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NHS shake-up ‘changes possible’

The NHS is under going a major revamp

MPs have heaped more pressure on the government for its overhaul of the NHS in England by suggesting GPs should not be allowed to take control of the budget all by themselves.

The House of Commons’ health committee said they should be joined by a range of staff including nurses and hospital doctors to decide how funds are spent.

The move would improve accountability and decision-making, the MPs said.

It came as ministers plan a new push to convince people of the need for change.

Criticism has been mounting in recent weeks that the reforms could lead to the privatisation of the NHS.

While the government has rejected these claims, there has been an acceptance in recent days that the government has not being doing well enough at communicating the need for change.

On Monday, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said he wanted to use the coming weeks to engage with people. Details of a so-called “listening exercise” will be sent out later this week, but it is expected to involve both David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Under the reforms, the government wants GPs working together in consortia to take control of much of the NHS budget so they can plan and buy local health services.

But the MPs said the sole focus on family doctors was wrong.

“If you are going to design cancer services is it not a good idea to include cancer specialists?”

Stephen Dorrell Health committee chairman

Instead, they said the GP consortia should be re-named NHS commissioning authorities and be overseen by a board with representatives from other specialities.

The MPs accepted GPs should still be in a majority but added by involving public health chiefs, hospital staff, nurses, councillors and social care officials it would become more accountable and effective.

Committee chairman Stephen Dorrell, a Tory MP and former health secretary, said such a move was not just a “minor tweak” as it would lead to the groups taking on even more responsibility for services such as dentistry that under the current plans would be organised by a national board.

He said the expertise of other professionals was essential to ensure the best decisions were taken and to avoid conflicts of interest.

“If you are going to design cancer services is it not a good idea to include cancer specialists?”

But he added the move would also help build consensus over the tough actions that would be needed to help the NHS save money in the coming years.

“An old rule of human nature is if you feel you are being involved you are more likely to accept consequences of a decision.”

The committee also said the plan to encourage greater competition – a key plank of the reform programme – risked undermining the decision-making process.

The MPs said there may be instances where commissioners may want to just use one provider – perhaps a local NHS hospital to keep an A&E unit viable – but that may not be possible if competition law was strictly applied.

Rosie Cooper, a Labour member of the committee, said it was time for the government to “take a deep breath” and have a re-think over its plans.

Nigel Edwards, acting head of the NHS Confederation, which represents managers, said the proposals had merit, but he warned against getting councillors involved in the commissioning groups.

“There are very few questions to which the answer is ‘more politicians’. We’re all for more scrutiny of GP consortia decisions but there is a point where political involvement becomes unhelpful to the running of an organisation.”

The Department of Health said it would consider the recommendations in due time.

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

£50K reward to catch Kerr killers

Ronan Kerr’s remains were taken to his mother’s house in Beragh

The funeral of murdered Constable Ronan Kerr is expected to take place on Wednesday.

His body was brought to his mother’s home in Beragh, County Tyrone, on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old Catholic police officer died when a bomb exploded under his car in Omagh on Saturday.

His mother, Nuala, has urged Catholics not to be deterred from joining the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Tyrone Gaelic Athletic Association County board chairman Kieran McLaughlin, who visited the family, said the dissidents believed to be behind the killing had little support.

“Whilst politically there are a small number of people who are motivated in this way, the vast majority of people in Tyrone and across Ulster have moved on and want to share a society to ensure everyone can be part of it,” he said.

A book of condolence for the dead police officer has been opened in Omagh.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has also organised a lunch-time rally in Belfast on Wednesday to allow people to express their abhorrence at his murder.

On Monday, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Archbishop Sean Brady, said the murder was an attack on all of society.

“I call on young Catholics to actively support the PSNI and join it. We need a police force that represents all of us.

“I also appeal to the parents of children that are being recruited by these groups to get their children to resist,” he said.

“They have not lived through the dark days of the Troubles, tell them the awfulness of what we lived through.”

