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One of the most controversial issues to face the Church of Scotland is due to be debated at its General Assembly.

A gay minister was appointed to an Aberdeen church in 2009, a move which threatened to split the Kirk.

Commissioners are being asked whether to continue an indefinite ban on the ordination of gay ministers until a report next year.

Another option is to lift the ban but await a separate report which would be published in two years.

For two years, since it confirmed the Reverend Scott Rennie’s appointment to Queen’s Cross Church, the Kirk has been consulting widely with its officials and congregations on the issue of the ordination of gay ministers.

One in five members of Kirk sessions have said they would leave if it is agreed that gay ministers can be ordained, while one in 10 have said they would leave if the Kirk rules they can not be ordained.

Dr Bill Naphy, from Aberdeen University, warned that it was a “very divisive issue” but said he believed the Church of Scotland faced losing whole congregations if it approved the ordinations.

The subject hit the headlines two years ago as traditionalist members attempted to block Mr Rennie’s appointment.

Following a lengthy debate, the Assembly ultimately voted in support of the Aberdeen-based minister but called for a commission to study the general issue “for the sake of the peace and unity of the Church”.

The debate will focus on the commission’s report.

Dr Naphy, an expert in both the history of sexuality and Calvinism told the BBC’s Politics Show: “I think the Kirk is likely to take a very cautious approach.

“I think if they allow the ordination of gay ministers there will probably be whole congregations that leave.

“I think it’s less likely that whole congregations will leave if it goes the other way. It is more likely that individuals will walk away.

“Either way the vote goes there will be people and congregations who are likely to leave.”

He added: “The very fact that the Kirk has spent two years debating an issue that relates to handful of verses in the Bible must seem a very peculiar thing for the Kirk to spend its time on.

“In actual fact the Bible doesn’t say a great deal about sexuality at all.”

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Independent schools are using a “tax payer subsidy” to provide luxuries like golf courses, beagling and shooting for their pupils, a court will hear.

Private schools in England and Wales have to show they provide a “public benefit” in exchange for their tax-free charitable status.

But the Independent Schools Council is mounting a legal challenge to how the public benefit rules are interpreted.

It argues there is too much emphasis on private schools providing bursaries.

Last week the Upper Tribunal, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, began taking evidence into the rules surrounding the charitable status of independent schools.

The Independent Schools Council, representing more than 1,200 private schools, has argued that the Charity Commission is defining public benefit too narrowly.

It wants to clarify the charity rules – and is calling for schools to be able to put more emphasis on their partnerships with local state schools and the sharing of facilities and expertise.

But on Monday the court will receive evidence from a group of educationalists and lawyers, the Education Review Group, which argues that independent schools are being allowed unfair tax advantages through their charitable status.

The group claims that private schools enjoy tax breaks worth £88m per year – with some of these schools providing a luxury “gold-plated” service at a cost that is prohibitive to most families.

Professor Ron Glatter of the Education Reform Group said: “The law has just not kept pace. Fees of up to £29,000 per year for just one pupil mean that such education is often the preserve of the super rich.

“But the public may be more surprised at what schools which claim to be charities provide – golf, shooting, horse riding, dressage. Some schools even offer beagling. Can we really say these should attract tax payers support?”

Paul Ridge, the group’s solicitor, said: “We should end the pretence that such schools are charities. They are businesses for the children of elite parents.”

Fiona Miller, speaking for the group, said: “Fee paying schools should be required to meet more, rather than less, stringent criteria, specifically linked to disadvantage and social mobility.”

Independent schools have argued that they are already working in partnership with local state schools – and that the value of bursaries and financial support for poorer pupils is greater than the amount they gain in tax benefits.

The Charity Commission, whose guidelines to the 2006 Charities Act are being challenged, has argued that it already allows independent schools flexibility in how they show they are offering public benefit.

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Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second.

At those speeds, the entire Library of Congress collections could be sent down an optical fibre in 10 seconds.

