Author: xaurav

The Spanish PM unveils plans to tackle his country’s budget crisis amid concerns that problems afflicting Greece may spread.

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

Michael Gove is to be the education secretary in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

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

The new PM David Cameron and Deputy PM Nick Clegg have unveiled details of their plans for government. Is this an historic opportunity for the UK?

The main priority will be to tackle the country’s budget deficit, which will include £6bn of spending reductions this year. An emergency budget will take place within 50 days.

There will also be a referendum on the Alternative Vote system for general elections. Fixed-term parliaments will be introduced meaning that the next election will be in May 2015.

The new government has also pledged to hold a referendum on any further transfer of powers to the EU as well as a commitment not to adopt the Euro for the lifetime of the next Parliament.

Can the Conservative-led coalition rebuild trust in politics and create a stronger society? Or will the differences between the parties create problems for the new coalition? What did you think of the first press conference by David Cameron and Nick Clegg?

At-a-glance: Cameron coalition’s policy plans

Cameron’s cabinet: A guide to who’s who

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

Police in Egypt have arrested an Egyptian-American academic discovered to have several weapons in his luggage as he arrived on a flight from the US.

Officials said they saw the man, named as Mohammed Ibrahim Marei, a professor of botany, "behaving nervously" as he waited to pass through customs.

In his bags they found two handguns, 250 bullets, several swords, daggers and knives.

He had arrived on an Egyptair flight from New York to Cairo.

The authorities said they had launched an investigation, it was reported.

It was not immediately clear how the man was able to get through security in New York and board the plane.

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

A horse trader found guilty of the "worst case" of animal cruelty seen by the RSPCA, has absconded as he was awaiting his appeal against sentence.

James Gray, 46, neglected more than 100 animals on his farm in Amersham, Bucks, with many found ankle-deep in faeces.

Gray attended Aylesbury Crown Court to appeal against his 26-week prison sentence having lost an appeal against his convictions last week.

But when the court resumed, Gray had gone. An arrest warrant was issued.

Commenting on the state of the animals found in the care of Gray, Rob Skinner, chief RSPCA inspector for Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, said: "It was the worst case of neglect I have ever seen."

It is thought Gray walked past security guards and into the town centre, despite being told by Judge Christopher Tyrer not to leave the court building for the hour-long break.

Whereabouts unknown

Michael Fullerton, representing Gray, was asked by the judge where his client was, and replied: "I have no idea. I haven’t seen him from the time the court rose."

Gray, who was convicted along with his wife and three of his children following the neglect at Spindle Farm was sentenced in his absence to 26 weeks in prison.

Sentencing him to the maximum possible, Judge Tyrer said: "What the court has been listening to is an horrendous case of animal cruelty.

"It is the worst case ever experienced by the RSPCA. In our judgment, this was animal cruelty on a scale that beggars belief.

"In January 2008, the RSPCA were faced with a calamity of huge proportions. One hundred-plus horses had to be removed. Others were so ill that they had to be euthanised.

"Carcasses in various stages of decomposition were found. Some of them were in full view of the farmhouse, where young children lived and had access to the adjacent garden.

"The animals were dead and dying. There was neglect, starvation, emaciation and squalor. The animals that the RSPCA found were hungry and thirsty, dejected, miserable and depressed.

"After removal, nearly all of them recovered and have thrived.

"The business, of which all of you were party, was concerned only with profit. Animal welfare did not figure at all."

Gray and his teenage son, James Gray Jnr, were found guilty of 11 charges each under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 after a trial last year.

Two of the charges were dropped when they launched an appeal following sentencing last June.

James Gray Jnr, 17, was acquitted on two further charges following the appeal, but all other convictions against him, and his relatives, were upheld.

Gray’s wife, Julie, 42, and daughters, Jodie, 27, and Cordelia, 21, had each been found guilty of two animal welfare offences.

All of the Grays were banned from keeping horses, ponies and donkeys following the neglect. Gray was banned for life, with his wife, son and daughters each banned for 10 years.

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

A woman who admitted leaving a disabled six-year-old girl outside overnight in freezing temperatures has been told she will not face a prison sentence.

