Category: news

More than 1m children took part in the measuring scheme

Nearly one in five children in England leave primary school obese, figures show.

The data, from the school measuring programme, also showed one in 10 pupils start school obese.

The figures show small rises from previous years although as the scheme is voluntary it is hard to draw firm conclusions.

Predictions from a separate report last year suggested childhood obesity was levelling off.

In total, 18.7% of year six pupils were obese, the report released by the NHS Information Centre showed. The figure rises to 33.4% when overweight children are taken into account.

For the reception year, the figures are 9.8% and 23.1% respectively.

All these measures show slight increases from 2008-9, although the NHS Information Centre which produced the report said they were not statistically significant.

This is mainly because parents can refuse to let their children take part in the programme – and one in 10 do.

Nonetheless, more than 1m children took part, making it the largest child weight survey of its kind.

Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre, said: “These statistics suggest that more needs to be done at a younger age to combat obesity within primary education and positively encourage healthy eating and participation in physical activity to reduce future health implications for these children.”

Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said the figures were shaming.

“The fact that obesity doubles during the primary school years from reception year shows that the government must rethink its recent proposals on school dinners and physical activity.”

Dr Helen Walters, obesity spokesperson for the UK Faculty of Public Health, said she still believed the rise in obesity was beginning to tail off.

Bue she added: “The situation will take decades to sort out and as it stands, the picture remains bleak.”

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

Bristol Rovers sack manager Paul Trollope following their exit from the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy on Tuesday night to Exeter City on penalties.

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

Doctors have come up with dozens of ways to save money

Doctors have suggested dozens of ways the NHS in England can save money and improve care.

Ideas include changing policies on discharging patients, cutting surgical equipment waste and not doing unnecessary procedures

It comes as the health secretary gives his priorities for the NHS, with the quality of care expected to dominate.

Andrew Lansley is expected to include a proposal to fine hospitals if patients are forced to share mixed-sex wards.

Labour ministers floated the same idea almost two years ago but mixed sex wards have proved to be stubbornly persistent.

The NHS in England must find up to £20bn in efficiency savings by 2015.

The list was drawn up by doctors and consultants from seven specialised areas.

It highlights unnecessary procedures carried out across the NHS, the waste of surgical equipment and improving the way patients are referred by GPs.

For example many hospitals have different policies on discharging patients which can mean some people stay in longer than is necessary, leading to extra costs.

Surgeons have pointed out that the scare over CJD infection has led to expensive surgical equipment being thrown away after just one use.

The report says the rules used to prevent infection from instruments is not based on reliable evidence.

“They are founded on estimated, notional risks that since implementation have subsequently been revised down. Yet there has been no change in the policy,” the report says.

The report was published by the NHS Confederation, which represents around 95% of the organisations that make up the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The NHS Confederation’s clinical director Hugo Mascie-Taylor said expert suggestions like these need to be taken seriously.

“There are huge challenges facing the health service but what is heartening about this report is that there are ways both to save money and improve the care we provide to people.

“This is the start of an important debate and these ideas need to be considered carefully. The NHS treats millions of people a year and does so with care and professionalism but there are always ways to improve, to do things better and to reduce waste at the same time.”

The report comes as the NHS in England faces increasing financial pressures, not least the need to make up to £20bn in efficiency savings over the next four years.

On Tuesday the Commons Health Select Committee said meeting that target would test the NHS to the limit.

And the government’s reorganisation of the NHS takes another step forward on Wednesday as the health secretary outlines his response to the public consultation on massive reorganisation planned for the NHS in England.

Andrew Lansley and the NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson will also outline what is known as the Operational Framework for Trusts in England, setting their priorities for the coming year.

It is expected that top of the list will be the need to maintain quality as the reform process rolls out.

And the funding for Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) for 2011-12 will also be revealed, the last year they will receive a full allocation of money before the reforms begin.

It is widely expected within the health service that PCTs will get a very small increase in their budgets.