The trick is to use what is known as a “fast Fourier transform” to unpick more than 300 separate colours of light in a laser beam, each encoded with its own string of information.

The technique is described in the journal Nature Photonics.

The push for higher data rates in light-based telecommunications technologies has seen a number of significant leaps in recent years.

While the earliest optical fibre technologies encoded a string of data as “wiggles” within a single colour of light sent down a fibre, newer approaches have used a number of tricks to increase data rates.

Among them is what is known as “orthogonal frequency division multiplexing”, which uses a number of lasers to encode different strings of data on different colours of light, all sent through the fibre together.

At the receiving end, another set of laser oscillators can be used to pick up these light signals, reversing the process.

While the total data rate possible using such schemes is limited only by the number of lasers available, there are costs, says Wolfgang Freude, a co-author of the current paper from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

“Already a 100 terabits per second experiment has been demonstrtaed,” he told BBC News.

“The problem was they didn’t have just one laser, they had something like 500 lasers, which is an incredibly expensive thing. If you can imagine 500 lasers, they fill racks and consume tens of kilowatts of power.”

Professor Freude and his colleagues have instead worked out how to create comparable data rates using just one laser with exceedingly short pulses.

Within these pulses are a number of discrete colours of light in what is known as a “frequency comb”.

When these pulses are sent into an optical fibre, the different colours can add or subtract, mixing together and creating about 350 different colours in total, each of which can be encoded with its own data stream.

Last year, Professor Freude and his collaborators first demonstrated how to use all of these colours to transmit over 10 terabits per second.

At the receiving end, traditional methods to separate the different colours will not work. Here, the researchers have implemented what is known as an optical fast Fourier transform to unpick the data streams.

The Fourier transform is a well-known mathematical trick that can in essence extract the different colours from an input beam, based solely on the times that the different parts of the beam arrive.

The team does this optically – rather than mathematically, which at these data rates would be impossible – by splitting the incoming beam into different paths that arrive at different times, recombining them on a detector.

In this way, stringing together all the data in the different colours turns into the simpler problem of organising data that essentially arrives at different times.

Professor Freude said that the current design outperforms earlier approaches simply by moving all the time delays further apart, and that it is a technology that could be integrated onto a silicon chip – making it a better candidate for scaling up to commercial use.

He concedes that the idea is a complex one, but is convinced that it will come into its own as the demand for ever-higher data rates drives innovation.

“Think of all the tremendous progress in silicon photonics,” he said. “Nobody could have imagined 10 years ago that nowadays it would be so common to integrate relatively complicated optical circuits on to a silicon chip.”

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A second pilot whale has been found dead in a Hebridean loch after experts feared more than 60 of the animals had been at risk of becoming beached.

The pod had left the shallow waters of Loch Carnan in South Uist on Saturday, but returned later that night.

They have now headed out of the area – but an animal welfare charity confirmed another whale’s body had been found.

Tests on a body found earlier suggested the female died from disease, not because it was stranded on rocks.

Marine experts said the rest of the pod had now left the loch and appeared to be heading south.

Dave Jarvis, from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) team, said it was thought the second whale had died elsewhere and floated into the area on the tide.

Mr Jarvis said: “During the late afternoon, BDMLR operations manager Stephen Marsh was alerted to a possible sighting of a second dead whale in the sea loch.

“A search was mounted and sadly the sighting was confirmed.

“It was too dangerous to recover the body of the adult, although another attempt might be made tomorrow [Monday] although it was noted that there seemed to be little damage to the parts that were visible.

“Due to its location and orientation, it is thought that the creature probably died elsewhere in the area and floated in on the incoming tide.

“It is currently impossible to comment on why this animal died.”

BDMLR said the post-mortem examination of the first dead whale found “potential evidence of an infection” in the animal’s melon, a fatty organ found in the forehead.

It also showed external injuries to the whale were not enough to cause its death.

Tests showed the female whale was just coming to an end of a lactation and rescuers said they hoped her young calf would have been fully weaned.

