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Six more workers at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant are said to have been exposed to high radiation levels, bringing the total to eight.
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Andy Murray completes the perfect Wimbledon preparation by fighting back from a set behind to claim his second Aegon Championships title with victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
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Germany recognises Libya’s rebels as the country’s sole legitimate government, following criticism for its refusal to support Nato action.
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Southern Cross is meeting with landlords and the Department of Health this week The chairman of Southern Cross care homes has reassured residents they will continue to receive care and defended the business model that many argue has pushed the company towards collapse.
Christopher Fisher told the BBC care “will be sustained” across its homes, by Southern Cross or another operator.
He added that the company would be in a worse position if it had borrowed money to buy homes, rather than renting them.
Southern Cross is having a meeting with its landlords on Wednesday.
The company cannot afford to pay its rent and is negotiating with its landlords to find a solution.
The Department of Health will also be present at the meeting.
“Utmost priority is being given to continuity of care in the homes and people should not fear any widespread programme of closures,” Mr Fisher said.
“If occupancy falls significantly in the coming weeks, the losses generated by the business may increase to an extent that any pretence that it is a going concern will become impossible”
“Care will be sustained. In respect of some of our homes, some of our landlords, who are themselves operators, may wish to take back the effective operation of some of those homes.”
However, he said there were a “number of homes whose medium-term future does have some concerns”.
A “relatively small” number could possibly close over the next five years, he said, but any decision to close lay with the landlords.
Mr Fisher said the main reason why the company was in trouble was because “occupancy levels and the charges we can levy on local authorities have both come under pressure”.
Authorities are cutting back on the fees they are willing to pay care homes since the government announced its spending cuts.
“We operate on relatively low margins. A typical care home has 50 beds – with 46 occupied we are in a good place, but with 43 occupied we are in a difficult place,” Mr Fisher said.
Most commentators say the rents Southern Cross pays for its homes are the reason the company is struggling. This is the direct result of the company’s decision to sell its homes and then lease them back a number of years ago.
However, Mr Fisher argued that continuing to borrow from banks would have caused greater problems.
“We could have borrowed money, but lease structures create greater stability than bank borrowing, that might typically have a five-year term,” he said.
Borrowing from banks would have been a “much more difficult refinancing challenge”, he added.
Mr Fisher also apologised for the distress his company’s financial difficulties were causing for residents.
“I’m very sorry that the difficulties we are experiencing at corporate level are creating a degree of uncertainty and concern for our residents and their relatives, and for our staff and their relatives,” he said.
Southern Cross currently runs 752 care homes with 31,000 residents and has been struggling with high rents of about £200m a year.
It has already deferred 30% of its rent to its 80 landlords for four months.
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Ulster Bank has taken control of the Outlet centre in Banbridge following financial problems for the developer.
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Many developing countries cannot afford life-saving vaccines for children At a meeting of world leaders, countries have pledge an unprecedented $4.3bn to help vaccinate children against preventable diseases like pneumonia.
The Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation says this funding milestone will save more than four million lives in the next four years.
The UK promised to give $1.3bn (£814m).
And Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates said he would donate $1bn to the campaign.
Other donors include Norway, giving $677m and the US, giving $450m, as well as Sweden, The Netherlands, Australia, France, Germany and Italy.
The UK has already committed more than any other nation – £2bn over 30 years.
The extra £814m comes on top of the UK’s existing commitment of £680m between 2011 and 2015.
“The cost-effectiveness of immunisation is likely to be one of many arguments put forward at the conference ”
Fergus Walsh Medical correspondent, BBC NewsSurviving childhood in Sierra Leone
Prime Minister David Cameron said there was a “strong moral case” for keeping pledges Britain had made to the developing world, no matter the economic circumstances at home.
“Today we come together because we have the chance to save another four million lives.”
He said the idea of children dying from pneumonia and diarrhoea should be “unthinkable” in 2011.
“To those who say fine but we should put off seeing through those promises to another day because right now we can’t afford to help: I say – we can’t afford to wait.”
Two million under-fives die from pneumonia alone each year despite the existence of a vaccine to protect them.
It is estimated that three times as many children aged under five die from pneumonia and diarrhoea than from malaria and HIV/Aids combined, despite new vaccines being available to help prevent such deaths. However, many developing countries cannot afford them.
Drugs company GlaxoSmithKline last week agreed to sell a vaccine for diarrhoeal disease at cost price to poorer nations, and some other firms have since made similar moves.
Gavi has already rolled out a range of vaccines to children in 19 countries but the organisation says it needs the extra money to vaccinate those in 26 others.
Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates: “In the achievement of vaccine equality this is a very important day”
Resources will also be spent on trying to reach millions of the poorest children who are missing out on basic vaccines against diseases such as measles, whooping cough and tetanus.
