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Latest MP expenses data released

The Commons handed over responsibility for running expenses in May 2010

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More than £3.2m in expenses was paid out to MPs in the first two months of 2011, according to official figures.

Almost 25,000 claims were submitted in January and February, but 84 MPs had a total of £4,633 they asked for rejected by Ipsa, the independent regulator.

Among those who did get paid was former Labour MP Eric Illsley who was jailed in February for expenses fraud.

Ipsa also said MPs had spent £880,000 on official payment cards – similar to credit cards – since May 2010.

The cards – which have a monthly credit limit of £4,000 – were originally meant to pay for travel alone, but can now also be used for hotels, utilities and other bills.

BBC Radio 5 live’s political correspondent Chris Mason said the figures should be treated with some caution because the totals relate to claims handled in the two-month window, rather than expenses actually run up in that period.

He also pointed out that a number of the rejected claims were thrown out on the grounds of administrative errors or technicalities.

In one case, Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker had a £15 bill for a “restaurant meal” turned down because it was not categorised as a legitimate expense.

The reason was that MPs can claim for dinner if the House of Commons sits later than 7.30pm and on the day in question, it rose at 7.29pm.

Overall, the most common reason for claims being rejected was “insufficient evidence” – in other words, non-provision of receipts or tickets for travel.

Ipsa said Illsley was entitled to claim expenses up until the point he was no longer an MP.

He controversially refused to resign his seat after pleading guilty to expenses fraud on 11 January, only relinquishing it on 8 February, two days before he was jailed.

In total, Illsley was paid £6,766 for January and February, including £2,000 for photocopier hire on 20 January – more than a week after he admitted his guilt.

Ipsa was created after the expenses scandal in 2009.

Its rules was relaxed in March following complaints from MPs that it was too bureaucratic and “anti-family”.

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

‘Deadly attack’ on Syria’s Rastan

Syrian government troops have heavily bombarded Rastan, near Homs, in the centre of the country, killing at least 15 people, activists say.

More than 50 people have been killed in Rastan since a military operation there started at the weekend, reports say.

The offensive comes despite an amnesty offer by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the release of hundreds of detainees.

The initiatives have been dismissed by Syrian opposition groups.

The opposition groups, which are meeting in Antalya in neighbouring Turkey, say the Syrian government’s concessions have come too late, correspondents say.

The groups are working on what they hope will be a roadmap for peaceful transition.

The Local Co-ordinating Committee, which helps to organise and document the country’s protests, gave the names of the people it said were killed in Rastan in the latest artillery and tank bombardments.

The committee said the offensive had hit at least two mosques and a bakery, as well as houses that collapsed, killing entire families.

Eyewitnesses told BBC Arabic that army and security forces are not able to take control the town, even though it has been surrounded by tanks over the past few days.

Following the announcement on Tuesday of a conditional amnesty, hundreds of detainees have been released.

More seem to be on the way, although it is not clear if the authorities intend to free all the 10,000 or more people they are believed to have detained in the past 10 weeks and the thousands already in jail before that, says the BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut.

The authorities have announced the formation of a high-level commission to oversee a proposed national dialogue aimed at stabilising the situation.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising against President Assad began in March, activists say.

Reports from Syria are hard to verify independently, as foreign journalists are not allowed into 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.

Argentina votes for smoking ban

The lower house of congress in Argentina votes to ban smoking in all enclosed public spaces, as part of a comprehensive series of anti-tobacco measures.

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

Asian shares fall on weak US data

Asian markets reacted negatively to weak economic data coming out of the US

Asian shares fell on Thursday as weak economic data from the US raised concerns about a slowdown in the global economic recovery.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 1.7%, while Australian shares slipped 2%.

Wall Street shares registered their biggest fall in 10 months, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 2.2%.

Markets also reacted negatively to the news of a no-confidence motion against Japan’s prime minister Naoto Kan.

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

Global war on drugs has ‘failed’

The global war on drugs has “failed” and legalisation would be a better option, according to a new report by group of politicians and former world leaders.

