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Indonesia mobilises more than 3,000 police in advance of a verdict in the terrorism trial of the radical Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir.
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Mervyn King on FPC: “There is a degree of learning by doing”
The Bank of England’s new Financial Policy Committee (FPC) will hold its first quarterly meeting on Thursday.
Its job is to take action if it decides that banks and other financial institutions are taking too much risk.
Bank of England governor Mervyn King has said that the FPC has a crucial role in overcoming “the obsession with detail”, which he says is “a hindrance to seeing the big picture”.
The FPC will publish its first report on 24 June.
In his annual Mansion House speech, Mr King said that: “Until we find a solution to the ‘too important to fail’ problem, the size of our banking system will remain too large for the UK taxpayer credibly to support in future”.
At the same event, Chancellor George Osborne called for banks to ring-fence their retail banking operations to protect them from riskier investment banking activities.
He also set out the role of the FPC, to “monitor overall risks in the financial system, identify bubbles as they develop, spot dangerous inter-connections and deploy new tools to deal with excessive levels of leverage before it is too late”.
The FPC will look at the whole system, while a new Prudential Regulation Authority at the Bank of England will monitor individual firms.
Earlier in the week, Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker told the BBC that the institution could do a much better job of regulating the financial system.
“We can do a lot better job than in the past,” he said.
“There were warnings, from this institution, some from the FSA, many from abroad, and yet no one picked up the warnings and ran with them.”
BBC business editor Robert Peston said: “Some regard it as slightly odd that the Bank of England’s punishment for not preventing the greatest shock in several generations to the stability of the British economy is to be given even more responsibilities.”
The Bank of England will have five of its executives on the FPC.
As well as Mr King and Mr Tucker, there will be Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Andrew Haldane.
The external members will be Adair Turner, Hector Sants, Michael Cohrs, Don Kohn and Alastair Clark.
One of the people appointed, former CBI boss Sir Richard Lambert, resigned from his post before the committee had held its first meeting.
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Newsnight’s Paul Mason reports from the streets of Athens where Greek police clashed with anti-austerity protesters near parliament, and unions held a general strike.
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A gay Christian writer is embarking on a pilgrimage to make amends for what he says was his past “hurtful” homophobic behaviour.
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How a Russian billionaire will feed China’s hunger for electricity
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Alan Milburn said the coalition’s agenda was now “more protectionist” than Labour’s The coalition’s amended plans for the NHS in England are the “biggest car crash” in the service’s history, a former health secretary has said.
Ex-MP Alan Milburn, David Cameron’s social mobility adviser, said taxpayers faced writing “a very large cheque” as efficiency savings were unachievable.
“Short-term politics” had been placed above “long-term policy”, Mr Milburn wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
Changes to the NHS plans followed rows between the Lib Dems and Conservatives.
The prime minister has agreed to make major concessions on his plans for the NHS in England, including more controls on competition and a slower pace of change, after criticism from Lib Dem MPs and unions.
Mr Milburn, who as health secretary under Tony Blair came into conflict with then Chancellor Gordon Brown over the running of health services, wrote in the Telegraph: “The government’s health reforms are the biggest car crash in NHS history.
“The temptation to elevate short-term politics above long-term policy proved too much for both David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
“Many in both camps inside the coalition consider the U-turn a triumph. But it has the makings of a policy disaster for the NHS and, maybe in time, a political disaster for the government.
“It leaves both health policy and British politics in a very different place.”
He added: “The promise of the coalition was that it would go where New Labour feared to tread when it came to public service reform. There would be no no-go areas.
“In fact David Cameron’s retreat has taken his party to a far less reformist and more protectionist position than that adopted by Tony Blair and even that of his predecessor Gordon Brown.”
Mr Milburn described the new policy as the “biggest nationalisation since Nye Bevan created the NHS in 1948”.
Mr Cameron had handed over control to “the daddy of all quangos”, the NHS Commissioning Board.
Mr Milburn said scrapping the 2013 deadline for giving GP consortia control of commissioning would result in a “patchwork of decision-making for years to come”.
On the need to make £20bn in efficiency savings, he asked: “So how will the NHS books be balanced?
“By the usual device which policy-makers have deployed every decade or so in the NHS. A very large cheque.
“It was precisely the situation David Cameron and George Osborne were trying to avoid. Sorry George, but the cash you were saving in your pre-election Budget for tax cuts will now have to be spent on a bail-out for the health service.”
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The migrants who risk all to cross the Channel
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LulzSec’s claim, announced on Twitter, could not immediately be verified The hacker group Lulz Security has claimed it has brought down the public-facing website of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The alleged hack on CIA.gov occurred on the same day the group opened a telephone request line so its fans could suggest potential targets.
On its Twitter feed, the group wrote: “Tango down – cia.gov – for the lulz”.
