Google to pay $500m drug ad fine

24 August 2011 Last updated at 22:53 GMT Google said it should not have allowed the adverts Internet giant Google has agreed to pay a $500m (£306m) fine for publishing online adverts from Canadian pharmacies selling illegal drugs to US customers.

By paying the fine, Google will avoid criminal prosecution in the US for profiting from the adverts.

The $500m represents the firm's revenues from the adverts and the revenues generated from the sale of the drugs, federal investigators said.

Google said it should it not have allowed the adverts.

"We banned the advertising of prescription drugs in the US by Canadian pharmacies some time ago," the company said in a short statement.

"However, it's obvious with hindsight that we should not have allowed these ads on Google in the first place."

The US Justice Department said controls over selling the drugs were inadequate.

"While Canada has its own regulatory rules for prescription drugs, Canadian pharmacies that ship prescription drugs to US residents are not subject to Canadian regulatory authority, and many sell drugs obtained from countries other than Canada which lack adequate pharmacy regulations," the department said.

It added that the higher price of the drugs reflected the fact that some could be bought without a doctor's prescription.

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Bangladesh urged to end killings

24 August 2011 Last updated at 06:54 GMT The Rapid Action Battalion was set up in 2004 to combat crime and terrorism Rights group Amnesty International has accused the Bangladeshi government of unlawful killings by its special police force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

In a new report, the group has urged the government to honour their pledge to end extrajudicial executions.

The force has been implicated in the killing of at least 700 people since its inception in 2004, the report says.

The government has yet to respond to the Amnesty report.

RAB justifies the killings as accidental or as a result of officers acting in self-defence.

But, in reality, many victims are killed following their arrest, the Amnesty report alleges.

In a report in May, Human Rights Watch too catalogued a series of human rights violations blamed on the elite force in the past few years.

The government has always denied the accusations against RAB.

'Unlawful killings'

"Hardly a week goes by in Bangladesh without someone being shot by RAB with the authorities saying they were killed or injured in 'crossfire' or a 'gun-fight'," Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International's Bangladesh researcher, said.

"However the authorities choose to describe such incidents, the fact remains that they are suspected unlawful killings."

The group says investigations into the killings are either carried out by RAB or a government-appointed judicial body and they have never resulted in prosecution.

It says that RAB has consistently denied responsibility for unlawful killings and the authorities have accepted their claims.

Former detainees also told Amnesty International that they were tortured in custody, suffering beatings, food and sleep deprivation, and electric shocks.

The report says that at least 200 alleged RAB killings have occurred since January 2009 when the Awami League government came to power, despite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's pledge to end extrajudicial killings.

In the past the authorities have said the police force only acts against "criminals" and most deaths occur during shoot-outs between them and law enforcers.

Over the years, RAB has developed a fearsome reputation while at the same time being credited with reducing crime and acting against Islamist militancy.

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Quiz of the week's news

BBC News - Quiz of the week's news BBC

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It's the Magazine's 7 days, 7 questions quiz - an opportunity to prove to yourself and others that you are a news oracle. Failing that, you can always claim to have had better things to do during the past week than swot up on current affairs.

1.) Multiple Choice Question

Australian rock band AC/DC are launching their own range of wine, following in the footsteps of other musicians. Which of these haven't brought out their own brand wines?

Def Leppard
Kiss
Iron Maiden
Whitesnake

2.) Multiple Choice Question

The number of people unemployed in the UK rose to 2.49 million in the three months to June. But which category saw the biggest increase in numbers?

Unemployed men
Unemployed women
16 to 24-year-olds

3.) Multiple Choice Question

A-level pass rates have risen for the 29th year in a row. But what happened for the first time in 15 years with 2011's results?

No increase in total proportion of A or A*
Entries for French and German rose
The number of boys getting A* was equal to girls

4.) Multiple Choice Question

"There were a few raised eyebrows." Who said?

Producer of Jersey Shore after Abercrombie and Fitch offered to pay the cast not to wear its clothes
A flight attendant after actor Gerard Depardieu urinated in front of fellow passengers on a plane
David Miliband on the reaction of friends after telling them he was going on holiday to Center Parcs

Info

US clothing brand Abercrombie and Fitch has offered to pay the cast of the MTV reality show not to wear its clothes, saying it could cause "significant damage to their image". Depardieu urinated into a bottle after being told he could not use the toilet because the plane was preparing for take-off.

5.) Missing Word Question

* becoming addicted to digital TV

Dogs
Babies
Budgies

6.) Multiple Choice Question

Just 15 minutes of exercise a day can boost life expectancy by three years, new research suggests. But how much does the government currently recommend adults do weekly?

100 minutes
125 minutes
150 minutes

7.) Multiple Choice Question

A legal battle over the rights of the Village People's song YMCA has broken out. Group member Victor Willis has filed a claim to regain rights to it. But what did he perform as in the group?

Construction worker
Policeman
Native American
Biker

Answers

It's Def Leppard. Lead singer Joe Elliott launched his own beer last year called Down 'N' Outz.It's unemployed women, with numbers rising by 21,000 to 1.05 million. The number of unemployed men increased by 18,000 to 1.45 million and unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds rose by 15,000 to 949,000.There was no increase in the total proportion getting A or A* grades. Entries for French and German fell again - this year by 4.7% and 6.9% respectively. Boys have closed the gap with girls at the very top grade of A*, but not equalled them.It's David Miliband, who went on holiday to Center Parcs in France this year.It's dogs. It's been reported canines are developing a taste for television because, unlike old analogue sets, digital signals supposedly allow them to see programmes the way humans do.The government recommends adults get 150 minutes of exercise a week. The Lancet study, based on a review of more than 400,000 people in Taiwan, showed 15 minutes per day of moderate exercise, such as brisk walking, could add three years to your life.It's as a policeman, plus he occasionally performed as a sailor. Willis was the founding member of the group. A 1976 Act of Congress in the US allows recording artists to reclaim the rights to their songs 35 years after their original release.