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

Life of grime

Article written by Phil Coomes Picture editorMore from Phil

Hooded youths on street corners, dealers and gangstas, but this is not New York, this is London in the 21st Century, a city that spawned grime, a new genre of urban music from its deprived inner boroughs.

Yet grime artists were caught in a paradox, on the one hand associating with the glitz and materialism of US hip hop and on the other the reality of life on under-funded housing estates, many of which were no longer fit for purpose.

Photographer Simon Wheatley has dedicated more than 10 years to documenting the grime scene in London, capturing the lives of those whose futures would be shaped by their involvement in the movement.

Some of those he met, such as members of grime music collective Roll Deep, have emerged into the mainstream as significant artists. But there are others who also command large and dedicated followings and yet remain out of the media spotlight.

Of course there are those who have moved away to forge new lives and sadly some who lost theirs during the turbulent years of postcode wars.

“I went to a pirate radio station in Bow with the E14 movement, who were effectively Roll Deep’s ‘youngerz’.

“At the end of the session a couple of them started waving knives around just for the heck of it. I snapped away and this shot stands out not just because of the composition and the main protagonist’s facial expression but because it makes the link between violence and music.

“I’m not claiming that everyone who does grime is violent of course, but I’ve heard enough of the lyrics and seen enough of ‘the roads’ to detect a connection. ‘The time of grime’ is the era of postcode warfare and mindless teenage killings.

“Even if nowadays the rhymes are about being in love or being at a party – since that’s more likely to get an artist signed than tales of street rivalries – I still feel that the values haven’t changed and that the gross materialism that continues to characterize the genre is ultimately destructive.”

Simon Wheatley

Wheatley’s pictures just ooze a feeling of isolation and the tension within many of the frames almost reaches out and grabs the viewer. Wheatley states that: “The title of the work is inspired by the discrepancy that exists between the ‘cool’ perceptions of black culture on the one hand and on the other, the often-harsh reality of actually being born black on a London council estate.”

Yet the project didn’t start out that way. It began life as a study of council estate architecture of the late 1960s and early 1970s – architecture that was being pulled down all over the capital. Wheatley said: “I found the idea that architecture that was seen to be rather ‘futuristic’ had been unsuited to the future that had followed, and I found that paradox rather interesting – as well as the social dynamics of urban regeneration, particularly the effects on the less affluent.”

The project took him to Lambeth Walk, an area that was struggling with unemployment and massive change as the once thriving street market became little more than a few traders hanging on to their pitches. Here he spent time with many older people who felt trapped in their homes, afraid to go out. But alongside this he was photographing youths in the area and realised that those pictures were stronger.

He said: “I became aware that what I was witnessing in terms of the anti-social behaviour of some of the youths was becoming an epidemic in London, and that this was an important time to continue documenting. A generation earlier youngsters had been respectful of their elders but this seemed to have changed.”

The project may not have progressed beyond this had his initial architecturally-inspired pictures of Lambeth been picked up by a magazine as he would then have moved on to something new. But the work remained largely unnoticed and so he carried on the project switching from medium format to 35mm as the project progressed.

The critical part of the work, as with any project, is of course access. Introductions were a key part of the process and what ultimately led to the project’s success. Wheatley explained: “The first ‘gang’ of youths I photographed were youngsters who I had seen growing up on Lambeth Walk. They’d also seen me wandering around with an old camera and probably just thought me a bit odd, certainly not a threat as an undercover cop.

“I’d hang around them for short periods of time until they got bored of me being there, when they could get dangerous. It helped that one of them had a brother who was a DJ I’d done some work for but that only went so far.

“Later on, after I’d moved to east London and was documenting the grime scene that had burgeoned there, things became a lot easier in terms of access. I was recognised as a music photographer as I had been working for underground music magazine RWD, and the youths would be pleased to have me around, knowing that I’d shot this or that crew.

