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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7334475.stm | Internet search engine Yahoo says it is "not opposed" to Microsoft's takeover bid, but wants a better price.
The letter from Yahoo's board was a swift response to a deadline issued at the weekend by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for Yahoo to agree to the deal.
Microsoft warned if the deal was not accepted by 26 April, it would mount a hostile takeover at a lower price.
The software giant made an unsolicited $44.6bn (£22.3bn) takeover offer for Yahoo on 31 January.
But Yahoo rejected the deal, saying it substantially underrated the company's value and prospects.
"We have continued to make clear that we are not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best interests of our stockholders," the letter said.
"Our position is simply that any transaction must be at a value that fully reflects the value of Yahoo, including any strategic benefits to Microsoft, and on terms that provide certainty to our stockholders."
In the letter, Yahoo said the threat to begin a hostile takeover was "counter-productive".
Yahoo has been seeking links with other media and internet firms that would help it retain its independence.
However, most companies with the financial clout to rescue Yahoo from Microsoft's advances would face scrutiny from competition authorities around the world, should they make a move on the internet veteran. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-39793531 | A service has been held to mark 40 years since three children and two aircrew died when an RAF plane crashed into a housing estate.
The Canberra was on its way back to RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire when it plunged into houses in Oxmoor, Huntingdon, at about 11:00 BST on 3 May 1977.
A memorial bench featuring five doves - one for each of the dead - was unveiled earlier, as the Hunts Post reported.
It is thought the plane crashed when the pilot lost control.
The Canberra was returning to its base after a routine photo-reconnaissance mission when it crashed into the row of terraced houses on Norfolk Road.
Sisters Kelly Middleton, aged two-and-a-half years, Tracey Middleton, aged four-and-a-half, and baby Adrian Thompson, who was just three-and-a-half months old, all died.
The pilot, Flt Lt John Armitage, 27, and navigator Flt Lt Lawrence Davies, 26, were also killed.
Eyewitnesses at the time described a "blinding flash of light" as the plane hit the houses and exploded.
Speaking in the Commons the day after the crash, then-Secretary of State for Defence Frederick Mulley, told ministers: "I am sure that the House will wish to join me in expressing great sympathy to the parents and relatives of the little children and of the crew who died and to those who were injured."
He said the crew did not use their ejector seats and the weather at the time was good.
The 40th anniversary service at Sapley Playing Field at 12:00 BST was organised by Huntingdon Town Council to remember those who lost their lives and to pay respect to their families.
Two of those attending were baby Adrian Thompson's mother Brenda and his sister Nicola.
Mrs Thompson recalled how "there was this explosion and flames and fire".
"We were trying to get out the back of the house," she said.
"I got Nicola out, but Adrian was asleep upstairs and I couldn't get upstairs to get him."
The service was followed by the unveiling of the bench and five plaques.
The council is collating people's memories of the incident, to be published in a book at a later date. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/774216.stm | "It is a reminder to the people of London that terrorism hasn't gone away"
"It's likely to be the IRA"
Anti-terrorist police have set up roadblocks in west London in their hunt for the Hammersmith Bridge bombers.
Police are urging Londoners to be vigilant amid fears of further bomb attacks.
Drivers and pedestrians at Hammersmith and on nearby bridges have been stopped, searched and questioned as security in the capital is stepped up.
No-one has admitted carrying out the attack, despite speculation that it could have been the work of dissident Irish republicans opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Police say the device contained between one and two kilos of high explosive and detonated at 0430BST on Thursday.
"We are speaking to motorists and passers-by who may have been in the area during that time period the previous night," said a Scotland Yard spokeswoman.
"We will be asking if they saw anyone acting suspiciously near the bridge or in a car before the explosion."
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry, the head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch, urged people to be vigilant.
"I am asking people that if they see a suspect package to contact us immediately on 999," he said.
He said there would be more high visibility policing on London's streets in the wake of the bomb and measures would be taken to reassure the public.
Mr Fry refused to comment on the possible link with Irish terrorists.
"I am not going to speculate but clearly they would be a line of inquiry," he said.
No-one was injured and police say the bridge does not appear to be extensively damaged by the bomb.
But the local council estimates that it could take up to three weeks of repairs and safety checks before the bridge re-opens to traffic.
Residents living near to the scene of the explosion described how windows in their homes were blown out by the force of the blast.
The attack triggered a number of hoax calls, including warnings that a device had been planted in the Dartford Tunnel in Kent, causing it to be closed for 35 minutes.
Hammersmith Bridge has been targeted twice before by terrorists, the last time in 1996 when the most powerful Semtex bomb yet used by the IRA on the mainland failed to detonate.
Ulster Unionist deputy leader John Taylor said dissident republicans trying to destabilise the peace process could have been behind the blast.
"If it's terrorist-linked I would expect it to be the breakaway groups within the republican movement, something like the Real IRA or the Continuity IRA," he said.
"It must always be remembered there are minority republican terrorist groups still on the ground, still potentially active."
Terrorism expert David George agreed that the attack was most probably the work of the Real/Continuity IRA, which broke from the Provisionals three years ago.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone condemned those responsible for the bomb.
"The bomb is a deplorable outrage. I urge Londoners to do everything possible to assist the police with their inquiries," he said.
If dissident republicans were involved, then this would be the first time they have launched an attack in mainland Britain.
Police have appealed for witnesses to contact 0800 789 321. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-12393683 | Britvic soft drinks in Warwickshire has created 60 jobs as it switches to 24-hour production of its range of branded drinks.
The company said it plans to increase production at its plant in Swift Valley, Rugby, from 1 April.
The firm now employs 200 people in Rugby and makes well-known drinks such as Pepsi, 7Up, Tango and Fruit Shoot.
Around 800m cans are produced at the plant every year, the firm said. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4351688.stm | The UK should rethink its policy ban on astronauts, a report written for the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) says.
The report warns Britain risks being isolated on the international stage if it continues its longstanding refusal to fund the human exploration of space.
The RAS expert panel says the cost of joining other nations with astronaut programmes could be some £150m a year.
But the scientific, educational and economic benefits would be worth it, it argues.
"Recent developments across the world strongly suggest that, after a 30-year lull, space-faring nations are gearing up for a return to the Moon and then to Mars," said panel member, Professor Ken Pounds, of the University of Leicester.
"It is hard to imagine that the UK, one of the world's leading economies, would not be fully involved in a global scientific and technology endeavour with such strong potential to inspire.
"We therefore recommend that the government re-evaluates its longstanding opposition to British involvement in human space exploration."
Current policy only allows for tax payers' money to be spent on robotic missions, which means the UK, although a member state of the European Space Agency (Esa), gives no funds to Esa's astronaut corps.
Those UK-born individuals who have made it into orbit recently, such as Michael Foale and Piers Sellers, have done so by taking out US citizenship and joining the American space agency (Nasa).
As well as space physicist Professor Pounds, the panel includes Dr John Dudeney, deputy director of the British Antarctic Survey; and Frank Close, a physics professor at Oxford University, who acts chairman.
Their nine-month investigation into the scientific merits of having British astronauts finds "compelling" reasons to change present policy.
The men say robotic missions to the Moon and Mars can answer many of the questions we want to ask about the origin of the Solar System and the evolution of life within it - but machines do not yet have the ingenuity and flexibility of people.
"Humans are good at making decisions that are impossible to predict ahead of time," said Dr Dudeney.
"They can deviate from assigned tasks and kick over a rock just because it's a different colour and looks interesting. But there is a symbiosis between machines and man; it's not one versus the other, it's about what they can do together."
The panel believes the industrial and educational rewards from joining other nations on manned missions beyond low-Earth orbit in the coming decades could be huge.
Dr Dudeney explained: "The UK is the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an amazingly rich and diverse capability in engineering and science; we have an enormously powerful capability and it could be used in this context to great effect."
Professor Close said his interest in science as child was inspired by the Sputnik satellite and the children of today could be similarly enthused by human spaceflight.
"If space science fiction is ever going to become science fact, now is the time," he said.
"And there's a natural challenge: the Moon is there, Mars is there. They can be reached by spacecraft, so let's explore them."
The panel members say they commenced their study with an element of scepticism on the scientific value of human involvement in space, but as they took more evidence and looked deeper into the issues they were persuaded the UK could play a role.
"We're talking about human spaceflight that is science driven, but which would have these other, wider and impressive benefits," said Professor Pounds.
"If it has an inspirational effect on education by getting more kids going into science, if it gives interesting challenges to industry so that it draws the brightest graduates, that has to be good for the UK and science in the UK."
As part of its fact-finding exercise, the RAS panel tested public opinion through the BBC News website.
An analysis of responses to a Have Your Say debate found 61% were in favour of the UK having its own astronauts, 26% were against and 13% were undecided.
Would you pay for UK astronauts? |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/216500.stm | Supporters of the sacked Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, have protested in central Kuala Lumpur the day after US Vice-President Al Gore outraged Malaysian ministers by praising "the brave people of Malaysia" in their calls for reform.
The Malaysian Foreign Minister, Abdullah Badawi, hit back at Mr Gore saying: "Malaysians do not take kindly to sanctimonious sermonising from any foreign quarter, especially the United States, a country which is known to have committed gross violations of human rights."
Meanwhile around 200 demonstrators gathered near a mosque in the Kampong Bahru district of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
They chanted the now familiar call of 'reformasi' and repeated called for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to step down. One banner read: "Time for Change, Time for Reform, Time for Anwar".
Last month the Kampong Bahru district was the scene of the most violent protests so far in the political crisis that has gripped Malaysia since Mr Anwar was sacked on 2 September.
Dr Mahathir was hosting a dinner nearby for leaders attending the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, which ends on Wednesday.
Mr Anwar's trial on charges of corruption and sexual misconduct has been suspended whilst Kuala Lumpur plays host to the summit meeting of the 21 nation economic group.
Protesters at Tuesday's demonstration commended Mr Gore's speech: "They were very strong remarks expressed by a foreign leader of what he thinks is the situation in Malaysia," said one.
But other Malaysians interviewed said they supported the government's view that the vice president was interfering in Malaysia's internal affairs.
A BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur, Simon Ingram, says some local activists have also questioned whether public declarations of US support are in the best interests of Malaysia's reform movement.
One analyst said it could give the impression that the reformers were part of a foreign plot against Dr Mahathir.
Mr Gore's comments at a banquet hosted by Dr Mahathir on the opening day of the summit sparked a war of words with the Malaysian government.
Ministers accused the US of inciting unrest aimed at overthrowing the government.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi: "Malaysians do not take kindly to sanctimonious sermonising"
The statement by Foreign Minister Badawi was the first formal reaction to the Vice President's speech.
He said it was "abhorrent" that the US Government should incite "certain elements within the country" to use undemocratic means in order to overthrow a constitutionally elected administration.
Mr Badawi said Malaysians would hold the US responsible for any rupture of their country's harmony.
Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah Ismail: "I am very happy"
But Mr Gore said he was proud of his comments and said his message was clear - that democracy must go hand-in-hand with economic reform.
Assistant secretary of State for East Asia, Stanley Roth, who is travelling with Mr Gore, said the vice president was simply expressing US policy.
"We make our positions known with respect to these issues in Malaysia, just as we do in every other country around the world," he said. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-31671891/nemtsov-calls-for-honest-elections-hours-before-death | Nemtsov speaks out hours before death Jump to media player Leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow.
'Shock' as Russian politician shot dead Jump to media player Russia's Interior Ministry has confirmed that Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has been shot and killed in central Moscow.
Kremlin in opposition phone tap row Jump to media player One of Russia's leading opposition figures, Boris Nemtsov has had hours of his private phone conversations leaked to a pro-government news website.
Ex Russian deputy PM jailed for 15 days Jump to media player One of Russia's most prominent opposition politicians, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, is sentenced to fifteen days in jail.
Leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow.
An unidentified attacker in a car shot Mr Nemtsov four times in the back as he crossed a bridge in view of the Kremlin, according to police.
Speaking to the radio station Ekho Moskvy just hours before he his death, Nemtsov called for political reform in Russia and for "honest elections" to be held. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/t/tamworth/8357759.stm | Wrexham winger Simon Brown has joined Blue Square Premier rivals Tamworth on a month's loan.
And Tamworth have also brought in much-travelled striker Iyesden Christie on non-contract terms.
Both have been signed in time to be considered for selection for Saturday's Blue Square Premier home date with bottom club Chester City.
Christie will mark his 33rd birthday by playing for his fifth different non-league side this season.
The Coventry-born front man, who started on the books of his home town club, was released by promoted Torquay United this summer after a 14-year professional career that had already taken in Bournemouth, Mansfield Town (twice), Leyton Orient, Kidderminster Harriers (twice), Rochdale, Stevenage and Kettering Town.
After starting this season at Telford, he has since also turned out in various competitions for King's Lynn, Coventry Sphinx and Farnborough Town.
Brown, 26, who briefly played alongside Christie in their time together at Kidderminster, was signed for Wrexham by former boss Brian Little.
He has not played for Wrexham this season, his last appearance having come in the 2-0 win over Weymouth in April.
Brown, who started his career with West Bromwich Albion, was sold by then boss Bryan Robson to Mansfield Town in December 2004.
He moved on to Wrexham in July 2008, but spent two separate spells out on loan last season, first with Rushden & Diamonds then at York City. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-34115047/a-slice-of-the-queen-s-wedding-cake-up-for-auction | Queen's wedding cake for sale Jump to media player A slice of the Queen and Prince Philip's wedding cake is to be auctioned, nearly 68 years after the couple got married.
The Queen - in cake form Jump to media player One of the more unusual tributes being planned for the Diamond Jubilee is a new portrait of the Queen - but one being made out of cakes.
Was the royal wedding cake flawless? Jump to media player The huge royal wedding cake was made by businesswoman Fiona Cairns, who went from kitchen table baking to selling her creations to some of the country's best-known stores.
A slice of the Queen and Prince Philip's wedding cake is to be auctioned, nearly 68 years after the couple got married.
The slice has been kept in its original box by an unnamed woman from Hove, East Sussex, whose father attended the royal wedding on 20 November 1947.
It is due to be auctioned at Gorringes in Lewes on Wednesday at 10:00 BST.
The reserve price is £500. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-36359813 | Swarms of common house flies are infesting homes in parts of Warwickshire, prompting an environmental health investigation.
Some people in Brinklow, near Rugby, said their homes had been plagued for "over 12 weeks."
One resident said he squashed 35 flies in one hour, while another said she once came home to find 100 dead flies.
Rugby Borough Council said it was looking for sources which could cause "a breeding pile".
Meanwhile, people are using plastic band catapults, Venus fly traps and smoke bombs to try to keep the numbers down.
Homes in Brinklow, Bretford, Binley Woods and Stretton-under-Fosse have been affected.
Faye Gaplin, who has a 10-month-old son, said: "We tried fly tapes, but it wasn't working so I bought industrial smoke bombs. I let one off and when I came home there were 100 dead flies.
"My son can't sleep as flies keep landing on him, and at night I'm just sat watching telly and constantly wafting flies away".
David and Marlin Jones, also from Brinklow, are using elastic bands to squash and kill flies. Mr Jones said: "I squashed 35 flies in over an hour by pinging elastic bands."
Mrs Jones said: "In 41 years of living here we haven't seen an infestation like this."
Sean Lawson, head of Environmental Health at the council said: "We visited several commercial businesses and agricultural premises, none of which identified or provided any sort of source for those levels of flies."
Spikes in fly population can occur when manure is spread and stored, Mr Lawson said.
He added: "We are looking for several sources." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-40706683 | A girl who is thought to have died because of an adverse reaction to what used be called a legal high "paid the ultimate price", her family has said.
Leah Kerry, 15, who attended school in Salisbury, died in hospital on 16 July having been found unconscious at an address in Newton Abbot, Devon.
In a statement, her family described her as "a courageous and confident young woman."
She knew the dangers of drugs, but "thought she was invincible", it said.
"Sadly, despite being well aware of the risks, she thought she was invincible and she rolled the dice and has paid the ultimate price", the statement said.
Image caption Leah Kerry's family said she "rolled the dice and paid the ultimate price"
A statement given to Devon and Cornwall Police on behalf of the family said: "Leah lit up any room she walked into with her incredible personality, sense of humour, striking looks and demeanour.
"Those who know her will ache to hear the words 'You allriiight' one last time."
The family warned other people against taking "dangerous NPS (new psychoactive substances) tablets" and urged "the government to place the dangers of psychoactive substances at the top of their agenda for discussion on the back of their Drugs Strategy for 2017."
Jacob Khanlarian, 20, from Newton Abbot, who was charged with intent to supply drugs in connection with the incident, will appear before Exeter Crown Court on 10 August. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6759399.stm | China has pledged to bring to justice traffickers who enslaved hundreds of children and adults to work in brick kilns in two provinces.
As it prepared to send investigators to Henan and Shanxi, the government said that all captives would be freed.
Some 550 people have been liberated in recent weeks and families believe up to 1,000 children were enslaved.
The story made national headlines after parents of some of them launched an internet campaign for their freedom.
Children thought to be as young as eight years old were kidnapped, held captive and forced to work long hours for no pay.
The case has revealed the dark side of China's booming economy with forced labour and human trafficking common in rural areas, the BBC's Dan Griffiths reports from Beijing.
Responding to calls for action by President Hu Jintao and other senior top politicians, the labour and social security ministry vowed to send a team of investigators to the two provinces.
"The team will find out the truth as soon as possible, and we will go all out to rescue the workers who have been forced to work as slaves in the brick kilns," a deputy minister, Sun Baoshu, was quoted as saying by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
"The criminal offenders will be dealt with to safeguard the legal interests of the workers."
Thousands of police have been checking building sites in the two provinces and have made scores of arrests, Chinese media report.
Provincial authorities in Shanxi have also said they will punish officials for dereliction of duty unless all abused workers are freed within 10 days.
The wife of one kiln-owner arrested by police said that officials had previously done nothing about the kilns other than ask for money from her husband.
"The officials said that we were illegal and so they came for money but they didn't do any more than that," Zhang Mei told Reuters news agency in Hongtong, Shanxi.
She also blamed a Hongtong foreman, Heng Tinghan, who had allegedly found workers and controlled them directly and is now wanted by police.
"We really didn't know they weren't getting money," Mrs Zhang said.
State TV reports prison-like conditions in the kilns where slaves were controlled with beatings or fierce dogs.
Some young male workers were shown to have festering wounds on their feet and waists, possibly from being burnt by the kilns where they worked.
Many labourers were reportedly abducted off the streets of regional towns and sold on for as little as 500 yuan ($66, £33), the AFP news agency reports, quoting Chinese press. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47460518 | Turbulent waves and high winds have turned a family beach home into an "ice house" at Ramona Beach, in Pulaski, New York.
Maureen Whelan's family has used the house for the past 85 years, but none of them has ever seen anything like this before.
Maureen shares the house with her brother and sister, and together they have been trying to chip the ice off the roof.
"We're devastated" she told the BBC.
High winds of up to 70mph (112km/h) at the end of February created massive waves from Lake Ontario, which blew spray onto the houses and then froze in the chilly temperatures.
This is what the house looked like before it was covered in ice.
Maureen said the family have been creating channels so the ice can drain properly once melting occurs, in the hope of minimising water damage.
She says the property is not in a flood zone so insurance may not cover any damage.
The home has a lakefront barrier which helped to protect it but there is four feet of ice in front of the house.
"They're all smiling and making the best of an unfortunate situation" says local reporter John Kucko in a Facebook post.
"We're the fourth generation to live in this house," said Maureen.
"This house holds many generations of memories. We're not wealthy people."
She said they've used pumps inside, following the advice of local people: "We're going up with chainsaws this weekend."
People living next to Lake Ontario have been experiencing extremely cold weather conditions.
BBC Weather presenter Nick Miller said: "Strong winds have blown water and spray from Lake Ontario onto the house which has then frozen producing a layer of ice.
"It seems this weather pattern has continued long enough for the layer of ice to become unusually thick."
People have been sending messages of support to the family on social media.
Mary Lee Boardway-Keding told the family: "Wow, having grown up in Oswego, and my parents having a place at Brennan's Beach I know how destructive the lake can be but I have never seen anything like this.
"Praying the damage will be minimal for you. It is a beautiful cottage and I know how much your Dad loved it."
Peg Martin writes on Facebook: "We wish we could have helped you. Ramona beach family, Peg and Tom."
Beth Murray writes: "The family that chops ice together stays together!"
Sandy Laveck-Burkovich says: "Wishing for a happy ending with no damage to the house itself!"
The house and its surroundings have been attracting local photographers like Scott Schild and John Kucko's daughter Natalie. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/7425458.stm | Trevor Graham, the coach of disgraced sprint trio Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, has been found guilty of perjury in San Francisco.
Graham was charged with three counts of lying to agents investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (Balco).
That investigation was sparked when Graham sent a syringe containing a previously undetectable steroid to the US anti-doping authorities in 2003.
The jury found him guilty on one count but could not agree on the other two.
When questioned in June 2004, Graham distanced himself from Angel Guillermo Heredia, a former Mexican discus champion turned Texan steroid dealer.
The North Carolina-based coach had been granted immunity from prosecution on the proviso he did not lie about his own doping activities.
Graham told the agents he had never referred his athletes to Heredia for illegal performance-enhancing drugs, met Heredia in person or talked to him on the phone since 1997.
It was on the last of these denials the jury found the 44-year-old Jamaican guilty of lying - the votes were 10-2 and 11-1 in favour of prosecution on the other two charges.
Graham, who now faces up to five years in prison, could still be retried on the remaining counts at a later date. But jury foreman Frank Stapleton told reporters afterwards he hoped there would be no second trial.
"The government was bound and determined to make an example of the defendant," said Stapleton, who voted to acquit on both of the deadlocked charges.
"To achieve their goal they felt it was necessary to do a deal with a true devil (Heredia), an untruthful drug dealer and an illegal immigrant.
"I hope this verdict satisfies the Justice Department's lust for blood in this matter and that there will be no retrial."
Heredia gave evidence against Graham last week, as did five of his former athletes, including Olympic gold medallists Dennis Mitchell, Antonio Pettigrew and Jerome Young. They claimed Graham advised them to use illegal substances and helped provide the drugs themselves.
Pettigrew also confessed to having been on drugs when he helped the US beat Great Britain in the 4x400m at the 1997 World Championships and when the US denied Nigeria at the Sydney Olympics.
Graham's lawyer William Keane dismissed the witnesses as tainted and unreliable, and suggested his client has become a scapegoat for shamed athletes looking for excuses.
He also claimed Thursday's decision was a victory for his client.
"The jury obviously had problems with the government's case on the other two counts," he said. "As we've maintained all along, we don't believe the government could prove the case."
Keane added Graham would probably seek a judgment for acquittal in spite of the jury's guilty verdict.
The irony for Graham, however, is that his whistle-blowing, which Balco owner Victor Conte has described as an act of jealously, has ultimately brought him down too.
Having been given traces of Balco's premier doping product, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) or "the clear", the US authorities were able to develop the test that eventually trapped a number of leading athletes, Britain's Dwain Chambers among them.
The subsequent fall-out has already seen eight people - including Jones, who won five medals at the Sydney Olympics, and Conte - plead guilty to a variety of charges.
Jones's fall from grace was the most dramatic as she had vehemently denied doping for years.
She was eventually forced to confess when confronted with irrefutable evidence compiled by government investigators. A tearful Jones was sentenced to six months in prison for perjury in January and is currently serving her sentence in Texas.
Her former boyfriend Montgomery has been sentenced to four years after pleading guilty to cheque fraud. The one-time world 100m record-holder has also admitted doping and awaits trial for dealing heroin.
Gatlin, the last of Graham's most renowned athletes, is currently appealing against his four-year ban for failing a drugs test in 2006.
