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Actor Simon MacCorkindale, who starred in TV’s Casualty, has died of cancer at the age of 58, his publicist has said.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Emergency crews wore protective suits after two women died in an apparent suicide pact in Putney A detective at Scotland Yard’s new rape investigation unit, Sapphire, has been suspended over claims of “irregularities” in 30 cases.
The detective constable is also under investigation for his dealings with a woman who died in an apparent suicide pact at Putney in south-west London.
It is alleged that the Kingston-upon-Thames-based officer fabricated letters to victims from the CPS.
He said that inquiries had been discontinued, it is alleged.
The officer had contact with one of the two women – referred to as Miss B – who died in Putney in September.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said both women had made unrelated reports of harassment to the Metropolitan Police in the years before they died.
IPCC Commissioner for London Deborah Glass said: “Both women raised concerns about how the police handled their reports of harassment, and we are examining whether the officers involved did what would be reasonably expected of them.
“We are also carrying out a further investigation, looking into a number of other cases handled by the officer in Miss B’s case.”
Last year senior officers decided to bring regional sex crime units, known as Sapphire teams, under the umbrella of one central command.
The unit opened in September last year after several months of frenetic reorganisation work.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens the way to a new round of quantitative easing in a speech.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
New England Sports Ventures are set to complete their protracted takeover of Liverpool after co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett removed the restraining order blocking the sale of the club.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Fuel supplies to Paris’ main airports through a leading pipeline are cut off, as protests over pension reforms lead to fears of petrol shortages.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Detectives said they were treating the woman’s death as suspicious A 23-year old woman has died after she was found on fire behind a house in Bradford, police have said.
West Yorkshire Police and fire crews were called to a property on Cloudsdale Avenue, south of the city centre, just after 1900 BST on Thursday.
A force spokesman said the woman, who was found “alight”, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said the death was being treated as suspicious and forensic science experts remained at the scene.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Nick Clegg Two-year-olds from poorer families in England will be offered 15 free hours of pre-school education a week, Nick Clegg is expected to announce.
The deputy prime minister will outline the plan as part of £7bn extra to be spent on disadvantaged children over the next four years.
He will also promise extra help for students from low-income families.
The announcements come ahead of next week’s spending review, when planned government cuts will be revealed.
A large part of the £7bn will go towards a “pupil premium” – to follow the worst-off children through the education system.
This was a key Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment at the general election.
The money is expected to support children from the poorest 20% of families, who are entitled to free school meals.
They will be offered 15 hours a week of free nursery education at two years old, on top of the 15 hours already available at ages three and four.
The announcements come after Lord Browne’s report on higher education, published on Wednesday, recommended lifting the cap on tuition fees, with many universities expected to charge £7,000 or more a year.
This is likely to be opposed by Mr Clegg’s predecessors as Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy.
Speaking in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Mr Clegg is expected to say: “The way we tackle the deficit will be a test of the character of the coalition.
“I am clear that we have a moral obligation to wipe the slate clean. We must shelter the next generation from the legacy of debt – and especially the most disadvantaged children.”
He will say: “Our vision of fairness is based on people having an equal crack of the whip; that the life chances of every child should be the same.
“It is simply not acceptable that the circumstances of a child’s birth can become a life sentence of disadvantage.
“So while the CSR [comprehensive spending review] will cut spending, it will increase our investment in fairness, and in particular in the promotion of social mobility and life chances. It will be an investment package for future fairness.”
Mr Clegg will say the “fairness premium” will deliver support for the most disadvantaged young people “from the age of two to the age of 20 – from a child’s first shoes to a young adult’s first suit”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Two Save the Children staff have been kidnapped by unknown gunmen in Somalia, the charity says, with witnesses saying one of the men is Zimbabwean and the other Somali.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
A 550lb (250kg) bomb from World War II has been successfully detonated during a controlled explosion in a river in Potsdam, Germany.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Concentrating on chest compressions rather than mouth-to-mouth when giving emergency resuscitation can produce better results, researchers say.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Chile’s president meets the miners in hospital and challenges them to a football match
Three of the 33 men rescued after 69 days trapped in the San Jose mine in Chile are to be discharged from hospital and allowed to go home.
