Remains found in fugitive's cabin

No body found yet says LAPD's Cmdr Andrew Smith at press conference. Police still on high alert. KTTV LA

AS police scoured mountain peaks for days, using everything from bloodhounds to high-tech helicopters, the revenge-seeking ex-LAPD officer they wanted was hiding among them, holed up in a vacation cabin across the street from their command post.

It was there that Christopher Dorner apparently took refuge last Thursday, four days after beginning a deadly rampage that would claim four lives.

The search ended abruptly on Tuesday when a man believed to be Dorner bolted from hiding, stole two cars, barricaded himself in a vacant cabin and mounted a last stand in a furious shootout in which he killed one sheriff's deputy and wounded another before the tear gas-filled building erupted in flames. He never emerged from the ruins and hours later a charred body was found inside.

An official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that a wallet with a California driver's licence with the name Christopher Dorner has been found in the rubble of the cabin.

"We have reason to believe that it is him,'' San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman said.

The cabin in Big Bear, California, is engulfed in flames as the crisis continues. Picture: CBS

Dorner, 33, had said in lengthy rant police believe he posted on Facebook that he expected to die in one final, violent confrontation with police, and if it was him in the cabin that's just what happened.

The apparent end came very close to where his trail went cold six days earlier when his burning pickup truck - with guns and camping gear inside - was abandoned with a broken axle on a fire road in the San Bernardino National Forest near the ski resort town of Big Bear Lake.

His footprints led away from the truck and vanished on frozen soil.

With no sign of him and few leads, police offered a $US1 million ($974,000) reward to bring him to justice and end a "reign of terror'' that had more than 50 families of targeted Los Angeles police officers under round-the-clock protection after he threatened to bring "warfare'' to the LAPD, officers and their families.

An aerial view of police officers outside the cabin where fugitive gunman Christopher Dorner is holed up. Picture: CBS

Just a few hours after police announced on Tuesday that they had fielded more than 1000 tips with no sign of Dorner, word came that a man matching his description had tied up two people in a Big Bear Lake cabin, stole their car and fled.

Game wardens from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who were part of the search detail spotted the purple Nissan that had been reported stolen going in the opposite direction and gave chase, department spokesman Lt. Patrick Foy said. The driver looked like Dorner.

They lost the purple car after it passed a school bus and turned onto a side road, but two other Fish and Wildlife patrols turned up that road a short time later, and were searching for the car when a white pickup truck sped erratically toward the wardens.

"He took a close look at the driver and realized it was the suspect,'' Lt Foy said.

A US reporter from CBS has been caught in the middle of a shoot out with wanted cop killer Christopher Dorner and police

Dorner, who allegedly stole the pickup truck at gunpoint after crashing the first car, rolled down a window and opened fire on the wardens, striking a warden's truck more than a dozen times.

One of the wardens shot at the suspect as he rounded a curve in the road. It's unclear if he hit him, but the stolen pickup careened off the road and crashed in a snow bank. Dorner then ran on foot to the cabin where he barricaded himself and got in a shootout with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and other officers who arrived.

Two deputies were shot, one fatally.

A SWAT team surrounded the cabin and used an armoured vehicle to break out the cabin windows, said a law enforcement official who requested anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. The officers then pumped a gas into the cabin and blasted a message over a loudspeaker: "Surrender or come out.''

Christopher Dorner has been cornered by US authorities in a mountain hut

The armoured vehicle then tore down each of the cabin's four walls.

A single shot was heard inside before the cabin was engulfed in flames, the law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Until Tuesday, authorities weren't sure Dorner was still in Big Bear Lake, where his pickup truck was found within walking distance from the cabin where he hid.

Even door-to-door searches failed to turn up any trace of him in the quiet, bucolic neighborhood where children were playing in the snow Tuesday night.

Former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Jordan Dorner is suspected in the killings of Monica Quan and her fiance, Keith Lawrence.

With many searchers leaving town amid speculation he was long gone, the command center across the street was taken down Monday.

Ron Erickson, whose house is only about quarter mile away, said officers interrogated him to make sure he wasn't being held hostage. Mr Erickson himself had been keeping a nervous watch on his neighbourhood, but he never saw the hulking Dorner.

"I looked at all the cabins that backed the national forest and I just didn't think to look at the one across from the command post,'' he said. "It didn't cross my mind. It just didn't.''

Police say Dorner began his run on Feb. 6 after they connected the slayings of a former police captain's daughter and her fiance with his angry manifesto.

