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From Oscars to Muppets

Adams was born in Italy to American parents who raised her a Mormon

Actress Amy Adams may have missed out at the Baftas, but there is still a chance The Fighter could win her an Oscar.

One minute she is trading verbal jabs with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale in boxing biopic The Fighter.

The next she is sharing the screen with Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and the rest of the fuzzy cast of the all-new Muppets movie.

It must be fun to be Amy Adams, if a little disorienting.

Last week, for example, she travelled to London to attend the Bafta Film awards before going straight back to America and her nine-month-old daughter Aviana.

The 36-year-old was nominated in the best supporting actress category – a prize that Britain’s Helena Bonham Carter received for her role in The King’s Speech.

The occasion was unusual in that it did not pit Adams against her Fighter co-star Melissa Leo, against whom she will compete on 27 February for an Academy Award.

“I don’t know why Melissa wasn’t nominated,” says the actress, who was previously up for a Bafta in 2009 for her supporting role in Doubt.

“I think she’s fantastic. We have fun together and we had fun on the film.”

Adams admits Leo, 50, has been doing “pretty well” at this year’s prize-givings, having picked up gongs at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards.

The smart money is on Leo to be recognised on Oscar night, though Adams – previously shortlisted by the Academy for Junebug as well as for Doubt – may yet pull off an upset.

“I came on [The Fighter] at the last minute and it’s extremely validating,” she says of the nomination.

“It’s always good to be a part of a film that’s received in this way.”

Amy Adams with Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter

In The Fighter Adams plays a barmaid who becomes the lead character’s girlfriend

Adams certainly makes an impression as Charlene, the tough-talking girlfriend of Wahlberg’s pugilist protagonist Micky Ward.

So does Leo as his domineering mother Alice, while Welsh-born Bale has been tipped for Oscar glory himself for playing Micky’s crack-addicted older brother Dicky.

What of Wahlberg, though? While Adams, Bale and Leo have been singled out for praise, his unshowy portrayal has been largely sidelined.

“I do think that sometimes quieter performances don’t get the same kind of attention that the louder performances get,” his co-star admits.

“It just goes to show Mark’s passion for the project that he has been supportive all the way through of all three of us getting the attention we are getting.

“Mark is nominated for an Oscar as a producer and I know that means a lot to him,” the actress goes on.

“So I don’t feel from him that he feels he is missing out on anything.”

The same might be said of the real Charlene, who – unlike Micky and Dicky – has studiously kept herself out of the limelight.

“That’s more of her personality – she stays in the background a little bit,” says Adams. “She was at the premiere but she doesn’t draw attention to herself.

“She said she liked the film but she did not like that I was wearing so few clothes. She did not enjoy that.”

Both Adams and Leo are nominated for this year’s best supporting actress Oscar

As adept at light comedy as she is with heavy drama, Adams’ eclectic CV contains roles in the Disney fantasy Enchanted, race-car comedy Talladega Nights and culinary fable Julie & Julia.

She will soon be seen in On the Road, based on Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel, while there are plans afoot for her to star in a biopic of tragic rocker Janis Joplin.

“Hopefully it will be able to capture her truth,” says the actress. “That’s what you always hope when you’re playing somebody of note like that.”

And then there is The Muppet Movie, a new big-screen vehicle for the anarchic puppets that sees them return to the old theatre where they presented their classic TV show.

“I don’t know if it’s because I grew up watching them or if it’s because I’m a bit nutty, but I completely believed them as my co-stars,” Adams says of Jim Henson’s legendary creations.

“I had wonderful moments listening to them and watching them where I relived parts of my childhood.”

The Fighter is out now in the UK. The Muppet Movie will be released on 17 February 2012.

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

Mosquito-eater spider likes the smell of sweaty socks

A spider that preys on the malaria-carrying mosquito is attracted to the odour of people’s smelly socks, say scientists.

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

VIDEO: Performing lions rescued from circuses

A group of 25 performing lions from Bolivian circuses are preparing for a new life in Colorado, in the US.

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

Consumption focus urged for UK

By Richard Black

The urge to consume is all around but must be resisted, the commission says

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The UK needs to consume less and share people around the country more equally in order to tackle its environmental problems, a report recommends.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution says bits of the country, notably southeast England, are under pressure on waste and water use.

But simply aiming to reduce population size will have little impact, it says.

