The widow of a British soldier who died in friendly fire in Iraq condemned on Friday the US refusal to allow the airing of a cockpit recording of the incident, blocking a legal inquiry into the death.
Susan Hull said it was "very disappointing" that the authorities had not made available the tapes of two pilots who attacked a tank convoy, killing her husband, Lance Corporal Matty Hull, in March 2003.
She only found out they existed on Thursday, having been told "categorically" by the British defense ministry that there was no such recording.
"I think it's absolutely disgusting," she told an inquest on Thursday.
"We have waited four years. That this evidence has just come to light miraculously in the previous week means our time has been delayed again," she said.
It is believed that the British military Board of Inquiry has had a copy of the recording since 2004.
Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker on Friday adjourned an inquest into the death of 25-year-old Hull until March 12 while the defense ministry tries to secure authorization for the classified material to be shown in public.
But his fury at the authorities' failure to produce the material was clear, saying it was "a matter of profound regret."
"I just, for my part, hope that those in authority recognize that at the heart of this inquest is a grieving family," he added.
Sources say the tape is "incriminating" and contains the line: "Someone's going to jail for this."
Walker had given the defence ministry a deadline of Friday morning to secure US permission to play the tape, but was forced to adjourn the hearing when they failed to do so.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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