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Super typhoon lashes Philippines

Alex Deakin

Alex Deakin with details of the forecast track of Typhoon Megi.

Thousands of people in the Philippines have fled from their homes ahead of a powerful storm, Super-Typhoon Megi, which is expected to reach the north of the country early on Monday.

Megi, which has winds of up to more than 200km/h (125mph), is then forecast to move towards the South China Sea.

It is the strongest storm the Philippines has faced this year.

In 2006, a storm with winds of 155km/h triggered mudslides, burying villages and killing about 1,000 people.

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The northern provinces of Cagayan and Isabela are on the highest storm alert.

Officials are warning of heavy rain and high winds that could damage buildings, power supplies and agriculture.

Emergency services have been stocking up on food and medicines, says the BBC’s Kate McGeown in the capital, Manila.

“This is like preparing for war. We know the past lessons and we’re aiming for zero casualties”

Benito Ramos Disaster-response official

Government forecasters say waves off the east coast could be greater than 14m (46ft). They have warned against travel to the region.

Thousands of soldiers and officers are on standby.

Trucks, rescue boats and food packs have been pre-positioned near vulnerable areas, said Benito Ramos, a senior disaster-response official.

“This is like preparing for war,” he told the Associated Press. “We know the past lessons and we’re aiming for zero casualties.”

Schools in the north will be closed on Monday.

Farmers were being urged to harvest as many of their crops as possible before the typhoon hit, our correspondent says.

The area in the storm’s path is one of the country’s main rice-growing regions.

In July, President Benigno Aquino sacked the head of the weather bureau after he failed to predict a typhoon which unexpectedly changed course and hit Manila, killing more than 100 people.

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

No foreign media for Burma poll

Members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) wave from a campaign vehicle on 13 October 2010The polls will be the first in Burma since 1990

Election observers and foreign journalists will not be allowed into Burma for its first polls in two decades, officials say.

The Election Commission said observers were not necessary because Burma-based diplomats could monitor the polls.

Burma-based journalists would also be sufficient to cover the election, the commission said.

Critics say the 7 November elections are a sham aimed at consolidating military rule.

A quarter of the seats in parliament have already been reserved for the military.

Many senior military officers have also shed their uniforms so that they can campaign for election as civilians.

Parties not aligned with the government have complained of harassment during the campaign period.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, has called for an election boycott.

Her party, the National League for Democracy, won the last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.

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

Business backing for Osborne cuts

George OsborneGeorge Osborne has promised to see through the government’s spending cuts programme

The leaders of 35 of the UK’s biggest companies have expressed their support for the government’s plans for spending cuts running into billions of pounds.

The bosses of Marks and Spencer, BT and GlaxoSmithKline are among those to have signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph.

They write that it would be a “mistake” for Chancellor George Osborne to water down his programme for reducing the budget deficit.

Mr Osborne will announce details of the Spending Review on Wednesday.

The bosses wrote in their letter to the Telegraph that there was no reason to believe Mr Osborne’s approach would undermine any recovery.

They said: “Addressing the debt problem in a decisive way will improve business and consumer confidence.

“Reducing the deficit more slowly would mean additional borrowing every year, higher national debt, and therefore higher spending on interest payments.”

“The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector,” the signatories also claim.

BBC business editor Robert Peston says that Mr Osborne could not be happier that a group of influential people, such as the 35 business leaders, has at last come out and said they want him to make the deep public spending cuts that he has been promising.

However, some people would point out that these bosses may be experts at running businesses but that does not make them experts at how best to manage the economy, our correspondent adds.

Robert Peston said in his blog on the cuts that some of the signatories – such as Next chief executive Lord Wolfson and Paul Walsh of Diageo – were widely viewed as Conservative supporters.

But he said the intervention of others, including BT chief executive Ian Livingston and Asda chairman Andy Bond, would be seen as more surprising.

Mr Osborne has promised to see through the government’s spending cuts programme, saying it will “get us out of this stronger”.

Spending review branding

A special BBC News season examining the approaching cuts to public sector spending

The Spending Review: Making It Clear

The Spending Review will outline which areas of Whitehall’s budget will be hit the hardest, as the government attempts to reduce the £155bn deficit. The aim is to save £83bn in four years.

