Category: news

The vase is thought to have left China about 150 years ago

A vase found in a house-clearance in London has been sold for £43m, thought to be a record for any Chinese artwork.

The 18th Century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain piece had been estimated to fetch up to £1.2m for the brother and sister who inherited it.

“The sister had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air,” said Helen Porter from Bainbridges auction house in Ruislip, north-west London.

The vase is yellow and sky blue in colour with a fish motif on the front.

The buyer – who is thought to have come from the Chinese mainland – paid £43m, with an additional premium of £8.6m to go to the auctioneer.

The family who inherited the piece “had no idea what they had”, Ms Porter said.

“They were hopeful but they didn’t dare believe until the hammer went down.”

It is thought the vase left China in about 1860, and belonged to one family for about 70 years.

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Critics say military pensions should be made a special case

Downing Street has rejected calls to protect the armed forces from cuts to public sector pensions.

A spokesman for prime minister David Cameron’s spokesman said “tough decisions” were needed and the policy decision had been made.

The Forces Pension Society claims widows and injured soldiers face losing hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Ministers plan to link public sector pension rises to an alternative, and historically lower, inflation measure.

Widows who remarry or move in with a new partner will lose their military pensions.

The Forces Pensions Society calculates that the inflation link – which affects pensions and annual guaranteed income payments – mean a 34-year-old wife of a staff sergeant killed in Afghanistan could lose almost £750,000 over her lifetime.

Writing in the Times, the society’s head, Vice Admiral Sir Michael Moore, said: “It is so easy for Mr Cameron to extol the forces at every opportunity … but his words will have a hollow ring unless he addresses these issues personally.

“His ministers do not understand, show no inclination of wanting to do so and appear to be rendered impotent and mesmerised by the Treasury.”

The move was also criticised by former Labour defence secretary Lord Hutton – the man the government appointed to oversee a review of public sector pensions – in his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

He said linking the military pension to the consumer price index, rather than the retail price index, would mean war widows and the injured would get smaller payments in future, which he said was “wrong”.

But a Downing Street spokeswoman said the military could not be exempt from changes affecting the public sector.

“A policy decision has been made,” she said.

“The prime minister has the highest regard for the armed forces and their families but tough decisions had to be made in this particular respect.”

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Armed forces chiefs say scrapping Harrier was the right thing to do

Labour has stepped up pressure on the government over its decision to scrap Harrier jump jets.

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy has accused Lib Dem defence minister Nick Harvey of getting his facts wrong when he said the government would save more by scrapping Harriers than Tornados.

Mr Murphy has called on the government to publish all the advice it received on the issue to end “confusion”.

It comes as peers debate the government’s defence review.

Mr Murphy said: “Serious people have raised serious concerns about the government’s decision to scrap Harriers and all ministers have succeeded in doing is add to the confusion.

“It’s now time to publish the MoD advice and full costs of terminating the Harrier fleet and suspend the decision until we have had a proper debate.”

Opening the defence debate for the government, Lord Astor said the decision to scrap Harrier had been a “military judgement” and not just about costs.

He added: “Deleting the entire Tornado fleet would save three times more money.”

But in an interview earlier this week, Lib Dem minister Nick Harvey appeared to suggest that the government would save more by scrapping Tornados.

Jim Murphy has written to Mr Harvey demanding an end to the “confusion”, asking the minister: “Given the importance of this issue, will you publish all of the costings that led to this decision being taken?”

The row comes as the heads of Britain’s armed forces backed the government’s defence review in a letter to The Times.

“Harrier’s contribution has been huge but the decision to withdraw it was the right thing to do in the circumstances,” write the service chiefs, adding that the Falkland Islands could still be defended without Harrier.

Lib Dem peer Lord Lee of Trafford said the defence review was “too rushed and too Treasury-dominated”.

And he criticised the “bizarre decision” to axe the entire Harrier to fleet, which he said would only save £100m a year, arguing that a reserve Harrier force should have been maintained, with cuts to the Tornado fleet.

But he backed the government’s decision to delay the final decision on replacing Trident nuclear weapons and the recent Anglo-French deal on defence co-operation.

A host of ex-military chiefs and former defence secretaries are expected to criticise the government’s defence review during the debate, which will cut about 17,000 personnel, scrap the Harrier fleet and Nimrod spy planes and retire the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier.

The debate will see a maiden speech from Labour former defence secretary Lord Hutton of Furness as well as speeches from ex-defence secretaries Lord Reid of Cardowan, Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen.

Earlier this week, a group of former Royal Navy chiefs urged the government to reverse the decision to scrap Ark Royal and the Harriers, warning it would leave the oil-rich Falkland Islands open to a fresh Argentinian attack.

