Lindsay Ann Hawker's family arrive in Japan for murder trial

Tatsuya Ichihashi, in court in Chiba, admitted tying up and raping the 22-year-old and causing her death but claimed he did not intend to kill her.

Miss Hawker's body was found in a sand-filled bath on the balcony of his Tokyo apartment in 2007.

Ichihashi said in court: "I had no intention of murder but I'm responsible for the death of Ms Lindsay. I'm the one who scared her and left her dead. I'm really, really sorry."

The defendant knelt on the floor and bowed deeply twice to the Hawker family as he entered the court, according to public broadcaster NHK.

His lawyers argued he had tried to revive the Briton after suffocating her by accident in a bid to stop her crying out to his neighbours for help.

Suspect was arrested in November 2009 after more than two years on the run. Japanese media have reported that the 32-year-old had plastic surgery to hide his identity.

Mr Ichihashi was arrested in Osaka when he tried to board a ferry bound for Japan's southernmost island of Okinawa.

Wearing black jeans and a black shirt, the accused did not reveal details of the killing but said tearfully: "During the trial, I will speak about what happened."

Six citizen jurors and three professional judges are due to judge the high-profile case under Japan's limited jury system.

Miss Hawker's parents, Bill and Julia, and their daughters Lisa, 29, and Louise, 24, are all in Japan for the trial.

"I'm here to get justice for my daughter," Mr Hawker said. "It's been a long time coming.

Dilnot report: Where's the money

Andrew Dilnot said the cap would provide "peace of mind" in an era of longer life-expectancy where people felt “powerless” to plan for high elderly care costs.

The economist – tasked with recommending an overhaul of elderly care funding - said the current system was “broken” because people now feared living longer.

Under proposals to be presented to the Government today, he said the state should take over funding individuals’ care costs after they had contributed £35,000.

The assets threshold at which people should start paying for care should also be raised from £23,000 to £100,000, Mr Dilnot said.

He also recommended a separated cap on the amount care homes are allowed to charge residents for food and accommodation.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Dilnot said: “I think the system is broken and at the moment people are frightened about something they ought to celebrate. We should be delighted that we’re expecting to live longer and longer.

“The risk of high care costs is the one big risk that all of us face where we have no way of preventing the extreme risk. If we have a healthcare problem, the NHS looks after us. If our house burns down or you have a car crash, then we will have taken out private insurance. Here the state doesn’t cover you and the private sector won’t.

“So at the moment people face an uncertain risk and it makes them very very frightened and they feel powerless.

“What we are proposing is that we set a cap of £35,000. If your costs are more than £35,000, the state will kick in.”

Under the current system, anyone with assets of more than £23,250 – including their house – is required to meet the full cost of their care in old age.

It is designed not just to reduce people's fears about losing their house and savings but to persuade the financial services industry to come up with products which will help people plan for the possibility of needing care in their old age - not just insurance policies but also equity release schemes and plans to allow people to get less out of their pension when well and more when in need.

What he has not cracked - although he has tried - is the political problem.

As the newspaper coverage of this report shows, people tend to focus not on the good news - the costs that are capped - but on the bad - the costs below the cap or so-called "hotel costs" which are not covered by the cap.

The fear for ministers is that if they drive the Dilnot plan through they will be blamed for the bad and given no credit for the good while ending up having to find £2-3bn extra to pay for it.

What all this may reveal is that, once again, voters will the ends but not the means.

In other words, people believe that they should get free care when old (after all, goes the argument, health care is free) while not be willing to pay for it through taxes when working or through their savings after retirement.

Thus - as I posted on Friday - their challenge to Dilnot's backers will be "tell us where you'd find the money".

One modest proposal campaigners for the elderly may wish to consider - how about inviting politicians to stop giving wealthy pensioners winter fuel allowance, free TV licences and free bus passes?

Man kills 4, then self, S.C. police say

WAGENER -- The search for a "quadruple murder suspect" is over because the suspect is "deceased," according to a transmission over a police radio frequency early Sunday morning.

The report could not be immediately confirmed.

Saturday night, Aiken County Sheriff's Capt. Charles Barranco told the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle that a search for 46-year-old Ken Meyers had been launched after the discovery that three people had been slain at a home in rural Aiken County near the town of Wagener.

Fifty officers were canvassing the area Saturday night.

Police believe the victims were shot around 6 p.m. Saturday.

Police radio transmissions initially referred to three slayings, but shortly after midnight Sunday an update was broadcast to law officers announcing that Meyers had become a "quadruple murder suspect." No further details were available.

The coroner identified the dead as Myers’s wife, 25-year-old Angela Myers; her twin sister, Tabitha Brown; her mother, 50-year-old Vicki Brown; and Myers’s ex-wife, 47-year-old Esther Baldwin. All four died from single gunshots.

The chase started as officers checked on several additional people they thought Myers might want to hurt, Barranco said.

Investigators are trying to piece together why Myers might have gone on the killing spree. Deputies weren’t immediately familiar with him before Saturday night.

“It’s hard to say at this point in the investigation why those people were killed,’’ Barranco said.

Phone calls to several listings related to Myers were not answered yesterday morning.

Some threats Myers made toward others have been uncovered, but investigators said the first people they talked to during the investigation did not think Myers would turn violent, Barranco said.

