Scanning babies’ brains in an fMRI scan shed new light on how early they hear emotion in voices
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Babies can respond to emotions in a human voice at just three months old – earlier than previously thought – researchers believe.
The results of scans on 21 sleeping babies suggested the brain responded to the type of sounds being played.
Researchers said it had previously been unclear when human brains developed the ability to process voices and emotions.
Scientists hope to learn the difference between the way autistic and non-autisitc brains develop as a result.
They used functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) to record how babies responded to tapes playing “emotional sounds”, such as laughing and crying, as well as background noises, like water or toys.
A part of the brain – the temporal cortex – was activated when human voices were played – the same region as in adults.
The limbic brain region responded strongly to negative or sad sounds, but did not differentiate between neutral and happy sounds.
Professor Declan Murphy, from King’s College London, said: “This discovery fundamentally advances our understanding of infant development.”
Dr Evelyne Mercure, of University College London, said: “It is a rare demonstration that specialised areas exist in the brain very early in development.”
The researchers hope the study will allow them to compare what happens in autistic and non-autistic brains.
Professor Murphy told the BBC: “By identifying when brain systems come on stream, we can understand where it goes wrong.”
The researchers are also scanning the brains of babies thought to be at risk of developing autism, such as those who have a sibling with the condition.
They are investigating when differences can be detected.
Rafik Hariri is widely credited with getting Lebanon back on its feet after the 15-year civil war
Four arrest warrants have been issued by the UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s state prosecutor said.
Mr Hariri’s son, Saad, welcomed the indictments and described them as a “historic moment” for Lebanon.
Local reports say the warrants name senior members of the Shia militant and political group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denounced the tribunal and vowed to retaliate.
Divisions over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), based in the Hague, have thrown the country into political turmoil and sparked fears of sectarian unrest.
The Lebanese cabinet is meeting on Thursday to agree its policy towards the tribunal.
Rafik Hariri and 21 others were killed in February 2005 in central Beirut when a huge bomb went off as his motorcade passed by.
“After many years of patience, of struggle… today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security”
Saad HaririSon of Rafik Hariri and former PM
Hezbollah has criticised and attempted to discredit the tribunal, claiming it is a plot involving the United States, Israel and France. The group has denied any role in the assassination.
On Thursday, Lebanon’s state prosecutor Saeed Mirza confirmed that he had received the indictments and four arrest warrants from an STL delegation in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Saad Hariri – himself a former prime minister – described the indictment as a milestone for the country.
“After many years of patience, of struggle… today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security,” he said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency.
He urged Lebanon’s new Hezbollah-dominated government to to live up to its international obligations.
Hezbollah forced the collapse of Saad Hariri’s government in January after he refused to stop co-operating with the tribunal.
Later today, Lebanon’s incoming Prime Minister Najib Mikati is due to issue a policy statement which clarifies his government’s stance on the STL.
Mr Mikati has previously said that he would strive to uphold Lebanon’s international obligations, but that he was also mindful of his responsibilities when it comes to the country’s stability.
According to tribunal officials, Lebanon now has 30 days to serve out the arrest warrants.
If the suspects are not arrested within that period, the STL will then make public the indictment and summon the suspects to appear before the court, the experts told AFP.
Scanning babies’ brains in an fMRI scan shed new light on how early they hear emotion in voices
Related Stories
Babies can respond to emotions in a human voice at just three months old – earlier than previously thought – researchers believe.
The results of scans on 21 sleeping babies suggested the brain responded to the type of sounds being played.
Researchers said it had previously been unclear when human brains developed the ability to process voices and emotions.
Scientists hope to learn the difference between the way autistic and non-autisitc brains develop as a result.
They used functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) to record how babies responded to tapes playing “emotional sounds”, such as laughing and crying, as well as background noises, like water or toys.
A part of the brain – the temporal cortex – was activated when human voices were played – the same region as in adults.
The limbic brain region responded strongly to negative or sad sounds, but did not differentiate between neutral and happy sounds.
Professor Declan Murphy, from King’s College London, said: “This discovery fundamentally advances our understanding of infant development.”
Dr Evelyne Mercure, of University College London, said: “It is a rare demonstration that specialised areas exist in the brain very early in development.”
The researchers hope the study will allow them to compare what happens in autistic and non-autistic brains.
Professor Murphy told the BBC: “By identifying when brain systems come on stream, we can understand where it goes wrong.”
The researchers are also scanning the brains of babies thought to be at risk of developing autism, such as those who have a sibling with the condition.
They are investigating when differences can be detected.
Tens of thousands of children in England and Wales will miss out on classes
Tens of thousands of pupils across England and Wales are missing lessons as teachers stage a one-day strike over changes to their pensions.
It is expected that about 14,000 state schools will be affected, with half closed and half partially affected.
Action is being taken by members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Education Secretary Michael Gove has criticised the strikes, saying they will hit working families hard.
Teachers say government-planned changes to the Teacher Pension Scheme (TPS) will mean they will have to work longer, pay more and get less when they retire.
Mr Gove has described the strikes as regrettable, unnecessary and premature.