The chancellor joined David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander at the prime minister’s country residence Chequers to put the final touches to the plan.

Ministers are understood to have agreed an 8% cut in the Ministry of Defence’s £37bn budget, following tense negotiations.

The government has also announced sanctions to deal with benefit cheats, promising that anyone with three convictions could forfeit their rights to claim money from the state for up to three years.

Mr Osborne has pledged to continue funding for some “big infrastructure projects”.

Labour will unveil its own plans for the economy on Monday, setting out a £7bn “push for growth” funded largely by levies on the banks.

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

Brussels touts

Eiffel Tower lit up with EU flagThere is a feeling that some countries embrace the EU more than Britain

A starting salary of £45,000 plus a relocation bonus of £7,200. A pension worth up to 70% of your final salary and 24 days of leave plus “travel” days. Oh, and a job for life .

All this, and more, is up for grabs if you manage to pass the entrance exams to work for the European Union.

So it is little wonder that in excess of 50,000 eager young Europeans attempt the process known as the Concours every year.

They compete for a mere 320 places and so are, it is argued, the Praetorian guard of European civil servants.

However, while the UK has about 12% of the EU’s population, it provides only 5% of the EU’s staff.

And the coalition government is desperate to increase British representation by recruiting more.

In the latest move, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Foreign Secretary William Hague are to spearhead a campaign to convince university students that they should enter the fray.

The man trying to sort the problem out, is ironically enough, a Brit.

“It’s going to get much worse in the next five years,” says David Bearfield, who is in charge of EPSO, the organisation which runs recruitment for the EU institutions.

“What they bring is an understanding of British culture and of the importance in the UK of enterprise ”

Kim Darroch Britain’s ambassador to the EU

“A lot of people joined the EU after enlargement in 1973. This big cohort of people are going to be moving through to retirement in the next few years. Representation is going to sink dramatically”

And the statistics back up Mr Bearfield’s view.

In the first part of the Concours process, candidates sit a series of psychometric tests. The UK fielded 755 candidates this year while France put in 4,300 and Italy saw 8,478 of its citizens take part.

The EU will not release details of how many people got through to the second “assessment-centre” phase, but given that the UK only provided 1.5% of the total participants, it is possible that not a single Brit will enter the top levels of the EU institutions this year.

So why is this happening?

Partly it is to do with ignorance that such jobs are available, says Mr Bearfield, with the EU not currently a regular at graduate recruitment fairs.

And he points to the “negative impression” many have about the EU.

“We all hear the stories about the gravy train; the fat cats; the straight bananas, the bent cucumbers,” Mr Bearfield adds.

But, he says, there may be a deeper, simpler problem.

“You have to have a very good level of French or German to get through our tests and there are very few Brits who speak a foreign language. I think that’s the biggest single issue we face today.”

Given that less than 50% of students in England and Wales take a language GCSE, this is unlikely to improve. The equivalent figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland are not much higher.

Some will ask, whether this matters at all? So what if hardly any Brits work in Brussels? After all, we still have political meetings and hardly a day goes by without a government minister getting off the Eurostar and heading straight into an EU conference.

“Having people drafting the legislation who think in a British way influences law around Europe”

Anonymous British EU official

But for Britain’s ambassador to the EU, Kim Darroch, this misses the point.

“Brits working in the EU are not working for the British government, they are working for the European Union,” he says.

“But what they bring is an understanding of British culture and of the importance in the UK of enterprise and of the British common law system. It’s a reality that when you’re working with a commission official, if you have a common background, then the relationship is different.”

This subtle impact is acknowledged by the few Brits who have actually made it through the exams.

“The people who win in Brussels get 90% of what they want at the Commission (the executive arm of the EU),” a senior British EU official told the BBC, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“You don’t then need to send ministers in to defend red lines. It is simply a more elegant way of doing business, having people drafting the legislation who think in a British way influences law around Europe.”

And there is also a frustration at the perception of the EU back home.

“This is an exciting place to come,” the official says. “You work with a bright bunch of people and you make policy that affects peoples’ lives.”

This was certainly the appeal for Nick Hirst, who, having grown tired of working in a law firm, tried the Concours this year.

