Why Icelanders love an explosive eruption

Do you remember that feeling of being a kid, running after your older siblings and you just couldn't keep up? Your little feet would move as fast as they could, but still you'd lag behind? Well, that's how I feel these days - the reason being a volcano.

Every morning I set my alarm for 06:00, not to jump in the shower, but to refresh every website with volcano news from my home country, Iceland. Since 16 August, there have been thousands of earthquakes beneath Europe's largest glacier, Vatnajokull, which covers 3,400 sq miles (8,800 sq km) in south-east Iceland.
Scientists believe that this seismic activity is caused by an enormous amount of magma moving around under the Earth's crust - it might even be moving from one volcanic system to another.
A small eruption started last week, took a break and started again on Friday 29 August with increased force. The fissure is just north of the glacier, so it's only normal lava flow. It's different if there is an eruption underneath a glacier, a sub glacial eruption - then the magma explodes on contact with the ice and out comes ash.

Eyjafjallajokull - difficult to pronounce, but it did become a buzzword in 2010

Hold on - jokull, ash - does that remind you of something? "Volcano, I think I'll call you Kevin." That was comedian Jon Stewart's reaction after watching reporters from just about every major TV station in the world try in vain to pronounce the name of the Icelandic volcano that trashed the travel arrangements of millions of people in April 2010.
The huge ash cloud from that eruption shut down much of Europe's airspace for six days, leading to the cancellation of 100,000 flights. Even US President Barack Obama couldn't fly. He missed the funeral of the late president of Poland, so did Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France.
Eyjafjallajokull was fourth on Time Magazine's list of top 10 buzzwords for 2010, but the airlines weren't happy - the total cost of the shutdown was estimated to have been around $1.7bn (£1bn).

Like many Icelanders, Thora Arnorsdottir loves the country's volcanoes

Now, only four years later, it seems it's time to prepare for more disruption. Geological activity comes in waves, and Iceland seems to be in one such phase now.
The island is located on the middle of the North-Atlantic ridge and for that reason it is being torn apart. Half of the country belongs to the North American tectonic plate and the other half to the Eurasian one. They move half an inch (1.2cm) or so per year in opposite directions, on average. It looks like 2014 is going to be a 20-inch (50cm) year.
That doesn't mean Iceland is actually splitting in two, because enough magma always comes up to fill in the gap. It's not getting larger either, because the Atlantic Ocean nibbles from the shores at a similar pace.
The theory is that just beneath Vatnajokull glacier, there is a hot spot, which has nothing to do with internet connections, but connection to the Earth's mantle. Supposedly, this is one of the few places on Earth where such a hot spot exists and that's one reason why a third of the lava that has run over the planet in the last 500 years has been in Iceland.
Oh, and here's the icing on the cake. The name of the volcano system involved is Bardarbunga-Dyngjujokull. Beautiful, isn't it? Looks like the big sister of Eyjafjallajokull, alias Kevin.

Icelandic Met Office map of earthquakes around Bardarbunga between 16 and 24 August

Here's an odd thing. Even though volcanic eruptions have had terrible consequences through the ages, Icelanders love their volcanoes. They name their daughters after them, like Hekla and Katla.
They respect them. There's just something majestic about volcanoes, like having a lion in the house. We know they can be dangerous, but we've learned to live with them.
Our country is young and dynamic, still being moulded and shaped by nature. Maps have to be changed every few years because of the continuous seismic movement, appearances of new craters and the ever-changing coastal line and river flow.
Icelanders exchange stories about where they were when this or that eruption happened, we all tune in to the National Broadcast Service Radio when we feel a robust earthquake, to follow the story. How big was it? Was it just an earthquake or a warning that Mount Hekla is about to erupt? Is it maybe Mount Katla's turn now?

The highlands around the Vatnajokull glacier have been evacuated and the few thousand inhabitants in the northern part, where the flood would probably come down, are alert and ready to leave their homes in an instant. It comes without saying that if glowing hot magma finds its way up to the surface under a glacier, an enormous amount of ice will melt - and that water has to go somewhere.
So for the past couple of weeks I've been refreshing websites and messaging my friends and family: Has it started? Not yet? Now? What about now? Or now? Most foreigners thought it was because I was worried about them, but that's not the reason. The capital, Reykjavik, is hundreds of miles away and it's very unlikely that anyone there would be in harm's way.

