Category: news

Pairs of parliamentary candidates should be allowed to stand in general elections and share the job if elected, the Green party’s leader is set to say.

Caroline Lucas is expected to make the suggestion later at the party’s first conference since she was elected an MP.

She believes such a move would open up jobs in politics to women.

Ms Lucas became the Green’s first MP at the last general election but the party’s share was less than that of UKIP and the British National Party.

At the conference in Birmingham, she will urge her party to savour her victory, and help change the institution of which she is now a member.

She will say that job sharing an MP’s position would do open politics up to women, while acknowledging some will “pour scorn” on her proposal.

She will tell the conference the Greens now have a place at the heart of British politics.

The party had stood in more constituencies in England and Wales than ever before, fielding more than 300 candidates.

In May, Ms Lucas won the seat of Brighton Pavilion, with a majority of 1,252 over Labour’s Nancy Platts.

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Nokia has appointed Microsoft business manager Stephen Elop as its new chief executive.

Mr Elop will replace the outgoing Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who was a lifelong Nokia employee and has been chief executive since 2006.

The appointment may mark a sea-change in culture at the top of the Finnish mobile phone giant.

In July, Nokia reported a 40% slump in second quarter profits, as it struggled to break into the smartphone market.

Mr Elop, who will take up his new position at Nokia on 21 September, is currently the head of Microsoft’s Business Division.

Prior to working at Microsoft, he has also held senior positions at Juniper Networks, Adobe Systems and Macromedia.

“The Nokia board believes that Stephen has the right industry experience and leadership skills to realise the full potential of Nokia,” said Nokia chairman Jorma Ollila.

“His strong software background and proven record in change management will be valuable assets as we press harder to complete the transformation of the company.”

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Mayor of London Boris Johnson is to stand for re-election in 2012, the BBC has learnt.

There had been speculation Mr Johnson might choose not to run in protest at the funding cuts being made by the coalition government.

He has raised concerns about the threat to the £17bn Crossrail project.

BBC political correspondent Norman Smith said Mr Johnson was expected to announce his decision later.

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China reported a surprise surge in imports during August, leading to a fall in its trade surplus to $20bn (£13bn).

Imports rose 35.2% from a year ago, faster than the 26.1% markets expected.

This means that imports grew slightly faster than exports, which rose by only 34.4%, as expected.

The news, which follows a surprising contraction in the US trade deficit in July, will weaken critics of China’s trade practices in the US.

The US Congress is due to hold hearings next week on China’s controversial exchange rate policy.

Many politicians and economists accuse the Chinese of keeping the yuan weak in order to make its exports unfairly competitive.

Chinese steel exports fell 38% in the month, after a 9% tax credit from Beijing for exporters was allowed to expire.

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About 25 homes are evacuated in Enniskillen after a suspicious object is discovered at the front door of a house.

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Royal Marine Mark Ormrod is a triple amputee who is setting out to run 3,500 miles across the USA.

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Three drivers are arrested after a crash which left a fourth motorist critically ill in hospital.

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Activists protesting Greece’s austerity measures are trying a new form of civil disobedience.

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The pastor of a US church at the centre of a row over plans to burn copies of the Koran says the event has not been cancelled, but is only “on hold”.

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Iran is set to release on Saturday Sarah Shourd – one of three detained US hikers held since last July and accused of espionage, officials say.

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The pastor of a small US church who planned to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11 has cancelled his protest.

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Four opposition congressmen in Chile have a joined a hunger strike by 34 indigenous Mapuche prisoners.

The Mapuches are protesting against being charged under anti-terrorist laws for their role in a land dispute.

They say they are political prisoners and should not be treated as terrorist suspects or face trial in military courts.

The government has called the congressmen’s decision “irresponsible and populist”.

President Sebastian Pinera has introduced a bill to modify the anti-terrorism legislation, which was established during the 1973-1990 military rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.

But the Mapuche prisoners say they want deeper reforms, as well as direct dialogue with the government.

Most of the prisoners have been refusing food for two months, causing them to lose up to 18kg (40lb) each.

They are in jails across southern Chile awaiting trial on charges ranging from arson to armed assault.

The current anti-terror legislation allows prosecutors to define such crimes as terrorism, bringing harsher sentences and the possibility of trial in military courts.

The four left-wing congressmen are all members of the human rights commission of Chile’s lower house of parliament.

Congressmen Tucapel Jimenez, Hugo Gutierrez, Sergio Aguilo and Manuel Monsalve joined the protest on Thursday during a visit to some of the the indigenous prisoners at a jail in Temuco.

The government has so far ruled out negotiations, but has asked the Roman Catholic Church to mediate.

The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous minority, making up around 5% of the population and based in the south of the country.

They resisted colonial rule for centuries and were only conquered in the 19th century, when most of their lands were confiscated.

In recent years Mapuche activists have blocked roads and staged land occupations to try to reclaim their ancestral territories from farmers and forestry companies.

Farms have been burned and forestry machinery destroyed, and the police say they have found guns and ammunition in raids on Mapuche homes.

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The rapid expansion of England’s academies programme risks being poor value for money, the spending watchdog has warned.

With one in four existing academies needing extra financial help, the National Audit Office said much tighter monitoring was needed.

It also found poorer pupils did less well in academies than in regular state schools.

The government said academies performed well and that it was reducing risks.

The NAO said these state-funded, privately-run schools begun in disadvantaged areas by Labour had performed impressively in their efforts on improving attainment.

But since coming to power, the coalition government has encouraged schools rated outstanding by Ofsted to apply for academy status, saying they would be fast-tracked.

