Spy-swap scientist pays a price for his freedom

September 29th, 2010   by Justin

It was the most sensational spy story since the Cold War. Eleven Russian secret agents unmasked in the US, bundled on to a plane, and handed over on the tarmac of Vienna airport in exchange for four Russians jailed as Western spies by Moscow.

Igor Sutyagin was among the four, but he was the only one whose journey brought him to Britain, his alleged paymaster. The problem for the scientist was that despite serving a decade in jail, much of it in a gulag in the Russian Arctic on charges of passing military intelligence to Britain, he had little, if any, connection to the UK. There wasn't even anyone to meet the plane that dropped him and his few belongings off at Brize Norton.

Nearly three months on the 45-year-old, who denies, with the full backing of the US, that he was ever a spy, is relieved to be in London rather than the prison in which he hauled wood, taught English to his guards and wrote thousands of letters to keep himself sane. He remains trapped however, in a personal and legal limbo, pining for his wife Irina and two daughters, desperate to be back in his homeland, but afraid to return to Russia in fear of being rearrested under a legal system he says is fatally corrupt and flawed.

"All I want is to try to replace those eleven years I've lost and to rebuild a future for my family," he said. Yet, while the academic describes dreaming of Russia "in the way British sailors used to dream of the White Cliffs of Dover", the "non-existence" of the rule of law in his homeland makes his return impossible. He was never issued with a written pardon and so, under Russian law, he fears he could be branded an escaped convict and rearrested.

His fears he says are based on knowing at least eight other academics who are languishing in jail on trumped-up charges. The physicist Valentin Danilov is one; he is serving 14 years for handling sensitive information on spacecraft which, Mr Sutyagin said was at least seven years old. His own conviction, in 1999, was widely condemned as a travesty by human rights groups including Amnesty International, which adopted him as the first political prisoner of the Putin era. The "Sutyagin affair" was seen as part of a political campaign to intimidate academics. He said the "non-existence" of the rule of law in Russia was a massive obstacle to the country's modernisation.

Looking back, the scientist recalls the dilemma of that day in July when he was suddenly informed he could be a free man, but that he first had to sign an admission of guilt. "It was a very clear deal, honour for freedom," he said in London yesterday.

The Faustian pact for a man who had protested his innocence for 10 years was that only when he changed his plea and accepted he had committed treason would either he, or the other spies in the swap, be freed. "I was told, if you say 'no', then the whole deal is off." He was given less than two hours to think about the offer, which had been, he was told, authorised "at the very highest level, by the two presidents [Obama and Medvedev]". He signed a pre-written "confession" as the price for a pardon from President Medvedev.

"I had to think about my family. I felt that they had been imprisoned with me throughout and I needed to free them, too. I also had to think about all those others [alleged spies]. You need to spend 10 years in jail to understand that you don't want anyone else to be in that situation. In some ways, those 11 were officers of my country, good or bad, they played a role on behalf of my country."

copyright: Links of London butterfly charm at Linksukstore.com is one of the most graceful charms. Capturing the essence of life with   Links Of London butterfly charm is fantastic.

Segway's owner dies in freak scooter accident

September 28th, 2010   by Justin

A flamboyant former miner who became the owner of the Segway motorised scooter company died in a freak accident yesterday by sliding one of the upright two-wheelers off a cliff.

Jimi Heselden, who latched on to an international craze for the electric vehicles, was testing a cross-country version when he skidded into the river Wharfe which runs close to his Yorkshire estate.

Police said the 62-year-old's body was found in the river at Boston Spa, five miles from the Leeds factory where he made his fortune from defence contracts.

Using redundancy money from his pit job, he invented a wire basket crammed with earth and water which proved far more effective than sandbags against mortar and missile attacks.

His personal fortune was estimated at £166m and had earned him 395th place on this year's Sunday Times' Rich List. West Yorkshire police said that the scooter had been found nearby after the body had been reported by a local walker at 11.40am.

"Mr Heselden was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. The incident is not believed to be suspicious and the coroner has been informed," said a spokesman for the force. A dozen family members left floral tributes at the scene, where the river runs below 10 metre high banks.

Heselden led a British team which struck the deal to buy Segway in December last year. The firm was started by inventor Dean Kamen in 1999 after he developed the two-wheeled, self-balancing vehicle.

Heselden lived close to the British Library's vast storage depot at Thorp Arch, a village on the other side of the river from the small, sought-after town of Boston Spa.