Eruptions are good for the tourism industry

No, the reason is very selfish. I'm just anxious about not being there to see it with my own eyes. It's great having the opportunity to spend a semester at Yale as a World Fellow, but for a seasoned Icelandic TV reporter, it's almost unbearable to imagine that I'll miss the Bardarbunga-Dyngjujokull eruption.
I follow my colleagues who are already camping out there, following the forces of nature at work. New land is being created and they are just so excited about it.
At this moment I'm thrown back to my childhood of growing up with four older brothers and trying my best to keep up with them moving as fast as I can on my little feet, but not keeping up.
While you may be hoping that this eruption will be over soon and no ash will be a threat to any jet engines, in order to save a lot of people a lot of trouble and a lot of airlines a lot of money, my only wish is this:
Dear Bardarbunga volcano system,
Can you please slow down and hold your breath until 15 December, so that I, your loyal admirer, can witness your spectacular show?
Yours truly,
Thora

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United States: 'Sailing rocks' mystery finally solved

 

Scientists have finally solved the mystery of how rocks can move across the flat ground of a dry lake bed in Death Valley, California.

Visitors have long been puzzled by the sight of boulder tracks criss-crossing a dusty bowl known as the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park. But two researchers now say the rocks - which can sometimes be heavy and large - are propelled along by thin, clear sheets of ice on breezy, sunny days. They call it "ice shove". "I'm amazed by the irony of it all," James Norris tells the LA Times. "In a place where rainfall averages two inches a year, rocks are being shoved around by mechanisms typically seen in arctic climes."
The findings are based on a lucky accident by James Norris and his cousin paleobiologist Richard Norris - while they were studying the sliding rock phenomenon. They actually witnessed the boulders moving in December when they went to check their time-lapse cameras in the valley. "There was a pop-pop-crackle all over the place in front of us and I said to my cousin, 'This is it'," Richard Norris says in the science journal Nature. They watched some 60 rocks sail slowly by, leaving the well-known snaking trails in the ground. "A baby can get going a lot faster than your average rock," Norris notes. The rocks also don't slide around very often - scientists estimate only a few minutes out of a million - which is why the event has not been noticed before.

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California blue whales bounce back to near historic numbers

A blue whale estimated to be around 20m long, swimming off Baja California

Researchers believe that California blue whales have recovered in numbers and the population has returned to sustainable levels.

Scientists say this is the only population of blue whales to have rebounded from the ravages of whaling.
The research team estimate that there are now 2,200 of these giant creatures on the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean.
But concerns remain about their vulnerability to being struck by ships.
At up to 33m in length and weighing in at up to 190 tonnes, blue whales are the largest animals on the planet.
The California variety is often seen feeding close to the coast of the state, but they are found all the way from the Gulf of Alaska down to Costa Rica.
Soviet secrecy Writing in the journal, Marine Mammal Science, researchers from the University of Washington say the California blue whales are now at 97% of their historical levels.

Dr Tevor Branch University of Washington

Working out that this species is now back at its traditional numbers required some dogged scientific sleuthing.

Whaling nations concentrated their hunting efforts on the colder waters of the Antarctic and until the practice was banned in 1966 some 346,000 of the animals were killed by harpoon.
The numbers of blue whales caught in the Pacific was much lower, approximately 3,400 between 1905 and 1971.
Much of this hunting was carried out by Russian fleets.
However most of the data on the catches was kept secret under the Soviet regime. Scientists have only recently been able to get access to this information in the archives.
However the location and size of the catches didn't give any clues to the types of blue whales that had been caught. There are two distinct populations, the California group and others that live near Japan and Russia.
To figure out which whales were which, the scientists turned to song.
"We were trying to separate the catches into east and west, but we didn't know the boundary between the two," said Dr Trevor Branch from the University of Washington.

A cow and calf in the waters off the California Channel Islands

"So we used the current locations of where they sing to figure out the dividing line. Their repetitive calls are different."
By being able to accurately work out the numbers lost to whaling, the research team was able to calculate a historic population.
Now back at 97% of their past numbers, the team believes that a rise in population has slowed down as these whales have reached the capacity of what the ocean system can support.
One concern for the scientists at present are ship strikes.
Most of these happen off the coast of California, and so worried are the authorities that they are now paying merchant shipping to slow down.
"Our perspective is that we'd rather there were no ship strikes at all, and they are over the legal limit," said Dr Branch.
"They have to do something to stop it, but 11 per year is so much lower than historic catches."
This new data suggests that there could be an 11-fold increase in ships before there is a 50% chance that the population will drop below what is considered "depleted" by regulators.
"My impression is that they are fairly robust," said Cole Monnahan, also from the University of Washington and the lead author on the paper.
"If you can whale them pretty extensively for 50-70 years and they are able to recover I think that says a lot about moving forward.
"In terms of things like climate change, it is hard to predict but I don't think we would expect a precipitous drop off."
While applauding the success of the conservation efforts in the California region, the scientists are well aware that not all whale populations have managed to rebound. In Antarctica, blue whales are at approximately 1% of their historic numbers.
"California blue whales are recovering because we took actions to stop catches and start monitoring," said Cole Monnahan,
"If we hadn't, the population might have been pushed to near extinction - an unfortunate fate suffered by other blue whale populations."

