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Germany announces tighter rules for producing animal feed after the dioxin scandal which hit egg and pork production.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
How the RSPCA is trying to give a dog a good name
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Labour leader Ed Miliband says his party’s comfortable victory in the Oldham East by-election is the “first step” on its journey back to power.
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A woman nearly caught up in one of the London Tube bombings then boarded the bus blown up about an hour later, an inquest hears.
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Pope Benedict XVI has formally approved a miracle attributed to his late predecessor, paving the way to John Paul’s beatification on 1 May.
The process of beatification, or declaring the late pontiff to be “blessed”, is a crucial step towards making him a saint.
John Paul died in 2005 after a papacy of nearly 27 years.
The Vatican credits him with the miraculous cure of a nun said to have had Parkinson’s Disease.
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The illegally-obtained points would have been worth £81,000 A Sainsbury’s IT worker who stole more than 17 million Nectar points from the firm has been jailed.
James Stevenson created false accounts to give himself the points under the shop’s reward card system, the Old Bailey heard.
The illegally-obtained points would have been worth £81,000 to Stevenson, 45, from Muswell Hill, north London.
He was sentenced to 20 months in prison for fraud but will be released after 10 months on licence.
“This was a carefully-planned, well-worked fraud”
Judge Peter Thornton
Stevenson had worked for the company for two decades and had access to the IT networks controlling the Nectar card scheme.
He created 18 accounts and added points to them between 2003 and 2004, the court heard.
But he waited until 2007 and 2008 to begin using the points.
Stevenson then went on test runs, buying only one item at a time, the court heard.
When Stevenson’s fraud was discovered by Sainsbury’s, he told them he had “discovered a loophole in the system”, the court heard.
He was ordered to repay the £8,120 he stole to pay for goods.
Edward McKiernan, prosecuting, said: “There wasn’t a proper check in place. He was a trusted employee so no-one was looking over his shoulder.”
Judge Peter Thornton told Stevenson: “Your motive was clearly greed. This was a carefully-planned, well-worked fraud on Sainsbury’s.”
The father of two’s relatives wept in court as he was sentenced.
His defence team argued he had showed remorse for the crime.
A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said: “Our internal systems to prevent fraud are very robust.
“When the actions of Mr Stevenson came to light we took appropriate action and we are pleased that the legal process has now come to an end.”
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Gail Sheridan has stood for office previously, in 2003 Tommy Sheridan’s wife Gail is to stand for election to the Scottish Parliament, the BBC understands.
The wife of the disgraced ex-leader of the Scottish Socialist Party plans to run as a candidate for the Solidarity party in the May poll.
Last month, Mr Sheridan was convicted of perjury following a 12-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
He is due to be sentenced on 26 January and Mrs Sheridan is expected to make a formal announcement after that.
She had also been accused of perjury but was acquitted of all the charges against her.
It is believed the 46-year-old will be placed at the top of Solidarity’s Glasgow list.
The party was founded in 2006, shortly after Mr Sheridan won his defamation action against the News of the World which accused him of attending a swingers’ club.
But in December last year, a jury found Mr Sheridan guilty of lying under oath during his defamation action against the paper.
Mr Sheridan failed to be re-elected in the 2007 Holyrood election as top of Solidarity’s list nominees for Glasgow.
The party also stood a candidate in by-elections in Glasgow East and Glenrothes in 2008, and Mr Sheridan himself stood again in the Glasgow North East by-election in 2009, winning just 3.9% of the vote.
Mrs Sheridan was an activist in the SSP from 1999 to 2006, and has stood for office before, contesting the Glasgow Cardonald seat in a council election in 2003.
The former air hostess increased the SSP’s vote, but lost out to Labour.
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A huge bright blue cockerel and a bronze sculpture of a boy on a rocking horse will take their place on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
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New boy Aaron Finch strikes an unbeaten fifty as Australia end England’s run of eight straight Twenty20 victories with a four-run triumph in Melbourne.
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When should breastfed babies be weaned onto solids?
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Drivers of cars and trucks must pay tolls to drive on most major highways in China A Chinese farmer convicted of fraud after using military number plates to avoid paying road tolls is to be retried after an internet outcry over his sentence.
Shi Jianfeng was initially sentenced to life in prison for evading tolls of 3.7m yuan (£350,000; $560,000).
He was also fined 2m yuan.
But the court, in Pingdingshan, Henan province, decided to give him a retrial after an internet campaign criticising the sentence.
The farmer’s two trucks made nearly 2,400 journeys delivering sand and gravel over a nine-month period.
He managed to avoid paying tolls by fixing military number plates – which allow toll-free travel – to his vehicles.
He was eventually caught and sentenced to life in prison.
The authorities said his toll bill was so large partly because he had been charged for overloading his trucks.
That could have been the end of the story, but then it went public.
People were angry and posted comments online critical of the harsh sentence.
“The law is used against ordinary people. Those who dodge 3m yuan get life in prison, but those who embezzle billions get just a few years,” wrote one commentator on the Tianya online forum.
The court in Henan province has now given in to that public pressure.