The impact of the strike on individual schools is varied, depending on how many teachers belong to the ATL and NUT.
Around 220,000 members of the NUT and 80,000 members of the ATL (including 18,000 members in the independent sector) in England and Wales are eligible to strike.
In some parts of the country the majority of schools will face disruption. For example, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, 60 out of a total of 105 schools were expected to be closed and 24 partially closed.
In the London Borough of Brent, 64 out of 78 schools were due to be either closed or partially closed.
Other areas fare better. In Slough, 10 out of 39 schools were expected to be shut and six are partially shut, and in East Sussex 74 of 192 schools were due to be closed.
The strike action is also affecting schools in the independent sector. Some 18,000 of its teachers are members of the ATL, of whom more than 4,000 voted in favour of striking in the union’s ballot.
The union fears that the government plans to exclude independent school staff from the pension scheme – which it says would affect 60,000 teachers.
David Levin, headmaster of the City of London Boys’ School, said a handful of his staff would be on strike and lessons affected would be covered by senior management.
Mr Levin said teachers who were taking action were doing so in sorrow rather than in anger.
“They think it’s a matter of conscience. They are very reluctant and, with great regret, are exercising their conscience.”
Mr Levin, who also chairs the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said he knew of a number of independent schools that would be affected by the strike.
Classes were being covered with special sessions, such as presentations by governors about their careers.
All were determined to stay open, he added.
It remained unclear what action ATL members at elite private school Eton College planned to take.
The school said in statement: “Members of ATL at Eton met over the weekend and have taken the view that they wish to minimise disruption, but to take the pensions issue forward by other means.”
Mr Gove has repeatedly criticised the striking teachers, saying working families – particularly working women – would be hard-hit.
But Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, said: “We regret any inconvenience caused to parents, but a one-day strike will have significantly less impact on children’s education than the damage done by making education an unattractive career.
“If the government’s changes go ahead we risk losing the best graduates to teaching, losing great teachers, lecturers and heads, and causing a recruitment crisis finding school and college heads.”
The industrial action means working families have had to arrange and pay for emergency childcare.
Craig Jones, operations director for Fit for Life, which runs clubs and children’s camps in England, said the company had laid on an extra day of activities at four locations in London, and places were filling up fast.
“I’m a parent and it’s all a bit of a headache. But from a business point of view, it’s an opportunity to provide extra services to parents and children.”
In addition, lecturers at further-education colleges and universities founded after 1992 – also members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme – are planning walk-outs.
The University and College Union says it expects 350 colleges and 75 universities to be affected.
Its president, Sally Hunt, is to attack Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for describing public sector pensions as “gold-plated”.
“The average pension of a female college lecturer is just £6,000 a year,” she is to tell strikers at a rally in central London.
“This is a government that has already presided over an increase in the income of the richest 1,000 people by 18%. How dare they call us gold-plated?”
Other public-sector workers are also staging strikes over pension changes on Thursday.
Courts and probation services could be disrupted, policing could be affected and prison officers are expected to protest.
Customs and passports services could be affected and driving tests may be cancelled.
Peter Connelly died in August 2007 at the age of 17 months after being subjected to sustained abuse
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Doctors have demanded a government investigation into why London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital kept information from the original Baby Peter inquiry.
They have backed a similar call from Home Office minister and Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, who wants the hospital’s chief executive to quit.
The hospital failed to share findings of a highly critical report into St Ann’s Clinic in Haringey.
Abused toddler Peter Connolly was treated there two days before he died.
During a serious case review into Peter Connelly’s death in August 2007, Great Ormond Street commissioned an independent investigation by two of the country’s most experienced paediatricians, Professor Jo Sibert and Dr Deborah Hodes.
But it produced an edited version of their report and passed that – not the original – to the review.
Now a number of unidentified consultants have written to the medical journal The Lancet calling for “strong ministerial intervention” to establish what happened.
They say that because the trust board has denied allegations so strongly, “it is now impossible to raise such questions internally”.
Great Ormond Street Hospital should not be seen to bury its mistakes, the doctors wrote in the letter
The letter adds: “Hence our need to ask publicly: If there is nothing to hide, no wrongdoing, why not commission an independent investigation to make the executive’s innocence indisputable?”
They did not want the hospital “to be seen as an organisation that buries its mistakes”, they added.
“In addition we are alarmed about the way in which senior management has treated individuals who have voiced concerns, not just in the case of Baby P, but also in relation to other clinical risks within the Trust.
“We urge that there is strong ministerial intervention to order an investigation into these matters, including the treatment of whistleblowers.”
The edited version of the report omitted key findings and damning criticisms including:
The head of the clinic, Dr Sukanta Bannerjee, claimed the case was a “clinically risky situation”Child protection arrangements caused “grave concern”The doctor who examined Peter two days before his death, Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat, was under-qualified, and should not have been appointed by Great Ormond Street because she had “little experience and training in child protection”
Recommendations for the urgent appointment of consultants to key child protection posts were also withheld from the review.
Ms Featherstone has accused the hospital of a cover-up and called on the health secretary to launch an inquiry.