“North-west London was also welcoming enough after the singer NY introduced me to some people from Street Life Kings (SLK). Generally, there were some who would always remain suspicious of who the strange chap with a camera might be and I’d know when to leave. Once down in Kennington things got really heavy. That was a bit later, in late 2007, when I’d become complacent about the access I’d been enjoying with my music connections.

“But Peckham was really hard to get into. People were convinced I was undercover down there. That was towards the end of the project when the youth violence in London was becoming an ever-younger phenomenon and I was keen to explore the world of the 13-15-year-olds.

“But while a 16-18-year-old might be seriously alienated and negative, I could still reason with him in some way, his mind was capable of digesting me. But I found that the younger youths whose minds were less evolved lived in a world of pure hype and it was very hard to reason with them.

“In the end I got the pictures I felt the book needed after Lewisham opened up and someone’s younger cousin helped me negotiate parts of the Pepys estate in Deptford. I remember seeing an eight-year-old boy hanging out one winter’s evening with the crew I was photographing and I was thinking ‘wow, it’s getting even younger, I need to see that too,’ but that was really at the end of my project. It was time to get the book out there, and hopefully contribute something to the debate on the issues of London’s inner-city youth.”

Photographer Simon Wheatley’s exploration of the grime music scene in inner-city London is on show at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green Road, London, until 24 June.

Simon Wheatley: “This is my favourite portrait of a girl called Universe, a very talented singer.”

Simon Wheatley: “This was shot on an estate in Barking while working on a story for the Observer magazine following gains made by the BNP in the area. It was a tough assignment.”

Simon Wheatley: “There’s something about the dream of making it in music about this picture, for me it’s one of the most symbolic in the book.”

Simon Wheatley: “With a friend who knew the area well I climbed over the breeze blocks to photograph the decaying, soon-to-be demolished remains of a notorious housing estate in North Peckham. It was the area where Damilola Taylor had been killed, and the little rocking horse was like a haunting reminder of a lost childhood.”

Simon Wheatley: “On a housing estate in E3 a girl, whose street name was ‘Tomboy’, was a 16-year-old MC about to go to jail where she’d deliver the baby she’s carrying. For a long time I’d look at this picture and wonder what happened to her and to her baby, but I’m happy to say we’re back in touch now and that she’s become a good mum.”

Simon Wheatley: “Jammer’s basement studio. This was one of my first assignments for RWD magazine. The Guardian ran an interview with him a year or so back and referred to his studio as grime’s Abbey Road, so I’m pleased it’s in the book.”

Simon Wheatley: “This portrait of Crazy Titch has become an iconic grime photograph. Some people see the book and say ‘oh, you took that picture,’ but really it was just a throwaway shot on the end of the roll. Crazy Titch went to jail on a 30-year sentence, and for many he was ‘the’ grime MC.”

Don’t Call Me Urban! The Time of Grime by Simon Wheatley is published by Northumbria University Press.

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

Software clues unravel Mac theft

Joshua Kaufman holds up the Macbook that was stolen

Mr Kaufman said police apologised for mishandling his case

California police recovered a stolen laptop after a software programme sent its owner the suspect’s location and photograph taken on the Mac’s camera.

Joshua Kaufman, an Oakland interaction designer, reported the theft in March.

But police only acted on Tuesday after Mr Kaufman’s blog on the theft attracted news media attention.

Cab driver Muthanna Aldebashi, 27, was charged with felony possession of stolen property. A police spokesman said an initial reported was misfiled.

“Law enforcement is always looking at technology as a way to be smarter with capturing criminals and solving crimes,” Officer Holly Joshi told the BBC.

“And this does represent technology that could be useful for us.”

The theft occurred on 21 March, during the day when Mr Kaufman was not at home in his Oakland flat.

He immediately reported the crime to Oakland police and the officer who took the report noted he said he had tracking software installed, Ms Joshi told the BBC.

The software, called Hidden, supplies to the owner the computer’s location, photographs taken on the Mac’s internal camera and shots of the Mac’s screen display.

