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Two people have been killed and several others injured in an explosion on a bus in the Philippine capital, Manila.

Police said the blast was believed to have been caused by a bomb placed under a passenger seat in the middle of the bus.

One official said the blast was so powerful it blew a hole in a nearby concrete fence.

The blast happened in the Makati business district of the Philippine capital at 1400 (0600GMT).

“Initially, we have two confirmed deaths and 15 others are injured and are being attended to in hospitals,” Nicanor Bartolome, head of the Metropolitan Manila district police office, told local television.

He said that from the damage to the bus it appeared that a bomb had exploded.

A presidential spokesman said police were working to identify what kind of device had been used.

“We were informed… that the cause of the explosion is that it was some sort of explosive device placed in the vicinity of the middle of the bus, but the exact type has yet to be determined,” Edwin Lacierda said.

He had said earlier the explosion appeared to have been caused by a mechanical or electrical fault.

The incident comes three months after the US and some Western governments amended travel advisories to warn that attacks in areas including Manila were likely.

Both communist and Islamist rebel groups are fighting security forces in parts of the southern Philippines but attacks in the capital are rare.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A female polar bear swam continuously for 232 hours, covering 687km, a new study has revealed.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A medical team at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol is pioneering a new form of surgery to treat long term depression.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A consultant at Belfast Health Trust said he was confident the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children provided the “highest standard of care”.

Dr Paul Jackson said improvements had been made after a critical assessment from health experts who visited the hospital 10 months ago.

It said the hospital was under-staffed, in need of redevelopment, cramped and falling below standards.

Dr Jackson said the team had acted on the recommendations made.

It emerged on Monday that the hospital board and health trust invited independent health assessors (IMAS) to carry out an inspection in March 2010.

Whilst there was some praise in the report, it was highly critical and called for issues to be addressed urgently.

One of the authors of the review warned health chiefs: “I fear that there is a very real risk that children will come to harm if changes to staffing, facilities and processes are not made.”

Dr Jackson said a team had been put in place to action the recommendations and improve the situation.

“We took some interim measures, employing extra nurses and doctors and we are working very hard,” he said.

“I am completely confident that if you took your child into the hospital you would receive the highest standard of care.”

On Monday Health Minister Michael McGimpsey announced that the £300,000 refurbishment at a ward on the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children had begun.

Work began on 19 January and is expected to take eight weeks

The minister said: “I welcome the news that the plans for refurbishing the ward are finalised and that work has now begun.

“£300,000 is a substantial investment that will bring real benefits for patients, staff and parents.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A Tory MP has defended comments he made accusing feminists of “obnoxious bigotry” and adding that men were the victims of “flagrant discrimination”.

Dominic Raab said men had a raw deal in the workplace, working longer and being at greater risk at losing their jobs.

He told the BBC it was sexist to claim men had caused the recession and “equality had to cut both ways”.

Labour said the comments showed the Tories were out of touch and progress in equality was under threat.

The MP’s remarks came amid a row over sexism in football and the media after two leading Sky Sports presenters were disciplined for making derogatory comments about a female assistant referee.

In an article for the Politics Home website, Mr Raab said that despite the UK having “some of the toughest anti-discrimination laws in the world”, society was often “blind to flagrant discrimination against men”.

Citing what he said were “trite generalisations” about male bankers causing the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent recession, he added: “Feminists are now amongst the most obnoxious bigots.”

Standing by the comments, he told Radio Four’s PM programme that he was opposed to discrimination of all kinds including what he said was “pretty obvious” bias against men.

“You cannot have a situation where, rightly, Sky Sports presenters are being picked up for sexist comments they make about women knowing the offside laws and on the other hand say that when there are blatantly sexist comments in the media regularly and no-one blinks – that is wrong.”

“If you believe in equality, it cuts both ways.”

Citing comments by Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman in 2009, in which she suggested the scale of the financial turmoil may have been reduced if failed investment bank Lehman Brothers had been run by women, he said “subtle” discrimination against men often went unchallenged.

