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Yeates suspect held for third day

Vincent TabakVincent Tabak’s flat is in the same block where Jo Yeates lived

A man arrested on suspicion of murdering Jo Yeates is to be questioned by detectives for a third day.

Miss Yeates, 25, was found dead on Christmas Day, eight days after going missing from her home in the Clifton area of Bristol.

Police made an arrest on Thursday and have also searched a flat next to Miss Yeates’s, which the BBC understands is home to Dutchman Vincent Tabak, 32.

Police have not confirmed Mr Tabak has been arrested.

On Friday Avon and Somerset Police were given more time to question the arrested man, with a court granting a warrant of further detention, which meant he could be held until Saturday evening.

Police closed Canynge Road, where Miss Yeates lived, early on Thursday and put up scaffolding next to her flat.

Forensic teams then began a search at the block, which was covered up with green sheets. Mr Tabak’s flat is not the first in the block to have been searched by officers.

Police also sealed off part of Aberdeen Road in Cotham, about a mile from the flats.

The arrest on Thursday morning is believed to have taken place at a converted Victorian terraced house in the road.

Jo YeatesJo Yeates’s body was found on Christmas Day

Police were initially granted extra time to question the suspect on Friday morning and a further day was granted in the afternoon.

Miss Yeates’s frozen body was found by dog walkers on 25 December next to a country road in Failand, three miles from where she lived.

A post-mortem examination revealed she had been strangled.

Miss Yeates, who was originally from Ampfield in Hampshire, was reported missing by her 27-year-old boyfriend Greg Reardon on 19 December when he returned to their home after a weekend away visiting family in Sheffield.

Earlier this week a reconstruction for the BBC’s Crimewatch programme was filmed, tracing Miss Yeates’s last steps.

The reconstruction focused on what happened to her after she left the offices of BDP, where she worked in Bristol city centre, on 17 December.

Miss Yeates is known to have gone to the Bristol Ram pub, Waitrose and a Bargain Booze shop.

Aberdeen Road in CothamIt is believed a 32-year-old man was arrested in Aberdeen Road

She then bought a pizza from a Tesco Express store before returning home.

CCTV footage of her in all three shops has been released by police.

Miss Yeates’s shoes, coat, mobile phone, purse and keys were found in her flat, which detectives said showed she had returned home.

The receipt from Tesco was also discovered in the flat but no trace has been found of the pizza or its packaging.

Tests have revealed she did not eat the pizza before she died.

Miss Yeates’s parents, David and Teresa, made a new appeal for information on Monday in which they urged “armchair detectives” to help police by reporting anyone whose behaviour had been unusual in recent weeks or who had reacted strangely to the murder.

The appeal prompted more than 300 calls to the force.

Miss Yeates’s landlord Chris Jefferies, 65, was previously held for three days for questioning on suspicion of murder before being released on bail.

Jo Yeates' flat in Bristol

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

Six wives, 13 kids

Steve GingerSteve says he loves all of his children ‘with a passion’

This week a study revealed that one in eight UK children rarely or never see their father.

So can one man have 13 children by eight different partners, have married six times and still be a good father? Well, ask Steve Ginger.

“I try to be a good dad,” says the 49-year-old, who lives in a Bedfordshire village along with wife number six and three of his four stepchildren.

A sign by his front door warns that trespassers will be shot, and from behind the house comes the howl of a huge dog.

Steve’s arms are covered in tattoos, his face is pierced and he has a build that made him a prison boxing champion.

“I never planned it, but I don’t think I’d change it”

Steve Ginger

But when he sits down with a roll-up cigarette to talk about his many children, a gentler person emerges.

“Kids are there for life, like a dog. You’ve got to look after them,” he says.

He gamely tries to remember when some of his offspring were born.

“Birthdays… I’m absolutely terrible with birthdays, I must admit.”

He turns to his 16-year-old stepson Rees for help, but none comes.

“He’s terrible as well,” says Steve.

“Rebecca and Stephanie, I haven’t got a clue. I’ve got it written down somewhere.

“Cheyenne’s birthday… I can remember that. It’s the 22nd of, err, Christ, August?

“My wife’s good at birthdays”, he says, referring to Anne, his spouse of two years.

Steve’s first two marriages lasted just a few weeks and yielded no children. He admits to spending a wedding night with someone other than his new bride.

