Category: news

Gwyneth Paltrow is given a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, describing it as “overwhelming” to be honoured in a city that is “part of my heart and soul”.

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Almost 1,000 primary schools in England which staged Sats tests this year do not meet new targets.

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The Russian government announces that a project to build a motorway through pristine forest near Moscow will go ahead.

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Amnesty International condemns Libya and the EU over their co-operation to try to prevent African migrants crossing from North Africa to Europe.

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Veteran US diplomat Richard Holbrooke has died following a second round of surgery to treat a heart condition.

He fell ill on Friday while meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

He was President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The presidents of both nations had called to wish him well, prior to his death.

Nicknamed The Bulldozer, the 69-year-old gained a reputation over the years for confronting warring leaders to get them to come to the negotiating table.

Mr Holbrooke’s family was reported to be at his bedside earlier on Monday in the US capital’s George Washington University Hospital.

Mr Holbrooke was meeting Ms Clinton at the US state department on Friday morning when he collapsed.

He was rushed to hospital and had surgery to repair a tear in his aorta – the largest artery in the human body, which carries oxygenated blood from the heart.

President Barack Obama had praised Mr Holbrooke on Monday night at a holiday event at the state department, calling him a “tough son of a gun”.

“He is simply one of the giants of American foreign policy,” Mr Obama said.

Beginning with a foreign service posting in Vietnam in 1962, the veteran diplomat served under every Democratic president from John F Kennedy to Mr Obama.

But it was his role in Europe, helping bring to an end the war in Bosnia, that solidified his reputation as an important figure in foreign policy.

Mr Holbrooke was named by Mr Obama as his special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan shortly after the president took office in January 2009.

He also served as the US ambassador to the United Nations and to Germany, as well as the assistant secretary of state.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says Mr Holbrooke was famous for his blunt speaking behind the scenes, despite his handshakes and careful courtesy in public.

Never afraid to bulldoze his way to a solution he got them all, Serb, Croat and Bosnian, to sign an accord in 1996, our correspondent says.

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A 45-year-old man is being questioned by police about the murders of a woman and her son who were attacked with a weapon in Oxfordshire.

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Ministry of Defence staff allowed a “dangerous culture of optimism” to grow under Labour, helping to create a £36bn black hole in spending plans, MPs say.

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In 2010, the BBC News website has spoken to a number of pop stars from the older generations.

Here are the thoughts of Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart, former Housemartins and Beautiful South singer Paul Heaton and A-Ha’s Morten Harket on today’s music business.

Dwindling record sales

Paul Heaton: The Housemartins could have succeeded if they were starting out today but their success would have been even shorter [the band released two studio albums].

I think songs like Happy Hour, and even Think For A Minute and Caravan Of Love, are strong songs but I don’t know if we would have been paid for it really. They might have been used in a car advert.

I think I was lucky to get professional when I did.

Rod Stewart: In this business, it’s hard out there, there’s not the money there was.

Albums don’t sell – that’s the ridiculous thing. You’ve got to sell about 160,000 and you get top of the Billboard chart.

There’s just too much music about, it’s been diluted somewhat from what it was when I started. Mercury Records normally released seven albums a month when I brought out Every Picture Tells A Story, now it’s 200 a month.

What happened to Rod Stewart the songwriter?

The music business

Bryan Ferry: It’s a bit of a puzzle really isn’t it? I still can’t quite get used to the fact that there aren’t any record stores any more. It’s quite hard.

Maybe if you go to Antwerp or somewhere like that, you’ll suddenly find a little record shop and you think, “oh great”, and you can go and browse and then find something and buy something that you hadn’t got before. It’s a shame.

Morten Harket: It can become too much about cheekbones or what you wear.

We got deflated because there was so much energy pouring all over us about things that were about nothing – it really was about nothing, it was just about being famous.

There’s the sex drive or the response to looks, which is one thing – and I don’t denounce that, it’s a central part of defining us as human beings.

But we also need something to feed the soul, the spirit, the mind and that’s what we were there for.

Taking on A-Ha classic

The road to success

Rod Stewart: It’s a shame that the acts can’t do the sort of apprenticeship that I did, and people of my generation did, where they had to play night clubs for four or five years in front of 10 people.

