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Dodo drawings

Before the invention of photography, artists were used to document the colours and appearance of newly discovered creatures and plants. To celebrate their work, the Natural History Museum in London is showcasing its own extensive art collection.

Take a look with Peronel Craddock and Judith Magee from the museum – and find out why some paintings of the extinct dodo bird might not have been totally accurate.

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Images of Nature will be open at the Natural History Museum in London from 21 January 2011. Admission free.

All artwork images copright Natural History Museum. Music courtesy KPM Music.

Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 20 January 2011.

More audio slideshows:

The photography of Sir Wilfred Thesiger

Fellows of science at the Royal Society

Jurassic woman

Britain from the Air

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

China vows to boost human rights

Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President Barack ObamaMr Hu spoke at a joint news conference on the first full day of his state visit to the US

Chinese President Hu Jintao has acknowledged that “a lot still needs to be done” in China over human rights.

Mr Hu was speaking at a rare joint news conference with US President Barack Obama on the first full day of his state visit to the US.

Asked to justify China’s human rights record Mr Hu said China had “made enormous progress recognized in the world”.

Mr Obama said he saw China’s “peaceful rise” as good for the United States.

“The US has an interest in seeing hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty,” Mr Obama said.

Earlier, the US president hailed relations with China, saying the two countries have a huge stake in each other’s success.

At a White House ceremony to greet Mr Hu, he said the US and China would be more prosperous and secure when they worked together.

Mr Hu said co-operation should be based on mutual respect, and they should respect each other’s development paths.

The two leaders’ talks at the White House tackled issues from currency and trade to defence and security.

“We have an enormous stake in each other’s success – we will be more prosperous and more secure when we work together”

Barack Obama US presidentIn pictures: Hu Jintao visits the USChina’s media positive over Hu’s US visitSee Also blog: US media react

US officials revealed that a $45bn (£28bn) export deal had been signed with China, including Beijing’s $19bn purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft.

The two presidents promised to co-operate in their dispute over China’s currency, the yuan, which the US says is kept artificially low to help Chinese exporters. President Obama said the yuan’s value must be driven by the market, and there needed to be a level playing field in trade.

Mr Obama admitted that differences on human rights issues were “occasionally a source of tension” between the US and China.

“I believe part of justice and part of human rights is people being able to make a living and having enough to eat and having shelter and having electricity,” he said.

“We welcome China’s rights. We just want to make sure that (its) rise occurs in a way that reinforces international norms, international rules, and enhances security and peace as opposed to it being a source of conflict either in the region or around the world,” the president added.

President Hu said China was willing to continue a conversation about human rights on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference into China’s internal affairs.

Mr Obama said earlier on Wenesday that Mr Hu’s trip to the US was the basis for the next 30 years of ties between the two nations.

The White House is laying out a full formal reception with lunch at the state department, a state dinner at the White House, and meetings with some of America’s most powerful business leaders from firms like General Electric, Coca-cola and Boeing.

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

House votes to repeal health law

Republican Representative Michele Bachmann from the US state of MinnesotaRepublicans have pledged to cut funds to the healthcare reform law if the repeal fails in the Senate
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Republicans in the US House of Representatives are poised to pass a vote repealing President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul in a symbolic move demonstrating their gains in Congress.

The vote is being seen as a step to rouse Republican voters following their wins in November’s mid-term elections.

But Democrats still hold a majority in the Senate and have pledged to reject the bill if it passes.

Republicans have also vowed to deny Mr Obama the funds to carry out the law.

Republicans won sweeping gains in November’s mid-term congressional elections in part by attacking what they portrayed as a costly and job-killing healthcare law.

“Our vote to repeal is not merely symbolic,” Republican Representative Nan Hayworth told the Associated Press news agency.

“It respects the will of the American people, and it paves the way to reform our healthcare,” he added.

Mr Obama, who signed the healthcare change into law in 2010, has said he will veto the bill to overturn the law if it passes in both the House and Senate.

Analysis

Wednesday’s vote on repealing the health care bill is mostly symbolic.

It will likely pass the Republican-dominated House, but the next stop is the US Senate, where Democrats remain in control. Regardless, Mr Obama has promised to veto the repeal if it makes it to his desk.

A more likely scenario is that Republicans will begin chipping away at the bill, rolling back or refusing to fund provisions they disagree with, like the individual mandate.

But the repeal vote will please many Republican supporters, particularly those in the conservative Tea Party movement who had angrily decried Mr Obama’s reforms.

It has also energised Democrats, who are now vigorously defending a bill they had once been wary of. They argue it will extend health care to millions of Americans who are currently without it.

Overall Americans remain divided over the health care bill. One new poll shows that a majority believe it will damage the US economy, but only 18% want to see the bill repealed in its entirety.

It remains to be seen how many Democrats will join their Republican counterparts in the House in voting to repeal the president’s landmark achievement, which would provide coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people.

The law would also expand a Medicaid programme for the poor and provide tax credits to make premiums more affordable for the middle class.

“Americans deserve the freedom and security of knowing that insurance companies can’t deny, cap or drop their coverage when they need it the most, while taking meaningful steps to curb runaway health costs,” the president said in a statement on Tuesday.

