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The restored “Arbeit macht frei” sign – which was stolen 17 months ago from the former Auschwitz death camp in Poland – has been unveiled.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Maguire won the match in question 9-3 No charges are to be brought against two professional snooker players who were questioned by police over alleged irregular betting patterns.
Stephen Maguire, 30, and Jamie Burnett, 35, both from Glasgow, were questioned over a match they played at the Maplin UK Championship on 14 December 2008.
The Crown has decided there is not enough evidence to justify prosecution.
Snooker’s governing body, the WPBSA, will now decide whether to take any disciplinary proceedings.
WPBSA chairman Jason Ferguson said: “We are treating this case very seriously.
“We will now be given access to the evidence connected with the case, and our disciplinary committee will review that evidence thoroughly.”
Stephen Maguire won his first round match against Jamie Burnett 9-3 at the Maplin UK Championship in Telford.
Prior to the game, a number of bookmakers suspended betting after large amounts of money were placed on Maguire to win 9-3.
After the game, the 33-year-old denied any wrongdoing and said he knew the situation and the pressure had affected his play.
World Snooker launched a formal investigation and instructed specialist lawyers to help in the case.
Strathclyde Police launched its own inquiry and questioned both players in August 2009. They were released without charge.
Stephen Maguire turned professional in 1998 and is currently ranked eighth in the world.
Jamie Burnett turned professional in 1992 and is currently ranked 39th in the world.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Ministers say early guilty pleas save victims from having to relive their ordeals Plans to halve the jail terms of rapists who plead guilty early are “irresponsible” and “unworkable”, Labour’s former solicitor general says.
Vera Baird QC added her voice to growing criticism of the sentencing proposals for England and Wales.
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said the government’s own commissioner for victims and witnesses, Louise Casey, thought the idea was “bonkers”.
Ministers say early pleas save victims from reliving their ordeals in court.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman added: “It also avoids the costs to the police, CPS and courts of cracked trials.
“There is a long standing practice of sentence discounts being applied to those who enter an early guilty plea.
“The government believes an increased discount for a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity, and a lower one for later pleas, would encourage defendants to plead guilty early on, sparing more victims and witnesses from the trauma of the trial process.”
At present, a defendant entering an early guilty plea can earn up to a third off their sentence.
Former Labour MP Vera Baird QC told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the standard sentence for rape started at five years, which was “not an enormously high sentence already for an injurious crime”.
“How on earth will giving a half off a sentence help to protect the public?”
Jack Straw Former Labour justice secretary
“If you are talking about halving it to two-and-a-half years and then a person gets out halfway through their sentence on licence which is usual, then we are talking about sentences of 15 months which have no regard at all for the gravity of the offence and gives no time for rehabilitation or training,” she said.
The current discount of a third for an early guilty plea was the maximum and not automatic, she added.
She went on to say the plans “would not work” in rape cases.
“While we know that if rape complainants get to court, the conviction rate is quite good these days, there is a massive drop out between a complaint and a conviction in the early stages of the investigation, if people do not think the police are supporting them,” she said.
“Defendants know that the chances of a conviction from the outset when they have to tender a plea to get this discount is not that large. I think they will chance their arm.
“And of course, the impact on the rape complainant and having what happened to them so small valued, is likely to deter more people from going through the awful process of having to talk about intimate things in a public court.”
The plans, announced by junior Justice Minister Crispin Blunt in the Commons on Tuesday, were immediately greeted with criticism.
Former Labour justice secretary Jack Straw said: “At present, a defendant entering an early guilty plea will earn up to a third off his sentence that would otherwise apply.
“The government is proposing that in place of that the discount should be a half, opposed by the judiciary and many others. How on earth will giving a half off a sentence help to protect the public?”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Mothercare said toy sales had been particularly affected Mothercare has said it will close more than a quarter of its UK stores over the next two years as part of its plans to reduce its High Street presence.
The company also reported a slump in full-year profits as UK sales fell due to bad weather in the run-up to Christmas and increased competition.
This meant the group had to cut margins to shift unsold stock.
Pre-tax profits for the year to 26 March were £8.8m, down from £32.5m a year ago.
By March 2013, the company said it planned to have reduced its total store numbers to about 266 from 373.
It said it was “in the fortunate position” of having 120 leases expiring in the next two years.
The company said it should benefit to the tune of £4m to £5m a year after tax from the store closures.
The closures form part the group’s ongoing strategy of reducing its High Street store portfolio and focusing more on out-of-town stores, and on its online and wholesale businesses.
Like-for-like UK sales in the year to the end of March fell by 4% due to “adverse weather conditions in key trading weeks before Christmas, together with a general weakening in the consumer environment and increased competition”, the company said.
