israel has severely restricted the import of concrete and other building materials into Gaza, fearing that militants will use them to build rockets and reinforce cross-border attack tunnels. Egypt and Norway have raised the possibility of convening a Gaza donors’ conference at some point next month, but no firm arrangements have been made.

With a population of 1.8 million, Gaza is a densely populated coastal strip of urban warrens and agricultural land that still bears the scars of previous rounds of fighting.

In its report issued late Friday, Shelter Cluster said 17,000 Gaza housing units were destroyed or severely damaged during this summer’s war and 5,000 units still need work after damage sustained in the previous military campaigns. In addition, it says, Gaza has a housing deficit of 75,000 units.

Shelter Cluster said its 20-year assessment is based on the capacity of the main Israel-Gaza cargo crossing to handle 100 trucks of construction materials daily. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli government agency responsible for operating the crossing on whether it had future plans to ease restrictions on goods going into Gaza.

Israel and Hamas agreed on Tuesday to an open-ended truce. The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the fighting but left key issues unresolved. Hamas immediately declared victory, even though it has very little to show for the war

Pakistan crisis: scores injured in protests

Asad Hashim – Islamabad - At least 300 people have been injured as police clashed with thousands of anti-government protesters in the Pakistani capital, as the country’s political crisis turned violent outside the Prime Minister’s official residence.

The clashes broke out on Friday night after thousands of supporters of opposition leaders Tahir-ul-Qadri and Imran Khan attempted to remove a barricade as they approached the PM’s residence.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the protesters, some of whom fought back with wooden batons, while others threw stones and the occasional firebomb in the heart of Islamabad’s high-security “red zone”

By 3:00am local time on Sunday morning (22:00 GMT on Saturday), protesters had used vehicles to break down the boundary fence around the National Assembly and were occupying the building’s grounds.

“We left to occupy the area outside the PM house in a peaceful way,” said Muhammad Imran, 25, a Qadri supporter who suffered five rubber bullet wounds. “The police came and fired directly on us and on others in the crowd.”

At least 25 police personnel were also injured in the clashes.

“When we fired tear gas to disperse them, they started throwing rocks at us,” said Shakeel Ahmed, a 45-year-old police officer whose leg was injured by a thrown rock. “It was so intense that I had to run away.”

Supporters of Khan and Qadri have been holding a sit-in near the parliament since August 14 call for the resignation of the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif over alleged vote rigging.

Earlier on Friday, talks between government negotiators and teams from both Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) broke down, as several earlier rounds had.

On Thursday the military, which has ruled the country for roughly half of its 67 years of independence, stepped into the crisis, assuming a “mediation role” between the protesters and government

Khan alleges vote rigging in the 2013 general election which Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party swept to power.

Qadri, meanwhile, wants a “national government” of technocrats and bureaucrats, who would then draft a new constitution and system of governance for the country.

“There is no question of resignation by Nawaz Sharif, nor any member from the government,” read a statement released by the PM’s office earlier on Saturday.

Sharif is not present at the official residence in Islamabad, preferring to stay at his home in Lahore, where he normally resides.

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Judge tells two-time Stockton drug dealer Michael Hunt 'I don't want to crush you'

A drug dealer was told by Teesside’s top judge that his three-and-a-half year prison sentence was “generous”.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC told the twice-convicted dealer: “I don’t want to crush you at your age.

“You’ve had a life of crime. You’ve had a life of long sentences. If I gave you a long sentence now it may well crush you.”

The man in the dock at Teesside Crown Court was 36-year-old Michael Alan Hunt.

He has a record of 108 offences and has served sentences of six yearsand four years for robbery and five-and-a-half years for supplying Class A drugs.

He was arrested after he was asked by a PC on patrol to stop riding his bicycle on the pavement in Stockton town centre.

The policeman was suspicious about Hunt’s manner at about 11.50am on October 14 last year.

Hunt instantly resisted when told he would be searched for drugs, said prosecutor Victoria Lamballe.

He tried to escape in a brief struggle and the officer used his CS spray.

He threw away a plastic egg which contained 15 wraps of heroin.

Hunt, of Hartington Road, Stockton, admitted possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply and possession of a Class C drug - one tablet of the heroin treatment drug Subutex.

He was jailed for five-and-a-half years in June 2008 for possession of heroin with intent to supply.

In that case, he’d been caught with more than £16,500 worth of the drug.

