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Firefighters are tackling a blaze spreading across more than 1km of National Trust protected moorland near Huddersfield.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
An armed forces bus was burned out in the protests Two people have been killed and at least 15 wounded during protests in Tahrir Square in the centre of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, doctors said.
The violence occurred overnight as the army tried to clear protesters calling for ex-President Hosni Mubarak and his family to be tried for corruption.
The injured suffered gunshot wounds but the army denies using live rounds.
Tahrir Square became the symbolic centre of protests that led to Mr Mubarak stepping down in February.
The army had maintained a generally neutral role in the earlier mass demonstrations.
But about 300 troops moved into the square at about 0300 local time (GMT) on Saturday to break up a camp in the centre.
Protesters say they were beaten with clubs and shots were fired.
An army spokesman told Reuters news agency that only blanks were used.
The military issued a statement blaming “outlaws” for rioting and violating a curfew but said no-one was hurt.
“The armed forces stress that they will not tolerate any acts of rioting or any act that harms the interest of the country and the people,” it said.
The protesters were demanding a number of measures, including the resignation of the man who has replaced Mr Mubarak as interim leader, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi.
“Tantawi is Mubarak and Mubarak is Tantawi,” they chanted.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy leads the Masters by two shots going into “Moving Day” at Augusta.
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A 37-year-old man is arrested after a two-month-old baby was stabbed in Birmingham.
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A gunman has gone on the rampage in a shopping centre south-west of Amsterdam, killing five people before taking his own life.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
RAF Tornados destroyed seven battle tanks in Libya as air strikes in the North African country continue, the Ministry of Defence says.
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Hundreds of motorists drove past the bomb on Friday after cones cordoning it off were removed Police have said that a van left under the Belfast to Dublin road near Newry contained a “very substantial” bomb.
Several controlled explosions were carried out on the vehicle on Friday night.
On Friday morning, cones blocking the underpass were removed and hundreds of motorists drove past the van.
Police warned motorists ignoring or moving cones that they had a “blatant disregard” for safety. The road has now reopened.
It had been closed at the Sheepbridge interchange.
The security alert began shortly before 2300 BST on Thursday after two bomb warnings were received by the Daisy Hill Hospital and a charity.
BBC Northern Ireland reporter Conor MacAuley said on Friday: “Someone has come along and they have moved the cones out of the road and traffic is moving freely up and down past the suspect vehicle.
“I have seen dozens of cars driving past this morning, some of them with small children in the back of their cars doing the school run.
“People obviously don’t realise the potential danger they are in.”
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It is understood compensation will be offered to eight people, including the four pictured above The owner of the News of the World hopes to draw a line under the phone-hacking scandal after apologising unreservedly and offering compensation.
News International said it would admit liability in some cases and has put aside about £20m for compensation.
It has admitted there were at least eight victims, whom the BBC understands to include actress Sienna Miller and former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.
However, the admission risks opening the company up to more legal action.
For years News International insisted there had been just one “rogue” reporter involved in the hacking of phones.
BBC media correspondent Torin Douglas says now more public figures could sue, MPs claim Parliament has been misled, and some lawyers say there is likely to be greater pressure on the police to bring charges.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes, whose phone messages were hacked, said there was more than just a financial settlement at stake.
He said: “We need to not just be seeing this as a money pay-out to draw a line and silence people.
“If people have committed serious criminal offences, either those who have already been arrested or others, they need to be pursued through the courts and sent to prison because this is a completely unacceptable practice.”
With News Corporation’s bid for BSkyB still awaiting government approval, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott said the takeover should be blocked until all the investigations are complete.
He said: “I say this to the government – don’t you dare make this announcement while the Commons and Lords are in recess unless you’ve done a proper judgement on this company.
“And what they’ve said to me is ‘don’t get the plurality of the media mixed up with criminal offences’.”
BBC business editor Robert Peston called News International’s move an “absolutely dramatic development” and said the company believed most claims would be settled for less than £100,000 each.
He said it was offering to settle with eight people, including well-known names such as Ms Jowell, designer Kelly Hoppen and sports broadcaster Andy Gray.
