13 bodies found in Pakistan were of army detainees

ISLAMABAD: Shepherds found 13 bullet-riddled bodies in northwestern Pakistan, officials said Sunday, and two local residents identified them as men detained by the military in January.

Two intelligence officials said the bodies discovered near Mandao village in Shaktoi, South Waziristan, were Taleban fighters. A military spokesman declined to comment.

Residents identified the bodies found on Saturday as local villagers and said the incident raises further questions about human rights abuses by Pakistani security forces battling the Taleban insurgents. The Pakistani military has received billions of dollars in foreign funding.

A Shaktoi resident told Reuters by telephone that the military arrested 35 people from Mandao in January.

“We contacted army officials here and they said that we will release them soon, but yesterday we found their dead bodies in the wild mountains of Shaktoi,” he said. “Shepherds saw these bodies lying under trees; we village people get these bodies.

“They had been killed with bullets, and different parts were eaten by wild animals,” he said. “Now we fear that the rest of the arrested people will be killed in such a way.” Residents were able to identify the men through their clothes and some of their faces, he said. He provided a list of names of the dead. “I know these people, they were from my village,” said another Mandao resident, Gul Wali. “Why are our forces killing us in such way?”

Woodgate: 'Winning promotion with Boro would be the best achievement of my career'

Jonathan Woodgate believes winning promotion with Boro would be the greatest achievement of his career.

Woodgate has played for a string of top flight clubs plus Real Madrid, won the League Cup with Spurs, has appeared in Europe for five different teams and has eight England caps.

But he is hoping to surpass that this term.

“Winning promotion with Middlebrough would be the best achievement of my career,” he said. “Of course it would. To get your home town team back up into the Premier League, it doesn’t get any better than that does it?

“Going up with the team you’ve supported since 1986, I don’t think I would get a better feeling than that.”

The club captain came off the bench to replace injured Daniel Ayala in his first appearance at the Riverside this term as Boro beat Ipswich 4-1 to join a three-way summit split in the Championship.

And Woodgate knows that has increased the expectation - and nerves - across Teesside.

“I know there’s a buzz around the town but I’ve felt that every year I’ve been here and we’ve been let down twice before,” he said. “Let’s just keep going and see what happens.

“We’ve got three more points and there’s one game less and we are up there and doing well.

“I know there are a lot of nerves about even though we’re joint top.

“People do start to panic if we don’t win every game and I understand that but you have to be realistic. We won’t win every game.”

Five teams fighting for two automatic promotion spots? Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy thinks so

Ipswich manager Mick McCarthy conceded that his side's best hope of promotion this season will come through the play-offs after the heavy defeat at Boro on Saturday.

The 4-1 loss at the Riverside left the Tractor Boys eight-points off top spot and outside the play-off places.

With Boro, Bournemouth and Watford all enjoying convincing victories and Derby and Norwich playing out a draw, a four-point gap has opened up below the Canaries in fifth place.

McCarthy will have been delighted to see Brentford slip up at home to Cardiff but admits his side are now focusing on forcing their way back into the play-off reckoning.

"It was always going to be difficult coming here and I said before the game, if we went eight points behind Middlesbrough and one or two other teams get that far in front of us as well, then that will gap will be too big for us to turn around," said the Ipswich boss.

"That's three wins more than the opposition we've got the achieve in nine games to close that gap and that's not going to happen."

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After falling behind in the fourth minute, Ipswich bounced back immediately through Daryl Murphy and looked the side more likely to grab the next goal until Albert Adomah struck.

"I was delighted with our first half performance and thought we were the better side," said the Town boss.

"We conceded two bad goals thoiugh. They were well worked corners from their view but we should know how to defend them.

"Bamford has shown some quality for the third and fourth goals but again, we could have done much better defensively."

As Boro head to Derby for another crucial match at the top, Ipswich host Bolton looking to get back to winning ways tomorrow night.

Top of the table Bournemouth head to Cardiff while free-scoring Watford visit Wigan, desperate for points themselves as they look for a great escape.

Norwich travel to Huddersfield and in-form Blackburn welcome Brentford in another intriguing clash.

Durham Tees Valley Airport 'moving in right direction' as business passengers rise 3%

Business passengers at Durham Tees Valley Airport rose by 3% in 2014 compared with the previous year.

The airport says numbers for its ‘core business’ activities - including flights to Amsterdam and Aberdeen - are on the up.

It comes after the airport suffered a massive drop in people using its services in 2013, 161,092 passengers used the airport – the lowest since 1972 – against a peak of 917,963 in 2006.

Airport chiefs say the improved performance is down to their decision to ‘reposition its operations and concentrate on business and general aviation services’.