The whales were first spotted around Loch Carnan, in the Western Isles, on Thursday, sparking fears they would die in a mass stranding.

Some of the animals had injuries to their heads and a substantial operation to save them was launched.

Mr Jarvis said the operation was now being wound down after it appeared the whales had left the area but those involved would continue to keep a watch for any sign of the whales.

Rescuers said wounds spotted on some of the other whales would heal naturally over time.

Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson said: “I am pleased to hear that the pod has left the loch and hope they remain in deeper waters.

“The loss of life is very unfortunate but a number of teams working together in South Uist have ensured that a greater tragedy has been averted.”

At the end of October last year, some pilot whales almost got stranded in the same sea loch. Less than a week later, 33 whales, believed to be the same group, were found dead on a beach in Co Donegal.

Pilot whales prefer deep water but come inshore to feed on squid, their main food.

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Scottish teachers’ working conditions could be radically changed under a shake-up proposed in a document from Cosla, obtained by BBC Scotland.

The council body’s report outlined plans which could cut holidays, end a 35-hour week and threaten job security.

The government-commissioned submission, based on council responses, said budget cuts and the new Curriculum for Excellence meant changes were needed.

Union leader Ronnie Smith described the submission as “madness”.

Making the case for change, Cosla said the landmark McCrone deal 10 years ago – which gave teachers a pay rise of 23% over three years – lead to peaceful industrial relations, but a “less clear cut” impact on children’s achievement and attainment.

‘Licence to teach’

In the submission, it raised the prospect of more teachers being barred from the profession.

It said consideration should be given to the satisfactory completion of training courses, which are essential for the new “re-accreditation” requirement of the General Teaching Council of Scotland – in what has been dubbed “a licence to teach”.

Cosla proposed a closer relationship between the standards reached by teachers and their pay and conditions. Currently pay rises are largely linked to time served or promotion.

Emphasising the importance of high performance among head teachers, it said there was a case for them being on renewable rather than permanent contracts.

It also proposed short, fixed-term contracts, subject to appraisal, for promoted posts below head teacher level. And it suggested these teachers should move between different schools so that future leaders acquired a broad range of experience.

Calling for further flexibility, it said there was even a case for primary head teachers graduating to become secondary heads.

‘Off the wall’

Cosla said a compelling reason for moving in-service training centre stage, was the radically new Curriculum for Excellence which required teachers to make up their own lessons rather than following detailed national guidelines.

The document indicated the number of in-service days could increase from the current five a year, and they could take place during pupils’ holidays.

It said the current system was too disruptive to pupils and required hard-pressed councils to pay for temporary staff.

Asserting that “counting hours” was inappropriate for professionals, Cosla proposed moving from a 35-hour week to a more flexible model of about 140 hours a month.

It also called for an end to primary teachers spending a maximum 22.5 hours a week teaching in the classroom (to provide time for preparing and marking) because of the additional expense of paying for cover staff.

It said the amount of time secondary teachers spend in the classroom should also be examined.

Ronnie Smith, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, described the submission as “a stream of consciousness – some of it quite off the wall”.

He added: “If they try to do things like extend teachers’ working year they’re going to hit a brick wall.

“They have some of the longest working hours in Europe and they’ve already been hit by issues such as a two-year pay freeze and a 50% increase in pension contributions.”

He said the call for flexible working seemed to mean “work all the hours God sends, at the hours we want you to”.

Ann Ballinger, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association union, said: “I have never had confidence in the assurances we’ve been given by negotiators but this just proves my lack of confidence in their integrity was justified.

“Clearly the people who wrote this know a bit about education, but large parts of it are complete nonsense and will make teachers very angry.”

Cosla said the government-commissioned review of the McCrone deal, being carried out by Stirling University principal Prof Gerry McCormac, should be viewed as an opportunity to be as radical in 2011 as McCrone was in 2001.

