Climate change report, 'Cinderella law', Farage's Putin 'admiration' and Kate O'Mara tributes in papers
A report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is dissected in Monday's papers.
The full impact of global warming over the coming decades is outlined in stark detail in the most comprehensive inter-governmental study to date, says the Daily Telegraph.
The Telegraph's front page story hones in on predictions that the UK faces water shortages and food price increases as well as floods and heatwaves as a result of climate change. But it also carries comments by Chris Field, one of the report's lead scientists, who suggests "doom and gloom" could discourage the entrepreneurial innovation needed to "build the solutions" to the problem.
In an editorial, the Telegraph agrees the report makes "sobering reading" and says "greater thought needs to be given to how mankind might adapt to the climatic realities".
Meanwhile, the Independent reports that the "blunt and often pessimistic assessment" says countries are ill-prepared for the potentially immense impacts "on all continents and across the oceans".
The Financial Times says the IPCC report makes the "striking finding" that global warming is affecting yields from wheat and maize and may be linked to food price rises.
In an editorial, it says UK politicians will have to consider how to implement future recommendations following "confused and uncertain messages from governments over the past 20 years".
Comments by the bosses of the "big six" energy firms are an "extraordinary indictment of industry practices," according to the Times. The paper says it has seen anonymous remarks in a report prepared for a conference in which the executives say that poor levels of customer service and confusing bills may have made them vulnerable to attacks by politicians. But it says there was also a belief that the intervention was "opportunism" and could jeopardise investment in infrastructure.
The Sun has concerns of its own on how the "most vulnerable members of society" are treated by big companies in "rip-off Britain". It is launching a campaign with veteran poverty campaigner and Labour MP Frank Field to "shame bosses" and "expose the money grabbing state organisations and private firms who deliberately exploit those who cannot go elsewhere". In its sights are insurance companies, cash point charges, pre-payment electricity meters and hospital parking.
The Daily Mirror looks at claims of "exploitation" in the construction boom in Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup. A team of British trade union leaders and MPs has visited the country and are warning of deaths because of poor safety conditions on some projects, as the Qataris work on fresh proposals to improve conditions and existing rules.
A potential update to child neglect offences is dubbed a "Cinderella law" by the Daily Telegraph. It reports that under proposed changes parents in England and Wales who starve their children of love and affection could face prosecution for "emotional cruelty". Ministers plan to introduce the change in the Queen's Speech in June, the paper reports.
The Daily Express says there is "outrage" among patients' groups and doctors after a think tank proposed a £10-a-month fee to use the NHS and higher prescription charges. Its leader column says the plan is "preposterous" and would be unnecessary if "those with vested interests such as unions, bureaucrats and, yes, doctors would agree to widespread reforms".
The proposal comes in a report for the think tank Reform, and writing in the Guardian, one of its co-authors, the former Labour Health Minister Lord Warner, suggests it is needed to stop the NHS from sliding into a decline that threatens its existence. All the main political parties are said to have rejected the idea.
Comments by UKIP leader Nigel Farage in GQ magazine that Vladimir Putin was the statesman he most admires are picked up.
The Daily Telegraph notes that when asked in the interview with former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell to choose a current leader, Mr Farage did make it clear that he was selecting the Russian president "as an operator, but not as a human being".
Mr Putin has been blamed by the West for propping up the Assad regime and prolonging Syria's civil war but was widely seen to have outwitted the US last year by brokering a deal with Damascus over chemical weapons.
Mr Farage went on tell GQ: "The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically. How many journalists in jail now?"
The Daily Star also reports that while the UKIP leader "hailed the Russian leader who has angered the West... in contrast he described the EU's most powerful figure, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as incredibly cold". He also claimed to see little to choose between the leaders of the UK's three major parties.
Mr Farage's comments were "an extraordinary intervention", says the Daily Mail, which suggests their publication will reopen a row about his "outspoken views on foreign policy" less than seven days after he said a "weak" European Union had "blood on its hands" by provoking Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
There are numerous photographs from the screen and stage career of actress Kate O'Mara, who has died at a Sussex nursing home at the age of 74 following a short illness.
The Guardian says O'Mara was "once as ubiquitous on British television screens as the test card", with roles in programmes including Howard's Way and Doctor Who before she found international fame in the 1980s as Joan Collins's sister in the US soap Dynasty.
According to Natalie Clarke in the Daily Mail, O'Mara was a "star of the old school - glamorous to a fault, gracious and always ready with a smile for her fans" but was "haunted to the end by the two sons she lost" - one given up for adoption and the other found hanged in 2012.
The Times obituary writer sees her as an actress who "excelled in larger-than-life dramatic roles" who "possessed an exotic beauty and seemingly natural glamour, with seductive green eyes and cheekbones that might have been sculptured by Henry Moore".
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