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A senior police officer is calling on the government to review whether laws governing cyber-stalking in the UK are fit for purpose.

Greater Manchester Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan wants police to be given more powers to seize computers used to harass victims online.

It is hard to prove who committed stalking even though it is easy to establish which computer was used.

The Home Office says it is investigating the issue.

Mr Shewan, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) leader on the issue of stalking and harassment, met ministers at the Home Office last week.

He said: “The legislation is 12 years old and I don’t think anyone envisaged 12 years ago the extent that the world wide web would open up opportunities to harass and stalk people via the internet.”

Cyber-stalkers can currently either be charged under the Protection from Harassment Act or the Malicious Communications Act, but charities and academics say neither is sufficient given the expansion in technology in recent years.

As the number of people using computers has increased, so has the ability to tap into personal information online.

Mr Shewan wants it to be easier to seize computer equipment from a suspect and to get internet providers to hand over the unique identifier of each computer – the IP address.

Professor Carsten Maple, who heads the National Centre for Cyber-stalking Research at Bedfordshire University, said it was easy for those in-the-know to track down information.

He said Trojan spyware can be used to hack into anybody’s computer, access their personal files and even secretly switch on their webcam.

Trojans are viruses which pose as harmless programmes and can be sent into computers via e-mails and other methods.

Yet currently police find it difficult to seize computer equipment unless they can prove there was an intention to cause fear or distress.

Prof Maple added his voice to calls for a review of the legislation.

He said: “The lack of power to seize computers makes it difficult to prove who is responsible for stalking, even if it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that a particular device was used to commit a crime.”

Jane Harvey from the Network for Surviving Stalking said 77% of stalking victims waited until more than 100 incidents had happened before going to the police.

She said when they finally took that step it was vital their allegations were taken seriously and the situation investigated fully.

“This is a devastating crime – being stalked online can ruin people’s lives,” she said.

“We urge the government and the police to do everything possible to ensure those affected by cyber-stalking get proper access to justice.”

Prosecutions under the Malicious Communications Act have soared to an all-time high and increased almost 300% in five years to 899 last year.

Charges under the Protection from Harassment Act have risen from just under 12,000 to 12,549 in five years.

Separate figures from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) show that last year 33% of stalking incidents were by e-mail, 32% by text message and another 8.4% through social networking sites.

A Home Office spokesman said it was working with the police, Crown Prosecution Service and charities to try to improve the police response and make sure there were robust prosecutions.

He said: “Cyber stalking is a crime. As with all other forms of stalking we take it very seriously and we expect other agencies to do the same.

“The Home Office, Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service are currently working together with victims and support charities to discuss whether the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and its enforcement has been effective in providing an appropriate response to stalking.”

You can hear the full report on 5 live Investigates on Sunday 1 May at 2100 BST on BBC Radio 5 live. You can also listen again on the BBC iPlayer or by downloading the 5 live Investigates podcast.

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

One of the world’s most exclusive types of coffee comes from the hills and mountains of South East Asia.

But this coffee is definitely not to everyone’s taste – it is made from beans which have been eaten and then excreted by small cat-like animals called civets.

Even if you can stomach the fact that this coffee comes from faeces, you still have to stomach the cost – bags of coffee beans can fetch up to $800 (£500) per kilogramme in Japan or the US, and coffee shops in New York sell just one cup for about $50.

But Vie and Basil Reyes believe it is a price worth paying.

They have been running their coffee business for more than six years, and they still believe there is something special about beans that have passed through a civet.

“Even if I’ve drunk lots of other types of coffee, then at the end of the day I drink a cup of civet coffee, I can immediately taste the difference,” said Vie. “It looks different, it smells different, and most importantly it tastes different.”

Coffee connoisseurs usually give two reasons for civet coffee’s unique taste – the fact that the civets self-select the juiciest coffee cherries, which in turn give the best beans, and the fact that – once inside the civet – these beans are fermented by enzymes in the stomach.

After being thoroughly washed and roasted, the end product lacks the bitterness of some ordinary coffees and has a soft, chocolaty flavour.

The Reyes got the idea for their business, Café Alamid – alamid is the local name for civet – after discovering that there was already a growing industry in Indonesia.

But when they spoke to people living in the Philippines’ coffee-growing areas, they found that the locals were already well aware of the benefits of civet coffee – in fact they’d been drinking it for centuries. They just didn’t know there was a market for it.

“They considered it as a lower grade coffee. They thought the bad coffee was on the ground, the premium coffee was on the tree,” explained Mr Reyes.

“Since they couldn’t sell it, that’s what they drank – they already knew it tasted better than regular coffee.”

The couple now pay groups of villagers in six different areas of the Philippines to collect civet droppings.

At $20/kg, collecting civet poo is a good if unusual source of income for people living in areas where there are often few other options for employment.

