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After 18 months of bitter disputes, British Airways has finally reached an agreement with the union representing its cabin crew which could bring an end to the strikes.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Sir Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie want the European Tour to change its logo to an image of Seve Ballesteros, who died on 7 May.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The prisoners will be vetted by prison staff and the BBC The BBC is to broadcast its political panel programme Question Time from inside a prison for the first time.
Ten Wormwood Scrubs inmates and 10 staff will join 100 members of the public in the audience next Thursday.
They can question Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, ex-Home Secretary Jack Straw and other panellists.
In April, the European Court of Human Rights gave the UK six months to comply with its ruling to extend the right to vote to convicted prisoners.
A BBC spokesman said: “There will be 10 prisoners, none of whom will have been serving for any violent crimes. They will be vetted by the prison staff and the BBC.”
The programme will recorded about 2030 BST at the west London prison and broadcast at 2235 BST.
“The involvement in the debate of prisoners and prison staff will offer Question Time viewers a unique insight into their views on the issue of the right to vote as well as more general questions,” the spokesman said.
The programme is filmed at a different location each week.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the value of all the goods and services produced by a country.
This chart shows how much GDP has grown, or contracted, every year since the launch of the euro.
It shows very clearly the damage caused to the whole of the eurozone by the financial crisis.
Notice that while Portugal did not experience a huge dip in 2009, its GDP growth was relatively low for much of the previous decade, which made the big infrastructure projects it was pursuing difficult to afford.
The chart shows data for all of the countries that officially use the euro as well as the UK, which is included to allow for comparisons.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Iain Mackenzie
Domesday Project producer Alex Mansfield shows Rory Cellan-Jones life in the UK as recorded by the 1980s project
A good idea, combined with the right technology, can change the world.
Facebook, Wikipedia and the wheel have all shown this to be true.
25 years ago, the BBC dreamt up a similarly inspired scheme.
However, in the case of the Domesday Project, it was the tech that doomed it.
The premise was straightforward enough – create a 20th century version of William the Conqueror’s 900-year-old page-turner, the Domesday Book.
Instead of land rights and livestock, it would chronicle life in 1980s Britain, based on photographs and written accounts submitted by ordinary people.
It was an incredibly ambitious undertaking and, in many ways, the Domesday Project was a success.
The BBC received more than a million contributions and the electronic version was released commercially.
There was even a TV gameshow called Domesday Detectives, hosted by the doyen of 80’s TV quizzes, Paul Coia.
But the system’s designers were limited by the technology of the day.
Domesday was released on two Laserdiscs – the cutting edge of video storage in a pre-CD, pre-DVD world.
Users needed a BBC Master computer running special software to access the Domesday interface.
The whole setup cost around £5,000 putting it out of the reach of ordinary people, as well as most schools and libraries.
Domesday used the now obsolete Laserdisc system Only 1,000 Domesday systems were sold nationwide.
In the proceeding quarter century, the technology became obsolete, making the content on the discs inaccessible to all but a few enthusiasts.
Now, after a year of extracting, copying and indexing, the BBC is making the contents of the “community disc” – which details everyday life in Britain – available on the internet.
The team behind the project believe that they have finally been able to put right one of Domesday’s great contradictions, namely that the fruits of this exercise in democracy were only available to a handful of people.
Domesday Reloaded producer Alex Mansfield explained that transferring the data from Laserdisc to the web was problematic because none of the data was stored in recognisable file formats.
“It was pre-digital photography, so all those pictures are analogue, even though they are on a Laserdisc. There is no compression,” said Mr Mansfield.
Each individual photograph, satellite image or map page was stored as a single frame of video on the disc.
While the system appears to function like a modern-day website, with pictures loading when they are clicked on, the playback head is constantly jumping between 50,000 video stills.
Each of these images had to be digitised from the original one inch video tape.
Domesday’s many written articles proved easier to recover because they were created in a digital format.
Although, with no data storage capability, the thousands of pages of text had to be encoded and stored on one of the Laserdisc’s spare audio tracks.
The Domesday Project documented events like pit closures and the miners’ strike. Excerpt from a promotional video with contributors and Project Editor Peter Armstrong.
In addition to making the entire community disc available online, the Reloaded project aims to continue Domesday’s original mission.
21st century users are being encouraged to update the archive by adding their own photographs and written insights.
Through the website, contributors can upload new text entries and digital images.
Users can now access the Domesday Disk content through a standard web browser Getting involved with Domesday in 2011 is much simpler than it was in the 1980s, according to Alex Mansfield.
“Everybody entered their data on floppy discs on a BBC micro in the classroom or library.
“They then took the disc out, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and sent it to the BBC,” he said.
