Firth’s performance in The King’s Speech has won him a slew of awards
Colin Firth will learn if he has won a second consecutive best actor Bafta when this year’s awards are held later.
The 50-year-old won the prize for his role in A Single Man last year and is in the running again for playing George VI in The King’s Speech.
The late Rod Steiger was the last actor to achieve this feat, winning back-to-back Baftas for The Pawnbroker in 1967 and In the Heat of the Night in 1968.
Firth’s drama is up for 14 awards in all, including best film and director.
The Pride and Prejudice star has already won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award for his performance, for which he has also received an Oscar nomination.
The actor was recognised again on Thursday at the London Film Critics’ Circle awards.
Ballet thriller Black Swan has 12 Bafta nominations, including one for its lead actress Natalie Portman.
Science-fiction blockbuster Inception is up for nine awards, while Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours and Coen brothers western True Grit have eight nominations each.
Steiger, pictured in 1993, was the last actor to win consecutive Baftas
Jonathan Ross will host this year’s ceremony, to be held at London’s Royal Opera House.
The event will be shown on BBC One from 2100 GMT, with red carpet coverage preceding it on BBC Three.
King’s Speech writer David Seidler told the BBC on Thursday it felt like “a dream” to be nominated for so many awards.
“I keep on looking over my shoulder to see the guy who really wrote it and waiting for the alarm clock to ring,” said the British-American playwright.
“There’s a lot of expectation and pressure but you never know – these things are unpredictable,” he continued.
A host of stars are expected at Sunday’s ceremony, which comes two weeks before the Academy Awards on 27 February.
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Education Secretary Michael Gove has dismissed calls from Labour that he should play no part in a review of cancelled school building projects ordered by a High Court judge.
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Rugby fans were tackled by an army of young canvassers
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On 25 February, Irish voters go to the polls to choose a new government. Our Ireland correspondent Mark Simpson is covering the election with a diary of the final ten days of the campaign.
Monday 14 FebruaryThere is no escape from the Irish election, even at an international rugby match in Dublin. Fine Gael – the party expected to top the poll in next week’s election – sent an army of young volunteers to tackle fans arriving at Sunday’s Ireland-France Six Nations game. It all went well, apart from some wasted canvassing of inebriated Frenchmen who faked Irish accents and pretended to be interested in the election.Not dropping the ball will be the name of the game in tonight’s first five-way TV election debate involving the party leaders. Much attention will focus on Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams who has previously mishandled some economic questions.It seems some Irish people have had enough of the election already. One south Dublin house has pinned a sign to its front door: “No canvassers here, for health and safety reasons. My health – your safety.”
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen called early elections more than a year before his term was due to expire because of a political crisis triggered by last November’s bail-out by the IMF and EU worth 85bn euros ($113bn; £72bn).
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Three firms who offer to buy people’s gold and jewellery for cash have been named and shamed by the Office of Fair Trading.
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Brazil’s two-time World Cup-winning legend Ronaldo confirms his retirement from football at the age of 34.
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A website accused of letting teenagers take part in vicious cyber-bullying is closed by its owners because of “malicious comments”.
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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
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]
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A review in November called for significant changes to medical tests for benefit claimants
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Ministers have said a pilot review of incapacity benefit has indicated that two thirds of claimants may be able to return to work in some form.
All those receiving the benefit in Burnley and Aberdeen are being reassessed, ahead of a UK-wide review of the payments starting in April.
Some 29% were deemed fit to work immediately while 39% could consider working with the right help.
The “fitness to work” test was changed last year after widespread criticism.
Charities expressed concern that it unduly focused on an individual’s physical ability to work and did not take into account other factors such as mental health issues.
They also warned that people were not being given enough help to prepare for the test – which was backed up by an independent review of the system in November calling for a “more fair and effective” process.
More than 1.5 million people receiving incapacity benefit are to be reviewed as part of the government’s drive to get people off welfare and into work, reduce poverty and cut the benefits bill.
Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions found 31.3% of the 1,347 people assessed so far in Burnley and Aberdeen would not be able to work and needed unconditional support.
However, 29.6% were found to be fit to work immediately while 39% could “start the journey back to work” if receiving the right assistance.
“The initial findings from Burnley and Aberdeen serve to underline why it is right to reassess incapacity benefit claimants and to launch the work programme to give those who can work the specialist help they need to do so,” said employment minister Chris Grayling.
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Malik Mumtaz Hussein Qadri has become a hero to many in Pakistan
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A Pakistani court has charged a police commando with the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer.
Mumtaz Qadri, 26, admitted gunning down Mr Taseer last month in Islamabad, after the governor backed reforms to controversial blasphemy laws.
He was acting as a bodyguard for the politician when he riddled him with bullets in broad daylight on 4 January.