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The vanishing islands of Kiribati

The Republic of Kiribati is probably best known as being the first inhabited place on Earth to greet the new millennium, yet these low lying atolls are under threat from rising sea levels, something that drew photographer Giulietta Verdon-Roe to spend a month documenting daily life on the slowly vanishing islands.

The 33 atolls, of which 21 are inhabited, are found in the South Pacific and were formerly known as the Gilbert Islands before gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1979. They stretch nearly 2,500 miles (4,000km) from east to west and more than 1,200 miles (2,000km) from north to south.
In 2012 President Anote Tong admitted that the threat to the islands from the sea was one they would ultimately lose. Added to that, a lack of agricultural land means the population of about 110,000 is reliant on imports, though the purchase of land in Fiji, allowing crops to be grown for export back to the islands, may help.
Yet despite the relatively low overall population, about half live on a chain of small islands called South Tarawa, making it one of the most densely settled places on Earth, as the BBC's Julian Siddle reported recently.
Verdon-Roe's black-and-white pictures capture both the landscape and the people, all bathed in a glorious light from the wide open skies. She's not looking to comment on the threat of climate change, nor pretend this is some island paradise, the pictures do what photography does best, provide a window into a subject as well as being objects of beauty.
The pictures are now on show at Rich Mix in London.

Loading the boats, Bikenibeu, Tarawa

After church, Taromauri-worship, Maiana

Ship breaking and petrol station, Bikenibeu, Tarawa

During World War Two the Tarawa Atoll saw some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific between Japan and the Allied forces, described as one of the bloodiest battles in US Marine Corps history.

Sea-scape I, Tarawa

Kamaua's Jump, Nippon Causeway, Tarawa

Gutting flying fish. Joy at 05:30 in Bairiki, Tarawa

Te Ika, fish thrown by the fisherman, Tarawa.

Dried coral beach, before the tide returns, Maiana

Retrieving moimotos (green coconuts), Bairiki, Tarawa

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The elephant that flew

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A baby elephant is filmed standing in a small aircraft, eye-to-eye with the pilot, Gary Roberts - an American nurse and missionary. The orphaned calf is the only survivor of a massacre by poachers. This is how Roberts did his best to keep the animal alive.

In March 2013 Gary Roberts received a worrying telephone call. There were rumours, he heard, that 100 elephants had been killed near the border between Chad and Cameroon. Could he fly over the area to check whether the reports were true, the caller asked.
In his Cessna aircraft he managed to pick up the herd's tracks and followed them to an area of low scrub - the massacre zone.
"It was a terrible sight," says Roberts. "It was really just piles of bones that were left because the meat had been extracted." In the two days since poachers had taken the tusks, locals had stripped the carcasses.
"There were large pools of blood on the ground that you could still see from so many animals," he says. The carcasses were spread over a couple of miles. The only way to ascertain the number killed was to count the skulls - Roberts confirmed that nearly 100 elephants had died.

"You'd see 20 or 30 animals in a group that had gone down together," says Roberts. For such large numbers to be killed the poachers would have used machine guns.
"It's really gut-wrenching when you see something like that," says Roberts. "Whether it's in a war where humans are taken down or whether it's where animals are taken down, it's still a sinking feeling in your stomach - it's terrible."

Gary Roberts

He passed all the information on to the authorities in the Zakouma National Park and returned home. But two days later he got a call back to say that one baby elephant appeared to have survived.

Roberts and his family often take in orphaned animals, so he flew out again to find it, landing at the strip closest to the animal's rumoured location. He questioned the local people, hired a pick-up truck and set off for another village.
The baby had been rumoured to be 25kg (55lb), which is tiny. In fact what he found was a nine-month-old elephant weighing about 160kg (350lb). It had been tied to a tree. The rope had embedded itself in his neck and the wounds had become infected.
The calf was scared, angry and mourning the loss of its family. It was seriously ill - dehydrated and hungry. It had been given cow's milk by the locals, with good intentions, but cow's milk is actually toxic for baby elephants, causing severe diarrhoea.