Your Score

0 - 3 : One-hit wonder

4 - 6 : Mid-chart

7 - 7 : Classic

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Murder victims' bodies back in NI

24 August 2011 Last updated at 23:00 GMT The two women's bodies were returned to Newry on Wednesday afternoon The bodies of Marion Graham and Kathy Dinsmore, who were murdered in Turkey, have been taken to their home towns of Newry and Warrenpoint.

The women, who were both in their 50s, were stabbed to death near the west coast city of Izmir last week.

The victims' bodies were released from a mortuary in Izmir on Monday and flown to Dublin Airport on Wednesday.

The hearses were accompanied by friends and family and the police on both sides of the border on their journey north.

Both funerals will be on Friday - Ms Graham's in Newry in the morning and Ms Dinsmore's in Warrenpoint in the afternoon.

Ms Graham's daughter Shannon arrived home on Monday night accompanied by her father.

In a statement earlier, St Mary's High School - which Shannon attended - said staff and pupils were "deeply saddened" by the tragic deaths.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Shannon during this very difficult time," the statement said.

"As a school community we will ensure all the support is available to both Shannon and her peers as they begin a new academic year."

Suspect's confession

Shannon's Turkish boyfriend Recep Cetin has reportedly confessed to the double killing.

The suspect, also known as Alex, worked at a restaurant in the popular tourist resort of Kusadasi.

It is alleged that he confessed to killing Ms Graham and Ms Dinsmore, after being refused permission to marry Shannon.

The suspect is alleged to have taken Ms Dinsmore and Ms Graham to a secluded wooded area and murdered them there.

The friends were on holiday in Kusadasi, about 100km from Izmir.

Shannon was on a boat trip when the killings happened. She alerted police when she arrived home and could not get in touch with her mother.

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Mata completes Chelsea transfer

Mata had also been linked with Arsenal and Tottenham Juan Mata has completed his move to Chelsea from Spanish club Valencia for a reported £23.5m.

Mata has signed a five-year contract and is available for Saturday's game against Norwich.

"Valencia was a big club anyway but I have left to join a bigger club," the 23-year-old winger said. "It is all about the opportunity to win trophies and I have that here."

The Spaniard said Blues boss Andre Villas-Boas convinced him to move.

"He said he wanted Chelsea this season to play more attacking football, and that I would be a big part of that," added Mata.

"Villas-Boas is someone who won almost everything last year [the former Porto boss won the Portuguese league, Europa League and two domestic cups last season] and we are both here with the idea of winning lots this season."

Continue reading the main story Andy Brassell,
European football expert

You can argue Mata brings something Chelsea have lacked since Arjen Robben left - a player with real acceleration who can put defenders on the back foot. I do not think it means an end to Chelsea's efforts to sign Luka Modric as, while Mata can play in the centre, I would be very surprised if he did for Chelsea. I would imagine he will play on the right with Florent Malouda on the left. He is creative and has two good feet, although he is predominantly left-footed. Mata is quite a modest and down-to-earth guy and can be a key player for Chelsea for years to come.

Mata, who can play on the wing or centrally, revealed that he could have a versatile role in a Chelsea side that lacked width last season.

"The plan is that I can play on either flank or even in the middle playing in between the lines of midfield and attack, he said.

"I like to keep the ball and use it well, I am an attacking player and above all I like to set up goals and score them also.

"I want to adapt as quickly as possible to my new surroundings, my colleagues and this league, and I would love to win a trophy in my first season.

"If it can be the Premier League then great."

Chelsea and Valencia confirmed that a fee had been agreed on Sunday and while it has not been officially disclosed reports in Spain suggest the Blues are paying £23.5m.

Mata has been at Valencia since 2007 and as captain helped Spain win the Under-21 European Championship in the summer. He was also part of Spain's 2010 World Cup winning squad.

Mata joined Valencia from Real Madrid's youth team. Last season, the 23-year-old midfielder, who is 5ft 7in tall, scored eight goals to help Valencia to a third-place finish in the Primera Liga.

He was also part of Spain's 2010 World Cup-winning squad.

View the original article here

Granny's story

25 August 2011 Last updated at 00:32 GMT Sandra Rowoldt Shell University of Cape Town Bisho Jarsa, trained as a domestic servant, went on to become a teacher

When Neville Alexander used to visit his maternal grandmother Bisho Jarsa as a boy, he never suspected the extraordinary story of how she had come from Ethiopia to the South African city of Port Elizabeth.

Bisho was one of a group of Ethiopian slaves freed by a British warship in 1888 off the coast of Yemen, then taken round the African coast and placed in the care of missionaries in South Africa.

"We were overawed in her presence and by the way she would mumble to herself in this language none of us understood," recalls Mr Alexander, now 74.

This was Ethiopia's Oromo language, Bisho's mother tongue, which she reverted to as she grew older.

Mr Alexander, who was a political prisoner in the 1960s, sharing Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, is today one of South Africa's most eminent educationists.

He remembers his younger siblings asking their mother, Dimbiti: "What's Ma talking about... what's the matter with her? What's she saying?"

Their mother would respond: "Don't worry about Ma... she's just talking to God."

When he was in his late teens, his mother told him about his Ethiopian origins but Mr Alexander thinks even she may not have known all the details, which he only discovered when he was in his fifties.

He found out that the freed Ethiopians had all been interviewed on their arrival in South Africa.

The story began on 16 September 1888, when Commander Charles E Gissing, aboard the British gunship HMS Osprey, intercepted three dhows carrying Ethiopians to the slave markets in the Arabian port of Jeddah.

Sold for maize

Commander Gissing's mission was part of British attempts to end the slave trade - a trade that London had supported until 1807, when it was abolished across the British Empire.

On their arrival in Yemen, the children were looked after by local families and missionaries

All the 204 slaves freed by Commander Gissing were from the Oromo ethnic group and most were children.