This is the final report from the 40-year-old commission, which is being abolished under spending cuts.

“If we act now, we can have an effect over 50 or 100 years – it’s not an either/or”

Simon Ross OPT

Its two-year investigation looked at issues such as water supplies, waste, urban pollution and wildlife.

The report, Demographic Change and the Environment, concludes that increasing consumption, the concentration of population in areas that are ill-equipped to supply its needs, and the trend towards single-person households – which increases energy demand – all matter more than the simple size of the UK’s population.

“The increase in affluence has a much bigger impact on the environment than simple numbers,” said Sir John Lawton, the commission’s chairman.

“If you’re going to have sustainable development, then to a first approximation if you grow the economy by 2.5% per year, you have to improve resource use efficiency by the same amount, otherwise you end up consuming more.”

The UK population reached 61.8 million in 2009, and is forecast to climb by another 10 million by 2033.

“The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) continues to argue that the UK’s population is too big and we need to reduce it to the point where we’re self-sufficient in food – to about 30 million or thereabouts,” said Sir John.

Southeast England is feeling the environmental pinch more than any other region

“We’re saying, to be perfectly blunt, that that’s nonsense – it’s the wrong answer, and in any case you couldn’t get there by any civilised means in a democratic society.”

The OPT advocates policies that lead to the UK population first stabilising and then decreasing “by not less than 0.25% a year… by bringing immigration into numerical balance with emigration, by making greater efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies, and by encouraging couples voluntarily to ‘Stop at Two’ children”.

But the commission’s projections suggest that even fairly large changes in the rates of birth, death and net migration would not make a significant dent in the national population by mid-century.

However, Simon Ross, the OPT’s chief executive, said it was important to take a longer-term view – which ought to include government policies encouraging people to choose to have fewer children.

“Climate change, sustainability and resources are a long-term issue as well as a short-term one,” he told BBC News.

“If we act now, we can have an effect over 50 or 100 years – it’s not an either/or.

“Would it work? We don’t know, because there’s never been that campaign in the UK as there has been on waste or car use, for example.”

The commission concludes there is unlikely to be a stark limit to growth in the more pressured regions – instead, maintaining services such as clean air and water would get more and more expensive.

“I am worried that shining a light into those murky areas of public policy isn’t going to happen”

Sir John Lawton Royal Commission

Meanwhile, parts of Scotland and northern England face the social pressures of a declining population.

The commission said the government’s plans for localism did not adequately address how such pan-regional issues would be addressed.

“We’re not saying localism is a bad thing in principle – it’s a good thing,” said Maria Lee, professor of law at University College London.

“However, there are questions about how local decision-making feeds into national and regional and global objectives; we’d expect government to deal with these issues, but at the moment it’s not clear how they’re going to deal with it.”

The commission says spending money to attract people to areas of abundant resources might prove more economic than paying ever greater sums for water and waste treatment in southeast England – and that the government should study those figures.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution was established in 1970, two years before the first UN environment summit.

But this will be its last report. It will cease to exist at the end of March, a victim of government spending cuts.

“The government’s perfectly entitled to make that decision – I happen personally to disagree, and I’m on record as saying I don’t know quite where the government is going to get the advice the panel has given it over the last 40 years,” said Sir John.

“We try to shine a light on issues that the government has been neglecting and where it doesn’t even seem to realise it has a problem, and I am worried that shining a light into those murky areas of public policy isn’t going to happen.”

The government has indicated that it will not formally respond to this report, as it has to every other one in the commission’s history.

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

Helicopter cowboys

Helicopter musters cattle across a billabong

Ben Tapp flies low over a billabong to keep his water-shy cattle moving

Once round-ups on Ben Tapp’s vast cattle station in northern Australia took a month. Now he can bring in 2,000 cows in five days, using low-flying helicopters.

Ben Tapp flies a helicopter like a cowboy rides a bunking bronco.

The cattleman owns two vast stations – the Australian term for ranch – deep in the Northern Territory. Maryfield Station alone covers 1,500 square km (370,000 acres) and holds some 20,000 cattle.

Find out more

Helicopter round-up, photo by BBC's Jasper Montana

Human Planet: Grasslands is on BBC One, Thursday 17 February at 2000 GMTWatch more Human Planet clips

His livestock spreads far and wide to graze and to fatten up for the lucrative beef export markets of Asia. So when the time comes to round up the herd, Tapp takes to the skies in his red R22 helicopter.