He lost his mining job in the pit closures after the 1984-5 miners' strike, but put his knowledge of geology and soil science to good use. Updating the medieval defence system of gabions – baskets filled with stones and crammed together to create makeshift walls – he patented the Bastion and started the Hesco firm.

Its Leeds base lends colour to an otherwise drab industrial estate, with a surplus tank perched beside a wall of Bastions. Heselden did not court personal publicity but rewarded loyalty in his workforce and was one of Yorkshire's most generous private benefactors of charities.

When Hesco won an order for UN forces in Kosovo and fulfilled it within deadline, he flew 21 staff to Benidorm for a holiday. In five years after first ordering a Bastion in 1998 the Pentagon spent £53m on them.

Heselden bought the Segway company in January this year, after commissioning a financial analysis of its success in the US.

The Segway scooter has been heavily marketed as a "green commute" but buyers are warned to take a string of safety precautions, including wearing a helmet. George W Bush dramatically illustrated the hazards in 2003. The then president was photographed on holiday in Maine, leaping from one after losing control.

copyright:  Mimicwatch.com is one of the largest dealers for all the top Replica Watches.Their products are very competitively priced and for that matter, they are sold at the lowest prices.

Meet the honest London cyclist – only five 'Boris bikes' stolen

September 27th, 2010   by Justin

As cyclists are all too aware, take your eyes off your bike for a couple of minutes in British cities and there's a chance it will vanish by the time you come back, even if it was locked up.

Yet despite a resurgence in bike thefts that coincides with the soaring popularity of two-wheeled peregrination, the thousands of public-hire bicycles recently added to London's streets have proved immune to larcenous attention.

Just five of the so-called "Boris Bikes" have been stolen since the hire scheme was launched two months ago. By comparison, the "Vélib" bike hire scheme in Paris has suffered the theft of 8,000 of its bicycles – 3,000 of them in the first six months after the launch in 2007. Even the residents of Montreal pilfered 50 in the first month.

When the London mayor, Boris Johnson, launched the scheme in July, he feared that the bikes would become targets for thieves who would steal them for profit or amusement. He predicted: "For the larrikins and yobs, these are going to be a badge of honour to transport to improbable places, like the Taj Mahal or Tiananmen Square." Yesterday, Mr Johnson said that he was "thrilled and rather pleasantly surprised" by the low theft rate of the hire bikes. "In darker moments, I had my fears. These bikes could have been dragged as trophies on stag do's to Bratislava, heaved up Everest or worse. But no. The good people of London hand them back when they've used them.

"Londoners' enthusiasm and inherent honesty is in encouraging contrast to light-fingered Parisians. Long may it continue." The 6,000 bicycles each cost about £900 but the security measures put in place have, so far, been successful at deterring the plunderous-minded. Bike thefts in the UK have risen recently with 23,178 being stolen in London in 2009, up from 17,609 in 2007. In Glasgow, 30 per cent of bike owners have had one stolen in the last five years and the British Crime Survey calculated that 439,000 were stolen nationwide in 2005-6. Stolen bike hotspots include Bristol, Oxford, Gloucester and Cambridge and figures from the Halifax suggest a bicycle is stolen every minute.

Ironically, one of the main lessons of the Paris scheme is thought to have informed security measures in London – paradoxically, that the bikes should not be leased with locks provided.

The locks in Paris gave a false sense of security and riders would happily leave the Vélibs chained to lamp posts and other street furniture while they wandered off to admire the sights. The locks were too easily cut or worked open.

In the London scheme, without locks, the bikes can only be secured at the 200 official docking stations, which are much tougher than most bike locks.

Other measures include making riders register their home addresses and providing credit card details so that £300 can be debited from their accounts should a bike go missing.

The low scrap value of the bikes is believed to be another factor in their unattractiveness to thieves. The aluminium in them, for instance, is only worth £35, a low return for the effort of stealing, transporting, dismembering and melting down a bike.

A spokesperson for Transport for London TfL said: "One of the keys to the success of the Mayor's flagship cycle hire scheme is the well-designed security systems. While we are not complacent about the low rate, we do believe it reflects the honesty of Londoners."

copyright: Can you reject the best  Links Of London ? You may not. How wonderful it is!

Republican bombings in Britain are a 'strong possibility', says May

September 25th, 2010   by Justin

An attack on Britain by "Irish-related" terrorists is a "strong possibility", the Home Secretary, Theresa May, said yesterday as MI5 raised the country's threat level.