The Oromo, despite being the most populous of all Ethiopian groups, had long been dominated by the country's Amhara and Tigrayan elites and were regularly used as slaves.

Emperor Menelik II, who has been described as Ethiopia's "greatest slave entrepreneur", taxed the trade to pay for guns and ammunition as he battled for control of the whole country, which he ruled from 1889 to 1913.

Bisho Jarsa was among the 183 children found on the dhows.

She had been orphaned with her two brothers, as a result of the drought and disease that swept through Ethiopia in 1887, and left in the care of one of her father's slaves.

But the continuing threat of starvation resulted in Bisho being sold to slave merchants for a small quantity of maize.

After a journey of six weeks, she reached the Red Sea, where she was put on board one of the Jeddah-bound dhows intercepted by HMS Osprey.

Continue reading the main story

The missionaries recorded detailed histories of the former slaves, educated them and baptised them into the Christian faith”

End Quote Her first memory of the British was the sound of automatic gunfire blasting into the sails and rigging of the slave dhow while she huddled below deck with the other Oromo children.

They all fully expected to be eaten as this is what the Arab slave traders had told them would happen if they were captured by the British.

But Commander Gissing took the Oromo to Aden, where the British authorities had to decide what to do with the former slaves.

The Muslim children were adopted by local families. The remaining children were placed in the care of a mission of the Free Church of Scotland - but the harsh climate took its toll and by the end of the year 11 had died.

The missionaries sought an alternative home for them, eventually settling on another of the Church's missions, the Lovedale Institution in South Africa's Eastern Cape - on the other side of the continent.

Bisho and the rest of the children reached Lovedale on 21 August 1890.

The missionaries recorded detailed histories of the former slaves, educated them and baptised them into the Christian faith.

Mandela fascinated Continue reading the main story

Her real liberation was not the British warship but the education she later received in South Africa”

End Quote Neville Alexander Life was tough here too, however, and by 1903, at least another 18 of the children had died.

In that year, the Lovedale authorities asked the survivors whether they would like to return to Ethiopia.

Some opted to do so, but it was only after a protracted process, involving the intervention of German advisers to Emperor Menelik, that 17 former slaves sailed back to Ethiopia in 1909.

The rest had by this time married or found careers and opted to stay in South Africa.

Bisho was trained for domestic service, but she must have shown signs of special talent, because she was one of only two of the Oromo girls who went on to train as a teacher.

In 1902 she left Lovedale and found a position at a school in Cradock, then in 1911 she married Frederick Scheepers, a minister in the church.

Frederick and Bisho Jarsa had a daughter, Dimbiti. Dimbiti married David Alexander, a carpenter, and one of their children, born on 22 October 1936, was Neville Alexander.

By the 1950s and 60s he was a well-known political activist, who helped found the short-lived National Liberation Front.

Continue reading the main story

If you know these people - the freed slaves who decided to return home in 1909 - please use the form below to let us know:

Aguchello Chabani Agude Bulcha Amanu Figgo Baki Malaka Berille Boko Grant Dinkitu Boensa Fayesse Gemo Fayissa Umbe Galgal Dikko Galgalli Shangalla Gamaches Garba Gutama Tarafo Hawe Sukute Liban Bultum Nagaro Chali Nuro Chabse Rufo Gangilla Tolassa WayessaHe was arrested and from 1964 until 1974 was jailed in the bleak prison on Robben Island.

His fellow prisoners, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, were fascinated by his part-Ethiopian origins but at the time, he was not aware that his grandmother had been captured as a slave and so they could not draw any comparisons with their own fight against oppression.

So what did he feel when he found out how is grandmother had ended up in South Africa?

"It reinforced my sense of being an African in a fundamental way," he told the BBC.

Under apartheid, his family was classified as Coloured, or mixed-race, rather than African.

"We always struggled against this nomenclature," he said.

He also noted that it explained why he had often been mistaken for an Ethiopian during his travels.

The strongest parallel he can draw between his life and that of his grandmother is the role of schooling.

"Her real liberation was not the British warship but the education she later received in South Africa," he said.

"Equally, while on Robben Island, we turned it into a university and ensured that all the prisoners learned to read and write, to prepare them for their future lives."

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Password joke is Fringe funniest

24 August 2011 Last updated at 23:29 GMT Nick Helm said he "knew" his joke was funniest on the Fringe Comedian Nick Helm has won an award for the best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe.

The up-and-coming funnyman was given the prize by digital TV channel Dave, whose panel put a selection of their favourites to a public vote.

He won for the joke: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

Last year's winner, quick-fire joker Tim Vine, was beaten into second place by Helm.

Helm said: "I knew my joke was the funniest joke of all the other jokes in 2011.

"Thank you to Dave and all the people that voted for proving me right."

Veteran entertainer Paul Daniels won the wooden spoon for the worst joke of the festival.

He won the dubious honour for his gag: "I said to a fella 'Is there a B&Q in Henley?' He said 'No, there's an H, an E, an N an L and a Y'."

The top 10 festival funnies were judged to be:

1) Nick Helm: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

2) Tim Vine: "Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels."

3) Hannibal Buress: "People say 'I'm taking it one day at a time'. You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works."

4) Tim Key: "Drive-Thru McDonalds was more expensive than I thought... once you've hired the car..."

5) Matt Kirshen: "I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped playing chess."

6) Sarah Millican: "My mother told me, you don't have to put anything in your mouth you don't want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards."

7) Alan Sharp: "I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure."

8) Mark Watson: "Someone asked me recently - what would I rather give up, food or sex. Neither! I'm not falling for that one again, wife."

9) Andrew Lawrence: "I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can't even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails."

10) DeAnne Smith: "My friend died doing what he loved ... Heroin."

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Inmates painted for Jacqui Smith

24 August 2011 Last updated at 17:32 GMT Jacqui Smith lost her seat at the 2010 election An inquiry is under way into how two prisoners ended up decorating the house of former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith instead of doing community work.

