Category: news

How royal weddings have changed – and stayed the same – in the past 100 years, from that of William’s great-grandparents to his father’s second marriage. Watch clips of these events, drawn from the BBC’s archives, on our History of Royal Weddings page.

Compiled by BBC News Magazine’s Megan Lane

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Coalition war planes are continuing to police the no-fly zone and attack forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi.

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Tony Blair’s ex-IT chief – now the top civil servant at the Cabinet Office – tells MPs some Labour ministers ordered costly computer projects to make policies “sound sexy”.

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Superintendent Amanda Cooke said a call was made warning of a suspect device

Hundreds of families in north Belfast have spent the night out of their homes because of a bomb alert.

The security operation in the city’s Oldpark area began on Tuesday afternoon and continued throughout Wednesday morning.

The police said nothing suspicious has been found yet but enquiries were continuing.

The alert, which has caused major disruption, followed a claim that a device had been abandoned in the area.

Parts of the Oldpark Road and Hillview Road have been closed.

Around 200 homes were evacuated, with facilities being provided at Ardoyne Community Centre.

BBC NI reporter Kevin Sharkey said a “major security operation” was in place.

He said a call had been logged with the Samaritans on Monday night saying a device was left in the area.

“Police are trying to find out if that is the case,” he added.

“Police are being very cautious, their big fear is that if they move too quickly there could be a trap of some kind.”

The Oldpark Road has been closed between Manor Street and Oldpark Avenue.

Rosapenna Street is closed from the Roseleigh Street junction.

The alert follows reports of a shooting incident in the Oldpark area on Monday night.

A number of shots were heard at Glenview Street off the Oldpark Road.

Bullet casings were found at the scene near the Oldpark Road, but no injuries have been reported.

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Some 20,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean since the upheavals began

Italy’s prime minister is to visit the island of Lampedusa as naval ships prepare to move thousands of migrants who have recently arrived there.

Hundreds, mainly from Libya and Tunisia, have been arriving on the shores of the tiny island south of Sicily each night.

Its residents have protested, occupying the town hall and threatening to cut off supplies if ships do not arrive.

Officials say sanitary conditions on the island are now “desperate”.

About 20,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean since the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East began in January.

Emergency

Some 7,000 migrants – more than the total population of the island – are now living there in makeshift camps.

The Italian government is sending six naval vessels to Lampedusa to take migrants to camps on the mainland.

Silvio Berlusconi has convened an emergency meeting on Thursday to address the crisis, a day after his visit.

The BBC’s Duncan Kennedy, in Rome, says that Italy, as the former colonial power in Libya, does not want to provoke the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, into sending thousands more migrants fleeing.

Early on in the crisis, Col Gaddafi threatened to do just that, if the EU backed military action.

Migrants who can prove they are refugees from a conflict are eligible for asylum in the EU under human rights conventions.

The European Commission says EU member states must address the surge in migration produced by the unrest in North Africa.

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Reduced travel demand to Japan and New Zealand is forcing Qantas to suspend some flights.

Qantas Airways has warned that profits at the company will be hurt by the recent natural disasters in Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

The company has announced that it is suspending some flights and downsizing capacity on others between Australia, Japan and New Zealand.

Demand for travel to Japan has fallen following the earthquake of March 11th.

Qantas said the grounding of its A380 jets last year will also affect second half earnings.

“There has never been a time when the world faced so many natural disasters, all of which have come at a significant financial cost to the Qantas Group,” said Alan Joyce, Chief Executive Officer of Qantas.

Apart from natural disasters, airlines worldwide have also had to deal with rising fuel costs in the wake of the unrest in Libya and the Middle East.

Mr Joyce said that this posed a serious threat to the company’s profits.

“The significant and sustained increases in the price of fuel is the most serious challenge Qantas has faced since the global financial crisis,” he said.

Qantas has already increased domestic airfares and international fuel surcharges this year in response to rising fuel prices.

Its subsidiary, budget airline Jetstar, also increased fares and increased ancillary revenue, including baggage charges on some domestic and international routes.

However, Qantas said the increase was not enough to offset the rise in the fuel prices and it needed to take further measures to ensure long term profitability.

“We need to act decisively to respond to rising fuel costs and natural disasters, just like we did during the global financial crisis, to ensure the ongoing sustainability of our business,” Mr Joyce said.

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By Fergus Walsh

The monitor was pioneered at University College Hospital, London.

The NHS could save £400m a year if a blood flow monitor was used more during surgery, the health watchdog says.

In its guidance for England, NICE says the device, which was developed in Britain and uses ultrasound, reduces complications and speeds up recovery.