In an official acknowledgement that the chances have increased of a terrorist attack in Britain by Irish republicans, the official risk assessment – which has never been published before – was raised from "moderate" to "substantial".

It means that a strike on England, Scotland or Wales is now considered "a strong possibility", raising concerns about a return to the type of attacks seen in Britain in the Eighties and Nineties. They were carried out mainly by the Provisional IRA. The current threat is posed by dissident republican groups whose members are opposed to the peace deal reached under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

One such group is the Real IRA, which was behind the Omagh bomb in August 1998 – the worst atrocity of the Troubles. It is believed it was also behind the last Irish republican attack on Britain – a car bomb in Ealing, west London, in 2001 which injured seven people. The Real IRA threatened earlier this month to target banks and other financial institutions in the City of London, accusing them of "financing Britain's colonial and capitalist system". The organisation has been held responsible for 30 attacks or attempted attacks so far this year.

In a statement yesterday, the Home Secretary said: "Judgments are based on a broad range of factors, including the intent and capabilities of terrorist groups.

"This is the first time we have published the Irish-related threat assessment to Great Britain. This is in the interests of transparency and to encourage people to remain vigilant. I would urge the public to report any suspicious activity to the police and security services in their continuing efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity."

A Home Office spokeswoman added the public would see no visible difference in terms of policing in the UK. Despite the rise, the threat is still only at level three out of five, with "severe" and "critical" the two higher options.

The threat is also not considered as great as that posed by international terrorism from groups such as al-Qa'ida. That threat level is classed as severe, meaning an attack is "highly likely". Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, took the decision to raise the threat level yesterday. In a speech in London last week, Mr Evans said while MI5's "main effort" remained focused on international terrorism, it had been necessary to reinforce its presence in Northern Ireland to deal with the heightened threat.

He said: "Perhaps we were giving insufficient weight to the pattern of history over the last hundred years, which shows that, whenever the main body of Irish republicanism has reached a political accommodation and rejoined constitutional politics, a hard-liner rejectionist group would fragment off and continue with the so-called 'armed struggle'.

"We cannot exclude the possibility that they might seek to extend their attacks to Great Britain as violent republican groups have traditionally done," he added.

copyright: The Replica Watches are of high quality and are made using durable stainless steel. They come in an attractive black color complete with a watch bracelet that is made of crocodile leather.

Queen tried to use state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace

September 24th, 2010   by Justin

The Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster, documents disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to "adverse publicity" for the Queen and the Government.

Aides complained to ministers in 2004 that the Queen's gas and electricity bills, which had increased by 50 per cent that year, stood at more than £1m a year and had become "untenable".

The Royal Household also complained that the £15m government grant to maintain the Queen's palaces was inadequate.

In search of more money-saving schemes, the Queen's deputy treasurer wrote to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to ask whether the Royal Household would be eligible for a grant to replace four combined heat and power (CHP) units at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

He asked: "Community Energy can fund up to 40 per cent of the capital costs of implementing a community heating scheme... Since we are already grant-in-aid funded [the Queen receives £15m a year for the upkeep of her palaces] we would like to know whether the Household [would] be able to benefit from these grants. I look forward to your comments."

Under this scheme administered by the Environment department, schools, hospitals, councils and housing associations have been awarded £60m for heating programmes which benefit people on low incomes.

Taxpayers already contribute £38m to pay for the Royal Family. Yet some of the buildings which would have benefited from the energy grant were occupied by minor royals living in grace and favour accommodation on the royal estates. Surprisingly the Government offered no resistance to the proposed application and cleared the way for the Queen to take advantage of the handout.

But by August 2004 the documents show that Whitehall officials had changed their minds and poured cold water on the whole idea. In an email sent to the Palace it was diplomatically explained that the funds were aimed at people on "low incomes".

The official wrote: "I think this is where the Community Energy Funding is directed and ties in with most allocations going to community heating schemes run by local authorities, housing associations, universities etc. I also feel a bit uneasy about the probable adverse press coverage if the Palace were given a grant at the expense of say a hospital. Sorry this doesn't sound more positive."

The Palace had more joy when it sought permission to find a more affordable contractor to supply the Queen with her gas and oil. Documents show that the Royal Household's gas bill had risen from £319,000 in 2002 to £526,000 in 2006. Electricity had increased by an even bigger margin, jumping from £249,000 to £513,000 over the same period.