The next four marriages were more productive, as were the relationships with four further women.

“I still get on relatively well with them all,” he says.

“[He] looks after me, so that’s all that matters”

Rees Stepson of Steve Ginger

“It’s not like we hate each other and I still see the children all the time.”

Steve has 13 children, plus one of disputed paternity who calls him dad. Their ages range from four to 27, and around half are now adults.

“I never planned it, but I don’t think I’d change it. I love kids,” he says.

“If I didn’t love them I wouldn’t let them come back all the time, and you wouldn’t put up with the things you have to put up with.”

Steve is a trained mechanic, but a back injury in 1996 means he is unable to work, lives off income support and disability allowance, and admits to struggling financially.

“When my daughter moved back in she was a priority until she’s sorted out. The boys come and go, they stay three, four, five days at a time and need feeding and that’s what we do.

“You just have to make ends meet.

“Right now it’s the twins’ birthday [Rees and his brother Shane]. One wants a Nintendo DS, the other wants trainers and a jumper. We’ll have to find the money from somewhere.”

So is Steve Ginger a good father?

“Ask my children,” he replies.

“Yeah he’s good,” says Rees. “Looks after me, so that’s all that matters.”

As for his other 17 children and stepchildren, Steve says he tries to be there when they need him.

“When they go through bad patches and they want to come home then they’re welcome.

“I love all of them with a passion. That’s the one thing you’ve got to have as a parent.

“I put my children before anything, before my own life. I would do anything and that is a fact.”

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

Fritzl’s house to be demolished

File photo of the house where Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter in Amstetten, Lower Austria.The fate of the building has been uncertain since Josef Fritzl’s crimes were discovered
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The house in which Josef Fritzl locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children by her is to be razed, Austrian media report.

No date has been set for the demolition of the house, located in the northern Austrian town of Amstetten.

The town’s mayor said he would prefer the house to be knocked down under cover of darkness, to try to deter the attention of the media.

Fritzl, 74, was jailed for life in March 2009.

He was convicted of murdering one of his children through neglect, as well as rape, incest, and enslaving his daughter, now in her 40s.

His daughter and her children received therapy, though official details about their current situation have not been made public.

The BBC’s Bethany Bell reports from Vienna that the fate of the house has been uncertain, with fears that no one would want to buy a place with such a troubled history.

Other tenants left the building shortly after Fritzl’s crimes were discovered.

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

Councils warn on pothole repairs

PotholeThe depth of the winter weather affects the severity of the pothole problem
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Councils face a “huge struggle” to repair potholes caused by this winter’s extreme weather, local government leaders in England have warned.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said town halls would be hit by a £165m cut in the budget for road maintenance.

LGA transport chairman Peter Box said the weather had taken a “massive toll” on the roads at a time when councils were being made to scale back spending.

The government said it expected winter road maintenance to be made a priority.

The weather affects the severity of potholes as they are formed when water repeatedly freezes and expands in cracks in the road, and the resulting gaps can cause damage to vehicles.

Mr Box said: “Ensuring our roads are kept up to a safe standard for motorists is a priority for councils and we will be working flat out to repair as many potholes as we possibly can.

“The coldest December in 100 years will have taken a massive toll on our roads and this damage is coming at a time when councils are being made to scale back their highways maintenance budgets.

“Last year councils on average fixed one pothole every 33 seconds. With tens of millions of pounds being cut from road maintenance budgets this year it is going to be a huge struggle for already-stretched highways teams to keep up.”

Local authorities received an extra £100m on top of the £871m Highways Maintenance Budget for 2010-11, and have repaired more than two million potholes.

However that additional money has been turned into a £65m cut from April, and there will be further reductions to £707m over the following three years.

Local transport minister Norman Baker said: “We know how important it is that local roads are well maintained. That is why, despite the need to make in-year budget reductions, we have protected day-to-day funding for local road maintenance this year.

“We will invest £3bn in maintenance over the next four years as well as spending £6bn to help local authorities make their road maintenance programmes as efficient and effective as possible.

“However, local councils should be managing their road maintenance throughout the year and in view of the last two winters we would expect winter maintenance to be a priority for them.”

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

Duvalier calls for reconciliation

Jean-Claude Duvalier speaking at a news conference on 21 January 2011Mr Duvalier said he wanted to show his solidarity by returning to Haiti
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Former Haitian leader Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has called for national reconciliation in his most extensive speech since he returned to the country on Sunday after 25 years in exile.