It says the CardioQ-ODM cuts the length of time patients spend in hospital following major or high-risk surgery by an average of two days.

Use of the device saves £1,000 each time, the watchdog adds.

At present, fewer than three in 100 eligible patients are monitored using it, but NICE estimates if that figure was increased to 50 in 100 patients, it would save the NHS in England more than £400m a year.

Based on the same technology as a police speed gun, the monitor uses ultrasound to measure the rate of blood flow from the heart.

The device, which has an ultrasound probe at its tip, is inserted into the oesophagus or gullet.

The signal is reflected by blood cells travelling down the aorta, which enables doctors to establish how much oxygen and nutrients are being sent to vital organs.

The monitor was pioneered at University College Hospital in London.

Monty Mythen, professor of anaesthesia at the university said: “The main benefit is it allows us to adjust the amount of fluid and blood we give to the patient to maintain optimum flow during surgery.

“This helps prevents complications in the post-operative period and means patients feel well more quickly.”

Because the probe is inserted into the gullet, it also reduces the risk of infection that comes with monitoring using a tube inserted through a vein into the heart.

“The great thing about this is everybody wins,” said the chief executive of NICE, Sir Andrew Dillon.

“There are fewer complications for patients post-operatively, they spend less time in hospital and the NHS can save money. It’s a much more efficient way of undertaking this kind of surgery.”

This is not new technology – proDeltex Medical, based in Chichester, West Sussex, has been producing the monitor for around 20 years.

But its chief executive, Ewan Phillips, is hopeful NICE’s backing will lead to a huge increase in orders at home and overseas.

“It takes a long time for ideas from the clinicians to feed through to the senior management – the sort of people who can make decisions to do things on a wide scale. That’s always been a problem in the NHS,” he said.

NICE’s guidance applies to England, but it hopes hospitals around the UK will begin to use the heart monitor more frequently as a means of benefiting patients and cash-limited budgets.

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The government says front-line police can be protected

Some of the 43 police forces in England and Wales face a “big challenge” to make cuts without taking officers from the front line, the chief inspector of constabulary has warned.

Sir Denis O’Connor said two-thirds of officers were part of the front line – defined as those directly protecting the public and enforcing the law.

Ministers say savings can and must be made while protecting the front line.

Police are losing a fifth of their central funding over four years.

The report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) sets out for the first time a definition of what constitutes front-line policing, amid a growing political debate about how chief constables should make cuts.

In the report, the HMIC says the front line comprises those who are “in everyday contact with the public and who directly intervene to keep people safe and enforce the law”.

Sir Denis said that two-thirds of officers in England and Wales were in such roles, but not all were visible. The HMIC estimates that 61% of police officers and community support officers work in visible front-line positions and that 12% of them are available at any given time.

Sir Denis said the front line was “not just what you notice, but what you also rely on”.

“Even if you imagine that the back office and middle office are ripe for reform… there are quite a lot of functions in the back and middle office that you cannot see as being redundant… and so [cutting] looks like a very big challenge to us,” he said.

“The cuts across England and Wales do not cut in the same way by force. For some it’s a much bigger challenge. It remains difficult for the front line to remain in its current form for a number of forces.”

Sir Denis said middle and back office roles were not “disposable assets that you can chuck away” and losing some of these posts has consequences for front-line officers.

But he added there were still parts of policing operations that could be made more efficient and that there was a wide variation in visible and available police officers among the 43 forces.

Greater Manchester chief constable Peter Fahy, who speaks for the Association of Chief Police Officers on the workforce, said: “Each force describes what their officers do in different ways and this explains some of the variation in the percentage of those available on the front line.

“Simplistic judgements about the value of the work our officers and staff do are not helpful.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The government is putting chief constables in an impossible position.

“Today’s HMIC report shows that 95% of police officers are either on the front line or working in important ‘middle office’ jobs in things like intelligence, planning major operations, burglary and drugs offences, or preparing cases for court.

“Cutting over 12,000 police officers and 15,000 police staff is inevitably hitting the front line. The home secretary needs to change course. She is cutting too far, too fast and it is local communities that will pay the price.”

Policing minister Nick Herbert said the report showed a third of human resources were not on the front line, meaning there was room for significant savings in back and middle offices.

“Front-line services can also be improved by more efficient use of resources. The report also reveals that some forces have twice the visibility and availability of policing as others, again showing that the issue is how resources are used,” he said.

He added the government would continue to support forces by scrapping bureaucracy and driving more efficient procurement.

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Three Scottish towns had insolvency rates twice that of the UK average

Three Scottish towns have recorded the highest concentration of people going broke in the UK in 2010, according to information company Experian.