The men, on day release from HMP Hewell in Redditch, were on a scheme run by local charity Batchley Support Group.

Ms Smith said the prisoners "didn't have anything else on" and she made a donation to the charity for their time.

But the prison service said "under no circumstances should prisoners be taken to work in a private home".

Ms Smith stepped down as home secretary in June 2009 following the revelation that she had inadvertently claimed parliamentary expenses for pornographic films ordered by her husband.

She lost her seat as Labour MP for the Worcestershire constituency of Redditch in the 2010 general election.

Phone-in

Since leaving politics, Ms Smith has worked on a number of media projects, including making a documentary on pornography for the BBC.

On Wednesday morning - when the story about the decorating work appeared on the front page of the Sun newspaper - she was hosting a phone-in on LBC radio covering topics including the effectiveness of community punishments.

Continue reading the main story

I know that when it's anything to do with me, the papers like to put probably the very worst spin they possibly can on it”

End Quote Jacqui Smith Former Labour MP She told listeners: "You may or may not have seen the front of the Sun, but they are having a bit of a go at me today because two prisoners who were coming towards the end of their sentence and doing work experience carried out about three hours' work at my house doing a bit of decorating.

"It hadn't been cleared with the prison authorities in advance and they've now launched an inquiry and the Sun is having a go at me.

"Well, just to set, I hope, the record a little bit straight, these are guys that were working with a local community organisation. They do a whole range of odd jobs and working in the local community.

"On one day, when actually they didn't have anything else on, they did come to my house and do three hours' worth of painting, for which me and my husband made a donation to the community group."

She added: "I think it's a bit hard on the community organisation because I think they were doing a really good job.

"But I know that when it's anything to do with me, the papers like to put probably the very worst spin they possibly can on it and in my view, that's what the Sun has done today."

Rehabilitation scheme

The two men are believed to have carried out the painting for Ms Smith in July while on a rehabilitation scheme ahead of their release from custody.

"The decision to provide prisoners for this work was taken without consultation with HMP Hewell or the Ministry of Justice and was a mistake," a prison service spokesman said.

Continue reading the main story

The group does agree in retrospect that undertaking work on Ms Smith's home may not have been the best use of prisoners' time”

End Quote Batchley Support Group "Offenders should work on projects which help the whole community.

"The scheme has been suspended while a full internal investigation is undertaken."

In a statement, Batchley Support Group said the resettlement-to-work project had been agreed with HMP Hewell some time ago and current staff had "not found any documentation stipulating exactly what prisoners can or cannot do as part of the agreement".

"Batchley Support Group weren't aware of the scope of the restrictions and Ms Smith and Richard Timney [her husband] certainly wouldn't have been aware of these," it said.

"However, the group does agree in retrospect that undertaking work on Ms Smith's home may not have been the best use of prisoners' time, though it should be pointed out that the donation made for the work has enabled Batchley Support Group to carry out much-needed work in the community."

The charity said the prisoners worked "for a maximum of three hours each on one day", and on the previous day, two inmates also visited Ms Smith's house to collect some plants she had donated to the group.

"These plants were to be used as part of a pond restoration project we have been working on with Hewell Prison," it added.

'Scheme abused'

The prison service said "anybody involved with resettlement work with prisoners will have been made aware of the restrictions in place".

"If prisoners have no work, it is made clear that they should been returned to their prison. Under no circumstances should prisoners be taken to work in a private home."

Ms Smith's Conservative successor in Redditch, Karen Lumley, said she was "extremely disappointed that a community scheme like this has been abused in this way".

"I find it very sad that this scheme has now been suspended, but hope that with stricter guidelines it may continue in the future," she told the BBC.

"I also hope that the Batchley Support Group who also do a fantastic job look closely at their procedures so they are not brought into disrepute."

View the original article here

Gaddafi urged to halt Libya fight

24 August 2011 Last updated at 17:14 GMT William Hague: "It is time now for Colonel Gaddafi to stop issuing delusional statements"

Foreign Secretary William Hague has urged Col Muammar Gaddafi to tell his supporters to stop fighting, saying their numbers are "dwindling".

Mr Hague said he did not know where the Libyan leader was, but he had been "clearly rejected" by his own people.

While opposition forces control large parts of Tripoli, there are reports of gun battles with regime loyalists.

The UK and France have invited Libya's opposition political authority to an international conference next week.

Britain is also talking to humanitarian agencies about how to get emergency medical supplies into Tripoli.

Aid groups have warned that the city's hospitals and medical centres have been "overwhelmed with casualties" and that medicine and fuel supplies are running low.

The United Nations' envoy in Tripoli has said that opposition forces now control the vast majority of the capital, but there are reports of pockets of resistance from pro-Gaddafi forces.

Rebel forces say they expect to detain Col Gaddafi soon, but he has urged forces loyal to him to continue fighting to "cleanse the city".

After chairing a meeting of the National Security Council meeting - the third to be held in consecutive days over Libya - Mr Hague urged Col Gaddafi to stop making "delusional statements".

Battle for Tripoli

He said Col Gaddafi should accept the fact that he had "lost control" of most of Tripoli and large parts of Libya and would not be able to regain it.

"There is a clear, fundamental, decisive rejection of that regime by the people of Libya," he said.

Continue reading the main story

The National Transitional Council faces an important and significant challenge in translating a popular uprising into stable government for Libya”

End Quote Douglas Alexander Shadow foreign secretary "He [Col Gaddafi] should be telling his dwindling and remaining forces now to stand down."

He said the government remained "actively engaged" in both military and humanitarian efforts in Libya as well as United Nations moves to unfreeze £12bn Libyan assets in the UK held withheld since the conflict began.

Downing Street said David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had invited Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) to attend a conference on the country's future in Paris next week.

"This will be an opportunity for the NTC to set out how the international community can help them on the path to establishing a free, democratic and inclusive Libya and for all those who wish to support Libya to discuss the role that they can play to support this," a Number 10 spokesman said.

