Category: news

French unions are set for another day of damaging strikes and street protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to overhaul pensions and raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.

The demonstrations are expected to cause disruption to rail, air and urban transport, schools and postal services.

Organisers are hoping to better the turnout on 7 September, when more than one million workers took part.

Mr Sarkozy says the reforms are needed to tackle France’s budget deficit.

The walkouts are expected to hit transport the hardest. Only one in two trains will be running nationally and disruptions to services had already begun on Wednesday night.

About half of flights at Paris Orly are to be cancelled, as well as 40% at the capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport, and 40% at other airports throughout the country, said the DGAC civil aviation authority.

The BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris says both sides will be watching closely the size of this protest. There is still the threat from some unions of open-ended action, he says, and if that gains support it will certainly apply pressure to an already embattled president.

Mr Sarkozy, already under attack from the European Union for deporting Roma and from the media over a lingering financial scandal, says he will press on with the reforms regardless.

The pension reform bill has already been passed by France’s lower house of parliament. It will be debated from 5 October by the upper house, the Senate, where it is expected to pass comfortably.

France’s retirement age is lower than many countries in Europe. Under current rules, both men and women in France can retire at 60, providing they have paid social security contributions for 40.5 years – although they are not entitled to a full pension until they are 65.

The government says it will save 70bn euros (£58bn) by raising the retirement age to 62 by 2018, the qualification to 41.5 years, and the pension age to 67.

Unions and opposition politicians say the plan puts an unfair burden on workers, particularly women, part-timers and the former unemployed who might struggle to hit the 41.5 year requirement.

They have made counter proposals, including calls for taxes on certain bonuses and on the highest incomes to help fund the pension system.

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Pressure is growing on India to deal urgently with problems concerning its hosting of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, amid increasing criticism and concerns over hygiene and security.

Commonwealth Games Canada’s president told the BBC that Indian officials had been “indifferent bordering on intransigent” in tackling the issues.

New Zealand has now delayed the arrival of its athletes for the event.

India insists next month’s Games will be one of the most successful.

Several participating countries have delegates in the capital urgently checking the facilities at the athletes’ village and the arrangements for security.

The president of the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC), Mike Stanley, said the arrival of its athletes should be delayed until at least 28 September because of problems with accommodation and other issues. The Games start on 3 October.

Mr Stanley said: “It’s tremendously disappointing. The long list of outstanding issues has made it clear the village will now not be ready for New Zealand athletes to move in as planned.”

New Zealand’s Dominion Post newspaper reported that the country was looking at using Singapore as a “holding pen” for its athletes if conditions in Delhi did not improve.

The chief executive of Swimming New Zealand, Mike Byrne, told the BBC that two New Zealand officials were in Delhi and would report later on Thursday about the situation.

He said he was trying to remain optimistic, but added: “If the unthinkable happens and the Games are cancelled, one of the things we need to look at is if there is another competition we can take part in.”

Although Australia’s Games chief said the issue of abandoning the event had not been discussed, Sports Minister Mark Arbib said that the current policy of leaving the decision on whether to attend to the athletes “could change”.

The BBC’s Nick Bryant in Sydney says Australia’s concerns are more with security than the facilities, and that there remains a strong commitment to attend.

Australia’s world champion discus thrower Dani Samuels is one of the athletes who has pulled out.

Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) president Andrew Pipe said he was “cautiously optimistic” progress was being made.

But he added: “It’s incomprehensible that Indian officials have been so indifferent in preparing these facilities, bordering on the intransigent, and that is unacceptable to us.”

Singapore’s Games chief executive said he was in Delhi to monitor the situation and that the time was “critical”.

Sir Andrew Foster, chairman of Commonwealth Games England, said the Games were on a “knife-edge”.

“We remain very concerned about the situation and we will monitor it on an absolutely regular day-by-day basis.”

The team remained “intent on going”, he added, but “all options remain open”.

Scotland has delayed its departure over the accommodation.

Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell is due to arrive in Delhi on Thursday for a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the problems the event.

On Wednesday, Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna told the BBC that the Games would meet international standards.

Mr Krishna said a prolonged monsoon had hampered preparations, but offered reassurance that security would be provided for every athlete and stadium.

“We will see to it that the Commonwealth Games are conducted according to international standards, and the athletes who come to participate in these Games will feel quite happy about their conditions.

“We will be able to deliver on the Commonwealth Games and it will be one of the most successful Games that the Commonwealth will have undertaken.”

When it came to the safety of those taking part, no compromises would be made, Mr Krishna added.

The event has been plagued by construction delays, allegations of corruption and a dengue fever outbreak in the Indian capital.

On Tuesday, a footbridge under construction collapsed near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium – the main Games venue – injuring 27 workers. On Wednesday, a section of ceiling caved in at the weightlifting venue.

The state of the athletes’ village has come in for criticism, with complaints of flooding, rooms soiled by excrement and stray dogs sleeping on some beds.

