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Amateur footage of the attack on the Rolls Royce carrying the royal couple
Police have denied that a breakdown in radio communications led to a car carrying the Prince of Wales becoming caught up in violent student protests.
The prince’s and the Duchess of Cornwall’s car was daubed with paint and had a window smashed on Thursday.
Reports suggest protection officers were on a different radio frequency to those policing the protests, but police insist the teams were in communication.
A major inquiry into the student disorder of recent weeks has begun.
The Metropolitan Police described it as a “major criminal investigation”.
Violent clashes happened on Thursday as MPs voted to allow university tuition fees to rise to up to £9,000 per year in England.
The royal couple were being escorted by outriders and Royalty Protection Officers during the incident involving their car in central London.
A police spokesman said the route along Regent Street had been checked minutes before the incident and was deemed to be safe.
In response to reports that officers involved in the escort had radios on different frequencies to those policing the wider protest, Scotland Yard insisted the teams were communicating and may have used e-mail or mobile telephones.
The police blame a fast-moving situation on the ground for the security breach, as protesters had been roaming through the West End in small groups, away from the larger protest in Parliament Square.
During three previous days of national action by student protesters, there had been scuffles with police and numerous arrests, but Thursday’s disturbances involved the worst violence.
In a statement on Friday evening, Scotland Yard said it had launched an investigation into “the student disorder seen across London between 10 November and 10 December”.
The force said: “Whilst a large majority of protesters came to demonstrate peacefully, a significant number came intent on violence.
“This will not be tolerated and anyone identified as being actively involved in criminality at the student protests will be prosecuted.”
In other developments on Friday:
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said it was investigating a claim that 20-year-old Middlesex University student Alfie Meadows suffered serious head injuries after being hit on the head with a police truncheonA Mayor of London spokesman said the cost of repairing damage in Parliament and Trafalgar Square could exceed £50,000Don Foster, one Lib Dem MP to vote for the fees rise, had a rock thrown through his office windowCambridge University student Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, apologised for climbing the Cenotaph memorial to Britain’s war dead, calling it a “moment of idiocy”Business Secretary Vince Cable said the Lib Dems were still “united” despite the rebellion by some of its MPs in the Commons vote
During Thursday protesters largely took over Parliament Square and pressed against police lines in front of the Houses of Parliament.
After nightfall, riot police forced back protesters who were smashing windows at the Treasury and the Supreme Court.
Then at 1915 GMT, protesters launched an attack on the royal couple’s car as it passed along Regent Street on its way to the London Palladium. The Rolls Royce was kicked, splashed with paint and a window was smashed to chants of “off with their heads”.
Clarence House has refused to comment on reports that the Duchess was poked with a stick, but did say the royal couple were unharmed and attended the Royal Variety Performance at the Palladium as scheduled.
The London Ambulance Service said it treated 58 people at the protests, of whom 44 were taken to hospital. The Met said at least six of 30 injured officers needed hospital treatment.
So far, there have been 33 people arrested, most of whom have been released on bail. No-one has been charged.
Students have criticised police tactics, particularly of holding demonstrators in a small area, known as “kettling”.
Only 28 Lib Dem MPs – fewer than half – voted for the government’s plans for tuition fees. Six Conservative MPs voted against. Three ministerial aides resigned.
The policy will see the basic fee cap rise from £3,290 to £6,000 and universities in England able to charge £9,000 in “exceptional” circumstances.
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Hillary Clinton expresses frustration at the latest setbacks to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but insists the US will continue to push for progress.
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The ambassador believed the Pope had put the Archbishop in an “impossible position”.
The Pope’s invitation to Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism pushed relations between the churches to their lowest point in 150 years, Britain’s ambassador to the Vatican warned.
Francis Campbell also feared a backlash against UK Catholics after the offer to those opposed to women bishops.
His fears are detailed in the latest US embassy cables released by Wikileaks.
The comments were made after Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams met Vatican officials last year.
A cable from US ambassador Miguel Diaz, published in the Guardian newspaper, said Mr Campbell believed Pope Benedict XVI had put the Archbishop in an “impossible position” with his conversion invitation.
It said: “The Vatican decision seems to have been aimed primarily at Anglicans in the US and Australia, with little thought given to how it would affect the centre of Anglicanism, England, or the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“Benedict XVI, Campbell said, had put Williams in an impossible situation. If Williams reacted more forcefully, he would destroy decades of work on ecumenical dialogue; by not reacting more harshly, he has lost support among angry Anglicans.”
