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Four workers are feared to have died in an industrial accident in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.

Emergency services were called to Claxton Engineering in the North River Road area at about 1420 GMT following reports of an accident.

Police, fire and ambulance services were at the scene and the Health and Safety Executive has been informed.

Police confirmed there had been fatalities in the accident, but would not be drawn on the number.

The BBC understands four people suffered fatal injuries when a steel structure fell or tilted onto them.

Claxton is an offshore engineering company.

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

An undercover police officer has been placed on restricted duties.

Det Con Jim Boyling, who worked in specialist operations at the Metropolitan Police, was investigated by the Directorate of Professional Standards.

It followed allegations about his conduct reported in a national newspaper.

A Met spokesman said it would be thoroughly investigated, but the police were not able to comment further.

The move comes after Policing Minister Nick Herbert told MPs something went “very wrong” in the case of Mark Kennedy, another undercover police officer.

He caused the trial of six men accused of conspiring to shut down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire to collapse after he said he would testify for the defence.

Mr Kennedy spent a reported seven years posing as activist Mark “Flash” Stone.

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

The Cuban postal company apologised to customers for the inconvenience

Cuba has suspended all postal deliveries to the United States until further notice.

The suspension follows the introduction of stricter security measures by the US last year after the attempted mailing of explosives from Yemen.

The Cuban postal service says large amounts of mail were refused entry and returned in the following months.

Correspondents say the cost of so many returns may have led to the decision to stop the service.

Postal service between the US and Cuba had been suspended for 42 years after Cuba’s communist revolution, and only resumed in 2009 via third countries.

President Barack Obama’s decision to renew the service was widely seen as a move towards repairing relations between the two countries.

Its suspension is likely to be interpreted as a setback to the president’s efforts at easing tension and improving people-to-people ties between Cuba and the US.

The US tightened its security on air cargo after bombs hidden in cartridges were intercepted on route from Yemen to the US in cargo planes.

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

White House aides praised GE as a company creating US manufacturing jobs

President Barack Obama has vowed to put the economy “into overdrive” by 2012, as he announced the head of a new economic advisory panel.

At a General Electric (GE) plant in New York, Mr Obama said he had named the company’s head, Jeffery Immelt, to lead a council on jobs and competitiveness.

Mr Obama also called on China to open to “two-way trade” with US companies.

His remarks came amid what commentators describe as a White House effort to court the US business community.

“Our job is to do everything we can to ensure that businesses can take root, and folks can find good jobs,” Mr Obama told General Electric workers.

Despite pushing through a $787bn (£492bn) economic stimulus package and other measures, Mr Obama has been criticised for his handling of the US economy, which has seen sluggish job growth in the two years since he took office during the worst economic downturn in decades.

Mr Obama’s success or failure in his 2012 re-election bid will depend in part on the performance of the economy and on whether voters see steady job creation, analysts say.

An Associated Press-GfK poll released on Friday suggested just 35% of Americans believe the economy has improved during Mr Obama’s presidency.

In one of several moves aimed at winning back corporate support, Mr Obama this week aimed at reducing the regulatory burden on US businesses.

Mr Obama on Friday emphasised the need to build the US export economy, particularly in terms of trade with China, with whom the US has a roughly $262.3 billion (£164 billion) trade deficit.

Shifting the US-China trade relationship toward a more equitable balance was a major issue in White House talks this week between Mr Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

“We’re going to build stuff, and invent stuff,” Mr Obama said on Friday. Regarding China, he said: “That’s where the customers are. It’s that simple.”

Chinese President Hu Jintao was spending the final day of his US state visit in Chicago, where business executives were set to sign 60 deals to highlight relations between the countries.

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

Police struggled to hold back thousands of protesters

Three people have been killed in the Albanian capital Tirana during clashes between police and thousands of opposition supporters.

An estimated 20,000 people rallied outside government buildings calling on the conservative government to resign.

The protests follow the resignation of deputy prime minister Ilir Meta who is at the centre of a fraud scandal.

The socialist opposition accuses the government of corruption, abuse of power and rigging the last election.

Albania has been in political deadlock since the opposition rejected the result of the 2009 elections.