Officials refused to identify who among the group are being allowed to leave.
But they said that all the miners had responded well to treatment and many more of them would go home on Friday.
The miners were visited by President Sebastian Pinera, who promised that Chileans would never be allowed to work in “such inhuman conditions” again.
Speaking to reporters outside Copiapo hospital, the deputy medical director Dr Jorge Montes said: “The message to the whole community is that they are really progressing very well.
“We believe three miners will be released today and tomorrow, Friday, many more patients will be released.”
He said the three men leaving on Thursday would be allowed to carry out physical activity and would need sunglasses only if they were exposed to intense light.
However, he warned that “the psychological condition of the patients is something we cannot predict”.
Head of regional health, Paola Newman, said the names of the patients being discharged were not being released to protect their privacy.
She said the 33 miners were together in a room and had been quite happy to see each other again.
The miners had been told they would need to be held in the hospital for 48 hours but Health Minister Jaime Manalich announced earlier that their condition was so good that many would be able to leave within 24 hours. He said their condition was nothing short of a miracle.
Some of the men have been given dental surgery and two have the lung disease, silicosis: Mario Sepulveda, the second miner to have been rescued, and Mario Gomez, 63, who is on a course of antibiotics for pneumonia.
The men were hauled to the surface one at a time in a complicated and dramatic operation that took about 22 hours from the time the first miner reached the ground to when the last miner surfaced.
They were winched up a narrow shaft in a metal capsule from where they had been trapped 625m (2,050 feet) below ground since the mine partially collapsed on 5 August.
They survived the first 17 days of their ordeal by eking out rations that were meant to last just a few days before rescuers found them via a probe lowered down a bore hole about the width of a grapefruit.
Food and other supplies were lowered to the men while they waited for a larger shaft to be drilled for their rescue.
Now that the men are safe, thoughts have turned to their emotional wellbeing.
An insight into how the miners are adjusting to life above ground has come from a diary written for the BBC by the three children of Omar Reygadas, the 17th to be freed.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Disagreement remains over how much Equitable Life policyholders are owed The government should commission a new assessment of the losses suffered by people who saved with Equitable Life, a committe of MPs has said.
The Public Administration Select Committee is calling on the government not to determine a final compensation figure in next week’s Spending Review.
The issue is that there remains much disagreement over how much Equitable Life policy holders have lost.
One report puts the amount at £4.8bn, but a second says it is much lower.
The £4.8bn figure is the calculation of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, who also found that government regulators had been guilty of maladministration.
But a report commissioned by the former Labour government from Sir John Chadwick concluded in July that compensation due to the policyholders from the taxpayer might be as little as £400m to £500m.
The coalition government had pledged to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations, but since Sir John’s report was released, the government has indicated that it might influence its thinking.
Treasure Minister Mark Hoban said in July that compensation for Equitable Life policy holders “cannot be considered in isolation from the other spending decisions” that the government has to make to reduce the public deficit.
Equitable Life nearly collapsed in 2000 after failing to put sufficient funds aside to pay for guaranteed payouts it promised on some of its pensions.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The disease creates sores and child sufferers are often subject to bullying The Afghan capital, Kabul, has been hit by a disfiguring tropical skin disease, the World Health Organization says.
The WHO warned that the disease, cutaneous leishmaniasis, threatens the health of 13 million Afghans, especially women and girls.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease transmitted through the bites of certain species of sand-fly.
It can lead to severe scarring, often on the face, and regularly goes undiagnosed and untreated.
”The number of new reported cases in Kabul dramatically rose from the estimated yearly figure of 17,000 to 65,000 in 2009, mainly among women and children,” said WHO representative to Afghanistan Peter Graaff.
”This number is likely to be the tip of the iceberg as cases are grossly underreported.”
Several other major cities such as Herat, Kandahar and Mazar-e Sharif are also centres of leishmaniasis.
Leishmaniasis has exploded in crowded neighbourhoods of Afghanistan and spread to hundreds of thousands of people.
”I had the disease – and didn’t go to a doctor – but it healed itself after a year,” said Abdul Ghaffar, 12, in Kabul.
”I am fine now, but I am worried about the scar.”