Graham, who won a silver for Jamaica in the 4x400m at the 1988 Olympics, is only the second person caught up in the Balco affair to be convicted after a trial. He joins track cyclist Tammy Thomas, who was also found guilty of lying when she denied taking steroids. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-39843265/what-does-emmanuel-macron-mean-for-brexit | Emmanuel Macron is the new French President, but what does this mean for Brexit negotiations?
Mr Macron is a supporter of the EU:. "I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation."
He's not happy about the UK's decision to leave the EU: "I am attached to a strict approach to Brexit: I respect the British vote but the worst thing would be a sort of weak EU vis-a-vis the British"
"I don't want a tailormade approach where the British have the best of two worlds. That will be too big an incentive for others to leave and kill the European idea, which is based on shared responsibilities." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/worldcup2002/hi/matches_wallchart/south_korea_v_italy/newsid_2052000/2052513.stm | A funereal sense of dismay and disbelief has descended on Italy following their team's World Cup exit at the hands of South Korea.
Giovanni Trapattoni's team lost 2-1 despite having led from the 18th to the 88th minute through Christian Vieri's goal.
But a late equaliser from Seol Ki-Hyeon and Ahn Jung-Hwan's golden goal spelled the end of Italy's stop-start campaign and stunned crowds into silence.
And fans around the country, on a day when temperatures soared close to 40 degrees Celsius, took their anger out on the referee.
Ecuador's Byron Moreno turned down calls for a penalty, disallowed a goal for offside and sent Francesco Totti off for diving.
Following the conclusion of the match fans in Rome's Piazza del Popolo began to chant "death to the referee".
And scuffles broke out in front of the capital's central train station as Italians hurled bottles and insults at a small group of South Korean supporters.
"Thieves, thieves, you stole the game," they yelled before police moved in to restore order.
Their view of the match and the referee was shared by the Italian media.
Bruno Pizzul, the country's most famous commentator, commented: "Frankly, that was complete robbery."
His anger was shared at the highest level.
"The referee was a disgrace, absolutely scandalous," said Franco Frattini, Italy's minister for public offences.
Even respected Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi weighed in, declaring that Italy had "deserved to win".
"On the pitch I saw team spirit, guts, organisation and fair play.
"They've honoured Italian soccer and its traditions."
Their anger was matched by Italy's daily newspapers, with La Repubblica describing Moreno as "disgraceful".
Sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport described the match as "cursed and damned".
"Italy leave the World Cup sick with rage," it added.
"Rage over having wasted a game they were leading against a team that was capable of very little in front of goal.
"Rage and sadness over leaving the World Cup in the worst possible way, with a shadow of bad luck that persecuted us from the very first matches." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/1998218.stm | Sixth formers at a leading independent school were exposed to pornographic images of women during a mock exam.
The students at Marlborough College in Wiltshire were part way through the AS-level exam when several looked up and noticed indecent pictures being relayed onto a large screen.
The invigilator, maths teacher Richard Jowett, appeared to have been looking at the material on his personal computer, forgetting it was linked up to the monitor.
In a statement, head teacher Edward Gould said: "Three weeks ago, while invigilating a practice examination for 17 pupils, Richard Jowett used the computer and entered a website for 13 minutes containing still photographs of naked adult women."
"The classroom monitor was on and some pupils saw these photographs.
"At the end of the examination, a pupil reported the incident to another member of the teaching staff.
"An investigation was held immediately - this included a full technical investigation and has led to disciplinary action being taken.
"Mr Jowett is currently on sick leave."
Mr Gould would not disclose whether Mr Jowett would be returning to the school and declined to answer any further questions. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4745341.stm | Scientists believe they may have solved the mystery of why some people stop breathing fatally in their sleep.
They say a cumulative loss of cells in the area of the brain that controls breathing is to blame - triggering a condition called central sleep apnoea.
However, they believe many such deaths in elderly people are misdiagnosed as heart failure.
The study, by the University of California, Los Angeles, is published in Nature Neuroscience.
The researchers had previously pinpointed a region of the brainstem they dubbed the preBötzinger complex (preBötC) as the command post for generating breathing in mammals.
They had also identified a small group of cells within this area as being responsible for issuing the commands.
In the latest study, they injected rats with a compound to kill more than half of these cells - and then monitored the animals' breathing patterns.
When the animals entered the rapid eye movement phase of sleep - when dreaming occurs - they stopped breathing completely, and were jolted into consciousness in order to start again.
Over time, the breathing lapses increased in severity, spreading to other phases of sleep, and eventually occurring when the animals were awake as well.
Rats possess 600 of the specialised cells. The researchers believe humans have a few thousand, which are slowly lost over a lifetime.
Lead researcher Professor Jack Feldman said: "We speculate that our brains can compensate for up to a 60% loss of preBötC cells, but the cumulative deficit of these brain cells eventually disrupts our breathing during sleep.
"There's no biological reason for the body to maintain these cells beyond the average lifespan, and so they do not replenish as we age.
"As we lose them, we grow more prone to central sleep apnoea."
The UCLA team believes that central sleep apnoea may pose a particular risk to elderly people, whose heart and lungs are already weaker due to age.
They also suspect the condition strikes people suffering the late stages of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease.
These people often have breathing difficulties during sleep, and the researchers believe their bodies eventually reach a point where they are unable to rouse themselves from sleep when they stop breathing.
The UCLA team plans to analyse the brains of people who die from neurodegenerative diseases to determine whether these patients show damage in their preBötzinger complexes.
Frank Govan, of the UK Sleep Apnoea Trust, told the BBC News website that previous work had linked cot death to obstructive sleep apnoea - caused by collapse of the airways.
However, he said science had failed to prove the link.
He said: "These chaps may well be right, that the link is between central sleep apnoea - rather than obstructive sleep apnoea - and cot death, and unexplained adult death." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7822845.stm | Residents near the Israeli embassy have called for the protests to be moved following recent violence.
The local residents' association in Kensington, west London, said life had become a "nightmare" since demonstrations began two weeks ago.
Police said 24 people had been arrested on Saturday when people opposed to the Gaza conflict threw missiles at officers guarding the embassy.
Police said they hoped to find a more suitable location for the protests.
John Cookson, chairman of the Old Court House Residents' Association, said: "We are sealed in our homes every night as our street is closed.
"Businesses like shops and restaurants - already on their knees - are laying off staff.
"All this is going ahead with police permission.
"And the biggest kick in the teeth is that we are picking up the bill in our council tax.
"We have appealed to the Metropolitan Police to switch the protests to Hyde Park but no one is listening to us."
Commander Bob Broadhurst, said: "We will need to sit down and talk to protest organisers and say, 'enough's enough',"
"People have a right to protest, but any reasonable observer would see what is happening and say, 'let's protest somewhere else'." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7490555.stm | In the busy, buzzing newsroom of Dawn TV - Pakistan's first ever English news channel - there is an overwhelming sensation of urgency.
Young, bright, talkative people, zipping around with cups of steaming tea in one hand, stacks of newspapers in the other.
This hive of activity is where all the action is at.
And getting a chance to watch history unfold through the headlines is what brought British Pakistani Addiel Sabir, 35, back to his homeland.
As a journalist, he wanted the opportunity to report on the story of Pakistan, at a time when it is going through some of the worst political volatility it has seen in the last decade.
Through the tale of his nation, he also wanted to find his identity.
Mr Sabir arrived in Karachi a few years ago, quickly found a job as a presenter for Dawn Television and soon felt as if he has come home.
"I don't feel I need to explain myself over here," he says as he applies his make-up in the green room, just before going on air.
"I was forever justifying myself when I was in England. I found it difficult to find my own place, but here it's been a wonderful ride."
Professionally it has been an advantageous move as well.
"The media industry is hot right now in Pakistan," he says.
"It's early days for the media industry here - but it's the best profession to be in right now. I would have never seen such a rapid movement in my career back [in Britain]."
An informal survey around the newsroom of Dawn Television reveals that most of the young people here share Mr Sabir's sentiments.
Many of them have returned to Pakistan recently, convinced that their economic future lies here in Karachi or Islamabad, where a lot of them feel more comfortable than they did in London or Paris.
Soul searching aside, there are also obvious attractions of returning to a booming economy, where economic growth has averaged 7% or more for years.
Take partners Arif Baig Mohammad and Pir Saad Ahsanuddin.
The two friends left well paid jobs in the US to build and run a chain of multiplexes in Pakistan.
They built the first multiplex in the country a few years ago - in Rawalpindi. Now they are planning to expand across the country.
But the partners do point out that operating in Pakistan during this time of political uncertainty can be difficult.
"I think Pakistan is going to be challenging in the short term - politically," says Arif Baig Mohammad.
"We need some clarity on the political front. Economically as well, it's a little hard to say where we'll be in the short term, but the whole world is suffering economically right now.
"In the long run, however, we're very bullish on Pakistan."
For many young Pakistanis, though, it is a strong sense of duty that's drawn them back home.
It was the idea of making a difference to his nation that prompted Kamil Aziz Khan to return to Karachi from the US a few years ago. He set up a chain of coffee shops across the country.
At his third outlet in Karachi, all around there are young, trendy and opinionated Pakistanis, sipping lattes and discussing politics.
Many, like Mr Khan, have come back to their homeland only recently.
It is Pakistanis like this, he says that have a responsibility to help build the economic future of their country.
"The number of young Pakistanis coming back is amazing," he says, gulping down a double espresso.
"They're still coming back despite the troubles you see on the TV.
"They're young dynamic, full of energy full of concepts - and they can be any where else in the world, New York, Boston - anywhere - but they're still coming back.
"At the end of the day your country is your country - you're not going to feel at home anywhere else."
It is a refrain that is repeated this evening, at a barbecue television presenter Mr Sabir throws for his friends and colleagues at Dawn.
But politics, as usual, dominates the conversation, and the focus is very much on where Pakistan is headed next.
"It's politics and a cup of tea in this country," Mr Sabir says.
"Everyone talks about it - all the time. And how can you blame them? No one's quite sure what's going to happen tomorrow."
A sentiment I heard echoed by almost all of Mr Sabir's friends.
Many debate the merits of the new government versus the old one, with no real consensus reached.
All that is agreed is that there needs to be an urgent solution to Pakistan's political crisis, otherwise the economy will continue to flounder.
These young people are convinced that their future lies here in Pakistan. But whether that confidence will last is in the hands of Pakistan's new government. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27905825 | Image caption Glenn Mulcaire was jailed for six months in 2007 for illegally accessing the voicemails of members of the royal household.
News of the World hacker Glenn Mulcaire may now face prosecution for obtaining the identities of people under witness protection, Panorama has learned.
He had discovered the new identities of four notorious offenders, including one of toddler James Bulger's killers, by hacking phones, the Met Police said.
The newspaper printed several stories about Robert Thompson's new life.
It is illegal to publish anything that might reveal the new identities of people under witness protection.
The scheme protects people whose lives are at risk after being released from prison or being witnesses in court.
The BBC's Panorama has discovered the four - who include Thompson, who along with Jon Venables was convicted of murdering two-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside in February 1993, and child killer Mary Bell - have only recently been told they had been targeted by private investigator Mulcaire.
The Met found evidence of Mulcaire's breach of the scheme when he was arrested in 2006, and an officer from its own witness protection scheme met others working on the force's initial phone-hacking investigation, but it has no record of any further action being taken.
And neither News International, who owned the now-defunct tabloid, or Mulcaire were reported to the attorney general for a possible contempt of court over breaches to High Court injunctions protecting the new identities.
Former Met head of counterterrorism Bob Quick told Panorama he would have expected senior officers to have been made aware that Mulcaire had obtained the new identities.
"I would be surprised if something of that sensitivity was not briefed up the command chain to very senior levels," he said.
In 2007, Mulcaire and NoW royal editor Clive Goodman were jailed for hacking phones of members of the royal household.
Former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick told Panorama: "The witness protection scheme is a very expensive operation to give people who've been convicted of very serious offences and people who are very vulnerable witnesses... a completely new identity, so they can have a completely fresh start.
"For that information to get into the hands of journalists is potentially putting people's lives at risk.
"I would have expected an immediate thorough investigation so that we could restore confidence in the witness protection scheme."
The Met has now reported Mulcaire to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, who will decide what further action should be taken once ongoing prosecutions have concluded.
In 2009, after criticism the Met had failed to act on evidence that Mulcaire and other journalists had targeted hundreds of victims, former Assistant Commissioner John Yates decided there was no need for a fresh investigation into phone hacking.
But he told the programme he had never been briefed about Mulcaire's breach of the scheme.
He said had he been aware Mulcaire had used hacking to breach the witness protection scheme, he may well have come to a different conclusion.
The Met told Panorama Mulcaire had targeted a "small number of individuals" on the national scheme but there was no evidence police officers or staff had compromised their information.
A Met statement said: "Mulcaire obtained information on such individuals by using the same techniques as he used against celebrities, politicians and other individuals the newspapers were interested in.
"He 'blagged' personal details from third parties, used open sources and hacked the phones of people close to them."
Watch Hacking: Power, Corruption and Lies on BBC Two on 25 June on BBC iPlayer. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4310235.stm | Hong Kong's chief executive Tung Chee-hwa has decided to resign for health reasons, according to local press reports.
Mr Tung, 67, took over as leader of the former British colony when it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.
Last year, Hong Kong saw massive pro-democracy protests, as Mr Tung became increasingly unpopular. His term of office is due to end in 2007.
The government in Hong Kong has so far refused to comment on the reports.
The chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, Lee Wing-tat, said it was strange the reports had not been denied.
"If there's a widespread rumour about this thing, it's very natural for the central authority or even Mr Tung himself to stand out and make everything clear but we don't have that sign at this moment," he said.
Mr Tung also refused to respond to reporters' questions before leaving on Wednesday for a scheduled trip to Beijing, where he will take part in a meeting of the nation's top advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
The BBC's Hong Kong correspondent, Chris Hogg, says that if Mr Tung does resign, it may be announced at the end of the CPPCC meeting in 10 days' time when it is understood he will be made a vice-chairman, a position of some influence.
Such a move would allow Mr Tung to save face, our correspondent says.
His deputy, Donald Tsang, is expected to take over from him, local press reports said.
Chinese and English-language newspapers in Hong Kong added that stress and ill health would be cited as the reason for Mr Tung's resignation.
The papers said the resignation had already been accepted by China's Communist Party politburo.
Mr Tung, a former shipping tycoon, was elected by an 800-member committee loyal to Beijing and was thought to be a safe pair of hands.
But soon he was being characterised as aloof and out of touch, says our correspondent.
He was accused of mishandling major events, from the Asian financial crisis in 1997, to the Sars outbreak in 2003 which killed several hundred people and left the economy on its knees.
The Hong Kong Economic Journal reported that Beijing's faith in Mr Tung's capacity to create greater stability in Hong Kong had faded.
Many on the streets of Hong Kong said they would welcome a new leader.
"I will be happy if he goes," secretary Rosanna Chung told Reuters news agency. "He's not good. He has been slow in implementing policies."
But others expressed concern that Mr Tung's resignation could allow Beijing to tighten its control over the territory.
"Maybe Beijing has (already) decided who should succeed Tung," said pro-democracy legislator Emily Lau.
"If that's the case, it's very unfortunate because everything is being controlled and managed and Hong Kong people have no say," she said. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47619277 | Police investigating the deaths of three teenagers at a St Patrick's Day party crush have said more could easily have been killed.
CCTV showed as many as 400 people outside the hotel, the PSNI said.
They have tracked down 160 witnesses, and reassured others they will not face questions about being under-age.
"I think that we are fortunate, if that is the right word to use," said Det Ch Supt Raymond Murray.
"In these circumstances we are looking at three deaths... Bad enough, a horrendous tragedy, but we could easily could be looking at more."
A number of young people who witnessed the crush have complained about the response of security staff at the hotel as the emergency unfolded.
Eyewitness Eboney Johnston told BBC News NI that the bouncers did not appear to "realise the seriousness of what was going on".
She described seeing a toppling effect on the crowd during "pushing and shoving" in the queue.
The 16-year-old has been to the Greenvale disco before and claimed that "pushing and shoving would be normal" in the queue.
Ms Johnston explained at a previous disco at Christmas, the bouncers kept the queue in a straight line and removed any customers who were pushing and shoving, but she claimed that bouncers did not appear to take the same action on Sunday.
BBC News NI put Ms Johnston's claims to the Greenvale Hotel, but its spokeswoman replied that it was "not possible or appropriate" for the hotel to comment "while these matters are the subject of a police investigation".
As she laid flowers at the hotel gates on Tuesday, Ms Johnston praised the actions of some of the young people at the scene who tried to help those who had fallen in the crush.
"People just kept falling and falling," she recalled, explaining that some people fell over as they bent down to pick others up.
The police said a large group of young people had been waiting to get into the disco at about 21:30 GMT.
The security camera footage is being examined and police have appealed for videos captured by people at the disco.
Officers have already spoken to a number of young people who were in the queue for the event; they plan to speak to others in the coming days.
A number of parents had expressed concern that their under-age children were trying to enter the premises, added Mr Murray.
He reassured them they were not the target of police inquiries.
After discussions with the Director of the Public Prosecution Service, Stephen Herron, the PSNI had agreed "that is not an issue in this investigation", he said.
"The focus of our investigation... is about trying to find answers for the families of the three teenagers who tragically died.
"We need to know what you saw so the heartbroken families of Connor, Lauren and Morgan know what happened to their children."
A memorial service for the victims was held earlier on Tuesday in Cookstown's Holy Trinity Church, where the principal of Holy Trinity College called on pupils not to bottle up their concerns.
"Talk to the staff, talk to your parents, and let them know what is on your mind," said Isabel Russell.
"Keep yourself busy, get on with your normal routine as best as you can.
"Feelings will change over time, and how you are feeling today, tomorrow, next week, will change with time.
Catherine McHugh, principal at St Patrick's College in Dungannon, where Lauren was a pupil, described her as a "leader among her peers and a quiet, strong and loyal presence".
"A treasured friend and capable young lady with a bright future," she added.
A relative of Morgan's said he was "just a bundle of joy".
Connor was described as "much loved and highly thought of", while Lauren was an "incredible friend".
Her best friend, Cora McKay, said Lauren was "the most bubbly person you'd ever meet".
"It was just such a unique smile and she was just an incredible friend."
In a Facebook post, Edendork Gaelic Athletic Association football club said it was devastated by the death of "much loved and highly thought of" player and member Connor.
"Connor will forever be remembered with the greatest affection by all associated with our club and indeed the wider Edendork community."
A relative of Morgan's said he was "just a bundle of joy, always bouncing around, he seemed to have a lot of energy in him - a gentleman, he was."
Fintan Donnelly, the principal of St Patrick's Academy in Dungannon, where the two boys were pupils, said the tragedy had "had a huge impact on the whole school community".
Books of condolence have also been opened in Cookstown, Dungannon and Magherafelt.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley, visited Cookstown on Tuesday to offer her condolences to all those affected by the tragedy.
She met members of the emergency services and council representatives and thanked them for their efforts in the aftermath of the crush.
Eyewitness Eimear Tallon recalled the horror in a Facebook post on Monday.
"No matter how much we screamed and pushed back, there was no movement," she said.
"Two of my friends fell to the ground. I tried to pull them up but at that point there was no room for them to even come back up.
"With more and more pushing, I also fell.
"But the thing about me was that I wasn't on the ground, I was on top of someone, and this person was on top of someone else."
On Monday, prayer services were held at the two neighbouring schools and at the Edendork club.
Fr Kevin Donaghy, parish priest of Dungannon, spent several hours with the pupils.
He said several hundred had attended, many with their parents, despite it being a bank holiday in Northern Ireland.
He recognised the concern within the wider community at what had happened.
"That's certainly something that people do feel, you know: 'There but for the grace of God goes my child who was there,'" Fr Donaghy told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster.
"There is a sense of that coming through, too, and, no doubt, many of the young people who came along to support each other maybe had been at the event as well." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8711216.stm | Six would-be astronauts will this week begin a 520-day mock space voyage to simulate a mission to Mars. How will they cope with the huge psychological pressures?
Deep in outer space, millions of miles from civilisation, they say no-one can hear you scream.
The same may not be true of a warehouse in Moscow's suburbs. But here an audacious experiment is about to try to replicate the cramped, claustrophobic conditions of a voyage across the Solar System.
From 3 June, the Mars 500 project will send a "crew" of six on a simulated 520-day round trip to the Red Planet and back.
The cosmonauts - three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian - will live and work as interplanetary travellers, spending eight hours a day working on maintenance and scientific experiments, eight hours at leisure and eight hours sleeping.
Organisers at the European Space Agency and Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems hope that the project will offer an insight into how such a mission would function. But above all, the most significant assessment they will make will be how it affects the subjects psychologically.
Any communication between the crew and mission control will be subject to 20-minute delay to simulate the time it would take for signals to reach Earth. Meanwhile, cameras will monitor them 24 hours a day.
With no access to telephones, internet or natural light, breathing only recycled air and showering once every 10 days, the men are certain to have both their individual mental states and group dynamics tested to the limits in the 550-cubic-metre simulator.
The ultimate aim is to prepare for and support a successful mission to Mars, which will return with the whole crew in good, stable psychological and emotional health.
Looking to analogous situations, the isolation environments of Antarctic research bases and submariners suggest the top two psychiatric diagnoses are anxiety reactions and depression.
Preparations therefore need to include capacity to diagnose and manage these conditions as well as considering other rarer, but potentially more dangerous, psychiatric conditions such as an acute psychotic episode.
Through appropriate selection, training and in-flight support it is likely the majority of crew members in both Mars 500 and any real mission will cope with the array of psychological challenges they face without any undue effects on themselves, other crew or the mission.
The scenario is one that already has deep resonance in popular culture. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris, Duncan Jones's 2009 award-winning sci-fi film Moon and, of course, A Space Oddity, the breakthrough single by Jones's father David Bowie, all use the device of space travel to explore themes of alienation and loneliness.
But if art offers an ominous foretelling of the experiment, the scientists running it are confident that real life will be different.
Patrik Sundblad, head of life science at the Esa's European Space Research and Technology Centre, says each of the crew members have been subject to careful vetting to ensure that all are both psychologically robust and motivated enough to cope with their mission.
He also believes that the information it will generate will be of crucial importance not just to any future Mars voyage, but to the broader understanding of human psychology.
"The real value of this project is that we can obtain data that would be very difficult to obtain any other way," he says. "We can monitor them 24/7 - that's very difficult to do in any other setting.
"We can learn a lot about group dynamics and work out how to counteract any changes if they are not positive."
Few would doubt that the conditions will put the crew under enormous pressure - not least given that one of the Russians, Alexei Sitev, 38, was married only four weeks before beginning the mock voyage.
And while Esa insisted that team spirit remained high during an earlier, 105-day simulation, the length of the mission means that the cosmonauts will be metaphorically flying into uncharted territory.
Prof Paddy O'Donnell, a social psychologist at Glasgow University, is intrigued by the experiment, having studied earlier research into the effects on individual and group psychology of space travel.
He says the most significant point may come around six to eight months into the mission when, studies of submariners and Antarctic research teams have suggested, any tensions are most likely to begin to flare.
The biggest dangers, he says, are boredom; crew members forging emotional bonds, positive and negative, which undermine their professionalism; and, worst of all, the group sub-dividing into social cliques.
The way to get round all this this, he says, is clear leadership, explicit divisions of labour and very strict routines.
"Routines and habits are very calming," he adds. "You don't have to think all that much."
Prof O'Donnell acknowledges that separation from loved ones will be a huge psychological challenge for the cosmonauts.
But he believes two factors will count in their favour. One is that the crew members are scientists, who "tend to be relatively introverted and low on neuroticism - these are practical people and you'd expect them to work together".
Another is that they know they are on camera. "When you're visible, you're more likely to follow the rules," he adds.
What the six will not experience, however, is the impact of weightlessness or, indeed, the terror and euphoria that comes with real-life space travel.