Filmed for the BBC’s Human Planet, Tapp and a fellow heli-musterer work in tandem, dipping and diving to drive the cattle home again. They are continually in what pilots call the “dead man’s zone” – flying low, and flying slow.

“Generally if you’re flying at 500ft-plus (153m), you’ve got a good chance of being able to auto-rotate out of any difficulty. If you have air speed of 70 nautical miles, you’ve also got a fairly good chance.

“But we fly under 300 feet (91m), and can go down to 30 knots (34mph). If your engine fails, you don’t have any time to react. You just fall on to the ground.”

“It’s flying and cattlemanship combined”

Ben Tapp

But getting nose-to-nose with stragglers is part of the job of a cowboy, whether on a horse, a quad bike or in a helicopter.

“[Cows] go the opposite way to where you are. To guide them, you’ve got to get right down at times, and they’re in amongst the trees,” says Tapp. “It’s getting low, and in amongst the trees, that enhances the danger.”

Using small, manoeuvrable helicopters for the muster is now commonplace on the vast stations across Australia that hold a total of 30 million cattle. Each year, 10 helicopter musterers die in crashes. One of those who perished last year was one of Tapp’s employees. Risking death or injury is an occupational hazard, he says, and he has the insurance premiums to prove it.

“It’s the highest risk factor that you can get yourself insured for in the world. I insure myself for $2.5m and it costs me $42,000 a year.”

About 8km out, the helicopter musterers are joined by the ground crew on quad bikes and horses for the final stretch, with Tapp directing operations by radio from above.

Tapp’s cattle are destined for Asia

Tapp has been helicopter mustering for 22 years, and knows his machine, his cattle and his terrain like the back of his hand. So efficient is this method that he now has time for contract mustering on other stations.

To become a helicopter musterer, pilots need 150 hours of low flying in addition to the 110 hours for a standard licence.

“But you don’t really become good at it until you’ve done about 1,500 hours. You’ve got to have the knowledge of the cattle, to anticipate where they might play up and give you trouble, to know what sort of move will be able to turn them.”

It’s not a job for the faint-hearted, he says.

“Most pilots are a bit cocky, but you’ve got to have a lot of confidence in yourself. There’s cattlemanship involved too. When you set out to get 1,500 head of cattle, you want to turn up with 1,490. It’s an art. It’s flying and cattlemanship combined.”

Human Planet will be broadcast on Thursday 17 February at 2000 GMT on BBC One, and will also be available on the BBC iPlayer.

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

Sex register appeals to go ahead

The Supreme Court ruled sex offenders could appeal under human rights laws

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A scheme allowing offenders to appeal against a lifetime on the sex offenders register is to be implemented, the BBC has learned.

A government source said it had no choice but to adopt it for England and Wales following a Supreme Court ruling.

Last April the court ruled offenders should have the right to prove they had changed and so be taken off the list.

To be placed on the register for life, individuals must be sentenced to more than 30 months for a sex-related crime.

There are some 20,000 sex offenders in the UK who have received such sentences.

Those to be given the right to seek to have their names and addresses removed from the register include paedophiles and rapists.

The source said: “We have no choice but to implement the Supreme Court judgement. There is no right of appeal.”

The Scottish government has already brought forward plans to allow convicted adults to seek a review after 15 years on the register.

Those placed on the register when under 18 years old can seek a review after eight years.

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

North-South health divide widens

The researchers divided England into four southern and five northern areas

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The chances of dying early – below the age of 75 – are a fifth higher in the North of England compared with the South, research suggests.

A study published in the British Medical Journal said the north-south mortality difference was now at its widest for 40 years.

Researchers from the University of Manchester compared death rates from 1965 to 2008.

The government said health inequalities were being addressed.

In 1965, those living in the north were 16% more likely to die before the age of 75 than their southern counterparts. This had risen to just over 20% by 2008.

Men were more likely to be affected.

For men, the average geographical inequality rate over the period 1965 – 2008 was 15%, compared with 13% for women.

Lead researcher, Professor Ian Buchan, said that even when people in the North and the South were born into similar socio-economic circumstances, health inequalities persisted.

He said that this was because people in the South, even if they had low incomes, had greater access to resources: “There is an overall concentration of resource in the South, the ‘built environment’ is very different, there’s more access to education, transport and other large scale resources.”