He said his surprise return had been prompted by last year’s earthquake and his desire to help rebuild the country.

Mr Duvalier also wanted “to express deep sorrow for all those who say they were victims of my government”.

He is being sued for torture and other crimes against humanity.

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday by a former United Nations spokeswoman, Michele Montas, and three Haitians who were jailed during Mr Duvalier’s 1971-1986 rule.

Ms Montas said she had lodged lawsuits for arbitrary detention, exile, destruction of private property, torture and moral violation of civil and political rights.

State prosecutors have also charged Mr Duvalier with theft and misappropriation of funds during his time as president-for-life.

Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ DuvalierTakes over presidency aged 19 after death of his father Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier in 1971Calls himself “president-for-life”Popular protests force him to flee to France in 1986Accused of corruption and rights abuses that prompted more than 100,000 Haitians to flee the countryAsks Haitian people for forgiveness for “errors” in 2007 radio interviewBaby Doc’s return evokes dark past

One of his lawyers said he was planning to stay in Haiti despite the charges, and might also get involved in politics.

Speaking in French and Creole at a news conference in a rented guest house, Mr Duvalier said he hoped for a rapid resolution to the political crisis in Haiti.

He arrived on the day Haiti was supposed to hold a second round of elections to choose a successor to outgoing President Rene Preval.

That vote has been postponed because of a dispute over which candidates should be on the ballot paper.

Provisional results from the first round on 28 November provoked violent demonstrations when they were announced, and most observers said there was widespread fraud and intimidation.

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

Banks break-up ‘being considered’

Canary WharfSome banks have threatened to move abroad if they are broken up

The head of the commission reviewing whether the UK’s biggest banks should be broken up is expected to say later that wide-ranging reform is needed.

In a speech in London, Sir John Vickers is set to confirm he is considering plans to separate banks’ trading and retail operations.

These may require banks to put their investment arms into separate entities that could be allowed to collapse.

This would limit the risks to the wider financial system.

But Sir John will stress that no final decisions have yet been made.

Sir John, a former chief economist at the Bank of England, is the chairman of the five-person Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) set up by the coalition government.

It is looking at financial stability and competition, including the question of what should be done about banks deemed “too big to fail”.

One suggestion is that investment banks should be separated from retail banks, so that depositors’ money is not put at risk by the investment banking arms of the business.

Equally, if banks were allowed to collapse if mismanaged, taxpayers would not need to come to the rescue.

This is what happened when the last Labour government bailed out both Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group when it deemed the risks to the wider financial system of allowing them to collapse were too great.

The commission is also looking at whether too few big banks have too much control over the retail banking sector in the UK.

Currently, the top six British banks control about 90% of all deposits. This compares with a 68% market share for Germany’s top seven banks and just 35% for America’s top eight.

Other topics for scrutiny include whether banks should be restricted in the amount of their own money they can use for investment trading.

Critics have said that splitting up banks could damage the UK’s competitive edge and make banks leave the UK.

HSBC has warned it would consider moving its headquarters from the UK if the commission recommended a break-up, while Standard Chartered has also questioned the future of its UK headquarters.

The other members of the ICB are Clare Spottiswoode, the former director-general of Ofgas; Martin Taylor, a former chief executive of Barclays; Bill Winters, the former co-chief executive of JP Morgan, and Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.

The ICB has until September 2011 to make its recommendations to the government.

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

Jordan rally targets government

Protesters in Amman, 21 January 2011The biggest demonstration was in the capital, Amman
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More than 5,000 people have rallied in Jordan to protest over economic policy and call for the government to resign.

The protesters have taken to the streets over the past week, angered by rising prices and unemployment.

The government recently announced a $125m (£78m) package to reduce prices, as well as measures to boost salaries.

But demonstrators say the measures are insufficient, and that they will continue to protest until Prime Minister Samir Rifai steps down.

Friday’s protests, dubbed the “Day of Rage”, took place in the capital, Amman, and several other cities, and were the largest so far.

The demonstrators have been emboldened by demonstrations in Tunisia that led to the flight of former Tunisian leader Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, the BBC’s Dale Gavlak reports from Amman.

They include left-wingers and Islamists, and trade unionists.