The assassination of the liberal politician has divided the country with many hailing Qadri as a hero.
On Monday, some students brought Valentine day cards and flowers to the Adiyala jail where the hearing was held.
Jail officials received the gifts, promising to deliver them to Qadri.
“The judge examined the record and said that apparently the accused committed murder and terrorism,” news agency AFP quoted one of Qadri’s lawyers, Malik Mohammad Rafiq Khan, as saying.
“The judge read out the charges to the accused. The accused pleaded not guilty,” Mr Khan said.
The next date of hearing is set for 26 February when witnesses and evidence will be presented, the lawyer added.
In the past, Qadri has been mobbed and showered with petals during his court appearances.
His supporters have turned up at the court for the hearings, waving placards and shouting slogans.
Qadri pleaded guilty to Governor Taseer’s murder through a confessional statement.
He said he was angered by Mr Taseer’s support for reforming Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
The controversial law has been in the spotlight since a Christian mother-of-five, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death in November for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
She denies the charge.
Critics of the law say it has been used to persecute minority faiths in Pakistan, and is sometimes exploited for grudges.
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Russia’s space program has simulated what it would be like to travel to and land on Mars with astronauts spending eight months in isolation.
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Sony Ericsson launch phone aimed at fans of the PlayStation
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As Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona, a host of mobile firms have launched new devices, many featuring Google’s Android operating system.
Headline grabbers include Sony Ericsson with its smartphone-cum-gaming device, dubbed the Xperia Play.
Rival Samsung has unveiled a new tablet, the Galaxy 10.,which as the name suggests features a bigger 10.1 inch (26cm) screen.
Meanwhile LG has unveiled the first mobile phone with 3D capability.
Sony Ericsson’s launch attracted a big crowd as it unveiled it not-so-secret PlayStation phone, which it is hoping will appeal to the widening mobile gaming market as well as to more hardcore gamers.
The device – dubbed the PlayStation phone – has a pull-out control pad and will feature a catalogue of games, from Electronic Art’s Fifa series to Assassin’s Creed, the Sims and Dungeon Defender.
“As the Mobile World Congress gets underway in Barcelona it’s clear that Google’s Android is fast becoming the industry’s 800lb gorilla”
Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondentRead Rory’s thoughts in full
It is launching with 20 gaming partners and will be available from March.
Sony Ericsson has signed up Verizon as its US partner while in the UK the Xperia Play will be carried by all operators.
Sylvia Chind, head of branded devices at network operator Three, said the handset was a “step change in the way in which consumers use data, merging mobile communications and entertainment”.
Analyst Ian Fogg, from research firm Forrester, thinks it represents a real challenge to Apple’s dominance: “It is an extremely competitive device and shows that Apple will not be the only player in the mobile gaming market,” he said.
But just as Sony Ericsson has leveraged the PlayStation brand so others may follow, he thinks.
“Nokia, Microsoft, Apple and Google also have other assets they could bring to the mobile experience,” he said.
Guy Cocker, the editor of gaming website GameSpot said the phone aimed to please both the casual and the more hardcore gamer.
Gaming, he said, was no longer a niche activity.
“People want to play games wherever they are…from fans of Angry Birds through to those who want to play more traditional games on their mobiles,” he said
Not to be overshadowed by its rival, Samsung has put down its mark as a very real contender to the iPad, with its new version of the Galaxy Tab.
Announced just before the Samsung’s official Mobile World Congress 2011 press announcement, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has a number of new features, the most significant being its bigger, 10.1 inch screen.
It will run on the latest version of Android, dubbed Honeycomb, and designed specifically for tablet devices.
LG’s 3D tablet and phone are also powered by Android.
Both allow users to users to shoot 3D images and video, as well as upload their clips directly to YouTube.
Analysts at research firm CCS Insight said that consumer demand for 3D phones remained “unclear” and could be regarded as a “gimmick”.
However, they said the experience of using the phone is “better than many may expect”.
Jim Michel, head of LG’s mobile division in the UK, defended the technology.
“It is definitely not a gimmick. More films are being sold in 3D and it is great to squeeze that onto a small screen,” he said.
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An Australian man narrowly escaped the unwelcome attentions of a saltwater crocodile
An Australian man has fended off an attack by a 10ft (3m) crocodile. How could anyone possibly defeat such a beast?
They are huge, vicious predators, with incredibly powerful jaws and move with lightning speed – so you really, really don’t want to start an argument with one.
But Australian miner Eddie Sigai found himself on the wrong side of a crocodile when one grabbed his arm and dragged him underwater at a Queensland creek.
Mr Sigai, 37, managed to escape with cuts to his back and hand, as pictured in the Daily Mail, by poking the creature in the eyes – which experts agree offers the only possible chance of fending off such an assault.
But wildlife presenter and crocodile fan Chris Packham warns: “The only way you can guarantee survival is not get attacked in the first place.”