It just makes you a better performer, to zero in on your craft, and when you make it you really appreciate it whereas, with instant gratification, it’s not the same.

There’s not a pub/rock scene anymore – it’s disappeared.

Paul Heaton: With most bands of the 70s or 80s, you formed a band, you wrote some songs, you then got a gig and then you maybe made a record if you could afford it.

The very, very last thing which could have happened would be for you to maybe make a video or go on telly.

Now people want to go on telly first, then they want to make a record, then they suddenly want to write songs, then they want to form a band and then they want to be photographed with a guitar to make them look real.

That’s exactly the opposite way to how we approached it in The Housemartins and how it was done in my era.

Songs for whoever – Paul Heaton on his hits

Positive change

Bryan Ferry: You have to kind of embrace the positive, perhaps, and we’re now doing things with my new record that we couldn’t have done before.

Instead of just having the one vinyl version of the album, we’ve got three different versions of it.

In the old days, that was too sophisticated for the record industry and now they’re kind of embracing new things like that so it’s good in a way.

Bryan Ferry and Roxy friends stick together

The X Factor

Rod Stewart: I was very disappointed to read they used auto-tune technology on X Factor, I’ve always been a bit of a champion of that show because I’ve seen so much talent that’s gone unnoticed.

Look at the thousands of people that try to get on that show, some of them are really good and they never get a look in so I was a little disappointed with that but it all seems to have blown over.

Thank goodness the public saw through it, they’re not as dumb as people think, the public.

Paul Heaton: It would bother me more if I watched the programmes but I don’t watch the programmes, I just crack on with what I do, really.

It bothers me about other bands, it bothers me that bands that I like don’t do well and are ignored.

The charts are made up by such a percentage of X Factor contestants or ex-X Factor contestants that there are so little opportunities for good new bands.

I’m not so bothered about me, I’ve had my fun.

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Wintry weather sees a record number of farmland birds visit an RSPB reserve on the Solway coast in search of food.

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Search crews from New Zealand have called off the hunt for 17 missing fishermen from a South Korean trawler that sank in the Southern Ocean.

Five of the 42-man crew died and 20 were rescued after the No 1 In Sung went down about 2,000km (1,250 miles) south of New Zealand.

It sank at about 0630 New Zealand time on Monday (1930 GMT) in calm waters.

The crew included nationals from South Korea, China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Russia.

The 20 crew who were rescued were picked up by another fishing boat operating nearby.

New Zealand rescuers said it was not clear why the boat sank. Conditions were calm and no SOS was sent.

Search co-ordinator Dave Wilson said it was extremely unlikely anyone could survive in the icy waters for very long.

“Unfortunately the Southern Ocean is an extremely unforgiving environment.

“With the sea temperatures around two degrees Celsius, survival times for crew members in the water would be very short. The medical advice is that those who did not suffer cardiac arrest on entering the water would likely be unconscious after one hour, and unable to be resuscitated after two hours,” he said.

“We understand the vessel sank very quickly and the crew had to abandon ship without time to put on adequate emergency gear. Sadly, it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone not picked up yesterday could have survived,” he added.

A spokesman for the boat’s owner, In Sung corporation, said the boat sank within 30 minutes.

“We are trying hard to find the reason why it sank so quickly,” he told AFP news agency.

“We believe the vessel might have been hit by an iceberg or a strong wave, although we have yet to secure any evidence of this. We are now collecting information from the surviving crew.”

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Can you tell what the world thinks from its Googling?

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The Scottish government will face further questions over its handling of last week’s severe weather which saw the country’s busiest roads gridlocked.

Finance Secretary John Swinney, and not the new Transport Minister Keith Brown, will give evidence to Holyrood’s transport committee later.

Convener Patrick Harvie said he was keen to hear what could be done to better prepare the country.

The SNP government have already said that lessons will be learned.

As a fresh blast of snow is expected later this week, ministers have said that every “sinew is being strained” to be ready.

A heavy snowfall last week – which appeared to take the authorities by surprise – caused the closure of the M8, M9 and A80, as well as gridlock on many other routes across Scotland.

Thousands of vehicles were abandoned and hundreds of people were stuck in their cars overnight.