Euro symbol in front of the European Central Bank buildingSome argue more Brits in Brussels would put UK interests at the heart of decisions

He was among the thousands who failed, though a degree from Oxford in French and Spanish meant language wasn’t the problem – rather it was the sheer scale of the competition.

“The Concours was extremely difficult but I wasn’t too disappointed. A lot of people take it and right from the start I was conscious that many do this a couple of times before getting anywhere.”

But the British government is tired of hearing stories like Nick’s.

It has already re-started a programme called the European Fast Stream to prepare British candidates for taking the exams.

The event in London on Monday, with Mr Clegg and Mr Hague, is part of the ongoing project of trying to raise the profile of the EU as an employer.

But that may not be enough.

The BBC understands that there could be dramatic changes to the whole entrance system as a result of the “British problem”.

From next year the initial phase of the Concours will be available in the candidates’ first language.

But the Commission is currently considering going further and making even the interview phase possible in English too.

It would not go down well with other EU countries, whose citizens work so hard to learn English but, as one commission spokesman declared, “currently the British are an endangered species”.

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

Service of thanks at Chile mine

Miner Juan Carlos Aguilar returns to the San Jose amid a media scrum (17 Oct 2010)The miners have appealed for their privacy to be respected

Some of the 33 miners freed after 69 days underground in northern Chile are gathering at the mine to attend a ceremony celebrating their rescue.

A religious ceremony will take place at the mouth of the San Jose copper and gold mine where the miners were trapped more than 700m underground.

The miners were mobbed by reporters on their arrival at the camp amid concerns over privacy invasion.

Doctors say all the miners are in good health, though two remain in hospital.

Juan Illanes, one of the rescued miners, has appealed to journalists to respect the miners’ privacy.

“We arrived at the conclusion that it would be very good if you, the media, instead of treating this as an entertainment story – as we have seen in some headlines, I’m talking about Johnny Barrios – please take into consideration his state of mind and respect his privacy,” he said.

Johnny Barrios is the miner whose wife only found out he had a mistress of 10 years’ standing when they both attended a vigil for him at the mine.

Jose Henriquez, an evangelical pastor who led the miners in prayer while they were underground, became the first of the 33 to return to the San Jose mine when he went back on Saturday.

He said he wanted to get to know the area, known as Camp Hope, where families waited for news of their relatives trapped in the mine.

“They weren’t selected from a group of applicants to be astronauts… therefore we don’t know when the post-traumatic stress syndrome can appear”

Dr Jorge Diaz Head of medical team for miners

The two miners who remain in hospital are Mario Sepulveda, who led the crowds in chanting after he was rescued, and Victor Zamora, who is suffering from dental problems.

Mr Sepulveda is apparently suffering from stress, according to Dr Jorge Diaz, who led the medical team responsible for treating the miners at Copiapo regional hospital.

Other miners might also show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder in the coming months, he cautioned.

“We have a group of workers who are absolutely normal people, they weren’t selected from a group of applicants to be astronauts, nor were they people who underwent rigorous tests, therefore we don’t know when the post-traumatic stress syndrome can appear,” Dr Diaz said.

On Saturday the miners began removing the sunglasses they had been wearing since they emerged into daylight on Wednesday.

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

‘Ten years’ to solve nature loss

Exhibit in paper outside the convention centre in NagoyaDelegates will consider adopting new set of targets for 2020 that aim to tackle biodiversity loss

The UN biodiversity convention meeting has opened with warnings that the ongoing loss of nature is hurting human societies as well as the natural world.

The two-week gathering aims to set new targets for conserving life on Earth.

Japan’s Environment Minister Ryo Matsumoto said biodiversity loss would become irreversible unless curbed soon.

Much hope is being pinned on economic analyses showing the loss of species and ecosystems is costing the global economy trillions of dollars each year.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), described the meeting in Nagoya, Japan, as a “defining moment” in the history of mankind.

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“[Buddhist scholar] Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki said ‘the problem of nature is the problem of human life’. Today, unfortunately, human life is a problem for nature,” he told delegates in his opening speech.

Referring to the target set at the UN World Summit in 2002, he said:

“Let’s have the courage to look in the eyes of our children and admit that we have failed, individually and collectively, to fulfil the Johannesburg promise made by 110 heads of state to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.

