Miracle as two-week-old girl is plucked naked from Turkey quake rubble... and mother and grandmother are rescued hours later

She's only 14 days old but baby Azra has seen enough drama to last her a lifetime.
Rescuers clapped and cheered as they pulled the infant alive from the rubble of the Turkish earthquake – almost 48 hours after the disaster struck.
The youngster, whose name means ‘help’ in Hebrew, survived despite being naked in freezing conditions. Her mother and grandmother were later plucked alive from the same collapsed building.

Television footage showed emergency workers applauding as the baby, Azra Karaduman, was removed from the hulk of crushed concrete and metal.
A rescuer cradled the infant, who was then wrapped in a blanket and handed over to a medic amid a scrum of emergency workers and journalists.
The baby was said to be in good health but was flown to a hospital in Ankara.
And this afternoon, a ten-year-old boy was pulled alive from the rubble after an incredible 54 HOURS.
Authorities yesterday said the death toll had risen to at least 432 in Ercis and the provincial capital, Van, as a result of the 7.2-magnitude quake on Sunday.
There was a race against time to free dozens trapped inside mounds of concrete, twisted steel and construction debris.
At least nine were rescued yesterday, although many more bodies were discovered.
Authorities have warned survivors not to enter damaged buildings and thousands were spending a third night outdoors in cars or tents in near-freezing conditions, afraid to return to their homes.
The baby’s mother, Semiha, and grandmother, Gulsaadet, were huddled together with the baby clinging to her mother’s shoulder when rescuers found them, emergency worker Kadir Direk said.
There was a bakery at the ground floor of the building, which may have kept them warm, he added.
He said Azra’s mother was semi-conscious but woke when he reached her.

Azra’s uncle Senol Yigit watched the rescue from outside, sobbing: ‘It’s a miracle.’ He said: ‘I’m so happy. What can I say? We had lost hope when we first saw the building.’
Rescuer Oytun Gulpinar added: ‘Bringing them out is such happiness. I wouldn’t be happier if they gave me tons of money.’

But workers could not find the baby’s father and there were no other signs of life in the shattered building, he said. It was reported the family live in Sivas, central Turkey, but were visiting the girl’s grandmother and grandfather.
Nine-year-old Oguz Isler was also rescued along with his sister and cousin, but last night he was waiting at the foot of the same pile of debris that was his aunt’s apartment block for news of his parents who remain buried inside.

Zero tolerance behaviour policy for pupils AND teachers should be adopted by all schools, says government expert

Schools are being encouraged to impose strict discipline on pupils and teachers alike, it was announced today.
A Government adviser says schools should use a 'checklist' system to ensure that they run smoothly.
The new guidelines could see teachers displaying school rules, as well as using rewards and punishments for good and bad behaviour in class, and telling parents if their child has been naughty.

They would also ensure that staff would be disciplined if they failed to live up to the standards they demand of their pupils.
The checklist has been drawn up by the Government's behaviour adviser, Charlie Taylor, who is also head of Willows Special School in Hillingdon, north-west London.
He said the idea for a checklist was based on a similar scheme introduced to hospitals by surgeon Atul Gawande.

The surgeon was concerned at the number of patients suffering serious complications after operations and realised many of the cases were down to staff failing to follow basic procedures, such as not washing their hands.
He introduced a checklist to be read out before each operation to ensure basic, essential rules were followed.
The Department for Education said the behaviour checklist is designed to be used by schools and teachers to run through in the morning and afternoon to check that basic behaviour rules are in place.
Mr Taylor said his list, which is divided into sections for headteachers and teachers, can be adapted by individual schools.

The list includes:
Displaying school rules clearly in classes and around the building;
Headteachers knowing the names of all staff, and praising good performance;
Heads visiting the lunch hall and playground, and being around at the start and end of the day;
Headteachers checking up on behaviour outside of school;
Teachers meeting and greeting pupils when they come into the classroom;
Displaying sanctions and rewards for behaviour in the classroom;
Teachers staying calm in class;
Praising pupils' good behaviour;
Teachers giving feedback to parents about their child's behaviour - both good and bad.
Mr Taylor said: 'As a headteacher I know that where there is inconsistency in schools, children are more likely to push the boundaries.
'If a pupil thinks there is a chance that the school will forget about the detention he has been given, then he is unlikely to bother to turn up. If he gets away with it, the threat of detention will be no deterrent in the future.
'The checklist sets out for all schools the simple but essential things to get right to ensure strong discipline, and therefore strong teaching.
'Teachers can run through the checklist first thing in the morning and again after lunch to ensure the correct preparations.'