Great Ormond Street Hospital has rejected the allegations, saying it had “no reason to believe that any of its staff, with the approval or without the approval of management, sought to mislead the serious case review or otherwise hide deficiencies in the service”.
In a letter to The Lancet, medical directors Barbara Buckley and Martin Elliott say Ms Featherstone’s claims are “incorrect and unsubstantiated.”
They write: “We know that a great many of our staff – doctors, nurses, and others – are incredibly angry at the way the reputation of the hospital and its chief executive, Jane Collins, have been called into question.”
Peter Connelly died in August 2007 at the age of 17 months after being subjected to sustained abuse
Related Stories
Doctors have demanded a government investigation into why London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital kept information from the original Baby Peter inquiry.
They have backed a similar call from Home Office minister and Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, who wants the hospital’s chief executive to quit.
The hospital failed to share findings of a highly critical report into St Ann’s Clinic in Haringey.
Abused toddler Peter Connolly was treated there two days before he died.
During a serious case review into Peter Connelly’s death in August 2007, Great Ormond Street commissioned an independent investigation by two of the country’s most experienced paediatricians, Professor Jo Sibert and Dr Deborah Hodes.
But it produced an edited version of their report and passed that – not the original – to the review.
Now a number of unidentified consultants have written to the medical journal The Lancet calling for “strong ministerial intervention” to establish what happened.
They say that because the trust board has denied allegations so strongly, “it is now impossible to raise such questions internally”.
Great Ormond Street Hospital should not be seen to bury its mistakes, the doctors wrote in the letter
The letter adds: “Hence our need to ask publicly: If there is nothing to hide, no wrongdoing, why not commission an independent investigation to make the executive’s innocence indisputable?”
They did not want the hospital “to be seen as an organisation that buries its mistakes”, they added.
“In addition we are alarmed about the way in which senior management has treated individuals who have voiced concerns, not just in the case of Baby P, but also in relation to other clinical risks within the Trust.
“We urge that there is strong ministerial intervention to order an investigation into these matters, including the treatment of whistleblowers.”
The edited version of the report omitted key findings and damning criticisms including:
The head of the clinic, Dr Sukanta Bannerjee, claimed the case was a “clinically risky situation”Child protection arrangements caused “grave concern”The doctor who examined Peter two days before his death, Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat, was under-qualified, and should not have been appointed by Great Ormond Street because she had “little experience and training in child protection”
Recommendations for the urgent appointment of consultants to key child protection posts were also withheld from the review.
Ms Featherstone has accused the hospital of a cover-up and called on the health secretary to launch an inquiry.
Great Ormond Street Hospital has rejected the allegations, saying it had “no reason to believe that any of its staff, with the approval or without the approval of management, sought to mislead the serious case review or otherwise hide deficiencies in the service”.
In a letter to The Lancet, medical directors Barbara Buckley and Martin Elliott say Ms Featherstone’s claims are “incorrect and unsubstantiated.”
They write: “We know that a great many of our staff – doctors, nurses, and others – are incredibly angry at the way the reputation of the hospital and its chief executive, Jane Collins, have been called into question.”
It is 60 years since British spies Burgess and Maclean sensationally fled to the Soviet Union, and now top Libyan football figures have defected to the rebels. But how do defectors adjust to their new lives?
You have spent years in the half-light, betraying those closest to you. And now your secret is out.
Spirited away to the foreign power you covertly served all along, you know you can never return to the homeland that now reviles you as a traitor.
With your loyalties out in the open, you must make a life for yourself in your adopted nation. How?
In June 1951, the press was filled with speculation about the whereabouts of two missing British diplomats, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who had disappeared the previous month.
The pair, it would later transpire, were in the Soviet Union, having fled from their imminent exposure as double-agents passing state secrets to Moscow.
These two urbane, upper-middle class Englishmen – part of the notorious Cambridge Five spy ring – would now have to adjust to life in a regime they had idealised as a workers’ paradise.
It was not a task for which both men were equally suited.
Cambridge FiveA Communist spy ring recruited at Cambridge University in the 1930sThey secured sensitive government posts from which they passed valuable intelligence to the Soviet UnionGuy Burgess and Donald Maclean were exposed in 1951 while working at the Foreign OfficeKim Philby, who had worked in senior positions both within the Foreign Office and the intelligence services, was exposed five years laterIn 1964 a former member of the intelligence services, Anthony Blunt, was named as a fourth member of the ring. The identity of a fifth member, John Cairncross, a former MI6 officer, was not confirmed until 1990BBC History: The Cambridge Spies
Maclean assimilated enthusiastically into Communist Moscow, establishing himself as a European security expert whom his colleagues affectionately nicknamed Donald Donaldovitch.
Burgess, however, proved less adaptable. As depicted in Alan Bennett’s television play An Englishman Abroad, he slumped into lonely alcoholism, scarcely bothering to learn Russian and continuing to order his suits from Saville Row. He drank himself to death aged 52.
Their contrasting experiences raise the question of how a defector should go about constructing a new life.
Despite the end of the cold war, defectors are, after all, back in the news.