The first three bodies were discovered in a secluded rural home near Wagener, about 40 miles east of Augusta, Ga. Deputies going to check on another person living nearby discovered the fourth body a few hours later, authorities said.

Investigators initially thought Myers might be heading for Alabama before finding him not far from where all the killings took place.

Rebuttal, deliberations remain in Anthony trial

ORLANDO - Casey Anthony briefly broke down crying yesterday as prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments that she murdered her 2-year-old daughter Caylee because the child prevented her from having a relationship with a club promoter.

Prosecutor Jeff Ashton said Anthony wanted a relationship with her boyfriend, to go out with her friends, and to live the carefree life she had before Caylee’s birth.

“Something needed to be sacrificed, that something was either the life she wanted or the life thrust upon her,’’ Ashton said during his 90-minute argument. “She chose to sacrifice her child.’’

Prosecutors contend Caylee was suffocated with duct tape by a mother who then crafted elaborate lies to mislead investigators and her parents. Defense attorneys countered that the toddler accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool, and that her mother in fact was hiding emotional distress caused by alleged sexual abuse from her father. Her father has denied that accusation.

Judge Belvin Perry ruled yesterday morning that there was no evidence of such an accusation and that the defense could not allude to it in closing arguments. But Perry did say the defense could again present the drowning theory because there “is a reasonable inference that can be drawn’’ to suggest it.

Cindy Anthony then tracked down her daughter. When she couldn't produce Caylee, her parents called police. Casey Anthony then told investigators she worked at Universal Studios theme park as an event planner. She went so far as to take them there, talk her way past security into an office building. She gave up the lie as she was walking down the hall.

Ashton then attacked the defense contention that Caylee drowned and that George Anthony helped Casey Anthony cover it up. No one faced with an accidental drowning would do that instead of calling 911, Ashton said.

"It is a trip down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world where men who love their granddaughters find them drowned and do nothing," Ashton said. "Where men who love their granddaughters take an accident, a completely innocent act, and make it look like a murder for no reason. A world where a man who buries his pets will take the granddaughter who was the love of his life and throw her in a swamp."

Baez conceded that Casey Anthony told elaborate lies, but he said those inventions should have signaled to investigators that "there's something wrong with this girl."

"Instead, they had a murder case, and that was it. That was all they were interested in was evidence of murder. There's nothing sexy about a drowning," Baez said.

Judge Perry angrily stopped Baez's closing arguments after he referred to Ashton as "this laughing guy." Television showed Ashton smiling behind his hand at Baez's contention that the prosecution's forensic evidence was based on fantasy. One of Perry's written orders is that the attorneys not show emotion to the other side's statements.

Ashton apologized and said he tried to hide his expressions. Baez also apologized. Perry warned all of the attorneys that any other incidents would result in that attorney's removal from the trial.

Thai election outcome affect listed companies

Exiled former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra has no immediate plans to return to his homeland and downplayed concerns he would leverage his sister’s election win to regain more than $1 billion in seized wealth.

“Going back is not a main concern, not a top priority,” he told reporters today in Dubai, where he has lived since fleeing a jail sentence for abuse of power in 2008. “I should be part of the solution, not the problem.”

Thaksin, ousted in a 2006 coup, has backed parties that have won at least 49 percent of seats in five elections over the past decade. Last year, a court seized about 60 percent of the 76.6 billion baht ($2.5 billion) that his family earned from the 2006 sale of holding company Shin Corp. two weeks before street protests by his supporters killed 91 people.

“Don’t worry about it,” Thaksin said of the money. “I’m not starving.”

Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister, is set to become Thailand’s first female prime minister after her Pheu Thai party won 264 seats in yesterday’s election. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who resigned as leader of the losing Democrat party today, sought to win votes by saying Pheu Thai plans an amnesty for Thaksin, allowing him to return to Thailand and reclaim more than $1 billion in seized wealth.

Shares in SC Asset Corp, the property arm of the Shinawatra family, hit a seven-year high on Monday. Yingluck Shinawatra, destined to be the next prime minister, was president of the company until being selected to head Puea Thai's campaign.

Yingluck is Thaksin's sister. Although she has now resigned all her positions in the company, some investors feel SC Asset will benefit while she leads the government.

Her husband Anusorn Amornchat is president of handset distributor M-Link Asia Corp. Shares of M-Link, which was founded by Thaksin's other two sisters, jumped 25 percent to 2.22 baht on Monday morning.

WHAT ABOUT STATE COMPANIES?

Analysts expect more political interference and continued price subsidies.

Top energy firm PTT Pcl, which suffers losses in its natural gas for vehicles (NGV) business as a result of state intervention to hold down prices, wants the next government to review policy so that NGV prices reflect costs.

Policies at state-controlled companies such as PTT, Thai Airways International, second-largest lender Krung Thai Bank and broadcaster MCOT may be reviewed by the next government.

The finance ministry currently plans to reduce its holdings in the four companies. It has 51 percent of Thai Airways, whose plans to start up a budget airline have been caught up in a wrangling between the finance and transport ministries.

Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij backed the idea of selling at least part of the state's stake; the transport minister was opposed to the idea. Puea Thai's Yingluck has described state-run firms as "not dynamic" and said state control was not good.