“These differences are not because those in the north are not looking after themselves… this is because of resources and the NHS needs to take action. For example, there are fewer GPs in deprived areas”

Professor Iain Buchan University of Manchester

Public health specialist Professor Sir Michael Marmot published an update to his in-depth review on health inequalities last week.

He said health inequalities are caused by social and economic reasons and that inequalities also existed within regions: “There is strong evidence that the underlying causes of the divide, the ’causes of the causes’ are social and economic.

“For example, there is evidence that there are social gradients in health within every region; and that differences between neighbourhoods depend closely on their social and economic profiles.

“While these gradients exist within every region and local area, they are wider in the North.”

Experts analysed trends for English government office regions, comparing the North with the South.

They looked at the North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and West Midlands compared with the East of England, London, the South East and South West.

The researchers looked at the age of death across the whole population in each region they studied.

“There is strong evidence that the underlying causes of the divide, the ’causes of the causes’ are social and economic”

Professor Sir Michael Marmot Public Health Specialist

Overall, during that period, mortality in England has greatly reduced since 1965. It has reduced by about 50% for men and about 40% for women with both North and South experiencing similar reductions.

The gap between mortality rates in the North and South is now at its widest point, but it has fluctuated over the 43 years of the study.

NHS action

From the early 1980s to the late 1990s, the North-South divide decreased significantly for both sexes. This was followed by a rise from 2000 to 2008.

Professor Iain Buchan said it was unclear why rates had fluctuated over that period. The rise in the rates coincided with a boom period for the economy and significant investment in northern cities.

Professor Iain Buchan said that the differences were not due to behavioural differences: “These differences are not because those in the north are not looking after themselves… this is because of resources and the NHS needs to take action. For example, there are fewer GPs in deprived areas.”

The Department of Health said it was committed to reducing health inequalities: “We are also providing a ring-fenced public health budget, weighted towards the most deprived areas, to ensure resources are spent on preventative work, with incentives to improve the health of the poorest, the fastest.”

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

Zinc ‘can treat the common cold’

Common cold viruses are spread by sneezes

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Taking zinc syrup, tablets or lozenges can lessen the severity and duration of the common cold, experts believe.

A review of the available scientific evidence suggests taking zinc within a day of the onset of cold symptoms speeds recovery.

It may also help ward off colds, say the authors of the Cochrane Systematic Review that included data from 15 trials involving 1,360 people.

Now more work is needed to determine the exact dosing required, they say.

Adults catch between two to four colds a year and children up to 10 a year.

There is little a person can do to avoid these infections because the viruses responsible are so commonplace.

“This review strengthens the evidence for zinc as a treatment for the common cold”

The review authors

Cold viruses can be passed from person to person not only by coughs and sneezes but also by touching contaminated surfaces such as door handles.

There is no proven treatment for the common cold, but experts believe zinc medications may help prevent and lessen infections by coating the common cold viruses and stopping them from entering the body through the thin lining of the nose.

It also appears to stop the virus from replicating, at least in laboratory tests.

There is also the suggestion that zinc aids the immune system and may dampen down some of the unpleasant reactions the body has to an invading virus.

Lead researcher Meenu Singh, of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India, said: “This review strengthens the evidence for zinc as a treatment for the common cold.

“However, at the moment, it is still difficult to make a general recommendation, because we do not know very much about the optimum dose, formulation or length of treatment.”

According to trial results, zinc syrup, lozenges or tablets taken within a day of the onset of cold symptoms reduce the severity and length of illness.

At seven days, more of the patients who took zinc remedies every couple of hours during the daytime had cleared their symptoms compared to those who took placebos.

And children who took 15mg of zinc syrup or zinc lozenges daily for five months or longer caught fewer colds and took less time off school.

But the 15 trials in the review all used different treatment timescales and doses, making it impossible to reach a consensus.

And the people who used zinc also reported more side effects, such as an unpleasant aftertaste or nausea, than the placebo group.

Editor in Chief of the Cochrane Library, David Tovey, said: “This is a treatment that is showing some promise which, where treating the common cold is concerned, is unusual.

“Although there are many over-the-counter cold remedies already available, we are not awash with things that can stop cold symptoms or greatly reduce their severity.

“But there is still uncertainty about the best doses, timings and formulations and more studies will be needed to look at this.”

Professor Ronald Eccles, Director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University, remained doubtful about zinc’s benefits as a cold treatment in current formulations.

