Girl gang killed neighbour with ‘internet’ bomb

V.O

From telegraph.co.uk

By Richard Edwards and Lucy Cockcroft

The explosion collapsed three Victorian houses in north-west London, killing a resident in one property and leaving the intended target – 17-year-old Charlotte Anderson – in intensive care with severe burns.

Miss Anderson called police 10 hours before the blast on Wednesday to report that a group of girls aged 16 and 17 were causing trouble outside her house in Harrow. Another resident has claimed they were pouring a “purple and smelly” liquid through the letterbox.

Experts have told police that the volatile substance, which has not yet been identified, may have vapourised and exploded.

Emad Qureshi, 26, from Pakistan, who lived with his parents next door to Miss Anderson, died in the blast.

Scotland Yard has launched a murder inquiry and is hunting the girl gang, who are believed to have had a run-in with Miss Anderson.

She had moved to the area from Newcastle six months ago and recently began dating a local boy, causing arguments with two girls in the area, according to residents.

A police source said: “There are several possibilities, one of which is that this was a home-made explosive which was cooked up using a recipe on the internet. The methods for making these liquid bombs are all over the internet.

“We have seen with recent terrorism trials that there are plenty of things on the web, but it would obviously be an extraordinary and disturbing development if a girl gang has decided to settle a dispute in such dramatic and tragic way.”

At a press conference in Harrow on Friday, Det Chf Insp Colin Sutton confirmed a 17-year-old woman who lived at No.21 Stanley Road was the probable target of any attack.

She called police at 11am about the girls, but then told officers they had gone away. She did not mention the liquid being poured through the letterbox, but another resident reported it after the blast.

The explosion happened at 9.30pm. Miss Anderson was pulled from rubble by neighbours and taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital with severe burns. She is now in a stable condition.

The explosion damaged properties in a 60-yard radius. It demolished a house at No.19 and two flats at No.21. The house at No.23 was partially demolished.

Neighbours dug through the smoking rubble with their bare hands to find the trapped residents. The body of Mr Qureshi, who had reportedly just recently finished a post-graduate degree in computing, was removed by firefighters.

Mr Sutton said: “We still haven’t ruled out a gas explosion but experts say it is unlikely to be the cause.

“What we can say is that we are happy there is no link to any terrorist organisation or acts here.

Andrew Haynes, who pulled the teenager from the wreckage of her home, said: “She’s in hospital very badly burnt but I’ve heard that she is conscious and up and about Friday saying a few words and able to have a drink.

It is believed that Miss Anderson had been taken into care by social services and was living alone at the bottom floor flat of No.21. Her mother was travelling down from Newcastle last night to be at her bedside.

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Elephants Dream

Children’s peers are best people to warn of smoking dangers

V.O

From The Independant

By Jeremy Laurance

The most important health warning that parents can give their children – don’t smoke – is best delivered by their friends, researchers have found.

Training children who are popular at school to educate their peers about the dangers of smoking could cut the number who take up the habit by more than a fifth, a study showed. If the same technique were used nationwide, the number of children aged 14 and 15 who take upsmoking could be cut by 43,000 a year, researchers estimate.

It is unclear whether young people smoke because their friends do or whether those who choose to smoke associate with others who are similarly inclined. What is clear, according to the researchers from the universities of Bristol and Cardiff, is that peer influence can be protective, if it can be effectively harnessed .

To do this they launched a two- year study in 59 schools in the West Country involving 11,000 children aged 12 to 13. In half of the schools, the children were asked to nominate the most influential pupils in their year group and these were trained as “peer supporters”. The remaining schools acted as a control group.

In two days of training outside school, teachers advised on the risks of smoking and the economic benefits of stopping, and taught negotiating skills. This was followed by four sessions in school. The peer supporters included existing smokers who were told they could be trained if they gave up cigarettes.

For the next 10 weeks, the peer supporters were asked to talk to their friends about the benefits of not smoking,in the hope it would persuade them to stop. It worked. Children in the schools which ran the programme were 25 per cent less likely to take up regular smoking immediately after it ended than those in the control schools.

The effect was sustained but diminished over time, with a 23 per cent reduction in smoking after one year and 15 per cent after two. Saliva samples were taken and questionnaires handed out to check whether pupils had been smoking. The results are published in The Lancet.

The programme was popular with students and staff, with a more than 90 per cent response rate and no schools dropping out during the trial, suggesting it could successfully be extended. The schools had widely differing catchment areas, and the schemeworked as well with smokers among the pupils as with those who had never smoked. Saliva testing showed most pupils accurately reported their smoking.

The authors point out that stopping young people from smoking successfully stops them developing nearly all of the diseasesassociated with it. Once smoking is started, however, evidence shows that it is harder for poorer people to give up.

“Increasing resources for prevention in adolescence rather than focusing on cessation couldhelp to avoid widening health inequalities,

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