There will be a private cremation ceremony today with family and friends present

There will be a private cremation ceremony today with family and friends present. The ashes will be taken for burial to his home town of East London, in the Eastern Cape.Mr Woods and his family had left their homeland secretly in 1977, just a step ahead of South Africa’s secret police. His campaign to expose how Mr Biko was beaten and tortured to death had led to unremitting hostility from the National Party government and death threats against his children.Yesterday, Mr Biko’s son, Nkosinathi, and his widow, Nsiki, said they wanted “to salute a truly remarkable person”. Mr Biko said: “We have come to hold hands with Donald’s wife, Wendy, and their children in the hope that the life Donald led so selflessly will become a source of courage.”Lord Attenborough said in his tribute: “The world, I believe, needs heroes now more than ever and Donald stands amongst the giants in my own personal pantheon on his infinite grace, his self-deprecation and unselfishness and his courage.”He will always embody the ordinary men who, when it most matters, is prepared to stand up and be counted.”Mr Woods’s son, Dillon, spoke of his father’s courage and of his joy at becoming a grandfather. He said he was a “completely lovely” father.Mr Woods’s daughters, Jane and Mary, read a passage their mother had written about the many aspects of life with her husband that she missed since his death. “It has been exciting to have been a part of what he made happen and what happened to him,” she wrote..

Police today said they had found the bodies of a policeman, his wife and two of their young sons, killed in an apparent “murder-suicide”. Police today said they had found the bodies of a policeman, his wife and two of their young sons, killed in an apparent “murder-suicide”.
Officers found the bodies of the 31-year-old woman and a three-year-old boy at around 10pm last night after they were called by neighbours to investigate a domestic dispute in Gravesend, a spokesman for Kent Police said.The couple’s three other children were rushed to the Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, where their 18-month-old baby boy died of his injuries, the spokesman added.Police have named the dead officer as PC Karl Bluestone, 36, who joined the Kent police force in 1987. His wife was Jill Bluestone, 31, and the dead children are Henry, three and Chandler, 18 months. The survivors are Jack, eight, who is in a critical condition in hospital, and Jessica, seven, who escaped with only minor injuries. Officers then discovered the body of the 36-year-old Kent Pc in a detatched garage at the back of the house in Marling Way.The spokesman said the killings appeared to be a “a murder-suicide” but refused to give further details.Forensic scientists worked through the night examining the house and garage for evidence.A post-mortem examination was due to be carried out later this morning.An investigation has been launched, headed by Det Chief Insp Colin Murray at Maidstone police station.. Staff have been evacuated from the factory and local residents have been advised to keep their windows closed.. Three people were taken to hospital today with burns following a chemical spill at a plastics factory.
The leak happened at Notedone Ltd, on the Binley Industrial Estate, off Herald Way, Coventry, shortly before 10.30am.

West Midlands Fire Service said the chemicals then caught fire inside plastic drums and its crews were tackling the blaze. Staff have been evacuated from the factory and local residents have been advised to keep their windows closed. A West Midlands Fire Service spokesman said: “The leak happened with isocyanates which are chemicals used in plastics manufacturing.” Steve Evans, of West Midlands Ambulance Service, said three people suffered burns to their backs, necks and arms. “We have taken three people to the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, one on alert because of the extent of his burns, which are about 20 per cent,” he said. Ambulance personnel were remaining on standby as a precaution.. A group of “Harkis” ­ Algerians who fought on the French side in their country’s civil war ­ will go to court in Paris on Thursday to protest against 40 years of oppression by both nations. A group of “Harkis” ­ Algerians who fought on the French side in their country’s civil war ­ will go to court in Paris on Thursday to protest against 40 years of oppression by both nations.
The eight former colonial soldiers, survivors of a “forgotten” army of more than 200,000, will allege that unnamed officials in Paris and Algiers committed “crimes against humanity” in their treatment of the harkis after Algeria won its independence in March 1962.They say that their aim is not so much to gain financial compensation as to regain their “pride” and establish their place in history.The Harkis were disarmed by the French and abandoned to their fate when France withdrew from Algeria.