Elephants can just give up and die if they are mourning

"It was getting weak, but also very angry because it had just been tied up to the tree and kids would come by and no doubt throw sticks and rocks at it," says Roberts.
"When I initially approached it, it was trying to bite, it was raising its trunk and trying to charge a little bit, but I just stayed with it and mixed up some formula that we had with us to feed it." After about half an hour the elephant had calmed down enough to be loaded into the pick-up truck.
During the two-hour ride back to the plane, Roberts and his helpers gave the elephant a nickname - Max - because his rescue was challenging them to the maximum. "It was taking everything we could muster to keep him in the back of the pick-up over the bouncy roads," says Roberts.

By the time they reached the airstrip it was dark. There was an added complication - a mob had gathered around the airplane. The local military came to keep the mob from pressing in on them and frightening the elephant.

"It was purely a spectator sport, with no respect for requests to stay back or be quiet," says Roberts. "In the course of events some people threw bricks at the military so they had to arrest a few of the people, in order to keep things under control."
The rescuers - including Roberts' wife Wendy - stayed up all night with the elephant calf trying to keep it calm, and in the morning they lured it in close to the aircraft with a bottle of formula and were finally able to lift it in with the help of several men.
Max took up almost the entire inside of the four-seater plane.
"It was a tight fit definitely," Roberts says.
Max was almost more than the plane could carry, along with the pilot and the other passengers. There was a risk that if he moved around too much, or panicked, it would have become uncontrollable.
"With an animal that size you can feel its weight shifting in the aircraft and I had to have some restraining straps so it wouldn't go all the way to the back of the aircraft - otherwise he would go outside of our controllable range," Roberts recalls.
Max still had diarrhoea and was too weak to be sedated. Instead, they tied ropes around his feet so they could disable his movement if necessary.
"He was quite interested in playing with my controls, he would put his trunk forward and feel my hand and touch the controls and of course feel my face," says Roberts. "It was a bit of a distraction but at the same time a unique experience." Roberts filmed it all on his mobile phone.
When they got Max home he just collapsed, he was so exhausted. He needed 24-hour care and Roberts and his wife took it in turns.

They slept out under the stars with him, and kept people away so he could rest. They knew that elephants can give up and die when they are mourning loved ones, which was an extra source of worry.
A few days later a volunteer from the Jumbo Foundation Elephant Orphanage in Malawi came out to help, and she brought supplies and a great deal of expertise. "Taking care of a baby starved elephant is very similar to taking care of starved human babies," says Roberts. "The protocol and the procedures are very similar."

As Roberts and his wife run a centre for malnourished children, they were familiar with the routine.

But despite their skills, and their best efforts, Max only lived another 10 days.
"We had pulled out all the stops, we had done everything possible," says Roberts, with a sigh.
"Along with the traumatic experience he had been through, to see his whole family massacred and everything compounded, unfortunately he did not survive." The main factor in Max's death was probably the cow's milk - the only kindness he had received during his ordeal in the village.
Max's flight ranks as the craziest in Roberts' experience as a missionary pilot - though the time when he delivered a baby in mid-flight comes a close second.
On that occasion, in Guyana, South America, he alternated between the controls and the birth and managed to safely deliver a baby boy. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, but he survived unharmed.
Roberts is a third-generation missionary for the Seventh-Day Adventist church. His father, a pilot, and his mother, a nurse, raised him and his brother in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in a home that was always full of orphaned baby animals - birds, monkeys, antelope and wildcats.
By the age of 14 Roberts was already assisting his mother with cataract operations. He got his pilot's licence at 17 and then trained as a nurse in the US, where he met his wife Wendy.
Both have been working for a mission hospital in Bere, in southern Chad, helping people in remote villages who have no access to medical facilities, and occasionally evacuating them to hospital.
Their home, too, has been populated by orphaned animals - at the last count, three young monkeys and an antelope - cared for partly by their eight-year-old daughter.

Elephants in Chad

Chad used to be known for its free-roaming herds of African elephants, but in a frenzy of poaching some 4,000 elephants were killed in 10 years. Chad's elephant population currently stands at around 1,000, of which 458 reside in the Zakouma National Park. The Fianga massacre, which Max survived, was one of the largest in recent times and happened outside the park. Inside the park, 26 animals were shot in one incident in May 2010. Since then things have improved. There have been no poaching incidents for three years, the elephants have started breeding again, and the government of Chad is training hundreds of new rangers.

Idyllic though this life may sound, it has not been easy. In 2009 their son Caleb, then four, died of malaria.
"You see that happen to other people and somehow you think that having the medical training and being based in a hospital, that won't happen," says Roberts.

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With malnourished kids you can't just feed them because you'll actually kill them if you do it wrong”

Gary Roberts

"In many ways it brought us into a closer relationship with the people who we work to serve… when they see that it's happened to us as well, they can relate better to what we're doing," he says.