"Astronauts usually experience a great deal of stress on take-off," he says. "But after a few days - once they've gone round the Moon, as it were - they report an enhanced sense of individual well-being and morale.
"They also tend to report a transcendental experience that comes from being in space and looking down on the planet - obviously, this experiment can't allow for that."
What is more, the fact that the mission is simulated is likely to have an effect of its own.
Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, a space scientist with the satellite manufacturer EADS Astrium and a strong advocate of a manned mission to Mars, believes that the experiment will be extremely valuable - but expects that the main difference between a real and simulated voyage will be the difficulty for the crew in maintaining motivation.
"I think the main challenge for them will be trying to maintain motivation for a long period of time," she says.
"It's far less likely this would be a problem if you really were going to Mars. But the danger is that because you know you're really in a hangar in Moscow, you start thinking: 'I can't be bothered'."
Nonetheless, the crew members will know that, if a mission to the Red Planet ever does take place, they will have played a significant part in it.
And that alone may be enough to get them through all 520 days.
Below is a selection of comments.
Make it like a shed, men would survive for years.
If humankind is to survive and thrive, then sooner or later - preferably sooner - we will have to adapt to life in space. Whether you believe our current civilisation is 20,000 years old or two years old, unplanned change happens all the time and we have too many eggs in this one basket.
A far more realistic and practical experiment would be to send a real crew on a real mission for 520 days exploring below the oceans. That would replicate more precisely the real life conditions for astronauts as well as providing useful scientific data.
Good luck to the crew, and everyone involved in the experiment. I can't imagine the determination required... but the value to any possible Mars mission must be immense. I hope it works out well for the whole team.
The conditions in a real journey to Mars would be so different emotionally and physically that it is highly unlikely that the results of this "experiment" will be of any real value. I predict the experiment being aborted prematurely and/or at least one of the crew ending up in a hospital or dead.
If any of the group develop an unexpected serious physical condition during the experiment will it be dealt with as if they were in space or will they be allowed to leave to seek medical attention?
The test subjects/scientists are truly devoting a large portion of their life helping to further our quest for interplanetary exploration, for which great respect from people like me is deserved. Good luck to them and fingers crossed that we can function for 520 days without too many problems!
This is bizarre. The experiment will simply demonstrate the effects on the group dynamics of six individuals who are acutely aware that they've signed up to live in a glorified Wendy house for 520 days. Why not trick the volunteers into believing they really are travelling to Mars and back?
To the naysayers - of course it isn't a perfect simulation of a real trip, but surely this will be better than no trial run at all?
This would make a good reality TV show, if only they were English-speaking degenerates with a tremendous sense of entitlement.
A study like this will be important, yet is there the political and economic will from the countries to send a man to Mars? As per science fiction, humans should have made significant advances in space travel by now. However comparatively we have achieved very little. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3257165.stm | This week computer viruses celebrate 20 years of causing trouble and strife to all types of computer users.
US student Fred Cohen was behind the first documented virus that was created as an experiment in computer security.
Now there are almost 60,000 viruses in existence and they have gone from being a nuisance to a permanent menace.
Virus writers have adapted to new technology as it has emerged and the most virulent programs use the net to find new victims and cause havoc.
Mr Cohen created his first virus when studying for a PhD at the University of Southern California.
Others had written about the potential for creating pernicious programs but Mr Cohen was the first to demonstrate a working example.
In the paper describing his work he defined a virus as "a program that can 'infect' other programs by modifying them to include a ... version of itself".
Mr Cohen added his virus to a graphics program called VD that was written for a make of mini-computer called a Vax.
The virus hid inside VD and used the permissions users had to look at other parts of the Vax computer to spread around the system.
In all the tests carried out by Mr Cohen the virus managed to grab the right to reach any part of the system in less than an hour. The fastest time was five minutes.
The creation of the virus gave rise to such consternation that other tests were banned, but Mr Cohen did manage to demonstrate a similar virus working on other computer systems.
In the paper Mr Cohen prophetically wrote: "they can spread through computer networks in the same way as they spread through computers, and thus present a widespread and fairly immediate threat to many current systems."
Soon after this pioneering work viruses written for the IBM personal computer, which had only just been created, started to appear.
The first of these is widely acknowledged to be the "Brain" virus that emerged in 1986 from Pakistan and was, apparently, written to help its creators monitor piracy of their computer programs.
The emergence of Brain kicked off lots of other viruses such as Lehigh, Jerusalem, Cascade and Miami.
All these were aimed at PC users and travelled in floppy disks that passed around as the programs they held were used on different computers. Though they were a nuisance to those they caught out they were something of a rarity.
Efforts to spot and stop viruses forced creators of the malicious programs to find ways of hiding their creations sometimes by making them change form to avoid detection.
In 1992 the Michelangelo virus, that was due to strike on 6 March, caught the media's attention but the chaos it was predicted to cause never materialised.
As Windows emerged virus writers began targeting the new operating system.
This led to an explosion in so-called "macro" viruses that exploited the crude utility writing program in Microsoft Word.
These viruses were much more widespread because people shared far more documents than they did the programs that early viruses piggy-backed upon.
As Windows has emerged in successive versions, virus writers have kept pace with the new technology.
The Melissa virus that struck in March 1999 marked a new trend as it combined a macro virus with one that plundered the address book of Microsoft Outlook to e-mail itself to new victims.
The success of Melissa was largely due to the fact that the net was becoming increasingly popular and the most successful viruses of recent times have exploited weaknesses in e-mail programs or net connected PCs.
Almost every year since 2000 has seen the unleashing of a virulent program that uses the net to travel.
The Love Bug struck in 2000 and was followed by the Nimda and Code Red viruses that swamped net connections.
More recently we have had Sobig, Palyh, Slammer and MSBlast viruses that have spread further and caused more havoc than early virus writers could have ever imagined. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lincolnshire/4977508.stm | A Lincolnshire councillor has been suspended from the county's Racial Equality Council (REC) over his links to the British National Party.
The Conservative Robert West, who is on South Holland District Council, is being investigated by his party.
The REC said allegations he addressed a BNP meeting are wholly incompatible with its aim and objectives.
Mr West, who said he had no knowledge of the suspension, had previously said the public misjudged the BNP.
Vice chairman of the REC, Sidney McFarlene, said: "A motion to suspend Mr West from the council was put before the district council and was not even seconded. But if they won't do it, then we will do it ourselves.
"What is particularly concerning is that he was suspended by the local Conservative association but subsequently reinstated while still being investigated by the national party."
Mr McFarlene said an independent panel was being formed to which Mr West would be invited to put his views.
He confirmed the allegations concerned both Mr West addressing a meeting of the BNP and the publication of "opinions and quotes".
The REC has also written to South Holland District Council to request it also reviews his position.
Mr West was suspended from the local party for a short time before being reinstated.
He said: "I believe it is important we debate and engage with all sections of the political world.
"After I had a chance to explain my views a call for my suspension did not even get seconded in the council chamber.
"I do not subscribe to the idea I should have to get my every move and action passed by those at the top."
A spokesman for the Conservatives has said Mr West's future with the party is to be considered by its national board. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31587651 | French authorities have for the first time confiscated the passports of six nationals who were allegedly planning to travel to Syria to join jihadists.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the intelligence services believed the men wanted to join the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
The measure is part of new counter-terrorism laws adopted last November.
Meanwhile, France has deployed an aircraft carrier off Bahrain to be used against Islamic State (IS) militants.
Planes from the Charles de Gaulle carrier will be used against IS positions in Iraq, a spokesman for Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
The first Rafale fighter jet took off on Monday morning from the carrier as it sailed about 200km (120 miles) off the northern coast of Bahrain.
Correspondents say that the deployment of the warship will halve the time it takes for military aircraft - which normally fly from the United Arab Emirates - to reach Iraq.
France began Operation Chammal in support of the US-led coalition against IS in September.
Mr Cazeneuve said authorities had acted against the six men after their departure to Syria appeared to be imminent.
Their passports and identity cards have been confiscated for six months, after which the order can be renewed. They have the right to appeal against the move in court.
France is not the only European country that can now confiscate passports from would-be jihadists to stop them from travelling to Syria.
In the UK, police can now seize the passports for up to 30 days from nationals trying to leave the country, and can temporarily prevent citizens suspected of involvement with Islamic State from re-entering Britain. The Home Secretary says she has removed passports from 25 suspected jihadists.
German law allows authorities to seize passports, but not personal identity cards that allow entry to EU countries and to Turkey - a gateway to Syria for jihadists. A new draft law would allow the removal of identity cards and their replacement with a document banning foreign travel.
In Sweden, the government is drafting a law that would allow the confiscation of passports from people known to have fought alongside jihadists in the Middle East.
According to French media, some of the men were reported to the authorities by relatives using a newly established telephone hotline, while others were identified by police investigations.
French officials quoted by the Reuters news agency estimate that about 400 French citizens are in Syria, 180 have returned to France, 200 want to go and 200 are somewhere in Europe trying to get there.
France has been on alert after 17 people were killed in attacks on the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in January.
UK officials think some 600 Britons have fought in Syria, with 300 having returned. Police can now seize passports for up to 30 days from nationals trying to leave the country, in addition to temporarily stopping citizens suspected of involvement with IS from entering Britain.
Last week, three British schoolgirls were said to have left London to travel to Syria through Turkey.
Media caption"A woman and two men from ISIS wait at the border"
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said that Turkey was working intensively with the British authorities to trace the three schoolgirls.
Thousands of foreigners from more than 80 nations have joined Islamic State and other radical groups in Syria and Iraq, many crossing through Turkey. However, correspondents say they only represent a small amount of the total number of IS fighters.
Turkey has said it needs more information from the West if it is to intercept them. Mr Kalin said that his country had already deported 1,400 people suspected of attempting to join extremist groups. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-47588795 | Image caption Bethan Colebourn's family said she "brought joy to people's lives"
A mother who murdered her three-year-old daughter following the break-up of her marriage has been jailed for life.
Claire Colebourn, 36, drowned Bethan in a bath at their family home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in 2017.
Colebourn tried to take her own life after killing her daughter but was revived by paramedics. She was found guilty of murder on Friday.
She showed no emotion as the judge at Winchester Crown Court told her she must serve at least 18 years.
Mrs Justice Johannah Cutts said Bethan was "a beautiful little girl who was full of life. She had everything to live for".
The judge said Colebourn should have asked for help after her life became an "emotional rollercoaster" when her marriage broke down and her husband left the family home.
Despite being in a "highly emotional state" there was "no evidence of mental illness" and there was "no excuse" for the killing, the judge said.
"You were her mother, you were responsible for her care and her wellbeing.
"You wanted to deny your husband the chance to bring up Bethan. Bethan was entitled to and deserved a life," the judge added.
In a statement released through the police, Michael Colebourn said: "There are no words to describe the past 18 months. The one thing in my life that gave me purpose has gone.
"My beautiful daughter has been taken from me in such a cold and callous manner at the very hands of the one other person that should have protected her and kept her safe.
"Throughout the criminal trial, I, and all those that loved Bethan have had to endure the heartbreak of listening to her last moments.
"I desperately miss being a daddy - we would have such great times together; Bethan's laugh was infectious and her energy was endless. There is not a second in the day that goes by that I am not thinking about her."
Former biology teacher Colebourn was found guilty of murder by unanimous verdict on Friday after the 11-strong jury deliberated for two hours. She did not react as the verdict was delivered.
Bethan was found lying in bed at her home in Whitsbury Road by her grandmother on 19 October 2017. Paramedics were unable to revive her.
Prosecutors said Colebourn had an "unfounded" belief that her husband Michael, a company chief executive, was having an affair.
In a Facebook post Colebourn wrote: "Michael walked out on his family on 7 September and we haven't seen him since.
"He has been having an affair with his financial director at work. Everything has been pre-planned.
"They are aiming to conquer the business and set up a new life together."
Colebourn set an alarm for 03:00 and then took Bethan to the bathroom where she ran a bath and drowned her.
She had told police: "She woke up... she put her hands on my cheeks, told me she loved me and said 'I don't want a bath, mummy, I don't want a bath'."
She then attempted to take own life by repeatedly injecting herself with insulin.
During the trial, it was heard Colebourn had searched for websites about suicide and drowning.
Karim Khalil QC, defending, said Colebourn appeared to have a personality disorder but this was disputed by experts.
Colebourn has spent nearly a year in custody which will be deducted from the minimum term before she faces the parole board which will determine whether she is ever released. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7515761.stm | One of the five British hostages held captive by militants in Iraq has killed himself, a video obtained by the Sunday Times has claimed.
The tape, purporting to come from the group holding the men, alleges that a man known as Jason died on 25 May 2008.
British officials say they are not able to corroborate the claim.
Armed militants, disguised as police officers, kidnapped the four bodyguards and a computer expert at the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May 2007.
The bodyguards worked for security company Gardaworld and the fifth man worked for American management consultancy Bearingpoint.
In the video, Arabic writing is shown as well as images of two other hostages.
The group which is holding them calls itself the Islamic Shia Resistance in Iraq.
In December, the kidnappers released a videotape of their hostages.
It is understood that the man alleged to have committed suicide is the same Jason who appeared in this previous video.
His family are said to have been informed last week.
A statement, claiming to come from the captors, accuses the British Government of failing to respond to their messages.
"This procrastination and foot-dragging and lack of seriousness on the part of the British government has prolonged their psychological deterioration, pushing one of them, Jason, to commit suicide on 25/5/2008," the statement ran.
"He surprised our brethren, who were taking care of him, with his suicide."
The video also shows another British hostage, Alan, who comes from Dumbarton, appealing to the British government to meet his captors' demands for the release of prisoners.
"Physically, I'm not doing well," he says.
"Psychologically, I'm doing a lot worse.
"I want to see my family again."
However, he makes no reference to Jason's alleged suicide.
According to the Sunday Times, an intermediary who handed the video to its representative said Jason had attempted suicide on two previous occasions.
Proof of his death would be handed over if the British government agreed to negotiate with the militants, the intermediary added.
The men were snatched in broad daylight by around 40 men dressed as Iraqi police officers.
In the previous film, dated 18 November, the militants said they would kill one of the men as a "first warning" unless the UK forces left Iraq within 10 days.
The tape, filmed in front of an "Islamic Shia Resistance in Iraq" flag, shows one man giving his name, saying he has been held for 173 days and adding: "I feel we have been forgotten."
Foreign Secretary David Miliband responded to the latest tape by condemning kidnapping as "disgusting".
It "will cause deep distress and concern to the families of the five men", he added.
However, he said the government remained open to working with anyone who can help free the men.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he had raised the case of the five men with his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri Maliki, during his visit to Baghdad. He said he had also raised the issue with "Americans and others who are active in Iraq".
In a statement, the prime minister said: "This abhorrent film will only add to the anguish of families who have suffered a great deal over a year for their loved ones who have been kept in captivity.
"I call on the hostage takers to release these people who have been held in captivity immediately."
The hostages' friends and relatives marked the first anniversary of their capture in May by appealing for the hostages to be released.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has always maintained that sensitive negotiations for the men's release are going on behind the scenes.
One of the hostages has been identified as Peter Moore, originally from Lincoln, who was working as a computer consultant.
The identities of the four other men have not been confirmed.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner warned that there were numerous reports that his colleague Alan Johnston was killed after he was kidnapped in Gaza - all of which turned out to be inaccurate.
He added that the Iraqi captors appeared to want to do a prisoner exchange deal with the British government, and were not thought to be "bloodthirsty" in the same manner as al-Qaeda. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-47964664/sudan-crisis-no-method-to-this-madness | ‘No method to this madness' in Sudan Jump to media player Sudanese society remains divided, says opposition politician Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani.
A former adviser to deposed President Omar al-Bashir, Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani, has said that Sudanese society remains divided and while he is sympathetic to the younger generations, their protests show “inexperience”.
“I cannot predict what is going to happen tomorrow, all I know is the politics we are practising today and the last five days is unorthodox, is unconventional and therefore you cannot draw conclusions,” he told BBC Hardtalk’s Zeinab Badawi.
Mr Atabani is now the president of the opposition group Reform Now.
Months of protests in Sudan led to the ousting and arrest of the long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir last week. Mr Bashir has now been moved to Kobar maximum security prison.
You can see the Hardtalk interview in full on Wednesday 17 April on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel and after on BBCiPlayer (UK only). |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-41699235 | An exhibition chronicling "England's last revolution" has opened.
The Pentrich Uprising, in which hundreds of labourers marched upon Nottingham from Pentrich, Derbyshire, resulted in executions, deportations and imprisonment.
A block on which three men were beheaded features in the exhibit, which marks 200 years since the failed attempt to topple the government.
The exhibition is at the National Justice Museum in Nottingham.
Through a series of exhibits - including a souvenir chamber-pot - the exhibition shows the events and personalities behind the uprising.
Encouraged by a government spy, political radicals talked starving workers into marching on Nottingham on 9 June 1817, in the expectation of widespread and co-ordinated protests.
With little popular support and after the death of a uncooperative villager, they were dispersed and hunted down by local militia.
Patrick Cook, from the Pentrich and South Wingfield Revolution Group, said: "This exhibition is coming back to the cradle of the revolution, because it was planned in Nottingham.
"It's important to be in the Justice museum because it is an example of a show trial, rigged against the defendants with the aim of suppressing further dissent."
The National Justice Museum is housed in a former prison where many of the conspirators were held.
Senior curator Bev Baker said: "Dealing with revolution and high treason, this event highlights a dark park of history for the legal system.
"We are used to democracy now as a right but this is a reminder of when asking for democracy could see you hanged." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26052894 | Image caption The second line is in Tamil ... but it says "dogs" instead of "mothers"
Sri Lanka's government has apologised for errors in translating official notices and documents into the language of the minority Tamil community.
A number of mistakes have been highlighted recently in local media.
One was of a sign that read "Reserved for pregnant mothers" in Sinhala and English. A mistake changed that to "Reserved for pregnant dogs" in Tamil.
Officials stress that sloppiness was to blame and there was never any intention to insult Tamils.
Sri Lanka emerged from a long civil war between the Sinhala-dominated army and Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009.
Minister for National Languages and Social Integration, Vasudeva Nanayakara, told BBC Tamil that the mistakes had been made by people not fluent in Tamil.
"Sometimes, also translations into Sinhala in mainly Tamil areas are wrong, as there are not enough Tamil people in those areas fluent in Sinhala," he added.
Some Tamils say it is quite common to find mistakes in their language.
"Tamils find language errors in name boards on buses, streets and many government official buildings," says a local Tamil rights activist, S Balakrishnan.
They also allege that Tamils find it difficult when visiting government offices as many officials can't speak Tamil fluently.
The issue of language in Sri Lanka is highly sensitive.
In 1956, the government decided to replace English as the country's official language with Sinhala, the language of the majority.
But it did not give official status to Tamil.
Many Tamils lost government jobs because they were not fluent in Sinhala.
Although the policy was eventually amended, the decision contributed to a growing sense of alienation in the Tamil minority.
Confrontation between the two communities erupted into full-scale civil war in 1983, with the Tamil Tigers fighting for a separate homeland.
Two years ago, the government started a 10-year plan to implement what it describes as a trilingual policy.
It says the aim is to give English official status alongside Sinhala and Tamil, both of which are now official languages under the constitution.
The government will print name boards in all three languages in all government offices throughout the country, according to Minister Vasudeva Nanayakara.
The minister called on people to come forward of their own accord with examples of mistakes in Tamil.
But Tamil activists called on the minister to appoint a group to check for mistakes so they could be corrected immediately. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-40701121 | Vietnam has reportedly terminated a gas-drilling expedition in a disputed area of the South China Sea, following strong threats from China.
A source in the south-east Asian oil industry has told the BBC that the company behind the drilling, Repsol of Spain, was ordered to leave the area.
It comes only days after it had confirmed the existence of a major gas field.
Those reports have been corroborated by a Vietnamese diplomatic source.
According to the industry source, Repsol executives were told last week by the government in Hanoi that China had threatened to attack Vietnamese bases in the Spratly Islands if the drilling did not stop.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, including reefs and islands also contested by other nations.
The drilling expedition began last month in an area of sea about 400km (250 miles) off Vietnam's south-east coast.
The Vietnamese call the region Block 136-03 and have leased it to a company called Talisman-Vietnam, a subsidiary of Repsol.
China calls it Wanan Bei-21 and has leased the same piece of seabed to a different company.
Exactly which company is not clear. In 2015, the Chinese rights were sold to a Hong Kong-listed company called Brightoil, but it has recently denied owning them.
Two of the directors of Brightoil are senior members of the Chinese Communist Party.
Talisman-Vietnam was formerly owned by the Canadian company Talisman, but since 2015 has been part of the Spanish-owned Repsol group.
One analyst, who did not want to be named, estimated that Repsol has spent about $300m on developing the field so far.
It has therefore come as a surprise to observers that Vietnam should have backed down so quickly.
In 2014 coastguard vessels and other ships belonging to China and Vietnam confronted each other in a different area of the South China Sea, further north, near the Paracel Islands.
Since then the two countries have tried to avoid confrontation. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/e/east_stirlingshire/1166062.stm | Brian Ross has become the new manager of Third Division East Stirlingshire.
Ross has been assistant to George Fairley, who quit last week to become Clyde's general manager.
Shire chief executive Les Thomson told the Sun: "Brian gives us the continuity we need."
Ross played for Airdrieonians, Ayr United and East Stirlingshire.
He said: "It will be 10 years in March since I first came to this club as a player.
"I am delighted to get the chance to take over as manager."
Links to top East Stirlingshire stories are at the foot of the page. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/5191740.stm | Experts have issued safety advice as Scotland continues to swelter in the summer heatwave.
Temperatures nudged 30C this week, with Aberdeen experiencing its hottest day since records began.
Scotland's chief medical officer has advised people to drink plenty of water and stay out of the sun at the hottest times of the day.
The RNLI has warned people of the dangers of using inflatables in the water off Scotland's coast.
Colin Millar, of Troon lifeboat team, said: "We've rescued many children who have been swept out to sea due to the offshore winds.
"Lilos may be fun in the swimming pool but they are not safe on the sea.
"If you see someone on a lilo being swept out to sea, don't go after them, ring 999 or 112 immediately."
Thousands of people flocked to the beach in Aberdeen on Monday as temperatures reached 29.8C.
More than 1,100 people visited the open air swimming pool in nearby Stonehaven, giving the attraction its busiest day for decades.
Mary Mitchell, the chairwoman of the Friends of the Pool, said: "It's a long time since I remember it being so busy, I'd have to go back to the 1970s I think."
The area was cooler on Tuesday, with temperatures falling to 19.5C.
However, the south and west of the country continued to see high temperatures.
Prestwick Airport reached 28C at noon, while there were figures of 26.9C at Threave in Dumfriesshire, 26C in Glasgow and 22C in Edinburgh.
With the hot spell set to continue, Chief Medical Officer Dr Harry Burns issued advice about being safe in the sun.
"The most important thing to remember in hot weather is to keep properly hydrated by drinking lots of water," he said.
"The public should be sun aware and should avoid sitting in direct sunshine between 1200 BST and 1500 BST, when the sun is at its hottest.
"You should stay cool by using fans or sitting in the shade and if you are going to be in the sun, you should use UVA protective lotions and wear a hat."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1701778.stm | Businesses across Venezuela are closed on Monday in a general strike called to protest at President Hugo Chavez's alleged authoritarian style of government.
The 12-hour stoppage is the first in the country's more than 40 years of democracy to be joined by both the country's business leaders and unions.
With Mr Chavez's popularity slipping in recent months, it is being seen as his government's biggest test since coming to power three years ago.
"Venezuela will not stop for anybody, not least the oligarchy," Mr Chavez confidently assured listeners in his weekly radio address.
The oligarchy he was referring to is Venezuela's largest business association, Fedecamaras.