It said an expected hole of £3.8bn in public sector spending by the year 2016/17 brought “even more urgency to the need to ensure best value and to scrutinise all elements of workforce management”.

Currently about £5bn a year is spent on education – most of it on staff.

Justifying change Cosla said: “In this new time of austerity our watch words are affordability and sustainability. Business as usual is therefore not an option.”

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Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from power and forced into exile in 2009, has signed an agreement with his successor, Porfirio Lobo, which will allow him to return to the country.

The accord also paves the way for Honduras’ re-entry into the Organisation of American States (OAS).

Honduras was expelled from the OAS after Mr Zelaya was removed from power.

The accord was negotiated by the Colombian and Venezuelan presidents.

Mr Zelaya and Mr Lobo smiled and shook hands as they signed the agreement in the Colombian city of Cartagena.

Not many details are known of the accord so far, but Colombian President Juan Manuel Santo said on his Twitter account that it “implies the return of Zelaya to Honduras and its return to the OAS”.

And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking from Venezuela where he is recovering from a knee injury, said his country would be monitoring the accord’s implementation very closely.

Mr Lobo said he was “very happy to be signing a document which will permit us to normalise relations between Honduras and all American countries.”

Legal wrangling

Earlier this month, a court in Honduras dropped all corruption charges against Mr Zelaya, paving the way for his return.

Mr Zelaya had described the charges of fraud and falsifying documents as politically motivated.

The former president was bundled out of Honduras by the military in June 2009 after he failed to abide by a Supreme Court order to cancel a non-binding vote on changing the constitution.

His critics said his planned constitutional consultation aimed to lift the one-term limit on serving as president – paving the way for his possible re-election.

Mr Zelaya repeatedly denied this and pointed out that it would have been impossible to change the constitution before his term in office ended.

His removal from office left Honduras politically isolated for several months.

However, a period of relative stability began with the election of Porfirio Lobo as president in elections in November 2009.

Many governments, including the US, have recognised the Honduran government’s legitimacy and re-established the ties cut during the height of the crisis.

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The bacteria responsible for stomach ulcers has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, according to researchers in the US.

Mice infected with Helicobacter pylori went onto develop Parkinson’s like symptoms.

The study, presented at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, argues that infection could play “a significant role”.

The charity Parkinson’s UK said the results should be treated with caution.

Parkinson’s disease affects the brain and results in slow movements and a tremor.

Middle-aged mice, the equivalent of being between 55 and 65 in humans, were infected. Six months later they showed symptoms related to Parkinson’s, such as reduced movement and decreased levels of a chemical, dopamine, in the brain.

These changes were not noticed in younger mice.

Dr Traci Testerman, from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, said: “Our findings suggest that H. pylori infection could play a significant role in the development of Parkinson’s disease in humans.

“The results were far more dramatic in aged mice than in young mice, demonstrating that normal ageing increases susceptibility to Parkinsonian changes in mice, as is seen in humans.”

The researchers believe the bacteria are producing chemicals which are toxic to the brain.

They said H. pylori was able to “steal” cholesterol from the body and process it by adding a sugar group.

Dr Testerman said this new chemical was almost identical to one found in seeds from the cycad plant, which had been shown to trigger a Parkinson’s-like disease among people in Guam.

She told the BBC: “H. pylori eradication in late stage Parkinson’s disease is unlikely to result in significant improvement.

“Certain neurons are killed before symptoms begin, and more are killed as the disease progresses. Those neurons will not grow back.”

Dr Kieran Breen, director of research at Parkinson’s UK, said: “We believe Parkinson’s is most likely caused by a combination of environmental factors together with an individual’s genetic susceptibility to developing the condition.

He said there was some evidence that bacteria can prevent the main drug to treat Parkinson’s, levodopa, being absorbed, but there was no strong evidence that people who have H. pylori in their gut are actually more likely to develop Parkinson’s.

He added: “The current study is interesting and suggests that the bacteria may release a toxin that could kill nerve cells.