He said zinc’s toxicity would also be a potential concern if taken over longer periods.

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

Child heart surgery decision due

By Fergus Walsh

Children’s heart services are under scrutiny

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A review of children’s heart surgery is expected to recommend that at least four out of eleven units across England should stop operating.

It was launched after the 1990s Bristol heart babies scandal when children having heart surgery died needlessly.

The review, to be published later, will say standards and safety will improve if surgery is confined to a smaller number of bigger units.

Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital has already suspended its operations.

The decision came after several deaths there last year.

The review team has already said surgery will not take place there again. On Wednesday, a consultation document is expected to question the future of surgery at other units including Leicester, Leeds and one of three units in London.

Around 3,600 operations are carried out each year on children in England and Wales, born with a range of heart defects.

Most children survive to adulthood, but there is widespread agreement among professional bodies that to provide a uniformly high quality of safe service, operations must be concentrated in fewer, larger centres.

This would enable surgeons to improve skills and share expertise.

Any talk of closures is likely to prompt strong local opposition, but parents will be told that most diagnostic and outpatient treatment will continue to be offered locally.

Anne Keatley-Clarke of the Children’s Heart Federation said: “What our parents have told us is that they’re willing to travel anywhere for surgery, they’ll go to the ends of the earth as long as they have the on-going, long-term cardiology care locally. These changes are going in that direction.”

The review, launched in 2008 by NHS Medical Director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, will stress that no centre will close, but several should no longer offer surgery.

A minimum of four surgeons per unit is being recommended. The unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital had two surgeons, and most others have fewer than four.

The recommendations of the review team, led by Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, will go before a steering committee of Primary Care Trusts. If, as expected, it is approved, it will go out to consultation.

The review does not apply to Scotland, where all children’s heart surgery is carried out in Glasgow.

Children from Northern Ireland have to travel to Dublin for surgery.

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

Nasa spacecraft sweeps past comet

A 370kg projectile was shot into the surface of Comet Tempel 1 in 2005

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Nasa’s Stardust spacecraft is about to sweep past Comet Tempel 1.

The encounter early on Tuesday (GMT) will give scientists unique information on how these great balls of ice and dust change over time.

Tempel 1 was visited by another probe back in 2005. It fired a projectile at the body to disturb the surface.

Stardust’s images will reveal the extent of the impact crater and any other alterations that may have occurred on the 14km-wide object.

The spacecraft is expected to get to within about 200km (120 miles) of the comet nucleus.

It will take more than 70 high-resolution images; its dust analysis instruments will also investigate the environment around the object.

The event is occurring at an enormous distance from Earth – approximately 336 million km (209 million miles) away.

“One idea is that there were two proto-cometary bodies that collided at very low speeds and smooshed together to form a comet like a stack of pancakes”

Pete Schultz Brown University

Stardust will be moving past its target at about 10km/s, with the moment of closest approach timed for 0437 GMT.

“The spacecraft is currently opposite the Sun from the Earth,” explained Tim Larson, the mission’s project manager at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“That means that when we send a command up to the spacecraft and wait for the confirmation that the command arrived and was executed properly – that round-trip light-time is about 40 minutes. So there’s nothing we can do to command the spacecraft or control it real-time during a flyby like this. Therefore, everything has to be programmed ahead of time, put onboard the spacecraft and sequenced; and everything must happen autonomously.”

All the data acquired during the flyby will be stored on the spacecraft until an hour after the pass.

Stardust will then re-orientate itself to begin to beam back the pictures and other information.

The spacecraft is on what Nasa calls a “bonus mission”. Stardust was launched back in 1999 with the primary goal of visiting another comet altogether – Wild 2. This it did in 2004, capturing dust particles from around the comet nucleus that it then returned to Earth in a capsule for study. But with sufficient fuel supplies still in its tanks, the probe was re-tasked by the US space agency to visit Tempel 1.

STARDUST’S 12-YEAR ODYSSEY

Artist's rendition of Stardust-NExT (Nasa)

Stardust mission approved in 1995Spacecraft launched: 7 Feb, 1999Asteroid Anne Frank flyby: 2 Nov, 2002Comet Wild 2 flyby: 2 Jan, 2004Sample capsule return: 15 Jan, 2006Stardust gets new mission: 3 Jul, 2007Comet Tempel 1 flyby: 14 Feb, 2011

This extended mission has been dubbed Stardust-NExT, which is short for “New Exploration of Comet Tempel 1”.