In addition to Ms Miller, the others are believed to David Mills, the lawyer and Mrs Jowell’s estranged husband; Joan Hammell, former aide to Mr Prescott; Nicola Phillips, assistant to publicist Max Clifford; and former Olympian and talent agent Sky Andrew.
News International said the announcement related to voicemail interception between 2004 and 2006, and it followed an “extensive internal investigation” and disclosures through civil cases.
The firm said it had asked its lawyers to “establish a compensation scheme with a view to dealing with justifiable claims fairly and efficiently”.
But it added: “We will, however, continue to contest cases that we believe are without merit or where we are not responsible.”
News International, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and also owns the Times and Sun newspapers, said it would continue to co-operate with the Metropolitan Police inquiry.
On Tuesday, the News of the World’s chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, 50, and former news editor Ian Edmondson, 42, were arrested on suspicion of having unlawfully intercepted voicemail messages. They were released on bail until September.
The latest arrests are the first since the Met Police reopened its inquiry – known as Operation Weeting – into claims that staff at the Sunday tabloid had hacked into the phone messages of celebrities and other public figures.
In 2007, the first police investigation led to the convictions and imprisonment of then News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was employed by the paper.
Four alleged victims have reached out-of-court settlements with the newspaper and there are currently 24 active cases being heard by High Court judge Mr Justice Vos.
News International has approached the judge with a way of settling all the cases as a group, and he is planning to hold a case conference on Friday.
Mark Lewis, a solicitor involved in several of the current cases, told the BBC the paper’s apology was a “step in the right direction”.
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Nick Clegg will say the voting system is one of the reasons for “disillusionment” with politics Nick Clegg is to compare proposed changes to the system for electing MPs to giving women the vote and lowering the voting age to 18.
The Lib Dem leader will say arguments against the alternative vote (AV) will look as “nonsensical” in the future as those against female suffrage now do.
But one senior Labour politician said his reading of history was “dodgy” and the current first-past-the-post system had “stood the test of time”.
The referendum will be held on 5 May.
Voters will be asked whether to retain first-past-the-post or switch to the alternative vote – where voters can rank candidates in order of preference – in the UK-wide poll.
Putting the case for AV in a speech in London, Mr Clegg will say it is a “very British reform” and represents an “evolution” of the existing system.
Referring to the series of legislative steps which extended the voting franchise in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, he will say a switch to AV would fit into a pattern of constitutional change “by instalments”.
At the moment MPs are elected by the first-past-the-post system, where the candidate getting the most votes in a constituency is elected.
On 5 May all registered UK voters will be able to vote Yes or No on whether to change the way MPs are elected to the Alternative Vote system.
Under the Alternative Vote system, voters rank candidates in their constituency in order of preference.
Anyone getting more than 50% of first-preference votes is elected.
If no-one gets 50% of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their backers’ second choices allocated to those remaining.
This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% of all votes in that round.
Q&A: alternative vote referendum AV poll: Where parties stand
Characterising the referendum debate as a battle between “reformers and conservatives”, he will compare warnings about the impact of the alternative vote on democracy with criticism of the decision to give women the vote and to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18.
“Time and time again, the conservative doomsayers were proved wrong,” he will say. “The same will be true of AV. The world will not stop turning on its axis when voters write 1, 2, 3 rather than an X on their ballot papers.
“I am certain that in years to come, the arguments being deployed against AV will seem as nonsensical as the ones that were used against allowing women to vote nearly 100 years ago and 18-year-olds the vote 42 years ago.
“It simply brings our system up to date.”
Mr Clegg will argue that those backing change – who include his party, Labour leader Ed Miliband, the Green Party, UKIP, Plaid Cymru and the SNP – represent a broader cross-section of the population than those supporting the status quo.
And he will accuse his coalition partners – who support first-past-the-post along with a number of prominent Labour MPs – of double standards, saying the Conservatives use a form of AV in elections for their leadership and to choose certain party candidates.
“It is common knowledge that David Cameron and I disagree about this,” he will say. “I find it astonishing that the Conservatives say AV is good enough for them but it is not good enough for the rest of the country,” he will say.
The Conservatives have said AV could produce unfair and perverse results and that it would threaten the principle of “one person one vote” which they argue is the cornerstone of democracy.
Mr Clegg was absent from a cross-party event last month urging a “yes” vote in the referendum, attended by Mr Miliband and prominent Lib Dem MPs.
