Apple Sheds Two Top Execs In Shake-Up

Apple has overhauled its management team and announced that two top executives are to leave the company.

John Browett, the head of retail, is out after just six months in the job and Scott Forstall, the long-serving head of its iPhone software development operations, will go in the new year.

The US firm did not say why either man was leaving but both have presided over blunders in recent months.

Mr Browett, the former head of Dixons, slashed staffing hours in Apple shops in a move that was later reversed by the company and acknowledged as a mistake.

And Mr Forstall's division launched a software update in September that replaced Google Maps with Apple's first mapping application.

The software was immediately attacked for being full of inaccuracies and much harder to use, prompting boss Tim Cook to apologise.

The surprise announcement about the departures was made on Monday, at the height of superstorm Sandy which is battering parts of the east coast of North America.

John Browett had been in charge of Apple stores

In a press release, Apple said the changes would "encourage even more collaboration between the company's world-class hardware, software and services teams".

The statement did not thank either Mr Forstall or Mr Browett.

Mr Forstall, a protege of the late Steve Jobs, joined the firm in 1997 when the company bought Jobs' NeXT start-up. Apple credits him as being one of the original architects of Mac OS X.

His responsibilities are being divided between other Apple veterans and he will work as an advisor to Mr Cook until he leaves.

A replacement is being recruited to replace Mr Browett, who had taken over store operations when Ron Johnson - who helped create the concept shops - left.

Apple has more than 360 shops but they only make up 12% of overall sales. They are seen as ambassadors of the brand and therefore have a strong emphasis on customer service.

At the time of Mr Browett's appointment, commentators wondered what an executive from a traditional retail operation would bring to the company.

His move to cut staffing appears to have been motivated by a desire to improve profits but Apple divisions do not have their own profit-and-loss accounts and are supposed to support the company as a whole.

Carolina Milanesi, smartphones analyst for Gartner, told the Guardian: "I did question if Browett coming from Dixon was the right pick.

"Apple needs to learn how to deal with more customers in the stores but the need to retain the high level of care is something that a chain like Dixons does not do very well."

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Strike-Hit Mining Firm Plans $800m Rights Issue

South African miner Lonmin has said it plans to raise $800m (£498.6m) in a rights issue after violent strikes hit output.

The world's third-largest platinum miner said production slumped by over 45% in the last three months after a long period of unrest, and warned it would miss its output target for this year.

New shares could be issued, the company warned, adding that it had extended its debt facilities to help it avoid a possible covenant breach next year.

"With the standby underwriting and amended debt facilities signed we have taken two decisive steps on our way to delivering that and we are confident about our financial security," company chairman Roger Phillimore said in a statement.

In August, police killed 34 striking miners at Lonmin's Marikana mine, which sparked protests and further industrial action across the country.

Staff have since returned to work and Lonmin says the ramp-up in production is going better than expected.

But elsewhere the South African mining industry continues to battle the worst industrial action it has seen for decades.

Officers have fired rubber bullets in clashes with miners from Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) - as around 1,000 workers defied an ultimatum to return to work.

Police spokesman Dennis Adriao said "police used tear gas, stun grenades as well as rubber bullets" to disperse the strikers.

Thousands of workers from Amplats - the world's largest platinum producer - were sacked earlier this month for taking part in an illegal strike, but were told they could get their jobs back if they returned to work on Tuesday morning.

The workers said they would not go back until their pay demands were met.

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HMS Bounty Sinks: Rescued Crew Member Dies

A woman rescued from the Atlantic Ocean hours after the HMS Bounty was caught by Hurricane Sandy has died.

Claudene Christian, 42, was pulled from the water on Monday - hours after the historic ship went down in the storm off the coast of North Carolina - but was unresponsive.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class David Weydert said Ms Christian, who lived and sailed on the ship, was taken to hospital in a critical condition but was later pronounced dead.

The Coast Guard is still searching for the ship's captain, Robin Walbridge, 63.

