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Senior Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are to hold more talks in a bid to agree terms for a power-sharing government.

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

A family of four whose yacht hit an iceberg in the south Atlantic are being taken to the Falkland Islands after being rescued by a warship.

Carl Lomas and Tracey Worth, of Chelmerton, Derbyshire, were sailing to Cape Town with their two teenage daughters Caitland and Morgause.

They got into difficulties 300 miles north-east of South Georgia on Friday.

They were rescued by the crew of HMS Clyde. The family were not injured, a Coastguard spokesman said.

They are expected to reach the Falkland Islands – which are 1,000 miles away – by the middle of next week.

Engine failure

According to their online blog, the couple had been sailing since March 2007.

It said they had left from Ipswich and visited Santander, Cape St Vincent, Salvador, Buenos Aires, Robinson Crusoe Island, Cape Horn, and recently South Georgia.

They had been sailing to South Africa when their yacht hit a low-lying iceberg known as a "growler" which is difficult to see because most of the ice mass is below the surface.

The 60ft-long (18m) yacht Hollinsclough had taken on water and suffered engine failure.

Falmouth Coastguard picked up their emergency signal north-east of South Georgia and HMS Clyde, which was 200 miles (320km) south of their position, was sent to rescue them.

Outgoing Marine Engineer Officer Lt Robert Satterley said: "When we approached the yacht, we were relieved to see that there were four people alive and well.

"The yacht had sustained severe damage and lay low in the water and it was clear that the family had been through quite an ordeal.

"Unfortunately nothing could be done to save the yacht and we were just glad to get them back to the ship safely."

‘Similar to Titanic’

A Coastguard spokesman said: "All four are safe and well now and on their way to the Falklands.

"They are okay, but I would imagine they are a bit shaken."

He said "growler" icebergs are particularly dangerous because "hardly any" of the ice is visible.

He added: "It is very similar to what the Titanic hit.

"You can track them by radar or visual lookout, but you can’t see them all."

Hannah Turner, from the Church Inn pub in Chelmorton, said the couple – who go by the names of Lord and Lady Hollinsclough – were rarely seen in the village.

She said: "They don’t really stay in the village that much so nobody really knows them."

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

British air passengers could be facing further disruption from a volcanic ash cloud that has continued to affect European flight schedules.

Many flights to Spain, France and Portugal were grounded on Saturday, and some Scottish island flights were hit.

The Met Office said weather patterns were expected to change, possibly bringing the ash cloud back into parts of UK airspace on Sunday and next week.

The ash closed 16 Spanish airports on Saturday, including hub Barcelona.

A no-fly zone also affected Stornoway on Lewis and Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, as well as some Loganair services to Orkney and Shetland.

The disruption could continue into next week if northerly winds bring ash over western Scotland and Ireland.

Disruption warnings

On Saturday evening Ryanair said it expected airspace over Italy’s Milan Bergamo airport and Porto, in Portugal, to be closed or restricted on Sunday morning, and listed a number of flights it may cancel.

Earlier Ryanair had cancelled Saturday’s flights to and from destinations including Spain, Portugal and France.

At London Stansted Airport, 22 Ryanair flights to the Canary Islands, mainland Spain and Portugal were cancelled, along with three EasyJet flights.

Flights from Gatwick to Portugal, Alicante and Madrid were cancelled and at Heathrow some flights to La Coruna in northern Spain were also grounded.

Ryanair also cancelled some services from East Midlands, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Liverpool airports and warned airspace over southern France could also be restricted.

It urged passengers to check details of their flights before travelling to the airport.

Most flights between Europe and North America are being diverted because of the ash cloud’s location, officials at European air traffic agency Eurocontrol said.

Volcanic activity

On Saturday the Met Office said the ash was still to the west of the UK.

"As a result Nats (National Air Traffic Service) continues to advise aircraft about airspace restrictions affecting transatlantic flights, allowing them to cross the Atlantic safely.

"The ash cloud has drifted across parts of southwest Europe, leading to disruption.

"Later in the weekend weather patterns are set to change and may bring the ash cloud back into parts of UK airspace toward the end of the weekend and into next week."