The revised Domesday archive will finally be closed to new contributions in November, at which time it will be handed over to The National Archives.
Future generations will be able to access this unique snapshot of life in Britain online for as long as the internet keeps working.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The boat carrying the asylum seekers went down in high seas just off Christmas Island Australia has charged a man with 89 counts of people smuggling over the shipwreck tragedy at Christmas Island.
Iranian-born Australian citizen Ali Khorram Heydakhani appeared in court in Sydney after being deported from Indonesia earlier in the day.
The 40-year-old was denied bail and will be tried in Western Australia.
Up to 50 asylum seekers are believed to have died when their boat smashed into rocks off Christmas Island on 15 December last year.
Australia has an offshore immigration processing centre on the island.
Coastguards rescued 42 survivors – mainly Iranian, Iraqi and Kurdish asylum seekers – and recovered 30 bodies from the sea.
It is thought that up to 20 more people remain unaccounted for.
The group were making their way to Australia via Indonesia. Mr Heydakhani was arrested in Indonesia on 25 January.
The 89 counts relate to three other operations as well as the Christmas Island incident.
Three men who were on board the boat have already been charged with “facilitating the bringing to Australia of a group of five or more persons”.
Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said Australia would continue to work with regional partners “to frustrate, prosecute and punish those who seek to make a profit by endangering the lives of others”.
“Those people who seek to lure, in some cases people who are desperate, into unseaworthy vessels where people’s lives are at risk, where people perish, will be punished,” he said.
More than 1,700 asylum seekers are currently detained at Australia’s offshore processing centre on Christmas Island.
The island lies in the Indian Ocean about 2,600km (1,600 miles) from the Australian mainland, but only 300km south of Indonesia.
Australia says it wants to deter asylum applicants from journeying to Australian waters by boat.
It has recently agreed a deal with Malaysia to send 800 “boat people” for processing there, and is reported to be in discussions with the government of Papua New Guinea over the possible reopening of the Manus Island detention camp.
That camp was used as part of the John Howard government’s “Pacific solution” – a policy that the current government pledged to end when it took power.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
International pressure and questions are mounting on Pakistan in the wake of the Osama bin Laden killing about other militant groups operating in the country.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Queen has become the second longest reigning monarch in British history.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Previous demonstrations in Aleppo have involved just a few hundred people Security forces have broken up a demonstration by thousands of students in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, witnesses and activists say.
The dormitory protest is thought to be the city’s biggest so far.
The students demanded an end to the military siege of other cities in Syria including Homs, Deraa and Banias, the main flashpoints of dissent against President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Eighteen people were reported killed on Wednesday amid an ongoing crackdown.
Tanks shelled Homs, the country’s third city, and clashes were reported in towns and villages around Deraa, where the protests began in March.
Thousands of people have reportedly been arrested and hundreds killed in the government crackdown.
The Syrian government insists it is pursuing “armed terrorist gangs”.
On Wednesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on President Assad to “heed calls for reform and freedom and to desist from excessive force and mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators”.
There have been several student demonstrations at Aleppo in past weeks, but they have usually only involved a few hundred people and been swiftly dispersed.
This seems to have been the biggest so far, with several thousand students gathering on the campus on the western side of the city, and chanting slogans in solidarity with Deraa.
As has happened in the past, fellow students loyal to the Assad regime and security agents with batons moved in and dispersed the crowds.
One report said police closed the main road leading from the centre of the city to the campus, in an attempt to keep the crowd from spilling over into the city centre.
Aleppo itself has been largely untouched by the unrest so far.
Analysts say that unless Aleppo, and the Syrian capital Damascus, are fully caught up in the revolt, the protesters’ chances of toppling the regime are slim.
The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut, Lebanon, says the authorities know that and have done everything possible to ensure the flames of protest do not take hold in the two big cities.
However, Homs, the third-biggest city in Syria, is still in the grip of a harsh crackdown by troops and tanks.
BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse: “This video appears to show men in plain clothes firing guns in Hama”
One resident there told the BBC that the Bab Amr district had been under siege since Saturday, with no water, electricity or access to medical care.
Shelling began early on Wednesday, and hundreds of troops were reported to have moved in.
Activists told the BBC that about 500 people had been arrested in Homs since Wednesday, including more than 100 on Tuesday night.
It has not been possible to verify the accounts because foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter Syria.
The state news agency, Sana, reported that troops and security agents had “arrested dozens of wanted men and seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition in Bab Amr”, as well as in Deraa.
It cited sources as saying that one soldier was killed and four were injured in Bab Amr, while one was killed and another injured in rural Deraa. A number of “terrorists” were killed and injured, it added.