Although the deputy prime minister was away on a trip to South America at the time, it was reported he had been asked to stay away amid tensions between him and Mr Miliband and fears that public anger with the Lib Dems over backing for spending cuts and tuition fees could endanger the pro-AV campaign.
Critics have attacked Mr Clegg’s support for AV after he described the electoral system as a “miserable little compromise” before entering government.
“The suffragettes fought for One Person, One Vote, not a political stitch-up like AV, which has been rejected by almost every country that has used it,” said Labour MP and former minister Caroline Flint, adding Mr Clegg’s “grasp of history” was “dodgy”.
“One Person, One Vote – the bedrock of our current system – has stood the test of time and remains the only way to ensure elections are fair.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
League leaders Celtic host St Mirren in one of five games on a busy day of Scottish Premier League action.
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Edward Stobart (r) sold the firm to his brother in 2004 The funeral will take place later of the former boss of the Eddie Stobart haulage giant.
Edward Stobart, 56, died on 31 March after suffering heart problems.
He took over his father’s firm in 1976 and built it up into one of the most well-known haulage companies in the world.
Family, friends and industry colleagues will attend Carlisle Cathedral for the service, which will also be broadcast on a large screen outside.
Three of the famous green, white and red trucks – one each from the 1970s, 80s and 90s – will head the funeral convoy.
X Factor finalist Rebecca Ferguson will sing Amazing Grace at the service, which will led by the Dean of Carlisle Cathedral.
A private burial will be held following the ceremony.
Mr Stobart, a father of six, is credited with transforming the small Cumbrian business which had just eight trucks and 12 employees when he took over.
By 2001, that had risen to 1,000 lorries and 2,000 staff operating from 27 sites, and the company even had a “fan club” which at its height attracted 25,000 members.
The Stobart brand also stretched to a children’s cartoon character, a paint colour – Eddie Stobart green – and toy trucks.
Edward sold the business to his brother William and business partner Andrew Tinkler in 2004.
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A soldier injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan last year has died, the Ministry of Defence has said.
Colour Sergeant Alan Cameron, 42, of 1st Battalion Scots Guards was wounded while on foot patrol in an area north of Lashkar Gah on 13 April 2010.
He died “suddenly” from his injuries while at home in Livingston on 31 March, the MoD said.
A spokesman said he had been making a good recovery after undergoing a number of difficult operations.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Ruby Walsh on The Midnight Club is expected to start favourite in the Aintree marathon with Tony McCoy riding Don’t Push It.
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Iceland’s three main banks folded in late 2008, sparking a national crisis Icelanders are set to vote in a referendum on the latest plan to repay the UK and Netherlands debts incurred when its banking system collapsed.
The country overwhelmingly rejected a previous repayment plan, which was put to a referendum last March.
The new deal offers less onerous repayment terms, but opinion polls suggest it will again be rejected.
Iceland’s Landsbanki bank collapsed in 2008, and British and Dutch investors lost some 4bn euros (£3.5bn; $5.8bn).
The bank had offered savings accounts in the UK and Netherlands under the name Icesave.
The British and Dutch governments had to reimburse 400,000 citizens who lost savings – and Iceland must now decide how to repay that debt.
Under the terms of the latest deal, Iceland would pay the money back with 3.3% interest between 2016 and 2046.
Under the previous proposals, the money was to be paid back with 5.5% interest between 2016 and 2024.
The actual cost to the state is expected to be much less than the 4bn euros owed, as the government says most of the repayment will come from selling the assets of Landsbanki.
The government has said it does not expect the cost to exceed 50bn crowns (£168m).
Analysts say the issue is vital to Iceland’s prospects for recovery because it would allow the country to return to the financial markets to fund itself.
Solving the dispute is also seen as key to Iceland’s chances of joining the EU.
Iceland’s three main banks collapsed within days of each other in October 2008.
The government compensated Icelandic savers, but overseas customers faced losing all of their money.
The issue sparked a diplomatic row between Iceland and the UK, and created uncertainty over Iceland’s economic recovery.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
At the Grand National in Aintree, 40 jockeys will be driving their horses on, in the world’s most famous jump race, the Grand National.
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