Category: news

A boy is the sole survivor of the Libyan plane crash – the latest in a line of children to escape death in an air disaster. So do young people have a better chance of living when a plane goes down?

While officials in Libya investigate the plane crash that killed 103 people at Tripoli airport, the Dutch foreign ministry is trying to confirm reports that the only survivor, who is said to be aged 10, is from the Netherlands.

In 2003 a three-year-old boy was the only survivor of a plane crash in Sudan which killed 116, in 1995 a nine-year-old girl was alone in living through a mid-air explosion on board a flight over Colombia.

Two years later, a Thai boy was the lone survivor of a Vietnam Airlines crash which killed 65 and in 1998 a 10-year-old boy was alone in surviving a Taiwanese jet crash which killed 196. However, he died shortly afterwards.

And in 2009, Baya Bakari, whose age was given as between 12 and 14, was the only passenger aboard an airliner that crashed in Yemen to escape with her life.

So do children have a better chance of surviving plane crashes? It’s a question that leaves safety experts perplexed and in want of hard evidence to answer with any certainty.

But although unclear, there are reasons to suggest some children fare better than others, depending on their size.

Prof Ed Galea, director of the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich, suggests small children bigger than infants but not too tall would be cocooned within their seat and therefore might be less likely to receive body injuries.

"With an adult with their head above the seat and legs on the floor, the chances are you’ll receive some sort of injury from debris landing on your head and legs flailing around. You’re more prone to broken limbs," he says.

"A youngster in their own seat… might be less likely to receive body injuries. They are more or less cocooned in a solid, rigid environment."

He says it’s possible this applies to any seat but is more likely to have a bearing in modern "16G" kinds designed to withstand deceleration impacts up to 16-times people’s body weight. Those seats have only been introduced in the last few years.

But he says air travel is probably more dangerous for infants because of the way they are carried on the laps of their parents and in extension belts attached to their parents’ belts.

Prof Galea says: "Sometimes they’re just held by their parents and people don’t realise the G-forces they’re exposed to. The decelerations increase the apparent weight of the child, so while you feel comfortable holding them, when decelerating it becomes very hard to hold on… the child can be bouncing around the aircraft."

The same thing happens when there’s unexpected turbulence and babies restrained in extension belts do no better because in a crash the parent’s body typically bends forwards crushing the child, he says.

Physiologically there is no reason why children should survive a plane crash over an adult, he adds, and anyone falling at a great height is unlikely to survive.

But he suggests falls shortly after take off or approaching landing may stack in the child’s favour.

"It would be miraculous to survive that, but there have been cases of people falling into trees. I would suggest a smaller body mass would mean it’s more likely the tree would break your fall," he explains.

Mike Hayes, head of research and development at the Child Accident Prevention Trust, says in some other circumstances children might fare better than adults, but it is a grey area.

"Generally there’s an issue as you get older with your bones becoming more brittle, but I don’t know what the optimum age is. You’re probably strongest in your 20s," he says.

"The problem with children is that because they’re still growing, protective devices have to be adapted to them."

He says in car seats they have seat straps over both shoulders and their rib cages, giving more protection than an adult would have, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were safer.

In falls from windows and down stairs, he saw no reason why children should come out better than adults, although he suggests their rib cages may be more flexible.

"I’ve heard in immersion in cold water, a child’s body system may shut down and allow them to survive more than an adult," he says.

"But the reverse is also true, a child will burn itself because its skin is thinner… there are minuses as well as pluses in being a child."

A version of this story was first published in July 2009.

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UK telecoms company BT says it will extend its super-fast fibre broadband rollout to nearly 70% of the UK by 2015.

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Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso laid down an early marker in Monaco by setting the fastest time during Thursday’s first practice session.

The two-time Monaco winner set a time of one minute 15:927 seconds, 0.073secs ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.

Renault’s Robert Kubica was third, with Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber fourth.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was fifth, just ahead of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes with McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button seventh and eighth.