Kate Harper, 26, left the child, who is blind and deaf, strapped in her pram in Kingspark, Glasgow, last November.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard the girl suffered hypothermia and almost died.

Sheriff Kenneth Mitchell said Harper’s behaviour was an isolated crime and deferred sentence for three months to allow her to show good behaviour.

The court was told that Harper attended a party on Bonfire night (5 November) which turned into a late-night drinking session.

When she took the youngster back to her house she realised she had forgotten her keys and abandoned the girl outside.

She headed back to collect the keys but instead of returning with them went to sleep in her sister’s house.

The court heard that the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was discovered just before 0830 GMT on 6 November.

A bus driver and classroom assistant arrived to take her to school, where she receives supported learning.

They saw the pram, which had tipped over, and noticed that the child was in it with her face pressed against the stone stairs outside the house. She was shivering and her lips were blue.

As paramedics later treated the girl, Harper was spotted walking down the street from her sister’s house.

Police officers spoke to her, and she told them she had very little recollection of what had happened the night before.

She was taken to Aikenhead Road police office and later admitted to abandoning the girl.

‘Reckless conduct’

The youngster was taken to Yorkhill Hospital where doctors treated her for hypothermia and bruising from the straps of the pram.

At an earlier hearing, Harper admitted culpable and reckless conduct by abandoning the girl outside her home.

Appearing for sentencing, Sheriff Mitchell told Harper that her conduct was "wholly unacceptable and reprehensible".

The sheriff said: "It is accepted that the accused’s culpable and reckless conduct on this occasion caused this very disabled child distress, injury, hypothermia and endangered her life.

"Miss Harper drank far too much and, as a result, she was culpably reckless in regard to her responsibilities towards this child.

"But I am satisfied that this very serious crime can be properly regarded as an isolated one.

"I therefore consider that the proper course is to defer sentence for a short period of three months to enable the accused to demonstrate her continued good behaviour."

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

A supermassive black hole may have been observed in the process of being hurled from its parent galaxy at high speed.

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

Cannes Film Festival: The show is well and truly on

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

Defeated Sri Lankan presidential candidate Gen Sarath Fonseka has for the first time appeared before a civilian court to deny inciting unrest.

He is alleged to have said in a newspaper interview last year that the defence secretary ordered the killing of surrendering Tamil rebels.

The general appeared before Colombo magistrates to protest his innocence.

He said he had been misquoted by the newspaper and that the case was part of an attempt to silence him.

He is accused of saying that Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa – who is the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa – ordered the killings of Tamil rebels who surrendered during last year’s military offensive against the group.

‘Frivolous case’

Gen Fonseka is in military custody and faces separate court martial charges of engaging in politics while in uniform and overseeing corrupt arms procurements.

Gen Fonseka has filed several petitions in higher courts challenging his arrest in February, 12 days after he failed to unseat President Rajapaksa in elections.

The general led the military offensive which resulted in the elimination of the separatist Tamil Tiger leadership in May last year.

It effectively ended 37 years of ethnic conflict which had claimed up to 100,000 lives.

But Gen Fonseka fell out with the president and his brother over who should take the most credit for the victory.

"It is ironic that the man who was hailed a national hero for crushing Tamil Tigers is being brought before court exactly a year later," said Gen Fonseka’s lawyer, Nalin Laduwahetty. "This is a frivolous case."

The judge adjourned the hearing until 26 May.

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

Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe bring some glamour to the French Riviera later as Robin Hood opens the 63rd Cannes Film Festival.

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

The European Commission wants EU countries to co-ordinate plans for national budgets in a move to strengthen financial co-operation.

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

7 questions on theatre flops

The West End hit Enron has closed on Broadway after only 15 performances and heavy criticism from reviewers.It’s not the first production to be mortally wounded by the critics. Did you see any of the others in our quiz? Probably not…

1.) Multiple Choice Question

These shows all closed on their opening night on Broadway. But which one “would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas”, according to the New Yorker?

Moose Murders
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
Glory Days

2.) Multiple Choice Question

After which West End show did critic Charles Spencer say it went on so long that he feared he had missed the 2012 Olympics?

