Category: news

A toddler has died after being found in a pond in the grounds of his mother’s home in Cumbria, police said.

The 23-month-old boy was found unconscious in the pond in Stank by his mother at 1715 BST on Friday.

Cumbria Police said neighbours had attempted to resuscitate the boy before he was taken to Furness General Hospital in Barrow.

A police spokesman said they had been alerted to his death by hospital staff. The force has started an investigation.

The spokesman said: “Neighbours attempted resuscitation but tragically despite their best efforts the child was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“Specially trained officers are with the family and inquiries are continuing to establish the exact circumstances surrounding this tragic event.”

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

Paul Allen founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975

The co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, is suing several high-tech giants for infringing patents held by a firm he founded in the 1990s.

The legal action against Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Google and eBay, as well as six other firms, asserts that web technologies first developed by Interval Licensing have been infringed.

The patents are key to how e-commerce and search websites worked, it says.

Google, Facebook and eBay immediately said they would fight the accusations.

“This lawsuit against some of America’s most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace,” a Google spokesman said in a statement.

“Innovation – not litigation – is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world.”

A Facebook spokesman called the action “completely without merit”.

In the suit filed in the US District Court in Washington on Friday, Interval said it was seeking damages and a halt to the alleged violations of its patents.

The four patents concerned essentially involve using web browsers to find information; letting users know when items of interest appear; and enabling adverts, stock quotes, news update or video images to pop up on a computer screen while the user is engaged in another activity.

The company also alleges that it helped fund outside projects including research by Larry Page and Sergey Brin that resulted in Google.

The other companies named in the lawsuit are AOL, YouTube, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples.

Interval does not name a precise figure for damages, but a spokesman told the BBC that it would be “determined as this progresses”.

“We will do whatever is necessary. This is an important step. It is the first time that Paul Allen has filed a suit like this,” David Postman said.

“Some of the technology developed by people working for Paul Allen a decade ago is now key to this search and e-commerce space. It is part of our daily life on the web and has shown itself to be of value to the industry today.”

There has been a recent flurry of patent lawsuits involving Silicon Valley companies.

Apple, Nokia and HTC are involved in a long-running dispute over patent infringements involving smartphones.

Oracle has fired off its own legal action against Google, alleging that the search giant’s Android mobile phone operating system infringed patents Oracle now holds for the open-source Java programming language, acquired through its purchase of Sun Microsystems.

There has also been an increase in people buying up companies to leverage the patent portfolio. But Mr Postman said that is not the case with Mr Allen’s action.

“We are not asserting patents that other companies have filed, nor are we buying patent originally assigned to someone else. These are patents developed by and for Interval,” he explained.

Mr Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, and later started Interval in 1992. At its height, the company employed over 110 scientists, physicists and engineers.

The Wall Street Journal said among those who worked there were Robert Shaw, a co-creator of chaos theory; Max Mathews, who wrote the first widely used computer programme for music; and David Reed, one of the founders of the TCP/IP internet protocol.

Mr Allen, who made billions of dollars from his Microsoft shares, recently pledged most of his $31.5bn fortune to charity.

Last year, he revealed he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

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

Ken Clarke has criticised the growth of the prison population in England and Wales

Government plans to lock up fewer criminals would not reduce offending or cut costs, a report says.

Ex-Home Office criminologist Professor Ken Pease said community sentences have no evident effect on reconviction rates in their current form.

His report, Prison, Community Sentencing and Crime, has been released by the think-tank Civitas.

It follows Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s call for alternatives to jail to be developed.

Prof Pease said it was important for any move away from the use of custody “to be based on something more than short-term political exigency”.

He said using community sentences to replace short prison sentences simply “freed the group most likely to reoffend to do so sooner, with no evidence of a current treatment benefit from community sanctions to offset that.”

Prof Pease said arguments for fewer short sentences failed to take into account that jailing persistent offenders gave the public a respite from crime.

Using government data, he estimates that more than 13,000 offences would be prevented every year if short-term prisoners spent an extra month in custody.

Professor Pease says the main reason why crime has fallen over the past decade is because of improved security measures.

But he claims the debate about whether prison helps cut crime has been distorted by what he says are the “convenient fictions” that it is expensive and less effective than community sentences.

‘Shut revolving door’

He pointed to estimates of offending rates per conviction, including one which stated there may be up to 136 burglaries for every burglary conviction.

This suggested, “the distinct possibility that, far from a high price being paid for the crime reduction benefit being provided by custody, a price is being paid for the failure of community sentences to reduce criminality,” he said.

Last month, Mr Clarke outlined radical prison reforms to “shut the revolving door of crime and reoffending”.

Criticising the growth of the prison population in England and Wales, he said there must be other penalties.

