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Police in Pakistan say at least 60 people have been kidnapped by suspected militants in the country’s volatile north-west tribal region.

The hostages were seized in Kurram after the vehicles they were travelling in were ambushed by men reportedly dressed as police officers.

Women and children were among those taken captive, according to the police.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in the Islamic militant stronghold of Kurram, which borders Afghanistan.

The Taliban has a strong presence in Kurram, which has also been the site of violence between the majority Sunni Muslims and Shias.

Heavily armed militants seized several vehicles that were travelling in convoy to Parachinar, the main city in Kurram, said Mir Chaman, the area police chief.

"The militants were posing as policemen and wearing police uniforms," he said.

An investigation was under way and all efforts were being made to find the hostages, he added.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

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

In 2002, Sierra Leone emerged from a decade-long civil war and as Allan Little discovers, much of it was thanks to a little-known British brigadier.

It was an astonishing thing to witness: the fortunes of a whole country transformed in the space of a few days by a single, decisive intervention.

Eight hundred British paratroopers landed at Freetown airport just as the city was about to slip into the terrifying chaos of a rebel invasion and suddenly, unexpectedly, the shape of Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war was altered.

Or so it seemed to me at the time.

It was, in fact, a little more haphazard than that. And, I’ve subsequently learned, the British reporters on the ground in West Africa – myself included – seem, unwittingly, to have played a small part in it all.

Brutal rebels

The British Government sent paratroopers to the capital Freetown as a precautionary measure and to carry out a very limited operation.

Their task was to secure the airport and evacuate a few hundred British and other foreigners who were living in the city. The operation would take seven to 10 days, after which time the British troops would get out and leave Sierra Leone to its fate.

Freetown, we reported, was in a state of terror. Its citizens knew what a rebel assault would mean.

The rebel force, the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF, was known for its brutality.

Its soldiers, often children, sometimes fuelled by drugs and drink, were merciless. The hacking off of limbs was their signature atrocity.

When the British arrived, the people saw them as saviours, and in the end that is what they turned out to be.

‘Taking sides’

For the force commander, a little-known brigadier called David Richards, had other ideas. He saw a chance, took a risk, and changed the fate of the country.

David Richards is now General Sir David Richards and head of the British Army. I went to see him this week in London and this is his story.

"I could see," he told me, "that with a little robustness, we could make a difference."

He went to see the president, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, who was preparing to flee the country.

"There was a helicopter parked beside his house," General Richards told me. "I told him, you won’t be needing that I promise you."

At that meeting, held within hours of the British landing in Sierra Leone, Richards promised the president that Britain would supply arms and ammunition to the government forces.

British helicopters would be made available to move men and material around the battlefield.

And he, General Richards, would, with a small team of British staff officers, take personal command of the war and seek to end it by defeating the rebel forces. In other words, Richards was committing Britain to taking sides in Sierra Leone’s civil war.

However, there was one important difficulty. The general’s political bosses in London had sent him to carry out a quick evacuation and then leave.

"So," I asked him 10 years on, "you were promising the president all this before you had the political authority from London to do so?"

"Er, yes," he said, "I’m afraid I was, yes."

War plans

For several days, the political leaders in London stuck with the evacuation narrative, while their man on the ground got on with fighting a war.

"Fortunately," he told me, "the military activities and equipment we needed for an evacuation were remarkably similar to what I needed to push back the rebel forces. So in terms of constructing a tale for London, that was useful."

"So wait a minute," I said, "London was kitting you up for a quick evacuation operation, and you decided to use that kit to intervene in the war?"

"Yes," he said.

For a few days he came under pressure from the Ministry of Defence to carry out his evacuation and then get out.

The problem was now that the British were there, Freetown felt safe and most foreigners did not want to be evacuated.

Blair’s backing

"I needed," he told me, "to get a message up beyond the Ministry of Defence. I needed to get to the next level up. I needed to get to Prime Minister Tony Blair. And I did that through you reporters on the ground, including you."

