Category: news

The IPCC chief defends the work of the climate body, but says it must “listen and learn” from recent criticism.

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

The man cleared of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando after spending seven years in jail has won undisclosed libel damages from a newspaper group.

Barry George brought the case over claims that he was obsessed with singer Cheryl Cole and newsreader Kay Burley.

The claims made in 2008 in the Sunday Mirror, the People and on the Daily Mirror website have been withdrawn by owners MGN.

Mr George was acquitted of the 1999 murder of Miss Dando after a retrial.

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The coalition government’s move to make it harder to dissolve Parliament is a "constitutional outrage", ex-Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has said.

The Lib Dem-Tory plan will mean that 55% of MPs must approve such a move to get it through the House of Commons. A simple majority is currently enough.

Labour’s Lord Adonis said it raised doubts over the coalition’s legitimacy.

But Lib Dem Andrew Stunell, who helped frame the deal, said it was needed to prevent an "ambush" on the Tories.

The coalition agreement between the Lib Dems and Conservatives promises a "strong and stable" government, with elections held on fixed dates every five years.

‘Ganging up’

The raising of the threshold for a dissolution vote is intended to prevent a move to hold an election earlier than that.

The Conservatives currently have 306 out of 649 MPs – a 47% share.

One seat, Thirsk and Malton, is empty, pending a by-election on 27 May, while Sinn Fein’s five MPs have not taken the oath of allegiance allowing them to sit in Parliament.

It would be impossible for opponents, even if fully united, to muster the 55% needed to dissolve Parliament, unless at least 16 Tories rebelled against their party leadership.

Lord Adonis said: "This is a brazen attempt to gerrymander the constitution which calls into question the legitimacy of the coalition from day one.

"If the legislation ever gets to the House of Lords, it will meet opposition of an intensity and bitterness not seen for many years. This is a constitutional outrage."

However, Mr Stunell, the Lib Dem MP for Hazel Grove, told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: "What the prime minister has given up with a fixed-term parliament is the right to go to the Queen at any moment and just call a general election. Obviously that’s what a fixed-term parliament stops.

"On the other hand, if your threshold for a special case is only 50%, in theory it would be possible for the Tories to be ambushed by other parties, including the Liberal Democrats, ganging up against them…

"Although nobody in the partnership has any intention of doing any such thing, it was a small matter for us to say ‘No, we accept your concerns and if we raise that threshold to 55%.’

"That gives you the safeguard you want and that’s the way we’ve proceeded."

Charles Walker, Conservative MP for Broxbourne, said: "It is for Parliament to decide when it’s lost confidence in the government and I think we have to look at this very closely…

"This is perhaps just a little too much for our unwritten constitution to bear."

He added: "Parliament actually runs this country, not the prime minister. Over the past 100 years, Parliament has given away huge powers to the prime minister.

"We have a quasi-presidential system here, without the checks and balances. This would be the loss of an enormous check."

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

The so-called Camden Ripper should never be released from prison, a High Court judge has said.

Anthony Hardy got three life sentences in 2003 for murdering three north London prostitutes to satisfy his "depraved and perverted" cravings.

The case was back in court following changes in the law on setting the minimum period a lifer must serve.

Mr Justice Keith, sitting in London, gave Hardy a whole life order, meaning he will die in jail.

Mr Keith, the original trial judge, said: "I have decided that Hardy should never be released from prison.

"This is one of those exceptionally rare cases in which life should mean life."

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

A UN-commissioned review into “errors” made by the climate change panel in a key report opens in Amsterdam.

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

Forty years ago, the Rolling Stones decamped to the South of France, living as tax exiles as they recorded their tenth album.

The sessions became notorious for their bacchanalian excesses, taking place amidst a nine-month, non-stop cocktail party in a sprawling villa that had supposedly once been a headquarters for the Gestapo.

The result was a sprawling double album, Exile On Main Street, which has gone down in history as one of the band’s best.

Next week, they are re-releasing the record with 10 new tracks – including several recently rediscovered songs. An accompanying documentary, Stones In Exile, will premiere in Cannes, before screening on BBC One on Sunday, 23 May.

Frontman Sir Mick Jagger met up with BBC arts editor Will Gompertz to explain why the band had gone back to the archives – and whether the band would ever get back together.

The new tracks on Exile On Main Street have been promoted as "recently rediscovered". How lost were they?

Well, they weren’t really lost. It was just no-one had really looked at them. There wasn’t a bag at the bottom of someone’s drawer.

Where were they?

They were in our tape store, mouldering away. Tapes don’t have a very good shelf life – so you bake them in the oven, get them out, play them and transfer them to somewhere else.