“I think blaming the recession on men is an obviously sexist comment. We should be as tough on all forms of sexism and, frankly, try and get away from gender warfare and the politics of difference.”

Mr Raab – MP for Esher – said huge progress had been made in reducing the gender pay gap in the past 40 years and remaining inequalities were less a product of “endemic sexism” than the challenges facing working mothers and couples trying to juggle work and family responsibilities.

Workplace discrimination could only be fully tackled by looking at working conditions “in the round”, he added.

“Men work longer hours, they die earlier but they retire later than women. That is not a problem we are going to fix for seven years. How can that possibly be justified?

“The fact is that men working longer hours, enjoy their jobs less – according to the surveys – commute from further afield and are more likely to face redundancy.”

Kate Green, chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, condemned the remarks.

“This is exactly the kind of attitude that shows the Tories are out of touch on issues of importance to people across the UK and are not a family friendly party.

“The equality and diversity agenda put in place by Labour has been hugely important in levelling the playing field for millions of people in the work place and we need to ensure we continue to build on its success.”

Equality campaigners say women will bear the brunt of the £81bn in government spending cuts planned over the next four years but failed in a recent legal challenge to last year’s Budget.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

A lawyer has dramatically withdrawn from pursuing alleged illegal file-sharers in the middle of a court case he brought.

The patent court in London is currently scrutinising 27 cases brought by ACS: Law on behalf of its client MediaCAT.

The law firm had sent thousands of letters to alleged file-sharers.

But in a statement read to the court, solicitor Andrew Crossley, said he had now ceased all such work.

He cited criminal attacks and bomb threats as reasons.

“I have ceased my work…I have been subject to criminal attack. My e-mails have been hacked. I have had death threats and bomb threats,” he said in the statement, read to the court by MediaCAT’s barrister Tim Ludbrook.

“It has caused immense hassle to me and my family,” he added.

In September ACS: Law was the victim of a cyber attack which exposed thousand of its e-mails online.

These e-mails detailed all the people it was pursuing and the pornographic films they were accused of downloading for free.

The data breach is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Information Commissioner and Mr Crossley could face a hefty fine.

ACS: Law hit the headlines when it began sending thousands of letters to alleged file-sharers, on behalf of client MediaCAT.

Consumer group Which has accused it of sending letters to innocent people, while some ISPs have refused to hand over details about their customers.

Groups such as the BPI, which represents music labels, has criticised its methods.

Those methods hinge on a partnership between ACS: Law and MediaCAT, which in turn has signed deals with various copyright holders allowing it to pursue copyright infringement cases on their behalf.

The court heard that copyright owners receive a 30% share of any recouped revenue while ACS: Law takes a 65% share.

Members of the public who received letters were given the choice of paying a fine of around £500 or going to court.

Detractors have accused Mr Crossley of seeking to make money with no intention of taking any cases to court.

In his statement, read by MediaCAT’s barrister Tim Ludbrook, Mr Crossley denied this.

“It has always been my intention to litigate and, but for the fact that I have ceased this work, my intention was to litigate forcefully in these 27 cases,” he said.

Mr Crossley is subject to an ongoing investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Even before Mr Crossley’s statement, the court case had been highly unusual.

ACS: Law’s client MediCAT wants to drop the cases and letters have already been sent to the defendants informing them that action against them had been dropped.

But Judge Birss said granting permission to discontinue the cases was not a simple matter due largely to the fact that the actual copyright holders were not in court.

This meant that, in theory, these copyright holders could continue to pursue cases against the 27 defendants.

“Why should they be vexed a second time?” he asked.

Judge Birss also questioned why MediaCAT wanted to drop the cases.

“I want to tell you that I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny,” he said.

The case was made more complicated by the fact that a new firm, GCB Ltd, had begun sending similar letters, including one to one of the defendants who had been told just the day before that no further action would be taken.

Judge Birss said he was considering banning MediaCAT from sending any more such letters until the issues raised by the cases had been resolved.