The signatories, which included former head of the Navy Admiral Lord West of Spithead, claimed Prime Minister David Cameron was badly advised before agreeing to the cuts.

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Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina denies reports he has told manager Roy Hodgson he wants to leave the club.

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The engine exploded on a Qantas aircraft on 4 November

Rolls-Royce has said that problems with its Trent 900 engine are likely to have a “slight” impact on profit growth.

The aerospace company has been investigating the explosion of an engine that forced an emergency landing of a Qantas A380 plane last week.

Rolls confirmed the problem related just to its Trent 900 engine type, and was down to the failure of a “specific component” which led to an oil fire.

The company warned that profit growth may be “slightly lower” as a result.

Qantas grounded its fleet of six A380s after an engine exploded on a flight to Australia on 4 November.

The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore, and the incident forced all A380 operators to check their planes.

In a trading update, Rolls-Royce allayed investors fears that the fault could be a problem with company’s whole family of Trent engines.

Rolls-Royce said its investigations had led “to two key conclusions”. First, that only the Trent 900 was affected; second, that the engine failure “was confined to a specific component” which led to an oil fire and loss of turbine pressure.

The company’s shares fell sharply after the Qantas engine explosion, in part because of concerns about a lack of information from Rolls-Royce about the cause.

Rolls-Royce said that corrective measures would “enable our customers progressively to bring the whole fleet back into service”.

But Sir John Rose, the company’s chief executive, said: “This event and the consequent actions will have an impact on the group’s financial performance this year.”

In July, the company indicated that underlying profit growth for the year would be about 4%-5%.

But this will now by “slightly lower than previously guided,” Rolls-Royce’s statement said.

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Polish composer Henryk Gorecki, who sold a million copies of his Symphony No 3 in the 1990s, dies aged 76, the country’s national orchestra announces.

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Nick Miller gives the latest weather forecast

Severe gales of up to 80mph (129km/h) could hit parts of northern England and north Wales overnight, the Met Office is warning.

A spokeswoman said “very, very strong winds” were expected and could cause disruption and damage to trees.

Met Office weather warnings are in place for north West England, Yorkshire and Humber, and Anglesey.

Roads, bridges and ferry services in Wales were affected on Thursday morning by strong winds and localised flooding.

West to southwesterly winds are forecast to strengthen in northern England and north Wales during the late afternoon, building to a peak by the middle of the night, and easing off slowly through Friday morning.

The Highways Agency said it had issued an Amber Alert for high-sided vehicles, caravans and motorbikes travelling in north-east and north-west England because of the increased risk from strong winds.

BBC weather forecaster Nick Miller said exposed costs and hillsides, especially across the Pennines, would feel the brunt of the winds.

“You will hear the wind outside when you’re trying to sleep,” he added.

Showers are also expected during the afternoon and overnight across much of the UK, with the heaviest rain likely in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Strong winds and rain on Thursday forced the closure of the old M48 Severn Bridge crossing to high vehicles, and the introduction of speed restrictions on the A55 Britannia Bridge at Anglesey and along the south Wales stretch of the M4.

Ferry services were also disrupted, and there were reports of fallen trees and power cables in Monmouthshire and Camarthenshire.

Flight and ferry crossings to the Isle of Man have also been cancelled.

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Nigeria says it will report Iran to the UN over an arms shipment seized in Lagos, if investigations show sanctions were broken.

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Gerard Kelly’s career spanned TV, film and pantomime

The funeral of Scottish actor Gerard Kelly will be held in his native Glasgow later.

Kelly, who was famous for his pantomime roles as well as TV and film appearances, died two weeks ago of a suspected brain aneurysm. He was 51.

The service will be at St Aloysius’ Church in Garnethill, followed by a procession to Daldowie Crematorium.

The funeral cortege will pass Glasgow’s King’s Theatre, where the actor was due to narrate The Rocky Horror Show.

A memorial service will be held at the theatre early next year.

Kelly died at West Middlesex University Hospital on 28 October. It is understood he collapsed at his London home two days earlier.

The actor was born in Glasgow in 1959 and appeared in a string of television roles which included Juliet Bravo, Rab C Nesbitt, Scotch and Wry and Hamish Macbeth along with playing villain Callum Finnegan in Brookside and hardman Jimmy in Eastenders.

Last year he celebrated his 20th year in pantomime at Glasgow’s Kings Theatre.

On the big screen, he played an angry priest in the Ken Loach film, Ae Fond Kiss.

Kelly remains best known in Scotland for his starring role as hapless would-be author Willie Melvin in City Lights, but more recently he appeared in the Ricky Gervais comedy Extras as Bunny.

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