Behind the Iron Mask (2005)
Wilde (2004)
Gone With The Wind (2008)

3.) Multiple Choice Question

The Broadway comedy Bobbi Boland, starring Farah Fawcett, closed at which stage in its run?

During previews
On opening night
Between its first matinee and evening shows

4.) Multiple Choice Question

Success on screen does not always translate to the stage. One producer of a Broadway musical shut it down because he said it made for “an excruciatingly boring evening”. Which show?

Carrie
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Frankenstein

5.) Multiple Choice Question

Fields of Ambrosia allegedly picked out the word “good” from a bad review to promote itself. What did it actually say?

“Good for insomniacs”
“Any sense of good taste, or indeed morality, surgically removed”
“Light escapism is what good musicals do well. This is not a good musical”

6.) Multiple Choice Question

Which of the following Broadway flops lasted the longest?

Home Sweet Homer
High Fidelity
Aspects of Love

7.) Multiple Choice Question

A critical mauling is not always fatal. Which musical was savaged – with one reviewer describing it as “trite and tacky” – but had the last laugh?

Les Miserables
We Will Rock You
Blood Brothers

Answers

It’s Moose Murders, which suffered the ignominy in 1983 and now has cult status.It’s Gone With The Wind, three hours and 40 minutes long, which closed in June 2008 after less than 80 performances. The play about Oscar Wilde survived only one night, and Behind the Iron Mask less than three weeks.It closed during previews in 2003. The producer said the play was better suited to intimate off-Broadway venues. The late Fawcett was honoured at TV awards in Los Angeles last month.It’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which never made it past previews in 1966. Carrie, based on the Stephen King novel, lasted 16 shows in 1988, but at great expense. And Frankenstein only played one official performance after 29 previews in 1981.The critic said it seemed “as if everyone has had any sense of good taste, or indeed morality, surgically removed”. The show closed after 23 London performances in 1996. In 2007, the EU clamped down on theatres misquoting reviews.Aspects of Love lasted 11 months but lost millions, prompting the New York Times to call it “perhaps the biggest flop in Broadway history”. High Fidelity could not replicate the novel’s success, closing after two weeks. Home Sweet Homer, starring Yul Brunner, lasted only one night.It’s We Will Rock You, written by Ben Elton and using the music of Queen. After seven years, it is still performing in London and has been staged in more than a dozen other countries. Les Miserables and Blood Brothers also proved some critics wrong.

Your Score

0 – 3 : Turkey

4 – 6 : Fluffed lines

7 – 7 : Standing ovation

For a complete archive of past quizzes, including the Curriculum tests and our weekly news quiz 7 days 7 questions, visit the Magazine index and scroll down the page.

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

Lasers have already had a profound impact on our daily lives but the potential of the technology has only just been tapped, scientists believe.

Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the first demonstration of a ruby laser at the Hughes Research Labs in the US.

The light beams have since found myriad uses, from scanning shop prices to trying to sense the ripples in space-time made by colliding black holes.

Researchers say the coming decades will see even more remarkable progress.

"The laser gave a capability over previous light sources that was just so immense that you simply can’t digest and exhaust all that in the matter of a few decades," said David Hanna, emeritus professor at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, UK.

"People have to use their imagination about what amazing and crazy things can be done with all that capability," he told BBC News.

There is debate over which key technological step made the laser possible, but Theodore Maiman’s success in stimulating a ruby rod to produce an intense narrow beam of light by shining a flash lamp on it was an undoubted landmark.

There had been a race to demonstrate "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation" (Laser), and Maiman beat everyone to it on 16 May, 1960.

At the time, the technology was said to be the classic "solution looking for a problem", but its ability to direct a powerful stream of energy from one location to another soon opened up a world of possibilities.

Anyone who scans a tin of beans at the checkout is using a laser. Anyone who listens to music on a CD is using a laser to read data stored on a disc. Anyone who sends an e-mail is reliant on the lasers that drive the world’s fibre optic communications networks. Anyone who gets into a car is sitting in a box that owes its construction to lasers.