“However, the results should be treated with caution. The research was carried out in mice that were infected with relatively high doses of the bacterium or its extract.

“While they developed movement problems, we don’t know whether this was actually due to the death of nerve cells. Further research needs to be carried out”.

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Spain is poised to begin voting in regional elections as thousands of young protesters remain camped out in squares across the country.

Demonstrators are angry at the government’s economic policies and Spain’s high youth unemployment rate.

Their numbers have swelled despite a ban on political protests ahead of elections.

The governing Socialists are expected to suffer major losses in voting for city councils and regional governments.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government is struggling to overcome recession and create jobs.

In the capital Madrid, about 30,000 people have occupied the central Puerta del Sol square.

Similar protests, popularly known as M-15, have sprung up in many other cities including Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Bilbao.

“I’m happy that they’re finally protesting. It was about time,” said Maria, an elderly woman visiting her grandson in the Puerta del Sol.

Protest organisers have urged those taking part not to confront the police, and have tried to discourage the distribution of alcohol.

“It’s a revolution, not a drinking party,” read one sign.

Brooms donated by supporters are being used to keep the square clean, witnesses say.

The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Madrid says there is also a creche, a kitchen area and even a vegetable patch.

One protester, Alejandro, said: “I hope this changes our situation. We have a right to regular jobs, a future and a decent salary, to more opportunities in life, the chance to get a house, to pay for that house without being enslaved, but especially a better quality of life.”

The protesters are urging people not to vote for either of Spain’s two main parties – the governing Socialists or the centre-right opposition.

Analysts say that despite the strength of the protests, they are unlikely to affect the outcome of Sunday’s elections, other than to worsen the Socialists’ defeat.

The Socialists are predicted to lose control of strongholds such as Barcelona, Seville and the Castilla-La Mancha region.

Spanish law forbids political rallies on the day before elections to allow for a “day of reflection”.

But as the ban came into effect, the crowds stayed put and police did not try to disperse them.

Organisers say the protests may continue after the elections.

The demonstrations began six days ago in Madrid as a spontaneous sit-in by young people frustrated at 45% youth unemployment.

Spain’s overall jobless rate soared to 21% in the first quarter of this year, the highest in the industrialised world.

Dubbed “los indignados” [the indignant], the protesters are demanding jobs, better living standards, a fairer system of democracy and changes to the government’s austerity plans.

Prime Minister Zapatero had urged protesters to respect the day of reflection but also said he was sensitive to their concerns and praised their “peaceful manner”.

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US President Barack Obama says the borders of a Palestinian state must be negotiated but based on 1967 lines, amid tensions with Israel.

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A toddler in Italy dies after she was left in a car in the sun by her father who had forgotten to drop her off at day care.

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A pod of pilot whales are reported to have returned to a Hebridean sea loch where they risk becoming beached.

Conservationists had thought the 60 whales had moved from the shallow waters of Loch Carnan, South Uist, and were swimming south.

But British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) later said the animals had headed back into the loch.

Rescuers also said one of the whales may now have died after an apparent sighting of a body in the water.

The animals were first spotted around Loch Carnan on Thursday, sparking fears that they would die in a mass stranding.

Some of them have injuries to their heads, thought to have been sustained while they were stranded.

BDMLR’s Dave Jarvis described the latest development as disappointing.

He said: “Unfortunately the pod of pilot whales that it was hoped were moving away from the sea loch earlier have now returned to their original location.

“Personnel were deployed earlier to search for the group that it was hoped were leaving the area, but they were located not far away, from a land vantage point, by BDMLR operations manager Stephen Marsh and SSPCA senior inspector Calum Watt.

“The animals were observed and disappointingly they retraced their route back into the loch. The whales do not currently appear to be agitated.

“Sadly, it is thought that one of the animals may now have died as a body has apparently been seen in the water.”

Mr Jarvis has said the whales could only get stranded at one place – a sandy section of beach at the loch. However, other dangers are posed by the rocky coastline, with its many inlets and bays.