The scene of the gun battle at Big Bear, California.

Dorner blamed LAPD Capt. Randal Quan for providing poor representation before the police disciplinary board that fired him for filing a false report.

Dorner, who is black, claimed in his online rant that he was the subject of racism by the department and was targeted for doing the right thing.

Chief Charlie Beck, who initially dismissed Dorner's allegations, said he would reopen the investigation into his firing - not to appease the ex-officer, but to restore confidence in the black community, which had a long fractured relationship with police that has improved in recent years.

Dorner vowed to get even with those who had wronged him as part of his plan to reclaim his good name.

This image provided by the Irvine Police Department shows Christopher Dorner from surveillance video at an Orange County hotel in California. (AP Photo/Irvine Police Department)

"You're going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!'' the rant said. "You have awoken a sleeping giant.''

Within hours of being named as a suspect in the killings, the man described as armed and "extremely dangerous,'' tried unsuccessfully to steal a boat in San Diego to flee to Mexico.

After leaving a trail of evidence, he headed north where he opened fire on two patrol cars in Riverside County, shooting three police officers and killing one.

With a description of his car broadcast all over the Southwest and Mexico, he managed to get to the mountains 130 kilometres east of Los Angeles, where his burning truck was found with a broken axle.

Los Angeles police are opening an inquiry into the 2008 dismissal of Christopher Dorner as a manhunt for the suspected killer continues in California. Lindsey Parietti reports.

Only a short distance from the truck, he spent his final days with a front-row seat to the search mobilised right outside his doorstep.
 

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Women saved from 'witchcraft' burning

Two women have been saved from being burnt alive in Papua New Guinea in a story that seems like it could be out of the Salem witch trials of the 1600s. Source: Supplied

PAPUA New Guinea police have saved two women accused of sorcery and about to be set alight days after a mother accused of witchcraft was burned alive.

Sorcery cases have been a priority for authorities after the horrific case of a 20-year-old woman who last week was stripped naked, doused with petrol and set alight before a crowd, Highlands divisional police commander Teddy Tei told The National newspaper.

The woman, who was accused of causing the death of a six-year-old boy using sorcery, died after being tortured with a branding iron, tied up and set alight on a pile of rubbish in Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands.

The National said in the latest incident on Monday, also in Mount Hagen, two elderly women were tied to poles and people were preparing to set them alight over the death of an eight-year-old girl.

The girl's relatives believed the women caused the death of the child using sorcery but Mr Tei said she had been "gang-raped and killed by two known suspects" and these suspects were part of the mob attacking the older women.

With them was a "glassman" - a man who claimed to have supernatural powers and who had identified the luckless women as sorcerers and claimed they were responsible for the child's death.

Mr Tei said police, who were tipped off by a witness to the incident near Kagamuga Airport, rescued the women and arrested 20 suspects.

He appealed to the public not to take the law into their own hands in the Pacific nation where there is a widespread belief in sorcery and where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune and death.

"What evidence do they have to produce to court for sorcery-related killing and torturing?" Mr Tei said.

"It's just a belief."

Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has described as "barbaric" killings associated with sorcery and has instructed police to bring culprits to justice.

"Barbaric killings connected with alleged sorcery; violence against women because of this belief that sorcery kills - these are becoming all too common in certain parts of the country," he said last week.

The government is encouraging families who are unsure about the cause of a loved one's death to take the body to a doctor to carry out a post-mortem.

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Tibetan monk is 100th self-immolation

An exiled Tibetan monk sets himself on fire at Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu on February 13, 2013, marking the 100th self-immolation bid in protest against Chinese rule since 2009. Police said the monk burned himself near Kathmandu's Boudhanath Stupa, one of the world's holiest Buddhist shrines. Source: AFP

A TIBETAN monk doused himself in petrol in a Kathmandu restaurant on Wednesday and set himself on fire, marking the 100th self-immolation bid in a wave of protests against Chinese rule since 2009.

Police in the Nepalese capital said that the exile had burned himself in an eatery near Kathmandu's Boudhanath Stupa, one of the world's holiest Buddhist shrines, terrifying tourists who were having breakfast.

"At around 8:20 am (0235 GMT), a man in his early 20s arrived at a restaurant on the premises of the Boudhanath Stupa," police spokesman Keshav Adhikari said.

"He went straight to the toilet and poured petrol over his body and set himself alight."

The monk managed to run out into the street to the foot of the stupa where police helped douse the flames before sending him to hospital in a critical condition.