The cable revealed that Mr Campbell felt “Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years as a result of the Pope’s decision” and it had shifted the goal of the Catholic-Anglican ecumenical dialogue “from true unity to mere co-operation”.
Mr Campbell also said the situation was “worrisome” for England’s small, mostly Irish-origin, Catholic minority, according to the cable.
“There is still latent anti-Catholicism in some parts of England and it may not take much to set it off. The outcome could be discrimination or, in isolated cases, even violence against this minority.”
Other cables released by the whistle-blowing site reveal that the Vatican was angered by requests for its officials to testify about the clerical abuse of children in the Irish Republic.
A cable said requests by the country’s Murphy commission in 2009 “offended many in the Vatican”. The Holy See refused to allow its officials to testify.
Despite this, the commission later substantiated many claims of abuse in the Dublin diocese between 1975 and 2004.
It said that some Roman Catholic bishops had tried to cover up abuse.
One of the cables – sent from the US embassy in the Vatican in February 2010 – says that “the Vatican believes the Irish government failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations”.
Meanwhile, it is also suggested that the Pope intervened to help gain the release of 15 British sailors captured by Iran three years ago.
A briefing prepared for President Obama in 2009 by Julieta Noyes, deputy chief of mission to the Vatican, explains the Vatican claims “an ability to act as an intermediary” in international crises involving Iran.
She says: “It is unclear how much clout the Vatican really has with Iran.”
But she states: “The Vatican helped secure the release of British sailors detained in Iranian waters in April 2007.”
However, it is unclear exactly how influential the Vatican was in securing the release of the British military crew, who had been accused of straying into Iranian waters.
Details of the cables are the latest in a series released by Wikileaks to appear in the Guardian and several other newspapers around the world.
The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is currently being held in the UK and facing extradition to Sweden.
Mr Assange denies sexually assaulting two women in Sweden and has been remanded in custody pending a hearing next week.
Mr Assange’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, has claimed the charges against the Australian are “politically motivated”.
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Bolivia lowers its retirement age and extends the state pension to people working in the informal sector.
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By Richard Black
Environmental campaigners were hopeful of progress being made in Cancun
Prospects for a deal at the UN climate summit appear to be receding, with countries clashing on principle as the meeting entered its final day.
Japan and Russia look set to maintain their opposition to further emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol, which is a major demand of developing countries.
Blocs also clashed over a proposed fund to help poor nations deal with climate impacts and low-carbon development.
One delegate described the latest draft texts as “worse than Copenhagen”.
The money wrangle concerns the proposed “Green Fund” – a vehicle that would gather and distribute funds running to perhaps $100bn (£63bn) per year by 2020.
During overnight discussions, the US, EU and Japan stuck to their line that the World Bank must administer the fund.
For developing countries, this is unacceptable, as they view the bank as a western-run institution.
Some – especially the Latin American Alba bloc, spear-headed by Bolivia – also object to the Green Fund as currently conceived, because they believe western nations have a duty to pay up from the public purse, whereas the fund calls for money to be raised through levies on carbon trading, taxes on aviation, or other “innovative mechanisms”.
Bolivia’s stance is not popular with all other developing countries, with Costa Rica saying it was “leading the process to delay the discussion”
A number of world leaders – as many as 20 – scheduled phone calls to Japanese Prime Minister Naoko Kan, in an attempt to get him to soften Japan’s position on the Kyoto Protocol.
‘Washed away’
UK Prime Minister David Cameron held a conversation with the premier.
Environmental groups took out an advertisement in the Financial Times asking whether Japan’s stance meant the Kyoto Protocol had been “washed away” – a reference to the acclaimed Japanese animation Spirited Away.
But Japanese sources said Mr Kan was sticking to his guns.
The government is being pressed by business leaders to hold firm on this issue; and giving ground would be seen as a concession to China at a time when the two countries are clashing over disputed islands and supplies of rare earth elements, a key ingredient of some electronic devices.
It appears none of the leaders has put in a call to Moscow, whose opposition to further cuts under the protocol appears just as solid as Japan’s.
India offered beleaguered delegates a ray of optimism by indicating it might be prepared to accept legally-binding constraints on its carbon emissions – but not yet.
However, the meanings of phrases such as “legally-binding” are subject to a range of interpretations, and it is clear that the Indian position will depend on other elements of any final package.
A number of nations wanted the pledges countries made around the time of last year’s Copenhagen summit to be “inscribed” into formal UN agreements, so that they could be reviewed and negotiated at a later date.