Mr Aldebashi was identified after Mr Kaufman provided photos like this one to Oakland police

The programme immediately began sending Mr Kaufman photographs of a bearded man with shaggy dark hair sleeping on a couch, sitting shirtless on a bed in front of the computer, and driving.

The software also send Mr Kaufman a screen shot showing the man logging into his own e-mail account – information investigators later used to lure him into an arrest.

Mr Kaufman says he handed the evidence to Oakland investigators but did not get a response. Meanwhile, he began blogging about the theft on a site called thisguyhasmymacbook.

His ordeal – and Oakland police’s apparent disinterest in the case, even though Mr Kaufman said he could provide clues – attracted immediate attention from the US news media.

The software offered an intimate glimpse into the suspect’s doings

“People started saying it was a viral campaign from us,” Hidden chief Toby De Havilland told the BBC.

On Tuesday, a producer with ABC television’s Good Morning America news and entertainment programme contacted Ms Joshi to inquire about the case.

Ms Joshi contacted investigators and learned Mr Kaufman’s initial report had been filed in error with theft reports for which no leads existed to aid the investigation.

About three hours after ABC’s call, Oakland police arrested Mr Aldebashi, who made “admission statements” indicating he knew the laptop was stolen, Ms Joshi said.

Police were still investigating whether Mr Aldebashi committed the burglary, Ms Joshi said.

Mr Kaufman wrote on his blog that investigators used information he provided – an e-mail address linked to a car service for which Mr Aldebashi was a driver – to lure the suspect into an arrest by pretending to hire a cab.

Meanwhile, Mr De Havilland said the notoriety has driven interest in his product.

“We’ve definitely noticed a spike,” he said.

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

NHS reforms may change – Lansley

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley promised he would “never privatise our NHS”

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has said he is ready to accept “substantial and significant” alterations to plans for changes in the NHS in England.

He told the Daily Telegraph there could be changes to the health bill “if they help us improve care for patients”.

But Mr Lansley warned the NHS would face “financial crisis within a matter of years” unless it was reformed.

Labour, as well as Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, have called for the bill to be sent back to MPs for reconsideration.

With the government’s “listening exercise” on its proposed changes drawing to a close, Mr Lansley said: “We have always been clear that we are ready to accept any changes – substantial and significant – if they help us improve care for patients.

“When the Health and Social Care Bill comes back to Parliament, people should have every confidence that we will make the changes necessary to ensure the NHS is protected for our future generations.

“We will never privatise our NHS.

“But if we choose to ignore the pressures on it, the health service will face a financial crisis within a matter of years that will threaten the very values we hold so dear – of a comprehensive health service, available to all, free at the point of use and based on need and not the ability to pay.

“Our health service is facing huge challenges that, if not dealt with today, will almost certainly mean a crisis tomorrow”

Andrew Lansley Health Secretary

“I will not allow that to happen.”

Mr Lansley said reform was necessary in the face of “enormous financial pressures” caused by an ageing population and the rising cost of treatment.

He said the number of people in the UK aged above 85 had almost trebled over the past 25 years and was set to double again over the next 20 years. By 2034, one in 20 of the population would be aged over 85.

As a result the NHS would have to perform two million more operations a year and health spending would double to £230bn, he said.

Mr Lansley said this was a figure the UK “simply cannot afford”.

Prime Minister David Cameron has “paused” the legislative progress of the reforms, which aim to hand control of budgets to GPs and increase competition in the NHS.

The move was to allow further consultation on the proposals, a process which comes to an end on Tuesday with the NHS Future Forum, which is overseeing the exercise, expected to report later this month.

The forum brings together doctors, nurses and other health professionals.

Health officials said this week they had received about 15,000 website responses and 720 letters.

Mr Clegg has said he would oppose the idea of a regulator promoting competition in the health service, a key part of the planned changes.

The deputy prime minister has indicated that Lib Dem MPs could vote against the bill unless changes are made.

The British Medical Association has described a system of incentive payments for GPs, another important part of the reform programme, as “disgracefully unethical”.