He discarded most of it in a Stockton garden as he ran from police.

The rest was discovered in his home with digital scales and pieces of paper carrying his phone number.

Graham Silvester, defending, said Hunt was released from prison in 2012, still mixed with the same sorts of people and was in debt to a dealer.

“Effectively he was the equivalent of a bookie’s runner but with Class A drugs,” said Mr Silvester.

“He was stuck in that unenviable position of being a drug user in debt to a supplier and really with no prospect of getting himself out of that circle.

“He wasn’t dealing specifically for his own benefit to get cash. This was because he was under pressure to repay this debt.

“He accepts today that custody is inevitable. He knows it’s going to be of some length.”

Judge Bourne-Arton, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, told Hunt: “There is no substantial offending since 2008. You’ve shown some signs of trying to improve.”

He jailed Hunt for three-and-a-half years, saying: “In all the circumstances, Mr Hunt, that’s a generous sentence.”

Council leaders taking call for direct Middlesbrough-London rail link to corridors of power

North council leaders are taking their call for a direct train between London and Middlesbrough to the corridors of power.

Bill Dixon, leader of Darlington Borough Council, will meet with senior civil servants in the capital city on Tuesday to lay out plans for six daily trains to run between London and Teesside.

He said Teesside’s growing chemicals sector will suffer if a direct train link to London is not put in place.

“The economy is going to improve and Teesside will once again be cut off,” he said.

“There are large-scale global industries here in the Tees Valley and restricting their access to major cities makes no sense.

“The deputy mayor of Middlesbrough and myself will meet with senior civil servants next week to discuss electrification of the lines between Thirsk and Middlesbrough.

“There is no reason why this physically couldn’t happen and it would not be costly in terms of other railway investments.

“In fact, it would be cost effective. It would easily pay for itself within a few years.”

A recent report, called One North: a proposition for the Interconnected North, brings together five major cities in the north: Leeds; Sheffield; Manchester; Liverpool; and Newcastle.

The five cities are calling for a £15bn plan to improve road and rail connections in the region over the next 15 years. It includes plans for a new 125mph inter-city rail link, faster links and better access to ports and airports.

For the North East it would mean improvements to rail links between Newcastle and York in advance of HS2 being built – creating the capacity for 140mph trains which would speed up journey times and connections to the wider rail network.

However, Redcar and Cleveland Council leader George Dunning said it’s high time Teesside was better connected.

He said: “Middlesbrough is one of the largest towns in the country and it hasn’t got a direct link to London.

“You have to drive or get a bus to Darlington if you want to go to London and that is clearly putting people off coming to the area. It’s affecting our business and it’s affecting our tourism.

“George Osborne has proposed spending billions on high speed for the North, but the North doesn’t seem to mean the North East.

“The proposed HS2 project linking up to the north means the likes of Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds.

“There has also been talk of linking to Newcastle in some way, but there has been no mention of Middlesbrough. There’s an awful lot of England between Leeds and Newcastle.”

North councils left with funding shortfall after those left reeling from bedroom tax cry for help

Cash-strapped North councils have diverted more than £300,000 of funds to top up Government help for those left reeling by the bedroom tax.

Welfare reforms have seen changes made to benefits which have forced many to seek smaller housing while scores of others struggle to pay their rent.

Thousands applied for Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) cash payments to get by, but now many councils have spent over the amount allocated by Government and have had to find extra funds from elsewhere.

Fears are also spreading the situation could get worse as authorities may be even more out-of-pocket next year when the Government will cease to offer DHP funding.

Hartlepool Council had one of the highest deficits - £115,239 - with the total spent on DHP hitting almost half-a-million pounds.

In Gateshead, the overspend was £90,000, after the authority spent £583,000. Chiefs will now bid for extra DHP cash as the council foresees a further shortfall.

Sunderland City Council spent £690,000 and had a shortfall of £32,000. North Tyneside Council reported an underspend while Durham County Council was granted additional DHP funds to cope with demand.

In Middlesbrough the figure was £37,420, Redcar and Cleveland spent £5,000, while Stockton was the lowest over their allocated funds at £932.

Both Hartlepool and Middlesbrough councils said they met the shortfall by using money from the Local Welfare Provision (LWP), which can also be used to help people struggling with welfare reforms.

But the LWP will also be removed by the Government from April 1, 2015.

South Tyneside Council was left with a shortfall of £8,000 after granting £314,000 worth of DHP applications.

