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Turkey votes for new parliament

AKP supporters at rally. 11 June 2011The AKP wants to redraw Turkey’s military-drafted constitution
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Polls open soon in Turkey with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) seeking a third term in office.

After eight years in power, the AKP hopes for two-thirds of the seats in parliament to make promised amendments to the constitution.

The main challenger is the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP).

It is fielding a large number of younger candidates in an attempt to improve its appeal.

The conservative AKP, which has Islamist roots, has presided over strong economic growth and a more assertive foreign policy during its eight years in power.

It has also seen unemployment fall – down to 11.5% in March from 14.4% in the same period last year.

The AKP has put its impressive economic record at the centre of its campaign, promising an ambitious programme of new construction if elected.

Projects include a canal from the Black Sea to the Aegean, a new city outside Istanbul and new bridges, airports and hospitals.

BBC graphic

The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Istanbul says the party is relying heavily on the charisma of Mr Erdogan, who has proved a vote-winner in the past.

However he is facing a strong challenge from the CHP, which has not been in government for more than 30 years.

Under its new leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the party has ditched its image as a supporter of state and military intervention in politics, and is presenting itself as a champion of European social democratic values.

Campaigning has been intense and at times bad-tempered with party leaders trading insults.

Mr Erdogan has promised to draw up a new constitution if re-elected to replace the current military-drafted one.

If he can win a two-thirds majority in parliament he will be able to do this without consulting the opposition or the public – giving him a decisive influence over the future direction of Turkish democracy.

Turkey is a member of Nato and is a candidate for membership of the European Union.

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

Service marks Philip’s birthday

Duke of EdinburghThe Duke of Edinburgh treated his birthday on Friday as a normal working day
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The Royal Family will attend a service of thanksgiving later to mark the Duke of Edinburgh’s 90th birthday.

More than 750 guests will join the Queen and other royals at St George’s Chapel, in Windsor Castle, to honour Prince Philip, who turned 90 on Friday.

Those in attendance will include the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

They will be joined by representatives from the worlds of sailing, polo, carriage driving and shooting.

Members of the Mountbatten family, the duke’s godchildren, and past and present royal household staff will also be in the congregation.

A canapes reception for guests will be held afterwards at St George’s Hall and Grand Reception Room before the royals have a private family lunch in celebration.

The Duke of Edinburgh treated his birthday on Friday as a normal working day with a reception at Buckingham Place to mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, now renamed Action On Hearing Loss.

The Queen conferred the title of Lord High Admiral of the Navy on the duke on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

On Saturday, the Queen marked her official birthday – she was 85 in April – with the Trooping the Colour ceremony in central London. Prince William took part for the first time

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

Girl, 10, is impaled on railings

Keith Trotter

It took rescuers more than two hours to cut the girl free

A 10-year old Wearside girl has had emergency surgery after becoming impaled on metal railings.

She fell from a tree in Sunderland and landed on railings in the city’s Gainsborough Square on Saturday.

One of the railings pierced her stomach and shoulder and it took rescuers more than two hours to cut her free. They praised her courage.

The girl was taken to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) with part of the railing still in her body.

Keith Topper of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service said: “She is an incredibly brave young lady who showed extraordinary courage.

“Her parents were there throughout so that helped her, but she was very, very brave indeed.”

Mr Topper said the rescue operation was delicate for the three crews in attendance.

He added: “Due to the nature of the impalement it was a very difficult operation in as much as the crews had to support her weight throughout.

“The little girl could not be laid down so the crews had to carry her in the same position all the way to the ambulance which was about 250ft away. That was the closest it could get.”

The railing has now been removed and the youngster is said to be responding well to treatment.

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

Lagarde wins support for IMF job

Christine Lagarde in Beijing. Photo: 9 June 2011Ms Lagarde said she was “very satisfied” with her meetings in China
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Nominations close later for the post of head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde tipped for the job.

Mexico’s Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens and his Kazakhstan counterpart Grigory Marchenko are also in the running.

The final selection is expected to be announced by 30 June.

The post became vacant when Dominique Strauss-Kahn quit last month over sexual assault charges in New York.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said he had decided to step down to fight charges relating to an alleged attack on a hotel maid.