But former Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard said he was “not convinced” by Mr Clarke’s suggestion that fewer criminals should be sent to prison.

And Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said he was “rather fond of villains going to prison”.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said community sentences could be a cost-effective and rigorous alternative to prison.

“The rate of reoffending by offenders following short prison sentences is 61% compared to 36% for those on community sentences.

“The government is committed to a full assessment of sentencing policy and rehabilitation, part of which will look at tough new alternatives to costly prison places.

“The government’s priorities are to protect the public, punish offenders and divert them from the revolving door of prison and reoffending.”

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

Gen Than Shwe has ruled Burma since 1992

Leaders of Burma’s junta are reported to have resigned from their military posts, ahead of the country’s first general election in two decades.

The reports said Gen Than Shwe and his deputy, Gen Maung Aye, were among those to have stepped down.

The move would allow them to register to stand in the November election.

Observers believe Gen Than Shwe is unlikely to be willing to relinquish power entirely, and could be interested in the post of civilian president.

The military junta has said the upcoming elections are a crucial step in transferring power in Burma from the military to civilians, although critics have dismissed the vote as a sham.

Reports on Friday quoted officials as saying more than a dozen senior military officials had resigned.

The Irrawaddy website reported that Gen Than Shwe had retired from his military post, but would stay on as head of state.

The Democratic Voice of Burma website said both Gen Than Shwe and Gen Maung Aye were preparing to become president and vice-president of the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

It appears to be the junta’s second major reshuffle this year, after 27 senior officials retired from the military leadership in April. Those officials are widely expected to stand for election in November.

Gen Than Shwe, 77, has ruled Burma since 1992.

The last election, in 1990, was won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), but the military junta never let the party take power.

The NLD, which had refused to take part in the forthcoming election, was recently disbanded.

Under a recently adopted constitution, Burma’s president is due to be chosen through a vote taken in the newly elected parliament, in which a quarter of the seats will be reserved for the military.

Democracy activists and many Western governments say that even if Burma’s elections shift political rule from military to civilian, real power will lie in the same hands that it does now, BBC South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey reports.

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

Director General Mark Thompson says that the BBC faces a “moment for realism”

Next year’s licence fee negotiations will be a “moment of realism” for the BBC, director general Mark Thompson has warned.

But, he said, any loss of funding would permanently damage the UK’s capacity to create television programmes.

In his MacTaggart speech delivered in Edinburgh, Mr Thompson also said that Sky should invest more in homegrown TV, which would be “good for the public”.

Last year’s speech saw Sky boss James Murdoch identify the BBC as a threat.

‘Leaner’ BBC

Mr Murdoch said the scale of the corporation’s ambition was “chilling” and railed against the BBC’s “guaranteed and growing” income.

Mr Thompson responded to these criticisms, saying Sky was on its way to becoming “the most dominant force in broadcast media in this country”.

He suggested that the broadcaster was not doing enough to produce its own original content.

“It’s time that Sky pulled its weight… its investment in original British content is just not enough,” he told an audience at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Mr Thompson added that going head-to-head in this area would also be “good for the BBC and good for the industry,” and make up a potential shortfall in the UK’s programme-making capacity.

ITV and Channel 4, he said, would need to remain strong to contribute to making “great British television”.

“The total pot of money available to invest in original TV production is shrinking, and unless something changes, may shrink further.”

He emphasised that the UK’s broadcasters would have to “break the habit of a lifetime and actually work together”.

The BBC boss acknowledged that the corporation was facing a tough challenge over negotiations for the licence fee, which begin in around a year’s time.

“For the BBC I believe this will be a moment of realism and a recognition of the scale of the challenge facing licence fee payers and the country as a whole.”

Arguing that “a pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of UK creative economy,” Mr Thompson said it was unlikely that cuts to the BBC’s funding “could be magically made up from somewhere else”.

The director general also said that making the licence fee work meant the BBC would “have to become leaner than it’s ever been before”.

The BBC remained committed to reducing the management bill, he continued, promising “simpler structures, fewer layers, fewer management boards”.

He added that such reductions would enable the BBC to invest more in its core strength – making original programmes.

Mr Thompson said that “radical and rapid” change would be necessary at the corporation in the coming years.

A BBC should be “fit and ready for this new world” and “do all it can to help the whole industry thrive,” he concluded.

Director General Mark Thompson says that the BBC faces a “moment for realism”

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

Former US President Jimmy Carter has arrived back in the US with an American whose release he won from North Korea.

Mr Carter and Aijalon Gomes touched down in Boston, where the plane was met by Mr Gomes’ family.

Mr Gomes, who had been living in South Korea, was jailed in January after crossing into North Korea from China.

The insular nation’s state-run news agency said leader Kim Jong-il had granted the former president’s request to “leniently forgive” Mr Gomes.