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, told MPs the murder of Constable Kerr would not destabilise the peace process

Mr Paterson said his murder was “revolting and cowardly”.

Mr Kerr is the second police officer to have been murdered since the Royal Ulster Constabulary became the PSNI in 2001.

He joined the police in May 2010 and had been working in the community since December.

Mr Kerr is survived by his mother, Nuala, two brothers, Cathair and Aaron and a sister, Dairine.

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

Would-be councillor uses false name in phone-in

Ashley Waterhouse said the decision to lie was his alone

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A candidate for Derby City Council has apologised for using a false name in a BBC phone-in about honesty in politics.

Ashley Waterhouse, 22, a Conservative standing in the Normanton ward, rang Radio Derby’s breakfast show calling himself “Paul in Normanton”.

His voice and number were recognised and, after initial denials, Mr Waterhouse admitted he had lied.

Derby South Conservative Association said it had rejected his resignation, calling the deception a “mistake”.

Mr Waterhouse rang Monday’s breakfast show as ‘Paul’ to back calls for election candidates to face more rigorous screening of their backgrounds.

Before the elections on 5 May all callers are routinely asked if they are standing.

Phil Trow, the host of the breakfast show, said: “He said no at that point.

“When we discovered it was his phone number, we phoned him back and asked him whether he was Ashley Waterhouse. He denied it then.

“We phoned him back three times and had three different conversations and he came up with a whole list of elaborate excuses.

“Eventually he phoned back and did confess.”

Asked why he had used a false name, Mr Waterhouse, said: “At the end of the day we all make mistakes, don’t we?”

He added: “As the joke goes, ‘how can you tell a politician is lying? Because he moves his lips’, as I am now.

“But as I said, it was my decision and not the party’s – I am not perfect.”

Phil Bailey, chairman of Derby South Conservative Association, said: “I think it was a genuine mistake, I don’t think it was deceit and lies.

“I just think he wanted to get his point over and I think it was the only way he could see to do it.”

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

University opts for highest fees

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Universities in England have been announcing their tuition fee levels for students starting in 2012, after the government permitted them to raise yearly charges to up to £9,000.

Institutions wanting to charge more than £6,000 must agree measures to help boost recruitment of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and all announced fees remain subject to approval by the Office for Fair Access.

Please send further updates or information to [email protected]

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

Welfare change to help child poor

Some 2.8m children live in child poverty in the UK

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Some 350,000 children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of a single change to the benefit system, the government has said.

Replacing six benefits with the Universal Credit would help lift families out of the “vicious cycle of poverty and dependency”, it said.

It also said it would to take 200,000 children out of the severest poverty.

Charities warn benefit changes will put a huge strain on disadvantaged children.

The promises comes in England’s newly published child poverty strategy.

Launching the strategy, which cuts across three government departments, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: “The legacy of worklessness and benefit dependency is that too many families feel outside of society with no expectation that will change for them or their children.

“The benefit system has trapped people into this depressing cycle. Factors like family breakdown, educational failure, debt and addiction further entrench such disenfranchisement.

“Pouring money into a broken welfare system has only served to have a perverse impact on child poverty.

“From now on we will make sure people are able to work themselves and their families out of poverty and reward those who do the right thing.

“Our reforms will move 350,000 children and 500,000 adults out of poverty instantly and the dynamic impact will change Britain for generations – a change we cannot wait any longer for.”

But the Institute of Fiscal Studies predicted back in December that the welfare shake-up would increase relative child poverty figures by 200,000 in 2012-13 and 2013-14.

CHILD POVERTY IN ENGLAND

Mapping child poverty

The universal credit, which requires claimants to be seeking work, also introduces tough new sanctions for those who refuse work.

The implementation, from October 2013, is projected to take four years but some say it could take as long as a decade to come into effect fully.

The latest figures on relative child poverty relate to 2008-09. They show that 2.8 million, or 22%, of children were living in relative poverty in the UK.

This is defined as children living in homes with an income of 60% less than the median UK income, before housing costs.

