Category: news

The South Korean Foreign Minister, Yu Myung-hwan, offers to resign after it was revealed that his daughter was offered a job in his ministry.

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Police declare an overnight curfew in Christchurch, New Zealand, after a powerful earthquake causes considerable damage but no fatalities.

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A Conservative councillor defects to Labour over cuts to the Building Schools for the Future Programme.

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Eggs and shoes have been thrown at the former prime minister Tony Blair as he arrived at a book signing in Dublin.

It happened as he arrived at Easons on O’Connell Street to sign copies of his autobiography.

The missiles, which were thrown by anti-war protesters, did not hit Mr Blair.

Activists clashed with Irish police as they tried to push down a security barrier outside the bookshop.

More than 300 people queued from early on Saturday morning to get a book signed.

It is his first book-signing since the publication of his autobiography.

There is a large police presence in the city and O’Connell Street has been closed to traffic.

Mr Blair’s memoirs detail his accounts of life in Downing Street, the Iraq war, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America and Princess Diana’s death.

He also wrote about concerns over the amount he was drinking and of his rift with his successor Gordon Brown.

One of the chapters also deals with his efforts to secure peace in Northern Ireland and his relationships with the key political players.

He admitted that he often stretched the truth past breaking point to get agreement during the peace process and he admits that he took horrendous chances with the political parties.

His book, ‘A Journey’ has already become Waterstone’s fastest-selling autobiography ever and shot to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list.

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Scientists from the US space agency Nasa advise the trapped Chilean miners to exercise and regulate their day and night sleep patterns.

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A 13-year-old girl and her uncle suffer serious burns when a gas cylinder explodes during her birthday barbecue in Wiltshire.

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An Irish tourist has died in a plane crash in New Zealand.

The light aircraft, owned by a skydiving company, crashed soon after taking off from Fox Glacier on the country’s South Island at 1330 local time.

The man, who was in his 20s, was one of nine people killed. A British national is also among the dead.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is providing consular assistance to the man’s family.

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Villagers told by BT it will cost £550,000 for a broadband connection receive an estimate from another company of £50,000.

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Firefighters rescue a horse and its groom after the animal kicked its way out of a horse box and into the front cab.

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Demonstrations are planned across France in protest at the government’s policy of deporting Roma people.

Anti-racism groups opposed to the moves say that more than 30,000 people may rally in Paris alone.

There has been strong international criticism of the deportations, which saw 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) returned to Romania and Bulgaria last month.

However, opinion polls suggest more than half of French people back the government on the issue.

According to official figures, 11,000 Roma were expelled from France last year.

The League of Human Rights, which called for the demonstrations, said it wanted to counteract government “xenophobia” and what it described as the systematic abuse of Roma in France.

At least 138 demonstrations are planned, including a march through the capital due to start at 1400 (1200 GMT).

The rallies are being backed by the opposition Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France’s second largest trade union confederation.

France began a high-profile campaign of clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps last month, as part of a security crackdown announced by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The move was announced after a number of incidents of violence targeting the police.

In mid-July, riots erupted in Grenoble after police shot an alleged armed robber during a shootout.

The next day, dozens of French Roma attacked a police station in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan, after police shot dead a French Roma man who had allegedly not stopped at a police checkpoint.

The mass expulsions have drawn criticism from the Vatican and the UN and President Sarkozy has also faced dissent from within his own cabinet.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon hinted that he disliked the crude links being made between foreigners and crime, while Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he considered resigning over the issue.

Earlier this week, the European Commission criticised France over its expulsions of Roma, saying it did not put enough emphasis on the individual circumstances of those facing expulsion.

Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.

France said it has been “scrupulously respecting European law”, and that most of the repatriations were voluntary.

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The interim managing director brought in to run a crisis-hit local authority is to stay on in the £270,000 a year job for the foreseeable future.

David Bowles was appointed head of Anglesey council last year, initially for 12 months.

The appointment followed an auditor general’s report saying the council had “serious persistent problems”.

The Welsh Assembly Government has now confirmed Mr Bowles will continue in the role.

When he was appointed, the then local government minister, Dr Brian Gibbons, admitted hiring the non-Welsh speaker in the position was an “issue”.

But he said exhaustive inquiries had failed to identify a person of equal calibre who could speak Welsh.

The appointment angered the Welsh-language pressure group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, who called it a “terrible shame”.

The assembly government said a clause of a possible extension of up to a further year was included in Mr Bowles’ initial contract.