“Three people are dead, 17 policemen and soldiers were injured, including three seriously, along with 22 civilians,” hospital surgeon Sami Koceku told AFP news agency.

He said the victims were already dead when they arrived at the hospital.

Witnesses said a section of the crowd threw rocks at the police who responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Some protesters also threw stones from the top of a pyramid-shaped building near the office of Prime Minister Sali Berisha and set light to a police car and other vehicles.

Following three hours of clashes, protesters dispersed after appeals for calm from President Bamir Topi and Socialist Party leader Edi Rama.

Police in riot gear then took control of the main streets and television footage showed officers fanning out through the main boulevard, chasing stray protesters and beating some with truncheons.

There were no immediate reports of arrests.

Before the protests, the US embassy in Tirana also called for the protest to be peaceful and appealed to politicians to tone down their rhetoric.

“In recent days the rhetoric and the language of selected political leaders have assumed a tone that suggests an endorsement of disruptive and harmful acts and inappropriate conduct,” it said in a statement.

British MP Mark Pritchard, who chairs the UK parliamentary group on Albania, also called for restraint.

“It would be very sad indeed, with Albania having come so far so quickly to build up its democracy and democratic institutions and having worked so hard towards possible future EU membership, if violence and political disunity were to put this at risk,” he told the BBC.

In pictures: Albania unrest

“I hope that all political parties will put their differences aside for the sake of the Albanian nation and people and to safeguard Albania’s international reputation.”

The opposition wants fresh parliamentary elections after rejecting the result of the June 2009 vote which Mr Berisha’s Democratic Party won by a small margin.

Political tensions rose after Ilir Meta – Mr Berisha’s key ally – resigned last week after being accused of corruption over a power plant tender.

Albania – one of Europe’s poorest countries – will hold local elections on 8 May but the next general election is not due until 2013.

Since the fall of communism in 1991, Albania has never held an election that has met all international standards.

Its hopes of joining the EU have been thwarted as it struggles to prove it has made the transition to a fully-functioning democracy.

Brussels rejected Albania’s application for candidate status late last year, urging it to meet an agenda of 12 points, in particular fighting corruption.

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

Mr Johnson had faced some criticism for his handling of the shadow chancellor’s brief

A Metropolitan Police specialist operations officer has been suspended from duty following allegations he had an inappropriate relationship with the wife of Labour politician Alan Johnson.

Mr Johnson stood down unexpectedly as shadow chancellor on Thursday, citing “personal reasons”.

Newspaper reports have suggested that his close protection officer, Pc Paul Rice, had an affair with his wife.

The Met Police’s standards directorate is investigating the allegations.

In a statement on Friday evening, Scotland Yard said: “A Metropolitan Police Service Specialist Operations Police Constable has today, Friday 21 January, been suspended from duty pending the outcome of the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) investigation into allegations reported in the media regarding an inappropriate relationship.

“A thorough investigation is now under way. As the allegation is subject to investigation, we are not able to comment further at this stage.”

It is understood that Pc Rice was assigned to protect Mr Johnson, 60, and his wife when he was home secretary in the previous Labour government.

Scotland Yard has not confirmed the name of the suspended officer.

Mr Johnson’s decision to quit his shadow cabinet job came as a complete surprise at Westminster, even though he had suffered some criticism for his grasp of its more technical aspects.

He said he had “found it difficult” to cope with the responsibility at the same time as dealing with issues in his private life.

He will be replaced by Ed Balls, who in turn hands over the shadow home secretary’s brief to his wife, Yvette Cooper.

Mr Johnson, who will remain as MP for Hull West, has refused to comment further on his resignation and has not given any interviews.

The former postman and trade union leader has been married to his second wife Laura for almost 20 years and the couple have a 10-year-old son.

Labour leader Ed Miliband told the BBC he had accepted the resignation “with great regret” and Mr Johnson’s reasons for standing down had “nothing to do with the job” of shadow chancellor.

In an interview earlier this month, he appeared not to know the rate of National Insurance paid by employers, and he was also reported to have clashed with Mr Miliband over the policy of introducing a graduate tax to replace university tuition fees.

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