“The case drew media interest and heated debate as soon as the verdict was released,” read a statement posted on Pingdingshan court website.
“Pingdingshan Intermediate People’s Court reacted positively and immediately organised a group to carry out a review of the case.”
That review found others could have been involved in the fraud, prompting the court to order a retrial.
This case shows the power of the internet to change the minds of Chinese officials.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Lt Gen Nyamwasa used to be a close ally of President Paul Kagame A military court in Rwanda has sentenced four former top officials who have fallen out with the government to long prison terms.
The men, all in exile, were found guilty of threatening state security and propagating ethnic divisions.
Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who survived an assassination attempt in June, and Maj Theogene Rudasingwa got 24 years and will lose their army rank.
Patrick Karegeya and Gerald Gahima received a sentence of 20 years each.
The guilty verdict means Rwanda’s government could seek the extradition of the men who are currently in exile in either the US or South Africa.
However correspondents say it is unlikely that either country would readily agree to such a request.
Rwanda denies any links to the June 2010 shooting of Lt Gen Nyamwasa in Johannesburg.
The Rwandan government believes Lt Gen Nyamwasa was linked to grenade attacks in Kigali earlier last year and has previously tried to secure his extradition.
Like the other men Lt Gen Nyamwasa was once a close ally of Rwandan President Paul Kagame – and has denied the allegations.
Mr Gahima was Rwanda’s prosecutor general, Mr Karegeya was director of external intelligence in Rwanda’s military, while Maj Rudasingwa was the top official in the president’s office.
The BBC’s Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says the men were also found guilty of creating a group of criminals; defaming a head of state and disrupting the freedom of the government.
Mr Kagame led the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel movement which put a stop to the 1994 genocide – and has been president since 2000.
The president, who was overwhelmingly re-elected for a second term with 93% of the vote last August, is viewed by many in the West as one of Africa’s more dynamic leaders.
However, critics have raised concerns about his more authoritarian tendencies and the government was accused of harassing the opposition ahead of the elections.
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Fuel prices rose more quickly in December 2010 than they did a year earlier The price of goods leaving UK factories rose faster in December than in the previous month, largely due to the increased price of oil, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.
Annual producer output price inflation rose to 4.2%, compared with an upwardly revised 4.1% in November.
The biggest factor in the rise was a 12.8% increase in petrol prices.
Increases in factory prices enhance concerns over knock-on effects for consumers, analysts say.
“This is primarily an oil and commodity price effect,” said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank.
“It is going to raise pressure on the Bank of England [to raise interest rates] because output prices were up 0.5% on the month, which is quite a chunky amount.”
Consumer price inflation (CPI) is running at 3.3%, way above the Bank’s 2% target, while retail price inflation – which includes mortgage interest payments – is currently 4.7%.
The Bank has said it expects inflation to fall back in the medium term, and kept rates on hold on Thursday at 0.5% for the 22nd month in a row.
It wants to keep rates low for now to boost demand to secure the economic recovery.
However, there is mounting speculation that it may be forced to raise rates sooner than previously expected due to continuing rising prices.
Rising energy costs due in large part to the rising price of oil, higher food prices due to the increasing cost of basic commodities, and the increase in VAT to 20% this month, are all putting upward pressure on the inflation rate.
And December’s factory price figures will by used by those calling for a rate rise as further evidence of the need for action sooner rather than later, analysts say.
“The Bank will have had these numbers at yesterday’s meeting and I think the minutes will show growing unease about inflation,” said Alan Clarke at BNP Paribas.
In each of the last three monthly meetings of the Bank’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, member Andrew Sentance has called for rates to rise in order to cool inflation.
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Eurozone inflation is above its 2% target at 2.2% and is likely to stay above it in the near future Rising fuel prices helped push annual eurozone inflation up to 2.2% in December, from 1.9% in November, according to official figures.
Consumer prices in countries using the euro climbed 0.6% on a monthly basis, Eurostat added.
The data comes one day after the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) warned the region was threatened by rising prices.
The ECB has a target of 2% for eurozone inflation. A year ago it stood at 0.9%.
More expensive fuel has a particular impact on the cost of transport and of food production and delivery.
Overall energy prices jumped 2.3% between November and December, leaving prices 11% higher in December 2010 than in the same month in 2009.
The eurozone country with the highest rate of inflation was Estonia, which was not a member of the bloc last year, only joining the 16 existing euro-using countries at the start of this year.
Its inflation rate is 5.4%, followed by long-term eurozone member, Greece, at 5.2%.
Slovakia had the lowest rate of price rise growth, up by just 1.2%.
On Thursday, the ECB left interest rates unchanged for the 20th month in a row at its monthly meeting.
But its president, Jean-Claude Trichet also warned that the eurozone inflation rate may rise further in the coming months, as a result of higher energy costs.
Mr Trichet said inflation could “temporarily increase further”, and is “likely to stay above 2% until falling back towards the end of the year,” he said.
He also called on governments with high debt levels to introduce further measures to cut their budget deficits, particularly through spending cuts.
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A man and a woman have been charged in connnection with the death of a 43-year-old man who died at a block of flats in Edinburgh.
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