The Child Poverty Act commits the government to cut this measure of poverty to 10% by 2020.

The strategy, published on Tuesday, retains this income target but also adopts a new wider approach to measuring disadvantage.

It will work on setting a new indicator on children’s life chances.

It says the government will tackle worklessness and educational failure, through “radical transformation of public services and the welfare state”.

And a new social mobility and child poverty commission is being set up to hold the government to account.

It also pledges a greater emphasis on early intervention and on whole-family, whole life-course approaches.

As expected, the child poverty strategy points to measures already being taken rather than unveiling new policies.

It points to its polices for raising educational achievement among the most deprive groups, such as the funding for nursery places for deprived two-year-olds and giving extra money to schools for taking poor pupils through the pupil premium.

It also highlights the need for universal services and the end of stigmatised services aimed at the deprived.

Chief executive of Family Action Helen Dent said she welcomed the emphasis on early years as a step towards addressing social mobility and child poverty.

She added: “Sure Start cuts and welfare and tax changes coming in tomorrow will put huge strain on disadvantaged families particularly those with babies and young children.

“Some babies will literally be born broke as a result of measures this Government has introduced.”

Children’s Commissioner Dr Maggie Atkinson said: “Many children in the UK are extremely fortunate, our recent research also reveals some young people are worried about living in a cycle of poverty due to the current high rate of unemployment, the prevalence of low paid jobs and income freezes.”

Charities including the Child Poverty Action Group and Barnardo’s say the government is in danger of taking a backward step in the fight to end child poverty.

Head of Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said the ‘strategy’ started from a false premise, suggesting that the last decade made no progress and did not address worklessness.

“In fact there’s been a downward trend for child poverty in workless households, but an upward trend for in-work poverty, which is now the larger problem.

“Although we finally have a document that tells us what the government plans to do, it appears to do very little.

“Taken together with the social mobility strategy it is hard to see how they will have any traction on the major problem of child poverty we face.”

Barnardo’s said it was extremely disappointed that a child poverty commission had not been set up in time for members to provide expert advice on the strategy.

It is concerned that the government will be in breach of the Child Poverty Act 2010 and its statutory duty as a result.

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

Murder jury visits coastal path

The bodies of Gwenda and Peter Dixon were found hidden off the coastal path in Pembrokeshire in 1989

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The jury in a double murder trial is to visit the Pembrokeshire coastal path where two bodies were found.

John William Cooper, from Letterston, denies killing Peter and Gwenda Dixon, from Oxfordshire, in June 1989.

His trial at Swansea Crown Court has heard the holidaymakers’ bodies were found hidden in dense undergrowth near Little Haven.

Mr Cooper, 66, also denies murdering brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas at Scoveston Park in 1985.

The court heard on Monday that the Dixons were last seen on 29 June 1989 as they took one last walk along the coastal path while their tent dried on a sunny morning before they returned to Oxfordshire.

A search was launched four days later, after the Dixons’ son had called the campsite to check on his parents.

The jury was told that the bodies were found after two police dog handlers were led to the scene by what was described as the “smell of death”.

The bodies were on what was described in court as a “plateau” on a cliff edge.

Former Home Office pathologist Prof Bernard Knight told the jury that gunshot wounds he found on the bodies were consistent with a 12-bore shot gun being used from close range, and a degree of precision.

Mrs Dixon was naked from the waist down. She had been shot twice, once in the centre of the back and once in the chest.

A post mortem examination later revealed she had also suffered a “substantial” blow to the head, the court heard.

Mr Dixon, whose arms were bound behind his back, had been shot three times – in the back, the front and in the face, the jury was told.

Mr Cooper is also accused of five robberies, rape and indecent assault relating to an incident in 1996.

He denies all the charges and the trial continues.

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

Man ‘part of Hungarian vice ring’

A Dublin-based restaurateur transported foreign women into Belfast to work in the sex trade, the High Court in Belfast has been told.

Prosecutors claimed Matyas Pis was part of a crime gang who ran a vice-ring involving Hungarian nationals.