Doing so, he said, would be a highly unusual move but one made more likely by the fact that Mr Crossley had said in his statement that there were “no new letters pending” and that GCB Ltd had also halted its work.

The judge was keen to find out what the relationship was between GCB and ACS: Law, something Mr Crossley sought to clarify in his statement.

He said that he had no connection with GCB Ltd beyond the fact that the founders of the firm had previously been employed at ACS: Law.

The case has raised some serious questions about how copyright firms pursue file-sharers.

Barristers acting on behalf of the accused questioned whether an IP address – a number assigned to every device connecting to the internet – could be used to identify the person who downloaded illegal content.

Barrister Guy Tritton also questioned the nature of the letters sent by ACS: Law, asking why it described MediaCAT as a “copyright protection society,” – a title that he said was “misleading”.

Judge Birss is expected to deliver his judgement on the case later in the week.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The trial of a former Conservative peer accused of making false expenses claims is set to resume.

Lord Taylor of Warwick faces charges relating to costs claimed for travel between a home in Oxford and the Houses of Parliament.

On Friday he said it had been a “quirk” of House of Lords which led him to list as his main residence a property at which he had never stayed.

The former barrister denies six charges of false accounting.

The 58-year-old, who has resigned the Conservative whip, said on Friday that he had listed his main residence as a home in Oxford, while he actually lived in London, following advice from colleagues.

It was commonplace for the wording of parliamentary guidelines not to be adhered to strictly, he told Southwark Crown Court.

Asked where he lived, Lord Taylor replied: “I physically lived in Ealing. It was the only place I physically lived in, yes.”

Mr Justice Saunders, the trial judge, then said: “Residing means physically living, doesn’t it, Lord Taylor?”

The peer said that in reality, the term “main residence” was more ambiguous.

He said: “There were difficulties, and I certainly wasn’t the only one.”

Lord Taylor said it was a “bone of contention” among peers in the House.

Judge Saunders continued: “There was ambiguity over it?”

He replied: “Yes. It was a quirk like many other things in the House of Lords.”

Lord Taylor, of Lynwood Road, Ealing, west London, faces six allegations of false accounting on various dates between March 2006 and October 2007.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Four people have been taken to hospital with stab wounds following a large disturbance in Folkestone.

Officers were called to Marine Terrace just before 2030 GMT and discovered the injured parties. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

One person was arrested by Kent Police and taken into custody.

The road has been closed off and diversions put in place as officers combed the area. Police have appealed for witnesses.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Rory Cellan-Jones asks leading figures in the social networking world including Twitter’s Biz Stone, Path’s Dave Morin, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley and Facebook’s Chris Cox how social networking has changed their lives.

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A toddler has been found roaming the streets of an Essex town on her own late at night.

Police said they were trying to find the parents of the girl, thought to be aged two or three, who was found in Westcliff, late on Monday.

Officers said the girl was found by a member of the public in Genesta Road, just before 2300 GMT.

She is described as black and has long plaited hair. Police said she did not appear to speak English.

The toddler was dressed in purple leggings, a top and jacket.

Police made house-to-house inquiries but said they were unable to identify the girl.

She was placed overnight in the care of social services.

Anyone with any information has been asked to contact police.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Birth of social network traced to old record shop

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Siemens beat analysts’ forecasts for its first quarter profits, helped by strong demand from fast-growing emerging economies.

The German engineering group, one of Europe’s biggest, said profits from continuing operations rose 17% to 1.79bn euros ($2.44bn; £1.53bn).

Revenues for the period, between October and December, were up 12% to 19.49bn euros.

Siemens is a big exporter to China, Brazil, India and Russia.

Latest data showed German manufacturing orders grew at their fastest rate in 10 months in November due to strong demand from outside the eurozone.

“Orders and revenue grew in all regions, particularly in emerging markets,” said Siemens’ chief executive Peter Loescher.

Orders from emerging markets rose 31%, and accounted for one-third of Siemens’ total orders for the quarter.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.