Despite pressure from family and friends to return to the US after Caleb's death, the Roberts decided to stay. Another family tragedy, however, has brought about a move to West Papua, Indonesia.
In April, Roberts' father Bob, still working as a mission pilot, was killed on take-off. Gary and Wendy have decided to move to Indonesia to take over his mission, while others will take over from them in Chad.
Roberts admits to sometimes feeling down. "When you see young kids dying from illnesses that should be preventable, in some cases it's very challenging and frustrating," he says.
But the job satisfaction, when it comes, is like no other.
Roberts tells the story of a baby boy who came to the nutrition centre run by his wife.
"Kids will often come in at the last minute - the mothers bring them in literally at death's door - and not too long ago we had a little nine-month-old boy come in and he was literally breathing his last."
The boy was suffering multiple organ failure and spent eight days between life and death.
"With malnourished kids you can't just feed them because you'll actually kill them if you do it wrong, so you have to start a very tedious process of increasing their calorie intake slowly, monitoring fluid overload, heart failure and so on," explains Roberts.
The boy pulled through - and six weeks later, returned to the clinic with his mother.
"I literally could not recognise him," says Roberts.
"He was a fat chubby little happy boy. When you see those cases where you know that if you weren't there those kids wouldn't have survived, it is very satisfying."

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Deadly floods in India and Pakistan

Pakistan regularly witnesses severe floods during monsoon season.

Dozens of people have been killed in flooding caused by incessant rain across large swathes of India and Pakistan.

At least 40 people were killed in Pakistan as torrential rain wreaked havoc in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and Punjab.
In Indian-administered Kashmir, 28 were reported dead, AP news agency reports.
This does not include the toll from a bus carrying 50 members of a wedding party that was swept away on Thursday.

The monsoon rains have come late to Pakistan this year

Rescue workers have recovered the bodies of four people from the bus, which was engulfed by flood waters in the Jammu region - the bride and groom are among those feared dead.
Senior Jammu official Shant Manu told the BBC that four bodies had been recovered from a stream and "barbed wire has been put across the stream so that the bodies are not swept away".

Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, has also seen its streets flooded

The region is suffering from its worst flooding in two decades, which has also triggered deadly landslides.
In Pakistan, officials are getting ready for the prospect of mass evacuations of communities based in flood plains if the rain continues.
Protesters camped out on the streets of Islamabad erected makeshift tents made from plastic sheets.
Pakistan regularly witnesses severe floods during monsoon season.

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Bosnia coal miners trapped underground after earthquake

Thirty-four miners remain trapped in a central Bosnian coal mine which collapsed in a gas explosion following an earthquake, officials say.

Twenty-two other miners escaped before the pit collapsed on Thursday.
Rescuers are trying to reach the trapped miners, who are believed to be more than 500 metres (1,600 feet) below ground, mine officials said.
The 3.5-magnitude quake struck 53 km (33 miles) northwest of the capital Sarajevo, Bosnian TV reported.
"The rescuers are deploying superhuman efforts to save their comrades. They confirmed they are all together and doing well," said Nermin Niksic, the prime minister of the country's mainly Muslim-Croat entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina.
It is the third accident involving gas explosions at the Zenica coal mine since the start of the year.

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India 'serial killer' to be executed

Koli was found guilty of kidnapping, murder and attempted rape in multiple cases

An Indian man sentenced to death for murdering a girl in a case dubbed "the house of horrors" will be executed next week, officials say.

In 2009, Surinder Koli and his businessman employer Moninder Singh Pandher were convicted of murdering 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar. Pandher was later freed by a higher court.
They were held in 2007 after body parts were found near their home near Delhi.
The crime shocked the country, with many accusing the police of negligence.
Police say at least 19 young women and children were raped, killed and dismembered in a house where Koli worked as a servant for the owner in the suburb of Noida near Delhi.
The children, remains of whom were found hidden in bags, were allegedly lured to their deaths by Koli, who offered them sweets and chocolate. He confessed in court to cannibalism and necrophilia.
Koli has been found guilty of kidnapping, murder and attempted rape in at least five cases involving children.
Local residents said that police failed to act because many of those reported missing came from poor families.
A court said the crime called for the death sentence as it was the "rarest of rare" cases.
"The hanging [of Surinder Koli] will be carried out on 12 September... all the rules and procedures will be followed", SHM Rizvi, chief of the main prison in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh state, was quoted as telling reporters by the Press Trust of India news agency.
Executions are rarely carried out, but in the last two years there have been two hangings in India.
Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November 2012 in a prison in the western city of Pune.
And in February 2013, a Kashmiri man, Afzal Guru, was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail for the 2001 attack on India's parliament

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Paris flats explosion leaves seven dead

The search continued throughout Sunday night and a man was still missing on Monday morning

A seventh body has been recovered after a residential block of flats in Paris was destroyed by an explosion.