I look now at some of my reports from the time. "There is no longer any pretence," I say in one, "that this operation is about evacuation. It is about much much more than that."

Very quickly, it became clear that the intervention would be successful. The British government backed the brigadier’s bold change of plan.

"If it had gone wrong," he said, "they’d have cut me off at the knees."

It became, after Kosovo, the second of what would come to be known as "Blair’s wars", an early example of the kind of liberal interventionism that would later take Britain to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Did it," I ask, "embolden British politicians, and lead them to think of war not as a last resort but as just another policy option?"

"There might," he said, "be something in that."

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The father of two British children who died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Corfu in 2006 has won a new legal battle against travel firm Thomas Cook.

Earlier this month, a Greek court found two Thomas Cook holiday representatives not guilty of negligent manslaughter.

Neil Shepherd says he appealed against the verdicts because he believed his children, seven-year-old Christie and Bobby, six, had not received justice.

A new trial will probably be held next year.

The Greek island’s council of prosecutors ordered a retrial after deciding that vital court evidence had been ignored by the judges in the original case.

According to Mr Shepherd’s Greek lawyer, the ruling is final.

This development will come as a shock to the two accused Thomas Cook staff members, Richard Carson and Nicola Gibson, who had the allegations hanging over their heads for three and a half years.

When they were cleared of negligent manslaughter, after a protracted court procedure, Thomas Cook said the "exemplary members" of its team had been vindicated by what it called "a thorough and robust trial".

Thomas Cook said that Mr Carson and Ms Gibson had not been responsible for the faulty boiler, which caused the deaths of Bobby and his sister, Christie.

But their father, who was sent into a coma by the gas fumes, refused to accept that position.

Mr Shepherd is satisfied that his appeal has been upheld.

"Happy is not the right word," he said. "We should not be in this position."

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

Kyrgyzstan’s interim government has promised to bring to justice those responsible for Friday’s deadly clashes in the southern city of Jalalabad.

At least two people were killed and 60 injured in fighting between supporters of the interim authorities and backers of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

Deputy leader Azimbek Beknazarov said that allies of Mr Bakiyev would be closely monitored.

The violence was the worst since Mr Bakiyev was deposed last month.

Escorted by a dozen armed body guards, Mr Beknazarov arrived in Jalalabad’s central square.

He addressed a group of people who had gathered in front of the regional government headquarters – the scene of fierce fighting on Friday between supporters and opponents of the interim authorities.

Mr Beknazarov said that the interim government was keeping a close eye on the main allies of the ousted president.

He also said that many people were now armed and as many as 2,000 weapons were in circulation.

In Friday’s clashes, supporters of the interim government regained control of the government headquarters, which had been seized by their opponents a day earlier.

They later marched towards the home village of the ousted president and set fire to the deserted homes of some of his relatives.

It is not clear where Mr Bakiyev’s supporters are now.

A representative from the committee to protect Kurmanbek Bakiyev told the BBC that they wanted the interim authorities to stop the persecution of the deposed leader’s relatives and allies.

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

A controversial film which attacks Silvio Berlusconi’s handling of the L’Aquila earthquake receives a standing ovation in Cannes.

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

"We live on a day-to-day basis," Suraj says, as the faint sound of hammering echoes across the village. "What we earn is what we spend on our families in a day."

In Ganne, just off the main road about an hour south of the city of Allahabad, this is a simple fact of life.

It is home to members of a poor tribal community, who live in small huts clustered around a series of shallow quarries.

Inside one of the huts sits a little girl called Poonam. She is three years old, and in the early stages of kidney failure.

Like many children in Ganne she has become used to eating bits of dried mud and silica, which she finds in the quarry. Tiny children chew on the mud simply because they are hungry – but it is making them ill.

When reports first emerged of children eating mud here local officials delivered more food and warned the villagers not to speak to outsiders. But Poonam’s father, Bhulli, is close to despair.