After Col Gaddafi’s foreign minister and former spy chief Moussa Koussa defected to the UK, Foreign Secretary William Hague urged other Libyan officials to follow suit, promising they would be “treated with respect” in Britain.
In the wake of this call, a group of 17 leading Libyan football figures, nation’s goalkeeper, and three other national team members, announced their defection to the rebels within Libya.
One adopted Briton in a position to offer defectors guidance is former KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, who worked for MI6 as a double agent for 11 years until he came under suspicion from Soviet authorities in 1985.
Gordievsky had been based at the USSR’s embassy in London when he was ordered back to Moscow on a pretext and interrogated. But, in an astonishing escape which rivals any episode in espionage fiction, he managed to reach the border with Finland and was smuggled across by British officials.
“I had no problems because I was friends with British people… I was used to British culture”
Oleg GordievskyDouble agent
Feted for his daring as well as the invaluable information he provided, Gordievsky settled happily into life in the Surrey commuter belt. He wrote a series of books and articles and, he says, felt gratified to be welcomed into London’s intelligence and literary community.
Indeed, such was his familiarity with UK customs – he had been posted to London in 1982 – and the length of his service for MI6 prior to, he dislikes the label “defector”. Gordievsky insists he had been British all along.
But he admits that his first wife, Leyla, did not share his motivation to embrace his adopted country. Their marriage collapsed after she managed to join him in the UK.
“I had no problems because I was friends with British people for 11 years,” he says. “I was used to British culture and the British way of life.
“But my wife, who joined me later – she had problems and had to go back to Russia because she couldn’t find balance in her life in Britain.
“I was very happy to be in Britain, British culture.”
Indeed, both ideological commitment and a sense that one continues to be useful to one’s adopted country appear to be crucial to sustaining defectors in exile.
The journalist and historian Phillip Knightley met Kim Philby, another of the Cambridge spies, shortly before his death in Moscow in 1988.
The Soviet authorities had never entirely trusted Philby and denied him the senior KGB post he had been expecting.
Bridge of spies
During the cold war, the Glienicke bridge linked West Berlin with Potsdam in the east, allowing both sides to exchange prisonersIn 1962, Soviet spy Rudolf Abel was swapped for US pilot Francis Gary Powers at the bridgeTwo years later, Konon Molody, who masterminded the Portland spy ring in south-west England, was exchanged for MI6 agent Greville WynneIn 1985, 23 American agents were traded at the bridge for four Warsaw Pact officers. Further exchanges were made the following year
As a result, Knightley recalls him as a broken, pathetic figure, pining nostalgically for “Coleman’s mustard, the Times, the crossword and English cricket”.
But what Knightley believes kept Philby, who did not live to see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, going was his unswerving Marxist-Leninist views and his conviction that he had done the right thing.
“All of the defectors I have ever met complained about the way they were treated – they didn’t feel they had enough recognition, they didn’t feel they were properly compensated,” Knightley says.
“If you are told you have got to live in a place for the rest of your life, you are bound to be discomfited.
“You are cut off from your previous life completely. You have the stigma of being a traitor for the rest of your life.”
Not all highly-prized defectors, of course, have been spies. When the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev fled the USSR for France in 1961, according to some sources, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev personally signed an order to have him killed.
And on the other side, host governments have an incentive to keep their assets in good spirits – whether or not they are defectors.
According to Prof Keith Jeffery, the official historian of MI6, intelligence agencies are haunted by the memory of Peter Wright. The former MI5 officer revealed the secrets of the service in his book Spycatcher after becoming disgruntled with his pension arrangements.
As a consequence, Prof Jeffery argues, agencies are keen to make sure that anyone under their care still feels important.
“There’s a marketing dimension to it,” he says. “They do put a lot of effort into keeping (defectors) happy because they hope this would encourage others to do the same.
“It’s very important to keep them happy. While they’re happy they’ll tell you stuff.”
It seems defectors, like the rest of us, just need to feel wanted.
Companies prosecuted by the SFO must show they have adequate procedures in place to stop bribes
Related Stories
Legislation aimed at making it easier to prosecute companies who make corrupt payments abroad has come into force.
The Bribery Act overhauls existing laws dating back to 1889 and creates offences that carry prison terms of up to 10 years and unlimited fines.
It makes it illegal to offer or receive bribes and to fail to prevent bribery.
Both British and foreign companies are covered, provided they have some operations in the UK. The act also applies to individuals.
The government says the act will cement the UK’s position as a global leader in the fight against business corruption.
The legislation was due to come into force in April 2011, but it was delayed over business concerns about whether corporate hospitality could be seen as a bribe.
Analysis
It was the halting, in late 2006, of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged bribery payments greasing the Al Yamamah arms deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia which focused the need to reform the UK’s antiquated bribery laws.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was critical, especially as the UK had signed up to its anti-bribery convention in the late 1990’s. Prosecutions of companies were all but unheard of, and to prove a case prosecutors had to show that the bribery on the ground was perpetrated by a “controlling mind” of the company ie: someone high up. That was difficult
The new act creates offences of offering or receiving bribes, and a tough new offence of “failing to prevent bribery”. If a company is prosecuted for that, its only defence is if it can show it has “adequate procedures” in place to stop bribes. That will involve new policies, training and cost.