Total passenger numbers on these services rose from 136,397 in 2013 to 140,022 last year - demonstrating that the strategy set out in the airport Master Plan is moving in the right direction, says Managing Director Steve Gill.

He said: “When we took the decision to move away from mainstream charter programmes from 2014 we understood that, in the short term, this would affect overall passenger numbers, but that it was necessary for us develop a more viable business model to help safeguard the future of aviation activity.

“Central to the new approach was working to sustain our existing scheduled services and I am pleased to say that the increase in passenger numbers on this core business does show we are moving in the right direction.”

The summer service to Jersey and tour flights with Newmarket Holidays were also among the services that saw an increase - as well as scheduled services to Schiphol and Aberdeen.

The loss of several DTVA services - including a daily flight to and from Heathrow - triggered a significant drop in passenger numbers at the airport.

Steve added: “We will be continuing to work with our airline partners to maintain progress and the start of 2015 has seen the introduction of a number of important initiatives, including our new website and state-of-the-art parking system, a new Privilege Club offering more benefits for passengers, improved tariffs for general aviation users and a significant marketing programme for our scheduled services.

“We have also recently launched a major Business Travel Survey, seeking views on a wide range of factors aimed at gaining a better understanding of how the airport can help to meet business needs—and enabling us to demonstrate business demands in our discussions with both new and existing airlines.”

Cummins is among the major companies which uses the aiport’s worldwide links.

Plant Manager Des McMenamin said: “We are part of a global organisation with manufacturing, technical and service facilities across six continents. Durham Tees Valley Airport is on our doorstep and provides international connections to key destinations that support our business.”

View: Teesside gets the Google Earth 3D treatment with striking level of detail

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Buildings in large areas of Teesside have been rendered into 3D on Google Earth.

Every single individual building in Middlesbrough, Stockton, Yarm and Eaglescliffe has been given the 3D treatment on the Google Earth app made by the internet giant.

The level of the detail is often striking.

Visitors to the site can swoop in to make out the Middlesbrough FC emblems and individual steel beams on the Riverside Stadium. visit the fountain at Albert Park and even read the time on the clock at Yarm Town Hall.

Sadly not all of Teesside has been included - Redcar, Saltburn, Guisborough and most of East Cleveland all miss out.

The 3D buildings appear no further south than Old Nunthorpe Village and only half of Newton under Roseberry is 3D - a sharp line divides the village into a 3D half and a 2D half.

It is understood that Google recreates the buildings using a computer algorithm that is able to process 45-degree aerial imagery along with Google Maps data to create accurate three dimensional models.

Major cities such as London and New York have had 3D images for some time along with other UK cities such as Birmingham, Leeds, Reading and Stoke on Trent.

In the North-east, the feature has been available for much of Tyneside for over a year, but with cities such as Sunderland are yet to be done.

View: Teesside gets the Google Earth 3D treatment with striking level of detail

VIEW GALLERY

Buildings in large areas of Teesside have been rendered into 3D on Google Earth.

Every single individual building in Middlesbrough, Stockton, Yarm and Eaglescliffe has been given the 3D treatment on the Google Earth app made by the internet giant.

The level of the detail is often striking.

Visitors to the site can swoop in to make out the Middlesbrough FC emblems and individual steel beams on the Riverside Stadium. visit the fountain at Albert Park and even read the time on the clock at Yarm Town Hall.

Sadly not all of Teesside has been included - Redcar, Saltburn, Guisborough and most of East Cleveland all miss out.

The 3D buildings appear no further south than Old Nunthorpe Village and only half of Newton under Roseberry is 3D - a sharp line divides the village into a 3D half and a 2D half.

It is understood that Google recreates the buildings using a computer algorithm that is able to process 45-degree aerial imagery along with Google Maps data to create accurate three dimensional models.

Major cities such as London and New York have had 3D images for some time along with other UK cities such as Birmingham, Leeds, Reading and Stoke on Trent.

In the North-east, the feature has been available for much of Tyneside for over a year, but with cities such as Sunderland are yet to be done.

'The Dress' raises £2,700 for Comic Relief

The dress which sparked global online debate has raised more than £2,700 for Comic Relief. The one-off white and gold version of the blue and black dress attracted more than 50 bids on eBay before being snapped by Czech businessman Tomas Petru for £1,356.

Dress-maker Roman Originals set up the auction to raise funds for Comic Relief and will also match the winning bid with its own donation.

The firm, based in Erdington, Birmingham, said Mr Petru had bought the knee-length garment for his wife as a gift.

The original black and blue dress trended on Twitter earlier this month after dividing opinion over its colours, which some people saw as white and gold.

The picture that has caused a thousand arguments. What colour dress do you see?

Celebrities including reality TV star Kim Kardashian, her rapper husband Kanye West and singer Taylor Swift were among those who tweeted their views.