Category: news

Tottenham striker Peter Crouch is the latest player to pull out of England’s squad for the Euro 2012 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Switzerland.

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Presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan have categorically ruled out a return to daytime TV.

The couple, who worked together for 21 years on shows like ITV’s This Morning, said they had no plans to come back to television – together or apart.

“I’ve had two propositions in the last year to go back and do something on my own, but the answer is an absolute no,” Madeley said.

Finnigan added she had no immediate plans to return to broadcasting at all.

‘Set free’

Madeley, who has been presenting a Radio 2 show and will appear as a subject on Who Do You Think You Are, said his wife had “pulled back from broadcasting completely for the time being”.

He added: “Some people come up to us and ask whether we miss doing daytime television.

“But I have to say ‘not in the slightest’. I’d say the last year professionally has been the most enjoyable I can remember. It’s been like being set free.”

Finnigan said that the broadcasting environment had changed since their heyday, and that producers were now “frightened about taking risks”.

“I don’t think the kind of shows that we made for This Morning and Channel 4 are possible anymore because it cost a lot of money,” Madeley said.

“One of the reasons we decided to leave Channel 4 is [that] we could see the budgets would have to come down – and to make a good show it costs money.

“And that wasn’t our wages, that money went on screen – on high quality videos, on bringing guests over the Atlantic, on high production values in studio and a big team.

“The money isn’t there anymore. They have to make it on the cheap and you don’t get the quality that we were able to deliver.”

The duo shot to fame in 1988, broadcasting daytime programme This Morning from Liverpool, two years after they married.

They were last seen on digital channel Watch in 2009, where their audience dropped as low as 8,000.

The couple have now turned their attention to their Book Club, which was launched on Wednesday.

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Millions of graduates will now start paying interest on their student loans again as new interest rates come into effect.

Payments to the Student Loans Company include a 1.5% interest rate from 1 September for those who took out a loan after 1998.

The interest rates stand at 4.4% if the loan was taken out before this.

Graduates have enjoyed interest-free loans for the last year owing to the way the rates are calculated.

The new rates replace ones of 0% on the post-1998 loans and -0.4% on the pre-1998 ones which have applied during the last year.

Interest on student loans is based on either the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation in March or the highest base rate charged by a group of banks plus 1%, depending on which is lower.

Because RPI was 4.4% in March, the rate for the coming year will be calculated from banks’ rates in March, which were lower. This will be the base rate of 0.5% plus 1%, giving a rate of 1.5%.

The rate could increase during the year if there is a change to the Bank of England Bank rate, which is likely to be mirrored by the banks.

About 3.3 million people have a student loan taken out after 1998, while 355,600 have one taken out before 1998.

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A 28-year-old Scottish motorcyclist was one of two riders who died after a crash in the Isle of Man grand prix.

Jamie Adam, from Prestwick in Ayrshire, was involved in a crash during the second lap of the Junior Manx Grand Prix at about 1100 BST.

Emergency services attended but the serving officer in the Royal Navy was pronounced dead at the scene.

Traffic police officer Chris Bradshaw, 39, from Staffordshire, was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.

A joint statement issued by Isle of Man Constabulary and the Manx Motorcycle Club said: “Both riders were involved in a racing accident at Alpine Cottage on the second lap of the Junior race shortly before 11am.

“The race was later abandoned.”

The statement added: “Chris first competed on the Isle of Man in 2004 and finished 37th in last year’s Senior MGP race.

“James first competed on the Isle of Man in 2009, finishing 9th in the Newcomers race and 27th in the Senior MGP.

“The next of kin of both families have been informed. The Manx Motorcycle Club extends their deepest sympathy to the family and friends of both men.”

“The incident is now being investigated by the Isle of Man Constabulary, who are preparing a report for the coroner.”

No spectators were injured in the crash, police said.

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Passion and style as Argentina hosts tango world championship

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New pictures have emerged of the shipwreck of the Titanic, almost 25 years since it was first discovered.

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An ancient reef found in the Pacific may provide clues to what will happen to coral when sea temperatures rise.

