Category: news

New paternity leave rules have come into effect meaning that parents will be legally entitled to share time off work during their baby’s first year.

The move means parents could take six months off work each.

The government hopes to extend the measures with a fully flexible system of shared parental leave in 2015.

However, the Federation of Small Businesses said a one-size-fits-all approach did not work and added to the administrative burden on small firms.

Earlier this year Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg outlined plans to press ahead with changes, first proposed by the previous government.

The new rules mean a man will gain the right to additional paternity leave and pay. The rules also cover adoption.

Additional paternity leave (APL) will allow an employee to take up to 26 weeks’ leave to care for the child, on top of two weeks of ordinary paternity leave.

This can only be taken 20 or more weeks after the child’s birth or placement for adoption, and once the mother has returned to work from statutory maternity or adoption leave or ended her entitlement.

The rate is £128.73 a week, or 90% of average weekly earnings.

To qualify, the father must have been on a continuous contract with his employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the baby is due.

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At least one person dies and scores are injured when police shoot at protesters in the Yemeni city of Taiz, local residents say.

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President Assad asks former Agriculture Minister Adel Safar to form a new Syrian cabinet, as protesters in Damascus prepare to bury their dead.

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Stephen Elliott’s late equaliser gives 10-man Hearts a point against Hibernian in an enthralling Edinburgh derby.

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Hundreds of demonstrators have marched through the streets of the Afghan cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad in new protests at the burning of a Koran in the US last month.

It comes after 14 people, including seven UN staff, were killed in violence after similar protests on Friday.

US President Barack Obama described the killings as “outrageous” and the Koran burning as “intolerance and bigotry”.

Ten people died following protests in Kandahar on Saturday.

Dozens more were injured.

On Sunday, demonstrators in Kandahar city – the birthplace of the Taliban – marched on the main UN office. There were also reports of smaller protests in two other districts of Kandahar province.

The protests have now spread to the eastern city of Jalalabad, where hundreds of protesters peacefully blocked a main road for three hours on Sunday.

The crowd shouted for US troops to leave Afghanistan and burnt an effigy of Mr Obama, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.

The UN’s chief envoy to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, blamed Friday’s violence in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif on the Florida pastor who burnt the Koran on 20 March.

“I don’t think we should be blaming any Afghan,” Mr de Mistura said. “We should be blaming the person who produced the news – the one who burned the Koran. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from offending culture, religion, traditions.”

The UN would temporarily re-deploy 11 staff members to Kabul while their office in Mazar-e Sharif was rebuilt, he said, but there would be no evacuation.

Mr de Mistura insisted that Friday’s attack “should not deter the UN presence, activities in this country in this delicate and particularly crucial period”.

In a statement published on Saturday evening, Mr Obama extended his condolences to the families of those killed by the protesters in Afghanistan.

“The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” he said. “However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity.

The controversy began in Florida on 20 March, when Pastor Wayne Sapp soaked a Koran in kerosene, staged a “trial” during which the Islamic holy book was found guilty of “crimes against humanity”, and then set it alight.

The incident took place under the supervision of Pastor Terry Jones, who last year drew condemnation over his aborted plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.

The authorities in both Kandahar and Mazar-e Sharif have blamed the Taliban for the violence. However, the Taliban has rejected the accusation.

Pastor Jones has said that the Dove World Outreach Center’s congregation does not “feel responsible” for the attack.

Witnesses said the protest in Mazar-e Sharif, which began outside the central Blue Mosque after Friday prayers, began peacefully but suddenly turned violent.

The crowds moved to outside the UN compound, where a small group broke away.

Several demonstrators were killed by guards at the compound, who were then overpowered by the mob.

Munir Ahmad Farhad, a spokesman for the governor of Balkh province, said the group seized weapons from the guards and stormed the building. Four Nepalese guards, a Norwegian, a Romanian and a Swede were killed.

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French troops have taken over the airport in Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, the AFP news agency reports.

France is also sending an extra 300 soldiers to Ivory Coast, military spokesman Thierry Burkhard told AFP.

Fighting has raged in Abidjan since Thursday night as forces loyal to the UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, are battling those of his rival, the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

More than 1,500 foreigners are sheltering in a French army camp.

Heavy artillery fire has been heard in Abidjan as the two sides fought for key sites including the presidential palace, the headquarters of state TV and the Agban military base.

Four UN soldiers were seriously wounded by Mr Gbagbo’s forces on Saturday.

Wounded soldiers loyal to Mr Ouattara were seen being rushed to a hospital outside the city, while confident-looking reinforcements headed the other way.

Special forces troops loyal to Mr Gbagbo fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a UN armoured personnel carrier, seriously wounding four peacekeepers carrying out a humanitarian mission, the UN said.

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Voting reform campaigners have been accused of “airbrushing” black poet Benjamin Zephaniah out of leaflets sent to some areas of the country.

The “Yes to AV” campaign used his picture on literature used in London but featured another supporter – the actor Tony Robinson – in other parts of the UK, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

The “No” campaign said its rival was “ashamed” of the poet’s backing.