"What can I say," he shrugs. "We can’t afford to eat properly, so how can I afford to buy medicines for her?"

"I am really worried about my daughter, but I don’t know what to do next. The poor need the government’s help – if we had it, we wouldn’t be in such a desperate state."

People like Bhulli and Suraj make their money filling lorries with bits of rock. It takes about eight hours for five men to fill one load. They carry the stones up from the quarry in plastic washing-up bowls balanced on their heads.

One of the women in the village, Phulkari, approaches to tell us about her little boy.

"My son’s name is Suraj, and he’s started eating mud too," she says. "What can we do? We eat the mud from the quarry when we feel hungry."

"Where do we get the money?" she asks. "We usually eat food only once a day. Last night we went to bed without eating anything at all."

Food protests

The World Bank estimates that one third of all the very poorest people in the world live in India, and stories like those from Ganne have now inspired a national Right To Food campaign.

There have been protest rallies in the heart of Delhi, as the Indian parliament prepares to debate a new Food Security Bill. It will dictate how many people in the country get access to massively subsidised food grain.

There’s no doubt that India should be able to afford to feed its people. But the devil is in the detail.

"It’ll only cost the government about 1.2% of GDP to universalize a system of giving food for all, cheap food for all," says Kavitha Srivastava, the national coordinator of the Right to Food campaign.

"They can do it, if they have the political will. It’s prioritising – where do you want to put the money?"

"We think it should go in building people’s nutrition levels. You can’t have a country which is weak, which is hungry, which is anaemic. How can you have a nation like this?"

Now the government seems to be prepared to accept a new way of defining poverty, which will increase the number of people below the poverty line by more than 100 million to about 372 million.

If international poverty standards were used, the number would be much higher still – and some Indian economists believe it should be.

But whichever figure is used, the poverty line feels like a rather fictitious divide because feeding more than a billion people is a massive logistical exercise. Vast quantities of food provided by the state go missing every day because of corruption and theft.

"Food ought to be a right," says Dr Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economic Advisor at India’s Ministry of Finance. "And I believe this is a movement in the correct direction."

"But what worries me at times is that we’re being too glib and quick about the delivery mechanism."

Official estimates are that right across the country 75% of subsidised grain does not make it to the intended target in villages like Ganne.

"So if you simply throw money at this problem, you’ll have to throw four times the amount to get the result you want," says Dr Basu. "And the government of India can’t afford that. The budget will go bust."

In other words, the delivery system needs to be reformed as well – and corrupt local officials need to be taken to task. There is a long way to go.

Daunting challenge

Jean Dreze, a highly respected Belgian-born academic who has worked in India for many years, points out that the current debate is only about the most basic levels of food intake.

"For a family of five to have reasonably good nutrition, nothing like meat or fish or any such thing, but just one egg per person per day, one banana, some dhal, some vegetables, a reasonably balanced diet – it would cost more than 200 rupees ($4.4; £3) per family per day," he says.

And that is far more than the amounts being discussed at the moment.

It is a sobering reminder that feeding India is a daunting challenge – the government knows it, and the prime minister says it must be a priority. But the Right to Food Campaign insists they are not doing enough.

The Indian economy continues to grow at impressive speed, and there is no shortage of food in the country. It just isn’t reaching the people who need it most, on a consistent basis.

So in Ganne they continue to eat mud. And without finding a solution here in India, the world will come nowhere near the targets it has set itself for reducing global poverty.

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

DIGITAL PLANET

On 10th January, 1954, a de Havilland Comet – the world’s first commercial airliner – took off from Rome.

After only just 20 minutes in flight, it exploded, killing all 35 people on board.

Months later there was another disaster, this time a Comet crashed near Naples during a flight between Rome and Cairo.

The two crashes in such short success prompted an investigation.

Fatigued failure

It was eventually discovered, through a series of tests, that metal fatigue had been the cause of both accidents.

Testing had been carried out by building a replica aircraft in a tank of water before exposing it to high pressures – similar to the conditions it would experience in mid-air.