They will now be granting that extension, despite saying in August last year that the appointment was for 12 months only.

A spokeswoman said: “The then minister designated Mr Bowles as interim managing director on 12 August 2009 for one year, with an option to extend that for up to a further year.

“Last month we formally notified the council that we were exercising that option, simply so that Mr Bowles could continue in post for the time being.

“In doing so we were absolutely clear that Mr Bowles could still choose to leave at any point in the coming year, or that the minister could choose to designate someone else.”

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Violence in Afghanistan will get worse before it gets better, the UK’s most senior military commander in the country has told the BBC.

Lt Gen Sir Nick Parker said progress was being made against the Taliban but it was “hard, slow and variable”.

“We are going up the hill into the enemy at the moment,” Gen Parker said.

But there was “persistent security” in previously insurgent-dominated areas, the deputy head of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force added.

Gen Parker told BBC Radio 4: “This is a complex counter-insurgency. There are a large number of different actors and it is a resilient enemy.

“Over the course of this summer, the momentum of the campaign has continued much as we predicted it would earlier in the year. We are seeing progress but it is hard, it is slow and it is variable.”

But Lt Gen Parker added that “the bell curve of violence” would increase before it decreased.

“I am convinced we are showing persistent security in areas where the insurgency has dominated in the past and the people who live in those areas are beginning to realise not only that we are serious, but also – importantly – that the Afghan government is beginning to bring more governance and development to those areas,” he said.

Gen Parker also said the mission was “progressing in the right way” for Prime Minister David Cameron’s five-year timescale for the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan to be met.

Earlier this week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg insisted the military campaign in Afghanistan was “turning the corner”, during a surprise visit to the country.

But he said he “had no idea exactly how and when we will succeed”.

Mr Clegg repeated the promise made by the government that UK combat troops would leave Afghanistan by 2015.

A total of 87 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, bringing the total to 332 since the start of operations in 2001.

There are currently about 9,500 UK troops in Afghanistan, with the majority based in the south of the country.

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Nearly six million people in the UK are to be told they have paid the wrong amount of tax.

About £2bn has been underpaid via the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) system in the past two years, with about 1.4 million people owing an average of £1,500 each.

But £1.8bn has also been overpaid and some 4.3 million people will get a rebate because they have paid too much.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said the “overwhelming majority” of PAYE contributions were correct.

Millions of letters will be sent to taxpayers across the UK informing them of errors in their contributions.

The first 45,000 are expected to arrive on Tuesday, with 30,000 informing recipients they are due a rebate of on average £418.

The remaining 15,000 letters will tell taxpayers they have underpaid and will have their tax code altered next year to recoup the money.

It is thought that some individuals may face both underpayments and overpayments, which could cancel each another out.

Discrepancies arise when the amounts deducted in tax and National Insurance by employers using the PAYE system do not match the information held on HMRC records.

This most often occurs when individuals change jobs, have more than one job at the same time, or because employers are using the wrong tax code.

In June 2009, the process of checking contributions was computerised, which HMRC says should help reduce errors in the future.

But in some cases officials say they will consider writing off demands for additional money if taxpayers can demonstrate they provided all the information necessary to calculate their tax correctly.

An HMRC spokesman told the BBC: “The overwhelming majority of PAYE cases – over 40 million – are right, so most people have paid the right amount of tax.

“But for a variety of reasons in some cases there will be a discrepancy.

“The government accepts that the way we go about deducting tax at source needs to be much more accurate and the introduction of the NPS [computer system] pays the way for a real time system which in turn boosts accuracy.”

In June, the government ordered a review of how the PAYE system works and is encouraging the public to contribute their thoughts about how it could be improved.

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Nine people, including four foreigners, have been killed in a light aircraft crash in New Zealand, say reports.

The plane, owned by a skydiving company, burst into flames shortly after taking off at the tourist spot of Fox Glacier on the South Island.

The dead tourists were from England, Ireland, Australia and Germany, said police. The pilot and the other four passengers were all local.

None of the passengers has yet been identified.

The plane was reported to be a Fletcher fixed-wing aircraft, commonly used in the area.

Officials said it crashed shortly after leaving the Fox Glacier airstrip at about 1330 local time (0130GMT).

An eyewitness told the New Zealand Herald: “It was like a fireball and then there was big puffs of smoke going up. [The plane] was engulfed in flames immediately.”

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