Women dominate new Swiss cabinet

Simonetta Sommaruga (centre) is congratulated after her election to Switzerland's Federal CouncilThe election of Simonetta Sommaruga (centre) is a historic moment

Switzerland’s parliament has voted a new minister into the government, giving the cabinet a majority of women for the first time.

The election of Simonetta Sommaruga, a Social Democrat, is a historic step in a country where women only got to vote on a national level in 1971.

Ms Sommaruga becomes the fourth female in the seven-member Federal Council.

One of the other posts in the Federal Council will be filled by another vote later in the day.

The seven members of the Swiss cabinet are always drawn from the four leading parties.

Women in Switzerland have traditionally had a low-key role in public life, says the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Berne.

They first got to vote at local canton level in 1959, but not at federal level until 1971. The last canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden, finally granted them voting rights in 1990.

The first female government minister was elected in 1984, but until now only six women have ever held ministerial posts.

But, when it comes to gender equality, the new team will still have a mountain to climb, our correspondent says.

Swiss women lag well behind men in average salaries, the Swiss state spends less than a third of Unicef’s recommended minimum on childcare, and when it comes to maternity leave, Switzerland ranks as the least generous country in Europe.

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Labour ballots are ‘not received’

The five Labour candidates at an earlier TUC hustingsThe Labour contenders are nearing the finishing line

Some Labour Party members have not received their ballot papers to vote for the party’s new leader, one of the contenders has said.

Hackney MP Diane Abbott said she had been told many members in London have not received the ballots even though the deadline is 1700 BST.

Ex-ministers David and Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham are the other leadership candidates.

Party members are also voting for Labour’s 2012 London mayoral candidate.

Former mayor Ken Livingstone and former MP Oona King are battling for the candidacy.

The Labour leadership results are due on Saturday, with the party’s mayoral candidate to be announced on Friday.

Speaking to BBC London 94.9, Ms Abbott said: “A lot of people, particularly in London, have said they have not had their ballots yet.

“So I am going to take this up with Labour Party headquarters this morning because it is obviously a problem.”

Ms Abbott, who said she was “quietly confident” in the leadership election, said people could not vote online either as they need a ballot number which they have not got yet.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The leadership election has been an exciting contest which has involved party members up and down the country and brought thousands of new members into the Labour Party.

“Millions of ballot papers have been issued and whenever problems have been reported we have taken action to solve them.”

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US ‘in-fighting’ over Afghanistan

US soldier under attack at Combat Outpost Nolen in Afghanistan's Arghandab Valley, 11.09.10Obama hopes to start a withdrawal from Afghanistan next year

President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan believes the current strategy cannot work, according to a new book.

The claim, published in the New York Times, is from a book by veteran reporter Bob Woodward.

Reports say the book paints a picture of in-fighting in the administration.

Some key players doubt the president’s strategy of sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and starting to withdraw next summer.

Bob Woodward, who made his name exposing President Richard Nixon’s cover-up of Watergate has written a searing series of books about President Bush and the Iraq war so his latest work “Obama’s war” has been eagerly awaited in Washington.

Now the New York Times say it has a leaked copy.

Richard HolbrookeHolbrooke: “It can’t work”

It cites quotes from Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, saying “It can’t work” and the president’s main advisor on Afghanistan says that the painstaking White House review which took months “didn’t add up” to the policy that was adopted.

It says the CIA has a 3,000-strong secret army inside Afghanistan and that intelligence reports suggest the Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been diagnosed as a manic depressive.

Mr Woodward’s book paints a picture of President Obama demanding an exit strategy, saying “I can’t lose the whole Democratic party” and irritated with the military for boxing him.

Perhaps most significantly it hints at conflicts to come over the timetable for a US withdrawal.

It quotes the top US soldier in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, as believing they could “get more time on the clock”, and then being told by a senior advisor: “That’s a dramatic misreading of this president.”

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Fresh doubts over defence academy

Computer imaging of St Athan military academy

Watch a computer generated video of how the new academy would look

Fresh doubts have been raised over the prospect of a huge defence training academy going ahead in south Wales.

BBC Wales has been told that the St Athan project is unlikely to happen on the scale envisaged at a cost of £14bn.

A UK government source close to the decision-making said: “The logic for something on that site remains compelling: the model does not.”

The model envisages centralising training for the armed forces through the private finance initiative or PFI.

A private consortium would be given a 30-year contract to run the scheme.

Its fate is being decided as part of the UK government’s strategic defence and security review.

Related stories

The source said: “It’s not impossible that something will go ahead – but it won’t be a gargantuan PFI.”

The final decision is expected to be revealed when the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is published at the end of next month.

Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan has already said she could confirm before the defence and general spending reviews whether the £14bn defence training academy would go ahead but has said she was committed to the plan.