Mr Gomes, who appeared thin, embraced Mr Carter and his mother upon walking off the plane.

Gomes, described by colleagues as a devout Christian, was also fined 70 million won ($700,000; £460,000 at the official exchange rate).

Mr Gomes, who had been working as an English teacher in South Korea, reportedly crossed the border from China into North Korea on 25 January. It is not clear why he entered the country.

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

Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad hit centuries as England close day two of the final Test with Pakistan at Lord’s on 346-7.

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

Many homes collapsed and cars were swept away

At least 12 people have died in landslides in northern Turkey after torrential rain, officials say.

At least one other person is reported to be missing after rains which began on Thursday triggered landslides in the town of Gundogdu in the Black Sea province of Rize.

Emergency crews have evacuated dozens of people who were trapped in their homes.

Landslides are common on Turkey’s Black Sea coast.

Officials said at least seven people with injuries were rescued.

Buildings, homes and vehicles were buried and communications were cut across the affected area. Several roads were shut down.

Many residents had been eating when the landslides hit, after fasting all day as part of Ramadan.

Buruk Aka, who had been dining with his family, lost both his brother and mother-in-law in the disaster.

“We realised that the house was going to collapse. It did before I could say ‘run it’s going to collapse!'”, he was quoted by Anatolia news agency as saying.

“I managed to throw myself out but my mother-in-law and my brother could not escape. They were buried in the landslide”.

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

Mr Bernanke said all of the possible policy options contained risks

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has expressed surprise at the slowing US economy and laid out four possible policy responses in a key speech.

He told fellow central bankers at the Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming that the recovery had slowed to “a pace somewhat weaker” than forecast.

With interest rates already at zero, he said the Fed would take further unconventional measures if needed.

Top of the list was more “quantitative easing” – mass purchases of debt.

“The issue at this stage is not whether we have the tools to help support economic activity and guard against disinflation,” Mr Bernanke said.

“The issue is instead whether, at any given juncture, the benefits of each tool, in terms of additional stimulus, outweigh the associated costs or risks of using each tool.”

He said that the unorthodox policy options each contained risks and would only be used if the outlook worsened further.

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

Mohammad Sidique Khan was one of the four suicide bombers who attacked London in 2005

The widow of a 7/7 suicide bomber has lost her High Court bid to overturn a decision refusing her legal aid.

Hasina Patel had wanted legal aid for representation at the forthcoming inquest into the deaths of 52 people in the attacks in London.

She was married to suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan.

But Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Silber said the decision by the Lord Chancellor “cannot be described as unreasonable or irrational”.

A hearing held earlier this week had heard an argument on her behalf that the decision to deny her legal aid was “unfair, irrational and unlawful”.

Khan was one of the four men who carried out the suicide bombings on London’s transport network in July 2005.

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

Supporters of the new constitution say it will pave the way for real change

Kenya is set to adopt a new constitution on Friday, more than three weeks after it was overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum.

President Mwai Kibaki will sign the document into law at a large ceremony in the capital, Nairobi.

The constitution is expected to bring significant changes, with political supporters hailing it as the birth of the second republic.

The debate over a new constitution has lasted 20 years.

The new constitution will bring a more decentralised political system which will limit the president’s powers and replace corrupt provincial governments with local counties.

It will also create a second chamber of parliament – the Senate – and set up a land commission to settle ownership disputes and review past abuses.

It is hoped that the changes will help bring an end to the tribal differences which have brought violence to the country in the past.

The BBC’s East Africa correspondent Peter Greste says the debate for a new constitution ebbed and flowed with each new political crisis until the elections of 2007, which were followed by the worst ethnic violence Kenya has yet seen.

In its wake, everyone acknowledged that something fundamental had to change if the country was to avoid yet more trouble, our correspondent says.

“The historic journey that we began over 20 years ago is now coming to a happy end,” Mr Kibaki said earlier this month after the results of the referendum were announced on 5 August.

“There will be challenges along the way. But it is important that we look forward with renewed optimism to better days ahead.”

Our correspondent says that the previous constitution allowed politicians to exploit tribal divisions, left courts weak, and concentrated power in the president’s hands.

While many Kenyans say that this is just a start – and that things could still go very wrong – most believe it is a fundamentally better document than the last.

President Kibaki won a landslide victory in 2002 promising to change the constitution within 100 days of taking office. In 2005, he held a referendum but it failed to pass.

The previous constitution was negotiated with the British at Lancaster House, in London, in the early 1960s.

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

The imposed deal for workers is less than the one previously rejected

Scotland’s council leaders have decided to impose a three-year pay deal after a breakdown in talks with unions.

The deal, affecting about 150,000 staff, is significantly less generous than one which was recently rejected.