The Afghan government says the high cost of treatment makes it difficult to hand out drugs for the illness.
The most common form of the disease is not fatal, but still causes misery and social stigma, especially for victims with scarring on their faces and hands.
Those affected develop skin sores which can occur several weeks to many months after the person has been bitten.
Many victims suffer without receiving treatment or a diagnosis Children are often bullied and women sufferers sometimes find it hard to find husbands.
”Addressing stigma, early diagnosis and early treatment is the only way to go about tackling this disease,” said Fatima Gilani, director of the Afghan Red Crescent Society.
The disease thrives in post-conflict societies where there is poor sanitation and poor community services. The insects often breed on waste land and in rubbish.
Doctors say that refugees returning from abroad are particularly susceptible as they have no resistance.
Decades of conflict has gravely weakened much of Afghanistan’s health infrastructure.
”Our capacity to treat the disease is very low. We can treat only 40% of leishmaniasis cases,” said Dr Suraya Dalil, acting public health minister.
Over the past few years a handful of foreign troops have also been bitten by the sand-flies and have developed the disease.
Nato camps have been fortified to try to stop the sand-flies and soldiers have been instructed to keep sleeves rolled down and to use mosquito nets and insect repellents.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Nick Clegg Two-year-olds from poorer families in England will be offered 15 free hours of pre-school education a week, Nick Clegg is expected to announce.
The deputy prime minister will outline the plan as part of £7bn extra to be spent on disadvantaged children over the next four years.
He will also promise extra help for students from low-income families.
The announcements come ahead of next week’s spending review, when planned government cuts will be revealed.
A large part of the £7bn will go towards a “pupil premium” – to follow the worst-off children through the education system.
This was a key Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment at the general election.
The money is expected to support children from the poorest 20% of families, who are entitled to free school meals.
They will be offered 15 hours a week of free nursery education at two years old, on top of the 15 hours already available at ages three and four.
The announcements come after Lord Browne’s report on higher education, published on Wednesday, recommended lifting the cap on tuition fees, with many universities expected to charge £7,000 or more a year.
This is likely to be opposed by Mr Clegg’s predecessors as Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy.
Speaking in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Mr Clegg is expected to say: “The way we tackle the deficit will be a test of the character of the coalition.
“I am clear that we have a moral obligation to wipe the slate clean. We must shelter the next generation from the legacy of debt – and especially the most disadvantaged children.”
He will say: “Our vision of fairness is based on people having an equal crack of the whip; that the life chances of every child should be the same.
“It is simply not acceptable that the circumstances of a child’s birth can become a life sentence of disadvantage.
“So while the CSR [comprehensive spending review] will cut spending, it will increase our investment in fairness, and in particular in the promotion of social mobility and life chances. It will be an investment package for future fairness.”
Mr Clegg will say the “fairness premium” will deliver support for the most disadvantaged young people “from the age of two to the age of 20 – from a child’s first shoes to a young adult’s first suit”.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The government this week confirmed plans to privatise the Royal Mail The coalition government should undertake “a radical new programme of privatisation”, according to right-wing think tank the Adam Smith Institute.
It estimates the government could raise as much as £90bn if it sold its stakes in everything from Network Rail and the Royal Mint to Royal Bank of Scotland.
Its call comes two days after Business Secretary Vince Cable confirmed that the Royal Mail would be privatised.
The government has also pledged to sell its bank stakes when conditions allow.
In addition to its 83% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, the government also owns 40% of Lloyds Banking Group and all of Northern Rock.
Other organisations that the Adam Smith Institute wants the government to privatise include Scottish Water, Trust Ports, Northern Ireland Water, the Met Office, the Student Loan Book, National Air Traffic Services, British Waterways, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide – the BBC’s commercial arm.
Nigel Hawkins, the report’s author, said: “Privatising many of the companies discussed in my report will not be easy.
“But there is nevertheless a pressing need for the government to revisit privatisation, not just to raise very substantial proceeds – to the benefit of the UK’s desperately stretched public finances – but also to streamline government and boost the private sector.”
The institute’s report comes as the government is preparing to publish its comprehensive spending review on 20 October. This is expected to unveil substantial public sector spending cuts as the government seeks to reduce the UK’s public deficit.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.