It is a good source of employment for the Reyes too. Roasted beans can sell for several hundred dollars a kilo, depending on their quality.

Other companies have also started sourcing civet droppings, and some even capture and cage civets to make the process less labour-intensive.

In Indonesia, where the civet coffee industry is more established, there are now many of these small-scale civet farms.

But some coffee connoisseurs doubt whether droppings from caged civets have the same quality as those from wild civets.

“It the civet is in a cage, it eats whatever it’s fed – it doesn’t select the best beans the way it would do in the wild,” said Peter Slack, from the Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia.

Then, of course, there are farmers who try to pass off ordinary coffee beans as beans which have been eaten by the civet.

“With the prices people are people in some places, of course there will be fakes,” said Mr Slack.

Meanwhile, year by year, demand increases. Most customers are in Asia – especially Japan, Taiwan and South Korea – although high-end restaurants and gourmet stores in the US and Europe are becoming interested too.

In her home-cum-production factory in the outskirts of Manila, Vie Reyes is baffled at how much shops and restaurants in some parts of the world can charge for civet coffee.

“There was someone who approached me here, and he wanted to become a distributor for the UK. He said that civet coffee in the UK sells for about £40 a cup,” she said.

“I told him that’s incredible.”

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

Hong Kong has introduced a minimum wage that is expected to benefit 270,000 low-paid workers, or around 10% of the working population.

Workers will now earn a minimum of HK$28 ($3.60; £2.18) per hour.

The legislation was passed in response to public pressure to narrow the territory’s wealth gap.

But the minimum wage has been resisted by the business community, who say it is too costly.

Business leaders say small businesses will be forced to lay off staff.

Critics also say the legislation is a departure from Hong Kong’s free-market roots.

With the exception of Singapore, most Asian countries now have a minimum wage or are considering one.

The move is expected to boost the pay of Hong Kong’s legions of street sweepers, security guards and restaurant workers.

“The employers now cannot squeeze the lowest paid sectors of society,” said Lee Cheuk-yan, head of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and a legislator.

Unions had campaigned for a minimum wage of HK$33 an hour and many workers say the wage increase will not cover rising living costs.

The government said it was forced to introduce the legislation after a voluntary minimum wage scheme in 2006 met with a tepid response from businesses.

Even before its implementation, the legislation has led to disputes between workers and employers.

Some employers have re-hired workers on new contracts with unpaid meal breaks and rest days to avoid paying a higher wage bill.

The legislation does not cover the territory’s almost 300,000 domestic helpers, who mainly come from the Philippines and Indonesia.

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

An Oxfam warehouse in Huddersfield has been badly damaged in a fire.

Up to 60 firefighters were at the fire at an industrial estate in Beck Road at its height on Saturday evening.

The single-storey building measuring 55m by 40m houses Oxfam Wastesaver, which sorts thousands of tonnes of donated clothes and textiles.

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said the warehouse was “100% involved” in the fire and a structural engineer had been called to assess its safety.

People living nearby said they heard “a big explosion” and loud popping noises after the fire started at about 1800 BST.

A spokeswoman for the fire service said six fire engines plus specialist units had been sent to the fire and crews were expected to remain there until at least Sunday morning.

She said 20 propane canisters were found at the scene by firefighters but were not involved in the fire.

Oxfam Wastesaver receives clothes, textiles and shoes from donations that are not immediately sold through the charity’s shops.

The facility sorts through the donations and they are either sent out to shops, sold online, exported or recycled.

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

Could computer games be the solution for persuading children with cystic fibrosis to complete their physiotherapy?

The genetic condition leads to the build-up of thick mucus in the lungs.

Physiotherapy, including breathing exercises, is used to clear the lungs and open up the airways.

Carys, aged 12, from Glasgow, has two sessions a day, – but as her mother, Michelle McMonagle, says: “There is a conflict between what she wants to do and what she knows she has to do.”

For Carys, computer games, drawing, music, drama and movies are all more appealing.

“There’s other things she wants to do. It’s like washing dishes or any chore, you’d rather be doing anything else,” says Ms McMonagle.

Doctors in the US have noticed children rarely perform their breathing exercises, preferring to do other things, such as playing computer games – so they combined the two.

Instead of using a hand-held controller or motion sensor, these games rely on a spirometer, which measures how much and how fast air is exhaled.

Breathing is used to drive a car in one racing game and to blow slime off animals in another.

Professor Peter Bingham, from the University of Vermont and Fletcher Allen Health Care, tried the games out on 13 children with cystic fibrosis (CF), aged between eight and 18.

He said: “The key finding was that children actually use them.

“Spirometer games can be a good way to involve children in respiratory therapy.

“It’s ethical and appropriate to meet kids where they are with some engaging, digital games that can help them take charge of their own health.”