Government guidance says that corporate hospitality that is reasonable and proportionate, will not be seen as a bribe.
As a result, the government issued additional guidance on the act.
In its guide to the Bribery Act, the Ministry of Justice says: “Very generally, [bribery] is defined as giving someone a financial or other advantage to encourage that person to perform their functions or activities improperly or to reward that person for having already done so.”
In March Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke assured companies the act would be implemented in a “workable, common sense” way.
He has since assured companies that they can take clients to events such as Wimbledon and the Grand Prix, so long as the hospitality is reasonable and proportionate.
The government said it did not expect “genuine hospitality” or similar expenditure to fall under the act.
Companies prosecuted under the act must show they have “adequate procedures” in place to stop bribes.
“Adequate procedures” may include providing anti-bribery training to staff, carrying out risk assessments for the markets being operated in, or carrying out due diligence on the people being dealt with.
The survey also found that 71% of companies believed there are some places in the world where business cannot be done without engaging in bribery and corruption.
Companies prosecuted by the SFO must show they have adequate procedures in place to stop bribes
Related Stories
Legislation aimed at making it easier to prosecute companies who make corrupt payments abroad has come into force.
The Bribery Act overhauls existing laws dating back to 1889 and creates offences that carry prison terms of up to 10 years and unlimited fines.
It makes it illegal to offer or receive bribes and to fail to prevent bribery.
Both British and foreign companies are covered, provided they have some operations in the UK. The act also applies to individuals.
The government says the act will cement the UK’s position as a global leader in the fight against business corruption.
The legislation was due to come into force in April 2011, but it was delayed over business concerns about whether corporate hospitality could be seen as a bribe.
Analysis
It was the halting, in late 2006, of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged bribery payments greasing the Al Yamamah arms deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia which focused the need to reform the UK’s antiquated bribery laws.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was critical, especially as the UK had signed up to its anti-bribery convention in the late 1990’s. Prosecutions of companies were all but unheard of, and to prove a case prosecutors had to show that the bribery on the ground was perpetrated by a “controlling mind” of the company ie: someone high up. That was difficult
The new act creates offences of offering or receiving bribes, and a tough new offence of “failing to prevent bribery”. If a company is prosecuted for that, its only defence is if it can show it has “adequate procedures” in place to stop bribes. That will involve new policies, training and cost.
Government guidance says that corporate hospitality that is reasonable and proportionate, will not be seen as a bribe.
As a result, the government issued additional guidance on the act.
In its guide to the Bribery Act, the Ministry of Justice says: “Very generally, [bribery] is defined as giving someone a financial or other advantage to encourage that person to perform their functions or activities improperly or to reward that person for having already done so.”
In March Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke assured companies the act would be implemented in a “workable, common sense” way.
He has since assured companies that they can take clients to events such as Wimbledon and the Grand Prix, so long as the hospitality is reasonable and proportionate.
The government said it did not expect “genuine hospitality” or similar expenditure to fall under the act.
Companies prosecuted under the act must show they have “adequate procedures” in place to stop bribes.
“Adequate procedures” may include providing anti-bribery training to staff, carrying out risk assessments for the markets being operated in, or carrying out due diligence on the people being dealt with.
The survey also found that 71% of companies believed there are some places in the world where business cannot be done without engaging in bribery and corruption.
Rafik Hariri is widely credited with getting Lebanon back on its feet after the 15-year civil war
Four arrest warrants have been issued by the UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s state prosecutor said.
Mr Hariri’s son, Saad, welcomed the indictments and described them as a “historic moment” for Lebanon.
Local reports say the warrants name senior members of the Shia militant and political group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denounced the tribunal and vowed to retaliate.
Divisions over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), based in the Hague, have thrown the country into political turmoil and sparked fears of sectarian unrest.
The Lebanese cabinet is meeting on Thursday to agree its policy towards the tribunal.
Rafik Hariri and 21 others were killed in February 2005 in central Beirut when a huge bomb went off as his motorcade passed by.
“After many years of patience, of struggle… today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security”
Saad HaririSon of Rafik Hariri and former PM
Hezbollah has criticised and attempted to discredit the tribunal, claiming it is a plot involving the United States, Israel and France. The group has denied any role in the assassination.
On Thursday, Lebanon’s state prosecutor Saeed Mirza confirmed that he had received the indictments and four arrest warrants from an STL delegation in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Saad Hariri – himself a former prime minister – described the indictment as a milestone for the country.
“After many years of patience, of struggle… today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security,” he said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency.
He urged Lebanon’s new Hezbollah-dominated government to to live up to its international obligations.
Hezbollah forced the collapse of Saad Hariri’s government in January after he refused to stop co-operating with the tribunal.
Later today, Lebanon’s incoming Prime Minister Najib Mikati is due to issue a policy statement which clarifies his government’s stance on the STL.
Mr Mikati has previously said that he would strive to uphold Lebanon’s international obligations, but that he was also mindful of his responsibilities when it comes to the country’s stability.
According to tribunal officials, Lebanon now has 30 days to serve out the arrest warrants.