British nationals

As fighting continued in Tripoli, BBC journalists confined for days in a Tripoli hotel by armed guards loyal to the Gaddafi regime were released after representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross arranged for them to leave.

Those freed from the Hotel Rixos also included a US congressman and an Indian MP.

But amid concerns for the safety of the small number of British nationals still in Tripoli, it emerged that a Maltese vessel which the Foreign Office suggested that Britons could use to leave the capital had not reached its intended destination, instead returning to Malta.

The Maltese authorities said it was not considered "safe enough" to transfer passengers from the city centre to the port.

The UK government has advised all Britons still in Libya to leave the country immediately.

Security experts said they expected there to be continued attacks from remnants of the regime over the coming days and weeks amid fears of reprisals should pro-Gaddafi forces lay down their arms.

'Significant challenges' Demonstrators outside the Libyan Embassy in London wore wristbands showing the date the uprising began

For Labour, shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander said it was clear the days of Gaddafi rule were over and that he was "on the run".

But he said there was a lot of work to be done to bring stability to the country, to disarm combatants and to ensure the Libyan people could get access to basic amenities.

"Taking a city is not the same as running a city," he told the BBC.

"The National Transitional Council faces an important and significant challenge in translating a popular uprising into stable government for Libya."

Mr Alexander said the UK could play a role in supporting what he said must be a Libyan-led process in developing new constitutional arrangements for the country.

Military operations

Nato has said its military operations will continue until all pro-Gaddafi forces surrender.

The UK has taken a lead role in five months of strikes against the apparatus of the Gaddafi regime, in accordance with a UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

The UK has also been providing logistical advice and training to the anti-Gaddafi forces but has effectively ruled out sending in ground troops as part of a transition to a new government.

The only Conservative MP to vote against military intervention in Libya has continued to question the motives behind the campaign.

John Baron described the action as the "longest assassination attempt in history" and said he remained concerned that successors to the Gaddafi regime might not prove committed to democracy.

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BBC unveils map of UK 3G coverage

24 August 2011 Last updated at 02:18 GMT By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter Rory Cellan-Jones takes a trip from Cardiff to London to measure the hot spots and not spots on 3G networks

A BBC crowd-sourcing survey into the state of mobile Britain suggests that 3G has some way to go before it offers comprehensive coverage across the UK.

Despite operator claims of 90% or more 3G coverage, there are still many notspots, including in major towns and cities, according to the map.

Those testers able to receive a data connection only got a 3G signal 75% of the time.

For nearly a quarter of the time they had to rely on older 2G technology.

2G typically offers around one tenth the speed of 3G "mobile broadband".

Mobile coverage has become a huge issue as people rely increasingly on their smartphones to surf the web and send email as well as making phone calls.

Last month the BBC invited people to download an app that would collate the 3G coverage their Android handsets were getting.

The experiment aimed to offer a snapshot of coverage.

Industry first Map showing where data was collected

44,600 volunteers took part, providing testing firm Epitiro with some 1.7 million hours worth of data from around the UK.

"The BBC has undertaken a crowd-sourcing survey that is well beyond any scale seen by the mobile industry in this country or any other," said Gavin John, chief executive of Epitiro.

"Over 44,000 volunteers from the Shetland Islands to the Isles of Scilly participated with 42 million locations tested from every county in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."

"For the first time consumers have the means to see 3G coverage precisely where they live, work and travel," he added.

Operators too were broadly pleased by the initiative.

O2 said it "welcomed the crowd sourcing experiment", but added that more detail - for example signal quality - would have been useful.

Continue reading the main story The map can be searched by postcode42 million locations have been recordedWhite space represents areas where no tests were conductedEach tile represents a maximum area of approximately 200m x 200m A green tile means that handsets spent most of their time on 3G in that areaA purple tile means handsets spent most of their time on 2G "The issue of coverage is no longer about covering the land mass to meet a percentage target, but about depth and quality of experience," said an O2 spokesman.

"The results don't show the 'experience' on each network - for example, speed or the ability to hold a connection. Simply having coverage does not guarantee a good service."

Everything Everywhere - the parent company of Orange and T-Mobile - said it "was a step in the right direction" for offering consumers transparent information about coverage.

"It is a little too early to tell how much it tallies with our own maps or how we would use the information," said James Hattam, director of service management at Everything Everywhere.

Three was concerned that the picture painted by the map was driven as much by the number of people from each operator taking part as by actual coverage.

"Three has the UK's largest 3G network, but as a newer operator with fewer customers, is necessarily less well represented on this map at a local level," said Phil Sheppard, director of network strategy at Three UK.

No service Continue reading the main story

If our 3G survey has shown anything it's this - for many thousands of people the quality of their mobile phone signal is of great importance and they are thirsty for more information.

What's striking is that while overall coverage is pretty good, it's still far more patchy than the maps provided by the mobile operators would suggest.

My own experience this week shows that in the centre of a major city, on a major inter-city rail route, in a village in rural Oxfordshire, you cannot rely on getting a good 3G signal.

We know the mobile networks - and Ofcom - will be studying the map with interest. With the 4G auction coming up next year, the challenge for the mobile industry and the regulator is to show that they can improve speeds across the network while ensuring that those people who are in notspots now are not left even further behind in the future

The results suggest that the performance of different operators varies enormously from region to region.

Windsor Holden, an analyst with Juniper Research, homed in on West Sussex.

"There are substantial differences in Chichester where, for example, O2 has poor coverage to the west while Vodafone has issues in the east," said Mr Holden.

"There is probably a correlation to their base station configurations. When these networks were rolled out there was not the attention paid to planning and so networks aren't as efficient as they should be."

The map underlines the need for people signing up to mobile broadband to research coverage in their local area, according to Michael Phillips of Broadbandchoices.co.uk.

He warned that the quality of 3G data services across the UK still varied widely.

"Mobile broadband swings between where fixed broadband was from 1998 to 2003, but many people are expecting the same speeds for their smartphones as they get at home," he said.