In an email to the DCMS, palace officials wrote in September 2005: "As mentioned [in our telephone conversation today], the commercial market position for utilities has become untenable with price rises of over 50 per cent when we went out to tender last year ... The position is that all our contracts for gas and electricity will mature on 30 September 2006. I do not want to go out to tender next year and find the prices have risen significantly again but, given the recent position of energy markets, I suspect that they will."

In its proposal the Palace suggested a move towards a wholesale contract under a single tender with Inenco which also serves the gas and electricity needs of the Prison Service and Channel 4.

copyright: Do not hesitate any more, save your time, place an order on  Links Of London and enjoy your shopping at links-of-london.org!

Siege barrister's wife says police stopped her talking to husband

September 21st, 2010   by Justin

The widow of a successful barrister shot dead by police after an armed siege at their Chelsea home today told an inquest she believed she could have helped him had police allowed her to speak to him on the phone. Mark Saunders, 32, was killed in a volley of shots at the end of a five-hour standoff after he fired a shotgun from a window of their flat on 6 May 2008.

His widow, Elizabeth, also a barrister, who rushed home from their chambers to find the building cordoned off. She, said she was told to switch off her mobile phone to keep police channels of communication clear. Close to tears, she said she was unaware that her husband had repeatedly asked if he could speak to her "because nobody told me". She believed she could have defused the situation. "I think he would have just said: 'Darling. I'm sorry.' And I would have said: 'Sweetheart, it's OK. We'll sort this out. Don't worry."

Saunders, a well-respected family lawyer, had attended Alcoholics Anonymous and sought medical help for his drinking, which began when he was 13.

He had been teetotal since March. On the day he died he was at home, while his wife was at the QEB chambers in London's Temple where they both worked. She suspected he had been drinking heavily when he failed to answer his mobile. She was unaware he had taken cocaine in the days before his death.

Westminster coroner's court heard how hours before his death he sent a text message to his friend Alexander Booth, saying: "This is the end my only friend, the end. X", quoting a song by the Doors. A second message said: "Call me now."

Taxi driver David Hay picked up Saunders, a former Territorial Army soldier, on Cromwell Street, London, just after 4pm on 6 May. .

Mobile phone records showed Saunders had been in Kensington calling escort agencies shortly before. He had also left an email message for a friend that read "Ha, ha, ha," repeating the word 22 times.

During the taxi journey, Saunders did not say anything to indicate he was drunk. Hay said in a statement that when they reached the couple's home in Markham Square at 4.30pm and he was giving Saunders his change, "he turned back. He was looking straight at me, and he just said: 'I am going to die.' His eyes were large and bulging. I could see the terror in his eyes. It was scary, like he was on drugs."

Saunders, who had a legally held shotgun and was legally storing another shotgun for a friend, fired the first shot 10 minutes later, while on the telephone to a barrister friend, Michael Bradley. He fired another while on the phone to Ivor Treherne, the senior clerk at his own chambers. Lesley Hummel, who lives in a house at the back of the Saunders' property, said in a statement it was a "picture-perfect beautiful day" and she was enjoying lunch in her garden with a friend when they heard the shots.

They were being fired into her daughter's bedroom. She saw Saunders, whom she did not know, with a shotgun shooting through the glass in his own kitchen window. "He was looking calm, perfectly stable and contained," she said.

At 4.50pm there was an exchange of fire as one shot missed an officer "by less than a foot", said Hummel. During the standoff, Saunders dropped a white cardboard box from the flat window on which he had written a message which said: "I love my wife dearly, love Mark. xxxx."

copyright: Weigh your options before buying Replica Watches and consider the quality that you will get from the watch.

Bulletproof glass reduces fear of attack (but no guns)

September 18th, 2010   by Justin

The Vatican last night played down concerns for the Pope's safety following the arrest of six men in an alleged terror plot against him. Father Lombardi, the Vatican's spokesman, insisted there was no need to review his security detail after the arrests in central London in the early hours of yesterday morning.

If the security scare shook the Pope, he showed no concern has he toured the capital in his Popemobile. Like any other public figure, he is a target, but he is well protected. For the past five centuries, Popes have been guarded by the Swiss Guard, who, in St Peter's Square in 2007, wrestled to the ground a young German who had tried to leap on to Pope Benedict's open-top jeep.

In the UK, security men run alongside the Popemobile as it moves through the crowds. There is another travelling in the vehicle itself. The glass on the Popemobile is bulletproof – a lesson drawn from the last serious attempt to kill a Pope, when a Turkish petty criminal named Mehmet Ali Agca opened fire on the vehicle as it passed through St Peter's Square, hitting Pope John Paul II four times.