This required carrying out some intricate calculations – a task perfect for the Pilot ACE, the predecessor to English computer scientist’s Alan Turing’s computer, the ACE.

Tom Vickers was operations manager for the Pilot ACE. For BBC World Service’s Digital Planet programme, he was interviewed by his granddaughter, Harriet, about the early days of the machine – and of computing in the UK.

"The idea of computers developed during the war, in America, and also at Bletchley where they did build special purpose computers for code-cracking.

"One of the key people there was Alan Turing, who was to design an electronic computer.

"He started off on his own, and I was encouraged to join. And so, the ideas of electronic computers developed."

Although work on the machine started in 1946, it was not until 1950 that they Pilot ACE ran its first program.

By this point, Turing had left the project as he was, Mr Vickers says, frustrated by the speed of progress.

However, the ideas he had left behind were enough to get the project going.

"This led to the development of a machine called the Pilot ACE which would act as a starter for the full scale machine that Turing had envisaged."

Calculations for custom

After showing that the machine could be used to solve practical problems, the Pilot ACE went into public production.

Based at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, one of its first customers, the Royal Aircraft Establishment, was quick to use it when running tests on the metal-fatigued Comet airliners to see where the metal would crack.

"This led to an enormous amount of calculation and masses of data were collected."

Another early, loyal user of the Pilot ACE was Ordnance Survey which used it to analyse photographs used for creating maps.

"You got an aeroplane, it flew over the country, it took a load of photographs," Mr Vickers explained.

"You then analysed the photographs and could then make the maps.

"This was quite a lengthy process. Analysing one photo used to take them about a day," he said. "A good days flying would keep you busy for many a month."

But by using the Pilot ACE, this time-consuming task was cut down to size.

"We got the calculations side down to about one minute. From their point of view it was fantastic."

As well as being useful, the Pilot ACE was highly profitable.

For the first two or three years of their mass-production, each machine was, Mr Vickers recalls, making upwards of £30 per hour.

In an era when highly respected scientists predicted that the UK could solve its computing needs with just three machines in the entire country, the Pilot ACE showed real potential of powerful computing.

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

A ticket holder has won £84.4m in the EuroMillions draw, representing the biggest-ever jackpot in the UK.

The lucky winner has not come forward so far but Camelot, which runs the draw, said the record sum could be paid out by the bank as early as Monday.

The five winning numbers in Friday’s draw were 1, 17, 31, 43 and 47, with the Lucky Star numbers 2 and 3.

Gloucestershire couple Nigel Page and Justine Laycock scooped £56m in February, which was then the UK record.

‘Fantastic news’

The self-confessed ‘white van man’ and his estate agent partner celebrated with a bacon roll before announcing plans to give up work.

They shared the total jackpot of £112m with another ticket, bought in Spain.

Of the latest draw, a spokesman for Camelot said: "This is absolutely fantastic news – and the biggest ever lottery win in the UK.

"Subject to a claim being received and validated, the prize could be paid out when the banks open on Monday.

"The winner can then decide whether or not to go public and share their news."

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

BP’s chief executive has said the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster should not mean the end of deep-water exploration.

But Tony Hayward told the BBC’s Today programme that significant changes to the oil industry should arise from what he called a "transforming event".

Thousands of barrels of oil a day have been gushing from a seabed well since a drilling rig exploded on 20 April.

President Barack Obama says there will no longer be a "cosy relationship" between oil firms and US regulators.

He has also hit out at the executives of the oil companies involved for seeking to pass on blame for the disaster.

‘Significant changes’

Mr Hayward told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "I don’t believe it should [result in a ban], in the same way as Apollo 13 did not stop the space programme nor have serious airline accidents from time to time stopped people flying."

But he said changes would have to be made to address the risk of such drilling.

"I think undoubtedly that this will be a transforming event for exploration and production activities in the deep water of the world, in particular the deep water of the United States," he said.