Tibetan nuns in exile observe the third day of Losar, the Tibetan new year, in Kathmandu on Wednesday.

The Tibetan government in exile, based in the Indian town of Dharamshala in the foothills of the Himalayas, had previously put the number of burnings since 2009 at 99, with 83 of them leading to the death of the protester.

The gruesome burnings, most of which have occurred in Tibetan-inhabited areas of China, are seen as a sign of desperation in the community over perceived religious persecution in Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Speaking to AFP ahead of the milestone of 100 cases, Tibetan exile prime minister Lobsang Sangay blamed Chinese authorities and called for the international community to take note.

"Because there is no freedom of speech or outlet for any form of protest, unfortunately Tibetans have chosen self-immolations," he said in an interview in Dharamshala.

A Buddhist devotee at the Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu.

"To the international community I say 'stand up for Tibetans'. The Chinese government has completely militarised the Tibetan area," he added.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, of encouraging the immolations and says huge investment has brought modernisation and a better standard of living to Tibet.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising and has since based himself in Dharamshala where Tibetans have previously marked new burnings with candle-lit vigils and prayers for the victim.

The Dalai Lama's office in New Delhi confirmed the 100th immolation attempt involved a monk. Representative Tempa Tsering called it "very unfortunate" and repeated appeals from the spiritual leader for Tibetans to end the protests.

"We feel very said that this has happened. The Tibetan leadership has been urging people to refrain from such drastic steps for long," Tsering said.

Suicide contradicts Buddhist teachings that all life is sacred, and Tibetan leaders have struggled to balance anger over Chinese rule with calls for protesters not to use such desperate measures.

The first self-immolation occurred in 2009 in the Kirti monastery in China's Sichuan province, with a pause until 2011 when they spread across the Tibetan plateau.

Nepal, home to around 20,000 Tibetans, is under intense pressure from Beijing over the exiles, and has repeatedly said it will not tolerate what it calls "anti-China activities".

"It's a sacrifice for the Tibetan people's struggle for freedom," a Tibetan community activist in Nepal said of Wednesday's protest, asking not to be named because of fears over possible reprisals.

"People are no longer afraid to go to this extent because (oppression) has crossed the limit."

The man who set himself on fire on Wednesday was expected to struggle to survive.

"His entire body was caught in the flames. At the hospital he tried to speak but couldn't," police spokesman Adhikari told AFP.
 

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UK intervenes in Bali drug nan case

Lindsay Sandiford is escorted by Indonesian customs officers in Bali after her arrest in May last year for cocaine smuggling. Picture; AP Source: AP

BRITAIN has raised claims that Indonesian authorities mistreated a British grandmother on death row for drug trafficking, in a statement supporting her appeal.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office submitted a document in Indonesian to the Denpasar District Court citing allegations that officials had "violated Lindsay Sandiford's fundamental rights under international laws and the Indonesian constitution".

They said Sandiford, 56, was allegedly threatened with a gun and deprived of sleep.

"The British government wants to attract the court's attention to serious allegations of mistreatment by related officers and officials at the time Lindsay Sandiford was first detained," said the document obtained by AFP from the court.

The document reminded the Indonesian government it had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture which outlaws forced sleep deprivation.

It also said Sandiford's crime was "not exceptional enough" to warrant capital punishment and mitigating factors, such as her cooperation with police, should be taken into account in her appeal.

Lindsay June Sandiford of Britain gestures as she attends her trial at a court in Denpasar last month. Picture: AFP

The unusual intervention comes after the High Court in London dismissed Sandiford's request for financial help in appointing a lawyer, estimated by the NGO Reprieve to cost 2500 pounds ($3800).

Sandiford was sentenced to death on January 22 for smuggling nearly five kilos of cocaine worth $US2.4 million ($2.3 million) into Bali in May, even though prosecutors recommended a 15-year jail term.

She lodged an appeal against her death sentence on Monday, when the British government statement was submitted as an "amicus curiae" (friend of the court), - a party that offers unsolicited information in a case.

During her trial Sandiford argued she was forced into transporting the drugs to protect her children, whose safety was at stake. The court rejected her claims, saying she had damaged the island's reputation as a tourism destination.
 

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Valentine's is for the men in Japan

St Valentine's Day chocolates are the currency of love in Japan. Picture: Tim Clapin Source: NewsLocal

JAPANESE women packed stores overnight to buy Valentine's Day chocolates for all the men in their lives.