That may not reduce the financial pressure on hospitals, which have seen their payment for treatments frozen this financial year.

If the prices paid to hospitals, known as the tariff, do not keep pace with inflation they will continue to be at the sharp end of finding savings in the NHS.

It would increase the pressure to move some types of care out of hospitals and into the community.

At the same time a new report by the think tank Civitas says abolishing PCTs in one go – a key part of the government’s reorganisation of the NHS in England – could damage patient care.

Civitas says getting rid of the trusts could cause delays to treatment and calls for a more “incremental approach” to reform.

The reforms do not affect the health service in Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland, which are devolved to their national administrations.

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

An Executive meeting took place at Stormont to discuss budget plans

The Northern Ireland Assembly is set to debate a draft budget on Wednesday, following late night talks at Stormont Castle.

Ministers spent hours discussing proposals by the First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness on Tuesday night.

The Executive meeting followed a session of the Stormont budgetary review.

The full details of the draft will be presented to the Assembly later.

BBC Political Editor Mark Devenport said it is highly likely the proposals will not be endorsed by all ministers.

He added: “The SDLP and the UUP are more likely to let the document go to consultation without giving it either a thumbs up or thumbs down.”

The draft is expected to include cuts for some departments as well as proposals for generating extra revenue, such as a charge on civil service car parking and a plastic bag levy.

Belfast Harbour is to be asked to contribute £125 million to the Executive over four years from its cash reserves. Local housing associations may also be asked to contribute funding.

The regional rate will rise in line with inflation. Public sector workers on more than £21,000 a year will be subject to a pay freeze.

There will be a “social solidarity fund” to help those hit by welfare benefit changes and the Enterprise Department will get some more funds for job creation.

Speaking ahead of the Executive meeting the Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy said he was “very hopeful” an agreement would be reached.

However, Mr Murphy insisted the final agreement is a matter for the entire Executive and all of the coalition parties must be onboard.

He added: “Of course people will have an opportunity to go over the budget line by line. There is a period of consultation, this is not a finalised document.”

Northern Ireland is the last devolved administration to agree on a budget.

Chancellor George Osbourne ordered Stormont to cut spending by £4bn over the next four years as part of the Spending Review announcement on 20 October.

However, the five-party coalition has yet to agree on how the savings will be made.

Scotland and Wales have already outlined their spending plans.

There have been concerns expressed by ministers about at the length of time it has taken to finalise a proposal.

The First Minister Peter Robinson said that a budget had to be agreed on before Christmas.

However, Sinn Fein had warned it would not be rushed in to making a decision.

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

A Moscow court postpones giving a verdict against oil tycoon and Kremlin-critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of theft and money laundering.

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

The boat appeared to be trying to land when it broke up

Dozens of people are feared to have drowned after a boat carrying suspected asylum seekers crashed into rocks on Australia’s Christmas Island.

Pictures from the scene showed the boat, believed to be carrying Iranians and Iraqis, smashed to pieces.

Witnesses said they could do little to help as the seas were too rough to approach the vessel.

The boat appeared to be trying to land at Christmas Island, where Australia has an immigration detention centre.

The BBC’s Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says he understands that about 70 people were on the vessel and about 40 were rescued.

Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan, standing in for Julia Gillard while she is on holiday, confirmed that some people had died but could not say how many.

“A number of people have been rescued, but sadly some bodies have been retrieved.”

A spokeswoman for the Royal Flying Doctor Service said 30 people were being treated for injuries and three of them were critically ill.

Residents of Christmas Island said they were alerted to the disaster by the sounds of screaming from the shore.

“We threw ropes over the cliffs and we must have thrown in a couple of hundred life-jackets,” one resident was quoted as saying by the West Australian newspaper website.

“About 15 or 20 people managed to get into the jackets but there are bodies all over the water,” he said.

“There are dead babies, dead women and dead children in the water. The swell is unbelievably big.”