Mr Lansley said the vision set out by the government would deliver “a truly world-class NHS, with doctors and nurses leading the design of health services, patients taking more control and budgets controlled by locally-accountable people”.

“Our health service is facing huge challenges that, if not dealt with today, will almost certainly mean a crisis tomorrow,” he said.

“I care passionately about protecting the NHS for the future. This is why doing nothing is not an option. I will not leave the NHS to neglect.”

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

Lenovo buys German vendor Medion

Lenovo has been trying to establish itself as a leading player in developed markets such as Europe

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Chinese PC maker Lenovo has agreed to buy German electronics retailer Medion in a bid to boost its market share in Europe.

Lenovo will pay $331m (£203m) for a 37% stake in the company.

Lenovo said it hoped that the deal would help it double its share of Germany’s PC market to 14%.

Lenovo is the world’s fourth-largest computer maker. Medion specialises in sales of low-cost computers and electronic devices.

The announcement pushed Medion shares up by 17% in Frankfurt, but Lenovo’s shares fell by more than 3%.

The deal comes just four months after Lenovo signed a deal with Japanese firm NEC to establish a joint venture in Japan.

It is Lenovo’s biggest acquisition since it purchased IBM’s PC business six years ago.

Analysts say the company is now looking to make further inroads into the developed markets like the US and Europe.

“Lenovo probably wants to add its presence in mature markets,” said Vincent Chen of Yuanta Securities.

However, Mr Chen raised concerns that even though Germany was Europe’s biggest economy, it may not be the best bet for the Chinese computer maker.

“The question is why Germany, because that’s a very slow growth market,” he said.

“It raises questions on how much benefit this will bring to them,” he added.

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

Asylum seeker ‘amnesty’ condemned

The committee said the UK Border Agency was “still not fit for purpose”

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So many asylum seekers have been given leave to remain in the UK that it “amounts to an amnesty”, MPs have said.

Out of 403,500 cases dealt with by the UK Border Agency (UKBA), just 9% resulted in removal while 40% – 161,000 – of applicants were allowed to stay.

The Home Affairs Committee also said it was “indefensible” that in one in six cases, the UKBA simply had “no idea” what had happened to the applicant.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said there was “absolutely no amnesty”.

He said the government had “eliminated” a backlog of 450,000 asylum cases – the scale of which first emerged in 2006.

At the time, the then home secretary John – now Lord – Reid promised to clear it, and the UKBA’s deadline for the completion of that task was this summer.

But in a critical report, the cross-party Home Affairs Committee said that target “seems to have been achieved largely through increasing resort to grants of permission to stay”.

Guidance was revised to allow officials to consider granting leave to applicants who had been in the UK for between six and eight years – a reduction on the 10 to 12 years that applied at the start of the process, the MPs said.

Giving 161,000 people leave to remain was “such a large proportion that it amounts in effect to an amnesty”, they added.

“There are serious concerns over the agency’s ability to deal with cases”

Keith Vaz Home Affairs Committee chairman

The report said another 74,500 asylum seekers have had their cases concluded simply because “the applicants cannot be found and it is unknown whether they are in the UK, have left the country or are dead”.

“We consider this indefensible,” the MPs said. “Moreover, public confidence in immigration controls is severely undermined by such situations.

“A robust immigration system requires those administering it to have an appropriate system in place that will mean applicants are not lost or untraceable.”

The coalition government has continued the last Labour government’s ban on low-skilled workers from outside Europe, but has also introduced a cap on non-EU skilled workers as part of a pledge to bring net migration down to “tens of thousands” by the end of the Parliament.

However, the committee report stated that the UKBA had “not carried out checks on all those employers registered as sponsors of skilled migrants” and there were “grave doubts” about whether it even had the capacity to do so.

The agency also “does not systematically follow up intelligence of possible illegal migrants” and does not take tough enough action against migrant workers whose visas have expired.

The report concluded: “The net result is that a very large number of people remain in the UK who either have no right to be here, or who would have been removed had their cases been dealt with in a timely manner.”