Professor Peter Bingham now wants to do a larger clinical trial on the games’ effectiveness.

Ms McMonagle said: “I know lots of parents who already use trampolines to encourage exercise; anything that makes physio more attractive is going to help.”

The condition affects more than 8,500 children and young adults in the UK.

Gemma Matthews, from the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, said: “Children with CF have a heavy daily burden of treatment every day, which they often find tiresome.

“Clinicians and parents are constantly thinking of new ways to encourage children to do their treatment and engaging them through video games is a great way to make treatment less of a chore.”

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

The acclaimed military historian, Professor Richard Holmes CBE, has died at the age of 65.

Known for sharing his knowledge of warfare on BBC documentaries, he also taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Cranfield University.

His specialities included England’s conflicts with France in the Middle Ages and World War II. He also wrote numerous books.

His focus was the ordinary soldier, whom he wanted to “put centre stage”.

Prof Holmes was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, as well as Northern Illinois University and the University of Reading.

He served in the Territorial Army in which he commanded the 2nd Battalion the Wessex Regiment and eventually rose to the rank of brigadier.

He became the first reservist to hold the position of director of Reserve Forces and Cadets.

After a spell of teaching at Sandhurst, he joined Cranfield University as a teacher in 1986 where he worked until 2009.

He was a keen supporter of the Army Benevolent Fund, and was the president of the British Commission for Military History and the Battlefields Trust; patron of the Guild of Battlefield Guides; and vice president of the UK National Defence Association. In 1998 he was m made a CBE.

But he was probably best known for his television work, which included television documentaries on the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and Oliver Cromwell whom he championed in the BBC’s Great Britons programme in 2002.

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

US billionaire investor Warren Buffett has faced uncomfortable questions from shareholders in his company about the resignation of a top executive.

David Sokol had violated Berkshire Hathaway’s insider-trading rules, he told the meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

Mr Sokol traded shares worth $10m (£5.9m) in Lubrizol before convincing Mr Buffett to mount a $9bn takeover.

Mr Buffett admitted he had “made a big mistake” by not pressing Mr Sokol when he mentioned the investment in passing.

Berkshire Hathaway earlier said its first quarter profits had dropped more than half – a fall of more than $2bn – partly because of insurance losses associated with the natural disasters in Japan and New Zealand.

The annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway is usually a celebration of the company’s investment successes, but the Sokol affair made the atmosphere less pleasant this year, correspondents say.

Mr Sokol, who ran an energy utility for the company, had been widely tipped to succeed Mr Buffett, 80, as chief executive before his resignation last month, when it emerged he had bought Lubrizol shares in January.

“He violated our insider-trading rules and he violated the principles I lay out every two years to our managers,” Mr Buffett said.

Mr Buffett has previously revealed that Mr Sokol made a “passing remark” about a personal investment in Lubrizol.

But Berkshire Hathaway’s audit committee said in a report that Mr Buffett was unaware of when Mr Sokol’s shares were purchased or that he was working with Citigroup bankers on the takeover.

“I made a big mistake by not saying: ‘Well, when did you buy it?'” he admitted.

Lubrizol jumped 28% on the New York Stock Exchange on 14 March when Mr Buffett announced a deal to buy the company.

Mr Sokol’s lawyer said on Wednesday that his client had no reason to believe Mr Buffett would want to buy Lubrizol at the time he bought stock, and that he had been studying the company months before Lubrizol was mentioned during a meeting with Citigroup investment bankers in December.

“He would not, and did not, trade improperly, nor did he violate any fair reading of the Berkshire Hathaway policies,” a statement said.

Mr Buffett runs Berkshire Hathaway’s more than 70 subsidiaries, which employ more than 250,000 people, with the help of his 87-year-old vice-chairman, Charles Munger, and 20 others at the firm’s headquarters.

Mr Buffett also told shareholders that he was not sure it had been warranted to assume Sokol was his most likely successor.

“Certainly the candidate that I think is the leading candidate now, I would lay a lot of money on the fact that he is as straight as an arrow,” 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.

A family of eight suffered burns and the effects of smoke inhalation when they were the victims of a suspected arson attack in Birmingham.

West Midlands Police is appealing for witnesses to the fire which happened in Crompton Road, Nechells, at about 0500 BST.

A fire service spokesman said a 28-year-old woman was taken to hospital with 30% burns and a broken ankle.

Police said her ankle injury was caused when she jumped from a window.

A man and a woman in their 20s were also hospitalised with 20% burns and a woman in her 20s was taken to hospital suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation.

Four others were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.

One of the family’s pet dogs died in the fire and another was rescued by firefighters.

Anyone who witnessed anything suspicious on Crompton Road around the time of the fire is asked to contact police.

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