If the suspects are not arrested within that period, the STL will then make public the indictment and summon the suspects to appear before the court, the experts told AFP.
Rafik Hariri is widely credited with getting Lebanon back on its feet after the 15-year civil war
Four arrest warrants have been issued by the UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s state prosecutor said.
Mr Hariri’s son, Saad, welcomed the indictments and described them as a “historic moment” for Lebanon.
Local reports say the warrants name senior members of the Shia militant and political group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denounced the tribunal and vowed to retaliate.
Divisions over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), based in the Hague, have thrown the country into political turmoil and sparked fears of sectarian unrest.
The Lebanese cabinet is meeting on Thursday to agree its policy towards the tribunal.
Rafik Hariri and 21 others were killed in February 2005 in central Beirut when a huge bomb went off as his motorcade passed by.
“After many years of patience, of struggle… today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security”
Saad HaririSon of Rafik Hariri and former PM
Hezbollah has criticised and attempted to discredit the tribunal, claiming it is a plot involving the United States, Israel and France. The group has denied any role in the assassination.
On Thursday, Lebanon’s state prosecutor Saeed Mirza confirmed that he had received the indictments and four arrest warrants from an STL delegation in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Saad Hariri – himself a former prime minister – described the indictment as a milestone for the country.
“After many years of patience, of struggle… today, we witness a historic moment in Lebanese politics, justice and security,” he said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency.
He urged Lebanon’s new Hezbollah-dominated government to to live up to its international obligations.
Hezbollah forced the collapse of Saad Hariri’s government in January after he refused to stop co-operating with the tribunal.
Later today, Lebanon’s incoming Prime Minister Najib Mikati is due to issue a policy statement which clarifies his government’s stance on the STL.
Mr Mikati has previously said that he would strive to uphold Lebanon’s international obligations, but that he was also mindful of his responsibilities when it comes to the country’s stability.
According to tribunal officials, Lebanon now has 30 days to serve out the arrest warrants.
If the suspects are not arrested within that period, the STL will then make public the indictment and summon the suspects to appear before the court, the experts told AFP.
Tens of thousands of children in England and Wales will miss out on classes
Tens of thousands of pupils across England and Wales are missing lessons as teachers stage a one-day strike over changes to their pensions.
It is expected that about 14,000 state schools will be affected, with half closed and half partially affected.
Action is being taken by members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Education Secretary Michael Gove has criticised the strikes, saying they will hit working families hard.
Teachers say government-planned changes to the Teacher Pension Scheme (TPS) will mean they will have to work longer, pay more and get less when they retire.
Mr Gove has described the strikes as regrettable, unnecessary and premature.
The impact of the strike on individual schools is varied, depending on how many teachers belong to the ATL and NUT.
Around 220,000 members of the NUT and 80,000 members of the ATL (including 18,000 members in the independent sector) in England and Wales are eligible to strike.
In some parts of the country the majority of schools will face disruption. For example, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, 60 out of a total of 105 schools were expected to be closed and 24 partially closed.
In the London Borough of Brent, 64 out of 78 schools were due to be either closed or partially closed.
Other areas fare better. In Slough, 10 out of 39 schools were expected to be shut and six are partially shut, and in East Sussex 74 of 192 schools were due to be closed.
The strike action is also affecting schools in the independent sector. Some 18,000 of its teachers are members of the ATL, of whom more than 4,000 voted in favour of striking in the union’s ballot.
The union fears that the government plans to exclude independent school staff from the pension scheme – which it says would affect 60,000 teachers.
David Levin, headmaster of the City of London Boys’ School, said a handful of his staff would be on strike and lessons affected would be covered by senior management.
Mr Levin said teachers who were taking action were doing so in sorrow rather than in anger.
“They think it’s a matter of conscience. They are very reluctant and, with great regret, are exercising their conscience.”
Mr Levin, who also chairs the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said he knew of a number of independent schools that would be affected by the strike.
Classes were being covered with special sessions, such as presentations by governors about their careers.
All were determined to stay open, he added.
It remained unclear what action ATL members at elite private school Eton College planned to take.
The school said in statement: “Members of ATL at Eton met over the weekend and have taken the view that they wish to minimise disruption, but to take the pensions issue forward by other means.”
Mr Gove has repeatedly criticised the striking teachers, saying working families – particularly working women – would be hard-hit.
But Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, said: “We regret any inconvenience caused to parents, but a one-day strike will have significantly less impact on children’s education than the damage done by making education an unattractive career.
“If the government’s changes go ahead we risk losing the best graduates to teaching, losing great teachers, lecturers and heads, and causing a recruitment crisis finding school and college heads.”
The industrial action means working families have had to arrange and pay for emergency childcare.
Craig Jones, operations director for Fit for Life, which runs clubs and children’s camps in England, said the company had laid on an extra day of activities at four locations in London, and places were filling up fast.
“I’m a parent and it’s all a bit of a headache. But from a business point of view, it’s an opportunity to provide extra services to parents and children.”
In addition, lecturers at further-education colleges and universities founded after 1992 – also members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme – are planning walk-outs.