"There is a phenomenal amount of laser processing on a car; you wouldn’t believe how much – laser cutting, marking, measurement, drilling, hardening, laser brazing, laser deposition, and laser welding," explained Tim Holt, the chief executive of the Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde.

"Modern cars today would not be possible without lasers."

The worldwide market in lasers is worth some $5-7bn annually. Most of that value is in lasers sold to manufacturing outlets for use in material processing, but the two other key markets are lasers for use in communications systems and in data storage.

But as much as lasers have infiltrated our everyday world, there is still much more they could do, scientists believe.

There is hope lasers could provide us with a near-limitless supply of clean power.

In the US, the National Ignition Facility will soon train 192 giant laser beams on a tiny pellet of hydrogen fuel in an attempt to fuse the element to make helium, and so release a colossal amount of energy – much like the Sun does at its core.

In Europe, researchers want to take this approach forward in a project known as HiPER that would be the prototype power station of the future.

"It’s possible to use lasers to crush and heat material to temperatures that are 10 times hotter than at the centre of the Sun," says Dr Kate Lancaster from the UK’s Central Laser Facility in Didcot.

"A standard laser pointer is about a milliwatt; we’ll be approaching a petawatt – 10 million million times more powerful than a standard lightbulb.

"Fusion would be immensely efficient but it’s extremely hard to do. Ever since Maiman demonstrated his laser, however, people have realised that this technique should be possible."

In astronomy, lasers are already used to sharpen the images of the world’s very best telescopes. By projecting a "reference star" on the sky, scientists can work out how to correct their observations for the distortions introduced by atmospheric turbulence.

But lasers are also pioneering a completely new form of astronomy, one that attempts to probe the Universe without the need to detect light. These laser interferometers would measure the disturbances in the very fabric of space-time generated every time massive stars imploded.

Such gravitational waves are extremely weak, however, and only lasers have the precision to measure their passing. If the technique works, it should be possible to see remnant gravitational radiation from the very moment of creation itself.

And in medicine, too, the possibilities seem boundless. Lasers can be used to manipulate atoms and molecules, "to unfold proteins and tickle DNA", says Dr Lancaster.

"Lasers can accelerate particles to high energy and we can use that to treat cancer," she adds.

"At the moment, with the way we treat cancer with radiation, photons travel into the body and they deposit energy in healthy tissue as well as at the cancer site.

"Whereas when protons and ions travel into the body, they will deposit most of their energy only at the very end of their range. So we can use lasers to tune protons to deposit their energy just within the tumour site."

As lasers have got ever more powerful, their pulse rate has also pushed new boundaries.

We already have lasers that trace time at the femtosecond level – a thousandth of a millionth of a millionth of a second. Researchers now are also working on attosecond lasers, which count time in divisions of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second.

Working at these scales, it is possible to see how matter works, to record for example the moment chemical reactions occur.

"On the femtosecond timescale, the atoms in a molecule will vibrate. So that is the relevant timescale for taking a detailed look at what is going on – as it happens – in a molecule," Professor Hanna told BBC News.

Divide that tiny time by 10 – a reduction of an "order of magnitude", as it is known – three times over, and science can now speak of what happens in attoseconds. This, Professor Hanna explained, is the timescale of processes inside the very atoms that make up molecules.

"Every time we pick up an extra order of magnitude – and there are many more to be got – we need to go back to the drawing board and think ‘what on Earth do we do with that?’."

[email protected]

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

With party leaders hammering out a coalition deal, Westminster was abuzz. But outside the bubble, did the rest of the country share the political class’ fascination?

On College Green, opposite the Houses of Parliament, the journalists and politicians in their makeshift studios had long ago stopped pretending to contain their excitement: the maelstrom of anticipation was building as a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats loomed closer.

But barely five minutes stroll from here, within the sound of Big Ben’s chimes, were people resigned to the fact that the process of choosing the next prime minister had, in its final stage, nothing to do with them.

On the Peabody estate, a neat complex of housing association flats between Westminster and the gleaming civil service offices of Victoria Street, there were no leftover election posters hanging above the bright window boxes.

In the cafes and greasy spoons surrounding the tenement buildings, life went on. It was the sound of LBC, a commercial London broadcaster, and Radio 1 that provided the background hum, not the latest breathless updates from political correspondents.