“Let us look in the eyes of our children and admit that we continue to lose biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, thus mortgaging their future.”

Earlier this year, the UN published a major assessment – the Global Biodiversity Outlook – indicating that virtually all trends spanning the state of the natural world were heading downwards, despite conservation successes in some regions.

“We are about to reach a threshold beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible”

Ryo Matsumoto Japanese environment minister

It showed that loss and degradation of forests, coral reefs, rivers and other elements of the natural world was having an impact on living standards in some parts of the world – an obvious example being the extent to which loss of coral affects fish stocks.

In his opening speech, Mr Matsumoto suggested impacts could be much broader in future.

“All life on Earth exists thanks to the benefits from biodiversity in the forms of fertile soil, clear water and clean air,” he said.

“We are now close to a ‘tipping point’ – that is, we are about to reach a threshold beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible, and may cross that threshold in the next 10 years if we do not make proactive efforts for conserving biodiversity.”

In recent years, climate change has dominated the agenda of environmental politics.

And Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, suggested there is a lack of understanding at political levels of why tackling biodiversity is just important.

Newly discovered katydid in Papua New Guinea (6 September 2009)2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity

“This is the only planet in this Universe that is known to have this kind of life,” he said.

“This fact alone should give us food for thought, But more importantly, we are destroying the very foundations that sustain life on this planet; and yet when we meet in these intergovernmental fora, society somehow struggles to understand and appreciate what it is what we’re trying to do here, and why it matters.”

On the table in Nagoya is a comprehensive draft agreement that would tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, as well as setting new targets for conservation.

At the heart of the idea is the belief that if governments understand the financial costs of losing nature, they can adopt new economic models that reward conservation and penalise degradation.

A UN-sponsored project called The Economics of Ecosytems and Biodiversity (TEEB) calculates the cost at $2-5 trillion per year, predominantly in poorer parts of the world.

Jane Smart, head of the species programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said that although the problem was huge and complex, there were some encouraging signs.

“The good news is that when we carry out conservation, it does work; we increasingly know what to do, and when we do it, it works really really well,” she told BBC News.

“So we need to do a lot more conservation work, such as protected areas – particularly in the sea, in the marine realm – we need to save vast areas of ocean to protect fish stocks – not to stop eating fish, but to eat fish in a sustainable way.”

Governments first agreed back in 1992, at the Rio Earth Summit that the ongoing loss of biodiversity needed attention. The CBD was born there, alongside the UN climate convention.

It aims to preserve the diversity of life on Earth, facilitate the sustainable use of plants and animals, and allow fair and equitable exploitation of natural genetic resources.

The UN hopes that a protocol on the final element – known as access and benefit sharing (ABS) – can be secured here, 18 years after it was agreed in principle.

However, the bitter politicking that has soured the atmosphere in a number of UN environment processes – most notably at the Copenhagen climate summit – looms over the Nagoya meeting.

Some developing nations are insisting that the ABS protocol be signed off before they will agree to the establishment of an international scientific panel to assess biodiversity issues.

The Intergovernental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is due to be signed off during the current UN General Assembly session in New York.

Many experts – and Western governments – believe it is necessary if scientific evidence on the importance of biodiversity loss is to be transmitted effectively to policymakers.

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

Man shot in legs in Derry attack

A 20-year-old man has been shot in both legs in a paramilitary-style attack in Londonderry.

Three masked men went into a house in Slievemore Park at about 2130 BST on Sunday before shooting the victim twice.

He was taken to hospital for treatment. His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

Police have appealed for anyone who was in the area or has information about the attack to contact them.

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

Buyer pays £20,000 for Titanic survivor’s tale

Titantic survivors picked up by the Carpathia, including Laura Francatelli (back, second right).Titantic survivors picked up by the Carpathia, including Laura Francatelli (second right).

A woman’s account of escaping the sinking Titanic in 1912 has sold for £20,000 at auction.

Laura Francatelli’s story was published for the first time in early October.

It was bought by an Eastern European collector when it went under the hammer at Henry Aldrige and Son in Wiltshire at the weekend.

In it, Miss Francatelli described how she heard an “awful rumbling” as the liner went down and “screams and cries” from 1,500 drowning passengers.