And security fears were heightened at the weekend when two tourists were wounded by gunmen on a motorbike near the Jama Masjid mosque.

Ticket sales have been disappointing and the cost of hosting the largest sporting event in the country’s history has soared, making it the most expensive Games in history, with estimates ranging from $3bn to more than $10bn, as organisers attempt to complete work which only began in 2008.

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Bentley, the luxury British car maker, is to recall almost 600 vehicles in the United States because of a fault with the iconic “Flying B” bonnet ornament.

The winged statue is designed to retract if the car crashes but may fail when rusty, the recall notice said.

“This could increase the risk of injury to a pedestrian in the event of a crash,” said the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall affects the Arnage, Azure and Brooklands models, from 2007-2009.

For some Bentley fans, the “Flying B” is the car’s crowning glory, says the BBC’s Bethany Bell in Washington.

But there are fears that in the event of a crash, pedestrians could become impaled by the statue, our correspondent writes.

Bentley said it took the step to recall the cars after a dealer in Britain spotted the problem.

But the company said it was “not aware of any accidents or injuries” involving the famous statue, our correspondent adds.

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Up to £1.5bn of unpaid tax is likely to be written off by HM Revenue and Customs, insiders have told the BBC.

Staff said the vast majority would not be pursued because the cases involved were over two years old and open to legal challenge from taxpayers.

There is a backlog of 7.5m cases of tax underpayment or overpayment – the latter estimated at £3bn which will be reimbursed – dating back to 2007-8.

An HMRC spokesman said no decision had been made on underpayment cases.

The details come just weeks after it emerged a further six million people had been wrongly taxed in the past two years, with 1.4m people who underpaid set to received an unexpected tax bill.

The latest cases to emerge, which are part of a huge backlog of open cases dating back to 2007/8, are not on the HMRC’s new computer system and will have to be dealt with manually.

Front-line staff at HMRC have told The Report on Radio 4 that only those cases that verge on fraud will be pursued.

Cases where money is owed to taxpayers by the Exchequer will still be processed.

One staff member told the BBC: “For each underpayment there are thousands of pounds owed. Underpayments are very frustrating.

“If we had the chance to sort it out three years ago we could have recovered the money. It is now likely to be written off if it’s over two years – we’re not looking at underpayments beyond two years.”

The staff member added: “Our directors are telling people that [those who owe tax] will appeal and fight it and this will generate more work.”

Another staff member who has worked on open cases said that in their experience the under-payment of tax was never pursued.

“These people who have underpaid earn 30,40,50k a year and got benefits such as a company car and we’re not told about them until after the tax has been paid.”

The staff member added: “The cases cannot be dealt with by the new computer as they have to be done manually – what did we do with the cases older than two years? We wrote them off.”

The delay in handling these open cases is due to a combination of a historic backlog, which once reached 30m, the additional work created by problems with the new computer system and a shrinking number of staff.

HMRC has cut 20,000 jobs since 2006 and aims to shed a further 5,000 by next year.

An HMRC spokesman said: “We have said to staff if you find an overpayment to pay it back – we are prioritising vulnerable groups, old age pensioners, low-income groups – the priority is to repay these groups.

“But while we are reviewing the cases of underpayment, no decision has been made on on these cases.”

He added: “It’s a provisional period, where staff have been asked to review underpayments. If they find someone who has underpaid then that is set aside for a future decision.

“We are going to be looking at at how best to deal with these. We are going to look at the specifics of each case and apply a normal criteria in due course.

“Those who have underpaid, they will be part of the overall decision-making process – no decision yet on what to do with them. But they are being identified.”

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As Teresa Lewis is set to become the first woman to be executed in the US for five years, Briton Linda Carty continues to await the same fate for killing a young mother in Texas.

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A Florida court has overturned the state’s ban on gay adoption, the only one of its kind in the US.

Governor Charlie Crist said Florida would immediately cease enforcing the 33-year-old ban.

Appeals court judges found “no rational basis” for the ban. The case was brought by a gay couple seeking to adopt two brothers they had fostered.

The state has 30 days to decide whether to appeal. Ban backers argue children need both a mother and a father.

“It’s a great day for children,” Gov Crist said. “Children deserve a loving home.”

The Florida law was the only one in the US that explicitly banned gays from adopting, according to court filings.

The court on Wednesday affirmed the adoption by Frank Martin Gill and his male partner of two brothers from the state foster system. The couple had fostered the boys for six years.

The case is likely to be heard by the higher Florida Supreme Court before the overturn is final.

“Florida prefers that children be placed in homes where there is the potential for a mother and father,” ban supporter Matthew Staver, founder of Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, told the Miami Herald newspaper.

“Homosexual adoption excludes children from ever having the opportunity for both genders – a mom and a dad in the household.”

The Florida appeals court rejected testimony in favour of the ban, saying, “experts’ opinions were not valid from a scientific point of view”.

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Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is to urge rich nations to stick to their promises on increasing overseas aid.

He will reiterate the UK’s commitment to raise spending on overseas aid to 0.7% of annual economic output from 2013 – it is currently 0.5%.