But the “Yes” campaign called the allegation “a new low”.

It said it varied the celebrity backers featured on its leaflets as there were “a number” to accommodate.

Yes to AV’s literature urges people to support a switch from first-past-the-post Westminster elections to an alternative vote in the nationwide referendum to be held on 5 May.

Celebrities Joanna Lumley, Eddie Izzard, Colin Firth, Honor Blackman and Stephen Fry appear on both sets of leaflets shown by the Sunday Telegraph.

In London a picture of Mr Zephaniah is reportedly included, with the poet quoted demanding an electoral system that “makes everyone’s vote count”.

But in near-identical leaflets, reportedly sent to locations including Sussex and Cornwall, he is apparently replaced by Mr Robinson, the star of the BBC comedy Blackadder and the Channel 4 archaeology show Time Team.

Terry Paul, a spokesman for the NO to AV campaign, said: “Why are Yes to AV ashamed to have the support of Benjamin Zephaniah in places like Cornwall and Hampshire?

“The Yes campaign’s leaflet offers a chilling preview of politics under the alternative vote.

“We have warned that AV would encourage parties to pander to extremist opinions in a chase for second and third preference votes, but we never imagined the first example of such outdated views would come from the Yes campaign itself.”

A Yes campaign spokesman said: “These allegations mark a new low for the ‘No’ campaign and their increasingly desperate smears.

“Let’s put it this way: Operation Black Vote, the Muslim Council of Britain and a host of similar groups are backing the ‘Yes’ campaign. The BNP are backing the ‘No’ campaign. People can draw their own conclusions.”

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Fulham chairman Mohammed Al Fayed has told fans they can “go to hell” if they do not appreciate a new Michael Jackson statue at Craven Cottage stadium.

Mr Al Fayed unveiled the statue on Sunday prior to the west London Premier League team’s match against Blackpool.

The statue was commissioned following Jackson’s death in June 2009 and was due to be erected at Harrods before Mr Al Fayed sold the Knightsbridge store.

“Why is it bizarre? Football fans love it,” he said after the unveiling.

“If some stupid fans don’t understand and appreciate such a gift they can go to hell.

“I don’t want them to be fans.

“If they don’t understand and don’t believe in things I believe in they can go to Chelsea, they can go to anywhere else,” he added.

Mr Al Fayed’s decision to relocate the statue of Jackson to Fulham’s stadium is likely to divide opinion.

The singer was a friend of Mr Al Fayed’s but his only known link to the football club is that he attended one game as a guest of the chairman, against Wigan Athletic in 1999.

But Mr Al Fayed said: “People will queue to come and visit it from all over the UK and it is something that I and everybody else should be proud of.”

Kit Symons, who played in the match Jackson attended in 1999 and is now under-18s manager at the Cottagers said: “It is great.

“The big thing is it is obviously something that the chairman feels very, very passionately about and he has decided to erect this statue and fair dos to him.”

Reflecting on the time of Jackson’s visit, he added: “It was just happy times.

“The chairman obviously used to bring high profile people down the games.

“Tony Curtis was here a few weeks after and it was just fantastic times.”

Central defender Brede Hangeland said the decision to erect the statue was backed by the club’s players.

He said: “Some of our players are Michael Jackson fans, some aren’t, and that’s the same in the general population.

“His music has been on in the dressing room a couple of times. I’m sure we won when his music was played!

“We have the deepest respect for everything about the chairman. If he wants to do this then it is all good.”

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Jorge Lorenzo captures the Spanish MotoGP in Jerez, with Dani Pedrosa second and Nicky Hayden third.

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Police in Northern Ireland appeal for information after the murder of a Catholic police officer in Omagh on Saturday night.

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Prime Minister David Cameron and deputy Nick Clegg are to make a renewed drive to promote planned changes to the NHS.

The coalition is also understood to be ready to introduce changes to the legislation when it returns to the House of Lords after May’s elections.

This follows mounting disquiet that ministers have failed to convince voters that change is necessary.

Labour called the coalition’s plans for the English NHS, which include ending primary care trusts, a “distraction”.

Ministers want to transfer much of the responsibility for buying and planning local services from the trusts to GPs working in consortia across the country.

Regional strategic health authorities are also to be phased out.

Opponents say the changes could lead to the “privatisation” of the NHS, but supporters say they will remove unnecessary bureaucracy.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that there could be a rebellion by Liberal Democrat peers when the Health and Social Care Bill goes through the House of Lords.

BBC political correspondent Norman Smith said that, among the likely changes to the legislation, there could be measures to outlaw the “cherry picking” of profitable NHS services by private health providers.

It is also thought GPs may be given longer to form themselves into consortia running their own budgets, beyond the April 2013 deadline.

For Labour, shadow communities secretary Caroline Flint told BBC One’s Politics Show: “This has been a complete distraction for 10 months [since the coalition was formed].

“It’s a kind of failure to listen to experts, even though they always say they want to listen to clinicians. It’s sad that 10 months have been wasted on this rather than making our NHS better.”

However, government sources pointed out that almost 90% of patients in England were already covered by GP practices which had joined consortia.

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