“There was an awful rumbling when she went. Then came the screams and cries. I do not know how long they lasted”

Laura Francatelli

Her account was recorded in a signed affidavit for the official British inquiry into the disaster.

The Titanic was built at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard. She was billed as “unsinkable”.

But, on her maiden voyage to New York on 15 April 1912, she hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sank, killing 1,521 people.

Miss Francatelli, who was 31 at the time, was travelling with baronet Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lady Lucy Christiana, as his secretary.

The account describes how they boarded one of the last lifeboats containing just five passengers and seven crew, admitting they did not consider going back for survivors.

Sir Cosmo later paid the crew members £5 each – now worth about £300 – which some have described as blood money for saving their lives.

Miss Francatelli said she woke her employers when water seeped into her cabin after the liner struck an iceberg on the night of 14 April.

She wrote: “A man came to me and put a life preserver on me assuring me it was only taking precautions and not to be alarmed.

“When we got on the top deck, the lifeboats were being lowered on the starboard side.

“I then noticed that the sea was nearer to us than during the day, and I said to Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon ‘We are sinking’ and he said ‘Nonsense, come away’.”

TitanicThe Titanic was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast

The group refused to go into a lifeboat at first as Sir Cosmo was not allowed on, as they were designated for women and children only. But they were then offered places on a smaller rowing boat.

“There were no other women there by that time. The officer saw us and ordered us in, and we said we would go if Sir Cosmo could come also,” Miss Francatelli said.

“Just as they were lowering the boat, two American gentlemen came along the deck and got in also. The officers gave orders to us to row away from ship.”

She said they “were a long way off” when they saw the Titanic go right up at the back and plunge down.

“There was an awful rumbling when she went. Then came the screams and cries. I do not know how long they lasted.

“We had hardly any talk. The men spoke about God and prayers and wives. We were all in the darkness.”

She wrote how the survivors huddled in the bottom of the boat to keep warm until they were rescued two hours after the sinking by the ship Carpathia.

Miss Francatelli died in 1967. The document remained in her family until after her death and has since been owned by two private collectors.

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

India prices record share offer

A mine in IndiaCoal India is the biggest mining company in the world – the Indian government hopes to raise $3.5bn

Shares in the world’s biggest coal miner, Coal India, have gone on sale in India’s record initial public share offering (IPO).

The country’s government plans to raise up to 155bn rupees ($3.5bn; £2.2bn) by selling 10% of the company.

The sale is part of a government plan to sell stakes in about 60 companies in order to cut the fiscal deficit and boost spending on welfare programmes.

Coal India’s flotation closes on Wednesday for institutional investors.

Private investors will have until Thursday to subscribe.

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

Drugs charity meets US campaigner

Barbara HarrisBarbara Harris has been campaigning for 13 years

A charity which helps drug addicts in south Wales is in talks with a controversial US campaigner who offers addicts cash to be sterilised.

Kaleidoscope may stock leaflets from Barbara Harris, whose opponents say she does more harm than good, BBC Wales’ X-Ray programme reveals.

The Newport charity emphasised it would not pay for sterilisation treatments.

Ms Harris works to cut the number of children born affected by their parents’ habit.

Every year in the UK, it is estimated more than 1,000 babies are born to mothers addicted to drugs or alcohol.

They can suffer physical and mental health problems and cost the NHS hundreds of pounds a day to look after.

American campaigner Ms Harris pays addicts cash to be sterilised. She started her work 13 years ago after having adopted four children from one drug addicted mother.

She set up Project Prevention to reduce the number of children born affected by their parents’ addiction and has paid thousands of American addicts $300 each to not have children.

She tours across the country every year to attract new recruits.

She said: “Just knowing every mile we drive is for good. Somebody driving by might have a daughter who is strung out on drugs and could get pregnant, so they’ll give them our phone number or call us up.”

In the US, Tina, a recovering crack addict who lost a baby after she continued to smoke drugs while she was in labour, said she took Barbara’s $300 to be sterilised.

Reverend Martin Blakebrough and Barbara HarrisBarbara Harris speaks with Reverend Martin Blakebrough

She said: “If you’re using drugs and you don’t care enough about your own body, care enough about the baby. The baby deserves a really good chance at life.

“And how’s that baby going to have a shot with drugs and alcohol?”