The crowd in Amman directed chants at the prime minister: “Listen Samir, change is soon coming,” they said. “The Jordanian people are on fire.”

Protests in Tunisia spread after a man in the centre of the country set himself on fire. There have been a number of cases of self-immolation in other Arab countries.

Opposition groups in Jordan object to economic reforms introduced by Mr Rifai after he took office in November 2009.

The changes led to cuts in subsidies for basic commodities.

But the latest measures, which correspondents say are aimed at preventing protests from spreading, reverse the reforms.

Protesters also want the prime minister to be democratically elected rather than appointed by King Abdullah.

“The king should be the guide, not the executor of the country’s daily affairs,” said Hamza Mansour, the leader of Jordan’s largest opposition group, the Islamic Action Front.

Jordan has a population of about six million. The official unemployment rate is 14%, though other estimates put it much higher, especially among the young.

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

Social mobility

Boy and girl on estate
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Getting the best start in life for people who come from a poor background has always been a difficult issue for politicians. This week a government-commissioned report identified a cycle of “dysfunction and under-achievement” – and the need to tackle it by throwing resources at vulnerable children from a very young age. But can failure to achieve in early years halt social mobility from the outset?

According to 2005 research from the London School of Economics there was an overall decline in social mobility in the UK between 1958 and 1970.

The people who moved forward during this period were from the middle classes, the researchers concluded. If your parents were well educated and have a good income, it trickled down into the next generation.

It also suggested children from poorer backgrounds did not benefit from any of the changes that were going on in society like the expansion of higher education in the 1980s.

In this week’s report, Labour MP Graham Allen says success or failure in early childhood has “profound economic consequences” and calls for more private money to be channelled into early intervention schemes to help set children on the right path in life.

He recommends regular assessments of all pre-school children, focusing on their social and emotional development.

The government, who will unveil plans to tackle “permanent social segregation” later this month, acknowledge that failure to achieve in early years can affect social mobility, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said.

“With low skills and and low quality jobs, there is no progression, and with manufacturing gone, it is harder to progress from a low skill area”

Helen Barnard Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The independent National Equality Panel was set up in October 2008 and has produced several reports looking at how people from different backgrounds typically come in the distributions of earnings, income or wealth in England.

In its latest report in January 2010 about social mobility, An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK it concluded: “Moving up a ladder is harder if its rungs are further apart, and those who start higher up fight harder to ensure their children do not slip down”.

National Equality panel chairman, professor John Hills said: “It does depend on how you measure income, and its links to occupation, but the UK has less mobility than Europe.”

In terms of international comparisons, measuring social mobility by how well children do from one generation to the next, the LSE study found the UK lags behind countries like Germany Sweden, and Finland.

In the comparison of eight European and North American countries, the UK and US were at the bottom, with the lowest social mobility.

Two years ago, a major study by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn warned that social mobility had slowed – and that the most sought-after professions were increasingly dominated by young people from affluent families.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation agrees that one of the reasons for the decline in social mobility in the UK is the lack of progression in jobs and a career path for people in poverty.

Helen Barnard, poverty programme manager at the charity, says: “With low skills and and low quality jobs, there is no progression, and with manufacturing gone, it is harder to progress from a low skill area.”

The foundation says having access social networks also play an important part in this.

It is a view echoed by the Social Mobility Foundation, a charity which organises work experience for well educated students from lower income backgrounds.

David Johnston, chief executive officer, says: “We have situations where firms are quite open with us in saying that we can offer work experience or internships, but you need to be a relative of one of our clients.”

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

Doctor in the house?

An emergency defibrillationOn holiday but still on call – doctors and nurses are expected to save lives wherever they are
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“Is there a doctor on board?” is perhaps one of the questions most dreaded by people in the medical profession.

Yet doctors and nurses are constantly being asked to respond in emergency situations because they are, in theory, best qualified to help.

Dealing with the aftermath of a car accident, treating a heart attack victim mid flight or helping a passerby collapsed in the street – all are seen as part of a doctor’s duty.

On 7 July 2005, a group of doctors preparing for a meeting at the headquarters of the British Medical Association in London’s Tavistock Square heard a bomb explode. The no 30 bus had been ripped apart right outside their building.

Dr Peter Holden, a GP from Matlock, took charge of the carnage created by the terrorist’s bomb. By coincidence he was also trained in immediate emergency care.