"You can’t have an incident of this seriousness and not expect significant changes as a consequence. What we need to do is ensure that the changes we make address the risk that has occurred here."

President Obama has stopped all new drilling for the moment and some politicians want that to become permanent.

He is introducing changes to the way the federal government grants permits to drill for oil.

"For too long, for a decade or more, there has been a cosy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill," Mr Obama said on Friday.

But Mr Hayward told the BBC the permit regime in the US was as rigorous as anywhere in the world and such judgements should wait on the full outcome of the investigation into the accident.

Eleven people died when an explosion destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on 20 April.

Owned and operated by Transocean, the rig had been working on behalf of BP at a well site 48 miles (77km) off Louisiana.

Thousands of barrels of oil have been gushing daily into the sea from the well’s ruptured riser pipe, nearly a mile (1.6km) below the surface.

BP engineers are making another attempt to reduce the flow of oil from the blown-out well by using underwater robots to insert a tube into a broken pipe to funnel oil to the surface.

Previous attempts to lower a containment box over the most serious of the leaks have so far failed.

The spill is poised to become the worst environmental disaster in US history.

Some scientists have begun to cast doubt on official estimates of the rate of oil flow, saying the widely repeated figure of 5,000 barrels of oil per day dramatically understates the amount.

Mr Hayward said BP was sticking to its estimate that 1,0000-5,000 barrels per day.

Weather forecasts have suggested winds may drive the spill ashore at the weekend.

Underwater efforts to cap oil leak

Initially, BP tried to lower a 125-tonne, 18-metre (40 feet) high container dome over the main leak on the sea floor. However, this failed when gas leaking from the pipe mixed with water to form hydrates, ice-like crystals, that blocked up the steel canopy.

Instead, engineers have lowered a smaller device onto the site. Dubbed the Top hat, it will sit over the tear in the pipe and partially stop the leak. To prevent the build up of hydrates, methanol is pumped into the top hat to disperse the water and gas.

The top hat is 1.5m (5 feet) high and 1.2m in diameter. Two special side lines are used to pump methanol into the top hat to displace water and gas leaking from the broken oil pipe. This should prevent the build-up of hydrates. Once in place, oil can be pumped up to the surface.

BP plan to lower the original subsea containment dome over the top hat to provide a better seal over the leaking site and pump oil up to the surface. This time, it will be attached to a pipe that can pump warm water into the dome to prevent the build-up of hydrates.

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

Mike Baker considers just how free schools will be under the new coalition governemnt.

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Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted wi-fi networks.

The issue came to light after German authorities asked to audit the data the company’s Street View cars gathered as they took photos viewed on Google maps.

Google said during a review it found it had "been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open networks".

The admission will increase concerns about potential privacy breaches.

These snippets could include parts of an email, text or photograph or even the website someone may be viewing.

In a blogpost Google said as soon as it became aware of the problem it grounded its Street View cars from collecting wi-fi information and segregated the data on its network.

It is now asking for a third party to review the software that caused the problem and examine precisely what data had been gathered.

"Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and in this case we fell short," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research.

"The engineering team at Google works hard to earn your trust – and we are acutely aware that we failed badly here."

‘Pushing the envelope’

Google said the problem dated back to 2006 when "an engineer working on an experimental wi-fi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast wi-fi data".

That code was included in the software the Street View cars used and "quite simply, it was a mistake", said Mr Eustace.

"This incident highlights just how publicly accessible, open, non-password protected wi-fi networks are today."

Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing for security firm Ioactive, said there was no intent by Google.

"This information was leaking out and they picked it up. If you are going to broadcast your email on an open wi-fi, don’t be surprised if someone picks it up."

John Simpson, from the Consumer Watchdog, told the BBC: "The problem is [Google] have a bunch of engineers who push the envelope and gather as much information as they can and don’t think about the ramifications of that."

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

Mothers-to-be think their own mothers know better than the medical profession when it comes to health advice, researchers say.

A University of London team talked to women who gave birth in the 1970s, 1980s and the 2000s.