The famous HMS Bounty was hit by 18ft waves

Ms Christian, a keen sailor, said on Twitter that she joined the ship's crew in May and a series of posts described how much she was enjoying her life on the sea.

On June 7, she wrote: "So I had a tough day, lost in the sails. But it was sunny warm and I am on a TALL SHIP AT SEA. It's a "Bountyful" life."

Fourteen other crew members were rescued from the stricken vessel, which was about 160 miles from the hurricane's centre.

The captain ordered his crew to abandon ship at about 5am on Monday after the vessel lost power and started to take on water.

Sixteen people were on board the ship when it sank

Coast guards said the crew had put on cold water survival suits and life-jackets before launching in two 25-man lifeboats with canopies.

The suits are designed to protect people from the cold waters for up to 15 hours.

Rescuers faced 40mph winds and 18ft waves at the scene, which is 90 miles southeast of Hatteras in North Carolina.

The rescued crew were flown to Air Station Elizabeth City for treatment.

Coast Guard Sector North Carolina received a call from the owner of the 180ft, three-mast ship, saying she had lost communication with the vessel's crew late on Sunday evening.

The rescued crew were flown to Air Station Elizabeth City for treatment

It regained contact with the ship after receiving a signal from the emergency position indicating beacon registered to the Bounty.

HMS Bounty was built for the 1962 movie Mutiny On The Bounty with Marlon Brando and also appeared in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

The original Bounty was known for the mutiny that took place in Tahiti in 1789.

People could apply to work on the ship, which was built in 1960 and restored in 2001.

The HMS Bounty Organisation said on its website that it was "dedicated to keeping the ship sailing and using her as a vehicle for teaching the nearly lost arts of square rigged sailing and seamanship."

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Assassin's Creed And Movie Premiere Hit By Storm

Video gamers in the northeastern US have been denied the chance to be among the first to play Assassin's Creed III because of the fatal storm that has been striking the region.

GameStop stores cancelled their midnight launches of Ubisoft's historical action sequel as Superstorm Sandy continued to disrupt the New York entertainment scene.

Assassin's Creed III is an historical action-adventure open world stealth game which is appearing on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and Microsoft Windows.

The game sees protagonist Connor Kenway take on the British during the American Revolution, and also features a present day setting with returning character Desmond Miles.

Broadway shows, talk shows and concerts were also hit by the storm, as was Tuesday night's premiere of Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law.

Keira signed autographs in Toronto - but New York is on hold for now

New York City officials said all film permits for Monday and Tuesday had been revoked because of the storm and associated safety precautions. All 40 Broadway theatres will be closed until Wednesday at the earliest.

The storm halted production on a few films as well, including Akiva Goldsman's Winter's Tale and Darren Aronofsky's Noah, starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly.

"I take it that the irony of a massive storm holding up the production of Noah is not lost," tweeted Harry Potter actress Emma Watson, who plays Ila, Noah's adopted daughter.

Some television network schedules were shaken up by the widespread power outages cutting into the available TV audience in the East.

Several stations interrupted their network broadcasts with live news coverage of the storm.

Sandy took a huge toll on the North American box office even before it made landfall.

Ticket sales were down by 11% compared with the same weekend last year, said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for Hollywood.com.

Last weekend's top film, Argo, took £7.5m ($12.1m), while the top film during the same weekend in 2011, Puss In Boots, earned £21m ($34m) - almost three times as much.

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Sandy Could Mean Costly Delays For Travellers

Airline passengers delayed by Sandy may have to pay out thousands and wait days to reach their destinations, following the grounding of thousands of flights.

Flight-tracking service FlightAware posted details of 13,500 cancelled national and international flights for Monday and Tuesday, almost all related to the stormy conditions.

By early Tuesday, more than 500 flights scheduled for Wednesday were on hold, with more delays expected to be announced later.

More than a hundred UK departures and arrivals from New York and other East Coast cities were cancelled on Tuesday alone. The majority were due to operate via Heathrow. 