In his diary, written soon after the events of 7/7, Dr Holden recalls his feelings on that fateful morning: “I have trained for such a situation for 20 years – but on the assumption that I would be part of a rescue team, properly dressed, properly equipped, and moving with semi military precision.

“Instead, I am in shirt sleeves and a pinstripe suit, with no pen and no paper, and I am technically an uninjured victim.

“All I have is my ID card, surgical gloves, and my colleagues’ expectation that I will lead them though this crisis.”

“In emergency medicine it’s about making do and mending.”

Dr Peter Holden

Yet Dr Holden and his colleagues set about treating the injured and the dying.

His initial concern was to ensure that the area was safe and that the patients and doctors were safe. At any point another bomb could have gone off.

His next priority was to work out who to treat first, using a very rudimentary system of triage.

“It’s not the people shouting and screaming and making noise you go to first, it’s the quiet ones,” he says.

With no access to fluids for another 40 minutes, the doctors had to concentrate on opening airways, controlling bleeding and treating the walking wounded.

Everything had to be done quickly. Very quickly. And these acts were to prove vital that day.

Dr Holden and his colleagues couldn’t save everyone they treated in Tavistock Square on 7/7, but the GPs “instinctively understood they had to do the most for the most,” he says.

Other colleagues wanted to do a perfect ‘Rolls Royce’ job, he remembers, but in emergency medicine “it’s about making do and mending”.

As vice chairman of BASICS, British Association for Immediate Care, Dr Holden says that most doctors are not trained to deal with emergency medical events.

But the public still expects a doctor to be able to handle an unconscious patient and deliver a baby wherever and whenever it occurs.

“Doctors can often be very nervous of performing their skills in front of an audience.”

Dr Vic Calland

Medical people know they can’t walk by on the other side of the road – it wouldn’t be ethical – but they also have a job to cope with the emergency they are confronted with.

Often it means improvising.

In 2001 two doctors, a professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery and a senior house officer, famously saved a woman’s life on a flight from Hong Kong to London on which they were all travelling.

The woman had a collapsed lung and the doctors created their own chest drain using a coat hanger, biro and mineral water bottle.

There are many other stories of heroic life-saving interventions – and not just by medical personnel.

In April 2007, a pregnant woman’s waters broke on a First Choice Airways plane flying to Crete from Manchester.

With the help of air stewardess Carol Miller, Alfie was born while the plane was in mid-flight, weighing only 1lb 1oz. He was three months premature.

His breathing was so poor that the resourceful and heroic Miller made use of a drinking straw to inflate his lungs. She then performed mouth-to-mouth on the baby and repeatedly massaged his heart until the diverted plane landed at Gatwick.

Paramedics treat an injured skierOn the slopes – where medics can make a real difference to the injured patient if they know their stuff

Would a doctor have coped in a similar situation?

Dr Vic Calland, a clinical adviser to North West Ambulance Service, also runs BASICS courses for GPs, nurses and doctors on pre-hospital emergency care.

“Doctors can often be very nervous of performing their skills in front of an audience,” he says.

GPs want to attend his courses, “because they have not worked in hospital recently and they have lost confidence in their skills,” he explains.

“It’s my job to reassure them that they do have the knowledge and tell them it’s well within their grasp.”

Dr Agnelo Fernandes, urgent care spokesperson for the Royal College of General Practitioners says that all GPs generally have an annual refresher course in resuscitation training, which also covers burns and trauma.

“Many GPs also have background in working in an A & E departments as part of their training. GPs are part of a team in surgeries and nurses are also trained to deal with life-threatening conditions,” he says.

New equipment is also helping save more lives in emergency situations.

A device designed with the military to treating someone with a punctured lung and another device for opening airways quickly and efficiently are “absolutely life-saving”, Dr Calland says.

He also knows what it is like to attend major incident scenes with the ambulance service.

A motorcyclist’s lower leg, which was already severely damaged in a road accident, had to be amputated at the scene. Using a scalpel and some anaesthetic, Dr Calland cut through the last bits of muscle and skin to finish the job.

The concern from those working in emergency care is that medical students are not being trained appropriately to cope in emergencies.

Dr Holden explains: “There’s a danger that we are producing doctors who are too technical for our own good. The curriculum is more concerned with the touchy-feely stuff than the knowledge.”