Adrian Sutil’s Force India and Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso rounded out a top 10 separated by less then a second.

While the impressive pace of the Red Bull cars has dominated qualifying this season, Monaco’s tight street circuit presents a different challenge.

Both Vettel and Webber were out-done by Alonso, who pushed his F10 from the off.

In his first run he was close to touching the barriers with his rear tyre coming out of Anthony Noghes – the final corner of the circuit and briefly returned to the garage for work on minor damage to his front wing.

But he returned to post a series of increasingly quick laps, improving an initial time of 1:16:859 to 1:15:927.

Alonso’s team-mate Massa, who started the season well with two podium finishes but has tailed off somewhat since, briefly held the fastest lap time after the early stages had been dominated by McLaren pair Button and Hamilton.

Hamilton – champion in 2008 – exchanged fastest lap times with the Brazilian three times before Kubica briefly took the lead with just under half an hour remaining.

Button had been one of a number of drivers who had voiced concern in the build-up over the potential problems that may arise from the pace differential between the teams.

The reigning champion encountered traffic on his first attempt at a flying lap, passing Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi on his way into the chicane.

With Schumacher having posted his own fastest lap to propel himself into the top 10, a yellow flag prompted by Kamui Kobayashi’s BMW Sauber denied drivers the chance to improve on thei times.

The Japanese driver lost his front wing after bouncing over the kerbs in the fast Swimming Pool chicane and smashing into the barriers on the outside of the track.

In an earlier incident, Hispania’s Karun Chandhok lost the back end of his car at Massenet but only brushed the barrier during the resultant spin, thus minimising the damage.

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In some countries they’re known as "Bin Ladens" – the banknote everybody knows exists but few, other than criminals, ever see. Now the 500 euro note is being withdrawn from sale in the UK.

Like almost all organised crime, the breakfast cereal box plan was done with the minimum of fuss.

Eftychia Symeonidoy stood outside a London apartment, casually holding the box under her arm.

But instead of it containing the recommended daily amount of vitamins and minerals, it had been stuffed with 300,000 euros.

As the undercover team from HM Revenue and Customs secretly filmed her, an ordinary estate car pulled up and the box was handed to the driver. It was another consignment of laundered drugs cash safely delivered – or so the gang thought.

Symeonidoy and the rest of the 13-strong laundering gang were all later convicted and jailed. The group smashed by HMRC investigators had taken £24m of dirty money from their clients in the criminal underworld – and returned "clean" euros.

Every month, they’d take in between £1m and £4m in cash – massive bags of sterling notes. They had so much of it, they had to stack it on sofas and in cabinets, and stuff it in bags in cupboards.

"This crime group were providing the facility for other criminals to conceal the origin of their illicit cash," says Heidi Foggon, the assistant director of criminal investigations at HMRC.

"They set up a complex system including registering their own money service bureau that provided the appearance of legitimacy required to undertake this crime."

The jailing of that gang was a major breakthrough for investigators – but it’s only the tip of the money laundering iceberg.

Financial crime intelligence teams at the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) have now, for the first time, established the extent to which criminals are using the money exchange business to manage their ill-gotten gains.

And its eight-month analysis found that the 500 euro note is now at the heart of money laundering in the UK. The reason is simple: it’s easier to shift.

At current exchange rates, the 500 euro note is worth about £430 – eight times more than the UK’s most valuable note, £50.

If a drugs gang collects up to £1m in twenties from its clients on street corners, those notes will weigh more than 50kg – about 50 bags of sugar. The equivalent in 500 euro banknotes weighs just over 2kg.

Converting it becomes a no-brainer. So they set up front businesses which buy in the 500 euro notes – and then make the new, clean and small consignments of notes disappear.

So how did the crime busters know the British market in 500 euro notes was driven by drugs gangs rather than honest tourists, or business travellers, priming their wallets before a trip to the continent?