PSNI and Garda detectives are to meet on Wednesday as part of a wider investigation into suspected human trafficking, a judge was told.

Mr Pis is charged with two counts of controlling prostitution for gain.

The 37-year-old Hungarian national, with an address at Gaybrook Lawns, Dublin, was refused bail while the investigation continues.

Metropolitan police were first informed by the Hungarian Embassy that a woman who travelled to Belfast to work in a restaurant had allegedly been forced into a brothel, the court heard.

Inquiries established that she first arrived in Dublin last month with another female on flights booked by Mr Pis, it was claimed.

He then allegedly drove them to Belfast, with a witness in the case claiming other women had also spent a night at his house before moving on.

Although Mr Pis went to police in the city after being contact by Irish police, it was alleged that he first cleared out an apartment in the Titanic Quarter.

Two women, who went with Mr Pis to the PSNI station, claimed they had been working as prostitutes at the apartment for the previous week, a crown lawyer said.

Searches of the accused’s car recovered mobile phones, sex aids, SIM cards with different girls’ names attached to each, a laptop computer and lists of names, according to the prosecution.

A cashbox contained about 1,000 euros was also seized.

Conor Maguire, prosecuting, said the women’s services had been advertised on an escort website, with one of them saying she had also plied her trade in Belfast during December and January and paid rent to Mr Pis.

“Police would say that it is a criminal gang and has demonstrated in quite a sophisticated way an ability to transport victims in and out of Northern Ireland using various routes and pre-paid credit cards,” he told police.

Mark Farrell, defending, stressed that his client denied being part of a crime gang and has not been charged with the more serious human trafficking offences.

He said Mr Pis voluntarily went to police, with the two women going with him in an attempt to “exonerate him from any wrongdoing”.

He added: “If he is guilty of a crime, he is guilty of assisting two willing prostitutes in carrying out their business without gain, without financial reward to him.”

But refusing bail, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan said the police inquiry was still at an early stage.

The judge pointed out: “What is being investigated here is an (alleged) course of conduct involving a significant number of women, with the position in relation to the degree of exploitation not yet ascertained.”

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

Teacher jailed for sex with pupils

Drake admitted 18 counts of sexual activity with a child

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A teacher who called himself the “Salford stallion” has been jailed for having sex with under-age pupils.

Christopher Drake, 29, of Monton, worked as a PE teacher at a school in Atherton, Greater Manchester. He was later promoted to assistant head.

He slept with two girls from the age of 14 and another who was 16.

Drake admitted 18 counts of sexual activity with a child at an earlier hearing. He was jailed for six years at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.

The teacher’s abuse was uncovered on Valentine’s Day 2010, when two of his victims discovered he was seeing them at the same time.

Sentencing, Judge Timothy Mort told Drake he had received his “comeuppance in spectacular fashion” when the girls discovered he was seeing them both.

It emerged that Drake had also slept with another girl he taught at Hesketh Fletcher Church of England High School.

Judge Mort told him: “The critical factor is the age gap. You were 12 years older than them.

“You were a young man, quite immature, but there was a classic breach of trust in having relationships with pupils which you knew you should not be doing.”

Drake had sex with one of the girls in the school sports hall and in his office, and had sexual encounters with the other in a pub car park and on a school trip.

On Monday, the court heard that a slanging match began when one of the girls let herself into Drake’s unlocked flat.

“Having had a spectacular fall from grace it is right to assume you have learned a very hard lesson”

Judge Timothy Mort

Discovering the other girl, she threatened to call the police and ran outside to alert neighbours.

Drake told her to “shut up, shut up” and tried to grab her and calm her down.

When police arrived, they found rose petals on the floor and balloons adorning the property.

Officers seized Drake’s mobile phone, which had recordings of both girls having sex with him.

The 16-year-old girl who slept with Drake before the other two relationships said pupils were aware of his self-styled moniker and that he had texted her as the Salford stallion before they had sex.