A team of researchers from Australia and New Zealand have discovered a huge 9,000-year-old reef surprisingly far south.

Lord Howe Island is 600km east of the Australian mainland and has a small modern coral reef – the furthest south in the world.

The ancient reef however is nearly 30 times as large as the modern reef.

The scientists, headed by Colin Woodroffe from the University of Wollongong in Australia and researchers from Geoscience Australia, discovered a large ridge about 30m under water in the Tasman Sea.

They have published their work in Geophysical Research Letters.

The team suspected it might be an ancient reef. The size and shape of the ridge can be mapped using a type of sonar called multi-beam echo sounding. The researchers could not be sure it was coral until they had taken samples.

Drilling for samples in the Tasman Sea is very dependent on weather and the seas can be rough – it involves lowering a submersible drill from a boat.

The samples confirmed that it was indeed coral and radiocarbon dating confirmed its age.

Other similar ancient reefs – called relict reefs – have been discovered before, but none as far south as this.

The team think that this reef died when it was flooded as a result of sea levels rising about 7,000 years ago, but the modern temperature at these latitudes also limits coral growth, which is why the relict reef is so much bigger than the modern reef.

Now that sea temperatures are rising, however, reefs may start to grow bigger at higher latitudes.

The relict reef doesn’t have an extensive modern reef attached to it but it does have some individual corals which are newer – from the last 2,000 years.

This suggests that there is a suitable habitat for corals which might grow into a larger reef when temperatures rise further.

In the Northern Hemisphere both Florida and Bermuda have small reefs, though they are at the northern limits for coral life.

It is possible that large relict reefs might also be found in those northern waters. Like the Tasman Sea relict reef, these might be able to support new growth.

Rising sea temperatures are dangerous for coral reefs at hotter tropical latitudes but they may mean we see new reef growth at the far southern, and northern, limits of current reefs.

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Tony Blair has described Welsh devolution as “a dangerous game” in his memoirs.

While it was known the former prime minister was not a great enthusiast for the creation of the Welsh assembly, he has gone much further in his book.

He said he distrusted nationalism but added that the pressure to devolve power was “inevitable”.

He also writes that he was “desperately sorry” for Ron Davies, who resigned as Welsh secretary in 1998.

In his memoirs, published on Wednesday, Mr Blair admitted he “was never a passionate devolutionist”.

Ron Davies and Tony Blair in 1998

He wrote that “it is a dangerous game to play. You can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins”.

He goes on to say: “I supported the UK, distrusted nationalism as a concept, and looked at the history books and worried whether we could get it through.

“However, though not passionate about it, I thought it inevitable.”

BLAIR ON FORMER WELSH SECRETARY RON DAVIES

Mr Blair writes of how he felt “desperately sorry” for Ron Davies, who became his first Cabinet casualty when he resigned as Welsh secretary.

He said Mr Davies’ infamous “moment of madness” – when he “had been robbed by a black male prostitute on Clapham Common” – was mind-boggling.

He said he thought the episode showed how “unbelievably cruel” political life could be but he knew Mr Davies’s career could not be salvaged.

Mr Blair wrote: “The problem was not anything to do with sex or not, it was the misjudgement. I felt desperately sorry for him.”

BLAIR ON HUNTING BAN

Elsewhere in the book, entitled A Journey, Mr Blair said he regretted the law banning hunting with dogs.

“If I’d proposed solving the pension problem by compulsory euthanasia for every fifth pensioner I’d have got less trouble for it,” he wrote.

But Alun Michael, who was a rural affairs minister Welsh secretary and the first leader of the Welsh assembly, responded that the mistake was not introducing the legislation quickly enough.

The ban came into force in 2005 after bitter protests and legal challenges.

Mr Michael told BBC Radio Cymru: “The mistake was that we didn’t do things quickly to settle the question.

“When we came back in 2001 [after the general election], the Labour Party promised with the support of Tony Blair that we would deal with the question.

“He [Mr Blair] asked me to find some way that would gain the support of everybody but that was never going to happen because views were so entrenched on both sides of the debate.

“So I think the problem was not giving a decision that was possible for everybody to understand.”