The St Athan plan would centralise training for the armed forces in one location, but has led to controversy due to the closure of other bases in the UK.

The SDSR is being carried out alongside the UK government’s overall comprehensive spending review, which is due to report next month.

David Cornock’s blog: Doubts grow over academy

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Lib Dems urge full Trident review

Vanguard submarine

Liberal Democrat members are pushing the coalition to carry out a full review of plans to replace Trident.

A motion to be debated at the party’s annual conference warns a like-for-like replacement for the nuclear deterrent could mean widespread military cuts.

It says the decision not to include Trident in the upcoming defence spending review is “untenable”.

The cost of a replacement for the system is expected to be between £20bn and £30bn.

The debate comes as the Lib Dem conference, the party’s first since it formed a coalition government with the Conservatives in May, comes to a close.

The Lib Dems oppose an identical replacement for Trident, arguing it was designed for the Cold War, but the Tories are strongly in favour of one.

In their coalition agreement, the parties said they would carry out a study aimed at exploring cheaper options.

In July, Chancellor George Osborne said the cost of replacing Trident would have to come from the Ministry of Defence’s budget, rather than directly from the Treasury.

The emergency motion brought before the Lib Dem conference, taking place in Liverpool, calls for an extension of the defence spending review to cover Trident.

It suggests looking at “cost-saving options” such as ending continuous at-sea patrols and lengthening the operational lives of the Vanguard submarines used to carry nuclear missiles.

The motion also says the review should make it clear how much Trident replacement would cost in terms of cuts to troop numbers and equipment programmes.

Trident consists of four submarines that can deploy ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

Labour, which also backs a like-for-like replacement, argues that delaying a decision could risk Britain’s continuous “sea deterrence” and cost industry billions.

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Hundreds offer Ginger the ‘dumped dog’ a home

Car drives away from dog

The man was seen in a Kia Rio hatchback

Hundreds of people have come forward offering to rehome a dog which was seen on CCTV being “dumped” by its owner.

The man was filmed apparently taking the dog for a walk before he heads back to a car which drives off leaving the pet unable to catch up due to a limp.

The footage was taken on a camera at offices owned by BMT Defence Services in Weymouth last Friday.

The dog, which has been named Ginger, was taken in by the council which will find her a new home.

The kennels said it has received interest from people across England, Scotland and Wales.

Ian Lewis, council dog warden, said: “As you can expect with the amount of interest this has drawn we have had hundreds of calls.

GingerGinger has been taken in by the council which is trying to rehome her

“But we must make sure she goes to the right family and not just because they felt sorry for her.

“We won’t rush into making a decision.

“She has settled into the kennels very well after being dumped and has a great personality.”

The council said the RSPCA would seek to prosecute the man if he is traced.

The footage showed him getting into a rear seat of the car, suggesting at least two other people were present at the time.

The maximum sentence for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal is six months in prison and a £20,000 fine.

The man seen on the CCTV is described as white, about 6ft tall, and he was wearing blue jeans and a brown top.

He was in a blue Kia Rio hatchback.

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£100k p/a

Man with money

It has become the benchmark for a generous salary. So why do its recipients complain that earning £100,000 a year is an expensive business?

In those idle daydreams about the perfect job, that fantasy promotion, it is a wage that – for the overwhelming majority of us – will do very nicely indeed.

An annual income of £100,000 is enough to put a recipient comfortably within the top 2% of all earners, and the figure has become a key indicator that the recipient is a high-flier.

The BBC’s Panorama survey of the best-remunerated public servants took £100,000 as its yardstick – and it found that some 38,045 state employees take home that amount or more each year. Going by official figures, that leaves about 545,000 privately employed people earning £100,000 or more per year.

It is a sum that puts one within touching distance of the prime minister’s earning power – David Cameron having taken a a 5% pay cut upon assuming office, bringing his salary to £142,500.

Geraint Anderson

“It’s like a gilded cage”

Geraint Anderson Former banker

But what is it actually like to earn such an amount – generous beyond the imagination of most Britons, more than sufficient to guarantee a comfortable lifestyle, yet scarcely enough on which to fund an early retirement?

One of those who knows, and found the experience wanting, is Geraint Anderson, 38, who was earning a base salary of £120,000 and a bonus of £500,000 by the time he left investment banking after 12 years in the City.

Anderson, who documented how he became disillusioned with his lifestyle in an anonymous newspaper column and his book Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile, indulged in many of the cliches for which the sector has become notorious.

But he says earning such figures skews one’s expectations of what is a normal lifestyle, and ultimately robs high earners of the freedom they believe money will bring.

“It’s like a gilded cage,” he says.

“They earn huge amounts but they have the massive mortgage, they have the high-maintenance trophy wife, they have the kids at Harrow – then they wake up on their 50th birthday and think, ‘What a waste of a life.’