Ms Lagarde is expected to learn the outcome on Friday from an examination by three top French judges of allegations that she abused her authority in 2008 when she granted a large payout to a prominent businessman to settle a legal case.

The main candidates are now winding down their lobbying campaigns to get the top job at the IMF.

Ms Lagarde left China for Portugal on Thursday to take part in the African Development Bank’s annual meeting.

Before the departure she said she was “very satisfied” about her meeting with Chinese officials.

Agustin Carsten. Photo: 6 June 2011Mr Carstens will be continuing his campaign in India and then the US

“I have a very positive feeling following these talks, but it’s up to them to convey their decision,” Ms Lagarde told AFP news agency.

Ms Lagarde has already visited India and Brazil.

Mr Carstens is also continuing his tour: he is visiting India on Friday before going to the US next week.

Meanwhile, Mr Marchenko – whose candidacy was put forward by Russia and several other former Soviet republics – said that Ms Lagarde was the favourite to get the job.

“There’s a lot of information coming from different sources, which is implying that there’s agreement between G8 countries about support for Madame Lagarde,” Mr Marchenko told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“If countries which together have more than 60% of the vote have agreed to support one candidate, then it’s more or less a done deal,” he added.

Since its creation, the top job at the IMF has gone to a European, while his or her counterpart at the World Bank has been American.

China, India, Brazil and Russia have called for this tradition to come to an end, as their economies are now becoming more important in the global economy.

Correspondents say that while European countries are keen to appoint a European, there’s some support for picking a leader from the developing world.

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

Clegg to claim NHS change victory

Norman Lamb

Lib Dems are NHS change ‘safety valve’

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will next week claim the Lib Dems have got their way in coalition battles over a planned shake-up of the NHS in England.

Prime Minister David Cameron will give the results of a listening exercise on the controversial plans on Monday.

He has already signalled key concessions including allowing doctors to take control of commissioning.

But Mr Clegg is expected to tell his MPs: “We have achieved all we set out to achieve. It’s a job well done.”

At a meeting of his Parliamentary party on Monday, the Lib Dem leader will present a scorecard of changes to the Health and Social Care Bill demanded by his party’s spring conference in March.

Eleven of the 13 demands – including improving democratic accountability and preventing private firms “cherrypicking” profitable services – have been secured, he will say, while alternative solutions have been found to meet the remaining two concerns.

The key demands include allowing hospital doctors and nurses to take control of commissioning services as well as GPs, and scrapping the 2013 deadline for consortia to start work.

On Monday, the government will publish a report by the Future Forum, the group of health professionals headed by Dr Steve Field, the former president of the Royal College of GPs, before outlining its response later in the week.

It will publish a series of amendments to the bill a week later and still hopes to get the legislation on to the statute books by the middle of July, when Parliament goes into recess for the summer.

John Healey

Government wasting £2bn on health changes says John Healey

But much may depend on the scale of any rebellion by Conservative backbenchers who feel too much ground has been given to the Lib Dems and are angry about the way Health Secretary Andrew Lansley appears to have been sidelined.

Mr Cameron is expected to hold a meeting with his MPs in Westminster on Monday afternoon to explain why he believes major changes to the bill are needed.

Mr Clegg’s chief political adviser, Norman Lamb, who threatened to quit if he was not happy with the changes to the bill, said: “I am satisfied. I think the concerns raised have been met. It’s been a very constructive process.”

He denied the Lib Dems were in danger of making too much of the policy concessions they had achieved.

“This is not a case of triumphalism. This is a case of improving the policy,” he told BBC One’s Politics Show.

“I think actually this is a good demonstration of why the Lib Dems are currently in government. We can be effective in government achieving changes and acting as a sort of safety valve.”

The MP also praised Mr Lansley for accepting changes to the reform package he had championed.

But Labour has indicated it will be voting against the bill, whatever the changes to it are.

Shadow Health Secretary Jon Healey told the Politics Show claims the bill would be substantially changed were “heavy with Lib Dem spin”.

He told the programme: “My fear is that we’ll hear the prime minister claim these are substantial and significant changes, but the long-term ideological plan to turn the NHS into a market, to open up all parts of the NHS to private companies will remain.

