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The Home Secretary, Theresa May, pledges to crack down on immigration abuse to restore public confidence in the system.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
First practice is about to begin at Interlagos for the penultimate race of the 2010 season.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in August 2008 over South Ossetia Georgia says it has dismantled a major Russian spy ring and arrested 13 suspects.
The suspects, including four Russian citizens and Georgian military officers, fed sensitive information to Moscow, the interior ministry said.
Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in August 2008.
Interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP: “This is a huge deal in terms of Georgia securing its military intelligence.”
He also said that the arrests were a big blow to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The 2008 conflict saw Russian forces pour into the country to repel a Georgian attempt to retake South Ossetia, a region that had declared independence from Georgia and was recognised by Russia.
In 2006 Georgia arrested four Russian military officers on espionage charges. The four were eventually released and returned to Russia.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A former team-mate warns that All Blacks debutant Sonny Bill Williams could be more of a threat to England than Jonah Lomu.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Royal Bank of Scotland plunges back into the red with a £1.4bn ($2.3bn) pre-tax loss during the three months to September
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A Cuban passenger plane has crashed in the centre of the country with 68 people on board.
The aircraft, belonging to the state-run Aero Caribbean airline, was flying from the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba to the capital Havana when it went down, state media report.
Twenty-eight foreigners were reported to be among the passengers. Their nationalities are unknown.
There is no word on the cause of the crash or on any survivors.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Victims were covered in hot ash following the latest Merapi eruption At least 11 people have been killed in a fresh eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano.
About 50 others were injured when a gas cloud hit mountainside villages with even greater force than last week’s eruptions.
A total of at least 55 people have now been killed. An estimated 75,000 have been evacuated from the area.
Mount Merapi, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, is located in a densely populated area in central Java.
The fresh eruption began late on Thursday, sending residents streaming down the mountain with ash-covered faces.
The authorities have decided to widen the “danger zone” around the crater from 15 km (9 miles) to 20km (12 miles).
Earlier on Thursday eyewitnesses said the volcano had been spewing clouds of hot ash and gas some 5km (three miles) into the sky.
The energy from the latest eruption was three times greater than that of the first one on Tuesday last week, government vulcanologist Surono said.
Scientists are warning of further eruptions in the coming weeks.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
President Obama campaigned twice for Ms Murray in the run-up to the vote Democratic Senator Patty Murray has won the close race for the US Senate seat in Washington state.
With final votes still being counted, Republican challenger Dino Rossi said he had called Ms Murray to “offer my congratulations”.
The result leaves the Democrats with 51 seats in the 100-member Senate following Tuesday’s mid-term polls.
Republicans have 46 seats and two independents caucus with the Democrats. The Alaska vote is yet to be called.
The mid-term elections resulted in heavy losses for the Democrats.
The president’s party lost control of the House of Representatives and despite the Washington state victory, has a reduced majority in the Senate.
US President Barack Obama campaigned for Ms Murray twice during the run-up to the polls, including at a rally in Seattle which took place just as voters were receiving their ballots.
Washington state has a large number of postal ballots, so counting the vote takes longer than in other parts of the country.
The Republican concession came as Ms Murray’s lead hit about 46,000 votes out of more than 1.8 million counted – about three-quarters of the expected total cast.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Singapore Airlines has resumed flights on its Airbus A380 aircraft – which were grounded after one of the planes operated by Australia’s Qantas Airways had to make an emergency landing.
One of the jet engines failed after take-off from Singapore. Engine maker Rolls-Royce has recommended checks.
After completing the checks, Singapore Airlines said it had cleared all its 11 A380 aircraft for service.
Qantas has grounded its six A380 jets pending investigations.
The aircraft is used by a number of airlines, although not all these are powered by Rolls-Royce engines.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Paul Adams
The official video was posted on the internet in the wake of the Republicans’ success in the polls
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has released a new video in the wake of the Republicans’ success in the US mid-term elections. The BBC’s Paul Adams, in Washington, has been taking a closer look.