It called the strike after accusing the government of failing to consult the private sector over 49 recently-passed laws which the president says are vital for the country's economic health.
They say a land reform law and another that covers the oil sector which generates 89% of the nation's earnings are hostile to private investment.
Also controversial is a coastal law which says the state now owns all land 80 metres above the high tide mark - an area equivalent to the size of Belgium.
The Fedecamaras president, Pedro Carmona, said it could mean the biggest confiscation of private property in Venezuela's modern history, and has called on Mr Chavez to modify the laws.
So far, Mr Chavez is refusing to do so, saying they represent his efforts to promote social justice in a country where more than two-thirds of the people live in poverty.
The last time business leaders and unions united in a strike, the then Venezuelan dictator, General Marcos Perez Jimenez, was forced to flee the country.
That is unlikely to happen with Mr Chavez, who remains popular with the poor.
But if the strike receives widespread backing, he may be forced to adopt a more conciliatory tone in future. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/5013194.stm | A lecturer at a West Yorkshire university has abolished traditional lectures in favour of podcasts.
Dr Bill Ashraf, a senior lecturer in microbiology at Bradford University, says the move will free up time for more small group teaching.
He told The Times Higher Education Supplement that first year biochemistry students would watch or listen to virtual lectures in their own time.
Students will access the podcasts via their MP3 player, phone or computer.
Students will ask questions about lectures via text message, which will be answered in Dr Ashraf's blog.
The lecturer has also been putting his appointment times online so students can check if he is available or book a meeting without coming into the university.
Dr Ashraf said the move would better suit the needs of distance learners, part-time students and those balancing studies with family and work.
He said: "Some lecture classes have 250 students, so I question the effectiveness of a didactic lecture for an hour." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7067450.stm | A Japanese politician has attempted to justify plans to fingerprint foreigners by claiming he knows an al-Qaeda member who entered the country illegally.
Justice minister Kunio Hatoyama said the man was a "friend of a friend" who was involved in a bomb attack on Bali.
He produced no evidence to back up his claim, but said it showed the need for stricter checks on overseas visitors.
Later he appeared to backtrack, stressing he had not met the man and could not verify his friend's claims.
From 20 November almost all foreign visitors and overseas workers will be photographed and fingerprinted as they enter the country.
The measures have already proved controversial, with Amnesty International labelling the system as discriminatory and "a violation of basic human rights".
But Mr Hatoyama used the story of the al-Qaeda member to argue that the threat of terrorism justified the new measures.
"My friend's friend is a member of al-Qaeda. I have never met him, but I heard that two or three years ago he came to Japan several times," he told a press conference.
"The fact is that such foreign people can easily enter Japan. In terms of security, this is not a preferable situation."
The minister also claimed his friend had warned him of the Bali bombing - although there have been two major terrorist attacks on the Indonesian island in recent years and he did not specify which one he was referring to.
Later, Mr Hatoyama cast doubt on all of these claims, saying he had been "unclear and misleading".
He denied he had been warned of any attack on Bali before it had happened.
"I myself am not a friend of anyone who is thought to be a member of [al-Qaeda] and I don't know them personally. I can't verify the authenticity of what my friend said."
Japanese officials plan to check foreigners' fingerprints against international and domestic crime databases to root out potential terrorists and people with criminal records.
Certain permanent residents, such as ethnic Koreans and Chinese, will be exempt, alongside diplomatic visitors and children. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2785041.stm | A thief who battered a night-watchman to death with a hammer and crowbar has been jailed for life.
Callum Allen, 31, of Draycott, Derbyshire, lashed out at the worker more than 10 times at the Thorntons toffeee factory, in Belper.
He had broken in to plunder the site's gaming machines.
Allen, who had denied murder, said he had broken into the factory on 12 August, 2001, to take revenge on his former employers and a former colleague who had taunted him for being gay.
The court heard Allen, who had worked as a security guard at the factory between 1997 and 2000, went to the site armed with a claw hammer and a crowbar.
When confronted, he bludgeoned father-of-three Jasvinder Singh Bohgan to death.
Mr Bohgan, 42, was found in a pool of blood by two workers arriving for an early shift.
Jailing Allen, Mr Justice Gage said: "Having just broken into the Thorntons factory in Belper you came across the sole security guard and you attacked him with a hammer and a crowbar.
"Having disabled him you dragged him into a carport, next to his car, and savagely beat him round the head with a hammer.
"This was a brutal and truly shocking murder. You are a dangerous and devious man."
"By your actions you have taken the life of an entirely innocent man who was doing nothing more than carrying out his duties."
Following the verdict, Detective Superintendent Jack Russell, of Derbyshire Police, said: "The family are pleased that Allen has been found guilty and happy with the fact that he has been given a life sentence.
"They can never forget Jas, and this will be of little comfort, but they now feel that they can put the incident behind them and try to move on with their lives."
Allen was handed a life sentence for murder and two concurrent three-year sentences for burglaries at the factory. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7523398.stm | At least one person per household in England's planned eco-towns should be able to have a car-free journey to work, the government has said.
The average home should be within a 10-minute walk of "frequent" buses or trains plus shops and other services, housing minister Caroline Flint added.
Up to 10 zero-carbon towns are planned, each with 5,000 to 20,000 properties.
But the Local Government Association said it was not the government's role to draw up and approve such schemes.
It argued these powers should remain with local authorities to ensure the proposals were given "proper scrutiny".
However the government insisted applications would still go before councils as with "the normal planning process" and eco-towns would have to comply with existing planning rules.
Several "standards" have been set out which each eco-town would have to meet.
These include ensuring 40% of land is green space and placing at least 30% of homes in the "affordable" category.
Each home would also have to meet certain targets for waste recycling, water efficiency and pollution, which Ms Flint said would be "the toughest standards ever set out for new development".
Fifteen sites across England were included on a shortlist announced by the government in April but two have now pulled out.
Up to 10 bids will be selected by the start of 2009, and must then go through the planning process.
The Local Government Association's chairman, Sir Simon Milton, said his organisation was not opposed to eco-towns as ways to meet housing needs and to tackle climate change.
But he argued "a new approach" was needed to ensure all proposals were properly assessed, and good transport links were established alongside high-quality facilities "where people would want to live".
Among the opponents of the scheme is the Bard campaign against a proposed development near Stratford upon Avon, which has applied for a judicial review of the process.
Lawyers for that campaign do not believe the eco-towns will necessarily provide enough suitable jobs in appropriate locations so at least one person per household can arrive at work on foot, bike or public transport.
They have said it was unclear if shortlisted developers would be rejected if they did not outline how they would meet the government's standards. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10104039 | An Education actress Carey Mulligan has donated the dress she wore to the Baftas to charity Oxfam.
The black-and-white gown will be displayed in a temporary Oxfam shop in the basement of Selfridges, in London, for a week from Friday.
The monochrome dress, made for the 24-year-old British actress by French label Vionnet, will then be auctioned with a starting price of £50.
Mulligan picked up this year's best actress Bafta in the dress.
Money raised from the sale will help Oxfam's women's projects throughout the world.
"I'm honoured to be able to donate my Bafta dress to support Oxfam's work helping women living in extreme poverty across the world," Mulligan said.
Vintage and high-end pieces will also be sold in the pop-up charity shop, which will run from Friday 14 to Thursday 20 May. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36529633 | The chief constable has said he is surprised the police ombudsman did not recommend criminal charges for officers he said colluded with a UVF gang that killed six Catholics 22 years ago.
A report into the attack on the Heights Bar in Loughinisland by the ombudsman last week said the killers had been protected from investigation.
But Michael Maguire did not use powers to have any officers involved arrested.
He also did not send files to the Public Prosecution Service.
The ombudsman has said there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges.
Families of the victims of the Loughinisland attack said they had been vindicated by the report's findings, and called for all of those involved to be brought to justice.
It is the responsibility of the police ombudsman to investigate alleged criminal behaviour by current and former police officers.
His investigators also have the power to arrest suspects, and can recommend that they face charges.
Mr Maguire was highly critical of some of former members of RUC Special Branch.
He said police informers involved in the Loughinisland attack, and the importation of a huge consignment of weapons from South Africa, had been protected.
"Some police officers appeared to place more value on gathering information and protecting their sources than on the prevention and detection of crime," he said.
But he did not have any of the former officers arrested, and did not recommend to the Public Prosecution Service that they should face charges.
In an interview for Tuesday night's BBC Spotlight programme, the chief constable has expressed surprise.
"There does seem to be some sort of distance between the strength of the language in the report, in the fact that we're not having police officers even reported to the PPS," he said.
"If I got to a point where I was convinced in a very clear way that collusion was a key element of the Loughinisland murders then I'd be looking to take that conclusion into evidence through arrests, interviews, charges."
A former police ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, told Spotlight that bringing charges would be extremely difficult because of the relationship between police informants and their handlers.
"The problem that you have when you do these investigations as a police ombudsman is that the paramilitaries with whom the police officers were colluding are the witnesses for the police ombudsman, and the police officers whom the police ombudsman is investigating are the witnesses for the police investigating the paramilitaries," she said.
The current ombudsman has said that while there was sufficient evidence for him to say some police officers had been involved in collusion, there was not enough evidence to support criminal charges.
In a statement to the BBC, Michael Maguire said their investigation found evidence "that crimes may have been committed but with the passage of time some witnesses were no longer available, some documentation was missing and it was not always possible to get a detailed picture of the role of certain individuals".
He said a number of related issues referred to in the Loughinisland report are still under investigation.
Spotlight will be on BBC One Northern Ireland at 22:45 BST on Tuesday 14 June. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8425906.stm | The first mobile phone version of the popular web browser Firefox is "days away" from launch, the head of the project has told the BBC.
The browser, codenamed Fennec, will initially be available for Nokia's N900 phone, followed by other handsets.
It is currently going through final testing and could be released before the end of the year, said Jay Sullivan at Mozilla, the group behind Firefox.
The open-source browser will be able to synchronise with the desktop version.
Software will mean that any web pages open in a user's desktop browser will automatically open in the mobile version.
"At the end of the working day you can walk away from your computer and keep on going on your phone," Mr Sullivan told the BBC.
"It encrypts all of the information and sends it back through the cloud between your desktop and mobile."
He said that providing there were no "show stoppers", the software could be available to download "within the year".
The browser will be available to download from the Mozilla website and then offered in Nokia's Ovi store, so that N900 owners can download the software.
The organisation is also developing versions for Microsoft's Windows mobile and Google's Android operating system.
However, he said that it would be some time before iPhone users would be able to use the browser.
"Apple is very restrictive." he said. "As it's a pretty closed platform we don't see that happening soon."
Apple only allows browsers based on its Webkit engine, which is used to power its Safari browser, to be loaded on to the iPhone. Firefox uses alternative technology.
When it launches, Fennec will compete with browsers such as Opera, which is the most popular mobile browser according to analytics firm Stats Counter.
Safari, which comes bundled with the iPhone, is the second most popular, whilst Nokia's own browser is third.
The mobile version of Firefox will hope to follow the success of its desktop browser.
Stats Counter has reported that the latest version of the Firefox browser has overtaken Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) as the World's most popular browser with 21.93% of the market, compared with IE7's share of 21.2%.
However, other firms suggest IE still has the lead on Firefox, whilst most agree that the various versions of Explorer combined still dominate the web browser market.
Fennec has been in development for the last year and a half.
The new software has many of the features of the desktop version, such as tabbed browsing, and an address bar that doubles as a search box.
However, the mobile version will also scale pages to fit the device and will support functions such as tapping the screen to zoom in on a page.
Mr Sullivan said it would also be the first mobile browser to have "add-ons", small pieces of software that add functionality to the browser such as news readers or online games. They can also be used to customise the look and feel of the browser.
"Because it is a browser for a mobile device, the add-ons will be different," said Mr Sullivan. "You'll see ones that use geo-location and exploit how the device is tilted."
The add-ons will add functionality to the phone that is currently offered by mobile apps.
These small specialist pieces of software have become increasingly popular.
For example, Apple now offer more than 100,000 apps in its store ranging from games and social networks to news readers and tools that allow people to use sites such as eBay or Amazon on the go.
However, he said that he did not think that the browser would completely replace these apps.
"They will co-exist," he said. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10945510 | A controversial health test to decide who will get long-term sickness benefits is being rolled out further, despite evidence that it is finding people with serious illnesses "fit for work".
Two years ago, Vincent Nestor's doctors told him he was a "dead man walking". He was diagnosed with an incurable form of stomach cancer at the same time as being sent for a triple heart bypass operation.
"Everything went downhill," he says.
His 20-year career as a driver in south London abruptly ended and his health meant he could barely function without shortness of breath and chest pains.
Despite this, Mr Nestor was declared "fit for work" when he applied for sickness benefits.
He had scored zero points under a controversial procedure called the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) - which the coalition government now plans to extend.
The WCA was first rolled out in 2008 for new claimants like Mr Nestor.
It was part of a replacement to the old system of incapacity benefits, which was widely seen as swollen and inefficient.
In the rush to cut the cost of Britain's welfare state, slashing the bill for incapacity benefit is one of the biggest prizes of all.
In all, the payments of around £90 a week go to over 2.5 million people who cannot work because of their health - 7% of British adults.
With all the related costs factored in, these benefits cost Britain £12.5bn a year. Many of those who started claiming in previous recessions, in parts of the UK where heavy industry collapsed, have in effect stayed on for life.
The new government wants to press ahead with a plan to re-process the millions of people who are still on the old incapacity benefit system - using the WCA test.
Mr Nestor has since won an appeal against the assessment that he is fit to work. But stories like his mean that there is concern that the new test will not just weed out scroungers, it may end up penalising the genuinely sick.
The re-processing exercise will begin with 1,700 people in Burnley and Aberdeen in the autumn, before being rolled out nationally from April 2011.
At the moment, three quarters of those new claimants for sickness benefits either drop out or are found fit for work.
One of those declared fit to work was John Birmingham, who lives in ccrington, near Burnley, and suffers from Parkinson's disease, a degenerative condition of the central nervous system.
He spent 26 years in a manual job but after becoming ill - his left arm and leg became very weak; he suffers tremors and depression - has had his driving licence revoked on health grounds. He cannot cook for fear of causing accidents.
He is still determined to find a job - but says he needs the extra training and support he would get on the new Employment Support Allowance benefit.
When he applied, he was also asked to go to a private testing centre.
"They asked me could I pick an empty box up," he says. "But it's a fluctuating illness. So I might be able to do it one day but not the next, but that was never taken into account."
His record from the test says: "The evidence does not support that they suffer from a physical condition severely affecting the trunk or upper limb function."
"Therefore they should be able to use a star-headed tap, reach to the top pocket of a coat or jacket, pick up and move a 0.5 litre carton full of liquid and pick up a £1 coin or equivalent."
Mr Birmingham also scored zero points - and his test was a key part of the decision that he be rejected for benefits.
Stories like his have highlighted problems in the test, and have angered welfare groups like the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB).
Paul Hoggarth from the Burnley CAB helps people appeal against their decisions. Overall, a third of those declared "fit for work" appeal, and 40% of them win - which he says shows the test is flawed.
"I think the test and the computer system is inflexible," he says. He argues that the simple question-and-answer format fails to register a lot of serious health conditions.
The coalition government at first seemed to agree with Mr Hoggarth's reservations.
The procedure was tweaked so that people with certain conditions, such as some mental illnesses and cancer requiring chemotherapy treatment, did not have to take the test.
The government then ordered a full independent review of the test to report at the end of the year.
But ministers have said they will still be using the test to re-process the millions on the old incapacity benefit, starting in Burnley in the autumn - months before the review concludes.
"I believe the Work Capability Assessment is the right test for the future," says Work and Pensions Minister Chris Grayling. "We will stick with and see it through."
"There are certainly refinements I have wanted to make and that I will want to make. And the review will report to us later this year and give us time to make refinements."
But Mr Grayling does not believe the government has an obligation to get the test completely right before applying it to people who are sick or disabled.
"I think the reality is we have a historic challenge to help transform the lives of millions of people who are stranded on benefits in this country," he says. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/scot_prem/7624416.stm | Hibernian striker Derek Riordan came off the bench to grab the only goal of the game at Hamilton Accies.
The substitute, beginning his second spell at the club, curled in a sweet strike from 18 yards less than a minute after coming on late in the first half.
Earlier, Colin Nish had hit the Accies' crossbar with a strong header.
Hamilton were on top in the second half, with Hibs keeper Yves Ma-Kalambay kept busy and James McArthur shooting wide with the goal at his mercy.
Hibs were the brighter side in the opening 45 minutes only to fall out of the game completely after the break. However, they held on for just their second SPL away win under manager Mixu Paatelainen.
Simon Mensing tried his luck for Hamilton in the opening minutes with a powerful strike which curled narrowly wide of Ma-Kalambay's post.
Accies were not too far away when Brian Easton let rip with a shot that looked harmless until taking a deflection off team-mate Sebastian Sorsa and falling just wide of the target.
The best chance of the opening quarter fell to Hibs when a Shiels corner found Nish and the striker's header crashed off the underside of the crossbar before eventually being gathered by a grateful Tomas Cerny.
There was a scare for the visitors when skipper Rob Jones misjudged a simple long ball and Richard Offiong latched on to it only to shoot weakly at Ma-Kalambay.
Nish tried his luck with a shot from distance but Cerny was well placed to make an impressive diving parry as Hibs began to dominate proceedings.
There was a blow for the Edinburgh side when striker Steven Fletcher had to be withdrawn on 38 minutes. However, his replacement made an immediate impact.
Riordan had been on the park for a mere 40 seconds when smartly gathered a cross from Ian Murray and curled a tremendous shot into the far top corner of the net from 18 yards.
The second half took a while to get going, with Hibs sitting back and the home side playing too many stray passes to build any momentum.
Talented teenager James McCarthy was off balance when volleying wide as Hamilton got a rare glimpse of goal.
Martin Canning, who recently moved from Hibs to Hamilton, got his head to a Steven Ettien corner but Ma-Kalambay got down smartly to gather.
Joel Thomas, on in a triple substitution for the home side, then went close to replicating Riordan's earlier heroics but his shot was brilliantly tipped away by Ma-Kalambay.
The Belgian keeper was involved again when he had to push away a fizzing effort from Mark Corcoran and James McArthur mis-hit the rebound wide from a promising position.
Riordan had been quiet after his explosive introduction but he had Cerny at full stretch with a rasping low shot late in the game.
Hamilton manager Billy Reid: "In the first half we didn't play at all but we dominated the second half. Hibs couldn't get out.
"The only wee negative for me was in final third. We didn't create enough. Our final ball was not good enough and we didn't hurt them enough. If we'd been better in that area we'd have won the game because at times we overran Hibs in the second half.
"Over the 90 minutes I thought we deserved to take something out of the game."
Hibernian manager Mixu Paatelainen: "Steven Fletcher had to come off because he was feeling sick. He's been struggling with a cold all week and had no power.
"Derek scored with a fantastic finish and got us the three points. He is always looking to score; from anywhere on the pitch. He's not a sharp as he needs to be but he put in a tremendous effort.
"In the first half we were excellent but in the second half we didn't pass the ball; we had no players available, no movement.
"The boys defended full-heartedly and deserve credit because Hamilton put us under pressure and pushed us deep."
Hamilton: Cerny, Mensing, Elebert, Canning, Easton, Graham (Corcoran 62), McCarthy, Neil, McArthur, Offiong (Thomas 62), Sorsa (Ettien 62). Subs Not Used: Murdoch, Swailes, Casement, Lyle. Booked: Sorsa, Mensing.
Hibernian: Ma-Kalambay, van Zanten, Jones, Hogg, Stevenson, Keenan, Rankin, Shiels (Chisholm 79), Murray, Fletcher (Riordan 38), Nish (Pinau 52). Subs Not Used: McNeil, Yantorno, Hanlon, McCormack.
BBC Sport Player Rater man of the match: Hibernian's Derek Riordan 8.54 (on 90 minutes). |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-45451819 | The family of a 20-year-old man fatally stabbed in Nottingham have paid tribute to the "wonderful young man".
Esrom Ghide was found in Hawksley Road, Hyson Green, on Wednesday with stab wounds and died in hospital.
In a joint tribute, Mr Ghide's family said he "was loved, is missed, and will always be cherished".
Five boys - three aged 14, one aged 16, and one aged 17 - have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Detectives have been given extra time to question them.
Mr Ghide's family said he was known as Hanny to them and his close friends, adding: "His passing has left a big hole in our lives."
Det Insp Justine Wilson said: "This is a fast-moving investigation with five youths already in custody but we would still like to hear from anyone who has information that could help." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1880137.stm | Yugoslavia could lose $40m in vital financial aid if it does not start to co-operate with the international war crimes tribunal, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned.
A deadline looms at the end of this month for the United States Congress to on whether Yugoslavia has met the conditions for a new tranche of cash.
"If they are not deserving they won't get it. If they are, they will, and they know what they have to do and we'll keep the pressure on," said Mr Powell after meeting the tribunal's Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.
Diplomats have speculated that the 31 March cut-off date could provoke the last minute arrests of wanted war crimes suspects similar to that of Slobodan Milosevic this time last year.
"We noted the lack of progress on the part of the authorities in Belgrade with respect to the work of the tribunal," said Mr Powell, following the talks with Ms Del Ponte.
Yugoslavia has been criticised for failing to hand over several indicted war crimes suspects to the tribunal, some of whom remain in public life, such as Serbian President Milan Milutinovic.
"I told [Ms Del Ponte] we would redouble our efforts to get the kind of co-operation we need," said Mr Powell.
Ms Del Ponte is a long standing critic of what she considers to be Belgrade's obstruction of the tribunal's work.
Co-operation with the tribunal is a divisive issue in Yugoslavia. It is opposed by President Vojislav Kostunica but supported by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
The dramatic arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in April last year coincided with a deadline for international aid, which was subsequently granted.
Now there is speculation that Yugoslav authorities will carry out other high-profile arrests to secure more funds.
But Congress will also demand proof that Kosovo Albanians are being released from Serbian jails - another condition of further aid.
Yugoslavia's economy has been devastated by years of mismanagement and by Nato's 1999 bombing campaign and is in desperate need of funds. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-20184447 | Cambodia's government has approved a controversial hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Mekong River.
The joint venture involves Cambodian, Chinese and Vietnamese investment of $781m (£488m) and is due to be completed within five years.
The project in northern Stung Treng province is known as Lower Sesan 2.
Environmental campaigners say the dam will damage the river's biodiversity and devastate the livelihoods and homes of thousands of people.
A government statement said the approval came after eight years of study into the possible environmental and social consequences.
It said Prime Minister Hun Sen had ordered new homes to be built for an unspecified number of families who would be resettled for the project.
Activist Meach Mean, of the 3S Rivers Protection Network (3SPN), estimated that more than 50,000 people would be affected by the dam.
He called on the government to organise a public forum to discuss concerns before going ahead.
"We are surprised by the approval," he told AFP news agency.
"We don't know clearly about the process to build the project. We are really concerned about the impact on the people's livelihoods, water, and ecology system."
In September, a report by UN human rights envoy Surya Subedi also raised concerns about the dam, saying communities did not believe they had been adequately consulted about the project.
Damming the Mekong River has causes widespread controversy in South East Asia.
Although hydroelectric dams allow countries to generate vast amounts of electricity, they also threaten massive changes to the ecosystem across the Mekong basin.
In 1995, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam set up the Mekong River Commission to help manage and co-ordinate use of the river's resources. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6052608.stm | A Heathrow Airport employee has said she plans to sue British Airways for religious discrimination in a row over the wearing of a cross necklace.
Check-in worker Nadia Eweida, 55, of Twickenham, said she was effectively "forced" to take unpaid leave after refusing to conceal the symbol.
BA denied it had banned the wearing of crosses.
It said its uniform policy stated that such items could be worn if concealed underneath the uniform.
It said items such as turbans and bangles could be worn as it was impractical for staff to conceal them.