Gavi is a health partnership of governments, businesses, and bodies including the World Bank, Unicef and Mr Gates’ personal foundation.
The philanthropist Mr Gates said: “I just want to thank everybody for this incredible milestone. Fours hours is a long time but if you can save four million lives in four hours it’s well worth every minute.”
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Labour leader Ed Miliband is to signal a change in his party’s approach to boardroom pay and people who abuse the benefits system, in a speech later.
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Volcanic ash from Chile continues to disrupt air travel in Australia and New Zealand as more flights are grounded.
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Police have started a murder investigation after a man died from being hit by a van in south London.
Charles Bunyasi, 49, of Mitcham, was hit by the van in Coulsdon Road, Croydon, at about 1100 BST on Saturday.
London Ambulance Service took Mr Bunyasi to a south London hospital where he died.
A 28-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the investigation and remains in custody.
Homicide detectives – as opposed to the traffic unit – are investigating.
Det Ch Insp Cliff Lyons said: “Mr Bunyasi was a hardworking man who was in the process of making a delivery to help support his family.
“It is a tragedy that he has lost his life in this manner.”
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Leading Japanese manufacturers have seen their production hit hard by the quake and tsunami Japan’s recovery from the earthquake and tsunami continues to be hampered by the disruption to power supplies.
Core machinery orders in Japan fell by 3.3% in April, compared with the previous month, the latest data from the cabinet office shows.
Analysts said the data showed that the recovery in Japan remains volatile in the wake of power shortages.
Machinery orders are a key indicator of companies’ capital spending and expansion plans.
“We have power shortage issues which are going to stay for a long time,” said Yuuki Sakurai of Fukoku Capital Management
Mr Sakurai said that even if companies were to buy new machinery, they would not be able to utilise it fully because of power supply problems – so they may use their capital in other areas.
He added that as the summer season reaches its peak, things are likely to get worse.
“If they are trying to save power, we may even grow as a lower-than-expected rate,” he said.
“This is not a steady recovery,” he added.
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Kate McCann will be among the mothers of missing children to give evidence at the inquiry The government is being urged to improve support for the “heartbroken” families of people who go missing.
The UK’s first parliamentary inquiry into the issue will look at what campaigners say is a “complete gap” in help for those affected.
Among those giving evidence later will be three mothers of missing children, including Kate McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared abroad in 2007.
The inquiry will make recommendations to the coalition government.
As well as Mrs McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, the inquiry will hear from mothers Nicki Durbin and Sarah Godwin, whose son Quentin was 18 when he went missing in New Zealand while on his way to an after-school job in 1992.
Mrs McCann, whose daughter Madeleine was three went she went missing during a family holiday in Portugal, will say: “When someone you love goes missing, you are left with unimaginable, unending heartbreak, confusion, guilt, and worry.
“In addition to the reassurance that everything possible is being done to find their missing loved one, families need support. And they should be spared the additional pain of financial and legal bureaucracy.”
“When a child or vulnerable adult goes missing, the families left behind are absolutely devastated. Often the families feel isolated and alone”
Ann Coffey MP
MPs will also hear from Peter Davies, the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), and Home Office Minister James Brokenshire.
Peter Lawrence, father of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence, will give evidence later in the week.
The charity Missing People says that after 48 hours relatives should be given support similar to that given to the victims of serious crime.
This includes a dedicated police officer as well as emotional and practical advice.
The inquiry will also consider calls to make it easier to register the death of a missing person whose body has not been found.
This is in order to sort out their financial and legal affairs.
Courts can be asked to declare someone dead after seven years, although in England and Wales it is not statutory.
The inquiry will examine whether a new system is needed for the national database of unidentified bodies – currently totalling 1,000 – to match these details with information about missing people.
The inquiry, organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults, will be held over four sessions.
MP Ann Coffey, who chairs the group, said: “When a child or vulnerable adult goes missing, the families left behind are absolutely devastated. Often the families feel isolated and alone.
“This inquiry will examine what emotional, practical and legal support those families need to help them cope at such a traumatic time.”
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According to 2009 figures there are more than 43 million people on the run in the world today. Some are refugees seeking a home in a new country, while others are the internally displaced, but in many cases all they are looking for is somewhere to feel safe, somewhere to live their lives.
Photographer Espen Rasmussen has spent six years documenting the lives of some of those people, from the camps in the DR Congo to the displaced in Georgia.
Transit, a recently published book of the work and an exhibition at The Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo contains an incredible collection of pictures that in my opinion form one of the most compelling arguments for the sustained power of photography from recent years.