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The death of Princess Diana was a “global event like no other” and posed huge challenges for the monarchy and government, Tony Blair has said.

In his memoirs, Mr Blair said he had sought to “protect” the Royal Family after her death in a 1997 car crash and “channel” public anger to its reaction.

His description of Diana as the “people’s princess” seemed “corny now”, but had felt “natural” at the time.

Her death was a “turning point” for the monarchy, the former PM added.

Although critical of the Royal Family’s initial reluctance to acknowledge Diana’s death in public – describing this as “bizarre” – he said the institution had ultimately shown it “could open up while remaining royal”.

In his memoir The Journey, published on Wednesday, the former prime minister described Diana as “extraordinarily captivating” but an “unpredictable meteor” in terms of her relationship with the Royal Family.

“I really liked her and, of course, was as big a sucker for a beautiful princess as the next man: but I was wary too,” he wrote, referring to what he describes as her “wildness of emotions”.

He was “uneasy” about Diana’s relationship with Dodi Fayed – describing it as a “problem” – and said she “didn’t like it” when he raised the subject when they met for the last time, weeks before she died.

Mr Blair said he had been “profoundly shocked” by her death, immediately realising this was a “global event like no other”, and his tribute to her would be crucial in reflecting the public mood.

“I had to articulate what would be a tidal wave of grief and loss, in a way that was dignified but also expressed the emotion and love – not too strong a word – that people felt for her.”

Referring to the origin of his famous remarks on the day after Diana’s death, he says he scribbled a few words on the back of an envelope and then sought the “advice and input” of his communications director Alastair Campbell – widely believed to have come up with the phrase the “people’s princess”.

With hindsight, he said the phrase now “seems like something from another age, corny and over the top.”

But he added: “At the time it felt natural and I thought, particularly, that she would have approved. It was how she saw herself and it was how she should be remembered.”

Describing his task in the days following Diana’s death, he said his aim had been “to protect the monarchy, channel the anger before it became rage, and generally have the whole business emerge in a positive and unifying way rather than be a source of tension, division and bitterness”.

Mr Blair said The Queen had “grasped the enormity” of Diana’s death but “was not going to be pushed around by it” in terms of how the monarchy should react.

However, he acknowledges that decisions such as not flying flags at half-mast at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle – although dictated by royal protocol – exacerbated public concern over the monarchy’s response.

“It was all very by the book but it took no account of the fact that that people couldn’t give a damn about the book,” he said.

Amid signs that “the outpouring of grief was turning into mass movement for change”, Mr Blair recounts how he telephoned the Prince of Wales to say the tide of public opinion could not be “turned back, resisted or ignored”.

Although worried that he should be seen to be overly “shaping things”, Mr Blair said he felt compelled to give the Queen some “direct advice” about the unfolding situation.

Fortunately, he says Prince Charles – whom he describes as a “curious mixture of the traditional and the radical” – also recognised that the Royal Family had to be “visible” at this time.

The Queen’s subsequent television broadcast, in which she acknowledged the grief of her family and the public at Diana’s death, was “near perfect”, he wrote.

Mr Blair said he believed the events had ultimately strengthened the monarchy.

“People not only felt the monarch had taken a further and necessary step towards being more open to public opinion, but they also saw the human frailty and strength of its leading representatives and accepted both equally.”

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The body of an MI6 employee found at his flat was padlocked into a sports bag, an inquest has heard.

Gareth Williams, 30, originally from Anglesey, was discovered dead in the bath at his home in Pimlico, west London, on 23 August.

A post-mortem examination was unable to establish how Mr Williams died.

At the opening of the inquest into his death at Westminster Coroner’s Court, the coroner revealed the body was locked inside a sports holdall.

Dr Paul Knapman told the hearing that the information he had from the police was that Mr Williams’ body was in a large holdall in the bath of an en-suite bathroom of the main bedroom.

The hearing was told that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition.

The inquest has been adjourned.

BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said details of the padlock “clearly indicates someone else was involved” in the incident.

The body was discovered when officers broke into the Alderney Street flat after colleagues said Mr Williams had not been seen for at least 10 days.