BA has been accused of double standards by some Christian groups.
John Andrews, communications officer for the diocese of Bath and Wells, said: "I think BA are being extremely offensive to members of the Christian faith."
He said: "It would be a great shame if Christians are prevented from demonstrating their own faith. It is a basic human right.
"If she is wearing it as a symbol of her Christian faith she should be allowed to do it. It is rather more than an ornament. It is more than an item of jewellery."
Miss Eweida, who has been with BA for seven years, said she wore the cross because of her deeply-held religious beliefs. She is from an Egyptian background and attends Pentecostal as well as Arabic churches.
Kent Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe urged a boycott of BA.
She said: "My view is that Christians do not have to take this. BA is a commercial organisation. It's not as if it's the government."
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Vince Cable, Miss Eweida's MP, said of BA: "They are just being very bureaucratic and very inflexible. For a commercial business this is not good enough."
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said he "didn't understand" the decision.
He said on BBC1's Sunday AM programme: "Frankly I think the British Airways order for her not to wear a cross was loopy.
"I don't understand it, I don't think anybody understands it and that is my view."
A BA spokeswoman said Miss Eweida had not been suspended. She said the matter remained under investigation and an appeal was due to be heard next week.
She said BA recognised that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols.
"Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn, underneath the uniform. There is no ban.
"This rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27080662 | Iraqi voters are preparing to cast their ballots in general elections on 30 April.
No single bloc is expected to win a majority of the 328 seats in the Council of Representatives. This Council, in turn, will elect the Iraqi president and prime minister.
However, current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shia-dominated State of Law alliance is widely seen as the front-runner.
The election comes at a time when violence in Iraq at its highest level since the peak of the sectarian insurgency from 2006 to 2008.
Here voters across the country discuss their concerns and hopes for the future of Iraq.
I will be voting in the elections even though I have been displaced from my city Fallujah in Anbar province due to the continuous violence that is happening there. I believe that the elections are the only peaceful way to result in change.
We have been protesting against the government but this hasn't brought any change, and it won't as long as the power is in the hand of a small group, whose only concern is to stay in power as long as they can.
I believe in the elections. I think it will bring change as there is a wide agreement between many of the Iraqi parties not to renew Mr Maliki's mandate for a third term. They know if this happened, we will face a dictatorship that we will never be able to get rid of.
Several things concern me. The most important is the integrity of the elections, as the election process in Iraq is dominated by routine fraud. Much of the results are known in advance, and using the new electronic voting process actually makes it easier to cheat the system.
I am also worried by the security situation in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, especially in the districts of Ramadi, Khaldiya, Falluja and al-Karma. There is a possibility that voting would not be held there, thus barring people from participating in the elections. This means there will be no real representation of all the Iraqi people in parliament.
I will be voting in the election; it is a vital one as there are many Gulf countries that are trying to control and divide Iraq.
I will vote for Nouri Maliki, the current prime minister, as he is the most capable of saving Iraq and the Shia sect. The Maliki government's performance in the last couple of years hasn't been the best. There had been corruption but this was because of the politicians from the other parties who joined Mr Maliki's government. What is most important is that Mr Maliki doesn't call for division in the country as some Sunni parties do.
Other Sunni parties are sectarian and helping the terrorists. Meanwhile, other Shia parties like that of the former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi are forming an alliance with other Sunni parties and this will lead to a non-Shia prime minster or one that can't do much without referring back to the Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
This is not fair for the Shia sect, who as the largest sect should have the right to have their own prime minister.
I live in Kadhimiya, a northern neighbourhood of Baghdad with a Shia majority. But I run a shop in al-Mansour neighbourhood, which has a Sunni majority.
I will be voting in this election. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, I have always believed in the democratic system as a way to change. It has been proven everywhere that is the best way.
Image caption "The most important issue that the new parliament should deal with is the economy as everything is tied to the economy"
I haven't yet made up my mind about who I will be voting for. But I will be choosing a candidate from the secular lists. I'm still comparing their manifestos though.
I believe these candidates are technocrats who are more concerned with getting on with the job rather than appealing to and serving particular voters. I believe the right person should be in the right place no matter what his religious background.
There is no way for fraud to occur in the elections because there are many independent organisations who are observing the elections and looking out for any discrepancies. Each candidate, also has a representative observing the elections as well.
What is concerning is that in the mixed areas in Baghdad, the Shias vote for a Shia candidate and Sunnis vote for Sunni. This is disappointing as most voters will not be examining the background of the candidates and what they would offer Iraqis.
There are some people from the different sects who deepen the tensions in order to get to parliament. They don't care about religion or Iraq. The sectarian divisions help them to secure a seat in the parliament.
As a business owner, I think that the most important issue that the new parliament should deal with is the economy as everything is tied to the economy.
If the economy is good, the security situation will improve. If people have access to affordable food and are able to find jobs, there wouldn't be any rising tensions that people then take out on each other on a sectarian basis.
The first time I voted was in 2010, in Iraq's parliamentary elections. Can an 18-year-old fully comprehend the importance of their vote?
Can an 18-year-old fully comprehend who is the right person to vote for?
No, especially not in Iraq, because we're not politically educated. Public education limited our capabilities instead of expanding it. Therefore, those 18-years-olds are voting for those that their families are voting for.
Each family is set-up politically in a way that matches the parents' beliefs. Each believes that this party or candidate will bring about the best outcomes - not necessarily for the whole nation but what's better for that family.
Now, I am lucky that I've majored in political studies. But, think about those who are not educated in the same way that I've been. Their mindsets are still not based on what's the best for everyone, but still "what's best for me and my family".
I have faith in the political process in the Kurdistan region of Iraq because the political culture of the Kurds is based on non-tolerance for oppression, freedom and the will to progress. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20192922 | Bishop Tawadros has been chosen as the new pope of Egypt's Coptic Christians, becoming leader of the largest Christian minority in the Middle East.
His name was selected from a glass bowl by a blindfolded boy at a ceremony in Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral. Three candidates had been shortlisted.
The 60-year-old succeeds Pope Shenouda III, who died in March aged 88.
He succeeds as attacks on Copts are on the increase, and many say they fear the country's new Islamist leaders.
The other two candidates were Bishop Raphael and Father Raphael Ava Mina. They were chosen in a ballot by a council of some 2,400 Church and community officials in October.
Their names were written on pieces of paper and put in crystal balls sealed with wax on the church altar.
A blindfolded boy - one of 12 shortlisted children - then drew out the name of Bishop Tawadros, who until now was an aide to the acting leader, Bishop Pachomius.
Bishop Pachomius then took the ballot from the boy's hand and showed it to all those gathered in the cathedral.
We got an invitation to the ceremony to choose the new pope. But when my father and I got to the cathedral, the crowd was so big, we could not get inside. There were more people outside than in.
We were with the crowd outside, waiting to find out the name of the new pope, when a group of deacons came out to look for children. Ten of us went inside. I remember the acting pope was wearing a blindfold so he could not see us. Then he put his hand on my head.
When I was born my grandfather, who was a priest, told my mother he had dreamt I would be the person to choose the new pope, and that the pope would be called Shenouda III.
On the day I was chosen to pick the new pope, I was afraid of the crowd watching me, and the new experience. But I did not know what was going on, and I did not know who Pope Shenouda was.
Strict measures were in place to make sure there was no foul play during the televised ceremony: the three pieces of paper with candidates' names were all the same size and tied the same way.
Copts say this process ensures the selection is in God's hands.
Bishop Tawadros will be enthroned in a ceremony on 18 November.
The new pope has studied in Britain, and has also run a medicine factory, the BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo reports.
He is a man of broad experience and with managerial skills, our correspondent says, adding that he will need all those talents to lead the Copts as they face an uncertain future in a country now debating the role of Islam following last year's revolution.
Our correspondent says no-one in Egypt expects the new pope to introduce radical changes to the deeply conservative church.
Pope Shenouda died in March. Under his leadership, the Coptic Church expanded significantly, including outside its traditional Egyptian base.
He was a passionate advocate of unity among the Christian churches, and also clashed with then President Anwar Sadat, particularly over their conflicting views on the future of Egypt's relationship with Israel.
Coptic Christians have long complained of discrimination by the Egyptian state and the country's Muslim majority.
But when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year and succeeded by the Muslim Brotherhood, their fears grew.
In October 2011, 25 people died in clashes with the security forces after a protest march in Cairo over the burning of a church. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21855901 | An agreement has been reached between Nato and the Afghan government on the withdrawal of US special forces from Wardak province, alliance officials have announced.
The agreement appears to bring to an end a bitter dispute between the coalition and the Afghan government.
The troops and their Afghan counterparts have been accused of murder and intimidation in the area.
Special forces and local police will now begin a phased withdrawal.
Afghan security forces will then take over on a district-by-district basis.
American special forces and the Afghan local police they have trained in Wardak have been accused of committing atrocities in the area, including the murder of nine men.
Isaf has denied the allegations but President Hamid Karzai last month said they should withdraw within a fortnight.
Relations between the president and Nato have been tense in recent weeks.
On Tuesday the presidential spokesman described the Nato-led military operation in Afghanistan as "aimless and unwise".
"We have come to agreement on a plan for Wardak that continues the transition of this critical province and meets the security needs of the people and the requirements of our mission," Isaf Commander Gen Joseph Dunford said.
"Under the agreement, beginning with Nerkh District, which is currently secured by Afghan Local Police (ALP) aided by coalition forces, the Afghan government will soon move Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) into this area to provide security.
"The arrival of the ANSF will preclude the need for ALP and coalition forces in this area. The remainder of the province will transition over time."
The general said that the agreement reflected the "growing capacity and capability of the Afghan security forces to meet the security needs" of Afghanistan.
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says that the agreement is short on specifics - no timetable has been reached on when the special forces will leave. But it does allow Mr Karzai to save face.
Afghan defence ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi said that the Afghan army "will take the lead" after international special forces withdraw from Nerkh district, "so this problem will be solved within a few days".
However our correspondent says that it is far from certain that the already stretched Afghan special forces will be able to establish security in Wardak once Nato has left.
Wardak is a critical province. Located near Kabul, it has been used as staging post for a number of large-scale attacks in the city and has been the recent focus of counter-insurgency operations.
The accountability of US forces and local militia working with them has been a growing source of friction in Afghan-US relations.
Wednesday's agreement comes against a backdrop of long-term negotiations over which foreign forces will remain in Afghanistan after Nato's exit in 2014.
The bulk of Nato's 100,000 troops are due to leave by the end of that year. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47554167 | Brexit amendments: What will MPs vote on?
MPs will vote later on whether or not the UK should leave the EU without a deal.
Backbench MPs and opposition parties put forward eight amendments to show which direction they want the government to take on Brexit.
Speaker John Bercow has selected two of them to be put to the vote in the Commons later.
That this House declines to approve leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement and a Framework for the Future Relationship on 29 March 2019; and notes that leaving without a deal remains the default in UK and EU law unless this House and the EU ratify an agreement.
The amendment (a) from Labour MP Jack Dromey and Conservative Dame Caroline Spelman changes the wording of the government motion to "this House rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement and a Framework for the Future Relationship".
Dame Caroline told MPs she wanted to withdraw the amendment, because Theresa May's government motion would do the same job.
But she was told by Commons Speaker John Bercow that she could not withdraw it because other signatories could "persist with it".
It is called the Malthouse compromise because it was put together by Conservative minister Kit Malthouse, but it has been tabled in the name of former Conservative minister Damian Green.
It is supported by members of the Brexiteer European Research Group of Conservative MPs and former Remain supporters such as Mr Green and Nicky Morgan.
Amendment (d) states that "under no circumstances" should the UK leave without a deal, listing the alternatives as revocation of the UK's intention to leave, extension of the Article 50 period or a second referendum.
Amendment (e) scraps the second half of the government motion, shortening it to: "that this House declines to approve leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement and a Framework for the Future Relationship on 29 March 2019"
It was tabled by the Independent Group, which is consists of eight former Labour MPs and three former Tories, who are all supporters of another EU referendum, and who quit their parties in protest at their Brexit policies.
Amendment (c) calls for an extension to the Article 50 leaving process to 2021, or until a future relationship is agreed.
The amendment also requests a second referendum to take place, on whether or not the UK should leave with the agreed deal, or remain in the EU.
One final amendment - (b) was tabled by former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke, Labour's Keith Vaz and the SNP's Angus MacNeil.
It simply calls for the revocation of Article 50 to cancel Brexit.
Amendment (h), tabled by the SNP, calls for the UK to not leave the EU without a deal "under any circumstances", regardless of the exit date.
It further gives MPs the option to revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit.
Amendment (g) was tabled by Tory Brexiteer Sir Edward Leigh.
The amendment calls for the option of no-deal to be kept on the table during the government's continued negotiations with the EU. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-47710945 | Algeria's army chief of staff has demanded President Abdelaziz Bouteflika be declared unfit to rule after weeks of protests against him.
Speaking on television, Lt Gen Ahmed Gaed Salah said: "We must find a way out of this crisis immediately, within the constitutional framework."
The president has already agreed not to stand for a fifth term in upcoming elections, which have been delayed.
Demonstrators accuse the 82-year-old of a ploy to prolong his 20-year rule.
Talks have been set up to oversee the country's political transition, draft a new constitution and set the date for elections. But they do not yet have a date to start.
Protests against Mr Bouteflika began last month after the president, who has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, said he planned to stand for another term.
Lt Gen Gaed Salah - who is also deputy defence minister and seen as loyal to Mr Bouteflika - has previously said the military and the people had a united vision of the future, hinting at the armed forces' support for the demonstrators.
What did the army chief say?
Lt Gen Gaed Salah said the constitution was "the only guarantee to preserve a stable political situation", and called for the use of Article 102, which allows the Constitutional Council to declare the position of president vacant if the leader is unfit to rule.
"This solution achieves consensus and must be accepted by all," he said to the applause of officers watching the speech.
Under the constitution, the head of the Senate, Abdelkhader Bansallah, would become the acting head of state until an election could be held.
Reports suggest the Constitutional Council is now holding a special meeting after the speech.
The dramatic intervention by the armed forces chief of staff is the latest development after weeks of sustained protest in Algeria.
Earlier this month Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia announced his resignation and was replaced by Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui.
The announcement by Algeria's army chief is symbolically significant. However, given the reality of President Bouteflika's health status, the constitutional impasse over an extension to his current mandate until elections are held, and the rallying calls by protestors who remain on Algeria's streets, the move is hardly unexpected.
Still, there will be questions over the army's chief's motivations. In recent years, it is the president's circle of political and army loyalists who appear to have spoken on his behalf as his absence peaked due to illness.
Lt Gen Ahmad Gaed Salah is viewed as fiercely loyal to Mr Bouteflika and a central "pillar" to the ruling powers of Algeria - so much so that on the weekend, a privately-owned local newspaper reported that he "must go" along with the president.
The country's Constitutional Council will need to back this latest call, and then ultimately it will be left to the parliament to officially decide the president's political fate.
Media captionHalf of Algeria’s population is under the age of 30.
He does not travel around the country or abroad, except for medical treatment.
His aides represent him at events and read his messages to the public, and the announcement that he was not standing for a fifth presidential term was read on his behalf by a newsreader on national TV.
The Constitutional Council must first agree to trigger Article 102 of the constitution.
Both chambers of parliament would then meet in a joint session and vote on whether the president is unfit to perform his duties. A two-thirds majority is required.
If this passes, the speaker of the upper house of parliament, the Council of the Nation, would take over the duties of the president.
The new provisional head of state would rule for 45 days with a specific mission to prepare for new presidential elections. The provisional president cannot stand in those elections. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12759840 | What's inside a Japanese quake grab bag?
The widespread devastation caused by Japan's earthquake and resulting tsunami has been a reminder that even a country well-prepared for such disasters cannot always avoid the brutal blows of nature.
With more than half a million people living in temporary shelters and panic-buying leaving stores empty of supplies, people are being reminded of the importance of government advice, which tells them to have a survival "grab bag" permanently at the ready.
So what sort of things should be in such an emergency kit?
The Japanese government recommends a long list of items to its citizens, but it is down to the individual to take on board the advice and prioritise what is crucial to them.
Sarah Ono, who lives with her Japanese husband - a disaster specialist - and their two children in Kochi prefecture on the southern Japanese island of Shikoku, has opened up her family's three grab bags to show what she has at the ready for such emergencies.
"We have evacuation bags in the house and the car - fireproof bags containing first aid, coins for public phones, as usually there is a loss of mobile phone service, enough food and water for three days and also portable toilets," she explains.
Sarah's kit also contains survival equipment, such as a ground sheet and sleeping bags, a water container to fill up at temporary pumps, gloves to protect hands from broken glass, knives, torches and rope for escape.
There's also wet wipes, other sanitary products and toilet absorption powder - in case there is no supply of water - as well as communications equipment, such as a wind-up mobile phone charger and a radio to stay across the latest warnings and information.
The Onos have also installed solar panels at their home to ensure they have minimal power during cuts, and, Sarah explains, they take part in regular drills.
"We have an annual evacuation in September every year," she says. "We go to our local evacuation point and go through the procedures of what would happen in a real disaster."
And the Onos have been watching events in quake-hit northern Japan closely, because they know that one day soon, their grab bags may well be used for real.
Shikoku is braced for the "big one" - the Nankai earthquake, which hits at regular intervals, costing thousands of lives, and is expected to rock the area once again within the next few decades. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29162495 | "If you're fed up with the effing Tories, give them a kick."
At first glance, it is not the kind of sentence you might expect to hear from a sitting Conservative prime minister.
But that is a sentence uttered by David Cameron, campaigning for a No vote in Edinburgh this week.
Let me be fair, and put it in context.
The prime minister was attempting to acknowledge the elephant in the room, the less than rosy impression of the vast majority in Scotland when asked about the Conservatives.
Talking about the referendum, he said: "People can feel it's a bit like a general election, that you make a decision and five years later you can make a decision and five years later you can make a different decision.
"If you're fed up with the effing Tories give them a kick and maybe we'll think again. This is totally different from a general election. This is not a decision about the next five years but about the next century."
It is an insight into a dynamic playing out in the referendum campaign in Scotland, which takes in nationalism, Margaret Thatcher, the poll tax and, ultimately, the Conservative brand.
As Mr Cameron was speaking 400 miles away in the Scottish capital, those political reporters who hadn't been sent to Scotland were questioning the prime minister's official spokesman.
Why was the elected leader of the UK unwilling to campaign out and about on the streets of Scotland?
Repeatedly, his spokesman said that this visit to Scotland was his ninth of the year so far, and he would be back next week.
"That's more than once a month," we were told.
So would he be deploying his soapbox and taking questions from passers by in the street?
"What he'll be deploying today will be the arguments," came the answer.
Or, in other words, no.
Conservatives - or members of what long standing Tories will remind you is the Conservative and Unionist Party - have long acknowledged they are not best placed to make the case for the very thing that is so important to them that it is part of how they are known.
Why? The figures speak for themselves.
At the last election there were 59 Scottish seats in the Commons there to be won.
The Tories managed to win just one, which borders England - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.
This from a party with a longstanding and proud Scottish heritage.
As the Scottish political commentator Iain Macwhirter has pointed out, in the general election of 1955, they won a majority of votes and a majority of seats - the only party in Scotland ever to have achieved that double.
The question "Whatever happened to Tory Scotland?" was even the title of a book, edited by David Torrance.
But by 1997, they had been wiped out and were left with no Scottish MPs whatsoever.
Close observers of Scottish politics will point to quite a checklist of reasons including Margaret Thatcher introducing the Poll Tax in Scotland before the rest of the UK and the Conservatives' initial rejection of devolution.
The writer Alex Massie adds another: "It is hard to think of a successful right-of-centre party in Europe that is not in some way identified as the patriotic party. The Scottish Tories have lost the ability to make that claim or be identified with the national interest."
To give you a sense of the scale of the Tartan Tory collapse, in 2011 Murdo Fraser, a candidate to lead the Scottish Conservatives, proposed ditching the name 'Conservative' altogether in order to "detoxify" the party's brand.
He didn't win, but not everyone laughed off his idea as totally crackpot.
That is why the Prime Minister used that word "effing" in public.
And why he knows, and Conservatives know, they have to make their arguments for a No vote carefully, so they don't play straight into their opponents' hands. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2512699.stm | While full-time firefighters are manning picket lines, most part-time or retained firefighters are still on call. BBC News Online joined them in rural Lincolnshire.
"It is the fun factor, the adrenaline, the buzz - there can't be anything in the world like it."
Leading firefighter Neil Johnson is only 33, but he has already spent 16 years in the fire brigade at Wragby in Lincolnshire.
His family has fought fires in the community for 104 years.
Does firefighting rule his life?
"You never leave it, really, we are married to it," Neil says as he sips a cup of tea in the kitchen of his home, which is a full 25 yards away from the fire station.
Retained firefighters must live within five minutes of the fire station.
"Day-to-day life for me - it is fire brigade first and my social life second. I know it shouldn't be. The average Joe Public just wouldn't do it.
"You can't go to the pub for a drink, because you are on call, so your social life dies when you join."
Neil has another job as well - also with the Lincolnshire Fire Service - working with disadvantaged youth in a speciall training scheme.
Wayne Porter, 41, who works as a retained firefighter 12 miles away at Lincoln, agrees.
"I've been working for 16 years, but I still get a buzz from it now.
"It is a very strange breed of people who get up at 3am on a freezing morning to spend a whole night fighting a fire, " he said.
"We can do anything from rescuing a person collapsed in the bath to a major rail accident - whatever comes in - we go out to.
"At the scene of a fire, we do everything an all-time firefighter does - same risks, same everything.
"We are on pagers so when we get a call, we drop everything - basically our pagers are strapped to us all the time.
His colleague Roy Proctor, 49, a leading firefighter says: "There is no problem responding to a call, we are up and out in a hurry.
"But you might have a problem getting back to sleep after a big incident at 3am."
Lincolnshire has 530 retained and about 125 full-time fighters.
London and other metropolitan areas - with a response time of 4 or 5 minutes - have no retained firefighters.
He is always ready to respond to a 'shout', and is quite happy with his union's no-strike clause.
"I know I couldn't be on strike and know that Granny Smith down the road, because I had not gone out, had died, I just couldn't handle it."
His life is dominated by the fire station across the road, but he loves every minute.
"You're always on the move, always doing something, there is nothing like it.
"I pull dead bodies out of cars, but it doesn't bother me, I guess I am a bit of a hard-faced git," he adds.
In last few weeks, the firefighters in Wragby have responded to five road accidents in which five people died.
If there is another incident in the next few days, the odds are that Neil Johnson will be there.
He knows that someone else's life may depend on it. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-32029430 | Three men convicted of involvement in the Kunming knife attack have been executed, a court in China says.
Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad were convicted in September of murder and terrorism offences.
The attack at Kunming station in March 2014, left 31 people dead and more than 140 injured. It caused shock across China.
Beijing blamed it on Muslim extremists from Xinjiang, next to Central Asia.
Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur minority. It has seen a series of violent attacks and clashes which Beijing blames on separatists inspired by terror groups outside China.
Uighur activists say the suppression of residents' cultural and religious freedoms is fuelling unrest in the region and attacks elsewhere in China.
Police say three men did not take part in the station attack but had trained others for terror activities, the Xinhua state news agency reported. They were arrested two days before the attack, as they were trying to leave China.
They were put to death on Tuesday, the Kunming City Intermediate People's Court said.
Police shot dead four other assailants during the attack. One woman has been jailed for life.
Why is there tension in Xinjiang? |
https://www.bbc.com/news/39710394 | The BBC is keen to hear from you about what you think it should be reporting on.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-30504104 | Image caption English Heritage said individually designed public urinals from this era were "increasingly rare"
A rare Victorian public urinal has been listed by English Heritage for its "special historical interest".