Several analyses have indicated the pledges do not add up to enough to keep the global average temperature rise since pre-industrial times below the 2C (3.6F) ceiling that many countries regard as the maximum “safe” level, let alone the 1.5C that others demand.
However, it appears this inscription is being resisted by a bloc of western nations. Campaigners cited Canada, Russia and Japan.
“This text reflects rich countries’ effort to obliterate the existing system for achieving science-based pollution cuts and replace it with a new pledge-based paradigm,” said Kate Horner, policy analyst at Friends of the Earth US.
“Such a paradigm, with rich countries polluting however much they like, would lead to extreme destabilisation of the planet’s climate system and unacceptable impacts on human civilisation.”
The talks are due to conclude at 6pm local time on Friday (0000 GMT Saturday).
But an overrun appears inevitable, with rumours suggesting the Mexican host government may even call formally for an extra day.
There is also a stand-off between Mexico and South Africa – hosts of next year’s meeting – as to who should run the UN climate process through next year, with neither apparently keen on the idea.
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Singer, composer and peace activist Farhad Darya is one of the biggest stars in Afghanistan.
He has been touring the country with his Life is Beautiful concerts, drawing crowds of tens of thousands – even in Taliban strongholds. A women-only show in the north was a sell-out. Apart from one bomb blast at a concert in Herat, the tour has been an enormous success, Darya told the BBC World Service. Afghans, he says, are crying out for change.
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Images from Getty and courtesy of Darya Management. Music by Farhad Darya.
Slideshow production by Cordelia Hebblethwaite. Publication date 11 December 2010.
Related links:
Pop star helping Kabul destitute
Farhad Darya official site
BBC World Service
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
More audio slideshows:
Audio slideshow: Pakistan floods tragedy
Audio slideshow: The Helmand tour
Audio slideshow: Rock’s music
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The pair had been married for two weeks when the hijacking happened
The husband of a woman who was murdered on their honeymoon in South Africa has been granted bail by the High Court.
Shrien Dewani, 30, from Bristol, was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to murder his wife Anni. South African authorities had opposed bail.
Mrs Dewani, 28, from Sweden, was shot after being kidnapped in a taxi in Cape Town with her husband last month.
High Court judge Mr Justice Ouseley has now granted him bail at a hearing in London.
Mr Dewani, a care home owner from Westbury-on-Trym, denies any involvement in the murder of his wife.
He was being held at Wandsworth Prison in London and is now due to be released on £250,000 bail.
On Wednesday the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court had agreed bail on condition that he pay a £250,000 surety and wear an electronic tag.
Mr Dewani told that court he did not consent to being extradited.
Counsel for the South African government, Ben Watson, told the court “significant new evidence” against Mr Dewani had come to light.
Mr Justice Ouseley ruled there was “strong support” for the submission that “Dewani genuinely hopes that the investigation will clear him”, and would not flee.
He said: “I have concluded that he has a continuing and realistic interest in making sure that he clears his name.
“He has no criminal convictions, is professionally qualified and his family is of high standing in the local community in Bristol, with no obvious interest in helping him to abscond.”
He said because of the “tragic and terrible murder of his wife”, Mr Dewani’s face is well known and it would be difficult for him to leave the UK or ‘go underground’.
Lawyers for the South African authorities had argued that if Mr Dewani was permitted bail there were substantial grounds for suspecting he would not surrender for an extradition hearing.
The South African authorities want to question Mr Dewani after taxi driver Zola Tongo told Western Cape High Court he was offered 15,000 rand (£1,400) by Mr Dewani to kill his wife.
The couple’s taxi was hijacked on 13 November in Cape Town as the pair were travelling through the tough Gugulethu township.
Ms Dewani’s expensive wristwatch, a white-gold and diamond bracelet, her handbag and her mobile phone were stolen. Mr Dewani was released unharmed.
On Tuesday, 31-year-old Tongo, from Bothasig, was sentenced to 18 years’ jail for murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances and perverting the course of justice.
Xolile Mnguni, 23, and Mziwamadoda Qwabe, 25, who are charged with murder, kidnapping and robbery with aggravating circumstances, will appear before Wynberg Regional Court on 25 February.
A full trial at Western Cape High Court is due to begin at a later date.
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Mr Sanander denies the accusations against him
Related stories
Former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who is wanted in connection with a corruption investigation, has been arrested by police in Austria.
Mr Sanader left Croatia on Thursday shortly before parliament lifted his immunity from prosecution, and the authorities later issued a warrant for his arrest.
Police stopped him on a motorway in western Austria.
Mr Sanader says the accusations against him are politically motivated.