"The reality is that 3G is a good service in major cities but it is failing to deliver on trains and in the countryside."

Among the worst places for mobile coverage are the UK's road and rail networks.

"A whole stretch of the A3 has little or no coverage and there are substantial blackspots when people are travelling," said Juniper Research's Windsor Holden.

"Mobile's key advantage is that you should be able to use it anytime and anywhere and that is not the case at the moment. There is no reason why coverage could not be improved in these areas," he said.

Continue reading the main story 4G solution? The government has recently offered a cash injection to boost the roll-out of next-generation fixed broadband in rural areas.

Ofcom's Communications Consumer Panel last month called for a similar strategy to tackle mobile notspots.

It recommended that the upcoming 4G mobile auction should be used as an opportunity to upgrade the UK's mobile infrastructure.

"Effective mobile communication is essential, and we need intervention to improve services. The decision by tens of thousands of people to take part in the survey demonstrates how significant coverage is to people's everyday lives," said panel member Colin Browne.

Next steps

It is important to note that the BBC's map is a crowd sourced snapshot of coverage rather than a scientific test.

Measuring mobile coverage is complex and the signal that someone receives depends on a number of factors, including whether they are indoors or outdoors, what time of day they are using the phone and what handset they have.

Drive-by tests conducted by Ofcom in Devon recently revealed that often feature phones were a better option for those wanting to just make a phone call in rural areas.

A total of 270 models or variants of smartphones and tablets variants were used in the BBC study, including six varieties of HTC handset and Samsung's popular Galaxy handsets.

The data collected is by far the most comprehensive to date, although it is not the only experiment of its kind.

Opensignalmaps offers a similar service. It has been collecting coverage data since December 2010.

Its 30,000 UK users have mapped 10 million locations. Their results suggest that 3G is only available 58% of the time.

Opensignalmaps has pinpointed North Wales as the area with the worst coverage - with the highest concentration of notspots.

"Looking at our map most of the big cities are well served by 3G, but it's clear that 3G coverage is still a massive issue anywhere outside major cities," said map creator Brendan Gill.

Comparing operators has been difficult for consumers up to now because they all measure their networks in different ways.

O2 thinks that projects such as the BBC's map might offer a better answer.

"We would like to see these types of initiatives shape the future of customer experience measurement," said a spokesman.

Everything Everywhere's James Hattam said he hoped Ofcom would develop the map further.

"If the sample size was increased and Ofcom took it on then it could be a really useful tool in the industry," he said.

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Species count put at 8.7 million

23 August 2011 Last updated at 21:07 GMT By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News The black-capped woodnymph of Colombia was identified as recently as 2009 The natural world contains about 8.7 million species, according to a new estimate described by scientists as the most accurate ever.

But the vast majority have not been identified - and cataloguing them all could take more than 1,000 years.

The number comes from studying relationships between the branches and leaves of the "family tree of life".

The team warns in the journal PLoS Biology that many species will become extinct before they can be studied.

Although the number of species on the planet might seem an obvious figure to know, a way to calculate it with confidence has been elusive.

In a commentary also carried in PLoS Biology, former Royal Society president Lord (Robert) May observes: "It is a remarkable testament to humanity's narcissism that we know the number of books in the US Library of Congress on 1 February 2011 was 22,194,656, but cannot tell you - to within an order of magnitude - how many distinct species of plants and animals we share our world with."

Now, it appears, we can.

"We've been thinking about this for several years now - we've had a look at a number of different approaches, and didn't have any success," one of the research team, Derek Tittensor, told BBC News.

"So this was basically our last chance, the last thing we tried, and it seems to work."

Dr Tittensor, who is based at the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Unep-WCMC) and Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, worked on the project alongside peers from Dalhousie University in Canada and the University of Hawaii.

The vast majority of the 8.7 million are animals, with progressively smaller numbers of fungi, plants, protozoa (a group of single-celled organisms) and chromists (algae and other micro-organisms).

The figure excludes bacteria and some other types of micro-organism.

Linnaean steps

About 1.2 million species have been formally described, the vast majority from the land rather than the oceans.

Continue reading the main story Animals: 7.77 million (12% described)Fungi: 0.61 million (7% described)Plants: 0.30 million (70% described)Protozoa: 0.04 million (22% described)Chromists: 0.03 million (50% described)The trick this team used was to look at the relationship between species and the broader groupings to which they belong.

In 1758, Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus developed a comprehensive system of taxonomy, as the field is known, which is still - with modifications - in use today.

Groups of closely related species belong to the same genus, which in turn are clustered into families, then orders, then classes, then phyla, and finally into kingdoms (such as the animal kingdom).

The higher up this hierarchical tree of life you look, the rarer new discoveries become - hardly surprising, as a discovery of a new species will be much more common than the discovery of a totally new phylum or class.

The researchers quantified the relationship between the discovery of new species and the discovery of new higher groups such as phyla and orders, and then used it to predict how many species there are likely to be.

"We discovered that, using numbers from the higher taxonomic groups, we can predict the number of species," said Dalhousie researcher Sina Adl.

"The approach accurately predicted the number of species in several well-studied groups such as mammals, fishes and birds, providing confidence in the method."

And the number came out as 8.7 million - plus or minus about a million.

Muddied waters

If this is correct, then only 14% of the world's species have yet been identified - and only 9% of those in the oceans.

The rate of species discovery has remained about even ever since Haeckel compiled his Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms of Nature) a century ago

"The rest are primarily going to be smaller organisms, and a large proportion of them will be dwelling in places that are hard to reach or hard to sample, like the deep oceans," said Dr Tittensor.

"When we think of species we tend to think of mammals or birds, which are pretty well known.

"But when you go to a tropical rainforest, it's easy to find new insects, and when you go to the deep sea and pull up a trawl, 90% of what you get can be undiscovered species."

At current rates of discovery, completing the catalogue would take over 1,000 years - but new techniques such as DNA bar-coding could speed things up.