Analysis

David Kuo, of investment advice website Motley Fool

The average person in the UK spends around £32,000 a year. This is made up of £25,000 on basic expenses (transport, food, clothing etc) and £7,000 on mortgage repayments.

The upshot is that the average household needs a gross salary of about £45,000 just to break even.

That is why, I reckon that the average person won’t be happy unless they earn around £50,000 a year. However, it is may still be a hand-to-mouth existence.

A salary of £100,000 a year can make a huge difference. After tax, this works out at £65,310. And after average expenses, there should be around £33,310 a year left over.

Someone earning a salary of this size could retire in reasonable comfort provided they invest their disposable income carefully. They could amass a pension pot of around £550,000 after 10 years and almost £1.8m after 20 years.

Of course, this assumes that a person on £100,000 is prepared to live modestly, spend carefully and save diligently.

“They get into this culture where their worth is valued by how much they earn, so they work ridiculous hours. I’d rather earn £25,000, have the kids at a local school and not owe anyone anything.”

Given that in 2009 median gross annual earnings for full-time employees was £21,320, few Britons will have much sympathy for those earning almost five times as much.

Yet while most of us can only imagine the bigger house, extra holidays and prudent savings that £100,000-a-year could allow, the reality of human nature is that earning more doesn’t make us any more likely to live within our means.

Jasmine Birtles, personal finance expert and editor of moneymagpie.com, warns that, if anything, extra income is just as likely to leave us with less disposable income.

“The problem in this country is that we are very bad at budgeting because we don’t plan ahead,” she says.

Dr Peter Holden

“There have to be incentives or people just wouldn’t do this job”

Dr Peter Holden GP

“We have that whole suburban mentality of keeping up with the Joneses – moving into a new area, paying the big school fees but being six months behind with the mortgage. Earning £100,000 a year isn’t going to change that.”

Indeed, the cost of living in some parts of the country means that the sum is barely enough to fund a loan to purchase family home. According the Rightmove House Price Index for September 2010, the average home in London costs almost four times this high-rolling salary – £399,019. Of course, for dual-income families where one partner is on £100k the housing market starts to look less daunting.

Perhaps we should not be surprised, then, that a recent survey by the website lovemoney.com found that Britons who earned £50,000 a year were happiest.

But one top earner who will not be giving up his salary any time soon is Dr Peter Holden, 55, a general practitioner based in Matlock, Derbyshire.

Entitled to a salary of £106,000, Dr Holden – who was part of the British Medical Association team which negotiated GPs’ remuneration package – insists he is worth every penny.

“I have a house worth £400,000, I drive a five-year-old Audi and my son goes to the local comprehensive school,” he says. “My wife was complaining last night that we haven’t gone out for nine months.

“I work a 60-to-62-hour week and I didn’t earn a penny until I was 25. There have to be incentives or people just wouldn’t do this job.”

Whether he is right or not is for readers to decide. What remains uncontested is the old cliche about money not being able to buy happiness.

So in fact, they are the same as everyone else, they just have these problems in a more comfortable home environment. Please tell me where I can donate to alleviate their suffering. I’m sure the people of Pakistan will understand that these people are far more deserving of our sympathy and help.

James, London

Just because you earn what is perceived as a large salary does not mean that you actually get to keep much of it, this country adopts the approach of taxing it in every way it can down to a lower and lower point each year. My partner and I both earn sizeable salaries and we are now seriously considering relocating to another country where the time and effort for which we are paid is not then removed by the government in ever-increasing stealth taxes.

Craig B, London

I wouldn’t be comfortable at putting my health on the line with an overworked GP. Sixty-hour weeks are unsustainable with the risk of mistakes increasing each consecutive week. Work 40 hours and get some rest.

JBJ, Kopavogur, Iceland

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Manila officials in gambling row

Archbishop Oscar Cruz (left) talks to Rico Puno during a senate inquiry on illegal gambling in Manila on 21 September 2010Archbishop Oscar Cruz (left) has named Rico Puno (right) as one of the officials linked to the row

A group of senior officials in the Philippines have been accused of receiving kickbacks from illegal gambling operators.

A retired Catholic archbishop told a Senate inquiry that several officials, including a close friend of the president, had been paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.

They deny the claims. Illegal gambling is a heated issue in the Philippines.

Ten years ago it even contributed to the downfall of a president.

According to Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a group of senior politicians and members of the security forces have been given payoffs from operators of the illegal numbers game jueteng.

Among them are the former national police chief, Jesus Verzosa, and the deputy interior secretary, Rico Puno, a close friend of President Benigno Aquino.

Both the accused men deny the claims, but Mr Puno has offered to resign until his name is cleared.