It is one minute and nine seconds of pure advertising genius – a dazzling calling card from the woman who, most now agree, wants to be president.
The imagery, flags, fighter pilots, Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, may be pure political bromide. Frankly speaking, the words are nothing much to write home about either.
“We’re going to get back to the time-tested truths that made this country great,” she says.
These, Sarah Palin seems to be saying, are my people. My coalition. Not just the honest, hard-working, flag-waving Americans seen throughout, but the candidates just elected to office on a wave of Tea Party fervour – and all those pictured celebrating on election night.
The true brilliance, apart from the sheer speed with which the piece was put together, lies in an apparent rainbow coalition of candidates favoured by Ms Palin – Latinos, Marco Rubio in Florida and Susana Martinez in New Mexico; African Americans, Allen West in Florida and Tim Scott in South Carolina and an Indian American, Nikki Hayley in South Carolina.
It’s a collection of faces clearly designed to puncture the Tea Party’s images as solidly white.
There’s even time, along the way, for a populist jab at Washington politics.
A Congressional committee door is closed, with a sign blocking the way, saying “public keep out”.
And, of course, there’s a shameless reference to the most famous three words ever uttered by the man who once made everyone feel good, Ronald Reagan.
“This is our morning in America,” says Ms Palin.
Sarah Palin’s public appearances are ruthlessly controlled, consisting mainly of set-piece speeches and slickly-produced commercials.
If she ever launches a formal bid for the presidency, she will probably, at some point, have to engage more seriously with what she loves to call the “lamestream media”.
With a lumberjack chopping down a tree and hands united in a circle, this exhilarating post-election postcard comes to a thrilling end.
Ms Palin herself, in front of a giant American flag.
And, of course, a grizzly bear.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle has a bigger effect on stroke risk than taking vitamin E Taking vitamin E could slightly increase the risk of a particular type of stroke, a study says.
The British Medical Journal study found that for every 1,250 people taking vitamin E there is the chance of one extra haemorrhagic stroke – bleeding in the brain.
Researchers from France, Germany and the US studied nine previous trials and nearly 119,000 people.
But the level at which vitamin E becomes harmful is still unknown, experts say.
The study was carried out at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and INSERM in Paris.
Haemorrhagic strokes are the least common type and occur when a weakened blood vessel supplying the brain ruptures and causes brain damage.
Researchers found that vitamin E increased the risk of this kind of stroke by 22%.
The study also found that vitamin E could actually cut the risk of ischaemic strokes – the most common type of stroke – by 10%.
Ischaemic strokes account for 70% of all cases and happen when a blood clot prevents blood reaching the brain.
Experts found vitamin E could cut the risk, equivalent to one ischaemic stroke prevented per 476 people taking the vitamin.
However, they warned that keeping to a healthy lifestyle and maintaining low blood pressure and low cholesterol have a far bigger effect on cutting the risk of ischaemic stroke than taking vitamin E.
More than 111,000 people have a stroke every year and they are the third biggest cause of death in the UK.
“Indiscriminate widespread use of vitamin E should be cautioned against.””
Study authors
Those who survive are frequently left with disability.
While none of the trials suggested that taking vitamin E increased the risk for total stroke, the differences were notable for the two individual types of strokes.
The authors concluded: “Given the relatively small risk reduction of ischaemic stroke and the generally more severe outcome of haemorrhagic stroke, indiscriminate widespread use of vitamin E should be cautioned against.”
Previous studies have suggested that taking vitamin E can protect the heart from coronary heart disease, but some have also found that the vitamin could increase the risk of death if taken in high doses.
Dr Peter Coleman, deputy director of research at The Stroke Association, said: “This is a very interesting study that shows that the risk of haemorrhagic stroke can be slightly increased by high levels of orally taken Vitamin E, although what is a high level has not clearly been ascertained.
“More research is required to discover the mechanism of action and the level at which Vitamin E can become harmful.