The Grade II public convenience, at the top of Whiteladies Road, in Clifton, is still in use and was built by Glasgow-based W.MacFarlane in the 1880s.
English Heritage said these "often humble structures" were "important to the streetscene of our cities".
Bristol City Council, which owns the cast-iron urinal, said it "remained very well used and appreciated".
An English Heritage spokesman said: "Historic elements of the public realm, including street furniture and public facilities, are particularly vulnerable to damage, alteration and removal and where they survive well, they will in some cases be given serious consideration for designation."
He said the urinal was a "relatively rare surviving example of a once common type of building" and represented the "civic aspirations of the authorities in the Bristol suburbs in the late Victorian period".
"In times of austerity, facilities and structures such as this set of urinals are under increasing threat, and where there are found to be deserving of protection English Heritage will recommend to the Secretary of State that they be added to the National Heritage List for England," he said.
Maggie Shapland, from the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society said: "We are really glad it makes it harder to destroy our heritage by raising awareness and we are highly delighted to keep part of our historic streetscape."
Two other similar structures were listed in Bristol in 1977 on Horfield Common and Mina Road Park. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-47919648 | A memorial service has been held to mark the life of a British man who died after he crashed in an off-road rally in Texas.
Steven Fairbairn, 25, from Newcastle, died in hospital after his 4x4 vehicle crashed at the Rednecks with Paychecks Spring Break event on 16 March.
The service was at Holy Cross Church in the Fenham area of the city.
Mourners were asked not to wear black as Mr Fairbairn was "a colourful character".
Ahead of the service, Mr Fairbairn's mother, Lynne, said the service was "all about a celebration of Steven's life".
She said: "We held his funeral and cremation out in America, but there were a lot of friends and family who wanted to offer their condolences.
"It's important they got their chance to say goodbye."
Asked what she missed most about her son, she replied "his smile, it was so endearing".
An investigation into Mr Fairbairn's death is ongoing, but his mother branded the rally "irresponsible" and said she would like it stopped.
Image caption Lynne Fairbairn said her son "touched so many hearts"
Steven's sister, Angela, said: "He was the best brother anyone could wish for.
"We were close, always laughing and joking."
Describing him as a "doting" uncle to her daughter, she added he had a "love for fast, adventurous stuff".
A funeral for Mr Fairbairn was held on 23 March in Duncan, Oklahoma, where he moved 18 months ago.
He had proposed to his American fiancée Abbey Green just two weeks before his death.
Image caption Mr Fairbairn's partner, Abbey Green, said rally participants were asked to sign a waiver, which she described as "signing your life away"
The Rednecks with Paychecks event was attended by about 10,000 people, according to Chief Deputy Jack Lawson, of Montague County Sheriff's Office.
Local media reported Mr Fairbairn had been driving a 4x4 which collided head-on with another all-terrain vehicle at the festival in Saint Jo, 75 miles north-west of Dallas.
The Tarrant County medical examiner's office ruled his death was an accident due to "blunt head trauma". |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10130346 | Three muggers in Australia got the fright of their lives when their attack was interrupted by five black-clad ninja warriors.
The thieves were assaulting a German medical exchange student in Sydney, but the alleyway where they struck was next to a school for ninja warriors.
One of the pupils raised the alarm after noticing the attack.
Police say they have arrested two men and charged them with robbery, and are still looking for a third suspect.
"We just ran outside and started running at them, yelling and everything," said ninja master Kaylan Soto who instructed his students to take action.
"These guys have turned around and seen five ninjas in black ninja uniforms running towards them. They just bolted."
The victim suffered minor injuries, and the men stole his mobile phone and iPod, according to police.
Mr Soto said the man could have escaped the assault with some training in ninjitsu - a Japanese martial art. As for the attackers, "They just picked the wrong spot," he added. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3712238.stm | Oliver Letwin has told the Conservative conference Labour has given taxpayers poor value for money - but stopped short of promising tax cuts.
The shadow chancellor has eight "unfair stealth taxes" in his sights, including council and inheritance tax.
But he said he would not make pledges now because too many politicians had broken their word on tax in the past.
Earlier co-chairman Liam Fox said the "revitalised" Tories must end Labour's "intruder state".
Dr Fox sought to rally Tory activists after the party was pushed into fourth place in the Hartlepool by-election by the UK Independence party.
He said they had to "reclaim" the red, white and blue of the Union Jack from the far right.
Dr Fox branded Tony Blair, who said last week he would step down at the end of a third term as prime minister, a "lame duck prime minister".
He kicked off the conference under the slogan "timetable for action" detailing what the Tories would do in the first months of government.
Conservative policy co-ordinator David Cameron said the party had to be very precise about its plans.
"If anybody says I will promise you a transport system for the 21st century, they will be taken out and shot," Mr Cameron told the Guardian, as an example of the sort of slogan he thought too vague.
In his keynote conference speech, Mr Letwin complained that some pensioners were paying a third of their disposable income on council tax and that in some parts of the country someone expecting to inherit an ex-council home had to pay death duties.
"What really makes it desperately unfair is that all these people are not even getting value for money, " he said.
He pointed to lack of school choice and hospital super bugs.
Mr Letwin continued: "Can we take action to change things? You bet we can. We can thin down this fat government by getting the money from the taxpayer to the front line, where is it needed."
He dismissed suggestions it would be courageous to promise now to cut taxes.
"Nobody out there would believe us at all because there have been too many broken promises on tax from too many politicians," he said.
Mr Letwin said: "On the first day of the next Conservative Government I will freeze civil service recruitment.
"In the first week of that government I will lift the controls, those wretched best value performance assessment regimes, off local government.
"And in the first month of that Conservative government, I will deliver a Budget which will implement the James reforms, begin the thinning down of those fat bureaucracies and set Britain on the path to a lower tax economy."
Mr Letwin dismissed Gordon Brown's civil service cuts as a "sham" and argued the Tories could at the very least stave off Labour third term tax rises by cutting bureaucracy.
Earlier, Mr Letwin told BBC Radio 4's Today he would be able to outline precise tax cut plans "when we know what the economic inheritance is".
He said a Tory election win was "entirely possible" because people were so disillusioned by Labour.
Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury Paul Boateng said the Tory figures did not add up.
"Far from guaranteeing to cut taxes, the only cut that's guaranteed from the Conservatives is an immediate and massive cut in public spending on schools, hospitals, transport, the police, and other vital public services," he said.
Liberal Democrat spokesman Vince Cable said his party had offered hard policies on simplifying taxes.
"All we have had [from the Tories] is vague aspirations," he told BBC News 24.
A poll in Monday's Times newspaper suggests the Tories are less popular than they were at the time of last year's conference under Iain Duncan Smith.
Mr Duncan Smith was ousted less than three weeks after a conference dominated by speculation about his leadership. The party was sitting at about 30 to 33% in polls.
They are now on 28%, according to the Populus poll in Monday's Times, with Labour on 35%, the Lib Dems on 25% and UKIP on 5%. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27199143 | Shares in US banking giant Bank of America dropped 6% after the bank announced a suspension of its capital plan due to an accounting error.
In a statement, the bank said the error had to do with how it calculated losses relating to its acquisition of investment bank Merrill Lynch in 2009.
Bank of America had announced plans to buy back $4bn (£2.4bn) of its shares and boost its dividend.
The US Federal Reserve said the bank would now have to suspend that plan.
Bank of America has 30 days to submit a corrected balance sheet, as well as a new capital plan, subject to approval of the US central bank, the Fed said in a statement.
Bank of America recently reported a $276m (£165m) loss as a result of more than $6bn in legal expenses it paid to settle allegations that it misled mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the housing crisis in 2008, as well as for other mortgage-related matters.
The US Federal Reserve requires large banks to submit their balance sheets and capital plans to ensure that they can pass so-called "stress tests", should another banking crisis materialise.
Bank of America said the adjustments relating to the value of the securities it now controls as a result of its purchase of Merrill Lynch will not force it to restate its first quarter earnings.
The bank said that even with the adjustments, it still had enough capital on hand to pass the Fed's test.
Last month, Citigroup was the biggest US bank to fail the Fed's test, after the central bank cited concerns about Citigroup's internal controls. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/4617184.stm | Twenty-one dead dolphins have been washed up along the coast of Cornwall over the past four days.
Environmental groups believe most of the mammals were killed after getting entangled in fishing nets.
A post-mortem examination will be carried out on three of the carcasses on Monday.
Joana Doyle, the marine conservation officer for Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said an outright ban on harmful fishing methods was needed.
The trust operates a 24-hour telephone hotline for people to report strandings.
Co-ordinator Maddi Precious said it had been an exceptionally busy period.
"Distressed members of the public keep calling to tell us of yet more bodies," she said.
"It's been hard to keep up, but luckily we have over 120 people trained to do the work."
In September 2004, the government introduced a ban on pair trawling within 12 miles (19km) of UK waters.
The fishing method, which involves a large net being attached to two boats and trawled through the water, has been widely blamed for the high number of dolphin and porpoise deaths along the region's coast.
But environmental groups claim dolphins are still being caught and the ban has resulted in some fishermen moving to deeper waters.
Ms Doyle said. "It is apparent the ban on pair trawlers fishing within the 12-mile shore limit is not working.
"As we said, dolphins feeding outside the area are just as likely to be caught, as they don't know where the limit is."
Ms Doyle said inshore gillnet fishing could also be responsible for some of the recent cetacean deaths.
"Most of those killed over the past few days were found around St Austell Bay, where there is an inshore gillnet fishery," she said.
Anyone finding a dead dolphin is asked to contact the trust's strandings hotline on 08452 012626.
Ms Doyle said work must continue to stop the deaths.
"If we don't, Cornwall could eventually lose part of its wonderful wildlife heritage and we'll be all the poorer for it." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47604716 | Man leaps from upstairs window in Larne "burglary"
A man has been arrested following a reported aggravated burglary in Larne, County Antrim, in which the occupant of a flat leapt from an upstairs window.
Six masked men armed with bats and iron bars forced entry to the property in the Ballycraigy Ring area of the town at around 7.30pm on Saturday.
The male occupant was assaulted and injured before he jumped out of the window.
He suffered a suspected broken leg.
A car parked outside the property was extensively damaged by the masked men.
Detectives investigating the attack have confirmed that a 34-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident and remains in custody.
Sinn Fein councillor for the area James McKeown said such incidents were not uncommon in Larne.
"There have been a number of these incidents over the last number of years," he said.
"I would call on the police in Larne to set up a specialist task force to deal with this type of crime."
The PSNI appealed for help from anyone who can assist with their enquiries. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-41652712 | Ruth Davidson is to appear on a celebrity episode of the Great British Bake Off.
The Scottish Conservatives leader will feature in a charity special of the Channel 4 programme later this year, the party has confirmed.
The episode will be broadcast as part of Channel 4's Stand Up to Cancer campaign.
The Edinburgh Central MSP was a guest on spin-off show An Extra Slice last year.
Ms Davidson has previously appeared as a guest on BBC2 comedy programme Have I Got News For You.
She follows in the footsteps of former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who took part in a celebrity Bake Off special in February 2016.
Other celebrity contestants have included comedian Jason Manford, singer Will Young and track cyclist Victoria Pendleton. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14726568 | Media captionVince Cable: "I'm more conscious of the areas of agreement"
Any shake-up of British banks may not come into force for several years, government sources have indicated.
Although legislation could be passed to "split up" leading banks before 2015's scheduled general election, changes may not take effect until after that date.
Business Secretary Vince Cable has said changes will go ahead and denied any splits with the Tories on the issue.
The CBI said taking action now could starve businesses of the capital they needed and damage the recovery.
But Mr Cable said that suggestion was "disingenuous in the extreme" and accused bankers of "trying to create a panic about something they know has got to happen".
Ensuring taxpayers are not liable for any future losses or bank collapses, and ring-fencing banks' retail operations, are among the proposals.
The Independent Commission on Banking's final recommendations are due on 12 September.
In its interim report published in April, the commission - chaired by former Bank of England chief economist John Vickers - recommended ring-fencing banks' retail operations from their investment banking arms.
However anxious ministers may be to ensure taxpayers never again have to foot the bill for bailing out stricken banks - they are in no rush to press ahead with any plans for them to be "split up".
The reason? They appear to have been convinced by many of the concerns raised by the City.
In particular, fears that such a move would be hugely de-stabilising for the banks at a time when ministers are desperate for them to focus on lending more money to British business.
They will also have been acutely alert to warnings from the British Bankers Association that any "split up" could prompt some banks to relocate outside Britain.
The danger for the government however is that delaying the changes until after the general election - voters may conclude that ministers have simply caved in to pressure from the banks.
It also said that taxpayers should not be liable for future losses, and that depositors should get their money back before creditors.
Mr Cable told the BBC that the "uncertainty and instability in financial markets make it all the more necessary that we press ahead to make our banks safe and reform them".
Amid reports of disagreements between the Lib Dem and Conservative coalition partners over the pace of change, Mr Cable said he was "more conscious of areas of agreement" and he and Chancellor George Osborne shared "common ground" over the need to take the Vickers proposals forward.
But earlier, the CBI told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there had been "a radical slowdown" in the economy since that interim report and there was now real concern about the impact of any reform.
"We're going to have a major problem if growth stagnates, and at that point, my businesses being able to get cash from their banks is critical," John Cridland, its director general said.
"Anything which makes it harder for banks to keep the wheels of the economy well-oiled is not good timing."
The Vickers commission was set up by the government last June to review the UK banking sector after it bailed out some of the UK's biggest banks during the 2008 financial crisis.
The government is under no obligation to implement the Vickers recommendations.
Lloyds Banking Group should sell more branches to increase competition.
It should be much easier for customers to move their accounts.
The BBC's Chief Political Correspondent Norman Smith said he sensed the government was "backing off" implementing any changes for some time and the banks would be given the "breathing space" they have been calling for to build up their financial strength after the 2008 crisis.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the government wanted to wait for the full report before responding to its recommendations.
"I think the key thing we want from our banks is really two things," he said.
"First of all, to be lending into the real economy so we can support growth and jobs. But the second thing we do need to make sure that our banks are not taking risks that put the economy at risk."
British Bankers' Association chief executive Angela Knight said banks should be allowed to "finance the recovery first, pay back the taxpayer next", and only then set about reform.
"If more regulation remains at the top of the list, then this will only have the affect of risking the recovery which is so essential to our future," she said.
But one financial expert said moving ahead with changes now need not be a problem if the correct framework was introduced.
"If you have the right sort of reforms...which in this case ought to be means of making it easier for banks to be allowed go bust safely without causing problems for taxpayers or the wider economy, you should introduce them at the earlier possible opportunity," said Andrew Lilico, from financial consultancy Europe Economic.
For Labour, shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie urged ministers to "get a grip" on the issue.
"The choked-off recovery we've seen since George Osborne's spending review and VAT rise should not be an excuse for ducking the necessary reforms," he said.
"And nor should rows between senior Cabinet ministers, and coalition politics, nor lobbying by the banking industry, stand in the way of delivering banking reforms that are in the national interest." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-39070248/an-origami-inspired-bullet-proof-shield-and-other-news | The origami inspired bullet-proof shield Jump to media player BBC Click's Lara Lewington looks at some of the best of the week's technology news.
The colour-changing hair dye Jump to media player BBC Click's Dan Simmons looks at some of the best of the week's technology news.
The device for catching drones mid-air Jump to media player BBC Click's Lara Lewington looks at some of the best of the week's technology news.
The drone selfie camera and other news Jump to media player BBC Click's Marc Cieslak looks at some of the best of the week's technology news.
BBC Click's Lara Lewington looks at some of the best of the week's technology news, including an origami inspired lightweight bullet-proof shield.
Plus, the technology making it easier to get ketchup out of a bottle. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/other_international/new_zealand/9418852.stm | Brendon McCullum hit a century and Ross Taylor cracked 74 off 44 balls as New Zealand beat Canada by 97 runs to book a spot in the World Cup quarter-finals.
The Black Caps struck 122 from the last 10 overs to reach 358-6, with James Franklin blasting 31 from eight balls.
Canada lost two early wickets but Ashish Bagai (84) and Jimmy Hansra (70) helped them to a respectable 261-9.
The Group A contest was the first at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the venue for the final on 2 April.
McCullum gave New Zealand a blistering start, reaching his fifty off 38 balls during a 96-run second wicket stand with Jesse Ryder.
McCullum was dismissed for 101 in the first over of the batting powerplay but there was no let up for the Canadians as Taylor picked up where he left off against Pakistan.
Standing in as captain for the injured Daniel Vettori, Taylor smashed four sixes off a single over from Hanvir Baidwan in a fourth-wicket partnership of 69 in 4.1 overs.
He was denied a second straight century by a superb catch from Hansra but Scott Styris (35), World Cup rookie Kane Williamson (34 not out) and Franklin continued the onslaught.
The last over from Rizwan Cheema stretched to eight balls and cost the Canadians 31 runs.
"Our game-plan is to try and keep wickets in hand," said Taylor. "Our strength is our lower-order batting and the power that we have."
Canada's reply got off to a disastrous start as Ruvindu Gunasekera and Zubin Surkari both edged Kyle Mills through to Taylor inside five overs before Hiral Patel was caught behind for 31.
But a stand of 125 between Bagai and Hansra restored some pride to the total, although they never looked likely to threaten New Zealand's score.
Both players suffered cramp in the sweltering heat, prompting Bagai to have a wild swing and get caught behind and Hansra to retire hurt.
Jacob Oram removed Cheema and Balaji Rao to finish with 3-47 off his 10 overs.
Khurram Chohan - alongside the returning Hansra - provided some late entertainment with a quickfire 22 but the result had long since been decided.
"It was decent play by the middle order again but we didn't push on and never looked like getting 360," said Begai.
"It was nice to get runs but again we came up on the losing side. I think we lost it in the first half of the game." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/humber/7692824.stm | A new equestrian centre at a rural skills college in East Yorkshire has been opened by the Princess Royal.
The indoor arena at Bishop Burton College will be used as a training base for the 2012 Olympics.
It forms part of the college's new £25m campus and has been designed to hold competitions and events as well as lectures and practical demonstrations.
Principal Jeanette Dawson said the visit was "fantastic news" and the "icing on the cake".
The Princess was a member of Great Britain's Equestrian team and participated in the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal.
Mrs Dawson said: "This is fantastic news for the college and a great way of launching such special facilities.
"Earlier in the year we received confirmation that we had been approved as an equestrian training base for the 2012 Olympics.
"The indoor arena was, and is, at the core of that bid and will provide some equestrian teams, clients and students with some of the best facilities in the country." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/870316.stm | "The LVF threat could signal the beginning of paramilitary apartheid in Maghaberry"
Northern Ireland prison officers have warned the government against any moves towards segregation at Maghaberry prison.
The Prison Officers' Association has said the government should not give in to threats from the Loyalist paramilitary splinter group the Loyalist Volunteer Force.
Members of the organisation were among 16 prisoners left in the high security Maze prison after the mass releases of paramilitary inmates under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, which culminated on Friday 28 July.
When the Maze near Belfast closes, its remaining prisoners will be moved to Maghaberry in County Antrim.
In the Maze H blocks, paramilitary groups were held in separate wings.
Hardline loyalist inmates have said they will attack prison officers and their families unless they are given their own areas in Maghaberry.
But Finlay Spratt of the Prison Officers Association said segregation at Maghaberry is not the way forward.
"On behalf of prison officers we would say quite clearly to these paramilitary groups - we are doing a job and we will carry on doing that job," he said.
"And to the management of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and to the government we would say think seriously before you go down this road again.
"We believed that there were going to be problems in Maghaberry. We believed that they were lying under the surface until the prisoners got out. This has now proved it," he added.
Mr Spratt added that there had been increasing violence in Maghaberry in recent years.
And he said that intimidation against prison officers was constant.
"We have had 59 staff assaulted within the past six months. We have had various fires [started by prisoners] and we have had officers homes attacked with petrol bombs.
"Prison staff are constantly under intimidation and threat from these groups."
There are currently 523 prisoners housed in Maghaberry. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3202575.stm | The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been asked how it calculates its pay package for chief executive Richard Grasso by the US financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The move follows last week's announcement that the NYSE had paid Mr Grasso nearly $140m (£89m) in savings, benefits and incentives that he had built up during his time at the exchange.
The exchange also said Mr Grasso's contract had been extended by two years to 2007 and he would receive basic pay of $1.4m and an annual bonus of at least $1m.
The announcement attracted controversy, with many observers saying the size of Mr Grasso's pay package appeared excessive.
The SEC is now asking the NYSE for "full and complete" details on how the pay package is determined.
SEC chairman William Donaldson - himself a previous head of the NYSE - has sent a letter to H. Carl McCall, the head of the exchange's Human Resources and Compensation committee.
In the letter, Mr Donaldson says the approval of Mr Grasso's pay package "raises serious questions regarding the effectiveness of the NYSE's current governance structure".
The letter sets out a number of questions and gives the NYSE until 9 September to reply.
NYSE spokesman Rich Adamonis said Mr McCall was "in receipt of Mr Donaldson's letter for additional information and he will respond by the September 9 date".
The $139.5m one-off payment to Mr Grasso announced last week consisted of $40m from a savings plan, accrued retirement benefits of $51.6m and $47.9m relating to prior incentive awards.
Mr Grasso had said he wanted to withdraw the benefits "in order to facilitate personal financial and estate planning".
Earlier this year the NYSE said it would disclose how much it paid top executives in order to improve its corporate governance standards.
Mr Grasso's pay had come under attention after reports had put his total pay package at $10m a year. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11540624 | Consumer complaints ranging from rogue traders to energy companies will be dealt with by a charity in the future.
As part of the axe falling on quangos, the government-backed Consumer Direct helpline will be taken over by the Citizens Advice Bureau.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is being stripped of its consumer protection role, with trading standards also taking on more responsibility.
The OFT is to be merged with the Competition Commission.
Local trading standards officers will deal with the OFT's previous high-profile work in taking on major consumer issues.
BBC business editor Robert Peston said: "The big question is whether local trading standards offices will have the resources or expertise to really challenge the behaviour of giant businesses."
Some 192 organisations will be abolished in the government's cull of quangos.
This will impact directly on consumers who will see a dilution of some of the groups that offer support and advice.
It's a huge reform agenda and one which seems in tune with David Cameron's localism and Big Society visions. Does it make sense?
Both Consumer Focus and Consumer Direct were set up by the previous Labour administration but, as revealed by BBC Radio 4's Moneybox on Saturday, they will no longer continue in their current form.
Trading standards officers campaigned for the Consumer Direct helpline to ease the pressure on dealing with frontline complaints from consumers to concentrate on investigating and prosecuting rogue traders.
The latest figures from Consumer Direct showed that consumers complained the most about second-hand car repairs from independent traders, followed by mobile phones and televisions.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said that consumers were currently being represented by a "bewildering array" of specialist bodies which often overlapped each other.
He wanted funding concentrated on Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland for taking complaints and offering frontline advice.
Trading standards officers should be given responsibility for enforcement of all consumer law, with specific arrangements for Scotland and Wales.
"Both these groups have high public awareness and trust levels," Mr Cable said.
Trading standards officers, who are funded by local government, have previously called for more funding to carry out their enforcement work.
Andy Foster, operations director of the Trading Standards Insitute, said the door should still be open for the most complex cases to be taken on a national level.
"There are global consumer protection risks and no one council can deal with that alone," he said.
He said that a lot of the detail on the plans was still to come, and appealed for local councils to protect trading standards as much as possible from further funding cuts.
Citizens Advice said that it was still negotiating with the government on exactly how much extra funding it would receive for the extra work. It is 78%-funded by the government.
Local bureaux also get 43% of their funding from local government.
The charity's chief executive Gillian Guy welcomed the extra responsibility.
"Citizens Advice is already an active champion for consumers, helping them get a better deal and making it simpler and easier for them to get the information and advice they need," she said.