The University and College Union says it expects 350 colleges and 75 universities to be affected.
Its president, Sally Hunt, is to attack Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for describing public sector pensions as “gold-plated”.
“The average pension of a female college lecturer is just £6,000 a year,” she is to tell strikers at a rally in central London.
“This is a government that has already presided over an increase in the income of the richest 1,000 people by 18%. How dare they call us gold-plated?”
Other public-sector workers are also staging strikes over pension changes on Thursday.
Courts and probation services could be disrupted, policing could be affected and prison officers are expected to protest.
Customs and passports services could be affected and driving tests may be cancelled.
Tens of thousands of children in England and Wales will miss out on classes
Tens of thousands of pupils across England and Wales are missing lessons as teachers stage a one-day strike over changes to their pensions.
It is expected that about 14,000 state schools will be affected, with half closed and half partially affected.
Action is being taken by members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Education Secretary Michael Gove has criticised the strikes, saying they will hit working families hard.
Teachers say government-planned changes to the Teacher Pension Scheme (TPS) will mean they will have to work longer, pay more and get less when they retire.
Mr Gove has described the strikes as regrettable, unnecessary and premature.
The impact of the strike on individual schools is varied, depending on how many teachers belong to the ATL and NUT.
Around 220,000 members of the NUT and 80,000 members of the ATL (including 18,000 members in the independent sector) in England and Wales are eligible to strike.
In some parts of the country the majority of schools will face disruption. For example, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, 60 out of a total of 105 schools were expected to be closed and 24 partially closed.
In the London Borough of Brent, 64 out of 78 schools were due to be either closed or partially closed.
Other areas fare better. In Slough, 10 out of 39 schools were expected to be shut and six are partially shut, and in East Sussex 74 of 192 schools were due to be closed.
The strike action is also affecting schools in the independent sector. Some 18,000 of its teachers are members of the ATL, of whom more than 4,000 voted in favour of striking in the union’s ballot.
The union fears that the government plans to exclude independent school staff from the pension scheme – which it says would affect 60,000 teachers.
David Levin, headmaster of the City of London Boys’ School, said a handful of his staff would be on strike and lessons affected would be covered by senior management.
Mr Levin said teachers who were taking action were doing so in sorrow rather than in anger.
“They think it’s a matter of conscience. They are very reluctant and, with great regret, are exercising their conscience.”
Mr Levin, who also chairs the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said he knew of a number of independent schools that would be affected by the strike.
Classes were being covered with special sessions, such as presentations by governors about their careers.
All were determined to stay open, he added.
It remained unclear what action ATL members at elite private school Eton College planned to take.
The school said in statement: “Members of ATL at Eton met over the weekend and have taken the view that they wish to minimise disruption, but to take the pensions issue forward by other means.”
Mr Gove has repeatedly criticised the striking teachers, saying working families – particularly working women – would be hard-hit.
But Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, said: “We regret any inconvenience caused to parents, but a one-day strike will have significantly less impact on children’s education than the damage done by making education an unattractive career.
“If the government’s changes go ahead we risk losing the best graduates to teaching, losing great teachers, lecturers and heads, and causing a recruitment crisis finding school and college heads.”
The industrial action means working families have had to arrange and pay for emergency childcare.
Craig Jones, operations director for Fit for Life, which runs clubs and children’s camps in England, said the company had laid on an extra day of activities at four locations in London, and places were filling up fast.
“I’m a parent and it’s all a bit of a headache. But from a business point of view, it’s an opportunity to provide extra services to parents and children.”
In addition, lecturers at further-education colleges and universities founded after 1992 – also members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme – are planning walk-outs.
The University and College Union says it expects 350 colleges and 75 universities to be affected.
Its president, Sally Hunt, is to attack Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for describing public sector pensions as “gold-plated”.
“The average pension of a female college lecturer is just £6,000 a year,” she is to tell strikers at a rally in central London.
“This is a government that has already presided over an increase in the income of the richest 1,000 people by 18%. How dare they call us gold-plated?”
Other public-sector workers are also staging strikes over pension changes on Thursday.
Courts and probation services could be disrupted, policing could be affected and prison officers are expected to protest.
Customs and passports services could be affected and driving tests may be cancelled.
It is 60 years since British spies Burgess and Maclean sensationally fled to the Soviet Union, and now top Libyan football figures have defected to the rebels. But how do defectors adjust to their new lives?
You have spent years in the half-light, betraying those closest to you. And now your secret is out.
Spirited away to the foreign power you covertly served all along, you know you can never return to the homeland that now reviles you as a traitor.
With your loyalties out in the open, you must make a life for yourself in your adopted nation. How?
In June 1951, the press was filled with speculation about the whereabouts of two missing British diplomats, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who had disappeared the previous month.
The pair, it would later transpire, were in the Soviet Union, having fled from their imminent exposure as double-agents passing state secrets to Moscow.
These two urbane, upper-middle class Englishmen – part of the notorious Cambridge Five spy ring – would now have to adjust to life in a regime they had idealised as a workers’ paradise.
It was not a task for which both men were equally suited.