Fox to leave with a rebuke... and a ￡17,000 payoff despite breaching ministerial code

Liam Fox will walk away from the Cabinet with a ￡17,000 payoff – despite a damning report published today which finds him guilty of a serious breach of the ministerial code.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell will rule that Dr Fox did not personally profit from his globetrotting with best man Adam Werritty.
But he will condemn the conflicts of interest that arose because Dr Fox’s friend was funded by rich donors with defence interests.
The Mail can also today reveal that one of Mr Werritty’s major backers was working for Britain’s biggest defence company.
G3 Good Governance Group paid ￡15,000 to Mr Werritty’s company Pargav and also has an ongoing contract with BAE Systems, which has ￡520million of Ministry of Defence contracts.
But despite Sir Gus’s findings, Dr Fox is entitled to three months’ money from his ￡68,827 Ministers’ salary after he resigned as Defence Secretary on Friday – a total of ￡17,206.
The Cabinet Office said: ‘The Independent Top Salaries Review Body recommended that on losing office for whatever reason, members of the Commons should receive a severance payment based on three months’ net loss of income.’
The payoff provoked outrage last night and calls for Dr Fox to return the money.
John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said ‘It’s outrageous that a shamed and discredited ex-Minister gets such a huge pay out. It’s for Dr Fox to now take the honourable route and immediately re-pay this money to the Exchequer.’
Sir Gus’s report, which is around seven pages long, will be published in full today after No10 gave in to demands for full disclosure. But it is thought it will not go into great detail about the sources of Mr Werritty’s funding.
‘It is more a study of ministerial misconduct,’ said one Whitehall official.
David Cameron will face claims today that Sir Gus’s report in no way answers all the unanswered questions about Dr Fox and Mr Werritty.
Sir Gus has not made an in-depth study of the funding and activities of Dr Fox’s former charity Atlantic Bridge. His report will not provide a list of other Ministers who met Mr Werritty, as Downing Street had originally suggested. Nor does he plan to name the as-yet-unknown donors to Pargav.
The revelation that G3 was working for BAE Systems will intensify calls for the Electoral Commission to open its own investigation into Dr Fox.
The watchdog will decide this week whether to open a probe into whether he broke laws on political donations by failing to declare the sources of Mr Werritty’s funding, when he was effectively acting as an unofficial adviser.
BAE is the Ministry of Defence’s biggest contractor, with around 13 per cent of the MoD’s ￡4billion procurement budget. It builds flagship defence platforms such as the Type 45 destroyer and the Eurofighter Typhoon jet aircraft.
A source at BAE confirmed that the company has an ongoing relationship with G3 to provide consultancy support for a project in Oman, where BAE is designing military training courses. It is understood G3 has also hired a former MI6 officer called Moira Andrews, whose husband Ian Andrews was until 2009 the second most senior civil servant in the MoD.
No10 is also resisting making a ministerial statement on the scandal, but Mr Cameron could still be dragged to the Commons.
Labour is set to ask Speaker John Bercow for an urgent statement and he is understood to be sympathetic.
On the link between BAE and G3, Labour’s Armed Forces spokesman Kevan Jones said: ‘This is further evidence of the perceived conflict of interest which arose at the heart of the MoD on David Cameron’s watch. He needs to answer questions.
‘Without a full examination of Mr Fox and Mr Werritty’s activities, including all business connections, David Cameron will not be living up to his promise of open, transparent government.
‘At a time when the Armed Forces has had to swallow a pay freeze and thousands of troops have been told they are being made redundant to cut costs, Liam Fox’s redundancy payment will provoke a lot of anger.’

PUBLIC VOTE ON EU RESCUE IS RULED OUT

MINISTERS provoked fury last night by ruling out a referendum on European Union action to bail out the crisis-hit eurozone.
A Government statement to MPs yesterday made clear that no national poll will be held in Britain over plans for a ￡380billion emergency fund designed to support Greece and other debt-laden eurozone nations.
Some MPs believe the establishment of the European Financial Stability Mechanism, which requires changes to the EU constitution, should trigger a vote in the UK under the Coalition’s so-called “referendum lock” law.
But Tory Europe Minister David Lidington said the proposals did not need to be ratified by a referendum in Britain because only nations in the euro currency system were affected.
The decision enraged critics, who warned that the treaty changes threatened to create a powerful bloc of 17 euro nations that will be able to crush any British opposition to Brussels rule.
Tory backbencher Douglas Carswell said: “When they broke their promise to give us a referendum, ministers promised us a referendum lock; now that referendum lock has proved to be as useless as we expected.
“This proves we cannot trust Westminster on Europe – they never keep their word.”
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: “The Government has set its own referendum rules, so of course ministers have decided there is no need for a referendum.
“But this treaty change will mean a fundamental change to the EU. It will create a bloc of 17 countries that can overturn anything Britain wants.”
MPs are now pinning their hopes on a crucial Commons vote expected next month on whether to hold a national in-or-out referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
The debate is being lined up by the Commons Backbench Business Committee in response to a series of petitions on the issue including one backed by 373,000 Daily Express readers as part of this newspaper’s crusade for Britain to quit the EU. 
The Government introduced the so-called “referendum-lock” law earlier this year in a bid to stop the long-term drift of political power to Brussels.
Under the law, any future EU constitutional change is supposed to be put to voters in a referendum before the Government can ratify it.
However, the treaty changes needed to establish the European Financial Stability Mechanism will not trigger a referendum because ministers believe the move is only a matter for the eurozone. Instead, MPs will be given a chance to approve the changes in a Commons vote.
A senior Whitehall source yesterday insisted the move would benefit Britain and would hasten the UK’s exit from the European Financial Stability Facility, a separate ￡50billion fund that, unlike the EFSM, includes British taxpayers’ cash.
Ministers are not expecting the EFSM to be a “panacea” for the eurozone crisis but hope it will bring stability that will also help the British economy.
Mr Lidington said: “This statement is the first stage in the enhanced public and Parliamentary scrutiny of EU Treaty changes introduced under the provisions of the EU Act 2011.
“As this Treaty-change decision relates to a provision that only applies to euro area member states, it does not fall within section four of the Act and there is no requirement for a referendum.
“The UK supports the euro area’s stated commitment to do what it takes to ensure the financial stability of the euro area as a whole.”
He added that if the changes were ratified by all 27 EU member states the permanent stability mechanism could be established as planned.