The scientists say they do not expect their calculations to mark the end of this line of inquiry, and are looking to peers to refine methods and conclusions.

One who has already looked through the paper is Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

"I think it's definitely a creative and innovative approach, but like every other method there are potential biases and I think it's probably a conservative figure," he told BBC News.

"But it's such a high figure that it wouldn't really matter if it's out by one or two million either way.

"It is really picking up this point that we know very little about the species with which we share the planet; and we are converting the Earth's natural landscapes so quickly, with total ignorance of our impact on the life in them."

Follow Richard on Twitter

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Flood warning issued for Dorset

24 August 2011 Last updated at 21:52 GMT A police car was among those stranded during flash floods last Thursday A warning for heavy rain and flash flooding has again been issued overnight for Dorset.

The Environment Agency and Met Office said heavy rain could affect the county between 23:00 BST on Wednesday and midday on Thursday.

There is a 30% chance of more than 50mm of rainfall in six hours in some areas.

Last Thursday, vehicles broke down, homes were flooded to "waist deep" and roads were closed after flash floods hit Dorset.

Dorset Police warned residents and motorists to take extra care and to seek regular weather updates from the Met Office.

A spokesman said that if localised flooding happened in urban areas, there was "potential for a number of surface water flooding incidents".

The worst-hit areas last week were Lulworth to Bournemouth and on to Christchurch.

Patients had to be evacuated from a private hospital after a ceiling was damaged because of the water.

Several people were rescued from vehicles stuck in flood water. Bournemouth's Lower and Central Gardens were also submerged.

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Cash machine attacked with a shoe

24 August 2011 Last updated at 17:11 GMT The woman stood at the machine for several minutes before attacking it, police said

A woman who attacked a cash machine in Wiltshire with a high-heeled stiletto, is being sought by police.

The cash machine, outside Barclays Bank in the Market Place in Chippenham, was struck "almost 50 times" by a woman shortly after midnight on 2 July.

Officers said the woman stood at the cash machine for several minutes before removing her shoe and striking it.

Both keypad and screen were damaged in the attack. Police are appealing for help to identify the woman.

Wiltshire Police released CCTV footage of the incident on Wednesday.

A force spokesman said the reason for the attack was unknown, adding officers did not find the woman's card inside the machine.

Det Con Richard Gardner said: "This was a completely senseless and inane act which caused sufficient damage to make the machine unusable for other customers.

"I would like to hear from anyone who recognises the woman shown in the CCTV or who has any information in relation to this incident."

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Caught on camera

25 August 2011 Last updated at 01:55 GMT By Matthew Cooke Reporter, BBC London There are over 12 thousand CCTV cameras on the London Underground system, monitoring the movements of millions of passengers every single day.

But some commuters are also doing their own electronic reconnaissance.

There are a growing number of websites and photo galleries dedicated to critiquing the appearance, dress and behaviour of fellow travellers.

Adam Moger was travelling on the Northern line in South London one Sunday morning, when his photograph was secretly taken by someone using a mobile phone.

It wasn't until three days later when his friends contacted him, that Mr Moger realised his image was now part of an online trend.

His picture appeared on the website Tubecrush.net and a connected twitter account, and his looks and fashion sense were being rated online.

"I had no idea whatsoever - I was just sat on the tube minding my own business one Sunday morning after being out the night before," he said.

Adam Moger was surprised to find a photo of him on the underground being circulated on the internet

"A couple of days later my friends were phoning me up and emailing me - and laughing about my picture being online."

Tubecrush.net invites commuters to send in pictures of strangers they find attractive or eye-catching. Subjects must be men travelling on the London underground.

The person having their photograph taken is normally unaware their image is online. "It was slightly strange at first, but then I was quite flattered," said Mr Moger.

"We always see people on the tube who we fancy. Then sometimes you wish you had taken a picture of them, but I don't think I'll be taking pictures of other people though!"

As seen on TV

Tubecrush.net was set up by four young professionals living in South London.

Seven months ago Steve Motion, Gemma Dean, Andy Kaufman and Michael Sparrow were watching a dating quiz programme on television when they came up with the idea for the site.

Mr Kaufman, the technical controller said: "We were watching women judging male contestants on the TV, and thought it'd be funny if you could do that in real life."

"We thought taking pictures of people on the tube in London would be best, because the underground has a certain sort of atmosphere."

"People often sit in silence and look around at everyone they're travelling with - so it seemed like a fun idea."

"We decided to start taking pictures ourselves and then asked strangers to send theirs in too."

Worldwide phenomenon

Mr Kaufman explained that the site now receives pictures from as far afield as Brazil and Japan, as well as other UK cities, including Glasgow and Manchester. But many are rejected.

"If the photographs weren't taken on the Tube then we don't tweet them, as we want to keep the main website focused on the Underground itself," he said.

Hundreds of photographs sent in are sorted into categories, including which part of the tube system the picture was taken on.

"The Northern Line and the District Line seem to be most popular for pictures," said Mr Kaufman.

The London Underground is considered a public place so is fair game for photographing strangers

A number of similar social networking accounts and online galleries have sprung up. Some like @peopleonthetube focus on odd clothing and strange circumstances, while the now defunct @tube_chicks rated pictures of female passengers.

But @tubecrush decided not to ask for pictures of women as "we felt like men taking pictures of women on the tube feels different - it's not the same as gay men or women taking pictures of other men," said Mr Kaufman.

The site first attracted gay men who wanted to send in photographs, but now 60 percent of pictures received are from women.

Tubecrush.net is now so popular it has encouraged a sister twitter account to be set up in New York - @subwaycrush.

It has also begun to sell branded merchandise and is looking at setting up websites in other cities.

Legal concerns

Tubecrush.net sets out on its website what to do if someone sees their own picture in a gallery, and wants it removed.

It has a "photo removal request" option and so far, in seven months, only three people have asked for their image to be taken down.