The volcano has become more active in recent days and flights are being re-routed north and south of the 1,200 mile (2,000km) long cloud.

On Saturday passengers at Heathrow Airport were told to expect delays of between 10 to 15 minutes to allow time to fly around the ash cloud.

But a spokesman for the airport said that disruption to European services was minimal, with only a small number of flights going to La Coruna affected.

Recent images have shown activity in the Eyjafjallajokull volcano intensifying.

Experts at the Met Office said it was sending ash up to heights of 30,000 ft (9,100m).

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

Seven miners have been killed by a methane blast at a Russian coal mine.

Many miners were brought to the surface safely at the mine in Siberia’s western Kemerovo region, but 64 are still underground. Four miners are injured.

A total of 312 miners were inside the Raspadskaya mine near Mezhdurechensk at the time of the blast, Russia’s emergency situations ministry said.

Many of the country’s mines have poor safety standards and have not been updated since the fall of communism.

The governor of Kemerovo, Aman Tuleyev, has taken charge of the rescue operation.

The mine, about 300km (190 miles) east of Moscow, produces about eight million tons of coal a year, according to its website.

Kemerovo is part of the major coal-producing Kuzbass region.

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

Voters in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), are voting in a regional election that could change national politics.

A defeat for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and their liberal allies would end the coalition’s majority in the upper house of parliament.

The campaign has been overshadowed by the government’s decision to contribute to a huge rescue package for Greece.

Meanwhile many cities in NRW are on the brink of bankruptcy.

Angela Merkel is not standing in this regional election, but she has campaigned here until the last minute.

It is the first political test for her centre-right coalition since it came to power six months ago.

North Rhine-Westphalia matters: home to 18 million people, it is Germany’s industrial heartland and a weathervane for national politics.

The regional coalition between Chancellor Merkel’s conservatives and the pro-business Liberal-Democrats, which mirrors the one at the federal level, is struggling.

With the economic crisis dominating the campaign, Mrs Merkel tried to delay a decision on the hugely unpopular rescue package for Greece until after the poll, but failed.

Meanwhile, local councils are sinking into debt. Kindergarten fees have gone up, libraries and swimming-pools are closing. In Wuppertal, even the theatre is under threat.

Scandals about party financing may also prompt voters to punish the centre-right in NRW and revive the fortunes of the Social-Democrats, the Greens and the former communist Left Party.

A new coalition here would also spell the end for Chancellor Merkel’s majority in the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, jeopardising long-promised tax cuts and health system reforms.

Europe’s biggest economy could enter a phase of political uncertainty it can ill afford.

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

The conservative Tea Party movement in the US has blocked a three-term Republican senator from Utah, Bob Bennett, in his bid for re-election.

Sen Bennett came third at a Republican Party convention in Salt Lake City.

The two challengers, one backed by the Tea Party, will face each other in a primary next month for the right to contest November’s Midterm elections.

It is the first major victory for the grassroots movement that objects to big government and opposes high spending.

Sen Bennett was criticised by Tea Party activists for supporting the Wall Street bail-out, co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill mandating health insurance coverage and aggressively seeking funding "earmarks" for his state.

"The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it’s very clear that some of the votes that I have cast have added to the toxic environment," he told reporters after Saturday’s convention vote.

"Looking back on them, with one or two very minor exceptions, I wouldn’t have cast any of them any differently even if I had known at the time they were going to cost me my career."

Sen Bennett is barred by state law from running as an independent, but he has not ruled out standing as a write-in candidate – whose name does not appear on the ballot and so must be written on the ballot by the voters.

"I do think I still have a lot of juice left in me," he added.

The two candidates in June’s primary, businessman Tim Bridgewater and Tea Party-bakced lawyer Mike Lee, both claimed during the campaign that they were better suited to rein in government spending than Sen Bennett.

"There is a mood that has swept across this country and has certainly swept across Utah that is demanding a new generation of leaders. Leaders committed to constitutionally limited government," Mr Lee told the Reuters news agency.

Correspondents say the winner of the Republican nomination is all but guaranteed victory in November because Utah is so conservative.

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