The “new” element relates to the fact that Tempel 1 has already been seen up-close by the Deep Impact spacecraft.

During that encounter in 2005, a washing-machine-sized block was fired at the comet to kick up surface material to study its composition.

But Deep Impact’s swift passage across the face of the comet meant it never got to see the crater made by the projectile. Stardust will.

What is more, Stardust will be able to see what else has changed on Tempel 1 in the two trips it has since made around the Sun.

The closer a comet gets to our star, the more material it loses as ices vaporise and dust particles are carried away into space.

“Deep Impact saw only about a third of the surface and we’d like to see more,” said Joe Veverka, the Stardust-NExT principal investigator from Cornell University

“And we’d like to see more of the areas that Deep Impact saw, including the smooth flows which apparently suggest that comet nuclei are not only modified by processes from the outside but also by internal processes.”

Scientists observed a series layered terrains on Tempel 1. They hope the new data can help explain presence of these features and whether they have something to do with the comet’s original construction.

“One idea is that there were two proto-cometary bodies that collided at very low speeds and smooshed together to form a comet like a stack of pancakes,” speculated Pete Schultz, a mission co-investigator from Brown University.

This is the second comet rendezvous in just four months. In November, Deep Impact, itself also re-tasked by the agency, encountered Comet Hartley 2.

In November last year, another Nasa spacecraft got a close-up view of Comet Hartley 2

To date, spacecraft have flown close by seven comets – Tempel 1, Hartley 2, Borrelly, Wild 2, Halley, Giacobini-Zinner, and Grigg-Skjellerup (the missions to Giacobini-Zinner and Grigg-Skjellerup did not return pictures).

“Comets preserve some of the most faithful information about what happened when the Solar System formed,” explained Professor Veverka.

“We know that comets preserve interesting molecules, some of which could have been involved in the origin of life on Earth. So, the overall objective of these studies is to get to the point where we can return sizeable samples of cometary material for chemical analysis to answer the question, ‘are we comet stuff or not?’

“Stardust will not be returning samples but by imaging the crater, we will learn more about the mechanical properties of the surface so that when there is a mission that tries to land on the surface, there’ll be data on how difficult it will be to remove material from the surface to bring back to Earth.”

[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.

MPs urging help for hill farmers

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MPs are urging ministers to do more to help hill farmers, saying many are struggling for a “decent” living and their plight hurts rural communities.

The cross-party environment select committee said livestock farming was vital to preserving landscapes.

But “hard-pressed” farmers needed help to diversify into new areas and direct payments linked to livestock numbers may need to be reintroduced, it argued.

Ministers said they were committed to “affordable” measures to help farmers.

In its report, the committee said the industry was under pressure and that tenant farmers in remote areas were having a “particularly hard time”.

Farmers needed help to develop new types of income, like using their land for carbon capture and storage and water quality assessment programmes, it argued.

“Farmers in the uplands already do a huge amount of unpaid work that benefits the public”

Anne McIntosh Environment Select Committee chair and Conservative MP

With many farmers struggling to access EU grants to which they were entitled, it said the way funding from the Common Agricultural Policy was allocated in the UK needed to be reviewed.

One step the committee said should be considered was re-introducing “headage payments” – funds paid directly to farmers calculated on the basis of the number of animals held.

“Government must ensure farm businesses can provide a decent income for hard-pressed hill farmers,” the committee’s chairman, Tory MP Anne McIntosh, said.

“Farmers in the uplands already do a huge amount of unpaid work that benefits the public. The challenge for ministers is to find a way to reward farmers for those public benefits while preserving their way of life and wonderful landscapes of our uplands.”

Wider measures to support rural communities in the tough economic climate should be prioritised, she added, such as access to economic development grants and super-fast broadband services.

The Commission for Rural Communities recommended last year that farmers should be paid for protecting the upland landscape in England.

Ministers said they would be announcing details of their farm uplands policy in the near future.

“Hill farmers face some real challenges and make an important contribution not just in terms of agriculture but to the environment and landscape,” a Defra spokesman said.

“That is why we promised in our structural reform plan to develop affordable measures of support for hill farmers, in order to help put them on a more secure and sustainable footing for the future.”

