Category: news

Property and environmental services giant Connaught is expected to formally enter administration later, putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The company, which specialises in social housing, said late on Tuesday it was “in the process of appointing administrators”.

However, it added that some subsidiaries would not be affected and would continue to trade “as normal”.

Earlier, the firm said it had failed to secure funding to pay £220m of debt.

Connaught employs almost 10,000 people. Trading in the company’s shares was suspended on Tuesday.

Reports suggest that rival firms, such as Mears, are ready to step in to take over some of Connaught’s contracts.

“The board is saddened to announce that it is in the process of appointing partners from KPMG as administrators of Connaught and its subsidiary, Connaught Partnerships, which comprises its social housing division,” the company said in a statement released on Tuesday.

It added that its other main subsidiaries, Connaught Compliance, National Britannia Holdings, Fountains and Connaught Environmental are not being placed into administration, and “will continue to trade normally”.

In an earlier statement, Connaught said it believed the funding it needed from its lenders to continue operating would “not be forthcoming”.

Connaught provides a wide range of services, including property management for the public sector and affordable housing projects.

It is also involved in waste management, cleaning and forestry services.

Connaught ran into serious difficulties in recent months after it became clear that a number of contracts would be loss-making.

In June, it warned that public spending cuts, designed to reduce the government’s budget deficit, would impact 31 projects, reducing its revenues by £80m this year.

This hit, it said, would push the company into the red for this year.

Shares in the Exeter-based company, which began life in 1982, have lost about 90% of their value since late June.

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One of the men convicted of killing 10-year-old Damilola Taylor has been released from prison.

Rickie Preddie, 23, was jailed for eight years for manslaughter in October 2006. His brother Danny, 22, also got the same sentence at the Old Bailey.

Damilola was stabbed with a broken bottle in November 2000 in Peckham, south London.

Preddie was released after serving two-thirds of his sentence, including time spent in custody on remand.

Nigeria-born Damilola, who had only been in the UK a few months, was found bleeding from a leg wound in a stairwell on a housing estate in Peckham. It is thought he was attacked as he made his way home from an after-school club.

There have been three trials and the Preddie brothers, from Peckham, went on trial in 2006 for murder after new forensic evidence was found.

It is believed Ricky Preddie, who was 13 when he killed Damilola, was transferred to Wormwood Scrubs prison, west London, on Tuesday night and was let out on Wednesday morning.

The Ministry of Justice said it could not comment on individual cases but said that offenders such as Preddie were monitored on their release.

A spokeswoman said: “If an offender commits a violent offence prior to 4 April 2005 and receives a determinate sentence of four years or more from the courts, they become eligible for release by the parole board at the half way point of their sentence, or they are automatically released at the two thirds point.

She added: “Once released they will be subject to strict supervision in the community.

“All offenders subject to probation supervision on release from prison have to adhere to a set of strict conditions.

“They are subject to recall to custody if they breach their conditions or their behaviour indicates that it is no longer safe to allow them to remain in the community.”

Danny Preddie, who was also convicted of manslaughter and ordered to serve the same sentence as his brother, remains in prison serving a sentence for another offence.

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Scientists say they have carried out the first rigorous analysis of dance moves that make men attractive to women.

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

Police have conducted a series of raids across Europe in one of its biggest crackdowns on file-sharing.

Police targeted 48 sites in countries including the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Hungary.

In Sweden, seven premises were raided including PRQ, which is believed to host Pirate Bay and whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

Co-ordinated by Belgian police, the operation was the culmination of a two-year investigation.

Off-network

Swedish prosecutors said the raids targeted a network called “The Scene” which offered downloads of films before they were available on DVD.

Umea University was among the premises targeted.

So far the raids have resulted in four arrests in Sweden and servers and computers have been seized from all seven Swedish premises, according to the Swedish police.

They said the raids had no links to WikiLeaks.

Belgian police are expected to make a statement later today.

Authorites across the globe have toughened their stances on illegal file-sharing in recent months, with governments including the UK, introducing tough new policies to deter individuals.

Mark Mulligan, an analyst with research firm Forrester, questioned the wisdom of both the raids and increased legislation.

“File-sharing operations are no longer centralised and any server is only ever going to be a cog in the wheel,” he said.

“This is just like customs seizing drugs – it doesn’t really affect the level of drug trafficking.”

“These things are necessary but the simple fact is that the judiciary and legislative bodies move much slower than technology. There are now dozens of different ways to share music off-network,” he added.

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MPs are to examine how the coalition was formed after the general election and the issues arising from the negotiations between the two parties.

Five days of drama in May resulted in the first coalition in nearly 70 years.

The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee will consider whether undue pressure was put on Gordon Brown to quit after the inconclusive poll.

It will also look at how policies in neither Tory nor Lib Dem manifestos became part of the coalition agreement.

The Conservatives and the Lib Dems agreed a power-sharing deal after the election produced the first hung Parliament since 1974 and the Lib Dems had also held talks with Labour about a possible alliance.

The committee is to look at the constitutional and practical issues resulting from the coalition’s formation and whether pre-election principles set out by the Civil Service for dealing with a hung Parliament were followed.