They embarked on some analysis, tracking demand for the note. It found there is very little legitimate demand, says Ian Cruxton, deputy director of Soca and head of its proceeds of crime investigations.

But that then posed a question. Who exactly is responsible for the annual trade in the notes in the UK – a trade that totals about half a billion euros?

The answer was criminals.

One suspicious exchange bureau identified by law enforcement agencies was operating out of an office that didn’t even have a sign above the door.

It asked the note wholesalers (the major banks and well-known international currency businesses) to supply it with four million euros worth of the bank notes in one year. Those orders were greater than the entire amount sold to travellers through the Post Office’s network of 12,500 counters.

In other words, there were two markets: the legitimate High Street businesses and something far murkier around the corner.

"There’s been a significant body of evidence over time that has recognised that high denomination notes are an important means of reducing the bulk of cash," says Mr Cruxton. "The 500 euro note is really the note of choice among criminals.

"We estimate that more than 90% of the 500 euro notes that are provided in the UK have actually gone into the hands of serious organised criminals."

These are startling sums – but the business hasn’t sprung from nowhere.

Economists have long charted how large denomination notes facilitate money laundering.

The 500 euro note was born in 2002. But two years before that, the similarly high-value Canadian $1,000 bill was shredded after law enforcement agencies said it was being used for money laundering and tax evasion.

A decade on, the same problems now haunt the 500 euro bill. An internal Bank of Italy report warned last year about the mafia’s use of the note, saying it was just adding to the national problems of tax evasion.

But follow the money further, and the data shows that it has turned up in in South America in vast quantities as drug cartels collect their profits.

Professor Richard Portes of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, says the Eurozone countries were warned of the risks posed before the first note rolled off its high-tech anti-forgery printing press.

"It was quite clear from day one that once they decided they would have something as large as a 500 euro note that it would give the euro an economic advantage to the $100 bill. It would be used by the Mafia and in all sorts of organised underground crime," he says.

Eurozone warned

Prof Portes is pleased at the note’s withdrawal from UK foreign exchanges, as it will "make life much more difficult for people who should find life difficult".

However, there’s no plan to withdraw the banknote itself because, despite the problems in the UK and elsewhere, it plays a role in the economic culture of some countries.

In some Eurozone nations, including Germany and Italy, people simply prefer cash to plastic – a demand that has risen since the credit crunch hit world markets.

There’s no doubt high denomination notes help low-level domestic tax evasion, but that’s not the concern of the European Central Bank which administers the workings of what has become a global competitor currency to the US Dollar.

All of which leaves the million euro question: Will banning its sale in the UK do any good? Won’t money launderers switch to another commodity… like the 200 euro note?

Ian Cruxton of Soca says that’s entirely what investigators expect the gangs to do – but there are reasons to be optimistic, he says. In the case of the 200 euro, there are fewer in circulation – which means their movements are easier to track.

He says his intelligence officers are well-placed to spot gangs making mistakes and they will watch and wait. Shifting vast quantities of sterling just can’t be done without a fuss.

"The reality is that from now on people are not going to be able to go into wholesale bank suppliers, the money bureaux and ask for a supply of 500 euro notes," says Mr Cruxton. "They won’t be available, the supply will cease. It’s going to make life a lot harder for them.

"The sheer bulk of notes that they will have to move, if they continue to try to move it through cash is going to make it much more risky. They’re going to have to change the methods that they use, make themselves much more open to intervention.

"Given the nature of organised crime, taking out isolated criminals does not bring a significant benefit.

"But the opportunity to take out something like this, when we remove one of the key enablers that benefit the whole criminal community, gives us an opportunity to have a much greater effect."

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Hollywood actor Sean Penn is ordered to perform 300 hours of community service following a spat with a photographer.

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More people are tuning into the radio than at any time since the current system of measuring listener numbers began, official figures have shown.

And Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 breakfast show has attracted 9.5m listeners a week, according to the figures from industry body Rajar.

That is up more than a million since he took over from Sir Terry Wogan.

BBC 6 Music has boosted its audience by 50% to more than 1m listeners a week after coming under threat of closure.

The BBC’s media correspondent Torin Douglas says radio is booming, with BBC and commercial radio gaining listeners.

Digital growth

Figures for the Chris Evans show, which is on air for half an hour longer each day than Sir Terry’s programme , are the highest audience for any radio show since 1999 when the current system began.

That helped BBC Radio 2 to a record 14.5 million listeners a week.

BBC Radio 4’s audience rose to more than 10 million, with farming soap The Archers having a record 4.9 million listeners a week and the Today programme 6.4 million.

Our correspondent says publicity surrounding BBC 6 Music, which is due to close if plans are approved by the BBC Trust, helped it increase its listenership.

Digital radio also grew, with almost a quarter of all listeners using digital receivers.

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Former Justice Secretary Jack Straw has ruled himself out of the running for the Labour leadership contest.

Mr Straw, who retained his Blackburn parliamentary seat, also refused to back any candidate until after the formal hustings.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Labour lost the election "in England" mainly because working-class voters felt "disconnected" from his party.

So far only fellow MP David Miliband has openly declared his candidacy.

Arguments

Mr Straw said he had had a "good innings", having spent 13 years on the government front bench and he could not be persuaded to run.

He said he wanted to first hear the arguments the potential leaders made about where the Labour Party was heading before making his decision.

"I want to see, bluntly, how they do in the hustings – what arguments they’re making about the future of the Labour Party and I think that’s appropriate, if you like, for somebody of my experience and background," he said.

He said the party had had a generally successful record – and that had been recognised by the new Prime Minister David Cameron – but he also admitted "mistakes" had been made.

He said it was no time for members to be resting on their "New Labour" laurels.

‘Poor result’

He said: "We lost the election in England, not elsewhere, amongst so-called decent hard-working families who felt, especially working-class people, disconnected from the Labour Party.

"We’ve done a great deal, as it were, for that group in terms of social welfare, education and so on, but they felt this argument about fairness quite strongly."

He defended Gordon Brown and said the former prime minister had not been to blame for all the problems that had afflicted the party.

"Given all the problems which he did not invent like the world economic crisis and the expenses scandal, the way we managed to come back off the ropes was very good although [the election] was still a poor overall result.

"But we are in much better spirits and heart as a parliamentary party and in terms of numbers than ever I anticipated."

Former Foreign Secretary Mr Miliband became the first potential candidate to announce plans to stand following Mr Brown’s resignation.

Mr Miliband is planning to visit Harrow and Worcester on Thursday to generate further support for his campaign and find out from voters why they rejected his party at the election.

There has been a great deal of speculation around Westminster that his brother Ed, along with fellow former cabinet colleagues, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham, are also set to announce their bid for the leadership role.

Backbench Labour MP John Cruddas, who came third in Labour’s 2007 deputy leadership contest, has also said he is thinking about standing.

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Bobby Zamora has described the Achilles tendon injury that has ended his World Cup dreams as "a kick in the teeth".

England manager Fabio Capello was set to include the 29-year-old Fulham striker in the provisional 30-man squad he named for this summer’s finals.

But despite starting Wednesday’s Europa League final, in which the Cottagers were beaten 2-1 by Atletico Madrid, Zamora faces surgery.

"I knew I wouldn’t have done myself or England justice had I gone," he said.

"It was a joint decision between myself, Capello, Fulham’s medical team and England’s medical team. The World Cup is a massive tournament. It’s not about myself, it’s about England.

"Capello wished me all the best, hoped that I get fit and would be available next season. It’s one of those things, it has come at a bad time and the last five weeks have been terrible for me.