Ministers have insisted the UKBA is improving, but Keith Vaz, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said it was “still not fit for purpose” – echoing the phrase used by Lord Reid when he took over responsibility for immigration in 2006.

“In the last few months there has been a significant decrease in the percentage of applicants and dependents sent home”

Gerry Sutcliffe Shadow Home Office minister

“While there is no doubt that individual caseworkers are dedicated and hard-working, there are serious concerns over the agency’s ability to deal with cases and respond to intelligence swiftly and thoroughly,” he added.

Mr Green denied there was any amnesty for asylum seekers, saying: “What we’ve done is get through to the bottom of that huge problem we inherited.

“The main thing is we’ve now eliminated this backlog from the system so we can now get on with the everyday job that the previous government couldn’t because they had that backlog.”

The Home Office later clarified that although all 450,000 cases from the backlog had been looked at, only 403,500 had actually been settled and there was no fixed deadline for dealing with the remaining 46,500.

It said 126,000 cases had been concluded under the coalition government.

For Labour, shadow Home Office minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: “Following the government’s decision to cut over 5,000 staff from the UKBA, we have repeatedly warned the Home Office that enforcement will suffer as a result.

“This report shows that managers and staff at UKBA consistently say there are not sufficient resources to track and return illegal immigrants.

“In addition, the report states that legacy asylum applications are increasingly being given permission to stay rather than the government seeking their removal. In the last few months there has been a significant decrease in the percentage of applicants and dependents sent home.”

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

Forever young

The organisms which extend their lifespans

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

Eye for an eye

Ameneh Bahrami before and after she was attacked with acid

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Ameneh Bahrami was the victim of a horrific acid attack that left her blind and badly disfigured. Under Sharia law, the Iranian courts ordered her attacker blinded, but the punishment has not been carried out. Here is the story of her relentless quest for justice.

In 2004, Ameneh Bahrami was an independent and attractive 24-year-old engineering student, already working at a lab in Tehran.

“A lot of boys used to come to my house – even university teachers would come – and ask for my hand in marriage,” she told the BBC World Service’s Outlook programme.

“I was a very beautiful girl.”

“I want him to suffer and I want others to be the witness of his suffering”

Ameneh Bahrami

She had never met Majeed Movahidi when his mother called her family asking for her hand.

When she refused, Movahidi tracked her down at the university they both attended. They had a heated argument, though Bahrami still didn’t know her pursuer’s name.

What ensued was a series of phone calls, first from Movahidi’s mother.

“She said her son was a man and if he wanted me, he would have me,” Ms Bahrami says.

During the first phone conversation Bahrami had with him, he threatened to kill her, she says, and after a series of further calls, his threats became even more sinister.

“He said ‘I am going to destroy your life and do something so nobody will marry you’,” she remembers.

She approached the police, but they told her that because Movahidi hadn’t physically done anything yet, there was nothing they could do.

Two days later, as she left work in the afternoon, she noticed that someone was following her.

As she walked down a narrow lane, she slowed to let the stalker pass and realised it was Movahidi.

“He was smiling at me and laughing. There was a kind of happiness in his face and in his eyes.”

She felt something hit her face but thought at first it was hot water.

“Then I felt the burning sensation and I knew that it was acid.”

By the time she got to hospital, she had lost the sight in her left eye.

“I was scared to touch my face because I knew I didn’t have a nose, I didn’t have lips. When I put my hand near my left eye I didn’t feel anything.

“My mother didn’t let me look at the mirror. Then after a week, the sight went in my other eye,” she says.

Supported by then-President Mohammad Khatami, she travelled to Barcelona for specialist treatment to regain the sight in her right eye.

Bahrami wears dark glasses to hide her disfigurement

But after the 2005 election, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, the support dried up. She was left penniless and alone in a foreign country.

She was then taken to a homeless shelter for women where she picked up an infection in her remaining eye.

“I was wiping my eye with a handkerchief and when I went to throw it in the bin, I realised that it was very heavy.”