Another resident, Simon Prince, told Associated Press: “The engine had failed. They were washing backward and forward very close to the cliffs here, which are jagged limestone cliffs, very nasty.

Acting PM Wayne Swan: “Sadly some bodies have been retrieved”

“When the boat hit the cliff there was a sickening crack. All the people on board rushed to the land side, which is the worst thing they could do.”

Australian media said residents alerted the police at 0545 (2045 GMT on Tuesday).

Australia Customs launched two inflatable boats to rescue survivors.

One witness, documentary maker Philip Stewart, said he arrived at the shore about an hour after the boat first hit the rocks and it was already in pieces.

He said he saw about seven survivors but conditions were too rough for rescuers to get close enough to help.

“They were waving and shouting and screaming for help,” he told Australia’s ABC News.

Christmas Island residents struggled to rescue people from the rugged shore

“They were desperate, by that stage they had been in the water for an hour already.

“They hung on for as long as they possibly could and each one of them was eventually thrown off into the sea on to the rocks.”

He said he saw one person picked up while the others drowned.

Australia has seen an increase this year in asylum seekers arriving by boat.

There are currently almost 3,000 people in the Christmas Island processing centre waiting for officials to rule on their cases.

The island is in the Indian Ocean, about 1,200km (750 miles) north-west of the Australian mainland and about 300km south of Indonesia.

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

Confidence among Japanese companies has fallen for the first time in almost two years, the influential tankan survey suggests.

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

Taped conversations between Niira Radia and leading figures were leaked

India’s top investigation agency has raided the home and offices of a corporate lobbyist in connection with a corruption inquiry.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches on Niira Radia’s house and offices in Delhi.

Ms Radia is said to have had links to ex-telecommunications minister A Raja, who quit last month after mobile phone licenses were allegedly undersold.

Earlier this month the CBI raided Mr Raja’s houses in Delhi and Madras.

The so-called 2G spectrum inquiry has been described as the country’s biggest-ever scandal.

Opposition demands for a cross-party inquiry into the matter paralysed the Indian parliament’s winter session which became the least productive for a quarter of a century when it ended on Monday.

A spokesman for the CBI told the BBC that its detectives had raided 34 homes and offices in Delhi and the southern city of Chennai (Madras) on Wednesday.

They included the home and the offices of Ms Radia – and a leading corporation communications company which she owns – as well as the home of a former telecom official Pradip Baijal, he said.

More than 100 tapes of conversations between Ms Radia and Mr Raja and leading politicians, industrialists and journalists have been recorded and transcribed by the CBI.

In a court affidavit filed last week, the government said it had begun tapping Ms Radia’s phone after an allegation that she was spying for foreign intelligence.

Mr Raja is accused of issuing 2G licences in 2008 on a first-come, first-served basis in 2008 instead of auctioning them, costing the government up to $37bn (£23bn) in lost revenue.

He has denied any wrongdoing and complained he is a victim of trial by media.

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

One person is believed to have died in a house fire in Belfast.

Police and the Fire Service are attending the blaze at Chichester Park north on the Antrim Road.

A police spokesperson said they believe there is one fatality.

Meanwhile, firefighters are trying to bring a blaze at a garage in Millisle, County Down under control and have closed roads and evacuated 10 families in the immediate vicinity.

A 200m exclusion zone has been placed around the building on the Donaghadee Road.

Motorists are being advised to avoid the road and take alternative routes.

The Donaghadee Community Centre has been opened for anyone who needs accommodation.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said two oxy acetylene cylinders were contained within the building and have closed off the surrounding area for safety reasons.

The PSNI said diversions are in place via the Moss Road and Craigboy Road and the Department of Environment has been advised to ensure the diversionary routes are gritted.

The police said these diversions could be in place for up to 24hrs.

Councillor Jonathan Bell commended the Fire Service for their prompt response to the fire.