"We also use their experiences for effective policy advocacy, securing benefits for all consumers."
Mike O'Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus, said: "The issue now is not who does the work but that the work is done well, at a time when consumers are facing difficult economic circumstances, especially those who are vulnerable."
Who are consumers going to call? |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-22370538/climber-jim-whittaker-retraces-historic-everest-ascent | Climber retraces historic Everest climb Jump to media player Mountaineering legend Jim Whittaker retraces his historic climb of Mount Everest 50 years on.
On May 1, 1963, Jim Whittaker climbed into history, becoming the first American to reach the highest point on Earth - the summit of Mount Everest.
Fifty years later, he is still one of the most highly regarded mountaineers of all time.
Last year, at the age of 83, he returned to the mountain with his family.
Now aged 84, he looks back at his historic climb and the perspective he gained from standing at 29,000ft (8,848m). |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/shropshire/6936020.stm | Two West Midlands Ambulance Service workers who were suspended over an alleged breach of the Data Protection Act will be allowed to return to work.
The service said the pair had been re-instated, pending the results of an inquiry, after holding interviews with them and Unison officials on Tuesday.
Talks are planned next week with a third worker who was also suspended.
The staff, who are based in Shropshire, were sent home last week after control room logs were obtained by the BBC.
The logs suggested ambulances from the county were being sent to help in Birmingham and the Black Country.
Some workers are concerned that plans to close the ambulance control room in Shrewsbury could put patients at risk.
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: "The information that was provided in the interviews has satisfied investigators that the two did not release confidential information outside of the organisation and they had no expectation that information they had in their possession would be released from the organisation.
"The trust is working as quickly as possible to complete the formal investigations and it is hoped that an interview can be held with the third member of staff next week once suitable union representation has been arranged.
"The trust is determined to protect members of the public from breaches of the Data Protection Act." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3793735.stm | Iraq's new Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban has reportedly said that all coalition advisers will leave Iraqi ministries after the 30 June handover.
Quoted by the UK's Financial Times, he said that the ministry would reassert full control over the country's lucrative oil industry.
However, the new UN resolution on Iraq limits the freedom of action of the interim government about to take power.
Mr Ghadhban also played down attacks by militants on oil infrastructure.
"When sovereignty is regained it means that there will be no more US advisers, not only in the ministry of oil, but in every ministry in Iraq," he was quoted as saying in Thursday's edition of the FT.
He accepted that, under the UN Security Council resolution adopted this week, the interim government could only make policies valid until it is replaced after elections in seven months.
The minister also acknowledged that oil revenues would still be monitored by the World Bank and IMF through the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) but said the new government would "be fully in charge of utilising the funds".
The BBC's David Bamford notes that the IAMB was established to ensure financial transparency in Iraq, a key requirement for the global financial institutions.
It remains unclear to what extent the World Bank and others might use this monitoring role to influence Iraq's spending decisions, our correspondent says.
In his interview for the FT, Ghadhban said he wanted to "go back to the old healthy management of the 1970s when the Iraqi National Oil Company [Inoc] used to be financed from its own production, and the remainder of the oil revenues went to the government".
Asked about privatisation, the minister, a veteran of the Iraqi oil ministry of 30 years' standing, said he had to "take some time" to decide.
Mr Ghadban added that while attacks on pipelines had affected production, the country was still on course to bring in about $16bn in oil revenues this year alone.
According to Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, pipeline sabotage has cost the country more than $200m in lost revenues over the past seven months.
Speaking to reporters in Baghdad on Thursday, Mr Allawi blamed foreign militants for the attacks.
"More than $200 million (£109m) has been stolen out of the pockets of a sovereign Iraqi government through the loss of oil revenues resulting from attacks to pipelines," he said.
"These saboteurs are not freedom fighters, they are terrorists and foreign fighters, opposed to our very survival as a free state."
Iraqi oil production in May stood at 2.1 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency.
With international prices remaining near $40 a barrel, the $200m in lost revenue accounts for no more than about three days' worth of national oil revenue.
Who is winning the contracts? |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lincolnshire/4771779.stm | A district councillor who was suspended from the Conservative Party has defected to the British National Party.
Robert West, of South Holland District Council, in Lincs was suspended after he spoke at a BNP meeting.
The 50-year-old said his switch was prompted by Conservative leader David Cameron's priority list of candidates for the next general election.
He said the list excluded white male candidates in favour of women, non-whites, homosexuals and lesbians.
In a statement, Mr West said: "I have decided to seek refuge from political correctness by applying for asylum with the British National Party - Britain's finest and most decent party - in our country's hour of need."
Mr West said he had been a lecturer in political philosophy and equal opportunities law.
He has set up his own church, based in a house in Holbeach, to preach "traditional bible beliefs".
He said Conservative leader David Cameron was "talking nonsense" when he recently called on people to oppose the BNP.
David Graves-Moore, deputy chairman for South Holland and the Deepings Conservative Association, said the local association had earlier decided against suspending Mr West, even though he had been suspended by the party at a national level.
"If we had known what we know now when we interviewed him we would have come to a different conclusion and suspended him there and then.
"He argued that he went to them (the BNP) to preach the gospel to them.
"If Mr West stands for the BNP in the next election I am confident we can defeat him," Mr Graves-Moore said. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4655518.stm | Wind farm production could be placing Scotland's white-tailed eagle population under threat, a wildlife charity has warned.
RSPB Scotland said the discovery of four dead white-tailed eagles near a wind farm area off the Norwegian coast gave cause for concern.
It fears that the eagles may have been killed in turbine collisions.
The green energy industry said it strived to ensure that wind farms did not interfere with wild birds.
The species is found in significant numbers on Smøla, the site of a 68-turbine wind farm.
About 30 other white-tailed eagles failed to return to nesting sites within the wind farm area, increasing RSPB Scotland's fears that wind farms in the UK could take a similar toll on native and migrating wild birds.
The four dead birds were found between August and December last year on Smøla, a set of islands about six miles off the north-west Norwegian coast.
Two had been sliced in half, apparently by a turbine blade.
White-tailed eagles are beginning to thrive in the Western Isles of Scotland as a result of a 30-year reintroduction project, RSPB Scotland said.
Spokesman Mark Avery said: "These findings are shocking yet may only be the tip of the iceberg.
"Research on Smøla is being stepped up and if more dead birds are found, and even fewer are able to breed, we will be doubly determined to fight wind farm plans that could cause similar destruction in the UK."
Fellow director Stuart Housden added: "We are campaigning hard against the proposed 234-turbine wind farm for the north Lewis peatlands partly because of the great danger it poses to Scotland's eagles.
"This environmentally sensitive site is protected under European law and a large wind farm there could have catastrophic implications for a wide variety of bird species - including both species of our native eagles - and the fragile peatland environment as a whole."
Scottish Renewables, which represents the green energy industry, said it worked closely with conservation groups to ensure wind farms did not interfere with wild birds.
The developers of the Lewis wind farm, Lewis Wind Power, said revised plans limited the effect on local wildlife.
Speaking last November, Lewis Wind Power director David Hodkinson said concessions included recreating peat habitats elsewhere during construction of the wind farm, phasing construction activity to avoid the bird breeding season and taking bird flight paths into consideration in the layout of the farm. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7928240.stm | Maintaining stability in restive Xinjiang will be a more difficult task this year, a top Chinese official says.
Xinjiang parliament chairman Nur Bekri said China feared unrest and militancy in neighbouring countries could spread into its north-western province.
China enforces tight controls in Xinjiang and rejects calls from its Muslim Uighur people for self-rule.
Nur Bekri also confirmed that three people who set themselves on fire in Beijing last week were from Xinjiang.
The married couple and their son were involved in a dispute with the local government over the demolition of their home, he said.
The couple were in hospital with severe burns, Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
Nur Bekri made his comments on the sidelines of the National People's Congress, China's annual session of parliament, in Beijing.
"We don't believe that hostile forces from home and abroad will give up," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
"I'm afraid we will face a more severe situation in maintaining stability than last year, our task will probably be heavier, and the struggle will probably be fiercer," he said.
Uighur separatists have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades. China blamed a series of violent attacks in August 2008 on separatist militants.
But campaigners accuse China of exaggerating the threat to justify tough security clampdowns in the region, while the US State Department accuses the government of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
In a report released last month, it said that "severe cultural and religious repression" of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang had increased.
Dissidents were being detained and harassed, and tight controls on freedom of speech and the internet were being maintained, it said. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/317325.stm | J Sainsbury, for so long the best-loved grocer in Britain, is in trouble.
The former king of the aisles has long since been dethroned - losing its position as Britain's biggest supermarket.
Now it appears that it has no chance of catching up with Tesco, the pretender to its crown.
The contrast between the fortunes of the two arch-rivals could not be greater.
Sainsbury's has already announced that 230 jobs at its Savacentre operation are under threat and now 300 workers at its head office are to go as it desperately searches for a way out of its current problems.
This announcement came in the same week that Tesco unveiled 20,000 new jobs and an ambitious overseas expansion plan.
In fact Sainsbury's situation has got so bad that it is even in danger of being relegated from second position in the supermarket league table.
It is a sad demise for a company with a long and famous history and had become synonymous with providing good quality food.
So what has sparked Sainsbury's dramatic decline and is there any way back?
It seems difficult to imagine now but at the start of the decade Sainsbury's appeared to be sitting pretty.
It was the undisputed market leader. While other groups fell into financial difficulties as they struggled to cope with the threat of new cut-price European discounters, Sainsbury's continued to pick up market share.
The group's profits doubled between 1989 and 1993. However, in retrospect these halcyon days were to mark the beginning of the end to Sainsbury's dominance of the food retailing market.
In 1994 Tesco beat Sainsbury's in the race to buy supermarket chain William Low - giving it an important presence in the Scottish market.
By 1995 Tesco has overtaken Sainsbury's as Britain's biggest food retailer. The William Low deal certainly helped but that was by no means the whole story.
Tesco proved adept at introducing a range of innovative new shopping services to entice customers.
It also launched a highly effective marketing campaign that made Sainsbury's look flat footed by comparison.
First there was the Clubcard, Tesco's loyalty card. Lord Sainsbury famously dismissed the idea as nothing more than an "electronic version of Greenshield Stamps".
He lived to regret that comment. Sainsbury's was forced to make an embarrassing U-turn and introduce its own loyalty card when the Clubcard became a roaring success.
The Clubcard was just one of a series of firsts for Tesco. It introduced a range of own-label economy lines, supermarket bank accounts and returned to the High Street by opening smaller Tesco Metro stores.
Sainsbury's was forced to play catch-up - with decidedly mixed results.
While Tesco extended its lead at the top of the supermarket table, Sainsbury's was left languishing in its wake.
Analysts believe the group has been dogged by bureaucracy and an old-fashioned management style which has left it without the fleetness of foot enjoyed by its nimbler rival.
Now Tesco has stolen a march on the Internet - offering free access to its Clubcard members as part of a plan to create a successful e-commerce website.
To top it all Sainsbury's latest advertising campaign - which featured Monty Python comedian John Cleese shouting loudly about cheap offers - flopped badly. For a supermarket who has prided itself on quality - to shout about economy goods proved to be a a misguided tactic.
The group is still picking up the pieces from the marketing disaster which many analysts believe destroyed its credibility in the City.
Over the past few years Sainsbury's profits and its share price have stalled.
Sainsbury's chief executive, Dino Adriano, is determined to salvage something from the wreckage.
He has wielded the axe at the company's Stamford Street head office on the south bank of the Thames.
The group's orange and brown logo and livery is also likely to receive a �100m facelift as Sainsbury's tries to position itself for the new millennium.
However, the future of the group looks uncertain.
There are rumblings that the Sainsbury family are becoming restless at the group's lack of success and may look to sell up and bail out.
There are even rumours that Sainsbury's could fall prey to a takeover bid.
The jury is out on whether Sainsbury's can find a way out of its current predicament.
"Sainsbury's has to do something radical, just sacking managers is not enough - it needs to become more innovative," one City analyst told BBC News Online.
With competition in the food retailing market intense and the market under investigation by the UK competition authorities for over-charging customers, the road to recovery could by turn out to be a bumpy one lined with potential potholes.
The danger is that Sainsbury's has passed its sell-by date. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-11970830 | Police from the football intelligence unit are continuing to review CCTV and broadcast footage of a Devon football derby marred by violence.
The Plymouth Argyle versus Exeter City match on 9 November was the first time the clubs had played each other for eight years.
Twenty-two people had been arrested so far and one man has been given a four year football banning order.
The teams will meet again on Saturday, but more police will be on duty.
Last month there were 60 Devon and Cornwall officers at Plymouth's Home Park ground, but this has been increased to 200.
The force was criticised for not anticipating the trouble that happened in and outside the stadium.
There had been some disturbances during the Johnstone's Paint Trophy clash, which Exeter won 2-1, but more trouble broke out at the end of the game.
A police spokesperson said reviewing the footage was a time-consuming process, but more arrests were anticipated.
The public would be asked to help identify any suspects the football intelligence unit was unable to positively identify, the spokesperson added. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-42318635/the-children-whose-gaming-turns-to-gambling | Kids whose gaming turns into gambling Jump to media player Skin betting websites let players gamble with virtual items from online games as currency.
'Mug's game': Inside gambling addict's mind Jump to media player Paul Grover lost hundreds of thousands of pounds; now he's at a rehab centre for gambling addicts.
'Students are vulnerable to gambling' Jump to media player Matt and 'Richard' both lost thousands of pounds through addiction to gambling while at university.
Buckaroo and Ludo at retro games day Jump to media player The Cardiff Story Museum has been putting on activities for families throughout the school holidays.
The build-your-own games console Jump to media player Crowdfunded Makerbuino lets children build their own handheld games consoles.
As many as half a million children and young people are gambling every week, according to a new survey.
The Gambling Commission's annual report looked at gambling with virtual currencies, known as "skin betting".
Bangor University student Ryan Archer's gaming turned into gambling when he was 15. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3301849.stm | The United States has started political consultations about the redeployment of its troops and bases around the world.
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and Undersecretary of Defence Doug Feith held talks with Nato ambassadors in Brussels on Monday.
They will begin consultations with European allies in the next few weeks.
The review is expected to result in thousands of troops being transferred from bases in Germany to new ones closer to potential trouble spots.
Ever since the falling out between the US and Germany over Iraq earlier this year, there has been talk of US troops relocating from Germany to eastern Europe.
The details of when and how remain unclear, but the day when US troops could be permanently based in the former communist bloc may be drawing near.
Last month, President George Bush said the US was stepping up discussions with key allies in Europe and Asia about redeploying its troops and bases around the world.
The idea is to make them more mobile and better prepared to deal with threats like terrorism.
But there was also speculation that Washington wanted to punish reluctant allies like Germany by moving US bases eastwards, to countries like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, which have strongly supported the US-led war in Iraq and also happen to be cheaper.
US Undersecretary of Defence Doug Feith indicated on Monday that the centre of gravity would indeed shift to the east, at least to some extent.
He said that the recent expansion of NATO, which has strengthened the alliance, is an important new reality.
"A lot of the current force posture in Europe is based on the realities of the Cold War, so adjustments are going to have to be made to take into account that the alliance is larger and stronger than it was a few years ago", he said.
From Brussels, Mr Feith is travelling to Poland, where Prime Minister Leszek Miller has already declared his willingness to host US bases.
Mr Feith is also planning to go to Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Iceland, while Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman will travel to France, Britain, Germany, Russia and Turkey.
Top US generals have indicated that what Washington is looking for in eastern Europe are advance posts, rather than fully-fledged bases.
But recent press reports suggested that Washington could be deterred by the amount of investment needed to build transport and communications infrastructure in poor countries like Romania and Bulgaria.
Doug Feith answered these reports cautiously, saying that they were looking at ways of making sure that the NATO alliance remained capable and sustainable and relevant for decades ahead.
"The perspective for this exercise is decades. This is not about current events, this is not about immediate considerations, it's a matter of how we posture ourselves so that we have an alliance that's capable and sustainable going far into the future", he said.
But that, as Mr Feith stressed, means that the timetable for decisions may also take much longer than expected.
The process of political consultations will continue with a second round early next year.
The first decisions could be made by next June, at the Nato summit in Istanbul. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44884830 | Ireland's economy could suffer a 4% hit if the UK and the EU fail to reach a deal following Brexit, the International Monetary Fund has said.
The IMF said that because of the highly integrated nature of the Irish and UK economies, Ireland could face economic consequences as sharp as the UK's.
Across the whole of the EU, the consequences of a "no deal" could be up to 1.5% of economic growth, it says.
Its report looks at possible fall-out from a "cliff-edge" break with the EU.
The IMF also says the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium would face harsher negative economic effects compared with countries such as Finland and Italy, which are less close economically to the UK.
The Fund's report said a "soft Brexit" scenario - with the UK out of the customs union but retaining access to the single market and agreeing to abide by EU rules - "would imply almost zero cost for the EU as a whole".
A "standard" free trade deal of the type agreed between Canada and the EU could cause a hit of around 0.8%.
The warning is the latest in a number of reports that suggest a "no deal", where Britain and the EU trade on World Trade Organization terms which include import tariffs, would carry significant economic costs.
The IMF's 4% figure is substantially lower than claims by Dr Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, who said yesterday that Ireland's economy could suffer by up to 8% if the EU did not agree a deal with Britain.
"The ball is now in their [the EU's] court," Dr Fox said.
Both Britain and the EU have said that they want a comprehensive free-trade deal and a close relationship after the UK leaves the EU in March next year.
But political arguments in the UK on the detail of the "deal" Theresa May wants to offer Brussels has meant preparations for a "no deal" are still continuing.
Today the EU published a paper on what businesses should do to prepare for a "no deal" situation , with some commentators believing the chances of that have increased because of the large distance still between the negotiating sides, particularly over the issue of how to retain no customs checks on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
"The integration of the EU27 countries and the United Kingdom has strengthened over time, reflecting shared gains from the EU's single market," the IMF said.
"Conversely the departure of the UK from the EU will inevitably represent a loss for both sides."
The IMF says that disruption to complicated supply chains, the increase in import tariffs and what are called "non-tariff barriers" - for example, different regulatory standards - would have a negative impact on economies across Europe.
"The UK is among the top three main trading partners of the euro area," the IMF said.
"Cross-border capital flows between the UK and the euro area are large [and] migration flows are considerable.
"Higher barriers to trade, capital flows and people movements following Brexit could disrupt these links, reducing trade, investment and labour mobility." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33071069 | People who need urgent mental health care in England are receiving inadequate support, regulators say.
The Care Quality Commission reviewed the help given to people in mental health crisis, which includes people who are suicidal, having serious panic attacks or psychotic episodes.
The regulator said the system was "struggling to cope".
Its report also highlighted what it described as a "lack of compassion" from A&E staff.
The CQC carried out its investigation following the signing of a Crisis Care Concordat between the government and the sector last year which promised round-the-clock support to those who needed it.
This includes help from dedicated mental health staff, intensive support at home or telephone advice.
But the review - based on surveys of patients, analysis of national data and inspections of services - found that 42% of patients did not get the help they needed.
Patients were also asked about the attitudes of staff towards them. Staff working for charities and volunteers received the most positive ratings, while staff in A&E received the worst.
Just over a third of patients who ended up in A&E thought they had been treated with compassion and warmth, and a similar proportion said their concerns had been taken seriously.
The dedicated crisis-resolution teams that are there to help those in trouble did little better, with fewer than half answering positively to each question.
The report also highlighted the experiences of a number of patients. One said: "It was approximately seven hours before I got crisis support and that was only a call not a visit, which would have been more useful.
"As my crisis worsened, I took a small overdose as I was not coping or getting any immediate help."
Dr Paul Lelliott, the CQC's mental health lead, said while there were some excellent examples of care, the findings must "act as a wake-up call".
"Worryingly many people told us that when they were having a crisis they often felt the police and ambulance crews were more caring and took their concerns more seriously than the medical and mental health professionals they encountered."
Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, the mental health charity, said: "The report will not come as a surprise to anyone who has found themselves in crisis or who is involved in supporting people when they are at their most unwell.
"We take for granted that when we have a physical health emergency we will get the help we need urgently. It should be no different for mental health."
Care Minister Alistair Burt said the government was trying to tackle the problems in mental health with its new treatment targets and extra funding that were both announced before the election.
"Improving mental health care is my priority," he added.
Last year 1.8m people sought help for a mental health crisis. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/344805.stm | President Yeltsin has easily survived an attempt by Communist opponents in the lower house of the Russian parliament to unseat him.
None of the five charges he faced in the Duma was supported by the 300 votes needed to move on to impeachment.
The BBC Correspondent in Moscow, Andrew Harding, says it is a crucial victory for the president.
The BBC's Andrew Harding: "Crucial victory for Yeltsin"
Of the five charges, it was only that of starting a war against Chechnya that was thought to have a hope of succeeding, but even that fell 17 votes short of the 300 needed.
Votes on the other four counts ranged between 238 and 263 in favour. Not all deputies were present in the Duma for the vote.
Communist and other hard-line deputies had predicted certain triumph after working for almost a year to impeach Mr Yeltsin.
But centrist and nationalist deputies apparently decided to back the president because of their greater opposition to the Communists.
Russia's acting Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin said the failure of the impeachment vote was a triumph of common sense: "A profound political crisis that could have worsened further has been overcome. Common sense has prevailed," he said.
The BBC's Robert Parsons: "The Communists tried to put a brave face on it"
But some Communist deputies responded with warnings the Duma was finished, saying Yeltsin could now move against the parliament. And others questioned the results.
"Without seeing the ballots we cannot acknowledge results of the vote," said Nikolai Kharitonov, head of the pro-Communist Agrarian faction.
Mr Yeltsin was said to be "relaxed" on hearing the news at his country residence some 100km (60 miles) from Moscow, after a routine medical examination at the Central Clinical Hospital.
His press secretary, Dmitriy Yakushkin, said Mr Yeltsin now wanted the Duma to return to normal legislative work.
He discussed the vote with his chief of staff Alexander Voloshin by telephone and said he would focus on forming a new government after sacking the old team, Mr Yakushkin added.
Mr Yeltsin now faces a fierce fight with parliament over a new prime minister to replace Yevgeny Primakov. Mr Primakov and his entire government were sacked by the president on Wednesday.
Parliament must decide next Wednesday whether to approve Sergei Stepashin as the new prime minister.
Three votes against Mr Yeltsin's choice would oblige him, under the constitution, to dissolve parliament.
Correspondents say that could trigger a constitutional crisis with Mr Yeltsin trying to dissolve the parliament and MPs insisting he cannot. The last time that happened, in 1993, Mr Yeltsin sent troops to storm the parliament. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/4355563.stm | The most powerful law enforcement agency in Britain is in crisis. Her Majesty's Customs and Excise (HMCE) is under investigation by the Metropolitan police. How did the agency, whose investigators were once regarded as the gold standard of criminal justice in Britain, fall so spectacularly from grace?
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been squandered in lost revenue. Two of Custom's most senior personnel - its head of law enforcement and Chief Solicitor - were suspended last year, and the department has lost control of its powers to prosecute.
NOTE: A complaint about this programme has been upheld by the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit. Mr Terry Byrne successfully complained to the BBC about aspects of the way he was represented in this programme. Please use the following link to read the adjudication of his complaint.
Panorama reveals the story of "The Swerve", a simple criminal sting which resulted in one of the most disastrous anti-fraud operations ever embarked upon by HMCE. The operation, at the London City Bond warehouse, led to 109 defendants walking free after Customs officers were found to have misled judges in secret hearings and lied in court.
One former senior Customs solicitor, Gordon Smith, breaks rank to speak exclusively to Panorama about his role in the affair.
"It seems such a tragedy that such an organisation as old as HM Customs and Excise should die the death that it has done because of the incompetence and because of the lack of back bone of the people at the top."
