Category: news

The Northern Ireland Executive has yet to make clear where exactly it expects cuts to fall

Health Minister Michael McGimpsey has warned that his department could have a £1.4bn black hole in its budget due to spending cuts.

Responding to an Assembly question from his Ulster Unionist colleague David McClarty, the minister said he needed £5.4bn a year by the end of 2014-15.

He said that if current assumptions about cuts were true, he understood he would get just £3.9bn a year.

The minister reiterated that he wanted his budget ring-fenced.

He added that his department had a history of underfunding compared to its counterparts across the UK.

In his written answer he listed reasons why his budget needed to rise to £5.4bn by 2015:

Last year, Northern Ireland had the fastest growing population in the UKIt is projected to have the fastest growing elderly population up to 2020NHS pay deals are negotiated for the whole of the UK

He added that as the health service got better at saving people from life-threatening illnesses, it would incur higher long-term costs for care.

Will cuts mean a strong prescription for the NI health service?

Earlier this month, the chief executive of the Health and Social Care Board, which decides which services to commission warned that that if the budget was not ring-fenced, there would be “tough times” ahead.

John Compton said that would include an “element of rationing” and “fewer people working for us”.

The minister has said that he wants to protect front-line services as much as possible, indicating that he will seek to target red tape.

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

A Harrier pilot made his views plain when given the chance to quiz David Cameron during a visit to the Northwood airbase. Lt Cdr Kris Ward told the prime minister he was an Afghanistan veteran facing the prospect of unemployment.

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

Police closed a highway near the Pentagon as the investigation into the shots continued

Shots were fired at the Pentagon, hitting the building and causing minor damage, US officials have said.

Police temporarily closed some roads and pedestrian entrances after a civilian reported he might have heard shots before dawn near the south entrance of the building.

A sweep of the defence department headquarters found some shots had hit the building.

There were no injuries, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col Dave Lapan said.

Mr Lapan said he did not know how many shots had been fired or what kind of weapon had been used.

Roads and pedestrian entrances to the Pentagon were re-opened soon after the incident. Part of a highway near the Pentagon was later closed as the investigation continued.

Police were spotted searching a grassy area on the south side of the building, the Associated Press news agency said.

Bullet holes were also discovered on Monday in the windows of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, about 30 miles (50km) south of the Pentagon.

Mr Lapan said he did not know if there was any connection between the two incidents.

Tuesday’s investigation at the Pentagon comes about seven months after a gunman shot and wounded two security officers at a security checkpoint into the building.

The 36-year-old shooter, John Patrick Bedell, was shot by police and died hours after being admitted to a hospital in critical condition.

Security measures at the Pentagon were tightened following the March shoot-out.

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

HMS Ark Royal played a key role in the Balkans conflict in the early 1990s

The Royal Navy’s flagship, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, is to be scrapped early as part of the government’s defence review, the BBC has learned.

The move is part of the price paid by the Royal Navy for the decision to go ahead with two new aircraft carriers.

Launched in 1985, the Ark Royal will be decommissioned almost immediately, four years earlier than planned.

On Tuesday David Cameron will unveil details of the first strategic defence and security review in 12 years.

It is expected to see big spending cuts for the armed forces.

Chancellor George Osborne signalled on Sunday that the construction of two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, would go ahead, when he told the BBC it would cost more to cancel the projects than proceed with them.

The BBC has also learned that at least one of the new carriers will be redesigned so that it can deploy normal fighter aircraft that do not need a Harrier-style vertical lift capability.

The new design would allow American and French joint strike fighters to land on the new carrier.

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

The study found boys and girls were likely to have different types of SEN

Almost one in four primary school boys in England has special educational needs (SEN), a government report finds.

More than 41,000 primary school boys (2%) have a statement of needs and 489,250 (23.4%) have unstatemented needs.

This compares to 15,600 SEN girls (0.8%) with statements and 269,890 girls (13.5%) without a statement.

Last month Ofsted said thousands of pupils were wrongly labelled as having special educational needs.

All these pupils required, inspectors said, was better teaching and support.