Due to the heat Somali refugees sleep outside at the Mayfa’ah reception centre in Yemen. Between 100 and 400 refugees arrive at UNHCR centre every day A short sequence at the end of the book comprises pictures of spaces in which the displaced sleep. There’s a mat on a bed of straw in the DR Congo, mattresses at a UNHCR reception area in Yemen and a room for asylum seekers in Norway.
These simple pictures, say so much: the powerless individual caught up in events beyond control or comprehension and those who are trying to work through a system of bureaucracy. Yet it also includes moments of hope and humanity as throughout the book the individuals come through.
‘I’ve been waiting for a response from the immigration authorities. I might get a positive response, just maybe. I can never be sure because I’m a foreigner in Norway. If they say yes, I will be a Norwegian boy. But I have to respect a negative response too, because Norway is a great country’ Alongside the photographs are the stories of those on the run plus an introduction by Jan Egeland. The stories are similar the world over, families on the run to protect their children from being abducted or forced to join guerrilla units, other who dare not return home following conflicts that officially ended many years ago.
In 2008 the main road into Goma in the DR Congo was packed with men, women, children and the elderly fleeing the conflict. In just a few days more than 100,000 people had arrived in Goma and the surrounding areas Rasmussen’s tenacity to visit the places where the TV crews have long since moved on from is admirable, but unlike so much photojournalism it is not his voice that comes across through the book, it is those of the silent millions whose lives are represented in these pages. Powerful stuff indeed.
The Rohingya, who are Muslims, are not recognised by the military-backed government in Burma, and have fled by the hundreds of thousands overseas. This man is a fisherman who lives on the beach in Bangladesh and spends all day out in the ocean fishing, he said: ‘It is much better to live here than in the camps. In this place, we are able to make a small living, and we are not harassed.’ The two remaining official camps still house some 28,000 refugees and in addition to those an estimated 200,000 Rohingyas live scattered across Bangladesh 
Somali refugees who had just arrived on the coast of Yemen are crammed into a UNHCR truck before being taken to the Ahwar reception centre two hours away. In 2008 over 40,000 Somali refugees arrived in Yemen, bringing the total number close to 250,000 
A mother and her child shelter at a temporary IDP centre in Tbilisi during the conflict in Georgia in 2008. A year later Amnesty International stated that some 30,000 people remained displaced 
Ana Melinda’s 11 children are just some of the 30,000 IDPs who live on the outskirts of the jungle town of Quibdo on the western side of Colombia. Rasmussen was there in 2007. Melinda said: ‘One morning several men knocked on our door. They wanted to take my 14-year-old son as a fighter. He wanted to go with them but I did not want him or any of my children to end up with the guerrillas or paramilitary. Our only choice was to flee’ You can see more or Espen Rasmussen’s work on his website.
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Yves Leterme: PM for nine months in 2008 and five months in 2009-10 – and now caretaker for a year For the year since a general election on 13 June 2010, Belgium has had no official government. As coalition negotiations have dragged on, the country has had to make do with a caretaker prime minister and cabinet. How long can it continue?
Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme resigned in April last year, but he is still turning up for work.
In fact, by mid-August he will have been a caretaker prime minister for longer than he was an elected leader with a mandate to govern.
“Technically this government can last until the next federal election has to be called in 2014”
David Sinardet Political scientist
This may sound odd – Belgium is after all the home of surrealism – but the oddest thing is that, after one year, there is no solution on the horizon.
Belgians proudly claimed the world record in February, for the country that has spent longest without a government.
A website counted down to the day – 17 February – when the title would be taken from Iraq, which took 289 days to form a government in 2009. The site now proclaims: “Yes, Belgians, we did it!”
Other sources suggest that the record was in fact held by Cambodia, which took 353 days to form a government after elections in 2003. Belgium swept past this figure on 1 June.
“Technically this can last until the next federal election has to be called in 2014,” says political scientist David Sinardet.
“Let’s say we have elections in 2014 and we have some problem forming a coalition, this caretaker government could still go on after that. As long as it commands a majority in parliament the only obstacle to it continuing would be the fear of absurdity.”
Few in Belgium believe that calling new elections now would help.
“It’s not the kind of record one wants to set. If people are having fun with it, it is to hide their embarrassment”
Marc Reynebeau De Standaard
The problem has arisen because of the deep divisions between the Dutch-speaking (Flemish) and French-speaking halves of the population, and the lack of any truly national parties.
The fruitless coalition negotiations over the last year have centred on Flemish demands for further devolution of powers from central government, which has been both frustrating and boring for ordinary voters.
“What you see is impatience, but more a general lack of interest. People are tired of the whole business, especially so far as the institutional part of it is concerned,” says De Standaard journalist Marc Reynebeau.