Police are treating the death as “suspicious and unexplained”.

Toxicological tests are being carried out to ascertain whether Mr Williams – described as a “maths genius” – had traces of drugs or alcohol in his system.

On Saturday police warned it could be several days before the tests, which also hope to detect signs of asphyxiation or poisoning, are concluded.

Mr Williams is believed to have lain undiscovered for a lengthy period, with the last confirmed sighting of him alive on 15 August.

His family has issued a statement which said: “Gareth was a generous, loving son, brother, and friend, and he was a very private person.

“He was a great athlete, and loved music.

“His loss has devastated us and we would ask that anyone with information come forward and assist the police enquiry.”

Mr Williams, a keen cyclist, graduated with a first class degree in maths from Bangor University aged 17.

He worked at the government listening post GCHQ in Cheltenham and was on secondment to MI6’s headquarters on the bank of the Thames in London.

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Our regular column covering the passing of significant – but lesser reported – people of the past month.

When members of the Palestinian Black September movement seized a Belgian airliner in 1972 they were not to know that the plane was captained by a decorated former RAF bomber pilot, Reginald Levy. Levy’s Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 was hijacked just after it left Vienna en route for Tel Aviv’s Lod airport (now Ben Gurion International). The crew transmitted a coded message to alert the authorities and Levy flew as slowly as possible to give those on the ground time to prepare for the landing. Once on the tarmac at Lod, the hijackers allowed Levy to leave the aircraft to assist in negotiations for the hostages’ release, and he was able to pass on valuable information to the Israeli authorities. Israeli commandos, disguised as mechanics, stormed the plane, killing two of the hijackers. The boarding party itself was remarkable in that it contained two future Israeli prime ministers, the commanding officer, Maj Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu. Levy joined the RAF at the age of 18 and piloted Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft before transferring to Halifax bombers, in which he carried out a number of raids over Germany.

Another wartime hero was Bill Millin, whose bagpipes stiffened the resolve of British troops going ashore during the D-Day landings. Brought up in Glasgow, he learned to play the pipes in the Boys Brigade before joining the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders as a piper and a commando. He became the personal piper of Lord Lovat, the flamboyant commander of the 1st Special Service Brigade, which went ashore on Sword Beach in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Lovat, a patriotic Scot, upheld the tradition that troops should be piped into battle and Millin found himself marching up and down the beach piping The Road to the Isles while bullets, shells and grenades rained down on the sands around him. Millin himself was completely unscathed – which some said was the result of German defenders being so surprised at his appearance they didn’t aim at him. His pipes, however, were holed by shrapnel four days later. Millin’s heroic playing was captured in the classic 1962 film The Longest Day.

It was another native of Glasgow, Bobby Thomson, who made the baseball strike that became known as “the shot heard round the world”, so called because of the numbers of US service personnel listening in bases across Europe and the Far East. Thomson’s family emigrated in 1926 from Scotland to New York, where he played baseball at high school and was signed up by the New York Giants in 1942. Late in the afternoon of 3 October 1951, the Giants were in a play-off with the Brooklyn Dodgers for the National League pennant. With the Giants 4-1 down going into the ninth inning, the Dodgers’ pitcher Ralph Branca set his second ball towards Thomson. The Scot swung his bat and the ball soared over the outfield fence and into the stands, the resulting home run helped the Giants win the decider 5-4. Thomson continued his baseball career until 1963 including spells with the Milwaukee Braves and Chicago Cubs.

A famous television duel between legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich and the Muppets’ frenetic sticksman, Animal, was organised by composer and bandleader Jack Parnell. Parnell came from a music hall background; his father was a noted performer while his uncle, Val, ran a string of theatres including the London Palladium. Parnell was an accomplished drummer, who played with the Ted Heath Orchestra before forming his own band. He became the musical director for the commercial TV company ATV, working with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, and conducted the orchestra for the popular variety show, Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Parnell also provided the music for Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck’s TV shows and composed a string of programme theme tunes. He joined the Muppet Show in the late 1970s and was the “real” conductor of the Muppet Orchestra, rather than the Muppet, Nigel, who appeared on screen.