Deraa, where the unrest began in mid-March, has been cut off by troops for more than two weeks, with dozens killed and hundreds arrested.
The government says the situation there is now normal, but it has refused to allow UN humanitarian teams in.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 647 civilians have been killed since pro-democracy protests began on 18 March. Another rights group, Sawasiah, says more than 800 civilians have died.
Officials dispute the civilian toll and say about 100 soldiers have died.
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A mobile phone snapshot, reportedly taken in Qamishli on 29 April, shows protesters carrying banners written in Arabic and Kurdish demanding democracy.
This footage, which the BBC cannot verify, seems to show demonstrators in Midan, central Damascus, on Friday afternoon. A source in Damascus says he could see a lot of security and police officers in the main areas of Damascus after protests began after Friday prayers finished.
This unverified video seems to show a peaceful protest in Talbisah. Moments into the footage, tanks fire on unarmed civilians. Wyre Davis reports.
A soldier walks past men in civilian clothes lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs in this still photo taken from an amateur video.
11 May: The Times’ chief foreign correspondent, Martin Fletcher, tells the BBC Radio Four’s Today programme how he was detained in Homs and the hard line that Syria is taking with protesters.
Send your pictures and videos to [email protected] or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
University leavers have faced a tough jobs market since the economic downturn University leavers are increasingly taking non-graduate jobs, according to research.
Six months after leaving university, about 40% of last year’s graduates were “underemployed” in lower-skilled jobs, up from about 30% four years before.
The research, published by the Association of Accounting Technicians, says new graduates have been among the worst hit by the economic downturn.
A degree remains a “good investment”, says a government spokesman.
The research, carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, forecasts a worsening jobs market for graduates who will leave this summer.
It warns that 55% of the next wave of university leavers will either be working in non-graduate jobs, or will be unemployed, six months after they finish at university.
“”If we are asking people to invest £9,000 a year on tuition fees, they should expect a credible return on that investment”
Jane Scott Paul Association of Accounting Technicians
The report says this raises doubts about the financial value of degrees.
“If we are asking people to invest £9,000 a year on tuition fees, they should expect a credible return on that investment,” said Jane Scott Paul, the association’s chief executive.
The report concludes that “many university subjects are offering very poor returns in terms of improved job prospects”.
The analysis looks at what it says is the growing trend for “underemployment”, in which graduates are in low-skilled jobs where a degree is not required.
Four years ago, there were 32% of university leavers in low-skilled jobs six months after graduating.
The study forecasts that this will rise to 42%, for graduates leaving this summer.
There are variations between different subject areas, with history and philosophy graduates are most likely to be “underemployed”.
Graduates in medicine, dentistry and veterinary science are the most likely to be in graduate employment.
The report also looks at graduate unemployment – warning that since the financial crash of 2008 “unemployment among new graduates has risen drastically”.
“Research has shown that graduates earn, on average, more than £100,000 more over their working life”
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
The figure for those without jobs six months after graduating has risen from about 11% in 2007 to 20% for those graduating in 2010.
The study estimates that about 59,000 of last year’s graduates have not found jobs, and that unemployment among new graduates is rising to levels not seen since the mid-1990s.
However the study shows that over a longer period graduates are still less likely to be unemployed compared to the national average.
Recent graduate job surveys have suggested that the employment market has begun to improve, after a deep decline during the financial downturn.
The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) reported a growth in job vacancies earlier this year after “many months of misery for graduates”.
But competition remains intense – with the AGR reporting that last summer many graduate employers were setting a 2:1 degree grade as a minimum entry level.
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “A degree is a good investment and is one of the best pathways to achieving a good job and rewarding career.
“Not only do employers prize the highly-developed skills and talents graduates can bring to their businesses, but research has shown that graduates earn, on average, more than £100,000 more over their working life.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Harbour seals can detect the fattest fish using just their whiskers, according to research.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A court in Germany is expected to give its verdict in the case of alleged Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk, accused of helping to murder 27,900 Jews.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg walked into Downing Street together a year ago David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be together at an event later to launch a government drive on youth unemployment.
The prime minister and his deputy will announce a £60m package to boost work prospects and vocational education.
They will commit in their appearance in London to tackle “structural barriers” to young people starting a career.
It comes as the coalition is under more strain after the flagship policy of directly elected police commissioners was defeated in the House of Lords.
The relationship was already tense after Nick Clegg stressed how his party was influencing government policy and David Cameron told his MPs he would not allow the Lib Dems to pose as moderators to the Tories’ ambitions.
“It’s time to reverse the trend of rising youth unemployment that has held back our country for far too long”
David Cameron
Then on Wednesday night the House of Lords backed a Lib Dem move to block the plans for directly elected police commissioners.