A British Airways spokesman said: "We are doing all we can to help customers whose flights have been cancelled and will look to use larger aircraft on some routes when the full flying schedule resumes to help get customers to their correct destination as quickly as we can."

BA's other US flights are operating normally and the company is also flying as usual to Toronto and Montreal in Canada.

Virgin Atlantic had to scrap most of its US East Coast services on Monday and Tuesday. 

"Our flights to America had been very busy at the beginning of this week due to the half-term school holiday. It's very unfortunate that this major storm has come when it has," a Virgin spokesperson said.

Some airports like this one in Washington DC virtually closed down

UK airports were advising passengers due to travel to the US to contact their airline before travelling.

All airlines flying out of the European Union are obliged under the EU Denied Boarding Regulations to provide or pay for later flights, accommodation and refreshments if travellers are delayed.

But there is no such obligation for US carriers. Passengers on these flights should contact their insurers for compensation. 

Under ABTA regulations anyone who booked their flight as part of a package deal can change or cancel their trip with a refund on the package price.

Businessman Alan Shrem was due to return home to Florida from Hong Kong via New York on Monday.

He is now on a waiting list with the next confirmed seat not until November 4.

"They just say: Yeah, it's a pretty big waiting list," said Mr Shrem, throwing up his hands.

In the meantime, he will have to fork out $400 a night to continue staying at a nearby hotel.

The impact on the airline's finances is less clear. Many of the customers on flights currently being cancelled will reschedule later on, so the airlines will still collect the fares.

But the cost of parking planes for days, along with potential damage, will undoubtedly cost airlines millions.

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Eurozone Crisis: Spain's GDP Shrinks By 0.3%

Spain's economy has continued to shrink, according to official figures, as the government's harsh austerity measures take their toll.

The country's GDP contracted by 0.3% between July and September, slightly better than the 0.4% drop of the previous quarter, the country's National Statistics Institute said.

It marks the fifth straight quarter of contraction and follows a fall in domestic demand.

But on an annual basis, the economy shrank by 1.6% - the sharpest annual decline since the end of 2009.

The eurozone's fourth largest economy has been badly hit by the region's ongoing debt crisis, and saw its 10-year bond yields hit unsustainable highs in the summer.

These costs have since eased but the latest economic data is likely to put more pressure on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

He has so far resisted requesting a sovereign bailout - which would be accompanied by strict economic conditions and international supervision - by announcing his own drastic cuts.

The government has outlined spending cuts and tax hikes worth over 60bn euros (£48.3bn) to the end of 2014, in an attempt to cut the budget deficit in line with EU guidelines.

The measures include a VAT hike, introduced at the beginning of September, which pushed up consumer prices and hit retail sales, which fell at the sharpest pace on record in response.

Spain, which has a 25% unemployment rate, has already secured a rescue loan of up to 100bn euros (£80.6bn) for its banks.

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Syrian General 'Assassinated' In Damascus

A Syrian air force general has reportedly been assassinated in Damascus as air strikes pounded rebel enclaves and fighting raged in the capital.

State television claimed that Abdullah Mahmud al-Khalidi was killed by "armed terrorist groups" in the Rukn al-Din district of Damascus.

His death was "part of their campaign to target national personalities and scientists", the report claimed but it gave no further details.

The general was shot dead on Monday evening as he left a friend's house, a security source told the AFP news agency.

A Syrian refugee camp near the border with Turkey

News of the killing came after regime warplanes launched their heaviest air strikes to date, with more than 60 raids on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The watchdog said raids on Tuesday had hit rebel-held areas in the suburbs of Damascus and the town of Maaret al-Numan. There was also fighting in Homs, Aleppo and the southern province of Daraa.

Three children were among four civilians killed in Maarat al-Numan, which is a key army supply route between Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo.

Regime forces have been battling with rebels for weeks as they attempt to secure control of the area.

There were also clashes between rebel forces and troops backed by Palestinian fighters at the Yarmuk Palestinian camp near the capital.