The judge told Drake: “There was no doubt that the area of your training must have covered the potential danger of inappropriate relationships with pupils.”

The judge said Drake had brought the teaching profession into disrepute and that his career was “absolutely ruined”, but explained he did not view him as a dangerous offender.

“Having had a spectacular fall from grace it is right to assume you have learned a very hard lesson.”

The court heard the sexual encounters were consensual and many took place without protection.

In victim impact statements, the 16-year-old said Drake made her feel “cheated, dirty, worthless and an idiot”.

The second girl said she now had difficulty in trusting people.

The third girl started seeing Drake when she went to seek his guidance over a family problem.

She said she felt she had been “naive and stupid” and he had taken advantage of her trust.

Judge Mort said: “One hopes with the passage of time that these girls will be able to move on with their lives but it has plainly had an affect.”

Drake also admitted sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust and making and possessing indecent photographs of a child.

The school declined to comment.

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

Lib Dems unveil ‘jobs’ manifesto

Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott will outline his party’s pledges

The Scottish Liberal Democrats will launch their manifesto for the Holyrood election with an offer to provide “practical solutions”.

Party leader Tavish Scott is expected to focus on plans which he believes will offer ways to end Scotland’s economic and social problems.

The Lib Dems insist they will provide the back-up to help businesses thrive.

The manifesto launch comes the day after outgoing Lib Dem, John Farquhar Munro, backed Alex Salmond.

The former MSP told the BBC the SNP leader was “the best man” for the job as first minister.

However, he insisted he was not endorsing the SNP and remained a “strong Lib Dem” and would be out campaigning for the party ahead of the 5 May Scottish election.

Earlier in the campaign, Lib Dem candidate Hugh O’Donnell quit the party saying he was unhappy with its direction and with the UK Tory/Lib Dem coalition.

Mr O’Donnell had been penned in to be the leading candidate in the party’s Central Scotland list.

At the south of Scotland manifesto launch, the Lib Dems will give backing to regional development banks designed to provide investment.

They will argue for a cut to top salaries in the public sector and urge the scrapping of the council tax for the poorest pensioners.

The party also wants to provide a bigger voice for front line public sector staff like teachers and nurses.

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

Filthy neighbours

Today we are urged to report fly-tipping and other nuisances – just as our forebears did 700 years ago. Their complaints survive in a rare medieval document, the Assize of Nuisance, which sheds new light on an age-old problem.

Alice Wade, who lived in 14th Century London, could not countenance the smell of her own poo.

In an era when many of her fellow citizens relieved themselves in chamber pots and surreptitiously tipped the stinking contents out the window, she had a toilet in its own small room.

But 700 years ago, a toilet was a hole cut in a wooden platform over a cesspool. The smells that emanated were most foul.

Find out moreDan Snow’s Filthy Cities starts on Tuesday 5 April at 2100 BST on BBC TwoHe explores the history of filth in medieval London, 18th Century Paris and 19th Century New YorkWatch Filthy Cities on iPlayer How to get a scratch and sniff card

So she rigged up a wooden pipe that connected her toilet to a rainwater gutter that flushed a nearby public latrine.

But the solids from her toilet blocked the gutter, and her neighbours were “greatly inconvenienced by the stench”. The city authorities ordered that she remove the pipe within 40 days.

This is case 214 in the Assize of Nuisance, a list of grievances made against irksome neighbours in London from 1301-1431. The complaints were recorded in abbreviated Latin, the language for official proceedings at the time, says Elizabeth Scudder of London Metropolitan Archives, where this 700-year-old document is stored.

Few documents survive from this era, but other British cities would have had similar records, says Scudder. “There is a very early record concerning nuisances dating from the late 12th Century relating to Northampton.”

More than 700 years later, complaints against neighbours still persist, but they usually relate to noise, fly-tipping or anti-social behaviour, and many local councils have dedicated helplines to process grievances.

Back in medieval times, many complaints concerned misdirected, leaking or otherwise noisome privies, as medieval cities had no infrastructure to cope with the disposal of human waste. In the main, it was dumped into rivers and tributaries, or trodden into the ground.