The CIA website was inaccessible at times on Wednesday but the hack claim could not immediately be verified.
It was unclear if the outage was due to LulzSec’s efforts or to the large number of internet users trying to check the site.
LulzSec has risen to prominence in recent months by attacking Sony, Nintendo, several US broadcasters, and the public-facing site of the US Senate.
On Wednesday it claimed to have launched denial of service attacks on several websites as a result of opening its “request line”, although it gave no details.
The claim regarding the CIA.gov website emerged a few hours later. A CIA spokesman told the Associated Press the agency was “looking into” the report.
LulzSec publicised the details of its telephone hotline on its Twitter feed.
Callers to the US number are met with a recorded message, in a heavy French accent, by an individual calling himself Pierre Dubois.
While the 614 area code appears to relate to the state of Ohio, it is unlikely that this is its real location.
Lulz Security said it had used distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against eight sites suggested by callers.
It also claimed to have hit the websites of gaming magazine The Escapist, and multiplayer games EVE Online and League of Legends.
DDoS attacks typically involve crashing a website by inundating it with requests from computers under the attacker’s control.
Little is known about Lulz Security, other than their apparent “hacktivist” motivation.
The organisations and companies that it targets are often portrayed as having acted against the interests of citizens or consumers.
Its high-profile attack on SonyPictures.com exposed the company’s ongoing inability to secure users’ personal data, LulzSec claimed.
Along with Anonymous, LulzSec has raised the profile of hacker groups as a potential threat to online services.
Hacktivists see their role as staging valid protests in the most high profile way possible, according to Peter Wood, founder of security consultancy First Base.
“The things they are exploiting at the moment are the sort of mistakes that organisations seem to have been making ever since they connected to the internet.
“Finally there are some players out there who are using them as a means to protest. Whether everyone agrees with them is a different question.”
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Chatrooms and forums offer an insight into the hacker mindset
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How the nation’s passion for apples propelled their popularity
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Five ways to avoid shame, humiliation and a P45
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Music Nation, a weekend of live and orchestral events, will form part of the Cultural Olympiad for London 2012.
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Four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 700 in the attacks in London in 2005 Every fire engine in London is now equipped with defibrillators after concerns were raised about the response to the 7/7 bombings.
Rescuers’ attempts to treat the victims of the suicide attacks were hampered by shortages of first aid equipment.
There were also delays in paramedics being deployed, the inquest into the atrocities heard.
Four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 700 on London’s public transport system on 7 July 2005.
The bombers targeted Tube trains at Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square and a double decker bus in Tavistock Square.
London Fire Brigade has completed a four-year project to fit every fire engine with advanced life-saving kits, including defibrillators for cardiac arrest victims, manual suction devices to clear blocked airways, stiff-neck collars and improved wound dressings.
Firefighters have been trained to use the equipment so they can treat people when they are the first emergency service to arrive at a scene or when patients are hard to reach.
London Fire Brigade had already started reviewing its first aid kits, procedures and training before the 7/7 attacks.
The Tube bombing between King’s Cross and Russell Square killed 26 passengers It began the programme in 2007, providing the new equipment and training to fire crews borough by borough, and finishing in Waltham Forest on Wednesday.
Firefighters in the capital have used defibrillators 32 times since the project began.
Susan Hall, who chairs London Fire Authority’s community safety committee, said: “This is another example of the London Fire Brigade working to make Londoners safer.
“Following the 7/7 bombings, the emergency services were keen to learn how things could be done differently.
“We seized the initiative to improve our first aid capabilities by working with London Ambulance Service’s experts, introducing equipment and first aid training that are the envy of fire brigades across the country.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Syphilis is caused by sexually transmitted bacteria known as Treponema pallidum. Hundreds of thousands of babies’ lives could be saved each year if pregnant women were screened for syphilis, researchers say.
Syphilis causes 500,000 stillbirths and newborn deaths globally, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
A study of 41,000 women, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, showed that testing and antibiotics could more than halve the number of deaths.
UK experts said screening was cheap and cost-effective.
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that results in sores, a rash and ultimately serious damage to the heart, brain and eyes, and can lead to death.
It can also be passed from mother to child in the womb – a condition known as congenital syphilis.
Most countries have policies of screening pregnant women, but this does not always take place in some rural and poor parts of the world.
It is thought that fewer than one in eight women is actually screened for syphilis during pregnancy.
More than two million women are pregnant with syphilis each year. This has serious complications in more than two-thirds of cases.
It can result in stillbirth, deaths of newborns and low birthweight as well as in the classic symptoms of syphilis.
A group of researchers at University College London analysed 10 previous studies, involving more than 41,000 women, to determine whether screening would be effective.