The M8 was closed for two days between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

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Scottish surveyors have reported a slowing of the housing market with prices slipping even further.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said 20% more members reported that prices fell rather than rose in November.

However, RICS said the pace of decline in Scotland was slower than the rest of the UK, with Northern Ireland and the West Midlands seeing steep price falls.

Surveyors said they did not expect the situation to improve soon.

Their expectations for house prices over the next three months remained negative and the number of sales were also predicted to fall.

RICS said the November figures showed first-time buyers were still in short supply and this was down to the difficulty in getting mortgages.

Its spokesperson for Scotland, Sarah Speirs, said: “Despite some better economic data, fears over how future spending cuts will impact on the jobs market are clearly still weighing heavily on potential purchasers’ minds, with many deciding to ‘wait and see’ until the new year.”

According to many of the surveyors questioned, the seasonal slowdown has come earlier than usual.

John Bradburne, with Bradburne and Co in St Andrews, said: “The market is very gloomy and worse still fickle.

“The stock is there and we are sure that there are sufficient potential buyers.”

“It’s just a lingering and very general mistrust of the medium term future in general economic terms. Perhaps it may brighten up in the spring.”

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Plans to reduce the number of coastguard stations around the UK from 19 to eight are expected to be confirmed by ministers later.

The government says cutting the number of control centres will modernise the service and save money.

The Department of Transport has agreed to cut spending by 15% over the next four years.

It is understood an announcement on replacing the UK’s ageing searching and rescue helicopters has been delayed.

The multi-billion pound cost of replacing the helicopters is set to be passed to a foreign consortium.

At present, the UK’s 19 coastguard control centres co-ordinate and manage maritime rescue efforts throughout UK waters.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that Transport Secretary Philip Hammond would set out details about the future of the service.

The previous Labour government proposed that private companies should take over the running of search and rescue helicopters from the RAF and that the Sea King fleet, in which Prince William has been learning to fly, should be scrapped.

Those plans were shelved by the coalition but they have been revived following a joint submission by transport and defence ministers.

The prince is based at the RAF’s search and rescue headquarters at Valley on Anglesey.

The service is currently provided by the RAF and Royal Navy, plus civilian helicopters through the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

The contract is worth £6bn over 25 years and will see the number of military aircrew reduced from 240 to 66, with civilian aircrew making up the shortfall.

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Aid groups have called for efforts to prevent mass killings by one of Africa’s most feared rebel militias over the Christmas period.

The aid agencies say a concerted effort is needed to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from committing what have become known as “Christmas massacres”.

LRA fighters killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan in December 2008 and 2009.

Hundreds of people were abducted during those attacks.

Figures show that the LRA over the past two years has become the most deadly militia in the DRC, the aid groups say in a report published today.

On Christmas Day 2008 and over the following three weeks, LRA beat to death more than 800 people in north-eastern DRC and southern Sudan, abducting hundreds more.

In December 2009, the brutal militia killed more than 300 villagers in the DRC in the run-up to Christmas.

An LRA spokesman denied that his organisation was responsible for the atrocities.

The rebels – originally from Uganda and also roaming across parts of Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) – killed or abducted more than 1,000 people in remote areas of the DRC last year alone, the report says.

“The LRA abducts, mutilates, rapes and kills women, men and children, using extreme violence against the most vulnerable,” the report adds.

The militia is also notorious for kidnapping children to save as soldiers and sex slaves.

“It is unbelievable that world leaders continue to tolerate brutal violence against some of the most isolated villages in central Africa and that this has been allowed to continue for more than 20 years,” said Marcel Stoessel from Oxfam, one of the 19 organisations behind the report.

US President Barack Obama in November outlined a plan to remove the LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, and disarm the LRA. Mr Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Mr Obama was responding to US legislation passed in May promising a comprehensive strategy to put a stop to the LRA’s killings, rapes and mutliations.

But the new report says more humanitarian aid and a more concerted military effort is needed to stop the rebels from committing more atrocities.

“Recent signs of diplomatic commitment from the African Union and the United States must provide tangible answers that protect the population from violence,” the agencies say.

The report also calls on the UN Security Council to put the rebel group on its agenda.

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