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

Coalition jobless push questioned

By Laura Kuenssberg

A woman looking at a database of job vacancies at a Job Centre Plus

Ministers say the back-to-work programme will be the biggest in history

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The government’s new “work programme” will actually help fewer people than the existing schemes that ministers are scrapping, the BBC has learned.

David Cameron has described the plan as the “biggest and boldest” push to get people on benefits back to work.

But officials have said they expect 605,000 people to go through the scheme in 2011-12 and 565,000 in 2012-13.

About 850,000 people went through the last government’s schemes in 2009-10 which are now being scrapped.

A Whitehall source said the difference in numbers is due to “big jump” in the number of people being referred onto the programmes because of the previous rise in unemployment.

They also said they would be more intensive support for people at Job Centres even if they are not on the work programme – which begins in the summer.

But there are concerns too about whether the new system will actually function.

The work programme will use a new system of “payment by results” in which contractors will be paid according to how many people they get into work, how long they have been out of work, and how long they stay in a job.

“The enthusiasm is being held back by some considerable fear that the whole package doesn’t stack up”

Graham Hoyle Association of Learning Providers

The highest payments will be up to £14,000 for someone who had been on incapacity benefit for a number of years, then secured a job and was still in employment two years later.

But many in the industry have fears that the government has set the bar too high, and the scheme may just not be financially viable.

Graham Hoyle, the chief executive of the Association of Learning Providers – who represents more than 100 firms and voluntary organisations bidding for Work Programme contracts – says “there is no question” that some of them will go out of business, and community groups or voluntary groups hoping to get contracts are particularly vulnerable.

This casts doubt on the prime minister’s hope that some voluntary groups which are losing funding through council cuts could be offered a financial lifeline by successful bids to provide welfare to work programmes that he suggested at his relaunch of the Big Society initiative on Monday.

Although the ALP is supporting the overall aim of the welfare reforms, Mr Hoyle said he thought the “numbers are wrong” and some contractors had actually pulled out of the bidding process because of fears of the financial risk involved.

“A lot of my members are making that plunge, but they are doing it looking over their shoulders, some are very worried, and some have already withdrawn.”

There was a lot of “real interest” in the project, he said, but “the enthusiasm is being held back by some considerable fear that the whole package doesn’t stack up”.

“We are concerned of an underestimate that is inhibiting proper business planning and proper development of an infrastructure,” he added.

The government says 170 tenders for the work programme have been submitted from 30 organisations and believes the new programme will deliver better results than the current system.

A Whitehall source said: “If you look at the last decade billions has been spent on a patchwork of provision which has consistently failed to get people off benefits and into work.”

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

Death threat sales calls probed

Elderly people in Leicestershire are being warned after reports of residents being threatened by a company claiming to sell double glazing.

The county council said it had received 12 complaints about a company claiming to be called Bowater.

Trading standards said some people were threatened with fines, “green taxes” and even a death threat.

Officials want to know if anyone else has received any such calls and urged people to be on their guard.

“He threatened to put my head in a vice and watch me bleed to death”

Paul Shipman

David Bull, head of Leicestershire County Council’s trading standards, said: “It is sickening that older people are being threatened with fictitious taxes or fines, the loss of benefits or even death.

“We are very concerned that this firm is deliberately targeting older people and we would urge people and their relatives to report all cases to us via Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06.

“Reputable companies do not pressurise or threaten people.”

The council said in cases reported so far, callers phoned older people and told them they qualified for a government grant to have their windows replaced.

When the resident said they were not interested, they were told their phone call was being recorded and they would be reported to their district council.

The caller then threatened the resident with a fictitious “green tax” and the cancellation of their single occupancy council tax reduction.

In one case, a resident was threatened with a £1,000 fine if they did not complete a survey of older people in the area.

On another occasion, the caller said the resident would be killed.

Paul Shipman, 68, from Broughton Astley, said: “The salesman started out saying that there were new British standards and I needed new windows but when I showed no interest, he threatened me with a green tax.

“When that didn’t work, he threatened to put my head in a vice and watch me bleed to death.

“He was very threatening – in the end, he said he’d come round and kill me.”

The Glass and Glazing Federation said it was not aware of any current company called Bowater, adding there was a firm with that name several years ago, but they were taken over and had not used the name since.

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

Third of roads ‘in bad condition’

The report found only 63% of the country’s roads were in an acceptable condition

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More than a third of Scotland’s roads are in an unacceptable condition while the maintenance backlog for repairs now runs to £2.25bn, a report has found.