There were no initial reports of casualties, although activists on the ground reported violent fighting.

Opposition forces capturing a tank near Aleppo

The latest developments came the day after the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, during which it is believed that more than 500 people died.

There are more than half a million Palestinian refugees living in Syria - around 148,000 in Yarmuk - and their leadership is largely supportive of President Bashar al Assad's regime.

A proposed ceasefire over the Eid holiday collapsed amid opposition car bombings and government air strikes.

Sky News has learnt that a lack of foreign intervention has led to rebel fighters becoming more radicalised, making their own IED's and smuggling weapons across the Turkish border.

The UN-Arab League peace envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is due in China later to try and revive efforts to stop the violence.

On a visit to Moscow on Monday he described the situation as "bad and getting worse".

Mr Brahimi is expected to make new proposals for a peace deal at the UN Security Council in November. All the plans put forward so far have been vetoed by Russia and China.

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Kaczynski Death Crash: Explosives Found In Plane

By Yulia Bragina, Sky News Moscow Producer

Poland's Prime Minster Donald Tusk says he is going to look into reports that traces of explosives were found on the wreckage of the plane in which Poland's President Lech Kaczynski was killed in 2010.

Ninety-five other people on the flight also died when the plane crashed near Smolensk-Severny airport.

One of Poland's biggest newspapers, Rzeczpospolita, said traces of TNT and nitroglycerin were found on the plane's wings, inside the cabin and the area surrounding the crash site.

The report has revived speculation the president was assassinated, although it has been pointed out the traces might be from World War II bombs which can still be found in the Katyn Forest area, where Soviet security police shot more than 22,000 Poles in 1940.

Investigators are also considering the possibility the traces of explosives found could have come from the soil at the crash site, which once served as a military test range.

Polish PM Donald Tusk is to look into the claims

A government report in 2011 said the crash was not caused by an explosion but the Polish authorities did not have full access to the wreckage at that time.

The latest development comes shortly after a key witness in the inquiry was found hanged in the basement of his house in the outskirts of Warsaw. A post mortem is due to be held this week.

Remigiusz Mus, 42, was apparently due to tell investigators he heard two loud bangs just before the president's plane went down.

The former flight engineer also claimed he overheard a conversation between a Russian air traffic control officer and Mr Kazchinsky's pilots while he was in the cabin of another aircraft which had just landed with a number of Polish journalists on board.

According to Mr Mus, the air traffic controller allowed it to descend in spire of heavy fog that severely restricted visibility on the day.

The head of the Polish Parliamentary Investigation Commission, Antoni Macierewicz, has called for the second main witness, a pilot on the journalists' plane, to be placed under protection from now on.

"We have an impression that the noose is tightening around the necks of anyone who knows what really happened in Smolensk," he said.

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New York Storm: Wall Street Looks To Reopen

New York stock markets look set to reopen on Wednesday, after Hurricane Sandy ripped through the East Coast.

Flooding in the financial district closed Wall Street for two days - the first time the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been shut for two consecutive sessions since 1888.

But the capital's two major markets - the NYSE and Nasdaq - said they planned to open on Wednesday, although contingency plans were being tested as a back-up.

If implemented, these measures would see trades made via the electronic NYSE Arca system.

The storm also caused dozens of companies to postpone publishing financial results, and put back the release of some economic data.

The US futures markets have fallen overnight and HFS Research's Ralph Silva warned it is not just the US economy that will be affected.

The volume of trades in London has been very low, he said, adding: "if you want to sell shares in something, and there's no one to buy it, you shouldn't sell it."

"As a result we're seeing a slowdown in Britain as well," he said. "This could amount to hundreds of millions of pounds of economic value lost."

Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX capital, agreed that volumes had been low.

"Everyone is sitting on the sidelines a little bit, and cautiously optimistic that Sandy hasn't caused too much damage in the US," he said.

"I expect volumes to back up tomorrow and back to business as usual."

It is too early to count the cost of the storm but there has been huge disruption across the US as Sandy battered homes and businesses.