“In an emergency you want someone who knows their job, who can work from first principles.”

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

Winning IT

Mock-up of the Olympic stadiumEnjoyment of the games will rest, in part, on good technology
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The finishing line may still seem some way off to the athletes preparing to compete in the London 2012 Olympics but the race is already on when it comes to making sure the technology that powers it runs smoothly.

In a lab in a Canary Wharf skyscraper, results of “virtual” races are already coming in as the 70-strong technology team begins 200,000 hours of stress testing.

By the time the Olympians descend on London, that team will have grown to 5,000 and some 18,900 technology devices will be in use.

It is just a small illustration of the scale of the task.

Technology is a behind-the-scenes must-have, which can make the difference between a smooth games and a “glitch games”, as Atlanta 1996 was dubbed after IBM’s complex system for reporting results proved less than reliable.

These days people don’t just expect 100% accuracy, they expect results the millisecond after an athlete has crossed the line.

The technology of an Olympic games is “the most complex piece of project management any city undergoes,” according to Lord Coe, head of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).

Seb Coe and Steve CramLord Coe and Steve Cram remember the days when technology was not so reliable

“There is the melding of well over one hundred venues. You’ve got 10,500 athletes, 4,500 paralympians, 22,0000 members of the media that turn up and expect precision with results and the kind of technology that allows them to sound terrific when they’re commentating,” he said.

It wasn’t always quite so seamless, as Olympic athlete-turned commentator Steve Cram recalls: “I used to walk into a commentary box with books and paperwork and I never 100% relied or was confident in the electronic systems” he said.

Veteran sports commentator David Coleman was even more sceptical, according to Mr Cram, using “his stopwatch more than he used to trust what was coming up on his screen”.

From an athlete’s point of view, technology is also pretty fundamental and Lord Coe remembers big differences in his days on the track: “I’d stand there, looking to see if I’d broken a record or, on a bad day, whether I was one of the qualifiers. Now it is all instantaneous,” he said.

The virtual Olympic lab will begin testing seven sports, including Athletics, tennis, basketball and triathlon and these seven alone will require half a million lines of code.

Some 880 PCs, 130 servers and 110 network switches are involved in analysing results and other crucial data created from the 35 sporting events that will be available in 2012.

By the times the Games arrive this will have grown to 900 servers, 1,000 network and security devices and 9,500 computers.

The tests simulate both normal circumstances as well as preparing the team for the unexpected, with tests of how data will be crunched in the event of a data centre fire, virus infection or other crises.

The lab is divided into 50 cells, each representing either a sporting event or a system, such as accreditation, which will rely on data.

CIO of LOCOG and chairman 'play' tennis in the virtual labThe lab will test all sports that will take place at the Olympics

The tech for 2012 will be the responsibility of seven partners, led by Atos Origin, the firm which has co-ordinated the technology of the last six Olympics.

Each venue has its own unique challenges, said Patrick Adiba, chief executive officer for Olympics and major events.

“At Athens some venues were only ready 24 hours before the events. In Vancouver there was no snow so they couldn’t build the finishing line.”

The challenge of London 2012 will more be about managing peoples’ expectations about technology.

There will be wi-fi in the Olympic park and data services for mobile phones are being planned but there can be no “guarantees” that network coverage will always be at the best level.

New technology for London 2012 includes myInfo, an internet application that allows media, sports officials and athletes to access competition schedules, sports records and transport news.

Cyber attacks against websites have become high profile in recent months and Mr Adiba is under no illusions about how attractive the Games will be to cyber criminals.

“We will get cyber attacks for sure,” he said.

But the nature of the system being built means such attacks are easily spotted.

“There is very little in-flow of data and if we see things coming in, we can quickly and easily see it. We are working to get the right level of defences,” he said.

One of the buzzwords of London 2012 has been “legacy” and just as the venues and the sports they support are hoping to inspire a generation to come, so the technology will have life beyond 2012.

The committee is looking at “socially useful ways” to use networks and equipment built for next year, according to LOCOG chief information officer Gerry Pennell.

The sailing venue in Portland, Dorset, for example, will require the building of a high-speed fibre network which would be a good opportunity for BT to build a bigger local network after the event.

That decision rests with BT, said Mr Pennell but the local population will be hoping for a slice of Olympic technology to remain long after the last yacht has sailed out of the harbour.