Though a great enthusiast for all things crocodile-related – he once seriously considered the logistics of keeping one in his home as a pet – Packham says humans always need to be on their guard when in the vicinity of such animals.
“With crocodiles, prevention is always better than cure”
Chris Packham Wildlife presenter
They are extremely intelligent, he says, and will lie in wait underwater, silently approaching their prey before launching a ferocious, unexpected assault.
“Trying to open its mouth with your hands isn’t going to work – its jaw closes with the power of 13 tonnes per square inch,” he says.
“Its skin is so thick you aren’t going to pierce it and its head is a solid mass of bone – there are no weak points.
“The one thing you can do is get your fingers in its eyes – but with crocodiles, prevention is always better than cure.”
It was this technique that saved Mr Sigai, who gouged the saltwater crocodile when it attacked.
The miner, 37, who had been swimming in a creek with his daughters, aged 12 and 17, was left with bite marks on his left hand and deep scratch marks down his back after spending two says in hospital – yet acknowledges he was lucky to escape alive.
THE ANSWERExperts say the best way to fight off a crocodile is to poke its eyes in the hope it will let goBut the most reliable way to escape its jaws is to stay alert and not get attacked in the first placeIf you spot a crocodile, it is best to back away slowly
Bob Cooper, an Australian bushcraft expert and instructor in survival skills, agrees that the eyes offer the only route to fending off a crocodile attack.
But he says he is constantly amazed at how careless visitors to crocodile-infested waters can be in the presence of such dangerous creatures.
“If they’ve got hold of you, poking the eyes is the only possible way you can fight back – they have thousands of years of instinct telling them this is the only vulnerable part of their body and they need to let go,” Mr Cooper says.
“But the chances are you aren’t going to get anywhere near them. Once they’ve got you underwater, that’s it, you’re going to drown.”
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
A part of BBC News Magazine, Who, What, Why? aims to answer questions behind the headlines
One expert who has spent enough time with the beasts to gauge the best way to handle them is Shaun Foggett, founder of the Crocodiles of the World conservation centre in Oxfordshire.
He agrees that vigilance is more reliable than eye-poking, and advises that taking the opportunity to make your escape is the best way to keep out of a crocodile’s jaws.
“If you are within striking distance, you probably won’t know much about it,” he says.
“Otherwise, they might give you a warning – they’ll start hissing at you. The best thing to do then is to back away slowly and not make any sudden movements – an adult croc can run as fast as an adult human.”
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stokroos
If you are ever being chased by a crocodile you need to run in zig-zags, because although they can run surprisingly fast on land, they are very poor at changing direction.
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Ancient Britain was a peninsula until a tsunami flooded its land-links to Europe some 8,000 years ago. Did that wave help shape the national character?
The coastline and landscape of what would become modern Britain began to emerge at the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago.
What had been a cold, dry tundra on the north-western edge of Europe grew warmer and wetter as the ice caps melted. The Irish Sea, North Sea and the Channel were all dry land, albeit it land slowly being submerged as sea levels rose.
But it wasn’t until 6,100BC that Britain broke free of mainland Europe for good, during the Mesolithic period – the Middle Stone Age.
It is thought a landslide in Norway triggered one of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded on Earth, when a landlocked sea in the Norwegian trench burst its banks.
The water struck the north-east of Britain with such force it travelled 40km inland, turning low-lying plains into what is now the North Sea, and marshlands to the south into the Channel. Britain became an island nation.
Ancient signs of French connection
“In Bray, on the east coast of Ireland, there are fossilised trees on the beach, lying where they first grew 8,000 years ago.
“There are drowned forests off Dorset, Wales and the Isle of Wight. That’s because back then, the Irish Sea, North Sea and the Channel were all dry land.
“When the great melt came, and the seas gradually rose by 300 feet, we were cut off from mainland Europe for good.”
From 2008’s British Isles: A Natural History
Watch Alan Titchmarsh explore the forest Ancient sites, and related activities
At the time it was home to a fragile and scattered population of about 5,000 hunter-gatherers, descended from the early humans who had followed migrating herds of mammoth and reindeer onto the jagged peninsula.
“The waves would have been maybe as much as 10m high,” says geologist David Smith. “Anyone standing out on the mud flats at that time would have been dismembered. The speed [of the water] was just so great.”
Relics of these pre-island times are being recovered from under the sea off the Isle of Wight, dating from when the Solent was dry land.
Grooved timbers preserved by the saltwater are thought to be the remains of 8,000-year-old log boats, and point to the site once being a sizable boat-building yard, says Garry Momber, of the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (see video clip below).
The tsunami was a watershed in our history, says archaeologist Neil Oliver, presenter of BBC Two’s A History of Ancient Britain.