“We urge people to maintain a lifestyle of a balanced diet, regular exercise and monitoring their blood pressure to reduce their risk of a stroke but would be very interested in seeing further research into this study,” he said.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Lesley Manville says she works with Mike Leigh to create a character from the beginning of their life It could have all been so different for actress Lesley Manville.
While at stage school in the 1970s, her dance teacher Arlene Phillips offered her a place in a raunchy dance troupe she was putting together – called Hot Gossip.
Manville turned it down. “I was a good girl!” she laughs. “The whole notion of doing something a bit risque like that was not really how I saw myself.”
The decision does not appear to have done Manville’s career any harm. This week she is back in cinemas in Mike Leigh’s new film, Another Year.
Manville is Mike Leigh’s most frequent collaborator, having worked with the director on Secrets and Lies, High Hopes, Topsy-Turvy, All or Nothing, Vera Drake, the BBC film Grown-Ups and in radio and theatre.
Mike Leigh talks about his nineteenth film Another Year.
In Another Year, Manville is Mary – a middle-aged woman on a downward spiral of loneliness who seeks solace in drink and the company of her happily-married friends Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen).
Another Year has been a film festival hit in Cannes, Toronto and London, and sees Leigh back with his regular family of actors, including Imelda Staunton and Peter Wight.
As is the way on Mike Leigh films, there was no script to start with. The characters were built from scratch by actors and director.
“People get a bit surprised when you say you do start with nothing, but that’s the truth”
Lesley Manville on improvising her character in Another Year
“People get a bit surprised when you say you do start with nothing, but that’s the truth,” says Manville.
“We work together and create a character from the beginning of their life. We created Mary’s childhood, which wasn’t particularly happy, where she went to school, the whole thing.
“We have a few months to do that. The character slowly starts to get under your skin. You end up with a character you can put in any situation and you know how they’re going to behave.”
How much of a turning point was working with Mike Leigh?
“Oh, massive, it can’t be underestimated how it changed everything for me. Up until that point, I worked a lot as a young girl and a teenager, but I didn’t really have any direction.
“I never played anybody that wasn’t me. That was the great thing – when we met, he showed me I could play all these characters that were really not like me at all.
‘Vibrant women’
“We do work really well together and have an inherent understanding. There are some people in your artistic life that you have this link with, and you bring out the best in each other.”
Another Year stars Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent as the central couple Manville’s other screen credits include Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol and the yet-to-be released Womb, alongside Doctor Who actor Matt Smith and former Bond girl Eva Green.
On stage she appeared in the original production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, as well as revivals of Edward Bond’s Saved and The Pope’s Wedding.
Her work at the National Theatre includes His Dark Materials, Pillars Of The Community and The Alchemist. And she was recently at the Old Vic in All About My Mother and Six Degrees of Separation.
Do characters as strong as Mary turn up in the scripts that land on Manville’s desk?
“You tend not to see such interesting characters on television, and most of my film experience has been with Mike,” she says.
“In the theatre I’ve played some great characters – in Ibsen’s Pillars of the Community I played a wonderful character – a very vibrant woman ahead of her time. But I don’t have a list of characters I want to play. I never think like that.”
On the subject of Hot Gossip, Manville suggests another way she might get to dance on TV.
“I’d have loved to have done Hot Gossip, but one of the reasons I didn’t was the whole thing with the stockings and suspenders. A bit of me thought ‘I can’t do that – my dad will be so embarrassed – I can’t go on television dressed like that!'”
She pauses, and adds: “I should really do Strictly, shouldn’t I? I wouldn’t mind dancing for three months every day. I just wouldn’t like the whole filming bit.”
Another Year is released across the UK on 5 November.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Ms Sotoudeh has represented opposition figures and Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer is in a serious condition after going on hunger strike in prison, a New York-based Iranian rights group says.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) called on the United Nations to intervene in the case of Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Ms Sotoudeh was arrested in September and is accused of acting against national security.
She has been refusing food since Sunday in protest against her treatment.
ICHRI spokesperson Hadi Ghaemi quoted Ms Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, as saying she has lost a lot of weight since being detained in Tehran’s Evin prison, and that her skin has darkened.