In films, it is the production designer who creates the overall look of a scene and Robert Boyle was one of the most creative and longest-serving designers in Hollywood history. He was best known for his partnership with Alfred Hitchcock which lasted 20 years. In the days before computer generated images, Boyle abseiled down the Mount Rushmore monument to provide the background for the key scenes in North by Northwest. He also spent hours enticing seagulls and crows to fly to order for The Birds, although it took him a year to perfect the scenes. His first Hollywood film was The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper, filmed in 1936. He went on to work on more than 100 films and achieved four Oscar nominations.

If film images are important, so too is sound, and dubbing mixer Freddie Slade was one of the finest exponents of the art of ensuring a final soundtrack perfectly complemented the pictures it was composed for. Like Robert Boyle, he worked in the days before computers, when finalising the track was done on a mixing desk by ear alone. And, like Parnell, Slade worked for ATV, then Thames Television for 30 years, producing the soundtrack for programmes such as This Week, Edward & Mrs Simpson and Rumpole of the Bailey. His biggest project was undoubtedly the massive 1973 documentary, The World at War, which ran for 26 episodes and is still regarded as one of the most authoritative television productions of the 20th Century.

Among others who died in August was Oscar-winning actress and wife of Roald Dahl, Patricia Neale; former Attorney General Nicholas Lyell, who was criticised over the Matrix Churchill arms-for-Iraq trial; and trade unionist, author and leader of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in Jimmy Reid.

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A senior Swedish prosecutor has ordered the reopening of a rape investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Public Prosecutions Director Marianne Ny said there was “reason to believe a crime has been committed” and that the crime was classified as rape.

Last week prosecutors cancelled an arrest warrant for Mr Assange on accusations of rape and molestation, saying he was no longer suspected.

Mr Assange denies any wrongdoing saying the accusations are “without basis”.

The decision to re-open the case follows an appeal by a Swedish woman who has accused Mr Assange of raping her.

In a statement about her decision to review the case, Ms Ny said of the rape allegation that “more investigations are necessary before a final decision can be made”.

She also said that an accusation of molestation – which is not a sex offence under Swedish law – against Mr Assange should be reclassified and investigated as a case of sexual coercion and sexual molestation.

The statement said Ms Ny would lead the new inquiries.

Sensitive timing

It is the second time a Swedish prosecutor has been overruled by a prosecutor of higher rank in relation to the claims against Mr Assange.

Last week the chief prosecutor for Stockholm quashed an arrest warrant which another prosecutor had pursued against Mr Assange, saying that there was no reason to suspect he had carried out the assault.

Mr Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has suggested that the allegations are part of a smear campaign by opponents of his whistle-blowing website.

When the rape allegations first emerged, he said their appearance at a time when Wikileaks had been criticised for leaking Afghan war documents was “deeply disturbing”.

In July, Wikileaks published more than 75,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

US authorities attacked the leak, saying it could put the lives of coalition soldiers and Afghans, especially informers, at risk.

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Actor Michael Douglas has given his first interview since announcing he has throat cancer.

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At least six civilians were among about 45 people reported killed in Pakistani military air strikes targeting militants in the north-west.

Security officials said family members were among those who died in the raids in the Khyber tribal district.

According to the officials, Pakistani jets and helicopters pounded targets in the Tirah valley from where suicide attacks were being prepared.

It is hard to check the claims as the area is largely inaccessible to media.

But according to unnamed officials, the military carried out several strikes on Tuesday night which destroyed militant hideouts and vehicles that were being prepared for suicide attacks in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A militant training centre and an illegal radio station were also said to have been hit in the region, which escaped the worst of the recent flooding that has devastated Pakistan.

Six civilians, including women and children, were killed in one of the strikes, Rehan Khattak, a senior government official in Khyber, told Reuters news agency.

But a senior security official told AFP news agency that at least 12 civilians died.

In April, dozens of civilians were killed in an air raid in Tirah after they were mistaken for Taliban. The head of the army made a rare public apology for those deaths.

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