It said that in Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy in Fife and Livingston, in West Lothian, more than 80 people in every 10,000 became insolvent.

That was about double the average rate of the UK as a whole.

In Kirkcaldy, the rate was up 12% on 2009. In Glenrothes it increased by 20% and in Livingston it was up by 32%.

Experian said across the UK there had been an increase in insolvencies in certain middle-aged, middle class groups and among the skilled working class.

Although those dependant on benefits were the most likely not to be able to keep up with their debts – the rate of insolvency fell faster amongst the poorer groups than the national average.

However, in contrast, the three Scottish towns with the highest number of people going broke per head of population saw a sharp rise in the insolvency rate.

A spokesman for Experian said: “Whilst unfortunately we can’t drill down any further to explain exactly why these towns are experiencing such high levels of financial stress, it is fair to say that serious life events such as redundancy or marital breakdown are major factors influencing credit defaults and ultimately insolvency.”

Experian said there was a high level of insolvencies among young, single professionals and middle income earners just starting their careers.

Although they make up almost 4% of the population, they accounted for 6.36% of those unable to repay debt.

There was also an increase in those in the “industrial heritage” group going bust.

These are people approaching retirement who tend to live in communities historically dependent on mines, mills and assembly plants for work.

Simon Waller, head of collections at Experian in the UK and Ireland, said: “There are certain sections of society that continue to face ongoing difficulties.

“The recession hit different people and communities at different stages and some are finding it harder to shake off its effects.”

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The bank will use public money to help firms finance early-stage renewable energy schemes

Edinburgh is an ideal home for the Green Investment Bank (GIB) being set up by the UK government, ministers will be told.

An alliance of Scotland’s finance sector, power and renewable energy firms and universities is backing a campaign being taken to Westminster.

They argue Edinburgh has the necessary expertise to be the bank’s HQ.

The GIB is being set up with £3bn of public money to help firms finance early-stage renewable energy schemes.

The alliance claims Edinburgh has the required financial, energy and research expertise and the GIB would lack impact and openness if it were located in London.

Cross-party Scottish MPs and industry leaders are making the case in lobbying meetings with Business Secretary Vince Cable, Scottish Secretary Michael Moore and Treasury officials.

The lender’s start-up capital is intended to match £15bn of private sector funding over the next four years. After 2015, it should have powers to borrow more extensively from the private money markets.

Only about 40 jobs are envisaged with the headquarters, but the campaign group argues that many more will be brought to Edinburgh as it establishes itself as the centre for building up expertise in the financing of renewable energy.

The business case for an Edinburgh headquarters is based on the Scottish capital being the fourth biggest financial centre in Europe, with particular strengths in asset management, and home to four universities.

Ron Hewitt, of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, commented: “We are challenging the received wisdom that any new UK institution should be located in London.

“The Green Investment Bank is a big prize, not just for Edinburgh but for UK plc. Ministers should feel confident that by opting to locate the bank in Edinburgh, they are delivering best value and providing greater opportunity in this vital sector across the UK.

“Successful commercialisation depends on effective collaboration and partnership, not simply within the complex and extensive supply chains that are a key feature of the industry, but also between industry, technology and know-how and finance.”

Nathan Goode, of Grant Thornton, who prepared the business case, said the right headquarters location could create a “virtuous circle” in which “finance can be used to drive the industry towards commercialisation”.

He said: “If we accept that the pace of development needs to be driven hard to meet policy targets, this kind of opportunity should not be missed.”

Those supporting the lobby of parliament include John Robertson, managing director of BiFab, the Fife-based offshore fabrication specialist, who said: “The significance of the ‘green’ energy sector to the Scottish economy will deliver maximum visibility and public profile for the organisation.

“Its distinctive role as an interface between government, the ‘green’ energy industry and financial markets strengthens the argument for a location outside London.”

Martin McAdam, chief executive of Aquamarine Power, which is active in developing wave power technology, said: “Scotland’s capital is emerging as a significant global hub for wind and marine energy business.

“Recent investments by ABB, Mitsubishi and Doosan reflect the growing international confidence in Scotland as a secure base for research, development and deployment of green technologies, while the country’s periphery offers Europe’s best onshore and offshore wind, wave and tidal resource.

“The establishment of the GIB in Edinburgh would cement the city’s growing reputation in green energy and I am confident it would generate significant future inward investment and jobs.”

Support for the Edinburgh Green Investment Bank Group comes from the Scottish Renewables trade body, Scottish Financial Enterprise, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and development agency Scottish Enterprise.

It also has the support of Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce.

Although no competition for the location of the Green Investment Bank has been announced by the government, it is understood that lobbying could also come from Newcastle, Manchester and Leeds.

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