John le Yonge’s stinky cellar, 1347

John de Yonge's complaint in Assize of Nuisance, stored in London Metropolitan Archives

“John le Yonge complains that Henry le Yonge and John Conyng have a solar [toilet room] above his cellar in the parish of St Mary de Abbechirche, and the pipe of their latrine is in the same cellar and overflows into it.

“The mayor and aldermen, having viewed the premises, find the nuisance to be as alleged. It is adjudged that within 40 days they remove the nuisance.”

Complaint 403 on Assize of Nuisance

And these records show that people were coming up with ingenious ways to get rid of their waste, often giving their neighbours cause to complain.

“These were just some of the many attempts made to overcome the problems created by so many people living in close proximity with each other,” says historian Dan Snow, presenter of BBC Two’s Filthy Cities, which provides fresh interpretations of the Assize document. “The fact that they all too often failed to deal with those problems was because the sheer scale of that challenge overwhelmed their resources.”

At the time, cleanliness was a luxury few could afford. London, a city of some 100,000 people living in close proximity, had just eight public latrines, and only the well-to-do had private privies.

Although there were rules and regulations governing the disposal of filth, these were largely ignored.

“In 1309, a charge of 40p was levied on anyone found dumping rubbish outside their house, or anyone else’s,” says Snow. “The trouble was, wealthy landowners seemed quite happy to pay the fine when they got caught. And the City authorities were probably quite glad of the money.”

Nowadays, illegally dumping rubbish is a criminal offence that carries a fine of up to £50,000 and a prison sentence of up to five years.

Dan Snow in wooden overshoes, worn in medieval times to lift walkers above the filth on the streets

Dan Snow, in medieval-style overshoes, recreates a 14th Century footpath with mud, entrails and urine

When the bubonic plague, or Black Death, decimated London’s population in 1349, city officials were forced to act. They realised that the filth choking the streets and waterways attracted vermin and contributed to the spread of this deadly disease.

Stricter laws were passed to clean up the waterways. In 1357, it was forbidden to throw waste into the Thames or other waterway under threat of imprisonment and fines. And officials added these new professions to the city payroll:

muckrakers, the first street cleaners, who collected filth and took it by cart or boat beyond the city wallssurveyors of the pavement, the first bin men, who kept thoroughfares clear by removing all nuisances of filthgong farmers, or early drain cleaners, who cleared out cesspits, latrines and privies

“They could earn in 11 nights work what a labourer would take six months to earn,” says Snow. Many supplemented their income by selling human waste to farmers for fertiliser.

Some of the earliest built toilets in Britain are in the Tower of London, says Lucy Worsely, chief curator of the Royal Historic Palaces. These are in the White Tower, built soon after the Norman conquest.

“The toilets, called garderobe, are all on the side away from the city so the subjugated Londoners wouldn’t see the conquering Norman poo dribbling down the side of the walls.

14th Century street namesGive clue as to what conditions were once likeSome still exist, like Gutter Lane, Staining Lane and Seething LaneOthers renamed to hide mucky past – Sherborne Lane in EC4 was Shiteburn Lane

“The name garderobe – which translates as guarding one’s robes – is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas.”

And the word “loo” dates from medieval times, says Worsley, presenter of BBC Four’s If Walls Could Talk, a history of our homes to be broadcast in mid-April.

“Ordinary people would use a chamber pot, and when they wanted to empty it, they would open a window and shout out ‘gardez l’eau’ – watch out for the water. Gardez l’eau became loo.”

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

UN ordered to return to Somalia

Somalia Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed

Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed’s government has recently announced the extension of its mandate

UN agencies involved in Somalia, but based in neighbouring Kenya for safety reasons, have been told to move to Mogadishu within three months.

The order came from the prime minister of Somalia’s UN-backed interim government, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

He said the UN had offices in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan which were “more dangerous than the Somali capital”.

Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda control much of the country.