And then the process started of listening to them and going, "that’s really a good one".

What sort of state were the songs in?

They were mostly instrumental tracks with no vocals on them. They didn’t have vocals, they didn’t have melodies… because I wasn’t there. I was playing maracas or I was playing harmonica or something.

But some of [them] were complete. There’s a track called I’m Not Signifying and all I did was play harmonica on it. It’s quite an early track.

It sounds early. It could fit onto the Beggars’ Banquet album.

It might have been recorded for Beggars, but it was definitely re-recorded in the [Exile] period. A lot of these songs were done more than once.

Did you put them to one side because you didn’t like them at the time?

We had so many tracks, and you can only do so much. You’d say, "we’ll save that one, or put it aside" not knowing that we’d put it aside for 40 years!

So I just found some of these ones and finished them off – I wrote the words and the lyrics.

Would you describe these records as new ones or old ones?

They’re both, really. [Record producer] Don Was, who’s a real Stones aficionado, said, "you’ve got to do them in the mood of Exile". We had tremendous arguments late at night about whether that was correct, artistically.

How do you get yourself back into the mood you had in 1971?

By listening to Exile, of course! But it’s not particularly difficult, technically. It’s just an attitude in your head when you’re singing. Don Was said that in those days there wasn’t a tremendous amount of subtlety. You just started and then, wham, barraged on ’til you finished.

But what about writing the lyrics now, as opposed to where your head was then?

Now that’s a different thing. Of course it’s totally different. But you can put your head in a "mood". That’s what any writing is like. You’ve got to be able to.

People say, "is a song written from your own experience?" The answer is "of course it isn’t!" Bits of it are your experience, bits of things you’ve learnt off other people, bits you’ve nicked from other people’s lives, and bits you read in a newspaper. And all this goes to make a song, a novel or a play.

And so with all this, you’re playing a part. And in a way, I suppose, I was playing the part of myself in 1971.

How accurate is the mythology surrounding the recording of Exile On Main Street?

The wild nights, the orgies, the drug taking! I remember it well. Every bit of it!

I mean, it was a lot of fun – but there were a few bumps. It was a bumpy period, historically. There was a war going on, the Nixon thing was happening. Tax was through the roof. It was very difficult. The end of the ’60s felt very strained.

But despite all the excesses, it was quite a creative period. When you’re quite young, you can get away with that.

What was the environment like down at the house?

I think it was quite simple, really. The basement was for work, and nobody came in there who wasn’t working.

Upstairs was quite a lot of socialising and carrying on. All day.

It was great fun and it got a bit out of hand, and then we left. It felt like forever, but actually it was only six or seven months.

How much did the environment contribute to the album?

It was very social, we had a lot of children. They weren’t singing on the record, but there was quite a family thing.

If you record in that atmosphere, you’re going to get a different kind of record. It’s almost impossible to quantify how that is, but you just are going to get a different record. Every endeavour is influenced by its environment.

How was your relationship with Keith at that time? This was his house…

It was his rented house! He rented it for a year and he never went back!

What was the hardest point in those years?

It was really problematic getting into the United States. It was massively difficult. The uncertainty of knowing whether you could go to America to tour was one of the major uncertainties of that period.

Things have obviously changed a great deal since those sessions. What’s your feeling on technology and music?

Technology and music have been together since the beginning of recording.

I’m talking about the internet.

But that’s just one facet of the technology of music. Music has been aligned with technology for a long time. The model of records and record selling is a very complex subject and quite boring, to be honest.

But your view is valid because you have a huge catalogue, which is worth a lot of money, and you’ve been in the business a long time, so you have perspective.

Well, it’s all changed in the last couple of years. We’ve gone through a period where everyone downloaded everything for nothing and we’ve gone into a grey period it’s much easier to pay for things – assuming you’ve got any money.

Are you quite relaxed about it?

I am quite relaxed about it. But, you know, it is a massive change and it does alter the fact that people don’t make as much money out of records.

But I have a take on that – people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone!

Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone.

So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn’t.

What about the future. Are you going to get back together and write more music?

I think that would be a very good idea. I’ve been writing quite a lot of music.

Is Keith keen to get the guitar out?

I’m sure he is. And I’ll be seeing him next week, so I’m sure we’ll get together and start doing that.

The expanded edition of Exile On Main Street is released on Monday, 17 May. Stones In Exile will be shown on BBC One on Sunday, 23 May.

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Web cam videos of two of Michael Jackson’s children have been leaked onto the internet.

The films feature 12-year-old Paris and 8-year-old Blanket messing around at their California home. Eldest son Prince Michael does not appear.