He said: “The fire this evening concerned a garage and acetyline used for welding which has highly explosive qualities.

“Once again it is our Police and Fire Service which we depend on for their expertise in times of emergency”

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

Carmarthenshire has secured over £8m in Rural Development Plan funding

More than £54m in funding has been allocated to projects to help create jobs, improve services and regenerate communities in rural Wales.

EU and assembly government cash goes to 79 projects ranging from support for farming families to renovation projects including a castle and manor house.

Powys receives the largest single grant to develop and promote tourism.

Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones said the project ideas had come from local groups within the communities.

Carmarthenshire has secured the largest share of the funding with over £8m going to seven different schemes.

Just under £1m, supported by match funding, will go to help 25 family farms maintain and increase their income.

One-off capital grants will be available to help them diversify into non agricultural activities, convert redundant buildings and purchase equipment.

Another scheme in the county aims to support and encourage small businesses, persuade young people to become entrepreneurs and address a shortage in office and industrial accommodation.

The county council’s head European policy and external funding Neville Davies said the bulk of the schemes would start in the next financial year.

“We have developed a range of projects for rural Carmarthenshire that support young people, local businesses and communities generally.

“We are very pleased we have done so well and that the majority of our projects have been successful.

“It demonstrates that we have a need for such investments in rural Carmarthenshire and we look forward to delivering these projects over the next three years.”

The largest single award is £2.1m towards developing green tourism in Powys.

The money is being made available through a joint Welsh Assembly Government and European Union strategy.

Between 2007 and 2013 £795m will be spent in Wales.

Ms Jones said: “The £54m I am announcing is for a wide range of rural community projects, all of which aim to improve the quality of life in rural areas.

“Importantly, the project ideas come from local action groups which input from local people, who are best placed to decide what their communities need in order to improve the environment, economy, or local tourism.

“Many of the projects will help to support rural economies as Wales continues to feel the effects of the worldwide recession and the UK government spending review.”

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

A woman in her 40s has been found dead in Shropshire.

Officers were called to a “serious incident” in Orchard Street, Oswestry, on Tuesday evening, West Mercia Police said.

A woman was pronounced dead at the scene and a man in his 50s has been arrested in connection with the death.

Inquiries are ongoing and police officers remain at the address. West Mercia Police said more details were expected later.

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

Find out how to pilot a Harrier Jump Jet

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

More than 350 fake Faberge eggs are set to be destroyed after they were seized by customs at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

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

The Guardian and the Independent lead with the latest court appearance of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The Guardian describes the decision to grant him bail as a small but significant victory for the Australian.

The Independent carries an interview with the man who will put up Mr Assange in the UK as his house guests if he is released from prison after an appeal.

Mr Assange would have to observe a curfew at Vaughan Smith’s address in Suffolk as part of his conditions.

Many of the papers give their assessment of veteran US diplomat Richard Holbrooke who died on Monday.

The Guardian says that while he was not the most universally beloved, he was one of the ablest, most admired and most effective of American diplomats.

The Times says he was an “ebullient colossus” who was responsible for saving the lives of untold thousands.

This is a reference to his role as chief negotiator of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War.

A number of papers highlight what they see as a growing cabinet rift with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.

The Daily Express says Mr Clarke is facing the axe in January after a stinging rebuke from Home Secretary Theresa May over his prisons policy.

The Bank of England is under fire for its approach to inflation.

According to the Financial Times, economists have begun to question the Bank’s assurances that inflation will soon be under control.

The Daily Mirror is among the papers to report the latest gaffe by the head of world football, Sepp Blatter.

The Fifa president joked that gay football fans should refrain from sex during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal.

The Mirror quotes the Gay Football Supporters Network as saying that he “is simply not getting the issue”.

The Guardian says campaign groups are demanding that Mr Blatter apologise or stand down immediately.

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

An armed bandit has escaped on a motorbike after stealing, at least $1.5 million from a casino in Las Vegas.

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