BBC – Radio 4 – PM Program – October 5, 2012
Viewing the day from across the Atlantic: Radical preacher Abu Hamza al Masri and four other terror suspects can be extradited immediately to the U.S. to face charges there, Britain’s High Court ruled today. Judges John Thomas and Duncan Ousely rejected last-ditch applications by al Masri, Khaled al-Fawwaz, Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdul Bary and Syed Ahsan. Thomas said these are the final proceedings in the suspects’ years-long battles to avoid going to the U.S. Britain h has said it will act right away to remove them.
Al-Masri, who turned London’s Finsbury Park Mosque into a training ground for radical Islamists, is wanted in the U.S. on charges that include helping set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. Al Masri and the four other men have been fighting extradition for as long as 14 years, and both British and European courts have ruled that they can be sent to the U.S. to face charges. They applied to the High Court for a last halt, with al-Masri’s lawyers saying his deteriorating physical and mental health means it would be “oppressive” to send him to a U.S. prison.
Also – Police investigating the kidnapping of April Jones today launched a murder inquiry. Officers now believe that the five-year-old girl has been killed and re-arrested prime suspect Mark Bridger on suspicion of murder. In a dramatic statement, police said they had broken the news to her “devastated” family — suggesting the search is now a hunt for April’s body. Bridger, 46, was initially arrested on suspicion of her abduction on Tuesday afternoon, 21 hours after she vanished while playing near her home in the Welsh town of Machynlleth. But April’s mother today insisted she was “not giving up hope”. Less than an hour after the grim news from police, Coral Jones, 40, stressed that she does not believe her daughter is dead. Detective Superintendent Reg Bevan said the arrest was a “significant development” in theinquiry. He added: “Mark Bridger has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of April Jones. “He remains in custody at Aberystwyth police station, where he continues to be questioned. The arrest does not detract from our efforts to find April and we remain committed to finding her. “Her family has been informed of this development and, as you would expect, they continue to be supported by a family liaison officer.” The Dyfed Powys detective made a fresh appeal to the public for information.
April was snatched while playing on her bike on the Bryn-y- Gog estate at 7pm on Monday. She was seen willingly getting into what is believed to be a Land Rover Discovery. Bridger, an odd-job man, drives a Discovery which was seized from a repair garage on Tuesday and sent for forensic examination.
And finally – On Jan. 1, 1962, The Beatles flunked an audition at Decca Records in London. Label executive Dick Rowe’s brush-off: “Guitar groups are on the way out.” It was an inauspicious start for the group that would soon dominate global society and a downbeat Day 1 in the year that saw the scrappy Liverpool lads evolve into the Fab Four who forever altered the course of pop music. No other entertainers in history have been as popular, as influential, as important or as groundbreaking. The bestselling act ever sold 600 million albums worldwide and racked up 20 No. 1 U.S. singles, a Billboard record that still stands. The band hijacked the entertainment media and transcended music to become a chapter in world history. Its members had political clout, spiritual authority, cultural sway and the ears of the planet.
Fifty years later, the melodic, instantly memorable tunes of the Beatles are ingrained in the DNA of modern civilization. On this golden anniversary, their golden oldies sound as vital and fresh as ever and continue to bewitch new generations. How did the Beatles become so foundly enormous and enduring? Even the players couldn’t fathom such sovereignty. Paul McCartney expected a brief joy ride when Beatlemania struck. “Oh, yeah, we thought a couple years, that would be it,” he said in 2009, when the Beatles’ remastered catalogue reignited international excitement. “We never thought it would last at all. You’ve got to ask, ‘Why did it last?’ I think the music is very structured, like a good house. It’s going to stand for a longtime”.
And that’s how October 5th sounded in 2012 as presented by The BBC Radio 4 program PM.