When the same Pope visited Peru, in 1988, a security company was asked to create a vehicle that could withstand a terrorist attack. Early designs included gun ports. "That was dismissed by the Vatican," said a spokesman. "It was decided it wouldn't look good for the Pope to fight back."

copyright: Linkslondon4lover.com always presents its customers their best productions. And they want to make sure that every customer will find their favorites    Links Of London here. If you want to show your elegance and beauty immediately, just try this website of Linkslondon4lover.com .

Pope Benedict XVI goes to war with 'atheist extremism'

September 17th, 2010   by Justin

Benedict XVI used the first papal state visit to Britain today to launch a blistering attack on "atheist extremism" and "aggressive secularism", and to rue the damage that "the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life" had done in the last century.

The leader of the Roman Catholic church concluded a speech, made before the Queen and assembled dignitaries at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, with the argument that the Nazi desire to eradicate God had led to the Holocaust and a plea for 21st-century Britain to respect its Christian foundations.

"Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society," he said. "In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms; and may that patrimony, which has always served the nation well, constantly inform the example your government and people set before the two billion members of the Commonwealth and the great family of English-speaking nations throughout the world."

The pontiff's speech set the wide-ranging tone for his four-day visit: despite attacking atheism, he paid tribute to the UK's historic achievements and offered "a hand of friendship" to all its people.

After touring the streets of the Scottish capital, which were lined with 125,000 people, and having lunch with Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland, the pope travelled to Glasgow where, beneath a cloudless blue sky, he celebrated mass in front of a congregation of around 60,000 in Bellahouston Park.

The pope's comments on secularism and atheism came in marked contrast to the conciliatory and contrite words he offered victims of Catholic sexual abuse.

In a 15-minute long briefing to journalists aboard the papal plane this morning, Benedict described paedophilia as an "illness" whose sufferers had lost their free will.

Using his strongest language to date on his church's record on clerical sex abuse, he deplored its failure to act swiftly and decisively in the past.

"It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly mission was possible," he said, adding that the church was "at a moment of penitence, humility and renewed sincerity".

He said the first priority was to help the victims to recover from the trauma they had undergone "and rediscover too their faith in the message of Christ".

Tomorrow he will be in London to meet religious leaders, among them the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, before travelling by popemobile to parliament to address an 1,800-strong audience in Westminster Hall including Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown .

Benedict's opening address today followed the publication of an interview in which a senior Vatican adviser described Britain as a "secular, pluralistic" land that had fallen prey to "a new, aggressive atheism".

Cardinal Walter Kasper – the Vatican's leading expert on relations with the Church of England – was immediately dropped from the papal visit following the remarks on the eve of the visit, which included his observation that arriving at Heathrow airport was sometimes like landing "in a third world country".

The Vatican, which said the decision not to bring Kasper had been taken "for health reasons", was swift to issue a statement on Wednesday, explaining that the cardinal "had no negative intention" and that he "recognised the great values of British culture".

Benedict was more explicit in his condemnation of militant atheism, noting that Britain had fought the atheistic evil embodied by Adolf Hitler.

"Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live," he said.

His pronouncements brought immediate condemnation from humanists and secularists, and some other religious groups. Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society, said the pope had hardly waited to get off the plane before attacking secularism.

copyright:  Our Replica Watches are nearly 99.99% original models. Compare them with the genuine ones, and you will not be able to find the difference. You can find more information about the best branded watches at watchcopiez.com.

Catholic Britain rejoices, but abuse overshadows Pope's first state visit

September 15th, 2010   by Justin

Plans are being drawn up for the Pope to hold private meetings with people who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of clerics during this week's visit to Britain.

Benedict XVI arrives in Edinburgh tomorrow morning, in the first state visit to Britain by a pope. His trip represents a seminal moment in the relationship between the Vatican and a country that helped spearhead the Reformation with its spiritual break from Rome.

But it will also be a major opportunity for the Catholic Church to cast itself in a new light following one the most troubled years in its recent history with scores of new clerical sex abuse scandals breaking out in western Europe, the United States and parts of Latin America.

Church officials have refused to comment publicly on whether the Pope will reach out to abuse victims during his visit. But The Independent understands that plans have been drawn up for the pontiff to hold private meetings. These will still require final Vatican approval.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, has said that the Pope has been giving "careful consideration" to such a meeting. Observers say it is now highly unlikely that Benedict will not make some sort of gesture that recognises the harm caused by abusive priests.