Jackson’s father Joe has told Popeater.com they do not know how the films were leaked and the family want them taken down from websites.

Jackson, who died last year, fiercely protected his children’s privacy.

His three children now live with their grandmother, Katherine, at the family compound in Encino, California.

Joe Jackson insists it was not the children themselves who uploaded the videos to the internet.

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Fifa decides who hosts football’s biggest contest

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England manager Fabio Capello is considering playing with three central defenders at the World Cup finals in South Africa, BBC Sport understands.

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Thai security forces and anti-government protesters remain in a tense stand-off in Bangkok after clashes which killed one.

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Graham Norton will replace Jonathan Ross when he leaves his Radio 2 show, the BBC confirms.

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A married teacher is poised to become Italy’s first woman priest when she is ordained later this month in an Anglican church close to the Vatican.

Maria Longhitano, a member of the breakaway Old Catholic Church, says she hopes her ordination will break down "prejudice" in the Roman Church.

The event may energise the debate among Roman Catholics about the role of women, a BBC correspondent says.

Pope Benedict is implacably opposed to women as priests.

His predecessor, John Paul II, even banned official discussion of the issue, BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott notes.

Although Mrs Longhitano will not be a Roman Catholic priest, her ordination in the borrowed Anglican church will be acutely uncomfortable for the Vatican, he says.

When seven Roman Catholic women were unofficially ordained in 2002 they were promptly excommunicated.

Mrs Longhitano, who says she has always wanted to be a priest and played with communion wafers as a child, has accused the Vatican of preventing women from fulfilling their vocation.

She said she hoped her ordination would galvanise debate among Roman Catholics about modernisation.

Some Catholics believe reform is necessary to reverse a decline in numbers and influence and an Austrian bishop said this week that the Church should eventually consider the ordination of women.

The Old Catholics broke away from the Vatican in the 19th Century, rejecting belief in the immaculate conception and the infallibility of the Pope.

Their Church – which leaves issues such as homosexual relationships and contraception up to the individuals’ consciences – has ordained women since 1996.

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

The US senate has voted for increased regulation of credit rating agencies to prevent a future banking crisis.

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

The coalition government’s move to make it harder to dissolve Parliament is a "constitutional outrage", ex-Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has said.

The Lib Dem-Tory plan will mean that 55% of MPs must approve such a move to get it through the House of Commons. A simple majority is currently enough.

Labour’s Lord Adonis said it raised doubts over the coalition’s legitimacy.

But Lib Dem Andrew Stunell, who helped frame the deal, said it was needed to prevent an "ambush" on the Tories.

The coalition agreement between the Lib Dems and Conservatives promises a "strong and stable" government, with elections held on fixed dates every five years.

‘Ganging up’

The raising of the threshold for a dissolution vote is intended to prevent a move to hold an election earlier than that.

The Conservatives currently have 306 out of 649 MPs – a 47% share.

One seat, Thirsk and Malton, is empty, pending a by-election on 27 May, while Sinn Fein’s five MPs have not taken the oath of allegiance allowing them to sit in Parliament.

It would be impossible for opponents, even if fully united, to muster the 55% needed to dissolve Parliament, unless at least 16 Tories rebelled against their party leadership.

Lord Adonis said: "This is a brazen attempt to gerrymander the constitution which calls into question the legitimacy of the coalition from day one.

"If the legislation ever gets to the House of Lords, it will meet opposition of an intensity and bitterness not seen for many years. This is a constitutional outrage."

However, Mr Stunell, the Lib Dem MP for Hazel Grove, told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: "What the prime minister has given up with a fixed-term parliament is the right to go to the Queen at any moment and just call a general election. Obviously that’s what a fixed-term parliament stops.

"On the other hand, if your threshold for a special case is only 50%, in theory it would be possible for the Tories to be ambushed by other parties, including the Liberal Democrats, ganging up against them…

"Although nobody in the partnership has any intention of doing any such thing, it was a small matter for us to say ‘No, we accept your concerns and if we raise that threshold to 55%.’

"That gives you the safeguard you want and that’s the way we’ve proceeded."

Charles Walker, Conservative MP for Broxbourne, said: "It is for Parliament to decide when it’s lost confidence in the government and I think we have to look at this very closely…

"This is perhaps just a little too much for our unwritten constitution to bear."

He added: "Parliament actually runs this country, not the prime minister. Over the past 100 years, Parliament has given away huge powers to the prime minister.

"We have a quasi-presidential system here, without the checks and balances. This would be the loss of an enormous check."

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

A UN-commissioned review opens in Amsterdam into the workings of the UN’s climate body, the IPCC.

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