These principles stressed that the prime minister has the right, and is obliged, to remain in office until it is clear that he cannot form a government and can recommend that somebody else is able to.

Mr Brown decided to resign after negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems broke down but several politicians have expressed surprise he made the move before it was confirmed the Tories and Lib Dems had reached a governing agreement.

In a phone conversation with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg shortly before his decision, Mr Brown told him that he could not “hold on” any longer and had to tender his resignation to the Queen.

Mr Cameron told the BBC in July he was “surprised” at the timing of Mr Brown’s departure and he was not “totally sure” what sort of government he would lead when he accepted the Queen’s invitation to take office as talks were still taking place.

The committee wants to know what impact criticism by the media of the former prime minister – some of whom accused Mr Brown of “squatting” in No 10 after Labour won nearly 50 fewer seats on the Conservatives – had on Mr Brown’s decision and whether this could have been “mitigated”.

Other key questions it will be asking include how coalition policies not included in either party’s manifestos – such as the pledge to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote electoral system – came to feature in the coalition agreement.

It wants to know the implications of the fact that this and other policies may lack a “popular mandate”.

The committee, chaired by Labour MP Graham Allen, says it will invite representatives from all three parties – as well as civil servants involved in the negotiations and constitutional experts – to appear before them.

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has declared that a “new American moment” has arrived in global politics.

Speaking at a Washington think tank, Mrs Clinton said the model of American leadership “offers our best hope in a dangerous world”.

The speech comes amid renewed US efforts to broker Middle East peace.

But the Obama administration has been criticised over a perceived lack of progress on its international goals.

Critics argue that Iran and North Korea maintain nuclear ambitions, the security situation in Afghanistan continues to be perilous and Israeli-Palestinian relations have yet to improve.

But Mrs Clinton said that US had “begun to see the dividends of our strategy.”

“We are advancing America’s interests and making progress on some of our most pressing challenges,” she said.

Mrs Clinton also noted that the world continues to look to the US for leadership in times of crisis, calling that both a responsibility and an unparalleled opportunity to seize upon.

“The world is counting on us. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us,” she said.

But she stressed the importance of international partnerships.

“This is no argument for America to go it alone,” Mrs Clinton said.

“The world looks to us because America has the reach and resolve to mobilize the shared effort needed to solve problems on a global scale – in defence of our own interests, but also as a force for progress. In this we have no rival.”

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An independent review of the UK’s extradition laws is due to be announced by the home secretary.

Theresa May is expected to say it will focus on the controversial treaty between the UK and the US.

Campaigners say the agreement is biased against Britain and is being used for offences it was not originally intended to cover.

The review follows a series of high-profile cases, including that of computer hacker Gary McKinnon.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition had promised to take a fresh look at extradition arrangements between the countries.

In its policy programme document, the parties said the government was to “review the operation” of the Extradition Act and the 2003 US/UK extradition treaty “to make sure it is even-handed”.

Critics of the treaty, agreed between Washington and London in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001, say it is easier to extradite people from the UK than the US.

They say the arrangement is not reciprocal because the US does not need to present evidence to a British court to request extradition, while the UK still needs to present evidence to an American court.

The treaty was originally designed to make it easier to bring terrorist suspects to justice but campaigners say it is being used to seek extradition for other offences such as fraud and drug trafficking.

Conservative MP David Davis said Mr McKinnon’s case and others showed “how ill thought out” some aspects of the agreements were.

“This review should also incorporate the proposed European Investigation Order which has further scope for unintended miscarriages of justice in which British citizens are penalised for actions which are not breaches of British law,” he said.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty, said Britain’s “rotten extradition system” was in urgent need of an overhaul.

“No-one should be parcelled off to a foreign land without due process or when they could be dealt with here at home – people in the UK have been vulnerable to accusation and transportation across the globe for far too long,” she said.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who signed the Extradition Act, has recently admitted he might have “given too much away” to the Americans.

Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger’s syndrome, is accused of hacking into US military computer systems.

Mr McKinnon, 43, of Wood Green, north London, does not deny hacking into systems but insists he was seeking evidence of UFOs.

Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have publicly condemned plans to extradite Mr McKinnon to the US – where he faces up to 60 years in jail.

American authorities allege that between February 2001 and March 2002, Mr McKinnon hacked into dozens of US army, navy, air force and Department of Defense computers, as well as 16 Nasa computers.

They also say Mr McKinnon altered and deleted files at a US naval air station not long after the 9/11 attacks.

In May, the home secretary agreed to an adjournment to a High Court decision on whether his extradition could go ahead.

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BP is to release an internal investigation into the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst ecological catastrophe in recent US history.

The investigation has taken five months, and is expected to blame BP as well as other companies involved in the drilling operation.

Safety equipment on the Deepwater Horizon rig failed after an explosion on 20 April, in which 11 people died.

The report will play a key role in how BP defends itself in legal proceedings.

An estimated 4.9m barrels of oil leaked into the waters of the Gulf after the blast, with only 800,000 barrels being captured.