Authorities have linked the blast to gas and electricity cabling work in the eastern suburb of Rosny-sous-Bois.
Another 11 people were hurt in the explosion and emergency workers are continuing to search the rubble for another person declared missing.
A mother and her two teenaged sons were killed along with a 10-year-old boy and three other adults.
French media said the four-storey building had been sliced in two by the explosion at around 07:00 (05:00 GMT) on Sunday morning.
A man in his fifties living on the ground floor of the building was still missing on Monday morning as the search continued.
Fire service commander Gabriel Plus confirmed that gas and electricity work had been taking place nearby but the local gas company said no leaks had been reported in the area.
"Time is against us," Mr Plus told reporters. "But as long as the missing still haven't been found, the effort will continue."

The four-storey building was cut in two by the blast on Sunday morning

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Derek Grant jailed for killing son's mugger in Greenock

 

 Patrick Bradley was fatally stabbed by the father of his robbery victim

A man who admitted killing a knife-wielding robber who took his son's iPhone has been jailed for six years.

Derek Grant, 38, confronted Patrick Bradley after the 29-year-old had held up his son Jordan in Greenock on 30 August last year.
During the confrontation, Bradley stabbed Grant in the eye, after which Grant then fatally stabbed him.
Grant was originally charged with murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
At the High Court in Livingston judge Lord Boyd noted that Bradley "was a man of violence" and had "10 convictions for assault" prior to his death.
Criminal record He told Grant: "But you, of course you did not know that. What you did know was that earlier that night Patrick Bradley had robbed your son of his mobile phone at knifepoint.
"Had he been caught it seems likely given his record that he would have been prosecuted in this court, the High Court, and on conviction would have received a High Court sentence.
"As it happens you had the means to bring him to justice because the phone had been easily located by the Find My iPhone app."
The judge added: "All you needed to do was to phone the police and give them the information. However, you armed yourself with a knife and, along with your three sons, went looking for him."
The judge said Grant's lawyer had earlier described that decision as an error of judgment.
But he told the accused: "I can't accept that as a valid description. It's clear you were prepared to be met with violence - or at least the threat of violence - and went armed to meet it."
Lord Boyd acknowledged that Grant had lost an eye as a result of being stabbed and now had a lifelong disability, which had effectively ended his career as a delivery driver.
He described Grant's conviction as a "tragedy" for his family and told him the proud educational record of his sons was a credit to him.
The judge added: "I take into account you will have to live with the physical consequences of that event for the rest of your life and I have reduced the sentence accordingly.
Phone trace "Nevertheless, the fact is you took the law into your own hands and went looking for a man you knew was armed with a knife armed with a weapon of your own."
A previous hearing at the High Court in Glasgow heard how Jordan Grant had been returning to his home in Greenock when he was confronted by Bradley, who had a significant record for violence.
He ordered the politics student to hand over his iPhone, which he did.
The McDonald's worker went home and told his father who used a mobile app to trace the stolen phone to a nearby location.
Grant then left his home with Jordan and his two younger sons, Lee, 17, and 16 year-old Jamie.
They spotted Bradley - who was not known to them - and Grant ordered he hand back the stolen phone.
Bradley instead lashed out at Grant and stabbed him in the eye before Grant then repeatedly struck out at him with a knife he had taken from home.
Bradley suffered a cardiac arrest and died following the incident. Grant was left blinded in one eye.
Grant's three sons also faced murder charges but their not guilty pleas were accepted

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Hijab for a day: Non-Muslim women who try the headscarf

Jess Rhodes, with and without her hijab

World Hijab Day calls on non-Muslim women to try out life under the traditional head scarf. Can it lead to more religious tolerance and understanding?

"Because I'm not very skilled I'm wearing what you could call a one-piece hijab - you just pull it over your head. But I've discovered the scope is endless. There are all sorts of options."
So says Jess Rhodes, 21, a student from Norwich in the UK. She had always wanted to try a headscarf but, as a non-Muslim, didn't think it an option. So, when given the opportunity by a friend to try wearing the scarf, she took it.
"She assured me that I didn't need to be Muslim, that it was just about modesty, although obviously linked to Islam, so I thought, 'why not?'"
Rhodes is one of hundreds of non-Muslims who will be wearing the headscarf as part of the first annual World Hijab Day on 1 February.

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Originated by New York woman Nazma Khan, the movement has been organised almost solely over social networking sites. It has attracted interest from Muslims and non-Muslims in more than 50 countries across the world.