Modern women were more likely to take a mixture of advice – but were still more likely to follow family wisdom.

One baby charity said family tips were useful, but medical advice should be sought if mothers-to-be had worries.

The researchers talked about pregnancy and childbirth advice to seven women who gave birth in the 1970s and 12 of their daughters who had babies in the 2000s.

They then also analysed interviews on the same topic which had been carried out with 24 women in the 1980s.

The 1970s women were most likely to take advice from family members.

But researchers found that women who had babies between 2000 and 2010 had to evaluate a wide range of information from doctors, midwives, books, magazines and, latterly, the internet – as well as that from their families.

In these women, it tended to be family advice that won out – particularly if a mother-to-be was dealing with a specific symptom.

One woman, Hetty, from the 2000s generation, said she had tried to stop drinking tea because she had read on the internet that caffeine could cause miscarriages in the first few weeks of pregnancy.

But she then added she had taken her grandmother’s advice that tea could help relieve morning sickness.

"She just used to stay in bed and have a cup of tea. And that did help actually."

‘Strike a balance’

Professor Paula Nicolson from Royal Holloway, University of London, who led the study, said: "When it comes to the crunch – if women feel sick for example – they will take their mother’s or their grandmother’s advice.

"They wouldn’t necessarily recognise how important it was to them, but it would override the science."

She added: "Taking all the guidelines too seriously leads to anxieties. Lack of self-confidence also can lead to worry about ‘doing the wrong thing’ which is potentially more harmful than taking the odd glass of wine or eating soft cheese."

Jane Brewin, chief executive of baby charity Tommy’s, said women had to "strike a balance" about what advice they took.

"It’s only natural to want to talk about the significant changes that happen to a woman’s body and how she feels; mums and close friends often have first-hand experience and tips that are helpful.

"However we always stress that if any mum-to-be is worried about anything during their pregnancy they should seek medical advice without delay."

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

Labour MP Stephen Timms is said to be "in good spirits" in hospital after being stabbed twice in the stomach by a woman at his constituency surgery.

The former treasury minister, 54, was left covered in blood after the attack in Newham, east London, on Friday.

He is in a stable condition in hospital with injuries which are not said to be life-threatening.

A 21-year-old woman was arrested at the scene and is being questioned by police, who also recovered a knife.

It is understood one of the MP’s assistants, Andrew Bazeley, disarmed Mr Timms’ attacker before a security guard restrained her.

One witness at the surgery in Beckton Globe library said she saw East Ham MP Mr Timms being carried into a room wearing a bloodstained shirt.

But while the incident has prompted a security review, MPs are being urged not to reduce their contact with the public.

Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales said: "It can’t happen. No MP could do that – if you cut yourself off from your constituency and your voters, what are you there for?"

He added: "You need to talk to local people. The elected representatives usually live in the community they represent. They have to talk to people, they have to be available to people. People recognise them as they are walking down the street.

"Stephen is very popular and very well-known in the constituency."

Newham Council said it was reviewing security arrangements following the attack.

A spokeswoman said: "Stephen is a popular MP, well-respected by local residents and we wish him a speedy recovery.

"Part of being a political representative is about being accessible and holding surgeries in community locations.

Sword attack

"You cannot vet people who attend such surgeries. We have security at this centre but will review arrangements in light of this incident."

Mr Timms, a former financial secretary to the Treasury, has regularly spoken out against knife crime in his constituency.

In 2000, Liberal Democrat MP Nigel Jones was wounded and his aide Andrew Pennington was stabbed to death in a frenzied sword attack during a constituency surgery at the party’s office in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Mr Jones, a married father-of-three, was conducting his weekly surgery when he received cuts to his hands and arms after fending off blows from Robert Ashman, who was later jailed for manslaughter and attempted murder.

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A woman is charged with murdering her sister, who was found with multiple stab wounds in a Kent field.

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Search giant Google’s Nexus smartphone will now be sold in traditional retail outlets.

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