The Ofsted report found as many as half of all pupils identified for School Action, the lowest SEN category, would not be identified as having these needs if schools focused on improving teaching and learning.

The latest study, published by the Department for Education (DfE), examined the numbers and characteristics of children with SEN.

The findings show the number of pupils with SEN in England increased from around 1.53 million (19%) pupils in 2006 to approximately 1.69 million (21%) pupils in 2010.

Boys were two and a half times more likely than girls to have statements at primary school, the report said.

And at secondary school, they were nearly three times more likely to have statements compared to girls.

The report found that boys and girls were likely to have different types of SEN.

Boys with statemented SEN were more than twice as likely to have behavioural, emotional and social difficulties or autism than girls.

In total, 26,170 boys (17.2%) with SEN statements had behavioural, emotional and social difficulties compared with 3,590 girls (6.2%).

Girls with SEN statements were more than twice as likely to have profound or multiple learning difficulties or hearing problems compared with boys.

Children’s minister Sarah Teather said: “Pupils with SEN are not getting the support they need to succeed and are falling behind as soon as they start school.

“It is not right that only 5% of young people with statements of SEN go on to higher education.

“We must change the system so that having SEN or a disability does not predetermine a child’s future.”

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

Heather Bickley and her sons Felix and Oscar

A coroner has urged homeowners to fit working smoke alarms after the deaths of a police detective and her two sons.

Heather Bickley, 46, and her sons Felix, 10 and Oscar, five, all died from smoke inhalation during a fire at their home on Anglesey in June.

An inquest at Llangefni heard that the fire probably started in a faulty freezer unit.

Coroner Dewi Pritchard Jones recorded accidental death verdicts and stressed the importance of smoke alarms.

The inquest heard the fire at the home of Mrs Bickley, who was a detective constable in child protection for North Wales Police, started slowly but spread to the ceiling of the home at Tyn-y-Gongl.

It then rapidly set alight the upper bedroom and roof space.

Neighbour Christopher Ryder said he was woken by the sound of the fire and windows breaking just before 01.00 BST on June 30.

“I started running until I got to the property,” he told the inquest.

“The bedroom facing the right was completely ablaze. It was a complete inferno.”

Mr Ryder ran back to his home and called the fire service, who arrived to find the whole property well alight, and no sign of the missing family.

By this time, Mrs Bickley’s husband and father of the two children, John Bickley had arrived from working a late shift, to find his home on fire.

The fire rapidly set alight the roof and upper bedroom

Richard Bryn Jones, watch manager for the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service described how his officers made a quick sweep of the downstairs of the property, but initially found nobody.

A little later, the fire officer spotted the body of Oscar through a window lying in the lounge of the house.

He told the inquest that officers with breathing apparatus dragged the boy from the house.

“I could see there wasn’t a lot that we could do for the lad,” he said.

The search for the other missing members of the family could not proceed, as parts of the house’s roof began collapsing.

The bodies of Mrs Bickley and her son Felix were discovered by a fire investigation team later in the day.

Mrs Bickley was found in the kitchen.

Fire investigation officer, Glyn Jones told the inquest that she may have been trying to investigate the cause of the smoke, when she was overcome by fumes herself and died.

The body of Felix was also found in the kitchen, but the inquest was told he had died in his bedroom from smoke, and his body had fallen to the ground floor when flames burnt through the ceiling.

Recording a verdict of accidental death on all three members of the Bickley family, the North West Wales coroner said they had all died from the effects of smoke inhalation.

He also said it was clear that there were no smoke detectors in the house.

He added: “When one looks at the fire and asks how can this be avoided, again the question of smoke detectors comes up.

“This isn’t the first incident I have dealt with and it probably won’t be the last.

“What can be learned is that smoke detectors save lives.

“Had there been working smoke detectors, Mrs Bickley and the children would have had a warning and would have had the opportunity to get out.

He said the deaths was especially tragic, because virtually an entire family had been wiped out in one incident.

“The presence of a detector could very well have saves all three,” he added.

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

The BBC’s Tim Davie said the Radioplayer is the result of “genuine collaboration”

Listeners will have access to a variety of radio stations in one online location from December.

The Radioplayer will stream dozens of BBC and commercial radio stations on one site.