“And I think the test will be not whether the Lib Dems back Cameron but whether his own Tory backbenchers back Cameron on the bill in the future.”

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

David Miliband urges party unity

Ed and David MilibandEd Miliband beat brother David to the Labour leadership by a narrow margin
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Headlines about an alleged feud between Ed and David Miliband are “damaging” Labour, Lord Falconer has said.

According to press reports the relationship between the two brothers is far worse than either has admitted.

Both men have dismissed the claims, made in a new book serialised by The Mail on Sunday, as “tittle tattle”.

But Lord Falconer told BBC News they were “distracting” and “highly reminiscent” of disagreements between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

“It is trying to fit the present and the future into a template from the past. There is no doubt that Gordon and Tony got on incredibly badly,” said the former Lord Chancellor.

“Everybody therefore wants that sort of rowing to continue and it’s got the added spice of the fact that the two leading figures in the Labour Party are brothers. But that’s not the way it is.”

The two brothers have both insisted their personal relations were not damaged by Ed’s defeat of elder sibling David in last year’s Labour leadership contest.

“This is soap opera speculation about history when the public want politicians to be focusing on the future”

David Miliband spokesman

The pair were on different sides in the feud between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair during Labour’s time in power – and have both acknowledged the damage that row did to the party and the need to avoid it happening again.

David has largely remained silent on policy issues since his defeat and avoided public criticism of Ed’s performance as leader.

But the newspapers have been dominated in recent days by leaked documents, including the speech David planned to make if he had won the leadership, in what has been seen by some commentators as a concerted attempt by David’s supporters to destabilise Ed’s leadership.

Shadow health secretary Jon Healey denied reports of in-fighting between rival camps.

“There is very little of that, I have to tell you, either in Parliament or around the country,” he told Sky News.

He said Labour was in a “unique position” for a party that had just lost an election as there was “a determination and a unity that we simply have not seen before”.

A new unauthorised biography, Ed: The Milibands And The Making Of A Labour Leader, claims David Miliband can barely bring himself to speak to his brother, and the two men communicate mainly through officials.

David is also said to be scathing about Ed’s performance in private, saying he is “heading in the wrong direction”.

Ed, for his part, is said to regard his sibling as too “managerial and technocratic”.

The book also claims there is “bad blood” between Ed and shadow chancellor Ed Balls, dating back to their time as advisers to Gordon Brown at the Treasury.

The biography, by Labour-supporting journalists Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre, questions Ed’s claim he made a last-minute decision to stand and may have been plotting to eclipse David for years.

The book also claims Ed blames David’s team for spreading his nicknames Red Ed and Forrest Gump and that the two brothers have clashed over how Ed broke the news he was planning to stand.

A spokesman for ex-foreign secretary David said: “This is soap opera speculation about history when the public want politicians to be focusing on the future.”

A source close to the Labour leader said: “David and Ed talked before, during and after the leadership election.

“There is no problem. This is tittle tattle and the Labour Party will be concentrating on meeting the challenges of Britain’s future, not looking back to the past.”

Ed will try to regain the initiative on Monday, with a speech in which he will admit Labour got it wrong over the welfare state and banking regulation.

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

Pregnant Lily Allen marries in village church

Wedding of Lily Allen and Sam Cooper The bride’s dress was created by French designer Delphine Manivet
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The pop star Lily Allen’s wedding has taken place at a village church near to her country home in Gloucestershire.

The 26-year-old singer married Sam Cooper at St James the Great church in Cranham near Stroud.

She was given away by her father, actor and musician, Keith Allen. Her dress, designed by Delphine Manivet, had long lace sleeves and a sweetheart neckline.

Fewer than 100 guests attended the service and included comedians Harry Enfield and Angus Deayton.

The bride carried a bouquet of white roses and T4 presenter Miquita Oliver, a childhood friend, was one of her bridesmaids.

Two roads, five footpaths and three bridle ways around the village were closed during the wedding. The newlyweds, who have been together since 2009, had paid for extra policing.

It is believed the reception will be held in the bride’s garden.

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

IMF candidate Marchenko withdraws

Christine Lagarde in Beijing. Photo: 9 June 2011Ms Lagarde said she was “very satisfied” with her meetings in China
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Nominations close later for the post of head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde tipped for the job.