Austrian officials said Mr Sanader was detained on Friday afternoon in the Salzburg region and brought to the regional justice court.
“Our police tried to find him and we located him on the highway this afternoon,” said Austrian interior ministry spokesman Alexander Marakovits, adding that the operation was carried out in conjunction with German and Croatian investigators.
Correspondents say a judge will now have to rule on whether Mr Sanader should be extradited back to Croatia, but it is unclear how long this might take.
The Croatian authorities submitted the arrest warrant to Interpol overnight, hours after Mr Sanader left the country for Slovenia.
The warrant said he was suspected of conspiring to commit crime and abuse of office.
Croatia is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into alleged corruption, designed in part to prove its readiness to join the European Union.
Mr Sanader is the most senior official to be investigated so far.
He resigned unexpectedly in July 2009 in the middle of his second term as prime minister.
Last January he was expelled by the governing Croatian Democratic Union party (HDZ) but he carried on as an independent MP.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Amateur footage of the attack on the Rolls Royce carrying the royal couple
The Metropolitan Police has launched a “major criminal investigation” into the disorder during student protests in London in recent weeks.
The force said a “significant number” of protesters had been “intent on violence”, and people suspected of criminal behaviour would be prosecuted.
A car carrying the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall was attacked during violent scenes in London on Thursday.
MPs had voted to allow university tuition fees to rise to up to £9,000.
In a statement, Scotland Yard said it had launched an investigation into “the student disorder seen across London between 10 November and 10 December”.
The force said: “Whilst a large majority of protesters came to demonstrate peacefully, a significant number came intent on violence.
“This will not be tolerated and anyone identified as being actively involved in criminality at the student protests will be prosecuted.”
Further developments on Friday included:
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating a claim that 20-year-old Middlesex University student Alfie Meadows suffered serious head injuries after being hit on the head with a police truncheonA small but vocal demonstration of about 100 people chanted about tuition fees as the prime minister arrived in the Harehills area of Leeds for a speechDon Foster, one Lib Dem MP to vote for the rise, has had a rock thrown through his office windowCambridge University student Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, apologised for climbing the Cenotaph, a memorial to Britain’s war dead, calling it a “moment of idiocy”Business Secretary Vince Cable said the Lib Dems were still “united” despite the rebellion
During three previous days of national action by student protesters, there were scuffles with police and numerous arrests.
The latest demonstration by thousands of students in London, on the day MPs voted on the reforms, involved the worst violence.
Protesters largely took over Parliament Square and pressed against police lines in front of the Houses of Parliament.
Mounted police were used to control crowds, at one point charging a group of protesters. Hundreds were contained on Westminster Bridge for a time by officers.
Protesters threw flares, sticks, snooker balls and paint balls, according to police. After nightfall, riot police forced back protesters who were smashing windows at the Treasury and the Supreme Court.
Then at 1915 GMT, protesters launched an attack on the royal couple’s car as it passed along a busy Regent Street. The Rolls Royce was kicked, splashed with paint and a window was smashed to chants of “off with their heads”.
Clarence House has refused to comment on reports that the Duchess was poked with a stick, but did say the royal couple were unharmed and attended the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium as scheduled.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said lessons must be learned from the security lapse which allowed the attack on the Prince of Wales’ car.
Reports that protection officers were on different radio frequencies to police overseeing the student protests have not been confirmed or denied by the Met.
A spokesman did say that the two teams were in contact with each other before the attack. This could have been by phone or e-mail though, rather than police radio.
In addition to the complaint about Mr Meadows, the IPCC said it received three further complaints about the Met Police at Thursday’s protests.
The London Ambulance Service said it treated 58 people at the protests, of whom 44 were taken to hospital. The Met said at least six of 30 injured officers needed hospital treatment.
So far, there have been 33 people arrested, most of whom have been released on bail. No-one has been charged.
David Cameron: “There were quite a number of people who clearly were there wanting to pursue violence”
Students have criticised police tactics, particularly of holding demonstrators in a small area, known as “kettling”.
Simon Hardy, of the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts, said police “kettled” and beat some protesters and then accused anyone who tried to resist of being violent.
But the Met Police Federation said officers acted with professionalism and selflessness and that, if they had not, the consequences would have been “unthinkable”.
Only 28 Lib Dem MPs – fewer than half – voted for the government’s plans for tuition fees. Six Conservative MPs voted against. Three ministerial aides resigned.
The package of measures will see fees rising to an upper limit of £9,000 per year – with universities charging more than £6,000 per year told to protect access for poorer students.
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