Around 50 stations will be available initially, but the system will be fully operational from February with at least 200 stations on offer.

Michael Hill, managing director of UK Radioplayer, said: “This is a defining moment for UK radio.”

Listeners will be able to search by station, programme and genre, and favourites can be stored as pre-sets.

Radio services from backers including the BBC, Absolute and Global Radio will be available on the service, which has been demonstrated at the Radio Festival in Salford.

Tim Davie, director of BBC audio and music, said: “It is a result of genuine collaboration across the industry and is the sort of innovation we need to make digital radio a reality.”

Andrew Harrison, chairman of Radioplayer and chief executive of commercial radio body RadioCentre, said the project would “create significant opportunities for the commercial radio sector”.

Some 4.7 million people per month already listen to radio via the internet.

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

Katrine Trolle said she had a threesome with Tommy Sheridan and his brother-in-law

Tommy Sheridan had three-in-a-bed sex with a married member of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and his brother-in-law, a court has heard.

Katrine Trolle, 36, also told the High Court in Glasgow that she had sex with Mr Sheridan at his family home while his wife attended a Christmas party.

Mr Sheridan and his wife Gail, both 46, are on trial accused of perjury.

They deny lying during his successful defamation case against the News of the World in 2006.

Mr Sheridan won £200,000 in damages after the newspaper printed allegations about his private life, claiming he was an adulterer who had visited a swingers club.

After a police investigation, Mr and Mrs Sheridan were charged with perjury.

The indictment against Mr Sheridan contains the charge that he had lied about having sexual relations with Ms Trolle during his defamation case at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Ms Trolle, 36, who is originally from Denmark but moved to Scotland in 1996, told the trial she had slept with Mr Sheridan at least twice.

She said the former MSP had initially been “quite interested” in Danish “liberal values on pornography and sex”.

Ms Trolle told the court they first had sex during the SSP’s campaign for the Anniesland by-election.

She said: “While we were leafleting we had been flirting quite a bit and he asked me if I would come and see him.

“Obviously, I agreed and he came to pick me up a little bit away from where I was staying.

“I was staying with my then mother-in-law and it would have looked suspicious.

“He picked me up and we went to his house. I think I had a glass of wine and without much further ado we went up to the bedroom and had sex.”

Ms Trolle told the court that shortly afterwards, Gail Sheridan had called her husband and asked her to pick her up from a Christmas party.

She said: “We quickly got dressed and he drove me home so he could pick up Gail.”

Ms Trolle said she next encountered Mr Sheridan “many months” later, when he called her and asked her to come to Glasgow.

She said she got the bus from Aberdeen and he met her at the bus station, before taking her to his brother-in-law Andrew McFarlane’s house in Cardonald.

She said: “He hadn’t actually said we were going to his brother-in-law’s house. I was thinking I was going to see him.

“As we drove over to his brother-in-law’s house, it slowly dawned on me that all three of us were going to have sexual intercourse.

“We arrived and Andy opened a bottle of wine so he and I could have a glass of wine. Tommy went upstairs and not long after I went up there as well.

“I was getting undressed, or Tommy was helping me to get undressed, when Andy appeared. We spent most of the night having sexual intercourse.”

It is alleged that Mr Sheridan made false statements as a witness in his defamation action against the News of the World on 21 July 2006.

He also denies another charge of attempting to persuade a witness to commit perjury shortly before the 23-day legal action got under way.

Mrs Sheridan denies making false statements on 31 July 2006, after being sworn in as a witness in the civil jury trial at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

The trial is due to last between two and three months and is expected to become the longest perjury case in Scottish legal history.

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

Martine Wiltshire is a member of the Great Britain women’s sitting volleyball team

A survivor of the 7 July suicide bomb attacks has described trying to stand up to help fellow Tube passengers only to find his leg had been blown off.

Andrew Brown told an inquest he noticed his “leg had gone” after blacking out for 15 minutes on a Circle Line train at Aldgate station in 2005.

Another passenger – Martine Wiltshire – told how she lost both her legs and three-quarters of her blood.

The inquests into the 52 deaths are expected to take up to five months.