But Republicans are challenging the overhaul, which is set to fully take effect in 2014, as unconstitutional in federal court.

Sixty votes in the Senate, which only holds 47 Republicans, would probably be needed to overturn the law – if it passes in the House later on Wednesday.

Many in America are already benefiting from the overhaul, which has allowed for extended coverage for young adults on their parents’ healthcare plan and lower prices for prescription medicine for Medicare recipients.

The US healthcare reform law was approved in March of last year, making it compulsory for Americans to buy medical insurance and illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to customers with pre-existing conditions.

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

Koran-protest pastor gets UK ban

Pastor Terry Jones speaks to reporters. 8 Sept 2010Mr Jones had said the burning would be a stand against terrorism
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Controversial US pastor Terry Jones has been excluded from the UK for the public good, the Home Office has said.

The pastor had been invited to the UK to give an address to the right-wing group England Is Ours in Milton Keynes.

Mr Jones gained international attention for threatening to burn a copy of the Koran outside his church in the US on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

A Home Office spokesperson said the government “opposes extremism in all its forms”.

He said: “Numerous comments made by Pastor Jones are evidence of his unacceptable behaviour.

“Coming to the UK is a privilege not a right and we are not willing to allow entry to those whose presence is not conducive to the public good.

“The use of exclusion powers is very serious and no decision is taken lightly or as a method of stopping open debate.”

Mr Jones – who is pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, which has fewer than 50 members – came to prominence in September after he announced plans for his “International Burn a Koran Day”.

His plan was internationally condemned and sparked many demonstrations around the world. He eventually called off his protest.

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

Climbdown over prison vote rights

Nick RobinsonBy Nick Robinson

Man in cellOnly prisoners on remand can currently vote
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The government is preparing to scale back plans to give the right to vote to thousands of prisoners serving sentences of under four years.

Ministers now hope to limit the right to those sentenced to less than a year and are prepared to take the risk of being sued.

David Cameron recently said giving inmates the vote made him feel “ill”.

But he warned that the government faced paying out more than £160m in compensation if it did not do so.

Ministers proposed changing the law on prisoners’ voting rights following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

John Hirst, a prisoner convicted of manslaughter, successfully argued that his human rights had been violated by not being allowed to take part in elections.

But Mr Cameron is now thought to accept that the Commons is unlikely to vote for a proposal which could involve granting the vote to up to 28,000 prisoners, including 6,000 jailed for violent crime, more than 1,700 sex offenders, more than 4,000 burglars and 4,300 imprisoned for drug offences.

The BBC understands that ministers now hope they will be able to give the vote only to those prisoners sentenced to serve a year or less.

They are aware, however, that this policy will be tested in the courts and that they might lose again.

Even this concession may not persuade many MPs who want to make a stand against the Strasbourg court.

The Commons will have the opportunity to defy the court’s ruling in a couple of weeks’ time when the Commons debates a motion tabled by the Conservative David Davis and Labour’s Jack Straw.

The prime minister met the executive of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs on Wednesday and was left in no doubt about the strength of feeling on this issue.

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

Toddler badly hurt in dog attack

A two-year-old child from East Sussex is in a serious condition in hospital after being attacked by a dog.

Sussex Police said the youngster was mauled by the animal at home in Hailsham at about 2015 GMT on Wednesday.

A force spokesman said the child’s injuries are “serious but not life-threatening”.

The dog, which was a family pet, will be destroyed. No details about the dog’s breed have been revealed.

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

Giffords to move to rehab clinic

Gabrielle Giffords, in a handout photoMs Giffords has made steady progress following several rounds of surgery

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is to be moved on Friday to a rehabilitation centre, her family has said.

Ms Giffords, shot over the left eye in a mass shooting in Arizona last week, continues to recover in hospital.

Barring further medical complications, she will be moved to Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital in Houston, where her husband works for Nasa.

Jared Loughner, 22, has been jailed pending trial for the attack in Tucson, in which six were killed and 13 hurt.

“I am extremely hopeful at the signs of recovery that my wife has made since the shooting,” her husband Mark Kelly, a space shuttle astronaut, said in a statement released by Ms Giffords’s congressional office.

He said doctors at University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, where his wife has undergone a series of operations, had stabilised her to the point she could move into the rehabilitation phase of recovery.

He and Ms Giffords’s parents had chosen the rehabilitation clinic because of its “national reputation for treating serious penetrating brain injuries” and its relative closeness to Tucson, Mr Kelly said.

Ms Giffords’s mother, meanwhile, has told friends the Democratic congresswoman has made remarkable progress since the 8 January attack at a constituency event outside a store in Tucson.

Gloria Giffords told friends in an e-mail that her daughter had scrolled through photographs on her husband’s iPhone and had begun to look at “get well” cards and pages from a large-print book while in her hospital room, the New York Times reported.

“It’s good news for all of us and for all the people who have been praying for wisdom and strength for the surgeons and others who have been helping her,” Stephanie Aaron, Ms Giffords’s rabbi at Congregation Chaverim in Tucson, told the Associated Press news agency.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle, but it’s also Gabby’s will to fight. It’s her strength of spirit.”

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