For many people, the hijab is a symbol of oppression and divisiveness. It's a visible target that often bears the brunt of a larger debate about Islam in the West.
World Hijab Day is designed to counteract these controversies. It encourages non-Muslim women (or even Muslim women who do not ordinarily wear one) to don the hijab and experience what it's like to do so, as part of a bid to foster better understanding.
"Growing up in the Bronx, in NYC, I experienced a great deal of discrimination due to my hijab," says organiser Khan, who moved to New York from Bangladesh aged 11. She was the only "hijabi" (a word for someone who wears the headscarf) in her school.

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I figured the only way to end discrimination if we ask our fellow sisters to experience hijab themselves”

Nazma Khan World Hijab day founder

"In middle school I was 'Batman' or 'ninja,'" she says.

"When I moved on to college it was just after 9/11, so they would call me Osama Bin Laden or terrorist. It was awful.
"I figured the only way to end discrimination is if we ask our fellow sisters to experience hijab themselves."
Khan had no idea the concept would result in support from all over the world. She says she has been contacted by people in dozens of countries, including the UK, Australia, India, Pakistan, France and Germany. The group's literature has been translated into 22 languages.
It was social networking that got Jess Rhodes involved. Her friend Widyan Al Ubudy lives in Australia and asked her Facebook friends to participate.
"My parents, their natural reaction was to wonder if this was a good idea," says Rhodes, who decided to wear her hijab for a month.
"They were worried I would be attacked in the street because of a lack of tolerance."
Rhodes herself was concerned about the reaction, but after eight days of wearing the headscarf she has actually been surprised by how positive it has been.
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Muslim headscarves

The word hijab comes from the Arabic for veil and is used to describe the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These scarves come in myriad styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the West is a square scarf that covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear.

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"I can't explain it really but people have been really very helpful, especially in shops," she says.

Esther Dale, 28, lives in the US state of California and is another non-Muslim trying out the headscarf for the day. The mother-of-three was told about the event by a friend of hers who is a "hijabi".
As a practising Mormon, Dale understands the importance of faith in daily life, and the judgement that can come with the associated clothing.
She says she knows the stigma that surround the headscarf and hopes this is an opportunity to help combat that.
"I knew that it's about modesty of behaviour, not just clothing, and that it's a faulty assumption that women only wear it if they're forced to - especially in the US. That's not at all the truth," she says.
"It's a good chance to educate people that you can't make an accurate judgement about someone based solely on what they're wearing," says Dale.
The hijab has been a frequent target of criticism from people like Maryam Namazie, a vocal ex-Muslim and campaigner, who sees the garment as a form of oppression.

Hijabs on display at a market. The term comes from the Arabic word for 'veil' or 'screen'

"Millions of women and girls have been harassed, fined, intimidated and arrested for 'improper' veiling over the past several decades," she wrote in a blog post about the Iranian women's football team's hijabs.
"Anyone who has ever taken an Iran Air flight will verify how quickly veils are removed the minute the airplane leaves Iranian airspace.
"And anyone who knows anything about Iran knows the long and hard struggle that has taken place against compulsory veiling and sex apartheid."
Organisers of this event say they were fed up with seeing the words "oppressed" or "subjugated" when it came to discussing the Muslim head-covering.
They reject the notion that women only wear hijabs at the insistence of a father or a radical member of the family.
This day, then, is about showing the world that women can choose the hijab willingly.
Rhodes says it's a choice she will continue to make.
"I will wear it from time to time," she says of her hijab. "I'm saying to the world, my beauty is for my family and my partner. Any woman can wear this."

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Indian woman kills leopard that attacked her

Kamla Devi spoke to the media from hospital, where she is stable

An Indian woman armed only with farm tools is stable in hospital after killing a leopard that attacked her.

Kamla Devi, 56, sustained multiple bites, cuts and fractures during the half-hour battle.
She had been fetching water in northern Uttarakhand state when the leopard pounced on her from nearby bushes - she fought back with a sickle and spade.
"I thought I was dead but I did not lose patience and courage," she told reporters after her lucky escape.
Smashed teeth Ms Devi was carrying water from a canal to her field near the village of Sem Nauti in Rudraprayag district when she was attacked on Sunday.
She said she managed to smash some of the animal's teeth during the struggle.
"I fought head on with it for almost half an hour. Then I came to know it was dead," she told reporters from hospital in the nearby town of Srinagar Garhwal.
Doctors were surprised she had survived.