Syphilis can cause the skin on a baby’s feet to peel. The studies showed screening resulted in a 58% decrease in stillbirths as well as a similar reduction in deaths in the first few weeks of life. Cases of congenital syphilis were also reduced.
The report’s author, Dr Sarah Hawkes, from University College London, said screening had “failed because of a lack of will to screen” and that treatment with penicillin was “incredibly cheap”.
She suggested syphilis screening should take place at the same time as tests for HIV.
“The resources needed to roll out programmes for antenatal screening will be a worthwhile investment for reduction of adverse pregnancy outcomes and improvement of neonatal and child survival,” she added.
Professor David Mabey and Professor Rosanna Peeling, from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in an accompanying article that screening cost $1.44 (£0.89) per woman.
“If all pregnant women were screened, and those who tested positive were treated with one dose of benzathine penicillin before 28 weeks’ gestation, no stillbirths or neonatal deaths would be due to syphilis.
“This is one of the most cost-effective health interventions.”
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The government wants to open up higher education to allow more private universities to operate Senior academics in the UCU lecturers’ union have said they fear expansion of for-profit universities could damage the reputation of higher education in the UK.
Of 506 professors who responded to an online survey of union members, 85% thought for-profit universities would be of lower quality than public ones.
The government wants to expand the role of private providers in the UK.
It says they can improve choice for students.
There is currently only one for-profit university in the UK, BPP, which is a subsidiary of US-based Apollo Group.
In the University and College Union’s survey, carried out between 24 and 28 May, 81% of respondents thought for-profit universities would affect the UK’s global standing in higher education.
A total of 79% feared employers would view qualifications from these universities as less rigorous.
Two-thirds of those questioned said that for-profit institutions should be more tightly regulated than existing universities.
“The government wants to encourage a diverse and dynamic higher education sector”
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Almost all (99%) said profit-making universities should continue to hold degree-awarding powers on a renewable basis only.
Currently they have to renew these powers every six years, in contrast to public universities, which hold theirs in perpetuity.
A total of 99% of respondents said for-profit institutions should have to provide the same amount of information to the public as their state counterparts.
At present, they are not subject to the same obligation as public universities to provide data on issues such as student numbers, performance and staffing.
And 93% said these universities should have the same obligations to recruit more students from less privileged backgrounds as public institutions do.
UCU, which has campaigned against tuition fee rises and teaching grant cuts as well as the expansion of private universities, quoted several individual survey respondents.
Professor Anahid Kassabian, from the University of Liverpool, said: “I left a fully marketised system to come here to teach. I know all too well what for-profit institutions do to the quality of education, and it is not good.
“The fantasy of a free market improving quality is just that – pure fantasy, with no substantiation in data or experience.”
Professor Daniel Waldram, from Imperial College London, said: “The for-profit model is wholly inappropriate for providing high-quality university education appropriate to the needs of the UK.”
And Professor Baz Kershaw, from the University of Warwick, said: “For-profit providers of higher education will increase inequalities of many kinds for future generations of young people.”
‘Wider choice’
But ministers say there is a place for profit-making and other non-publicly funded universities in the UK.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “The government wants to encourage a diverse and dynamic higher-education sector in the interests of a better student experience, with a range of providers, such as further-education colleges and others, offering high-quality and innovative teaching, wider choice and good value for students.”
The government is expected to outline a framework to allow a wider range of providers to enter the UK higher education market in a White Paper expected this summer.
This is likely to include details of how they would be regulated.
There are currently five private organisations with degree-awarding powers in the UK – the University of Buckingham, the College of Law, Ashridge Business School, IFS School of Finance and BPP Ltd.
The latter is the only one which is for-profit.
Other privately-run colleges can, however, teach degrees that are awarded by publicly funded universities.
Carl Lygo, CEO of BPP University College, said his institution was already subject to a “high level” of regulation in order to maintain its degree-awarding powers.
“All providers, private or otherwise, have a role to play in shaping the future of our global standing in the HE sector, and we strongly believe that the same standards and guidelines should be applied across the sector,” he said.
“We welcome a strong, independent regulatory framework that will help to maintain consistent high standards for all students – regardless of the type of organisation,” he said.
But UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said the report should act as an “urgent wake-up call” to ministers.
“If the government ignores these warnings, millions of students face being ripped off by private operators whose main interest is their own profits, not education.
“For-profit providers are not the answer to the current funding crisis in higher education.”
Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students, said it was “vital” that for-profit providers’ teaching was “at the same high standard as that in our public sector universities”.
“The devastating cuts to higher-education funding risk creating a gap in provision that unscrupulous private providers must not be allowed to exploit in the interests of students and to the detriment of students,” he said.
And Labour’s shadow universities minister, Gareth Thomas, said “the government’s plans to allow unregulated US-style for-profit universities to expand in the UK” raised “the fear of a two-tier higher education system”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.