"It’s been an up and down season because it’s been so good on the pitch and I’ve scored some important goals. To now pick up this injury has kicked me in the teeth. It’s come during the last couple of weeks and when there was the possibility of going to the World Cup with England.

"That’s football, it’s a cruel game."

England already have fitness concerns surrounding former skipper John Terry (foot) and Gareth Barry (ankle), while Wayne Rooney, Aaron Lennon, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Glen Johnson have all suffered problems in the latter stages of the season.

And Zamora was not willing to add to Capello’s injury headaches.

The Cottagers forward was clearly off the pace in the heart-breaking 2-1 extra-time defeat to Atletico Madrid in Hamburg before he was substituted on 55 minutes.

"I was struggling but I was desperate to play," he added. "It was touch and go for me to make the final but it’s a major tournament and I’ve worked all season to get there so I wanted to play some part.

"I’m going to weigh everything up with the medical team now but it looks like I might need a minor operation.

"The decision will be made over the next day or two but the operation is pencilled in for a week’s time."

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Hope springs eternal in the breasts of the digerati. The online army which raged against the Digital Economy Bill as it was rushed through at the end of the last Parliament – it seems like another political era now – is hopeful that the hated law will be repealed by the new government.

After all, the one party which opposed the bill, the Liberal Democrats, is now in government. “Surely this will be a priority,” campaigners have argued on Twitter and elsewhere. “We voted for them on this issue – now they’ve got to act to undo this disastrous law.”

I fear they are likely to be disappointed. A quick inspection of the coalition agreement published yesterday does indeed show that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats plan a great repeal bill. But there is no mention of the Digital Economy Act in that plan to dismantle some of Labour’s laws.

Given all the other big and scary tasks facing the new government, I just can’t imagine that repealing a law which could see suspected illegal file-sharers temporarily suspended from the internet will be a priority.

And did the issue really play a significant part in the election?

Remember, the Liberal Democrats actually came out of the election campaign with fewer MPs. As for Stephen Timms, the Labour minister who steered the legislation through the Commons: he was severely punished at the ballot box – with a thumping majority, one of the few members of his party to see their position strengthened.

It’s worth too asking a few questions about the tactics of the online activist. Much was made back in March and April of the tidal wave of e-mails directed at MPs by opponents of the bill.

A community organisation called 38 Degrees provided a helpful link on its website encouraging people to e-mail their MPs about the bill and the way it was rushed through the Commons – and claimed that more than 20,000 people had done so.

But soon afterwards it was pointed out by the online news site The Register that anyone could just click and e-mail, so some of the correspondents could be overseas or just multiple clickers.

In a somewhat surprising reply to an inquiry about this loophole, a spokeswoman for 38 Degrees told The Register: “The culpability lies with the MPs to check the veracity of contact letters.”

The trouble is that MPs who do engage with the public via social networks are now receiving huge amounts of unsolicited e-mail.

A friend who helps out a Liberal Democrat MP – and advised him to use the likes of Twitter and Facebook – told me he had received over 4,000 messages in recent days offering various bits of advice on how the Lib Dems should enter a coalition.

“What are we supposed to do with this stuff?” he asked, with some frustration.

Some of those messages will have arrived via 38 Degrees, which mounted the Fair Votes campaign forproportional representation over the weekend, winning plenty of publicity and piling pressure on the Liberal Democrats and Labour to stand up for PR.

Here’s a line from the 38 Degrees blog: “When the Lib Dems looked wobbly over the weekend, we sent them over 150,000 emails urging them to hold firm.”

The e-mails were also directed at Labour MPs, including one Tom Watson, who was the most vigorous opponent of the Digital Economy Bill but is not apparently a supporter of PR. Here’s how he reacted on Twitter to the deluge:

“Thks @38_degrees. Inbox now full. Why didn’t you check to find out the MPs that supported your proposition before spamming us all?”

If even the most digital MPs are treating mass e-mail campaigns as spam, it looks to me as though this particular weapon of political protest is now virtually worthless.

