News in brief

Spate of car crashes kill five in Northern Ireland

Five people were killed on Northern Ireland's roads within 12 hours of each other, police said yesterday.

Two women, aged 31 and 57, died after a two-car crash in Derry at 9.20am. Another person was taken to hospital to be treated for shock after the crash on one of the city's busiest arterial routes.

Earlier, two people were killed in a head-on crash in Co Antrim. The 45-year-old man and 48-year-old woman died on the Frosses Road near Glarryford outside Ballymena. Police said a third person, a man, was taken to hospital suffering from serious injuries. The 2am crash involved a silver Citroen and a green Mazda. In a separate incident, a 19-year-old man died in a crash late last night on the Castlewellan Road near Newcastle, Co Down.

It is understood he was a passenger in a Ford Fiesta car which hit a Daihatsu 4x4 vehicle at around 10.20pm. A number of people were taken to hospital, according to police.

The latest deaths bring to 96 the number of people killed on Northern Ireland's roads already this year. Police said 113 had died in road crashes up to the same date last year.
Press Association

£2.8bn European sat-nav system saved

EU transport ministers have stepped in at the last minute to save the controversial £2.84bn Galileo satellite-navigation project. Ministers had until the end of the year to reach an agreement over the system which is intended to cut Europe's dependence on the US GPS service. 'This is going to ensure economic and strategic independence,' said EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot.

The project involves blasting 30 satellites into orbit and then monitoring them from ground stations in Italy and Germany. But last year crisis struck the project when the private consortium, set up to build the satellites and run the ground stations, collapsed.

Ministers, meeting in Brussels, have now approved a plan to refinance the project solely from EU money, using funds that will be taken primarily from agriculture budgets. However, critics still voice fears about Galileo's costs while in the UK, a group of MPs recently issued a report that was scathing about the project's management and prospects. American defence experts are also opposed to the project - which has been earmarked purely for non-military uses - because China has paid to be involved as a partner.
Robin McKie

Fashion world mourns Martin Moss, 84

Martin Moss, retail expert and husband of the Observer photographer Jane Bown, has died at the age of 84. Moss, who was born on 17 July 1923, was once named one of London's most eligible bachelors by the Evening Standard. In the Fifties he took over as managing director of the now demolished Knightsbridge department store Woollands, owned by the Debenham group.

He was credited with turning around Woollands's fortunes and named 'London's One Man Wave of Fashion' by a New York magazine. Moss worked with Terence Conran to redesign parts of the store, before taking other high-profile positions in the retail world. It was at the start of that period, in 1954, that he married Bown, a renowned photographer who has worked with The Observer since 1949. Twelve years later Moss became managing director of Simpson in Piccadilly.
Anushka Asthana

Cooking oil: out of the pan and into the wire

Cooking oil will be recycled to generate electricity in Norfolk. The county council wants people to take their used cooking oil to recycling centres to be converted into biofuel. 'It has been calculated that 225,000 tonnes of used cooking oil is thrown away every year in the UK,' said a council spokeswoman. 'Norfolk's share would be about 3,500 tonnes.' If converted, the resulting biofuel could generate more than 13,000 megawatt hours of electricity per annum - equivalent to the annual electricity use of 2,200 households.

Sheep's escape route

A sheep at a farm in south Wales has been caught on CCTV cameras regularly letting herself out of her locked pen. Staff at Swansea Community Farm discovered Lottie used her tongue to unbolt the gate and escape with her three pen-mates.

Ferguson's son arrested

Sir Alex Ferguson's son Darren was arrested for allegedly assaulting his estranged wife Nadine, 28, outside the Manchester United manager's £2m mansion in Wilmslow, Cheshire, it was disclosed yesterday. Ferguson, 35, who is player-manager of Peterborough United, was arrested on 23 October.

Nurses stabbed

A hospital patient has been detained under the Mental Health Act after two nurses were stabbed. The 45-year-old man and 25-year-old woman were attacked at Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, Berkshire.

Joyriders killed in crash

A 15-year-old joyrider and his teenage passenger died after their stolen car crashed in Thornton, Bradford. Police said the silver Peugeot 206 hit a building and then two cars.

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