This led to clearance sales of autumn and winter stock, in particular toys, which hit profit margins.
As a direct result, Mothercare said underlying profit in the UK for the period was £11.1m compared with £36.1m a year earlier.
However, against this disappointing UK performance, the company said it had seen a “record year internationally”, with total sales up 16.3%.
This helped to drive a small increase in revenue to £793.6m.
“In the new financial year, we expect international to continue to grow retail sales by 15% to 20% with 150 new store openings,” said chief executive Ben Gordon.
Earlier this year, the company warned that full-year profits would be significantly lower than market expectations.
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Endeavour docks at the ISS after a two-day journey The US space shuttle Endeavour has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS).
The orbiter, which is making its last foray above the planet, will spend just under two weeks at the platform.
It is delivering a $2bn particle physics experiment and a tray of critical spare parts.
On its return to Earth on 1 June, Endeavour will be prepared for public display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
The ship completed the now traditional flip manoeuvre just prior to docking, to allow astronauts on the ISS to photograph all of the shuttle’s surfaces.
This imagery will be sent to Earth to be assessed by engineers, who will check to see the orbiter has sustained no damage during its launch on Monday or during the two-journey to get to the ISS.
Beyond Endeavour, the US space agency (Nasa) plans one further shuttle mission to the station in July.
America will then use Russian Soyuz capsules to fly its astronauts to the ISS, before a number of US national commercial carriers enter service and take up the role sometime in the middle of the decade.
The Endeavour crew’s key task in the days ahead will be to fit the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the top of the ISS
The machine, which has taken 17 years to prepare, will undertake a comprehensive survey of cosmic rays.
These are the high-energy particles that are accelerated in Earth’s direction from all corners of the cosmos.
Scientists hope that in characterising these particles they can learn more about how the Universe came into being and how is it constructed?
Shuttle Atlantis is currently being prepared for a final mission sometime in July This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A man who was on the run for seven years is found guilty of murdering a friend outside a block of flats in Cardiff.
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Lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro: “She had no idea who this man was when she went into the room”
The maid who accused International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault did not know who he was at the time of the alleged incident, her lawyer says.
The woman, 32, told New York police Mr Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in his hotel suite on 14 May and picked him out at an identity parade.
Mr Strauss-Kahn denies all the charges.
An opinion poll suggests 57% in France believe the charges are part of a plot against him.
The maid’s lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, said his client “had no idea who this man [Mr Strauss-Kahn] was when she went into the room” and only learned his identity the following day.
“The idea that someone would suggest she was involved in some form of conspiracy is ridiculous,” he said. “This is someone who has been the victim of a violent act.”
Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, is currently on suicide watch at New York’s infamous Rikers Island prison. He will be back in court on Friday.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said Mr Strauss-Kahn is not in a position to run the IMF and an interim replacement should be named.
The maid is now living through an “extraordinary” trauma and is in hiding, Mr Shapiro says.
“It’s not just my opinion that this woman is honest,” Jeffrey Shapiro said. “The New York City Police Department (NYPD) reached the same conclusion. This is a woman with no agenda.”
Mr Geithner refused to be drawn on the legal challenges facing Mr Strauss-Kahn He said his client came originally from the West African state of Guinea. She arrived in the US seven years ago, along with her daughter, now 15, and had been in her job for three years.
“There is no way in which there is any aspect of this event which could be construed consensual in any manner,” Mr Shapiro said.
However, Mr Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, has said defence lawyers believe the forensic evidence “will not be consistent with a forcible encounter”.
Public opinion in France appears to be largely on the side of Mr Strauss-Kahn, who until his arrest was considered one of the leading candidates for the French presidential election next year.
An opinion poll for RMC radio, BDM television and the 20Minutes website found 57% of those who replied believed Mr Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a conspiracy.
That number rose to 70% among those who identified themselves as favouring Mr Strauss-Kahn’s centre-left Socialist Party.
The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, a friend of Mr Strauss-Kahn for 25 years, has spoken out in his defence.
“Nothing in the world can authorise the way this man has been thrown to the dogs,” he wrote on his blog.
“I do not know… how a chambermaid could enter on her own the room of one of the most watched people on the planet, against the normal practice in most big New York hotels, which provide for ‘cleaning brigades’ of at least two people.”
Mr Strauss-Kahn is able to leave his cell occasionally and is allowed outside for one hour each day.
According to the NYPD, the maid told officers that when she entered Mr Strauss-Kahn’s suite on Saturday afternoon, he emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her and sexually assaulted her.
The woman was able to break free and alert the authorities, a NYPD spokesman added.
Addressing the Harvard Club in New York on Tuesday, Timothy Geithner said the most important thing for the IMF was that it found a leader to fill Mr Strauss-Kahn’s shoes.