The loss of her eye changed her attitude towards her attacker.

During her struggle to regain her sight, Bahrami had rarely thought about him. But now, she resolved to see Movahidi punished.

She returned to Iran in 2007 with the help of a former employer and took up a case for retributive justice – to inflict on Movahidi the same damage he had caused her.

“I went to the court and said ‘I want revenge’. They said, ‘We cannot do this, just ask for hanging, that is much easier for us’.”

Retributive justice is legal in Iran under the Islamic Sharia code of qisas (retribution), but it is rarely used.

Bahrami won her case in 2008, when the court ruled that the 27-year-old Movahidi should be blinded with acid. It also sentenced him to jail and ordered that he pay compensation to the victim.

OutlookOutlook tells extraordinary personal stories from around the world.It is broadcast by the BBC World ServiceListen to Outlook More from BBC World Service

The Iranian authorities were hesitant to carry out the blinding, but after years of delay, the punishment was scheduled for 14 May.

On that day, Bahrami went to the prison where her attacker was being held. The procedure was once again postponed when prison authorities failed to find a doctor willing to carry it out.

Human rights organisations are among those pushing for the retribution ruling to be revoked.

“It is unbelievable that the Iranian authorities would consider implementing such a punishment,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Regardless of how horrific the crime suffered by Ameneh Bahrami, being blinded with acid is a cruel and inhuman punishment amounting to torture.”

Movahidi remains in prison indefinitely, awaiting the carrying out of his sentence.

With fresh funding from a US-based charity, Ameneh Bahrami is in Barcelona undergoing further facial reconstruction surgery. But she is determined to pursue the ruling.

“If I forgive, I get nothing for forgiveness,” she says.

“The same if I take his eyesight, I get nothing. But I want people like Majeed to know that there is punishment.”

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

Japan PM faces no-confidence vote

Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan debates with opposition party

Naoto Kan is facing a rebellion by some of his own party members

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has rejected calls for his resignation, after opposition parties tabled a motion of no-confidence against him.

The motion criticises Mr Kan for his response to the tsunami in March and the continuing radiation leaks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

If Mr Kan loses the vote of confidence, due shortly in parliament, he would be forced to resign or call an election.

Reports say key members of his Democratic Party may vote against him.

Mr Kan’s main rival within the party, Ichiro Ozawa, said he would support the move against the prime minister, as did former premier Yukio Hatoyama, Kyodo news reported.

The no-confidence motion was submitted by the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), their smaller ally the New Komeito party and the Sunrise Party, and is expected to be backed by the Communist Party.

“I’m telling you [Kan] to quit – once you leave, there will be many ways for us to revitalise Japan beyond party lines”

Sadakazu Tanigaki Opposition party leaderProfile: Naoto Kan

The LDP has accused Mr Kan of mishandling the reconstruction and relief efforts following the tsunami, as well as the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

In parliament on Wednesday, LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki told Mr Kan: “You have no personal virtues or ability to unite your own party members. I’m telling you to quit.

“Once you leave, there will be many ways for us to unite, to revitalise Japan beyond party lines.”

The prime minister said he had no intention of stepping down.

“What is most sought by the people is for us to work together to achieve reconstruction and resolve the nuclear crisis, contain the contamination at the nuclear plant, and continue on a proper path,” Mr Kan said.

“I must respond to their needs and that is my responsibility,” he said.

Earlier this month, he announced that Japan will scrap plans to increase its dependence on nuclear power.

The UN team said that Japan underestimated the risk of a tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant

But the result of an opinion poll published on Wednesday suggests the public has a dim view of Mr Kan’s handling of the Fukushima disaster.

In a survey of 700 adults, 79% rated his management of the crisis as poor, according to the Pew Research Center.

On Wednesday, the UN nuclear energy agency the IAEA said Japan had “underestimated” the risk of a tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant.

But its response to the nuclear crisis that followed the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March was “exemplary”, the agency said.

The Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which was badly damaged by the tsunami, is still leaking radiation.

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

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