Volunteers from the charity will continue to monitor the whales.

The Scottish Government has also lent rescuers a fisheries protection boat to follow the animals’ movements.

At the end of October last year, some pilot whales almost got stranded in the same sea loch. Less than a week later, 33 whales, believed to be the same group, were found dead on a beach in Co Donegal in the Irish Republic.

Pilot whales prefer deep water but come inshore to feed on squid, their main food.

Last week a pilot whale died on Sunday morning after getting stuck in the Sullom Voe inlet in Shetland. An autopsy was carried out on the animal to try to establish why it died but the results are not yet known.

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The Icelandic authorities have imposed a local flight ban after the country’s most active volcano, Grimsvotn, began erupting.

A plume of smoke has risen 20km (12 miles) into the sky from the volcano.

But Iceland’s Meteorological Office says the eruption should not cause widespread disruption to air traffic.

Last year, ash clouds from another Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokul, led to the closure of a large section of European airspace.

Governments feared that ash particles could cause aircraft engines to fail, and the closure caused chaos to air travellers.

Hjordis Gudmundsdottir, a spokeswoman for the Isavia civil aviation authority – which has imposed a flight ban of 120 nautical miles (222 km) around Grimsvotn – said: “We have closed the area until we know better what effect the ash will have.”

But officials say it is unlikey to have the same impact as last year.

Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, said the 2010 eruption was a rare event.

“The ash in Eyjafjallajokull was persistent or unremitting and fine-grained,” he said.

“The ash in Grimsvotn is more coarse and not as likely to cause danger as it falls to the ground faster and doesn’t stay as long in the air as in the Eyjafjallajokull eruption.”

Domestic airline Icelandair said no traffic had been affected.

“We do not expect the Grimsvotn eruption to affect air traffic to and from the country in any way,” said communications director Gudjon Arngrimsson.

Icelandair pilot Thor Kristinsson told the BBC he had flown near the volcano on Saturday.

“We were able to finish our flight but we did see the ash plume rise fast. We were at 38,000 feet … and the ash was at least at 40,000 feet at that time.

“It looks at least as bad as the one last year and it looks like it could get worse. It’s as big, if not bigger than the last ash cloud.”

Grimsvotn lies under the the largest glacier in Europe, Vatnajokull in south-east Iceland.

Reuters news agency says that when it last erupted in 2004, transatlantic flights had to be re-routed south of Iceland, but no airports were closed.

Last year’s outpouring of ash from Eyjafjallajokull led to the largest closure of European airspace since World War II.

About 10 million travellers were affected and some questioned whether the shutdown was an over-reaction.

However, a scientific study published last month said the safety concerns had been well founded.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Iceland said ash particles from the early part of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption were especially abrasive, posing a possible threat to aircraft engines.

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President Obama set to retrace Irish roots in Moneygall

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Driving wind and rain hampered rescues in Snowdonia on Saturday but a group managed the Snowdon ascent twice to raise money for charity.

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Three young children have been injured at a public event in Kent.

The children were taken to hospital by ambulance after the incident at the West Kent Garden and Leisure Show at Tonbridge Angels Football Ground.

Darren Apps, commercial manager at the stadium, said he understood three children had been taken to hospital but could not confirm any further details.

A BBC journalist at the scene said it was believed a giant inflatable slide toppled over at about 1230 BST.

She said the area was being evacuated.

The Kent Air Ambulance was also called to the scene but was not needed, she added.

Hannah Applegren, who was nearby at the time, said a number of children were on the slide when it tipped.

“Because they were right next to the climbing wall with various metal posts, they have fallen on to them.

“There was one boy with bleeding to the back of his head, and it was quite serious.

“It was very shocking.”

The West Kent Garden and Leisure Show was being held at the stadium in Darenth Avenue on Saturday and Sunday.

It included garden show stalls, birds of prey displays, children’s entertainment, and activities including pottery and flower arranging.

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