Audit Scotland said the condition of roads was worsening, despite an overall rise in spending on maintenance.

Its report also said the public were increasingly dissatisfied with the condition of Scotland’s roads.

It called on the Scottish government to consider a national review of how the road network is managed and maintained.

The report, which examines progress on the implementation of recommendations made in a previous audit in 2004, found only 63% of the country’s roads were in an acceptable condition.

Robert Black, Auditor General for Scotland, said: “Members of the public are increasingly dissatisfied with the condition of our roads. The pattern of spending and scale of backlog means that the value of these public assets is not being sustained.

“But by deferring essential expenditure on infrastructure, public bodies are storing up problems for the future and passing a greater burden onto generations to come.”

The cost of the maintenance backlog has increased by £1bn to £2.25bn since 2004.

“As sad and regrettable as it is, the bottom line is that the state of Scotland’s roads is a long-term problem that requires a long-term funding solution”

Pat Watters Cosla president

In 2009/10, £654m was spent on maintaining trunk and local roads, which represents an increase of £32m on spending in 2004/05.

Transport Scotland, which has responsibility for trunk roads such as motorways, said it would fully consider the report’s findings.

A spokesperson said: “Although it looks at the condition of trunk roads and the effects of construction inflation on available budgets, we welcome that it highlights much of the progress which Transport Scotland has made in how it efficiently and sustainably manages the trunk road network and gets better value from available budgets.

“The Scottish government is providing local government in Scotland with significant levels of funding and local authorities have the freedom and flexibility to allocate the total resources available to them based on local needs and priorities, including road improvements.”

Audit Scotland said key routes should be prioritised and services may need to be redesigned, and suggested there may be room for more flexibility in how staff and machinery are deployed.

Unexpected severe winter weather in 2009/10 put further pressure on councils’ winter maintenance budgets, while over the past five years local authorities have spent £5m on compensation payments to drivers whose vehicles were damaged by defects.

Pat Watters, president of local authority group Cosla, said: “As sad and regrettable as it is, the bottom line is that the state of Scotland’s roads is a long-term problem that requires a long-term funding solution.

“Where we agree with Audit Scotland is that perhaps now is the time for all those involved to sit down and actively and realistically review the situation and what options are available to us – but at the end of the day, as the report makes clear, this will take hundreds of millions to fix.”

Scottish Labour transport spokesman Charlie Gordon said he supported the recommendation of a national review of how Scotland’s road network is handled.

He added: “Audit Scotland’s view that the public is increasingly dissatisfied with the state Scotland’s roads are in is also spot on.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat transport spokeswoman Alison McInnes said the Scottish government had been “complacent” in not budgeting for the severe weather’s impact on the roads.

She added: “The transport minister needs to consider the implications of this report.”

Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: “We have long passed the point where Scotland’s road network can be saved by a little bit of pot-holing. The national road network needs urgent attention, and we must be willing to consider radical solutions.”

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

Scots sales growth slows sharply

Personal finance worries had an impact on Scottish consumer spending in January

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Concern about the impact of cuts on jobs and personal finance had a knock-on effect on Scottish retail figures for January, a study has suggested.

The Scottish Retail Consortium survey found comparable sales fell by 0.9% on the same period last year.

Food sales fell below their year-earlier level for the first time since July 2010.

Overall like-for-like sales weakened to show a year-on-year decline while those in the UK picked up to show growth.

A much steeper fall in consumer confidence in Scotland than in the UK meant shoppers were much more cautious.

Clothing and footwear remained well down on a year ago, the survey showed.

Homewares and furniture showed some early gains, driven by clearance and pre-VAT rise purchases, but sales fell back later in the month.

Fiona Moriarty, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said: “People enjoyed themselves over Christmas but cut back once the New Year got under way.

“There was some last minute spending at the start of January to take advantage of promotions and to beat the VAT rise, but consumers then tightened their belts.”

She added: “January’s fall in like-for-like spending marks the start of a potentially difficult trading period for retailers.”

David McCorquodale, head of retail in Scotland for accountants KPMG, said: “With like-for-like sales for January down by 0.9% in Scotland compared with sales for January 2010, a month when, for many days, the whole country was deep under a blanket of snow, this is deeply disappointing.

“With footfall on the high street below average and personal financial worries high on the family agenda, we remain cautious for 2011.”

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