Many have been tempted to express an interest by the promise of more money and greater freedoms.

Academies operate outside of local authority control, often with business-based sponsors, and have greater financial freedom than regular state schools, which are audited by their local council partners.

The NAO report found academies were not only spending significantly more per head of pupil, but that one in four were likely to require extra financial support.

And the agency that now monitors them, the Young People’s Learning Agency, is expecting to pay £8.5m to bail 10 of them out of financial difficulties.

Meanwhile, one in 20 of open academies are forecasting deficits.

The NAO also pointed out that in 2007-8 and 2008-9, there were half as many senior academy staff on salaries of more than £80,000.

The department had already recovered £4.1m in overpayments from academies because of an over-estimation of pupil numbers.

The NAO said: “The expansion of the programme increases the scale of risks to value for money – particularly in the areas of financial stability, governance and management capacity.

“With greater numbers of academies opening in recent years, the department’s capacity to administer and monitor the programme has been stretched particularly, as funding is administered on an individual basis.”

It also found potential conflicts of interests over academy sponsors providing services to the school they sponsor.

A quarter of academies surveyed said their sponsor was providing paid services.

The study warned that academies’ performance to date was not an “accurate predictor” of how the model would perform when generalised over a wider range of schools.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “Existing academies have been primarily about school improvement in deprived areas, while new academies will often be operating in very different educational and social settings.”

There was a need to re-state the aims of the new-style academies programme so that its performance could be measured against them.

The report also found that children from disadvantaged homes were doing slightly less well in academies than those in regular state schools.

The report suggested it was pupils from more advantaged backgrounds who were driving the fast-improving results at academies.

But Education Secretary Michael Gove said the report underlined the fact that academies programme was working well.

“We have already taken prompt action on the NAO recommendations, as we strive to strengthen the programme even further.

“The academies programme is helping children from all backgrounds to get a better education, that is why we are allowing more schools to become academies, and giving real power and autonomy back to schools and teachers.”

Chair of the Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge said: “Where schools are given more freedom, we need to know they are using it well.

“We will want to be assured that, as the programme is expanded, the controls to provide sound financial management and good governance are firmly in place.

“The department faces major challenges as it takes over from local government the responsibility for directly funding many more schools.

“We will want to know that it has the capacity to meet these challenges.

She added that it was is telling that some of the substantial sums of money originally promised by academy sponsors were yet to be collected.

Shadow education secretary Ed Balls said the new government’s programme was a “complete distortion” of Labour’s successful policy to turn around struggling schools.

“Michael Gove’s rush to turn schools with more advantaged intakes and which are already thriving into academies, rather than under-performing schools in more deprived areas, is not only a perversion of a successful policy but risks becoming an expensive failure.”

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A justice minister has defended hiring private detectives to carry out undercover investigations of his aides and colleagues.

Tory Jonathan Djanogly said he acted in a bid to find the source of “malicious” press allegations made about him, but conceded he may have overreacted.

He spoke after the Daily Telegraph obtained a copy of the report prepared by Morris Chase International in 2009.

The firm said all the information gathered was obtained legally.

Mr Djanogly stressed he would “never have contemplated condoning anything unlawful or dishonest”.

The report was gathered for the MP for Huntingdon when he was shadow solicitor general.

The Daily Telegraph said it showed the MP instructed the firm to conduct “discreet inquiries under the pretext of writing a newspaper article” to establish the views of people including a former council leader.

The newspaper said Mr Djanogly hired detectives amid allegations – which he strongly denied – that he used more than £13,000 of taxpayer-funded expenses to pay for an au pair.

It said one of those targeted, Tory ex-leader of Huntingdon council Derek Colley, was considering lodging a formal complaint with the Office of the Information Commissioner.

In a statement, the minister said: “Following a series of malicious allegations made against me in newspapers last year, I felt I had to act to find out who was spreading these untrue stories.

“I instructed a firm of private investigators to try to find out the source of these stories because I was extremely upset that my private family life had been invaded.”

Mr Djanogly said the findings had been sent to him “on a confidential basis” and was “very disappointed” to see the report released publicly without his consent.

“I am sorry if some people judge that I made a mistake. With hindsight I can see that I may have overreacted, but I was being subjected to very malicious, anonymous attacks on my family,” he said, adding that he paid for the cost of the investigation and did not claim it back on parliamentary expenses.

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The UN General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution calling for dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo.

The resolution opens the way for direct talks between the two sides – the first since Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.

It also drops earlier Serbian demands to reopen negotiations on the status of its former province.

The European Union and the United States have already recognised Kosovo’s independence.

The resolution replaced an original text in which Serbia rejected Kosovo’s secession.

That demand was removed after Serbia was warned that such a stance would endanger its ambition to join the EU.

The BBC’s Mark Lowen in Belgrade says the adoption of the UN resolution means Serbia has in effect given up its diplomatic fight for Kosovo.

Although Belgrade says it will never recognise Kosovo’s independence, the first direct talks between the two sides are now likely to follow.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic finished his speech at the UN by saying his country was “looking to the future”.

There is now the feeling that this is the beginning of the end of the Kosovo problem, our correspondent says, as all sides are trying to resolve one of Europe’s most intractable conflicts.

Any talks between the two will be organised by the EU from Brussels.

Both Serbia and Kosovo want to become members of the European Union.

In July the International Court of Justice ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not break international law.

Serbian troops were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign aimed at halting the violent repression of the province’s ethnic Albanians, who constituted 90% of its two million population.

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