More than 7.3 million buildings along the East Coast are without power, and a number of internet and mobile networks are down.

The storm has also grounded more than 15,000 flights globally, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.

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Superstorm Sandy Has Killed 'At Least 33'

At least 33 people have been killed in the US and Canada as a result of Superstorm Sandy, according to reports.

The storm lashed the east coast overnight, leading President Barack Obama to declare a "major disaster" in New York and Long Island.

Forecasters say the storm is set to move westwards towards the Great Lakes, and on to northeastern states and parts of Canada.

While it is gradually weakening, gusts of up 50mph are expected, and heavy rainfall will bring flooding to inland areas.

An explosion rocks a flooded New York power plant

The "post-tropical" storm made landfall at 8pm local time on Monday, bringing gusts of more than 85mph (135kph) and a record-breaking 13ft surge of seawater in Manhattan.

The water submerged subway tunnels and roads, while many bridges and tunnels were closed as a precaution.

At Breezy Point in the borough of Queens, 190 firefighters tackled a huge fire that destroyed more than 50 homes. They used a boat to navigate the flood water and rescue 25 people.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said: "These storms brought something like 23 serious fires to parts of (New York City). The terrible fire on Breezy Point is now under control but we believe we lost more than 80 houses.

CCTV captures the PATH station in Hoboken, N.J., as it is flooded.

"The search and recovery operations there are ongoing. If any of you saw the pictures on television it looked like a forest out in the Midwest."

New York University hospital was forced to move patients to other hospitals after it lost power and its back-up generator broke down. Among them were 20 babies from neonatal intensive care - some on respirators operating on battery power.

Firefighters said one man had been killed by a falling tree, while two people were also killed when a tree fell onto a vehicle in New Jersey.

Elsewhere in New Jersey a levee broke, flooding the towns of Moonachie, Little Ferry and Carlstadt with up to five feet of water. Rescue workers are at the scene assisting those who are trapped.

Sea water floods the Ground Zero construction site.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie said the level of devastation on the Jersey Shore is "unthinkable".

"It's beyond anything I thought I'd ever see, terrible."

Juan Allen, who lives in a mobile home park in the state, said: "I saw trees not just knocked down but ripped right out of the ground. I watched a tree crush a guy's house like a wet sponge."

Some 670,000 New York homes have been left without power by the storm, with electricity knocked out to more than eight million people.

The collapsed front wall of an apartment building in New York

A total of 32 people have been reported dead by local officials in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, West Virginia and North Carolina, while in Toronto, Canadian police said a woman died after being hit by flying debris.

Some 84 flights have been cancelled between London Heathrow and the US east coast. Flights from Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham have also been cancelled.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was closed on Monday and the Nasdaq suspended. Both will reopen on Wednesday.

It had been feared the surge of seawater could damage the underground electrical and communications lines in lower Manhattan that are vital to the nation's financial centre.

Haiti was devastated by Hurricane Sandy as it swept across the Caribbean

Journalist Bucky Turco, who was out on his pedal bike during the height of the storm, criticised how city officials dealt with the crisis.

He said: "What I find absurd is that the city went through all these preparations and in the end it was rainwater that brought down one of the most important cities in the world. It's kind of shocking."

Sandy had already killed 69 people in the Caribbean, where many islands were left devastated by the extreme weather conditions.

Haiti was worst-hit, with 52 confirmed dead and many more still missing. Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe described the storm as a "disaster of major proportions".

Residents of Cuba's second-largest city of Santiago were left without power and running water for four days.

After battering the Caribbean, Sandy then made its way up the Atlantic. As it made its way toward land, it converged with a cold-weather system that turned into a hybrid consisting not only of rain, high wind and snow.

Earlier, a US sailor on board a replica of the HMS Bounty was recovered from the sea in an "unresponsive" condition and later died. The captain was missing, feared dead after the tall ship went down off the Carolinas.

President Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney have suspended their campaigning with just over a week to go before election day.

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