One of the fraudsters involved in "The Swerve", John Early, a South London haulier, also speaks candidly to Panorama about the millions he helped divert in alcohol duty and how Customs allowed it to happen.
"They left the door open didn't they? And everybody came in and kicked it off the hinges. It was all a giggle. From day one it was a giggle."
But, as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise strives to reinvent itself in a merger with the Inland Revenue, Panorama asks whether the country's oldest and most powerful law enforcement agency is still unable to rid itself of a culture of excessive secrecy. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2902777.stm | One in six workers in the UK has been bullied via e-mail, according to a new study.
A poll conducted by internet job site reed.co.uk showed that e-mail bullying is on the increase with those in the south west and London suffering most from cyber criticism.
Perhaps surprisingly, the higher up the office ladder people are, the more likely they are to be targeted by e-bullies.
While just 15% of secretaries claim to be the victim of such attacks, 28% of their bosses are being harassed via the inbox.
Examples of such bullying range from unfair comments sent by managers keen to avoid face-to-face confrontations to unwelcome personal remarks.
"I was bullied by my boss who would send me insults and belittle me by e-mail," complained one female administrator from London.
"In the end, I resigned," she added.
The problem is likely to affect productivity, the report says.
Some people find such bullying so distressing they need time off work, although nearly a third confront the bully and 22% talk the problem through with friends or managers.
"It seems that e-mail bullying is getting worse as economic pressures raise office temperatures across Britain," commented director of reed.co.uk Dan Ferrandino.
"The real problem lies in the medium itself," he added.
"It is just too easy to send an e-mail while tempers are running high, ignoring the effect it might have. E-mails lack the visual and sound clues built into most other methods of communication making it much more likely that people may take offence," he said.
Reed advises anyone suffering from e-mail bullying to talk to friends and colleagues about the problem as well as discussing matters face to face with the sender.
People should also keep a record of exchanges so it can be used as evidence should the problem persist. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-18574279 | Staff at the Galapagos National Park in Ecuador say Lonesome George, a giant tortoise believed to be the last of its subspecies, has died.
Scientists estimate he was about 100 years old.
Park officials said they would carry out a post-mortem to determine the cause of his death.
With no offspring and no known individuals from his subspecies left, Lonesome George became known as the rarest creature in the world.
For decades, environmentalists unsuccessfully tried to get the Pinta Island tortoise to reproduce with females from a similar subspecies on the Galapagos Islands.
Park officials said the tortoise was found dead in his corral by his keeper of 40 years, Fausto Llerena.
Ploughshare tortoises have their shells defaced to make them worthless on the black market. There are only a few hundred left in the wild and they are critically endangered.
Vulnerable Galapagos Giant tortoises mate in a way which means that the female is not crushed by the male, who can weigh about 400kg.
Poachers known as "the tortoise mafia" and locals who eat tortoise meat threaten Madagascar's rare tortoises, which include the Ploughshare, Spider, Radiated and Flat-tailed species.
Radiated tortoises are "one of the world's most beautiful species" , according to David Attenborough. They are only found in southern scrublands in Madagascar.
Burmese starred tortoises are also listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. They get their name from the striking yellow and dark brown star pattern on their shells.
Kleinmann's tortoise, also known as the Egyptian tortoise , is the smallest of the Mediterranean species.
Watch: What happened when Darwin arrived on the Galapagos Islands in 1835?
While his exact age was not known, Lonesome George was estimated to be about 100, which made him a young adult as the subspecies can live up to an age of 200.
Lonesome George was first seen by a Hungarian scientist on the Galapagos island of Pinta in 1972.
Environmentalists had believed his subspecies (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni) had become extinct.
Lonesome George became part of the Galapagos National Park breeding programme.
After 15 years of living with a female tortoise from the nearby Wolf volcano, Lonesome George did mate, but the eggs were infertile.
He also shared his corral with female tortoises from Espanola island, which are genetically closer to him than those from Wolf volcano, but Lonesome George failed to mate with them.
He became a symbol of the Galapagos Islands, which attract some 180,000 visitors a year.
Galapagos National Park officials said that with George's death, the Pinta tortoise subspecies has become extinct.
They said his body would probably be embalmed to conserve him for future generations.
Tortoises were plentiful on the Galapagos islands until the late 19th century, but were later hunted for their meat by sailors and fishermen to the point of extinction.
Their habitat furthermore suffered when goats were introduced from the mainland.
The differences in appearance between tortoises from different Galapagos islands were among the features which helped the British naturalist Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution.
Some 20,000 giant tortoises of other subspecies still live on the Galapagos. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36903513 | Judges at the UK's highest court have ruled against the Scottish government's Named Person scheme.
Opponents of the scheme appealed to the Supreme Court in London after their case was dismissed by the Court of Session in Edinburgh last year.
The system would appoint a named person - usually a teacher or health visitor - to ensure the wellbeing of every child.
Judges say some proposals breach rights to privacy and a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court said the aim of the Act, which is intended to promote and safeguard the rights and wellbeing of children and young people, was "unquestionably legitimate and benign".
However, judges said specific proposals about information-sharing "are not within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament".
And they said the legislation made it "perfectly possible" that confidential information about a young person could be disclosed to a "wide range of public authorities without either the child or young person or her parents being aware".
The Scottish government has said it will not commence the legislation until the problems are fixed - meaning it will be delayed until after its intended implementation date of 31 August. It is understood the government still hopes to roll out the system before the end of the year.
Education Secretary John Swinney said the government would move to "provide greater clarity" about information-sharing and would start work immediately on the necessary legislative amendments.
The Scottish government has also indicated that proposed changes to the named person legislation would be scrutinised by MSPs at Holyrood, which is in recess until the start of September.
A spokesman for the group that launched the challenge said the "state snooper" scheme had been "blocked" and the government must go back to the "drawing board".
He called for "intrusive data-sharing powers" to be scrapped.
The ruling by Supreme Court judges - two of whom are Scottish - does not mean the controversial Named Person legislation cannot ever be implemented.
It simply means the Scottish government must make some changes to the law to ensure it complies fully with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The charities opposed to the scheme had already seen judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh rule on two occasions that it could go ahead.
The appeal to the UK Supreme Court was on a claim that it breached ECHR.
The judges said in general terms the law - part of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 - did comply.
But they ruled some changes are required to the scheme.
In particular the way in which information could be shared by named persons and others was ruled non-compliant.
The court has said the Scottish government must provide greater clarity about how health visitors, teachers and other professionals who will be Named Persons will share and receive information in their role.
Ministers said they will start work on this immediately.
Although the provisions of the legislation were due to be implemented at the end of August 2016, it will now be delayed until changes can be made.
Why was the legislation challenged?
The Scottish government contend that the system would help to protect young people and has accused opponents of misrepresenting the legislation, which was approved by 103 votes to nil by MSPs when it formed part of the Children and Young People Act in 2014.
The Supreme Court heard two days of evidence in March on the case.
The appeal was brought by the No to Named Persons (NO2NP) coalition, which includes the Christian Institute, Care (Christian Action Research and Education), Tyme Trust and the Family Education Trust.
They tried to convince the panel of five Supreme Court judges that the named person legislation authorised "unjustified and unjustifiable state interference with family rights".
Their arguments had previously been dismissed as "hyperbole" by the Court of Session, which said named person did not diminish the role of parents and had "no effect whatsoever on the legal, moral or social relationships within the family".
And while the Supreme Court did not oppose the legislation in principle, it said information-sharing proposals interfered with privacy and family life.
NO2NP spokesman Simon Calvert said he was "delighted" with the court's decision, saying it "proves our concerns were properly founded".
He added: "This proposed scheme was intrusive, incomprehensible and illegal.
"This ruling means the Scottish government has been blocked from implementing this scheme on 31 August. It must scrap its plan for state snoopers with intrusive data sharing powers. It has to go back to the legislative drawing board.
"The Big Brother scheme is history."
Why does the Scottish government want to introduce named person?
The Scottish government wants Scotland to be "the best place in the world for children to grow up".
It has said that most children and young people get all the help and support they need from their parents, wider family and community, but sometimes they might need a bit of extra support.
As part of its Getting it Right for Every Child strategy, the government proposed giving all children and young people from birth to 18 years access to a named person under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
The Scottish government says the named person is intended to be single point of contact if a child or their parents want information or advice, or if they want to talk about any worries and seek support.
They will also be a point of contact for other services if they have any concerns about a child's wellbeing.
The law had been due to come into force across the country on 31 August of this year, although the policy had already been rolled out in parts of Scotland, including Highland, Edinburgh, Fife, Angus and South Ayrshire.
Mr Swinney said the government would start work to amend the legislation "immediately", so that the scheme can still be rolled out "at the earliest possible date".
He welcomed the judgement as a sign that "the attempt to scrap the named person service has failed".
What do other parties think?
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the ruling was "important" and "a victory for campaigners" against "illiberal, invasive and deeply flawed" legislation.
She added: "Simply put, the SNP does not know better than parents when it comes to raising their children.
"We have consistently argued against the named person legislation on grounds of principle and practicality.
"I hope today's ruling will make the SNP stop and think again."
Labour is broadly in favour of named person in principle, but has previously called for a "pause" to ensure it is introduced "properly and proportionally".
Education spokesman Iain Gray said the handling of the scheme had been "a shambles from the very beginning".
He said: "Labour will always support the need to protect vulnerable children and ensure that families get the support they need and deserve.
"In light of this ruling, however, the implementation of this scheme must be paused for as long as it takes to sort it properly. That is the case Scottish Labour have made for many months now and it is more compelling than ever following the court decision."
Ross Greer of the Scottish Greens said his party would continue to give its full support to named person, but called on the Scottish government to do more to build public confidence and better explain what the scheme means in practice.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats submitted a motion calling for parliament to be urgently recalled.
Education spokesman Tavish Scott said: "A recall of parliament is the only way to ensure that reforms receive the scrutiny required. This is not a decision for a minority minister to make in his office. It needs full parliamentary approval."
What is the named person scheme? |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-30003673/putin-rebuffed-by-china-s-first-lady | Putin rebuffed by China's First Lady Jump to media player Russian President drapes his shawl across China's First Lady Peng Liyuan, but she declines his help and removes it.
Russia looks to boost China ties Jump to media player The continuing crisis between Russia and Ukraine means Moscow is increasingly looking at boosting its ties with China.
Beijing cuts smog for APEC summit Jump to media player Beijing is gearing up for a major international summit and the scale and cost of its preparations would put any other host city to shame.
Russia's Putin announces divorce Jump to media player Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila have said their marriage is over.
Russian President draped his shawl across China's First Lady Peng Liyuan, but she declined his help and removed it.
They were sitting next to one another at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit near Beijing.
Mr Putin was trying to prevent the wife of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping from getting cold during a firework display at the Bird's Nest stadium.
The gesture seemed initially well-received but Peng Liyuan swiftly thought better of accepting the shawl and took it off before having it taken away. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/917441.stm | The explosion at the Mou Gong Gou mine in south-west China comes just weeks after the government released a report revealing a staggering death toll in work-related accidents.
The report highlighted China's dismal record on industrial safety - with more than 4,000 people reported to have been killed in industrial and mining disasters in the first five months of the year.
Tens of thousands of people are estimated to die in work-related accidents a year, prompting the government to deploy a task force earlier this year to examine attitudes towards safety and identify potential dangers.
One particular area of focus for investigators, headed by the State Economic and Trade Commission, was major industrial and mining enterprises in Beijing and the provinces of Hubei, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Hainan.
Over a three-month period, they visited 293,000 enterprises and institutions, and were reported to have detected 325,200 potential risks that could lead to accidents.
The inspectors also examined civil aviation, road and water transportation, railways and petrochemical businesses to find similar hazards.
According to a government circular, published on 8 September in the China Daily, at the end of August, 76 of this year's most recent serious accidents have claimed more than 1,460 lives in total.
Days earlier, Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo urged industrial bosses to recognise the importance and urgency of industrial safety.
With the publication of the report, the government said it had tightened workplace safety controls.
Mr Wu said that since the beginning of the year, a large number of unsafe factories and mines had been closed down.
According to a separate report from the State Economic and Trade Commission, more than 35,000 illegally and badly sited coal mines had been closed by the end of June.
Small plants have been blamed for a number of problems, ranging from pollution to bad safety records.
After an explosion at a fireworks factory in June, which killed more than 130 people, the authorities in the province of Guangdong ordered all factories making fireworks, cigarette lighters and matches to suspend production.
They said only factories which meet fire safety standards will be allowed to re-open, but others - particularly in densely populated areas - would be closed permanently. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37925169 | The final tranche of R&D funding needed to introduce a new rocket for Europe was committed on Wednesday.
The European Space Agency has amended an August 2015 contract with Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL), to unlock a further €1.7bn (£1.5bn; $1.9bn).
It tops up initial monies of €680m and means ASL can now complete development of the Ariane 6.
This new rocket will replace the Ariane 5 but, crucially, aims to cut current launch prices in half.
The move to a new vehicle is seen as vital if Europe is to maintain its competitive position.
The Ariane 5 is still the dominant player in the market for big commercial satellite launches, but this position is being challenged by a new wave of American offerings, in particular from the California SpaceX company.
This US firm’s Falcon 9 rocket already undercuts the Ariane 5 on price and will get even cheaper if efforts to fly each vehicle multiple times prove successful.
The contract amendment signed in Paris follows approval by key committees at Esa in the past few days.
They signalled their contentment with the preliminary design progress on the Ariane 6 and the reorganisation in Europe’s rocket industry required to implement vehicle production.
The last detail to be agreed was the establishment of a second line of fabrication for the carbon-fibre casings of the 6’s strap-on, solid-fuel boosters.
This will be in Germany and will supplement the line already planned in Italy.
Many boosters are required, not only for the 6 but to use as the first stage on an upgrade to a smaller rocket known as Vega.
"Thanks to the trust and support of Esa and its member states' representatives, the industry has met its commitments and proved its ability to fulfil its role as a design and industrial authority," said Alain Charmeau, CEO of Airbus Safran Launchers.
“We have met the deadlines and quality objectives set, and now, thanks to the industrial organisation rolled out in record time, we can continue to develop a flexible, modular and competitive launcher that will fly in 2020".
The Ariane 6 will come in two versions. One, known as Ariane 62, will loft medium-sized spacecraft into orbit - the kind of platforms that image and study the Earth.
A second version, known as Ariane 64, will put up the heavy telecommunications spacecraft, which sit 36,000km above the equator.
The new rocket leans heavily on its heritage. Indeed, its upper-stage engine, called Vinci, was originally intended for an upgrade of the Ariane 5. Prototype Vinci test firings were conducted through the summer.
The Ariane 6 will fly from a dedicated launch pad at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. Jungle land has already been cleared for the facility, which is subject to separate contractual arrangements between Esa and the French space agency (CNES).
Wednesday’s signing means there should be no arguments over the Ariane 6 when Europe’s research ministers meet for their big council gathering on 1/2 December in Lucerne, Switzerland.
In recent years, these fora have been dominated by negotiations over funding, national participation and workshare.
This time, the Council will confine itself to discussions about technology evolution programmes, such as the proposal to develop a liquid methane/oxygen engine dubbed Prometheus, which could one day power the Ariane 6’s core stage.
Engineers believe this propulsion unit would be substantially cheaper to produce than the Vulcain engine that will drive the 6 skyward when it starts operating in four years’ time.
Wednesday's contract amendments were signed at Esa HQ in Paris by the agency's director general, Jan Woerner, Mr Charmeau, and Jean-Yves Le Gall, the president of CNES. The signatures were inked in the presence of Thierry Mandon, French secretary of state for research and higher education. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-northamptonshire-41654686/kettering-general-hospital-car-park-nears-completion | Hospital's new car park near completion Jump to media player A hospital says a lack of car parking has been the public's "number one complaint".
Girl 'bled to death' at hospital Jump to media player The mother of a 17-year-old girl who bled to death at Kettering General Hospital says she hopes staff will learn from the case.
Hospital cuts loom, claims Labour Jump to media player The Labour Party has claimed that a leaked document about the future of Kettering General Hospital proves that managers are planning to cut services.
'Model' cancer initiative praised Jump to media player Kettering General Hospital's urology unit has been praised in a national report for the way it deals with patients who have been diagnosed with cancer.
The lower deck of a new two-storey car park at Kettering General Hospital has been completed.
The bottom floor of the new facility was finished on Monday, providing 237 spaces.
Work on a 240 space upper deck is ongoing, with that floor due to open in November.
It will take the total number of spaces on the site up from about 360 to 600.
The new car park will also included different ways to pay for parking, including contactless payments. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25222336 | Up to 30,000 Eritreans have been abducted since 2007 and taken to Egypt's Sinai to suffer torture and ransom demands, new research says.
The study, presented to the European parliament, says Eritrean and Sudanese security officers are colluding with the kidnap gangs.
At least $600m (£366m) has been extorted from families in ransom payments, it says.
Victims are kidnapped in Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea and taken to Sinai.
Eritrea has denied its officials are involved in the kidnappings.
Most of those targeted are Eritrean refugees fleeing the country, says the report - The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond.
"Their captors are opportunistic criminals looking to profit from their vulnerability," the report says.
"[The victims] are then taken to the Sinai and sold, sometimes more than once, to Bedouin groups living in the Sinai."
The report was authored by Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean human rights activist in Sweden, and Prof Mirjam van Reisen and Dr Conny Rijken of Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
The report says Eritrea's Border Surveillance Unit (BSU) and Sudanese security officials are among the "actors" colluding with the gangs that hold people hostage in the the largely lawless Sinai.
"[The hostages] are chained together without toilets or washing facilities and dehydrated, starved and deprived of sleep," the report says.
"They are subject to threats of death and organ harvesting... Those who attempt to escape are severely tortured."
Ms Meron told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio programme that one of her cousins was freed after a ransom of $37,000 was paid.
The cousin was abducted in Sudan, before being taken to Sinai where her captors tortured and raped her, Ms Meron said.
"Almost every Eritrean knows somebody who has been held hostage. It's a very common thing," she told the BBC.
The report said the trafficking would have been impossible without the direct involvement of Eritrean security officials, given the "restrictions on movement within the country, the requirement of exit visas at the border and the shoot-to-kill policy for illegal border crossings".
However, Eritrea's UK ambassador, Tesfamichael Gerahtu, said Eritrea was a "victim of human trafficking".
The government was "working hard" to arrest and bring to justice criminal gangs operating along its border, he told Focus on Africa.
The UN estimates that 3,000 Eritreans fled their repressive and impoverished country each month last year. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8394585.stm | Former Formula 1 champion Kimi Raikkonen has agreed to race for Citroen's junior team in the 2010 World Rally Championship.
The 30-year-old, who left Ferrari a year early at the end of the 2009 season, will compete in 12 of the 13 events for the Red Bull-backed team.
"This is a new but very exciting challenge," said the Finn, who won the 2007 F1 drivers' title with Ferrari.
"We have a one-year contract and we will see how it goes for the future."
The one-year deal keeps alive the chances of Raikkonen returning to F1 in 2011.
After being replaced by Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, he entered negotiations with former team McLaren but failed to agree financial terms.
McLaren then recruited Brawn GP's 2009 F1 champion Jenson Button to form an all-British line-up with 2008 winner Lewis Hamilton.
Raikkonen was offered a contract by Toyota in October but reports claimed that deal was also scuppered by his salary demands.
Less than a month later, the financially troubled Japanese car maker opted to end its involvement in F1.
Raikkonen can certainly afford to take a sabbatical from F1 - he is being paid a sum believed to be in the region of 20m euros not to race for Ferrari in 2010.
He made his world rally debut on home territory in August, and looked competitive before crashing out.
Citroen's French driver Sebastien Loeb has won the last six world rally titles and Raikkonen will have one of the most competitive cars in the C4.
Citroen said on Friday that Raikkonen's co-driver will be compatriot Kaj Lindstrom, who partnered now-retired Tommi Makinen to four successive world titles in the 1990s.
France's rising hope Sebastien Ogier will drive the junior team's other car. The team will not compete in New Zealand.
Loeb and Spaniard Dani Sordo will continue to drive for the main Citroen team.
Team boss Olivier Quesnel remarked: "We will continue to count on Sebastien and Dani to defend our world titles in 2010.
"We will also be prolonging our association with Sebastien Ogier who showed outstanding potential this year.
"Last but not least, it is with immense joy that we welcome Kimi Raikkonen to our ranks. We are very proud he has chosen Citroen." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-47911190 | A public vote designed to celebrate local businesses in one city backfired - after Nando's and Wetherspoon took top prizes.
Business luminaries in Preston had invited independent outfits to compete in their Smiles Better Awards show.
But residents in the Lancashire city made their feelings known - plumping for the two national chains in favour of the homegrown competition.
A local restaurateur said it "doesn't show Preston in a great light".
Peri-Peri chicken chain Nando's was hot favourite in the restaurant of the year category, while pub of the year was won by JD Wetherspoon outpost the Twelve Tellers.
Mark O'Rourke, who owns a group of local eateries, said it wasn't fair to put local independents up against national chains.
"Wherever you go in the country and go into a Wetherspoon's or a Nando's, it's the same as the last one you went into," he said.
Mr O'Rourke, who runs We Don't Give A Fork, Fino Tapas and the Otter's Pocket in the city centre, was awarded multiple retailer of the year.
However, he said his complaints were "not about me winning more awards" but about giving local businesses a chance.
Others agreed with Mr O'Rourke.
James Burns wrote that it was "pretty hard" to defend Preston in light of the results.
While Chris Eyles-Chaloner likened the vote to the Boaty McBoatface episode - where a comedy suggestion won a competition to name a polar research vessel.
A spokesman for Preston BID, which organised the awards, said they were open to any business operating in the city centre.
But they would not confirm whether the two national chains nominated themselves or were put forward by others.
He said almost 68,000 votes were cast by the public, and "they alone determine their favourite clubs, bars, stores, pubs and restaurants".
Nearly 50% of the awards were presented to the independent sector, he said, adding: "It only goes to show that the independent sector can hold their own against the national brands."
Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said The Twelve Tellers was "a superb pub".
He added: "It is very much a local business, providing employment to many people and although it is part of Wetherspoon, it has its own identity and is very much a one off pub in terms of design." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-47645863 | In the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand , "Simon" - who worked as a counter-terrorism specialist for the Home Office - said the north of England faced a growing danger from far-right extremists and neo-Nazis.
Number of extreme right-wing referrals to Prevent. 2017-18, England and Wales, by counter terrorism region. .
The number of religious or racially motivated hate crimes in England and Wales, increased from 37,417 in 2013-14 to 79,587 in 2017-18, according to the Home Office .
Addressing the House of Commons earlier this week , Security Minister Ben Wallace acknowledged far-right extremism was a growing problem. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/dorset/6449009.stm | A luxury motor yacht maker plans to create 500 jobs in Dorset with the acquisition of American-owned manufacturing facilities.
Sunseeker said it had agreed outline terms, for an undisclosed amount, with US-based Luhrs Marine for its yacht facilities at Osprey Quay, Portland.
The company's expansion will create 500 skilled jobs over four years.
Production at the 11.5 acre site could start as early as May this year once the deal has been completed.
Sunseeker, based in Poole, is the world's largest privately-owned builder of motor yachts employing 1,800 staff.
Robert Braithwaite, managing director and founder of Sunseeker International, said: "Osprey Quay is an ideal location for our future expansion plans.
"I am sure that by moving a level of production to the Portland location we will be able to build on the company's success while adding to the growth of the local economy and utilising the boatbuilding skills available in the area."
Luhrs Marine said it would maintain its European headquarters for sales and customer service in the UK.
Stephen Cutsforth, Luhrs' managing director, said: "We are pleased Sunseeker has agreed to take advantage of this excellent site and skilled employee base."
Colin Molton, deputy chief executive of the South West Regional Development Agency, which facilitated the deal, added: "We are encouraged to see a global brand such as Sunseeker going from strength to strength and expanding in South West England." |