This inflicted an unexpected defeat on a key government policy, part of the coalition agreement.
Labour has suggested the legislation cannot survive in its current form but the Home Office has made it clear it will try to overturn the vote in the Commons.
BBC political correspondent Carole Walker says the defeat demonstrates how hard it may be to maintain discipline as the two parties in the coalition each strive to be more assertive about their own separate identities.
The launch comes a year after Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron walked into Downing Street together.
The government said it would provide funding for 250,000 more apprenticeships over the next four years and 100,000 work placements over the next two years.
More than 100 large companies and tens of thousands of small businesses had pledged to offer work experience places, ministers added.
Mr Cameron said: “It’s time to reverse the trend of rising youth unemployment that has held back our country for far too long and help our young people get the jobs on which their future – and ours – depends.
“But government can’t act alone. We need employers who are prepared to give young people a go.
“So I’m delighted that over 100 large companies and tens of thousands of small and medium sized enterprises have already responded to our call for work experience placements so that tens of thousands of young people can take those vital first steps in experiencing the world of work.”
Mr Clegg said: “We all have a responsibility – government, business, charities, education providers – to work together to find a solution.”
But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the proposals failed to match the guarantees given by the now cut Future Jobs Fund.
“The best thing the government could do is stop their deep rapid spending cuts that are running the whole economy into the ground, with the young as the worst victims,” he said.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The research led to a gene map for MRSA Genes that make MRSA resistant to antibiotics have been pinpointed by UK scientists.
More than 20 genes which help the superbug attack the human body have been identified, including one that may be a focus for future drug development.
The work, in BMC Systems Biology, was carried out by Medical Research Council researchers in London and Scotland.
There were 781 deaths involving the infection in the UK in 2009, compared with 51 in 1993.
MRSA is a form of Staphylococcus aureus that has grown resistant to the antibiotic Methicillin.
The experts studied a toxin from the skin of a bullfrog that kills MRSA.
They used lab tests and computer analysis to show the agent does this by weakening both the wall of the bacterium and its membrane.
They also put together a map of the relationships between most of the bacterium’s genes.
The findings may help in the development of new therapies.
Professor Nick Hastie of the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh said: “This work is a fine example of the relationship between analysing the fundamental processes which help infections to take hold and exploiting this knowledge to improve drug treatments.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
More than 17,000 burglars were sentenced in 2009 Courts would have to take more account of victims’ feelings in burglary cases under planned new sentencing guidance.
The Sentencing Council for England and Wales is launching a three-month public consultation on its proposals.
For domestic burglary it suggests only least serious offences should escape a custodial sentence, with three to six-year jail terms for the most serious.
But the Criminal Justice Alliance said community sentences might be more appropriate in some cases.
Gemma Lousley, from the group which represents more than 50 organisations, said: “As the draft guideline acknowledges, many offenders convicted of acquisitive crimes are motivated by an addiction.
“Community sentences are more effective than short prison sentences in addressing these problems and helping individuals to turn away from crime, and we would urge that this is more clearly reflected in the guideline.”
The council’s guidelines would be the first overall advice for sentencing for the different types of burglary offences – domestic, non-domestic, and those committed with a weapon, known as aggravated burglary.
“Some responses expressed grave concerns that any sentence for domestic burglary should be non-custodial”
The Sentencing Council
The proposed guidance for non-domestic burglary ranges from a fine to a maximum of four years in prison depending on the circumstances.
The proposals have taken account of the views of the public and victims, who thought domestic burglary should generally result in a custodial sentence but not in every case.
The council said the lowest level of offenders, for whom a non-custodial community sentence might be appropriate, could include those with no previous convictions who did not force entry and took goods of low value.
It said the Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP) “consulted specifically on whether a community order starting point, where no factors indicating greater culpability or harm are present, was appropriate”.
“There was broad agreement with the approach, though some responses expressed grave concerns that any sentence for domestic burglary should be non-custodial,” the Sentencing Council said.
“However, the SAP identified that even those responding in this way seemed to be content for a non-custodial sentence to result following consideration of mitigating factors applying either to the offence or to the offender.”
Council chairman Lord Justice Leveson said: “The guideline does not reduce the severity of sentences being given to those convicted of burglary.
“Rather, it reinforces current sentencing practice that burglars targeting people’s homes can expect a custodial sentence.”
The council released figures showing that 17,387 burglars were sentenced in 2009, costing the prison service £210m and the probation service £20m.
Of these, 9,670 were for domestic burglary, 7,452 for non-domestic burglary and 265 for aggravated burglary.
Javed Khan, chief executive of Victim Support, said he hoped the guideline would “make sentencing more transparent as well as strengthen the voice of victims by taking into account the impact of burglary”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.