Category: news

Britain’s Olympic boxing hopefuls look to make an impact before David Haye defends his WBA heavyweight belt against Audley Harrison.

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Dozens of people are injured in Bangladesh in violent clashes over the eviction of opposition leader Khaleda Zia.

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Scotland’s wait for a first win over New Zealand continues as the All Blacks clinically inflict a record defeat on the hosts.

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Police have made another arrest in connection with violence which broke out during the tuition fee protests in London on Wednesday.

A Met Police spokesman said a 17-year-old boy was being held on suspicion of violent disorder and was in custody at an east London police station.

It brings the total number of arrests since the demonstration to 57.

On Friday, a 23-year-old student held after a fire extinguisher was thrown from a roof was released on bail.

The man, who comes from Reading and studies at Anglia Ruskin University, in Cambridge, was questioned on suspicion of violent disorder.

A group emerged on the roof of 30 Millbank, in central London, during a protest over student fees on Wednesday.

Demonstrators surged into the building, which is the Conservative Party’s headquarters.

Windows were smashed, fires lit and missiles hurled at police.

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A man has been killed and his wife critically injured in an attack by a bull in Nottinghamshire.

The couple, wearing walking gear, were near the Leicestershire border at about 1630 GMT on Friday when it happened.

It is unclear why the bull attacked the pair, who were walking on a public footpath near the village of Stanford on Soar.

It is understood the woman had to crawl under a hedge to alert a passing motorist.

Nottinghamshire Police say the couple are not thought to be local to the area and appear to have been visiting.

Police said they had been in a livestock field when the bull attacked.

The animal has been contained by the farmer and is due to be put-down.

The couple’s two sons have since travelled to the East Midlands.

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US President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has confirmed he will be standing for the post of mayor of Chicago.

Mr Emanuel quit his post with the president on 1 October and was widely expected to try to replace mayor Richard M Daley.

The election to replace Mr Daley, who said in September he would be stepping down, is on 22 February.

Mr Emanuel was considered by some as Mr Obama’s chief enforcer.

Mr Emanuel is a native of Chicago who represented Illinois’s 5th district in Congress for six years.

He announced his candidature at a meeting in a school on Chicago’s North Side.

“Only the opportunity to help President Obama as his chief of staff could have pried me away from here,” he said.

“And only the opportunity to lead this city could have pried me away from the president’s side.”

Mr Emanuel added: “Our first responsibility is to make the tough choices that have been avoided too long because of politics and inertia.”

When he resigned as chief of staff, Mr Emanuel said he was sad to be leaving his position in Washington, but was excited to be heading “home to Chicago – the greatest city in the greatest country in the world”.

Mr Emanuel has a reputation as a fierce figure with a short temper.

He could face about half a dozen rivals in the race to replace Mr Daley, who has been mayor of Chicago since 1989.

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Three men from Northern Ireland have been arrested after the attempted robbery of an ATM machine in the Republic of Ireland.

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Three people are arrested over an attack which left a teenager seriously ill in hospital.

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The name is released of a young man who was killed in a road accident in County Down.

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Taliban insurgents attack the airport in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad and a military outpost nearby, officials say.

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Supporters of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi gathered outside her home for a second day ahead of her expected release.

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The UK is entering into talks with three tax havens, as part of moves officials hope could help raise £10 billion for the Treasury by 2015.

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Passenger safety on trains needs reviewing in light of warnings that overcrowding is set to get much worse, an MPs’ group says.

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Funding for all state schools in England could soon be decided by Whitehall rules, officials have said.

The Department for Education is considering introducing a “national funding formula” to decide the allocation of school budgets.

Officials said this did not mean local authorities, currently responsible for allocating funds, would be sidelined.

The proposals will be in the forthcoming education White Paper, the Financial Times reports.

Ministers are planning to consult with councils about the level of their involvement in the construction and operation of the formula, and officials stressed the government wanted to work closely with them.

The consultation is expected to take at least one year to complete.

The move follows government concerns that many local council formulas currently used to decide how to allocate the so-called dedicated schools grant are out of date and do not recognise changes in schools in recent years.

Officials said Education Secretary Michael Gove believed too often two schools in similar areas, with similar intakes of children, were getting different levels of funding.

Speaking to the Financial Times, he said the current system was “opaque and illogical” and needed levelling out.

Ministers are said to want budgets to more closely reflect pupils’ needs and head teachers’ priorities.

BBC education correspondent Tom Symonds said the proposals were radical and controversial, and would be seen to be taking power away from local councils.

“In England we have this small but growing number of academies and grant-maintained schools which have been freed from local authority control,” he said.

“This is like saying all schools will, in some ways, be freed from local authority control.

“Michael Gove’s idea is to devolve power to schools but many people will see it as bringing much more power back to the centre because it will be a national system.

He said he expected local councils across England to be “very upset” at losing the ability to set priorities at a local level.

He added that the plans would mean lots of schools would see changes in their funding.

“In some places, that will be something that’s welcomed. In inner cities, deprived schools are seen to do quite well, as opposed to deprived schools in rural areas.”

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France’s Gael Monfils defeats Andy Murray in three sets to reach the semi-finals of the Paris Masters.

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