For the men, all they had to do was sit back.The traffic in Japan is all one-way on February 14, with men free to sit back and wait for the boxes of goodies to pour in. A month from now, Japan celebrates White Day, when men are required to reciprocate with a white gift.

Chocolate has been available in Japan since at least 1797, when it was given to prostitutes by Dutch traders - the only Europeans allowed a foothold in an otherwise closed country where travelling abroad was punishable by death.

Today, more than anywhere else, Japan's $US11 billion ($A10 billion) chocolate business is driven by special days confected by the advertising industry to get cash tills ringing. Fully half that total is spent in February, according to retailers.

"I'll buy some for my colleagues, but we all agreed not to buy fancy chocolates, or it would cost me a fortune," says Fumiko, a shopper who did not give her surname. "We all buy regular inexpensive chocolates."

Even so, the 40-year-old said she expected to spend around 10,000 yen (more than $A100) on chocolates during her splurge at Takashimaya, a department store in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza district.

Not all men are treated equally. The more expensive "honmei" (true love) chocolate is reserved for the husband or lover.

Cheaper "giri" (obligation) chocolate goes to co-workers, from the guy who brings the mail to your desk all the way up to the boss of the company.

Inventive chocolate marketers, looking to squeeze even more yen out of a shrinking population, have now started selling "tomo" chocolate - treats that women buy for their female friends.

Takayuki Miyai, a sales manager at Takashimaya, says business was down last year in a market still depressed by the tsunami and nuclear disaster of March 2011, but this year looks a lot more promising.

Japan is the largest market for chocolate in Asia and accounts for a hefty slice of the world's pie, which consultancy KPMG says was worth about $US100 billion in 2012.

At Takashimaya, an entire floor has been dedicated to Valentine's Day chocolates. The exhibition, called "Amour du Chocolat", is teeming with women eager to try the latest creations from international chocolatiers.

French brands cash in on their chic image, among them Pascal Caffet. On its stand, cork-shaped chocolates are the most popular offering.

Filled with champagne and available in dark, milk, and raspberry-and-white flavours, a box of 12 comes in at 2400 yen.

Valentine's Day appeared in Japan as a special occasion in the late 1950s, as the economy was picking up steam after the long, lean years following World War II.

Western products gave an air of sophistication in a country bursting with energy and getting a taste for luxury and wealth after decades of bone-grinding austerity.

It was into this aspirational mix that companies hit upon the idea of marketing Valentine's Day, when a firm called Mary Chocolate began advertising February 14 as "the only day of the year a woman professes her love through presenting chocolate".

The rule was thus established and the underwear, jewellery or flowers given in other parts of the developed world were banished, leaving chocolate the sole currency of Valentine's romance.

Two decades after Valentine's Day took hold, White Day - March 14th - was introduced as a way to sell gifts to men, who were told they must buy something white for the ladies in their lives.

Initially, white marshmallows were de rigeur - on the back of some canny marketing by the marshmallow industry. Now, most things white are permitted. Lingerie tends to sell best.

On Takashimaya's chocolate-filled floor, sales manager Miyai says he is expecting brisk business to continue through next month, and hopes that life in a department store, among all these women, will prove personally profitable.

"Until now, I wasn't exactly surrounded by women so I haven't received that much chocolate," he said. "But this year, I hope I'll get a lot."

Want to tell the world how much you love someone this Valentine's Day? We've made it easy for you - just click here , submit your special message and we'll run it on the homepage on Thursday.

And join in the Romance Report – where true love meets the truth about love. Take the survey by clicking here.

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Grazie Santita: Thousands thank the Pope

The Pope was met by standing ovations in his first public appearance since announcing his resignation. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Source: AP

POPE Benedict XVI yesterday made his first public appearance since he shocked the world with the announcement of his resignation asking the faithful to "pray for me".

Thousands of followers filled the Vatican for a general audience and blessing with the pope who overnight will also conduct his final public mass for Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent and one of the holiest periods of the Catholic calendar culminating in Easter Sunday.

The Vatican's 6300-seat auditorium was crammed to capacity and then some, from ordinary Roman citizens to pilgrims and clergy from around the world for a glimpse and blessing from the Pope.

There were school groups from England, France, Denmark and Vietnam, choirs from the United States, Brazil and Spain and thousands of pilgrims from Latin America.

When His Holiness entered the hall he was met with rapturous applause and cheering. There were intense scenes of devotion from the faithful, many weeping with emotion others holding babies and toddlers and religious articles high for perhaps their first and last Benedict blessing.