“People have been talking about the same subject over and over again, repeating the same phrases. It makes people very tired. It strengthens the alienation of the citizen from the political elite.”
A new election, he argues, would produce the same result as last year, or the more populist parties might even gain ground.
Despite the laughs some Belgians have had about the new record, many appear uneasy about it.
“It’s not the kind of record one wants to set. If people are having fun with it, it is to hide their embarrassment,” Marc Reynebeau says.
In January thousands of people turned out to demonstrate against the failure to form a coalition.
Recent attempts to mobilise protests have flopped, though, prompting some to conclude that anger has turned to resignation. But in a recent GfK poll 57% of Belgian respondents listed the political situation as their most important worry – a figure far higher than in other European countries.
There is very little legal underpinning for a long-term caretaker government in the Belgian constitution.
The general understanding is that officials can take urgently needed action, or continue implementing the policies of the previous government.
The big question is whether this caretaker government will embark on the long-term reform of public finances that most parties agree is necessary, in order to start slashing Belgium’s massive debt – the third highest in the EU.
On a day-to-day basis, though, Belgium is ticking along nicely. Its economy is growing, exports are up, inward foreign investment has continued, the country’s presidency of the European Union in 2010 was deemed a success, and it has contributed to the Nato bombing of Libya.
This is partly because the caretakers and their civil servants are efficient managers, but also because many powers have already been devolved to Belgium’s regional governments and linguistic communities – not to mention the pooling of sovereignty with other members of the eurozone and European Union.
“We have a new form of government, a new form of democracy, proving to the world that this crazy idea that you need full government with full powers may be just not true,” says David Sinardet, a professor at Antwerp University and the Free University of Brussels, with a heavy dose of irony.
Marc Reynebeau says a new general election may be called in the autumn, or next year at the same time as local elections.
But another possibility, he says, might be for parliament to start exercising more initiative and for the caretaker government to assume new powers. That way he could see it lasting at least another year.
“You may know when you will become prime minister,” he says. “But these days you never know when you will be kicked out.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Many developing countries cannot afford life-saving vaccines for children Countries meeting in London are to be asked to give an extra £2.3bn ($3.7bn) by 2015 to fund vaccines against two of the biggest killers of children – pneumonia and diarrhoeal disease.
The Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) says the money could help save 4m lives in four years.
Its conference is being led by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates.
Mr Cameron will pledge to increase UK funding for global vaccination.
The UK has already committed more resources – £2bn over 30 years – than any other nation, including the US.
But on Sunday, writing in the Observer newspaper, Mr Cameron said there was a moral reason why action should be taken to prevent children dying from common diseases.
“We would not stand for that at home. And we should not stand for it anywhere, especially as Britain has the tools, the expertise, and yes, the money, to stop it happening.”
“These are difficult times financially, and donor nations have to ensure every penny they commit to aid is well-spent… The cost-effectiveness of immunisation is likely to be one of many arguments put forward at the conference ”
Fergus Walsh Medical correspondent, BBC NewsSurviving childhood in Sierra Leone
Two million under-fives die from pneumonia alone each year despite the existence of a vaccine to protect them.
Organisers of the conference say the lives of an about four million children rest on the outcome of the gathering.
It is estimated that three times as many children aged under five die from pneumonia and diarrhoea than from malaria and HIV/Aids combined, despite new vaccines being available to help prevent such deaths. However, many developing countries cannot afford them.
Drugs company GlaxoSmithKline last week agreed to sell a vaccine for diarrhoeal disease at cost price to poorer nations, and some other firms have since made similar moves.
Gavi has already rolled out a range of vaccines to children in 19 countries but the organisation says it has not got the £2.3bn needed to vaccinate those in 26 others.
This leaves the lives of four million children at risk, it says.
Resources will also be spent on trying to reach millions of the poorest children who are missing out on basic vaccines against diseases such as measles, whooping cough and tetanus.
Gavi is a health partnership of governments, businesses, and bodies including the World Bank, Unicef and Mr Gates’ personal foundation.
Ahead of Monday’s conference, the philanthropist said: “This is my life’s work, and days like tomorrow energise us to do even better. I think a success would create incredible momentum.
“I know that the whole image of aid can be saved if people know it’s about saving lives.”
The Save the Children charity says the leaders at the conference have a “make-or-break opportunity”.
Chief executive Justin Forsyth said: “We are on the cusp of an historic breakthrough that would save millions of lives.
“We have new vaccines to tackle appalling common childhood killers like diarrhoea and more children than ever are getting immunised against illnesses like whooping cough. But without pledges, that incredible progress could stall.”
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Scottish firms took on staff last month at the fastest rate for more than three years, a survey suggests.
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