On the other hand, the opponents of the Digital Economy Act should not, perhaps, be too gloomy. Just as the new government is unlikely to find time to repeal the law in a hurry, it may well be even less keen to see families cut off from the internet or websites blocked.

The new law was painted by its opponents as a great slavering beast which would eat the internet and millions of innocent surfers – perhaps it will turn out to be a toothless old mutt asleep in the corner.

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Researchers have revealed remarkably well preserved fossils of soft-bodied marine creatures that are between 470 and 480 million years old.

Prior to this find, scientists were unsure whether such creatures died out in an extinction event during an earlier period known as the Cambrian.

The fossils were preserved in rocks formed by layers of ancient marine mud in south-eastern Morocco.

They are described in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

The research team that studied the fossils described them as marine animals that lived during the early part of a period that followed the Cambrian, known as the Ordovician.

Professor Derek Briggs from Yale University in New Haven, US, who was an author of the study, told BBC News that the discovery provided "a much more complete record of early marine life than we’ve every had before".

The creatures, he explained, closely matched those found in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, a locality in Yoho National Park, which is famous for yielding rare fossils of soft-bodied marine creatures from the Middle Cambrian period.

"There was an anomaly in the fossil record," said Dr Peter Van Roy, the lead researcher on the study, who is also based at Yale University. "Most of these animals just seemed to disappear at the end of the Middle Cambrian."

The transition between the Cambrian and the Ordovician periods is crucial in evolutionary history.

The "Cambrian explosion" saw the sudden appearance of all the major animal groups. It was followed by the "great Ordovician biodiversification event" when the number of marine animal groups increased exponentially over a period of 25 million years.

Professor Briggs explained: "[These specimens have] shown that some of the organisms that we thought were exclusive to Cambrian actually persisted until the Ordovician."

Dr Jean-Bernard Caron, a palaeontologist from the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada who was not involved in this study, told BBC News that the discovery was "very exciting".

He said that the fossil record had never before demonstrated that certain lineages of Cambrian animals survived until this later period.

Preserving life’s record

The specimens show that poor fossil preservation, rather than mass extinction, was probably responsible for this gap in the fossil record.

Because hard shells fossilise, and are therefore more readily preserved than soft tissue, scientists had an incomplete and biased view of the marine life that existed during the Ordovician.

But the conditions at this Moroccan site, Professor Briggs explained, were special.

"Very thick" marine muds, he said, were laid down in the deep ocean, trapping the creatures’ bodies below the influence of storms.

These mud layers also excluded oxygen, creating conditions conducive to forming some of the minerals in which fossils are preserved.

Dr Van Roy, who has been working at this site in for around a decade, discovered this particular group of fossils just one year ago.

But he expects to find even more and he and his team have planned further expeditions to Morocco. "We’re only scratching the surface," he said.

"I’m certain there will be more spectacular fossils coming out of this site in the near future."

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Stocks rise in Europe and Asia after Spain announced plans to cut its deficit, easing worries that Europe’s debt crisis could spread.

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Roy Hodgson insists he remains fully committed to Fulham despite the "bitter blow" of his side’s loss to Atletico Madrid in the Europa League final.

A penalty shoot-out looked likely until Diego Forlan’s 116th-minute strike sealed a 2-1 win for the Spanish side.

And boss Hodgson, linked with a host of big clubs thanks to Fulham’s success this term, said: "It’s a bitter blow.

"But as far as my future goes, I have never given it a thought. I’ve always been committed to Fulham and still am."

Hodgson has led a remarkable turn-around in his two-and-a-half years as Cottagers manager, saving the club from relegation in his first season, leading them to an eighth-placed finish last season, and taking the club to its first European final this campaign.

In tribute to his success, he was named the League Manager’s Association manager of the year this week.