Mr Strauss-Kahn is on suicide watch at Rikers Island prison “He is obviously not in a position to run the IMF,” Mr Geithner said.
“It is important that the board of the IMF formally put in place for an interim period someone to act as managing director.”
It is the first time that a top official from President Barack Obama’s administration has publicly spoken about the impact of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s alleged sexual assault.
However, Mr Geithner refused to comment on the case or the details of the charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Mr Strauss-Kahn was in a “very difficult position” and it was “important that the IMF… is able to run effectively”.
Since Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest last Saturday, his deputy John Lipsky has been serving as acting managing director of the global lending agency.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Any strike action could coincide with that of teachers Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) have agreed to hold a ballot for a national strike over government cuts to the public sector.
The decision was taken by delegates at the union’s annual conference in Brighton.
The PCS ballot will cover 250,000 civil servants and any action could coincide with that of several teachers’ unions.
The PCS said it was against cuts in jobs, services and pensions.
The union’s general secretary, Mark Serwotka, told the conference delegates that 110,000 civil servants’ jobs were likely to be cut in the next few years, as well as the remaining employees facing pay freezes and cuts to their pension entitlements.
He urged his members to “fight like never before”.
Voting in the PCS ballot will begin next week and the result will be announced in the middle of June.
The decision raises the prospect of co-ordinated strikes that month with other union members, involving 750,000 employees.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
At least six people including civilians, police cadets and a suicide bomber have been killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.
A health official told the BBC the bomber drove a small car into a van carrying the cadets in Jalalabad city in the province of Nangarhar.
The attack took place as the van was travelling towards the city from the police academy on its outskirts.
More then 10 people were injured in the attack, officials say.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The renewal of Trident has major financial and political implications The defence secretary is expected to give the go-ahead for initial work to begin on the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent.
In a statement later, the BBC understands Liam Fox will approve the first stage of research and design for replacing existing submarines.
The issue has been the subject of tension within the coalition.
The Lib Dems, which support a cheaper alternative, want the final decision delayed until after the next election.
But most Tory MPs want the government to proceed immediately, urging a clear signal of the UK’s determination to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent.
The coalition had earlier indicated it would delay the “main gate” decision on replacing the UK’s four Vanguard submarines until after May 2015 – a move widely seen as easing tensions with the Lib Dems.
But Dr Fox is expected to give the green light to the “initial gate” phase, which will mean ordering the specialised steel to build the submarines and designing new nuclear reactors.
The BBC understands that the “initial gate” decision will cost about £3bn – a significant proportion of the end cost of the submarines currently estimated at around £20bn.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Baker was jailed for 10 years by Bristol Crown Court last May A report into how a Somerset care home manager was able to kill a resident has said it would have been very difficult to stop it happening even if extra checks had been in place.
Nurse Rachel Baker was jailed for 10 years for the manslaughter of 97-year-old resident Lucy Cox last year.
The nurse, who worked at Parkfields Residential home in Butleigh, siphoned off drugs meant for her patients.
A serious case review said it was difficult to prevent criminal acts.
Baker, 49, of Boundary Way, Glastonbury, was convicted at Bristol Crown Court.
She was cleared of two counts of murder and acquitted of the manslaughter of another resident, Frances Hay, 85.
Baker admitted 10 counts of possessing Class A and C drugs and one count of perverting the course of justice.
The court was told Baker gave Mrs Cox lethal doses of medication at the care home.
She started abusing opiates in 2005 and was only found out more than a year later when one of the home’s carers, Sarah Barnett, raised concerns and told the authorities.
The review concluded that:
It would always be very difficult for regulations to guard against the actions of a trusted professional concealing a serious criminal act. Rachel Baker was “determined and adept at covering up her actions and went to great lengths to do this”Even the best systems would have limitations in picking up criminal behaviour – they are designed to identify incompetence and poor practice not criminal activityPeople working in the care home system need to have a “respectful uncertainty”, and should not be scared to report suspicionsThere was a conflict of interest between Baker and the residents having the same GP, this should have been identified by the GP practiceUnusual patterns of prescribing were not picked up. High levels of prescriptions were queried by some health professionals – but there was no way to bring these together.
The review was voluntarily commissioned by the Somerset Safeguarding Adults Board, with input from NHS Somerset, the Care Quality Commission and Somerset County Council.
It was independently chaired by Margaret Sheather, the former group director of Community and Adult Care at Gloucestershire County Council.
She said: “This review did not set out to apportion blame. Its purpose was to establish if there are lessons to be learnt from these very sad events that could help improve the way professionals and agencies work together.