Previous visits to Malta, Australia and the United States all included emotional meetings with abuse victims which were regarded as a visibly important step in the Church's public response to an issue that has dogged the Vatican for more than a decade.

Vatican policy dictates that meetings with abuse victims are never publicised in advance and church officials refused to comment publicly on whether they would go ahead.

"Over a number of previous visits there have been meetings between the Pope and those who have suffered sexual abuse," a source with knowledge of the visit said. "There are very strict parameters that govern how these meetings take place. The first is that the talks are private with no mediators. The second is that these meetings are never announced beforehand."

But seasoned commentators say a meeting is all but certain. "To not hold some sort of meeting would be a PR disaster," said one prominent Catholic who asked to remain anonymous. "It would send a terrible message."

Successive polls have shown a palpable indifference to the Pope's visit among non-Catholics and a growing gulf between the Pope's teachings and the opinions of ordinary lay Catholics in Britain. A new poll of more than 2,000 people released by ITV's Daybreak today, however, has also found that 80 per cent of Britons would like the Pope to issue some sort of apology for the worldwide clerical child abuse scandal during his visit.

Amnesty International yesterday also called on the Vatican to do more to address concerns surrounding child abuse, including doing more to co-operate with criminal investigations, open up records of its internal inquiries to public scrutiny, and to offer an apology and reparations to all survivors of abuse.

copyright: Jewelry  Links Of London is women's best friend. It is surely a long lasting gift to your loved ones and enhances ones beauty with its attention getting charm. Please feel free to browse the web of Toplinkslondon.com and take it into account.

A monster night for Lady Gaga at VMAs

September 13th, 2010   by author

LOS ANGELES — Lady Gaga may have cemented her reign as the leading lady of modern music by taking home the video of the year award for Bad Romance, but all eyes were on Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday.

Swift, whose acceptance speech for best female video last year was infamously interrupted by West, sang Innocent, her never-before-heard new single from her upcoming album, Speak Now.

PHOTOS: White-carpet looks
LIST OF WINNERS:See who took home a moonman

"Who you are is not what you did," the 20-year-old softly sang after a clip of the incident was shown. "32 is still growing up now ... you're still an innocent."

Suited up in bright red, West closed the show with a song that toasted people behaving badly, while three ballerinas danced sweetly on the sidelines. "Have a toast for the scumbags, every one of them that I know. Baby, I got a plan, run away fast as you can."

Gaga, who set a record with 13 nominations, took home two awards on the pre-show: best dance music video for Bad Romance and best collaboration for Telephone featuring Beyoncé.

Gaga also won the first award at the ceremony, with Bad Romance taking the moonman trophy for best female video. "Tonight, little monsters, we're the cool kids at the party," said Gaga, referring to her nickname for her fans.

She also thanked "the gays," U.S. servicemen and late designer Alexander McQueen, whose elaborate creation she was wearing. Bad Romance went on to win for best pop video.

When Bad Romance took the final and top award of the night, Gaga announced the name of her new record. "It's called Born This Way," said the eccentric singer, before breaking into song.

In a surprise cameo, Lindsay Lohan made her first professional post-prison appearance in an opening skit with the evening's host, Chelsea Handler. "Have you been drinking?" asked Lohan. "Do you think anyone wants to work with a drunk? Take it from me! They don't!"

Handler pointed out she was the first female host in 16 years, which was a time when "Justin Bieber's mom had just given birth to her 401(k) plan."

It was only the first Bieber joke of the evening. Kim Kardashian poked fun at her May-December friendship with the new-artist winner, lamenting that she couldn't introduce his performance "because of a restraining order." Bieber ran through hordes of screaming fans to the stage, where he performed his hit Baby — with two groups of backup dancers. Next up came Usher, who has shepherded his protégé Bieber to superstardom, to perform Fallin' in Love and OMG. When Bieber took to the stage to accept his new-artist award for Baby featuring Ludacris, he made sure to thank "Usher for being my mentor."

Eminem opened the ceremony with Not Afraid, the first single from his seventh studio album, Recovery. In another surprise appearance, Rihanna joined the rapper for Love the Way You Lie, their collaboration that addresses domestic violence.

On the red carpet, everyone, it seemed, had one person on the brain. Said Akon, "I'm excited to see Lady Gaga take home all those awards."

copyright: Can you reject the best  Links Of London ? You may not. How wonderful it is!