And it has led to speculation linking the 62-year-old former Inter Milan, Blackburn and Finland national team manager with a move to replace Rafael Benitez at Liverpool and even as a possible successor to England coach Fabio Capello.

But speaking after the defeat in Hamburg on Wednesday, he said: "It has not even crossed my mind. I still have a contract at the club, and as far as I know here is where I shall be [next season]."

The veteran boss admitted, however, that it was hard to draw comfort from his side’s remarkable European run in the immediate aftermath of their cruel extra-time defeat.

Having beaten the likes of Juventus and Wolfsburg to reach the final in Germany, Fulham fought back after Forlan’s early strike through Simon Davies’ volleyed equaliser and looked to be heading for penalties until the Uruguayan scored again with a shot deflected in off Brede Hangeland with four minutes of extra-time remaining.

"At the moment the players are very, very down because they thought they had a good chance of winning this," said Hodgson. "Penalties are a lottery whatever happens, but we certainly fancied our chances there.

"To concede a goal so late was a bitter blow and at the moment I suppose that’s the only thought going through our heads and it will take a bit of time before the pain that we feel passes.

"Having been here and having seen the team acquit itself so well, you would’ve liked to think we could’ve taken a further, final, step.

"At this moment in time it’s hard to find comfort, any joy or enthusiasm.

"I’m sure you would probably be surprised if my attitude was anything other than bitter disappointment and great sadness at seeing yet another great performance from the players go unrewarded."

Hodgson did take time to praise his team in their defence against Atletico’s formidable strike pairing of Forlan and Sergio Aguero, saying: "We did very well to keep Forlan and Aguero quiet, but unfortunately not quite quiet enough.

"Their two front players were very good throughout the game but we gave them as good as we got and it looked like it was heading for penalties.

"We were looking very comfortable throughout long periods of the game and it’s a real shame to get so close and miss out.

"I could not be more proud of the players. This performance in many ways sums up what we are about at Fulham. Everyone watching on the TV and here in Hamburg will realise we gave everything we had.

"We go a goal down and fight back to take it to extra-time. That shows what we are about and I think the fans will realise we’ve done the very best we can.

"It’s certainly the best squad of players I’ve worked with in terms of their attitude and commitment. I have to say that no squad has ever surpassed this team in their work ethic and determination."

Davies was also left hugely disappointed at the final whistle.

"We were looking for penalties to try our luck. It’s a real shame to get so close but we congratulate Atletico because they’re a top side," said Davies.

"Once we get home it will seem like we’ve achieved something but now it’s painful.

You can hold your heads high. What a great European adventure it’s been and if Zamora was 100% fit it might’ve been a different story

"To score in the final of a big tournament is something I’ll be very proud of in years to come but now it’s just very hard to lose."

Fulham fans’ misery, meanwhile, was compounded by having to endure long delays on their way home from Hamburg Airport.

Supporters told of chaotic scenes at Hamburg Airport when thousands of Fulham and Atletico Madrid followers arrived for early-morning flights back to the UK and Spain, while one fan told of how 300 people were taken out to a plane, only to find it had half the number of seats.

"[Hamburg Airport doesn’t] seem to have been able to cope with it. They didn’t have enough staff," Dawn Dunlop told the BBC: "The whole thing has been a complete disaster."

Dozens of extra flights to and from the UK and Spain were laid on at the airport for last night’s showpiece final.

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A serious disease is affecting opium poppies in Afghanistan, Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said.

Mr Costa told the BBC that this year’s opium production could be reduced by a quarter, compared to last year’s yield.

He said the disease – a fungus – is thought to have infected about half of the country’s poppy crop. Afghanistan produces 92% of the world’s opium.

Mr Costa said opium prices had gone up by around 50% in the region.

That could have an impact on revenues for insurgent groups like the Taliban which have large stockpiles of opium, he added.

Mr Costa told the BBC that the disease was affecting poppies in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, the heartland of opium cultivation and the insurgency in Afghanistan.