But the government, backed by African Union troops, has recently gained some ground in Mogadishu from the al-Shabab militants.

Somalia: Counting the cost of anarchy

The UN envoy to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, told the BBC’s Somali service that the prime minister’s announcement was “ambitious”.

He said that about half of the 1,500-strong UN mission to Somalia were already based in the country, while the rest visit frequently.

Mr Mohamed said the security of the areas controlled by his government and its allies had improved a great deal.

“This government has decided all UN agencies working for Somalia ought to move to Mogadishu within 90 days so that it will become easier for them to know the Somali situation,” he told reporters in Mogadishu.

Mohamed Mohamed, from the BBC’s Somali Service, says the weak transitional government has been trying to flex its muscles recently.

Last week it announced it was extending its mandate for a year.

It has also rejected an invitation by the UN to attend a reconciliation meeting on Somalia’s future in the Kenyan capital, saying it should be held in Somalia.

The UN special representative for Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, has urged all Somali leaders and groups to attend the gathering in Nairobi later this month.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since Siad Barre was ousted 20 years ago.

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

Sangakkara quits Sri Lanka role

Kumar Sangakkara stands down as captain of Sri Lanka’s one-day and Twenty20 sides, three days after the defeat by India in the World Cup final.

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

Concern mounts over China artist

Ai Weiwei poses with his installation Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern gallery in London in October 2010

Ai Weiwei has not been seen since he was stopped trying to board a Hong Kong-bound plane

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Foreign governments are calling for the immediate release of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained by security officials at Beijing airport on Sunday.

The Chinese authorities have said nothing about his arrest while boarding a Hong Kong flight, even to his family.

The United States, Britain and Germany have all expressed their concern.

The US embassy in Beijing said the activist’s detention was “inconsistent with the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all Chinese citizens”.

Human rights groups say it is part of a crackdown on dissent in China following protests in the Middle East and North Africa.

They believe Beijing is keen to prevent similar scenes in China.

Human Rights Watch said up to 25 lawyers, activists and bloggers had been either detained, arrested or had disappeared. Dozens more had been subjected to harassment, it said.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Markus Ederer, the European Union’s ambassador in China, said: “[We are] concerned by the increasing use of arbitrary detention against human rights defenders, lawyers and activists in China.”

“We call on the Chinese authorities to refrain from using arbitrary detention under any circumstances.”

Beijing lawyer Liu Xiaoyan told the BBC he had been summoned by the police and held for 10 hours last Saturday after posting online notes asking about a missing Shanghai lawyer.

“They accused me of causing trouble by discussing the missing lawyer,” he said.

Mr Liu, a friend of the artist, said by law the police should by now have either charged or released Mr Ai.

Ai Weiwei is an internationally renowned artist. He currently has an exhibition at the Tate Modern gallery in London, displaying 100 million porcelain objects that look like sunflower seeds.

The 53-year-old is also one of the Chinese government’s fiercest critics, complaining about a lack of basic rights and freedoms – often incorporating these political themes into his work.

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

‘Thief’ is trapped in recycle bin

Man being pushed inside clothes recycling bin

CCTV of man being pushed into recycling bin

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A would-be thief became trapped in a clothes recycling bin for four hours as he tried to steal used clothes.

The 28-year-old man had to be cut free by fire officers after he was helped into the bin by an accomplice in Bradley Stoke, near Bristol.

CCTV shows the man being pushed into the bin by an accomplice before he is confronted by security staff.

The accomplice runs away from the scene and the fire brigade is called to cut the top off the bin.

A police statement said the fire service needed to remove the roof of the bin to get him out.

“One man had climbed into the bins and was seen to remove items and hand it to the man outside.

“When they were approached one man ran off and one remained inside.

“A 28-year-old man from Filton was arrested on suspicion of theft, interviewed and issued with a caution.”

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GB may lose boxing coach for 2012

Great Britain’s performance director Rob McCracken is banned from working with his fighters during contests at the Olympics because he has links to the professional ranks.

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