Mexico’s Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens and his Kazakhstan counterpart Grigory Marchenko are also in the running.

The final selection is expected to be announced by 30 June.

The post became vacant when Dominique Strauss-Kahn quit last month over sexual assault charges in New York.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said he had decided to step down to fight charges relating to an alleged attack on a hotel maid.

Ms Lagarde is expected to learn the outcome on Friday from an examination by three top French judges of allegations that she abused her authority in 2008 when she granted a large payout to a prominent businessman to settle a legal case.

The main candidates are now winding down their lobbying campaigns to get the top job at the IMF.

Ms Lagarde left China for Portugal on Thursday to take part in the African Development Bank’s annual meeting.

Before the departure she said she was “very satisfied” about her meeting with Chinese officials.

Agustin Carsten. Photo: 6 June 2011Mr Carstens will be continuing his campaign in India and then the US

“I have a very positive feeling following these talks, but it’s up to them to convey their decision,” Ms Lagarde told AFP news agency.

Ms Lagarde has already visited India and Brazil.

Mr Carstens is also continuing his tour: he is visiting India on Friday before going to the US next week.

Meanwhile, Mr Marchenko – whose candidacy was put forward by Russia and several other former Soviet republics – said that Ms Lagarde was the favourite to get the job.

“There’s a lot of information coming from different sources, which is implying that there’s agreement between G8 countries about support for Madame Lagarde,” Mr Marchenko told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“If countries which together have more than 60% of the vote have agreed to support one candidate, then it’s more or less a done deal,” he added.

Since its creation, the top job at the IMF has gone to a European, while his or her counterpart at the World Bank has been American.

China, India, Brazil and Russia have called for this tradition to come to an end, as their economies are now becoming more important in the global economy.

Correspondents say that while European countries are keen to appoint a European, there’s some support for picking a leader from the developing world.

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

Drinks firm funds pregnancy move

Pregnant womanResearch suggests only about a third of women give up alcohol completely while pregnant
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Drinks retailer Diageo is to fund a training programme for midwives in England and Wales on the dangers of pregnant women consuming alcohol.

The Department of Health hopes the initiative will reach 10,000 midwives and in turn help more than one million expectant mothers over three years.

It is part of government moves to bring the private sector into public health.

The British Medical Association has expressed concern about the drinks industry funding such a scheme.

Government guidance is for pregnant women to avoid drinking alcohol, but if they do to drink only one to two units, once or twice a week.

The Department of Health said the UK Infant Feeding Survey 2005 suggested that 34% of women gave up drinking while they were pregnant, 61% drank less and 4% did not change their drinking pattern.

Public Health Minister Anne Milton said: “Midwives are one of the most trusted sources of information and advice for pregnant women. This pledge is a great example of how business can work with NHS staff to provide women with valuable information.

“This will help over a million women over the next three years to make an informed decision about drinking during their pregnancy. It will potentially improve their health and also give their baby the best start in life.”

The training programme will be run by the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome UK (Nofas-UK).

Susan Fleisher, from the charity, said the scheme would have have huge benefits.

“The thing that’s so fantastic is that they’re helping us with prevention, we can actually prevent children being born with foetal alcohol brain damage,” she said.

“But it costs money, and thanks to Diageo we expect we will be educating in the next three years 10,000 midwives. Ultimately, if it all goes well, they will reach at least a million women.”

Diageo’s involvement is part of the government’s “responsibility deal”, which involves working with big business, charities and the retail sector to help people lead healthier lives.

The pregnancy initiative will build on training already delivered across five cities over the past two years.

Diageo describes itself as the world’s leading premium drinks business and has a collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness.

The company claims that highlighting the dangers of drinking alcohol “is hugely important, as it will potentially save many babies from being born with foetal defects”.

Diageo spokeswoman Rebecca Perry said: “It’s one of those things that we feel really passionate about. There isn’t much money going into this area of alcohol and social responsibility, and we felt that Nofas-UK were spreading an important message.

“People are much more familiar with the guidance around drink driving or around alcohol and units and the damage that can do to your health.

“But around pregnancy, it’s more of a sensitive issue and we really felt that we could help make a difference in this area.”

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