Cosla, which represents the 32 councils, said public sector unions had left local authority leaders in an “impossible position”.

The move will see staff receive a rise of 0.65% backdated to April, followed by pay freezes next year and in 2012.

Members of the three unions, the biggest of which is Unison, which represent most council staff earlier rejected a deal which would have given them a 1% increase this year, followed by a pay freeze next year and a 0.5% rise in 2012-13.

They had wanted a 3% pay rise this year or an increase of £600 for the lowest-paid workers.

Following a meeting of council leaders in Edinburgh, Cosla human resources spokesman Michael Cook said local authorities needed clarity over pay now to allow them to plan future budgets.

He said: “We hugely value our hard-working employees, and on this basis made them an original offer which represented the absolute extremity of what councils could afford.

“We have tried everything we could to get the unions to realise the gravity of the financial pressures we face and our determination as far as possible to protect jobs and services.

“They have left us in an impossible position by failing to recognise the interests of their members. Councils are left with no option but to withdraw that offer and impose a settlement.”

Mr Cook added: “The unions have to realise the unprecedented financial circumstances which the public sector, and local government in particular, finds itself.

“We, as employers, went the extra mile for our workforce but it was rejected by the union leadership, leaving us with no other option.”

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

The Taliban have revealed the base from which they planned to shoot down the prime minister’s helicopter during his visit to Afghanistan in June.

A Taliban spokesman told the BBC that the attack would be launched from a base in Washir, north-west Helmand.

David Cameron’s plans were changed at the last minute when intercepts of Taliban radio messages showed that they knew which helicopter he was flying in.

Downing Street said it did not comment on the prime minister’s security plans.

BBC world affairs correspondent David Loyn said any claims from the Taliban had to be be treated with extreme scepticism, especially coming two months after the diversion of the prime minister’s flight.

But, when contacted by the BBC, the Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi added one piece of information to what was already known – the location of the team planning to shoot the helicopter down.

He said that the Taliban attack was to be launched from their base at Washir, in the north-west of the main conflict zone in Helmand.

He would not reveal the source of the Taliban’s information about the flight, nor the weapons they were planning to use.

Mr Cameron’s presence in Afghanistan was known because – unusually – he held a televised press conference in Kabul before heading to the south to visit British troops.

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

Liverpool player Joe Cole already had six points on his driving licence

England and Liverpool footballer Joe Cole avoided an immediate driving ban for speeding at 105mph after his solicitor launched an appeal.

Cole, 28, who denied the charge, was disqualified for 50 days at Staines Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

But chairman of the bench John Neary agreed to suspend the sentence while Cole’s solicitor launched an appeal.

He was stopped while driving his car on a 70mph section of dual carriageway in Claygate, Surrey, in November 2009.

The footballer, who already had six points on his licence, was found guilty of speeding at 105mph earlier this month.

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The increase is thought to be due to regeneration projects like the new Carmarthen cinema complex

New figures on migration in Wales reveal that Carmarthenshire and Conwy, not Cardiff, are top of the shifting population league.

In 2008-09 the county saw twice the net number of migrants Cardiff did, with 400 new people taking up residence.

Local government data shows Rhondda Cynon Taf had the lowest migration rate.

Carmarthenshire Council leader Meryl Gravell said the boom was down to regeneration.

The figures were published by the Local Government Data Unit Wales and based on data supplied by the Office for National Statistics.

They show that in 2008-09 Carmarthenshire saw an influx double the size of Cardiff, with 5,500 people moving out of the county and 5,900 moving in.

Meanwhile Conwy had 4,500 people moving in and 4,100 moving out.

Although Cardiff had 18,700 people moving in from other parts of Wales and the UK, 18,500 left the city during the same period.

The county with the lowest number of migrants was Rhondda Cynon Taf, where the outflow of migrants exceeded the inflow by 600.

The figures do not show people from Wales emigrating overseas or those who have moved from other countries outside of the UK.

Carmarthenshire Council leader Meryl Gravell said she was not surprised by the figures and believed the level was down to big regeneration projects in the county.

“We’re getting a lot of people coming into Carmarthenshire to retire because it seems like a nice, environmentally place to live,” she said.

“The county has a lot of leisure facilities like the racecourse, golf courses and the new £74m cinema and shopping development in Carmarthen.

“We have been concentrating on regeneration so we can keep young people and their own families here and our schools and economy can thrive.

“We’re also becoming a university town which I expect will bring more young people in.”

But she said keeping young people in the area was an important task and one the council was thoroughly committed to.

“We are hoping to help people with social enterprises and European grants so they stay here to set up businesses and work.

“Having people come here to retire is obviously a good thing but it can be a double-edged sword because of the pressure it will put on social care so we need to be aware of it and prepare.”

Conwy Council has been asked to comment.

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