Doctors say Kamla Devi was lucky to escape with her life

"She has two fractures on the right hand and one on the left. She also has deep injuries on her head and legs. There are bite marks all over her body," said Dr Abdul Rahul, who has been treating her.
Pankaj Bist, one of the villagers who helped take Ms Devi to hospital, said: "It was around 10 in the morning when she went to the field. A leopard pounced on her."
"She is very brave. She attacked the leopard and took the fight head on with her sickle."
In the past week, leopards have killed one woman elsewhere in Uttarakhand, and injured another in the Rudraprayag area.

Leopards are losing their habitat - this one in Assam was killed earlier this month

Villagers say leopards are now more visible around human settlements as the big cats' habitat is increasingly encroached upon by humans.
Rudraprayag was made famous in the 1920s by hunter-turned-conservationist Jim Corbett.
His book Man Eater of Rudraprayag charts his efforts to track down an elderly male leopard which terrorised locals for years and was reputed to have killed more than 125 people before Corbett shot it dead in 1925.

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The millionaires who rescue people at sea

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A philanthropist couple have launched what they say is the world's first privately funded vessel to help migrants in trouble at sea. But can one ship really help the thousands of people who try to cross the Mediterranean each year?

Last summer, Regina Catrambone and her husband Chris were on board a yacht cruising around the Mediterranean - but the idyllic holiday scene was interrupted when they spotted something in the sea.

"My husband and I were on the deck and we saw a winter jacket floating in the water, like a ghost," says Regina.

They asked the captain how it ended up there. "His face became very dark and he said probably the person who was wearing it is not with us any more. That started to trigger our attention."

They realised it had probably belonged to one of the thousands of migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe - 1,889 have died in these waters since the start of the year, 1,600 of them since the beginning of June, according to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.

The defining moment for the couple came soon after, when they saw Pope Francis on television, calling on entrepreneurs to help those in need.

"We looked at each other, me and my husband, and we said: 'Let's do something.' From this moment came the idea of buying a boat and doing something in the Mediterranean, where people are dying every day."

Chris and Regina Catrambone with their daughter Maria Luisa who is also involved in the project

By October, when the Catrambones heard how more than 360 migrants had drowned near the Italian island of Lampedusa, they were determined to turn their plans into action.

Since then the couple, who are in their 30s, have drawn deeply from their own pockets to fund a highly-sophisticated ship, the Phoenix, based in Malta, where they live. It has dinghies and two state-of-the art drones which they are using to find and help migrants trying to enter Europe by boat, mostly from Africa.

They have named their operation Migrant Offshore Aid Station(MOAS).

But while some ships begin life on the sea with a bottle of champagne smashed against their hull, the Phoenix began its time as an aid station for migrant ships by having holy water sprinkled inside it.

During a Catholic mass, held in the ship's lounge the day before the Phoenix embarked on its first patrol on Monday, a priest told the assembled crew that they are on a mission from God.

He gave each of them a small bottle of holy water from Lourdes and gave the ship a golden crucifix to carry out on the Mediterranean.

The service was "very important for my husband and me, and for the crew to have spiritual support before they leave, because they will be weeks at sea so they will need God's help," says Regina, who is Italian.

Her husband Chris, who is from New Orleans in the US, proudly shows off the custom-made flight deck, home to two Schiebel S-100 camcopters, or drones, which MOAS has leased.

He explains how their HD-quality, night vision and thermal imaging cameras are powerful enough to read a piece of paper in a passenger's hand from the air.

"We are making history in many ways by being the first civilian ship to use such grand technology. We hope that this is going to change the environment for rescue at sea. We're innovators here. We're trying to do something that no-one else has been able to do. We've put our money where our mouth is," he says.

When the ship comes across a migrant boat in international waters, the crew will contact the nearest authorities. "We will communicate the position of the boat in distress to the authority and we will wait for what they tell us to do," says Regina.

While they wait for instructions, they will use the dinghies to approach the boats, pass over food, water and lifejackets and offer medical assistance - the Phoenix has a paramedic on board and also has a well-equipped medical bay.

"However, in case the boat is taking water, or the number of the people [on board] is higher than should be, we will communicate that to the authorities and we will do what needs to be done. If we need to take people on board we can, until Malta or Italy come to take them, and disembark them on land."

Regina and Chris will take it in turns to go to sea on the Phoenix. It may seem naive to think such an operation can be carried out by civilians but the director of the project was, until recently, the commander of the Armed Forces of Malta and members of the crew have experience in the armed forces, maritime rescue and medicine.

The entire project, the couple say, has cost them "millions" with the total running costs of the ship's initial 60-day mission being 2m euros, (£1.59m, $2.64m) which they say is the extent of their budget.

The Catrambones have a group of companies registered in Malta, providing insurance and services to people operating in conflict zones. They are hoping to crowd source extra funding for MOAS, aside from their own cash, and extend it into an all-year-round operation.

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