There may have been smart apartments nearby, furnished at the taxpayer’s expense. But for ordinary people working within sight of the Palace of Westminster, these neighbours may as well live on the Moon.

Stuart Newman, 39, pointed at a window overlooking his market stall on Strutton Ground. An MP lived in there, Stuart remarked. He may not have been able to recall the politician’s name, but he knew from reading the papers that the honourable member had claimed £400 a week for food on expenses.

As for the twin sets of negotiations still taking place down the road, all Stuart could do was shrug. He had his stall to worry about: the credit crunch had hit demand for his mobile phone accessories and electrical goods badly, as the office workers who made up most of his clientele held onto their cash.

"We seem to be getting by without a government, don’t we?" he smiled ruefully. "Maybe we don’t need one after all."

If the machinations of the county’s leaders seemed remote here, just yards from the Westminster village, you did not have to travel far to find a community to whom they appeared utterly alien.

Pizza leaflets

Nestled on the fringes of the M25, Watford has become convenient shorthand for the demarcation between metropolitan and provincial Britain.

Just days previously, the Hertfordshire town was of crucial importance to the political caste. A three-way marginal, this was one of the seats that both main parties were told they would have to win if they were to form a government.

During the election, all three party leaders visited the town. Nick Clegg even launched the Lib Dems’ campaign here.

In the end, the voters chose Conservative candidate Richard Harrington. But the decision on who would form a government was soon taken out of Watford’s hands.

The town seemed to have decided to block out the election like a bad memory. In The Oddfellows pub, lunchtime drinkers muttered into their pints about the mediocre form of Watford FC, not the relative merits of a "progressive alliance" versus a Conservative-Lib Dem pact.

Along the Victorian and Edwardian residential streets surrounding the town centre, the only leaflets being delivered were for a local pizza restaurant.

The Conservatives had an office at the far end of Watford’s High Street. But otherwise, in a town so recently bombarded with election propaganda, the sudden absence of party colours adorning windows and lamp-posts was strangely unsettling.

But it was not difficult to understand. When asked about the haggling 20 miles away in Westminster, most residents – those that did not simply shake their heads and walk away, at least – hardly bothered to conceal their contempt for the process.

Take 53-year-old Carol Smith, a childcare worker at an after-school club who has lived in Watford since 1991. Her vote has swung left and right over the years in this weathervane seat.

On Thursday, because she wanted a strong leader to guide the country out of recession, she voted Conservative.

But she couldn’t understand why, when plurality in Watford and the country as a whole joined her, the political complexion of the next government remained unresolved. Next time, she is tempted not to bother.

Last poster standing

"The Conservatives got the most seats," she said, incredulous. "How on earth can the prime minister not be a Tory?"

And it was not just the blue part of Watford which was unhappy. Financial adviser Manoj Gondhia, 48, had stuck with Labour. But the uncertainty of the parliamentary arithmetic had left him frightened.

"I tell you what’s going to happen, with all this…" he struggled to find the word. "This chaos. It’s going to be a disaster. It’s going to be like Greece."

For the most part, however, it appeared that Watford had lost patience and switched off.

The big screen TVs in the pubs were pointedly tuned away from the 24-hour news channels. Most afternoon shoppers greeted questions about the coalition talks with a grimace or a shrug.

At last, however, the BBC found an election poster still proudly on display. In Cafe Toast on the High Street, a handbill for Richard Harrington defiantly remained stuck to the door.

Owner Adam Akbari, 28, was praying a change in leadership would give his business a much-needed boost, but did not want to tempt fate by removing it before a government was finally formed.

Not that he had much enthusiasm for politics of any description at this time.

"Trade’s gone right down since the result," he complained. "Everyone’s worried. No-one wants to spend their money yet.

"When I bought this place five years ago, there wasn’t a single empty shop along this road. Now you count them as you walk along. How’s all this infighting going to help?"

Across the street, a derelict branch of Woolworth’s loomed. Back in Westminster, the politicians and pundits were preparing to herald a new era.

Add your comments on this story, Click here to add comments..

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