Addressing the United Nations in New York later, he will ask other developed countries to show the same “resolve”.

He will also outline plans to increase UK spending on tackling malaria from £150m to £500m a year by 2014.

Mr Clegg will defend the government’s commitment to increasing aid “at a time when people at home are making sacrifices in their pay and their pensions”.

He will say people in the UK understand that “while we are experiencing hardship on our own shores, it does not compare to the abject pain and destitution of others”.

Mr Clegg will also say that helping to improve living conditions in the world’s poorest nations means potential new customers for UK exports and is also a way of targeting both climate change and terrorism.

The Lib Dem leader is in New York to attend the continuing summit on the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Drawn up in 2000, with the aim of being reached by 2015, they outline eight ways in which poverty can be reduced, such as ensuring every child has a primary school place, and tackling malaria and HIV/Aids.

It is the first time he has represented the UK government at a major gathering of world leaders.

Regarding malaria, Mr Clegg will say: “In Africa, a child dies from this disease – this easily preventable disease – every 45 seconds.

“So we will make more money available, and ensure that we get more for our money, with the aim of halving malaria-related deaths in 10 of the worst affected countries.”

Mr Clegg’s speech comes two days after former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was angry at the failure of rich nations to honour their pledges to combat global poverty.

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Cutting efforts to fight anti-social behaviour would be “a very significant mistake” for police, a watchdog says.

The Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor said some forces in England and Wales already responded too slowly to calls from vulnerable people.

And he warned that if spending cuts led police to neglect the problem it could tip some areas into a “spiral of economic and social decline”.

Police chiefs say they are deeply aware of the impact of anti-social behaviour.

The chief inspector’s warning comes in a wide-ranging review of how well forces tackle anti-social behaviour, backed up by a survey of more than 5,600 people.

He said officers often did not take anti-social behaviour seriously because they did not regard it as real crime.

He said he wanted “feet on the street” and warned chief constables to think carefully about coming cuts.

“Confronted by spending cuts, some police chiefs and community safety partnership members may be tempted to reduce the amount of work they do in relation to ASB and to concentrate instead upon volume crime,” said Sir Denis.

“All the evidence we have available indicates that this would be a very significant mistake.”

Nine out of 10 people questioned in the survey told Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) that the police were responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour.

More than a third of those who had experienced problems had changed their routines, such as staying in at night and avoiding public places.

Three out of 10 people said they had experienced intimidation after standing up to bullies – rising to more than four out of 10 where the victim was disabled.

But, Sir Denis’s report said that only 13 of the forces in England and Wales had systems in place to identify quickly the calls that had come from victims most in need of support.

His report said that although all 43 forces said that anti-social behaviour was a priority, the police response was extremely patchy because officers treated the incidents differently to recordable crimes.

“Problems that are not considered criminal were then discounted as ‘not real police work’.

Sir Denis said: “The public do not distinguish between anti-social behaviour and crime. For them, it’s just a sliding scale of grief.

“Make no mistake, it requires feet on the streets.”

The HMIC said that police should focus on reducing “harm” caused to communities rather than simply trying to increase the number of crimes they were solving on paper. Sir Denis said this call to focus on harm was supported by fresh academic research by Cardiff University.

It suggests that more police resources devoted to anti-social behaviour would mean communities would be more mobilised to reclaim their streets.

The HMIC report develops previous criticisms made by Sir Denis who has repeatedly called on forces to rethink how they do their job. Earlier in the summer, he said that only 11% of officers were available at any one time to respond to calls.

His intervention comes as chief constables negotiate with the Home Office over cuts.

Earlier this year, Home Secretary Theresa May said in a speech that she wanted a rethink of how she wants to see anti-social behaviour tackled, saying that there was “no magic Whitehall lever” that could be pulled.

Speaking for the Association of Chief Police Officers, Assistant Chief Constable Simon Edens said they were “acutely aware” of the devastating impact anti-social behaviour.

“What this report highlights is that where there is police action, victim satisfaction in the police response to anti-social behaviour is high,” he said.

“Modern policing has to meet a hugely complex range of challenges. Anti-social behaviour is not a matter for the police to tackle alone, and the service supports the government’s approach to encouraging greater personal and community involvement in neighbourhoods.”

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Scotland’s education watchdog proposes an end to routine classroom inspections and instead suggests a focus on problem schools.

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The financial situation of more than a third of carers in the UK is so bad they do not want to wake up in the morning, research suggests.

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Bursaries are failing to attract students from less privileged backgrounds to England’s leading universities, research shows.

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Scientists have unearthed two new species of giant plant-eating horned dinosaurs in southern Utah, US.

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US House Republicans vow to cut taxes and government spending and repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare law if the party wins power.

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The heads of six leading universities warn that deep cuts in the UK’s science budget will harm the research base, universities and the economy.

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Scotland’s chief prisons inspector raises concern that jails are not doing enough to help stop offenders leading lives of crime.

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