It has not been a good week for either man. On Monday they were both criticised in the official inquiry into the hostage standoff last month, which left eight Hong Kong tourists dead.

They will know in the next few weeks if they face charges.

Jueteng is a widely popular game that was brought to the Philippines from China. Repeated efforts to stamp it out have failed, and its appeal spans all social classes.

This is not the first time senior officials have been accused of profiting from it.

In 2000, the former president Joseph Estrada was impeached for plunder and subsequently ousted from office.

Part of the accusation against him was that he received gambling kickbacks amounting to millions of dollars.

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Fears over NHS management switch

StethoscopeThe PCT says working conditions would not change in the move

Unions have raised concerns about a planned shake up of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust (PCT).

PCT managers are considering setting up a community interest company (CIC), outside the NHS, to manage most of its 2,400 staff.

The move affects 14 community hospitals, district and school nurses and speech and language therapists.

The PCT says patients and staff have nothing to worry about.

Cornwall PCT and other PCTs have been told by the government they must offload staff management by 1 April 2011.

The aim is to separate responsibilities for commissioning and providing services, which the government says will make the NHS more efficient.

“It is fragmenting the NHS”

Chris Dayus Unison

PCTs themselves are being phased out from April 2013, with responsibilities handed to GPs.

The Cornwall PCT is considering creating a CIC to take on the responsibility of staff management.

The number of CICs has grown to more than 4,000 since they were introduced by the Labour government in 2005.

They are social enterprise companies, which means profits are reinvested in the business or in the community rather than shareholders and owners.

But Chris Dayus from Unison said the change was part of a move to “demolish the NHS as we know it” and staff were concerned about the long-term prospects for pay and conditions.

“Patients will see no difference”

Steve Moore PCT chief executive

“We are opposed to moving services outside the NHS,” she said.

“It is fragmenting the NHS.”

PCT chief executive Steve Moore said the PCT had “good constructive relations” with unions and upholding pay and conditions was “key”.

“All the current terms and conditions for staff transferring will stay the same,” he said.

“We already get a lot of services from independent sector like the GP out of hours services so this is not a new concept.

“Patients will see no difference.

“It is just a change in managerial arrangements in the background.”

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Police chief cleared over images

Adam BriggsAn inquiry was started after the images were seen by the force’s IT department

A senior policeman who tried to view a computer disk featuring “potentially offensive” images will not face disciplinary action for misconduct.

Adam Briggs, deputy chief constable of North Yorkshire Police, was investigated after the disk was found in a laptop he used for force business.

The county’s police authority said the images intended to be humorous and were not pornographic or criminal.

Evidence showed Mr Briggs did not view the disk and he has apologised.

The police authority said the disk, which Mr Briggs said was sent to him by someone he knew, included items that could have been of use to him in his work but also “poster-style advertisements and photographs”.

A spokesman said: “At no time did DCC Briggs view the disc. This has been confirmed by forensic analysis.”

The authority’s professional standards sub committee (PSSC), which considered the case, said Mr Briggs breached policy “regarding the prohibition of use of unauthorised removable computer media”.

The PSSC said there was “no need for further disciplinary proceedings in relation to either matter but that it would be made clear to DCC Briggs that he must adhere to force policies at all times”.

Mr Briggs said: “I attempted to view the contents of the disk on my office laptop but the computer was unable to open it. I intended to get the IT department to open it for me but before this was done the laptop was taken away as part of an upgrade with the disk still inside and unopened.

“The disk was subsequently opened by the IT department and an investigation launched.”

Mr Briggs said some of the images were “inappropriate and distasteful and I would never have used them”.

He said he accepted the decision and authority’s advice.

A separate inquiry into allegations that Mr Briggs and Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell helped relatives during a police recruitment exercise is continuing.

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First star leaves US dance show

David Hasselhoff and Kym JohnsonDavid Hasselhoff said he took part because his daughters love the show

US TV star David Hasselhoff is the first celebrity to get the boot from the new series of Dancing With the Stars.

The 58-year-old and his professional partner, Kym Johnson, were voted off after performing the cha-cha.

Judge Bruno Tonioli described their routine as a “potpourri of insanity disguised as dance”.

Hasselhoff and Johnson landed in last place, tied with Jersey Shore star Mike Sorrentino and comedian Margaret Cho.

“It’s been a great ride,” Hasselhoff said after hearing the news he would be leaving the show.

“I feel bad for Kym because she worked hard trying to get me where I was going. I’m so proud that my daughters are here and they got to see me come this far.”

Bristol Palin, the daughter of former US vice-presidential hopeful Sarah, singer Michael Bolton and Dirty Dancing actress Jennifer Grey still remain in the competition.

The US show, which is a transatlantic adaptation of Strictly Come Dancing, will be broadcast in the UK on Watch from 23 September.

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