He said some local farmers believed that Nato troops were responsible for the outbreak, but he said such fungi occur naturally every few years.

"I don’t see any reasons to believe something of that sort. Opium plants have been affected in Afghanistan on a periodic basis," Mr Costa said.

Four years ago there was a similar infestation.

"As the farmers would be tempted because of their loss of income to join the insurgency, I don’t see any reasons why the coalition would be acting in a way that would be so unpopular and so treacherous for the conduct of the conflict," he said.

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Loss does not take shine off Fulham’s super season

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David Cameron is preparing for his first cabinet meeting as prime minister as he puts the finishing touches to his historic coalition government.

The Tory leader will announce a string of junior government posts, which will include further Lib Dem appointments.

He began the business of government on Monday evening with a first meeting of the new National Security Council.

It followed a press conference in the No 10 garden with deputy prime minister and coalition partner Nick Clegg.

The two men joked together as they set out what they wanted to achieve with their unprecedented power sharing arrangement – which Mr Cameron said could mark a "seismic shift" in British politics.

In addition to Mr Clegg, four other Lib Dems will be sitting around the cabinet table when the ministers gather at 0900 BST.

They are Vince Cable, who is business secretary; Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws; Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne; and Scottish Secretary Danny Alexander.

ID cards

There are expected to be 20 Liberal Democrat ministers at all levels across many departments, meaning nearly half of the parliamentary party will be members of the government.

The majority of cabinet ministers carry on with the briefs they held in opposition but there was a return to frontline politics for former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who becomes work and pensions secretary.

Theresa May was a surprise appointment as home secretary and she has already spoken of the challenges ahead as she tries to square the conflicting priorities of the coalition partners and deliver their jointly agreed programme.

She told BBC News: "We will be scrapping ID cards but also introducing an annual cap on the number of migrants coming into the UK from outside the European union."

She said there was a "process to be gone through" to decide the annual limit. The coalition government was committed to introducing elected police commissioners and cutting police paperwork to "give the police more time on the streets," she added.

On the DNA database, she said: "We are absolutely clear we need to make some changes in relation to the DNA database. For example one of the first things we will do is to ensure that all the people who have actually been convicted of a crime and are not present on it are actually on the DNA database.

"The last government did not do that. It focused on retaining the DNA data of people who were innocent. Let’s actually make sure that those who have been found guilty are actually on that database."

National Security

One junior government post was revealed on Wednesday evening, when Dame Pauline Neville-Jones took her seat as security minister at the first meeting of the National Security Council.

The body, made up of senior ministers, military chiefs and the heads of the security services, discussed the military situation in Afghanistan.

It was also briefed on the UK’s wider strategic and security position.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Chancellor George Osborne and Foreign Secretary William Hague were among those who attended the Downing Street meeting.

The council was set up on Wednesday to co-ordinate the efforts of government departments and agencies to safeguard UK security.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "The prime minister this evening chaired the first meeting of the newly established National Security Council.

"The prime minister began the meeting by paying a full tribute to the UK’s armed forces and expressed his personal admiration and gratitude for their dedication and sacrifice.

"He then received briefings on the political and military situation in Afghanistan, including from his new National Security Adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, and from the Chief of the Defence Staff [Sir Jock Stirrup]. The prime minister was then updated on the wider UK security situation."

The Labour Party has meanwhile started the process of choosing a new leader after the resignation of Gordon Brown, who stood down as prime minster on Tuesday when it became clear that the Lib Dems had decided to join the Tories in a coalition.

Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband became the first potential candidate to announce plans to stand, saying he hoped others would follow suit. He has the backing of heavyweight figures including former home secretary Alan Johnson and acting Labour leader Harriet Harman, both of whom have ruled themselves out of the running.

Backbench Labour MP John Cruddas, who came third in Labour’s 2007 deputy leadership contest, has also said he is thinking about standing.

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