Meanwhile Newcastle City Council - which by far paid out the most DHP grants at £1.5m - was granted an additional £861,000 in DHP cash from the Government to cope with almost 3,000 applications.

Coun Dave Budd, Middlesbrough’s Deputy Mayor and executive member for resources, said: “The Coalition Government’s welfare reforms have placed a great many people in real hardship.

“From a very early stage we have been working with many partners - including local housing providers and the Citizens Advice Bureau - to address issues which can have a devastating effect on people’s lives.

“With the removal of the funding for the Local Welfare Provision from April next year, it will become even tougher to help those most in need. However, we will continue to do everything in our power as a local authority to mitigate those impacts.”

Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Redcar Anna Turley highlighted the situation, saying: “David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s bedroom tax has been a disaster for the hundreds of thousands of people hit by the cruel levy and it has come at a huge cost for local taxpayers.”

However, the DWP says more than £20m specifically earmarked to help people adapt to welfare reforms was not spent by UK local authorities last year.

Figures show almost two-thirds (63%) of councils paid out less than their total DHP allocation to tenants.

A spokesman for Hartlepool Council said: “The council recognises the significant detrimental impact that the bedroom tax is having on households and as a council we are doing everything possible to ease the pain for residents.

“In 2013/14, the Government’s introduction of the bedroom tax resulted in reduced housing benefit entitlements in Hartlepool of over £1m and affected over 1,400 households.”

Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud, said: “We tripled support for vulnerable people to £180m last year to ensure the right help was in place during our far-reaching welfare reforms.

“The figures also show that recent scare stories about councils running out of money were grossly exaggerated.

“Our vital reforms are fixing the broken welfare system by restoring fairness for hardworking people and making sure work always pays, as part of our long-term plan.”

Egypt arrests HRW Rabaa report’s eyewitness

Egyptian security authorities have arrested one of the eyewitnesses whose account was cited in a recent report by international rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) about last year’s dispersal of the eastern Cairo Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in.

“Mohamed Tareq was arrested in Alexandria late Friday, and was interrogated by the prosecution on Saturday,” a source close to the activist told Anadolu Agency on the condition of anonymity.

Tareq, a lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences in Alexandria University, was arrested at his house in a raid that also saw his laptop seized, the source said, noting that Tareq was one of the protesters who joined the Rabaa sit-in until its dispersal on August 14 of last year.

Several friends of Tareq have confirmed the news of his arrest of his Facebook account, with cyber-activists launching an online campaign calling for his release.

Earlier this month, the HRW, a prominent New York-based watchdog, called for a U.N. inquiry into what it has described as the “massacre” by Egyptian security forces of at least 1150 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi – including at least 817 in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adiwiya Square alone – saying the killings likely constituted crimes against humanity.

Hundreds of pro-Morsi demonstrators were killed when security forces violently cleared their protest camps in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza’s Nahda Square on August 14 of last year, only weeks after the military ousted Morsi, Egypt’s first elected civilian president.

The Egyptian government has dismissed the HRW report as “politicized” and “biased.” Cairo also reiterated that the use of force by security personnel had come in response to violence – including the use of firearms – by protesters.

The Egyptian authorities have not commented yet on Tareq’s arrest. The HRW is also yet to comment.

In his account, Tareq said that security forces were “arbitrarily shooting all around” during the violent dispersal. He himself was hit by three bullets, one in his arm, one that went into his back and through his chest, and a third that struck him in the side, he said.

Tareq went on to say that he was one of hundreds of demonstrators that were unable to receive necessary medical attention for hours at the field hospital in the square “as doctors struggled to deal with the influx of injured protests after the dispersal began.”

HRW asserted in its report that Egyptian authorities had failed to hold even a single low-level policeman or army officer accountable for any of the violence – let alone the officials responsible for ordering them – and continued to brutally suppress dissent.

The rights group further confirmed in its report that some pro-Morsi demonstrators had used firearms in a few cases, but added that this did “not justify the grossly disproportionate and premeditated lethal attacks on overwhelmingly peaceful protesters.”

Following last year’s dispersals, the Egyptian government then launched a sweeping crackdown on the ousted president’s supporters.

Thousands of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers – along with a number of secular activists – have been arrested and convicted on multiple charges.

Morsi himself currently faces four separate trials for multiple criminal charges, including espionage, jailbreak and offending the judiciary