Ms Harris is in talks with Kaleidoscope about stocking her leaflets, which carry the image of a baby in drug withdrawal and offer cash for sterilisation.

The Reverend Martin Blakebrough, Kaleidoscope’s director and the son of the charity’s founder, said: “In terms of sterilisation I think it is something you need to be talking to people about, you need to be advising them, and supporting them if that is the right decision for them.

“I see three generations of people, families of drug misuse, grandparents, mothers and their daughters. We have to try and find some ways of breaking that cycle.”

He said Ms Harris’ policy was not one that he agreed with entirely, saying: “We made it clear to her that if we did have a leaflet then it would need to be redesigned because the leaflet that she has is quite sensationalist and we would want to tone that down.

“We made it clear to her that if we did have a leaflet then it would need to be redesigned because the leaflet that she has is quite sensationalist ”

Reverend Martin Blakebrough Kaleidoscope

“But we do believe in giving clients choice and if they felt that was a project they wanted to be involved with, particularly on the situation of prevention and support for them through that prevention process, we would be happy to stock a leaflet.”

However, he made it clear Kaleidoscope would not be offering clients cash to be sterilised.

Recovering heroin addict Michelle uses the charity’s service in Newport and has seven children already and does not currently use contraception.

She said she would not consider sterilisation herself, saying: “I feel that I’m stronger now and wiser now than I used to be, so I think it’s a very, very, very unfair thing to be coming across, that drug addicts should be getting sterilised just because they’re addicts.

“That doesn’t make them unfit. People have still got morals whether they’re a drug addict or not.”

Dr Bernadette Hard, a GP at Kaleidoscope, who offers medical advice including discussing contraception with clients at the charity, said she had seen addicts turn their lives around.

“The difficulty we have with this particular issue is that we think giving a large amount of money to someone with a very powerful addiction would probably encourage them to spend money on their addiction”

Dr Tony Calland British Medical Association

She said: “A client recently came over from London, two children were being threatened to be taken off her, she said to me, ‘I’m not using any more’.

“She’s really moved on, her children are very well looked after and she’s a great mum. If she has more then, good luck to her.”

Questions are being asked about whether Ms Harris’ approach is even legal.

The British Medical Association’s ethics committee has met to discuss the issue.

Committee chairman Dr Tony Calland said: “The difficulty we have with this particular issue is that we think giving a large amount of money to someone with a very powerful addiction would probably encourage them to spend money on their addiction rather than perhaps on improving their own health or the health of their children.

“It would be dreadful if they made decision on the basis of getting money in their early 20s that they would regret when they had overcome their addiction perhaps in their 30s.”

X-Ray is on BBC One Wales on Monday, 18 October at 2235BST.

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

Newspaper review

Papers

The papers consider George Osborne’s likely strategy as he unveils what the Financial Times suggests could be “the mother of all negative stories”.

The Daily Telegraph says the chancellor is “braced for a backlash” from Wednesday’s spending review.

The Guardian predicts how Mr Osborne will try to neutralise Labour attacks.

He will stress that he is targeting “waste and welfare” in order to release more cash for spending on front-line services such as hospitals and schools.

‘Economic masochism’

In an interview with the Daily Mirror, shadow chancellor Alan Johnson warns of a “lost decade” of no jobs and low growth.

He says this will be a result of what he calls the government’s “economic masochism”.

The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh says it will not be quite as bad as we have been led to believe.

“The skill of a good chancellor is to pluck the goose without making it squeal,” he writes.

Multi-culturalism

There is analysis of Chancellor Merkel’s assertion that multi-culturalism in Germany has “utterly failed”.

The Daily Mail describes it as a “landmark speech”, which broke one of Germany’s “last taboos”.

The Daily Express says almost everything she said about Germany could equally be applied to Britain.

The Independent argues if countries such as Germany are demanding greater integration by immigrants, governments will have to try harder too.

Dog tales

Former Labour cabinet minister David Blunkett reveals that his beloved guide-dog, Sadie, will shortly be retiring.

She will be swapping the tedium of meetings at Westminster for a carefree new life of walks and squirrel-chasing.

Writing in the Daily Mail, the MP looks back at Sadie’s distinguished political career.

He recalls that she has been patted on the head by personalities ranging from George Bush to the Queen.

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