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

Commuters’ parking charges rise

Darren RobertsDarren Roberts was shocked at the higher parking charges

Hundreds of station car parks have raised their charges this month by at least twice the rate of inflation.

Commuter areas in the home counties seem to be the worst affected.

More than 50 stations operated by the South Eastern rail franchise have increased charges from £3 to £3.50 this month, an increase of 16%.

East Midlands, First Capital Connect, First Great Western and South-West Trains have all put up charges by at least 8%, though not at all stations.

Such increases come on top of the increased price of fuel, and an average rise of 6.2% in train fares this month, adding to the misery for commuters.

Regulars catching a train from Three Bridges station in West Sussex got a particularly nasty surprise when they arrived at the station car park this week.

They found that charges had been increased by 19%, without warning, from £4.20 to £5.00.

“That’s a shocking amount of money,” said Darren Roberts, who does a daily commute to London.

“You’re encouraged to be out of your car, but you get hit with money upon money upon money to get where you need to be.”

As with many stations, commuters have nowhere else to park, and often cannot get a space anyway.

Southern Railways, which operates Three Bridges, says it is trying to encourage more people to use a second car park 100 metres further away.

So it has raised charges there by much less than at its main car park.

Nevertheless prices at the second car park have still risen by 9%.

The RAC Foundation believes that train operators are putting up car parking charges as a sneaky way of increasing their profits.

Jo Abbotts, RAC FoundationJo Abbotts of the RAC Foundation says parking charges should be capped

While the price of train tickets is controlled by the regulator, rail companies are free to set their own charges for car parking.

“We suspect that they’re topping up their profits,” says Jo Abbotts of the RAC Foundation.

She points out that the price of parking is now as much as a quarter of the cost of the ticket itself.

A season ticket from Oxford to London costs £4,104, she says, while the cost of parking at Oxford station is £1,200 a year.

The RAC Foundation is particularly worried that the price of parking could encourage commuters to abandon the train, and drive to work instead.

“If the cost of car parking is preventing them from taking the train, and forcing them to take their cars for the entire journey, then we need to address those issues,” says Jo Abbotts.

The train operators point out that many stations have not had price rises at all, or else they have adjusted charges to remain comparable with nearby car parks.

“Many of the UK’s stations don’t charge for car parking at all”

ATOC

In Scotland for example, there have been no increases, as the operator Scotrail is not allowed to put up prices without permission from the Scottish government.

Other operators say they have increased charges to pay for improvements, such as security lighting.

The train companies say they have also had to cope with the VAT rise this month, on top of CPI inflation, which is running at 3.7%

A spokesperson for the Association of Train Operating Companies said: “Many of the UK’s stations don’t charge for car parking at all, and many car parks have discounted prices at quieter times of the day.”

But the RAC is still not convinced.

It suggests that car parking charges could be capped, and only allowed to increase at the same rate as train tickets themselves.

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

Ukraine crocodile eats mobile phone

Crocodile at the Dnipropetrovsk aquariumThe woman dropped her phone while trying to photograph one of the aquarium’s crocodiles

Staff at an aquarium in Ukraine are concerned for one of their crocodiles after it ate a mobile phone dropped into its enclosure by a visitor.

The 14-year-old crocodile – known as Gena – has been refusing food since the accident in Dnipropetrovsk last month.

Workers at first did not believe the woman’s complaints that her phone had been eaten until it began ringing.

The incident has been compared to the crocodile in Peter Pan, which emitted a “tick-tock” after swallowing a clock.

Visitor Rimma Golovko said she had stretched out her arm trying to snap a photograph of Gena opening his mouth, but the phone slipped.

“This should have been a very dramatic shot, but things didn’t work out,” she said.

Since the incident, the African crocodile has been refusing food and appears listless.

“He moves very little and swims much less than he used to,” a staff member told the Associated Press news agency.

Experts tried to tempt Gena with live quail injected with a laxative, but he still would not eat.

Oleksandr Shushlenko, Dnipropetrovsk’s chief veterinarian, said that if Gena continues to refuse food, he will be given an X-ray next week and could face surgery.

However, he said an operation would be a last resort as the procedure is dangerous for the animal and the vets.

“We don’t have much experience working with such large animals,” he added.

Ms Golovko says she wants her Sim card back as it contains photographs and contacts.

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