Mr Ghaemi said she had only been able to see her two young children on Thursday for the first time since her arrest.
He urged UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay to take up the matter with the Iranian authorities immediately.
Mr Ghaemi also said the Iranian authorities had denied her contact with her lawyer and had held Ms Sotoudeh in solitary confinement.
Her trial is due to start on 15 November.
Ms Sotoudeh has represented Iranian opposition activists and politicians, as well as Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Mr Woolas narrowly won his Oldham East and Saddleworth seat A specially convened court is to rule on whether ex-immigration minister Phil Woolas broke the law by making false claims before the general election.
The MP won the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat by 103 votes but his defeated Liberal Democrat rival claims the vote was swayed by Labour leaflets.
Mr Woolas denies making false statements about Elwyn Watkins.
If the court rules against him, he could be fined and barred from public office and a fresh election triggered.
Judgement was reserved after the first case of its kind in 99 years was heard by two High Court judges, Mr Justice Griffith Williams and Mr Justice Nigel Teare, at Saddleworth Civic Hall in Uppermill, Oldham in September.
It was brought under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act which makes it an offence to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected – unless they believed it was true and had “reasonable grounds” to do so.
‘Legitimate questions’
Legally, the onus is on Mr Watkins to prove his case if he is to win.
The specific allegation is that Mr Woolas put out leaflets suggesting Mr Watkins pandered to Muslim militants and refused to condemn death threats he said he had received from such groups.
There was also the claim his Lib Dem rival had illicitly channelled money for his campaign from a foreign donor – a rich Arab sheikh.
There was no truth in these claims and counsel for Mr Watkins accused Mr Woolas of stirring up racial tension by running a “risky” campaign designed to “galvanise the white Sun vote” because he was convinced he was going to lose his seat.
Mr Woolas defended his leaflets, saying it was legitimate to ask questions about how opponents fund their campaign and the political company they keep.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The allegations concern the period 2003 to 2008 Lawyers are going to the High Court later to push for a full public inquiry into allegations made by 142 Iraqi civilians that they were abused by British soldiers in southern Iraq.
They say there was use of outlawed stress positions as well as sensory deprivation and forced nakedness.
The Ministry of Defence says it is investigating the allegations and there is no need for public hearings.
Two public inquiries have already been launched into similar claims.
The first inquiry into the death of 26-year-old hotel worker Baha Mousa in UK military custody in September 2003, began hearing evidence last July.
And last November, the MoD announced details of a second public hearing into allegations that 19-year-old Hamid Al-Sweady and up to 19 other Iraqis were unlawfully killed and others ill-treated at a British base in May 2004.
Criminal inquiry
The High Court application is being made by the Public Interest Lawyers group.
Over the past few months, the lawyers have documented a mounting number of complaints.
“The MoD takes all allegations seriously and has already set up the dedicated Iraq Historic Allegations Team to investigate them”
Ministry of Defence spokesman
They include allegations not just of beatings but also of sexual humiliation and abuse. Some of the Iraqis allege they were mocked after being forced to undress and a number say they were kept awake by the playing of pornographic DVDs.
The complainants allege that at various times and in different UK facilities within Iraq between March 2003 and December 2008 soldiers and interrogators subjected them to “torture and to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.
Their lawyer Phil Shiner said: “This case raises a number of very troubling systemic issues about the practices and techniques used on Iraqis.
“The question for the court to decide comes down not to whether there should now be a single inquiry into the UK’s detention policy in Iraq, but when it should be set up.
“Our clients are entitled to a proper inquiry into all of these cases now, not in several years time when all the evidence will be lost or forgotten.”
The Ministry of Defence says it has set up a team of investigators to examine the claims which has already received at least 90 allegations.
The work is expected to take around two years because of the complexity of the investigations and the volume of allegations.
An MoD spokesman said: “These remain unproven allegations of mistreatment. The MoD takes all allegations seriously and has already set up the dedicated Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) to investigate them.
“The IHAT is the most effective way of investigating these unproven allegations rather than a costly public inquiry.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.