Viktor Bout wanted American pilots killed, jury told

The trial of Viktor Bout, the former Soviet officer accused of selling arms to Colombian rebels, opened dramatically with an arsenal of weaponry.

Before he introduced himself to jurors at the US district court in New York on Wednesday, assistant attorney Brendan McGuire stood before them and said: "One hundred surface to air missiles, 20,000 machine guns, 20,000 grenades, 740 mortars, 350 sniper rifles, 10 million rounds of ammunition and five tonnes of C-4 explosives." As Bout, with close-cropped hair and wearing a dark suit, looked on, McGuire told them: "Viktor Bout wanted to provide all of it to a foreign terrorist organisation he believed wanted to kill Americans. He had the experience to do it, he had the expertise to do it, he had the will to do it. He wanted to do it. Why? For the money."

"This is not a complicated case," he told the jury. In fact, he said, it was "relatively straightforward".

Bout, 44, has pleaded not guilty to four conspiracy charges against him. His defence is that he was a businessman who ran an air freight business in conflict zones. The jury was told that the story began at Bout's home in Moscow, when a co-conspirator of Bout's told him he had been approached by a weapons buyer from Farc rebels in Colombia, who were engaged in a fight against the US-backed government. What followed, after several meetings between the co-conspirator and the weapons buyers in a small South American country, was a face-to-face meeting. Bout's co-conspirator had warned the buyers that he was restricted in his movements – a UN resolution was in place from 2004 which stopped him entering or leaving their territories.McGuire said Bout had planned the logistics, was "in control" and had even taken the initiative to suggest other weapons for Farc.

The weapons, he told the jury, never made it into the hands of Farc as this was a sting, an undercover operation directed by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Unbeknown to Bout, he said, the weapons buyers were both "confidential sources" for the DEA. "But," McGuire told the jury, "the defendant's desire to do the deal is real."

Also unknown to Bout, virtually everything he said to the sources was on tape. McGuire said: "You will hear those recordings in this trial and you will hear Bout."

Bout's wife, Alla, who at one point raised her hand in court to wave at her husband as he turned to look at her, sat a few feet behind him with their daughter, Dora. Both wore headphones to listen to a translation of the proceedings.

Splitting the case into three chapters, McGuire told the jury that part one began in 2007, when the DEA started to investigate Bout, who had a "history of being involved in the weapons business" and came across a contact of his.

Posing as weapons buyers, the sources, Carlos and Ricardo – who was known as "el Commandante" – told this contact that they were from Farc. The group, they explained, was at war with the Colombian authorites who were being aided by the Americans.

Part two began, the jury heard, when Bout proposed the weapons deal. He was able to provide a team of military trainees for Farc and the ability to drop weapons in Colombia as he had done previously, said McGuire. Part three came when Bout, who was based in Moscow due to the UN resolution restricting his movements, flew to Thailand to meet the supposed weapons buyers in March 2008.

McGuire said that the sources told Bout that they needed weapons to kill American pilots who were assisting the Colombian government.

He said the jury would hear a recording of Bout saying: "We're together and we have the same enemy. It's not business, it is my fight. I'm fighting the US from 10 to 15 years." He was "all-in" for the $5m deal, McGuire said.

"On his own Bout had worked out a cover for the deal, a plan to make this deal seem legitimate," Bout said.

Bout's defence lawyer, Albert Dayan, told the jury in his opening that his client was in fact the victim of an aggressive hunt by federal agents who were, as the prosecutors admitted, former criminals.

His client was stringing the weapons buyers along in order to secure a deal to sell them two planes. He had no intention, Dayan said, of selling them weapons.