“Where areas of improvement have been identified they have either been addressed or will be addressed in the actions plans.
“Unfortunately it will always be very difficult for any form of regulation to guard against the actions of a trusted professional who has set out to commit and conceal a very serious criminal act.
“However, the improvements already made and the actions in this report should lessen the chance of such actions remaining undetected.”
She added it was important for whistle blowers to come forward but said it took a lot for colleagues to “suspend that sense of respect and say ‘actually, I don’t think this is OK and I’m going to pursue it’.”
NHS Somerset said in 2007 it had appointed a senior pharmacist to monitor patterns of prescribing by GPs.
This was a national requirement after Harold Shipman, the serial killer GP, rather than as a direct result of Baker, so these patterns would be picked up now.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Chris Huhne says the allegations are incorrect Police will be speaking to “key individuals” over allegations cabinet minister Chris Huhne tried to evade punishment for speeding.
The energy secretary has been under pressure since his ex-wife suggested someone close to him took licence points for him after a speeding offence committed on the M11 motorway in 2003.
Police said there were “many lines of inquiry to be taken”.
On Monday Mr Huhne dismissed the allegations as “simply incorrect”.
Detective Superintendent Tim Wills, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: “There are many lines of inquiry to be taken and the team are still working to establish if an offence has been committed.
“Obviously, this will entail speaking to key individuals identified by the enquiry team. It would not be appropriate to release any more information prior to progressing these lines of inquiry.”
Det Supt Wills was tasked with looking into the allegations after Labour MP Simon Danczuk lodged a formal complaint with police against Mr Huhne, MP for Eastleigh.
This came after claims surfaced in newspaper stories following an interview with his estranged wife Vicky Pryce.
“He denies all the allegations on the issue”
Prime minister’s spokesman
Before the police investigation was announced, Conservative Justice Secretary Ken Clarke told BBC Radio 5 live: “I have no idea whether there is anything to prove him wrong.
“I realise he’s in trouble and I hope somebody sorts out whether it be true or not. But I’ve known him for years, long before he was a colleague, and he insists it is untrue, and at the moment I have no reason to disbelieve that.”
Mr Clarke added: “The cabinet has not discussed it. He does not need the full backing of the cabinet unless and until anyone can undermine him.”
Earlier, Downing Street indicated that David Cameron still had confidence in Mr Huhne.
The prime minister’s spokesman said: “The position on Chris Huhne has not changed. He denies all the allegations on the issue.”
There have been doubts about whether records from 2003 would still survive, but an Essex Police source has told the BBC that “they think there may be” evidence somewhere of the offence in question.
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said it was “very, very unlikely” that a record of a speeding offence eight years ago would still be held on police systems, but if information emerged from elsewhere – for example, court or local authority records – then police would use it.
HM Court Service said individual courts kept records of speeding offences they had dealt with, but it was up to each to decide how long those were retained.
Chelmsford Magistrates Court, which was reportedly involved in Mr Huhne’s case, said its paper files were destroyed after three years, but records of cases dating back to 1898 were accessible via archives.
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Night raids are immensely unpopular in Afghanistan and triggered a large protest in Taloqan At least 12 people have been killed in northern Afghanistan during a protest against an overnight raid by Nato and Afghan forces, hospital sources have told the BBC.
About 80 demonstrators were injured in the clashes in the city of Taloqan.
Security officials said some of the demonstrators were armed.
They were protesting against the raid in which four people – who Nato said were insurgents – were killed.
An official in the city said that the Afghan National Army and a rapid reaction force had been deployed in the city and the situation was now mostly under control.
The official said that some of the 2,000 demonstrators were armed and had destroyed public and private property. He said reinforcements had been called into Taloqan from neighbouring Kunduz province.
The violence appears to have begun when protesters angered over the night-time raid placed the bodies of those killed in the main square of Taloqan.
They chanted slogans against the US and President Hamid Karzai and threw stones against a German military base and a police office.
Some threw stones, others carried axes and shovels and shops were looted.
The Nato-led mission says that two women and two men were killed in the night raid. It said that the women were armed, one with an assault rifle, the other with a pistol.
But the demonstrators insist that all four were civilians.
The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says that female insurgents are rare, but not unheard of.
Our correspondent says that night raids are deeply unpopular, but have been effective at finding and killing insurgent commanders.
They form a key part of Nato’s counter-insurgency strategy – but many Afghans, including President Karzai – have said they must end.
A few days ago the accidental killing by foreign troops of a 15-year-old boy led to a demonstration in Nagahar province. There one protester was killed and five wounded.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the security services have made some mistakes in their handling of anti-government protests.
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Bids on eBay for Princess Beatrice’s unusual royal wedding hat surpass £18,000.
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