“The people living in the land that would become Britain had become different. They’d been made different. And at the same time, they’d been made a wee bit special as well.”
From peninsula of mainland Europe, pictured left, to island
Being so closely bordered by water meant boat-building and seafaring became a way of life. Many millennia on from the tsunami, the British sailed the ocean waves to find new lands and build an empire.
Its more recent history bristles with naval heroes, sea battles and famous explorers. English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish migrants left their homelands to settle far and wide. And Elizabeth I was not only a notable monarch for being a woman, but for presiding over a famous naval victory, and English forays into New World exploration.
Early BritonsEarliest Neanderthal remains found in Britain date from 200,000 years agoEarliest modern human remains are 33,000-yr-old Red Lady – actually a male mammoth hunter
When humans evolved Early and modern humansBut the idea of England – in particular – being a maritime nation has its roots as much in spin as in reality, says Dr Nigel Rigby, of the National Maritime Museum. An early exponent was the 16th Century writer Richard Hakluyt, who promoted the settlement of North America.
Hakluyt’s writings played on the growing desire to seek new territories after the loss of Calais in 1558.
“Hakluyt’s Voyages spun the idea that the English had always been stirrers and searchers abroad. But it was not really an island that had started to see a future at sea.”
By the time Charles I took the throne, the lure of maritime power had taken hold. “He called his great warship the Sovereign of the Seas. It was a statement of intent,” says Rigby.
For hundreds of years, ships, goods and people moved to and from the British Isles. Merchant and naval ships alike were staffed by those from far and wide, some of whom settled in its ports.
But just as Britain could reach out to the world from its safe harbours, so, too, could the world reach in – and this fuelled feelings of vulnerability, says Rigby. If an invader can make it across one’s watery defences, the British coastline offers an abundance of places in which to make landfall.
“The 19th Century writer Alfred Thayer Mahan made the point that if you look at the coastline of Britain, it’s suited to maritime trade with good harbours. But easy access for trade means it’s also vulnerable to attack from the sea.
“In times of national threat, this is a recurring fear. Hence the importance of being able to defeat enemies at sea,” says Rigby.
Mahan’s writings underlined the sense of Britain as a island nation, defined by its relationship with the sea. This identity was further bolstered by the likes of the novelist Erskine Childers, who wrote The Riddle of the Sands, a spy novel in the early 20th Century about a German plot to invade from across the North Sea.
“The idea of an ‘island nation’ is something of a cultural construct,” says Rigby.
“But in Britain you are never more than 60 miles from the sea. So it’s important to be able to defend the coastline, and to be able to make a living from all around that coastline too.”
Many believe its island status has also shaped Britain’s rather detached attitude to Europe today, which is still often referred to as “the continent”.
In the past, historian David Starkey has argued that Henry VIII’s break from the Catholic Church in Rome made him the first Eurosceptic.
“In plans for the elaborate coastal defences that Henry commissioned we can see how England no longer defined itself as part of Europe, but as separate from it – a nation apart,” he wrote in the Camden New Journal.
“Catholic Europe was now the threat, the launch pad for invasion. In other words Henry was the first Eurosceptic: the xenophobic, insular politics he created have helped to define English history for the past five centuries.”
Find out about ancient sites, and activities relating to ancient Britain, on the BBC Hands On History website.
Neil Oliver explores a 8,000-year-old settlement under the Solent
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RodC
“The idea of an ‘island nation’ is something of a cultural construct,” says Rigby. “But in Britain you are never more than 60 miles from the sea….”The place in the UK that is furthest from the sea is reckoned to be Coton in the Elms, Derbyshire – located just north of Tamworth – could come in useful on the Pub Trivia Quiz night! The village is about 73 miles from the sea.
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By the late 1980s Japan’s economy was a powerhouse, with growth peaking at 7.1%. It was being driven by booming electronics and auto industries, and billions of dollars invested in the financial markets. Japanese manufacturers benefited from a relatively cheap labour force.
China’s economic success began in the 1980s. At the start of the decade the household responsibility system was changed to allow families to keep their surplus grain. In 1994, the pricing system was changed to allow freer price movements. These steps and others started opening up China’s economy.
By the 1990s, Japanese land was severely overvalued. Property prices were unrealistically high and there was lots of speculation in the stock and property markets. Then the bubble burst, causing a massive market collapse. Investment started to flow out and brand Japan took a beating.
By the mid 1990s China was well on the path of opening up its economy. Exports were flooding out and China was given the title of “the world’s factory”. Taking advantage of its huge population, China began to move up in the rankings of the world’s top economies.
China’s growth is forecast to slow, but even so economists say it is on track to overtake the US as the world’s No.1 economy in about 10 years. And while it needs to control inflation and prevent asset bubbles most economists agree the economy’s underlying structure is sound, and growth sustainable.