Cambridge FiveA Communist spy ring recruited at Cambridge University in the 1930sThey secured sensitive government posts from which they passed valuable intelligence to the Soviet UnionGuy Burgess and Donald Maclean were exposed in 1951 while working at the Foreign OfficeKim Philby, who had worked in senior positions both within the Foreign Office and the intelligence services, was exposed five years laterIn 1964 a former member of the intelligence services, Anthony Blunt, was named as a fourth member of the ring. The identity of a fifth member, John Cairncross, a former MI6 officer, was not confirmed until 1990BBC History: The Cambridge Spies
Maclean assimilated enthusiastically into Communist Moscow, establishing himself as a European security expert whom his colleagues affectionately nicknamed Donald Donaldovitch.
Burgess, however, proved less adaptable. As depicted in Alan Bennett’s television play An Englishman Abroad, he slumped into lonely alcoholism, scarcely bothering to learn Russian and continuing to order his suits from Saville Row. He drank himself to death aged 52.
Their contrasting experiences raise the question of how a defector should go about constructing a new life.
Despite the end of the cold war, defectors are, after all, back in the news.
After Col Gaddafi’s foreign minister and former spy chief Moussa Koussa defected to the UK, Foreign Secretary William Hague urged other Libyan officials to follow suit, promising they would be “treated with respect” in Britain.
In the wake of this call, a group of 17 leading Libyan football figures, nation’s goalkeeper, and three other national team members, announced their defection to the rebels within Libya.
One adopted Briton in a position to offer defectors guidance is former KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, who worked for MI6 as a double agent for 11 years until he came under suspicion from Soviet authorities in 1985.
Gordievsky had been based at the USSR’s embassy in London when he was ordered back to Moscow on a pretext and interrogated. But, in an astonishing escape which rivals any episode in espionage fiction, he managed to reach the border with Finland and was smuggled across by British officials.
“I had no problems because I was friends with British people… I was used to British culture”
Oleg GordievskyDouble agent
Feted for his daring as well as the invaluable information he provided, Gordievsky settled happily into life in the Surrey commuter belt. He wrote a series of books and articles and, he says, felt gratified to be welcomed into London’s intelligence and literary community.
Indeed, such was his familiarity with UK customs – he had been posted to London in 1982 – and the length of his service for MI6 prior to, he dislikes the label “defector”. Gordievsky insists he had been British all along.
But he admits that his first wife, Leyla, did not share his motivation to embrace his adopted country. Their marriage collapsed after she managed to join him in the UK.
“I had no problems because I was friends with British people for 11 years,” he says. “I was used to British culture and the British way of life.
“But my wife, who joined me later – she had problems and had to go back to Russia because she couldn’t find balance in her life in Britain.
“I was very happy to be in Britain, British culture.”
Indeed, both ideological commitment and a sense that one continues to be useful to one’s adopted country appear to be crucial to sustaining defectors in exile.
The journalist and historian Phillip Knightley met Kim Philby, another of the Cambridge spies, shortly before his death in Moscow in 1988.
The Soviet authorities had never entirely trusted Philby and denied him the senior KGB post he had been expecting.
Bridge of spies
During the cold war, the Glienicke bridge linked West Berlin with Potsdam in the east, allowing both sides to exchange prisonersIn 1962, Soviet spy Rudolf Abel was swapped for US pilot Francis Gary Powers at the bridgeTwo years later, Konon Molody, who masterminded the Portland spy ring in south-west England, was exchanged for MI6 agent Greville WynneIn 1985, 23 American agents were traded at the bridge for four Warsaw Pact officers. Further exchanges were made the following year
As a result, Knightley recalls him as a broken, pathetic figure, pining nostalgically for “Coleman’s mustard, the Times, the crossword and English cricket”.
But what Knightley believes kept Philby, who did not live to see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, going was his unswerving Marxist-Leninist views and his conviction that he had done the right thing.
“All of the defectors I have ever met complained about the way they were treated – they didn’t feel they had enough recognition, they didn’t feel they were properly compensated,” Knightley says.
“If you are told you have got to live in a place for the rest of your life, you are bound to be discomfited.
“You are cut off from your previous life completely. You have the stigma of being a traitor for the rest of your life.”
Not all highly-prized defectors, of course, have been spies. When the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev fled the USSR for France in 1961, according to some sources, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev personally signed an order to have him killed.
And on the other side, host governments have an incentive to keep their assets in good spirits – whether or not they are defectors.
According to Prof Keith Jeffery, the official historian of MI6, intelligence agencies are haunted by the memory of Peter Wright. The former MI5 officer revealed the secrets of the service in his book Spycatcher after becoming disgruntled with his pension arrangements.
As a consequence, Prof Jeffery argues, agencies are keen to make sure that anyone under their care still feels important.
“There’s a marketing dimension to it,” he says. “They do put a lot of effort into keeping (defectors) happy because they hope this would encourage others to do the same.
“It’s very important to keep them happy. While they’re happy they’ll tell you stuff.”
It seems defectors, like the rest of us, just need to feel wanted.
Scanning babies’ brains in an fMRI scan shed new light on how early they hear emotion in voices 