The Pope arrives for his weekly general audience. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

The thunderous reception to his appearance on stage seemed to last a lifetime, the crescendo of applause rising when he gave his two handed wave to the faithful. A visiting German brass band resplendent in lederhosen played on during the melee as the cheering continued and choirs from around the world broke into spontaneous a Capella song.

There was great appreciation of the historic significance of a resigning pope effectively saying farewell. He is the first pope to leave office not through death in 600 years so the first able to say goodbye to the masses.

The 85-year-old pope walked on stage unaided and spoke firmly as he read a blessing in various languages. He looked weary but in good health as he gave lengthy oratory in five different languages.

He repeated what he had told cardinals three days earlier of his resignation.

The Pope takes a break during his weekly general audience at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

"I did this in full liberty for the good of the church," he said.

He said he could feel the love of the faithful in "these difficult days" since he resigned and asked "keep praying for me, for the Church and for the future pope" to applause and yelling of "il papa" and "Grazie Santita" (thankyou Your Holiness).

He then offered his blessings, particularly the sick and the young and for the holy Easter period which began yesterday.

Hours before the address, queues outside formed on the fringes of St Peter Square where large screens had been erected to broadcast scenes live.

"It is the perfect occasion to give a cordial and affectionate goodbye to this pope who has given us a great example of courage, humility, inner honesty, and a great love for the church," said Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican's communications office.

There will be a new pope presiding over Easter on March 31 after Benedict's bombshell announcement on Monday that he would stand down as pontiff, the first to do so in almost six centuries, on February 28.

The mass he is expected to hold overnight is usually held at Rome's Santa Sabina Church on Aventine Hill but was moved at the last minute to St Peter's Basilica to accommodate the overwhelming response to his resignation.

It will also ensure the Pope's frailty is not tested as the Aventine mass usually involves a lengthy public procession to the church.

Today, the Pope will meet with local Roman parish priests and deliver his personal views of the Second Vatican Council which introduced sweeping reforms to modernize the church. There will be a final general public audience on February 27 before retires the next day and the process begins to elect a new pope with Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone governing the church in the transition period. Cardinals have already begun the lobbying for the position, flocking to Rome to begin discussions ahead of the formal secret conclave vote in the Sistine Chapel sometime after February 28.

While thousands of pilgrims and tourists flood St Peter's Square by day at night hundreds more, mostly locals from Italy but also Spain, continue to chant his name, wave candles and sing songs outside the window of the Vatican offices. It's a vigil expected to continue until he steps down.

Vatican police were yesterday erecting barricades to control the crowds and international media.

Two blocks away an impromptu media camp of dozens of satellite trucks beam feeds and live crosses from St Peter's Square to around the world.
 

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Savile victims launch legal action

Paedophile entertainer Jimmy Savile died last year, sparking revelations about the crimes which went unknown during his life.

LAWYERS for 31 alleged victims of sex abuse by late television presenter Jimmy Savile say they have launched legal action against the star's estate and the BBC.

Solicitor Alan Collins confirmed that a writ has been issued at the High Court in London in relation to alleged abuse by the BBC entertainer, who died in 2011 aged 84.

"The purpose of issuing the writ is to protect our clients' position and to seek management directions from the court to ensure the claims are administered as efficiently as possible," he said.

"At this stage we are unable to expand in detail on the nature of the cases or the allegations that have been made, which range in seriousness from inappropriate behaviour to serious sexual abuse."

The number of alleged victims his legal firm was in contact with "grows on a daily basis", Mr Collins said.

Savile was a hugely popular but eccentric figure, famed for his shock of white hair, tracksuits and chunky gold jewellery, but since his death his reputation has been destroyed by revelations that he abused hundreds of children and women.

British police said last month in a report into his activities that Savile "groomed the nation" over six decades, hiding behind his fame to assault girls, boys and adult women on BBC premises and in schools and hospitals.

The publicly-funded BBC made Savile one of its biggest stars in the 1970s and 1980s as presenter of BBC TV's Top of the Pops chart show and children's program Jim'll Fix It.

The revelations about the abuse by Savile threw the BBC into crisis.

The broadcaster has commissioned an independent investigation into the allegations.

In December the BBC also published a critical review into the decision by its flagship current affairs program Newsnight to drop a report into the alleged abuse following Savile's death.

The presenter's estate, worth a reported 4.3 million pounds ($A6.57 million), was frozen in November in the wake of the allegations.

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How Israel kept 'Prisoner X' secret

Australian Ben Zygier has been identified by the ABC as Israel's 'Prisoner X' who was found hanged in his cell in 2010. Vision: ABC Foreign Correspondent

THE blanket ban on reporting details of the detention and apparent suicide of an Australian prisoner jailed in Israel has raised pressing questions about the relevance of censorship in a digital age.

The mysterious case of Prisoner X briefly emerged in 2010 in an online news report which was immediately taken down due to a gag order, only to resurface this week when the ABC reported he was an Australian working for Mossad.

Although the news spread like wildfire across social networks, Israel's media outlets were uncharacteristically silent, gagged by a set of tight restrictions which barred them from even mentioning the ABC report.

The silence was only broken when three Israeli MPs used their parliamentary immunity to raise the issue in at the Knesset, forcing the censor to ease its grip and permit coverage of the ABC report.

Aluf Benn, editor of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the case highlighted the old-world thinking among Israel's top intelligence brass.

"I imagined yesterday that I met Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and that I tried to persuade him to remove himself for a day or two from the cloak-and-dagger world he lives in ... But then I remembered that Pardo is still living in the previous century, when information is kept in regimes' safes," he wrote.

Israel regularly censors information relating to the work of its defence forces and spy agencies. Picture: AFP

Shortly after the ABC report emerged, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called in the country's top editors to ask them to cooperate by withholding publication of information about an incident that was "very embarrassing to a certain government agency," Haaretz said, in a clear allusion to Mossad.

For Israel's security establishment, the press was simply an extension of the state which could be controlled at will, Benn wrote.

"They all find it hard to come to terms with the concept of a free media operating in a democratic state, and they try to recruit the press to work with them, offering journalists a combination of confidential information and the threat of arrest."

Under Israeli law, violation of a gag order is a serious offence, punishable by imprisonment.

Yuval Dror, a digital media expert said it was clear that in the digital age, censorship and gag orders simply do not work.

"What worked in the years after the establishment of the state gradually became a predictable game in which journalists leaked information forbidden for publication in Israel.

"Their foreign counterparts would publish it in the foreign press, which Israeli journalists were permitted to quote," he said.

Such a scenario most recently played out on January 30 in the case of an Israeli air strike on a military complex near Damascus.

When the military censor prevented the Israeli press from reporting any details of the strike, they circumvented the ban by simply picking up reports on the strike from foreign media outlets.

But in this case, the legal ban was so sweeping that it even barred publication of details in a foreign media report.

"Sometimes the mishap is so severe and the excuses so lame that it is no longer enough to limit reporting to 'foreign news sources' and more extreme tactics are required: ... sweeping gag orders and the censorship of information readily available at the click of a mouse," wrote Benn.

"The results are ridiculous and, instead of hushing up the blunder, they merely shine a spotlight on it."

Dror said attempts to gag the media would end in failure.

"A dead letter. This phrase is expressed in its purest form when considering gag orders in the internet age," he said.

"There is no way, whether practical or theoretical, to stem the flow of information exploding across Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the social media - media whose underlying feature is to encourage users to share content.

"Viral distribution of content that intrigues millions of people is one of them. The attempt to control the digital world and a hyper-global media event - which within minutes is uncontrollable - is doomed to complete and embarrassing failure."

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DNA proves NZ girl is not Maddie

This image released by UK police shows composite photos of Madeleine McCann at age and a computer-generated image of what she may have looked like at nine years old. Picture: AP Source: AP

DNA from a New Zealand girl bearing a striking resemblance to missing British youngster Madeleine McCann has confirmed she is not the child who disappeared in 2007.

British authorities asked for the sample after the latest reported sighting of McCann in New Zealand, nearly six years after she went missing while holidaying with her family in Portugal at the age of three.

New Zealand police said they had been contacted twice by people convinced the child was Madeleine, first in March last year and again on New Year's Eve, when she was spotted in the southern resort town of Queenstown.

They investigated the first sighting and were "absolutely satisfied" it was not the missing girl but obtained a DNA sample after a request from Operation Grange, the British police task force investigating the disappearance.

Police said the New Zealand child's family provided the sample voluntarily and the DNA "does not provide a match for that of the missing girl".

"Given that there is conclusive evidence that their daughter is not Madeleine McCann and has no connection to Madeleine McCann, it is only right that she and her family are entitled to a level of privacy that most of us enjoy," they said.
 

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