Good service on the Northern Line - some routes are more popular with amateur photographers

Transport for London (TfL) said that all commuters on the Underground were considered to be in a public area, making photographing them legal.

But there are ethical concerns when the images of strangers are uploaded online.

Most are completely unaware their image has been uploaded and is being scored by strangers.

The team behind @tubecrush said: "We hope people take the site in the spirit it was intended - it is not to cause offence."

Another website which uses pictures taken on public transport, @peopleonthetube told the BBC: "This blog is intended as a celebration of life on the London Underground. It does not aim to mock, make fun of or objectify people. It's just a bit of fun."

Yet many will find the website and others like it an invasion of privacy.

It is yet another consequence of the social networking and internet revolution that we need to come to terms with, and perhaps address. The debate will doubtless continue.

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West End job for Girls Aloud star

24 August 2011 Last updated at 14:56 GMT Walsh (l) had been due to take over from Holden (r) in December Girls Aloud singer Kimberley Walsh is to take over Amanda Holden's role in West End show Shrek the Musical.

Walsh, 29, had been scheduled to play Princess Fiona from December but is taking over two months earlier than planned because Holden is pregnant.

Holden, who lost a baby in February seven months into her pregnancy, will leave the show on 3 October with Walsh starting two days later.

The musical, based on the 2001 film, opened in London's West End in June.

Holden, 40, and her husband Chris Hughes announced on Wednesday they were expecting a girl.

The Cutting It actress went to hospital in February after her baby son stopped moving. He was later stillborn.

"The first half of this year has been unbelievably difficult for us," said Holden, adding that she and her husband were "beyond thrilled" to share the news.

The role in Shrek marks a West End return for Walsh, who made a cameo in Les Miserables as part of 2008 TV series The Passions of Girls Aloud.

Nigel Lindsay and Richard Blackwood will remain in their roles in the show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, currently booking until October 2012.

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Israel kills Gaza militant leader

24 August 2011 Last updated at 11:04 GMT The al-Quds Brigade leader was killed in the southern Gaza city of Rafah An Israeli air strike has killed a commander from the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli missile hit the car of Ismael al-Ismar, a leader of al-Quds Brigades in the city of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border.

Shortly afterwards, mortars were fired from northern Gaza into southern Israel. There were no injuries.

Violence between Israel and militants in Gaza has flared since a deadly attack on Israeli buses last week.

The Israeli military said its target in Wednesday's attack had been an activist implicated in weapons smuggling and militant operations in Egypt's Sinai region.

Fragile 'truce'

The BBC's Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says these exchanges threaten to undermine the informal ceasefire agreement that was announced by an official from Hamas, which governs Gaza, late on Sunday.

This was joined by smaller militant groups.

Al-Quds Brigade is the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad organisation.

On Monday, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) - agreed to halt rocket fire against Israel as a "temporary" measure "for the sake of the Palestinian people".

Earlier, Israel's army radio reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet had decided the military would stop its air strikes on Gaza if militants there halted their attacks.

Tensions rose rapidly after a series of shooting ambushes near the Red Sea resort of Eilat last Thursday, which killed eight Israelis.

The militants responsible are believed to have been Palestinians from Gaza who crossed from Egypt.

The leader of the PRC, which Israel blamed for the attack was among 15 Palestinians killed in subsequent air raids in Gaza.

Militant groups there responded by firing more than a hundred rockets and mortar shells at Israeli towns and cities. One man was killed.

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UN warns on 12m stateless people

24 August 2011 Last updated at 23:50 GMT Children born to stateless parents become stateless too Some 12 million people around the world do not have citizenship of any country, and are being denied basic human rights as a result, the UN has warned.

The organisation is calling for more countries to sign up to two conventions on statelessness.

It says the issue is becoming worse as stateless children are born to stateless parents.

The problem is most widespread in South East Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"These people are in desperate need of help because they live in a nightmarish legal limbo," said Antonio Guterres of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"Apart from the misery caused to the people themselves, the effect of marginalising whole groups of people across generations creates great stress in the societies they live in and is sometimes a source of conflict."

'Shameful'

Due to their lack of nationality, stateless people can face a whole range of problems including issues owning property, opening a bank account, getting married legally or registering the birth of a child.

Some even face long periods of detention, because they cannot prove who they are or where they are from.

Only 66 states are signed up to the 1954 Convention entitling stateless people to minimum standards of treatment while a mere 38 are party to the 1961 Convention which provides a legal framework to help states reduce statelessness.

"After 50 years, these conventions have attracted only a small number of states,'' Mr Guterres added.

"It's shameful that millions of people are living without nationality - a fundamental human right."

However, in recent months Croatia, Panama, the Philippines and Turkmenistan have all signed up to one or both of the international conventions, the UNHCR said.

People can become stateless for a variety of reasons, including the break-up of nations such as the Soviet Union and the Yugoslavia, or the creation of new countries after colonial powers leave, such as in parts of Africa and Asia.

Stateless people include the Rohingya in Burma, some hill tribes in Thailand, some Roma groups in Europe and the Bidoon people of the Gulf States.

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Jury rules against penis amputee

24 August 2011 Last updated at 20:54 GMT Phillip Seaton and wife Deborah sued for "loss of service, love and affection" A jury in Kentucky has sided against a truck driver and his wife who sued the doctor who amputated his penis during an emergency cancer treatment in 2007.

Phillip Seaton had argued his penis was removed without his consent during what was supposed to have been a circumcision to treat inflammation.

Dr John Patterson said he had found life-threatening cancer during the procedure and saved Mr Seaton's life.

The Seatons had asked for $16m (£9.8m) for "loss of service" and "love".

They had already sued Jewish Hospital, where the surgery took place; the facility settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

After brief deliberations on Wednesday, the jury ruled unanimously against the Seatons' claim that Dr Patterson had not exercised proper care, but split 10-2 against a claim Mr Seaton had not consented to the amputation.

Dr John Patterson (right, with his lawyer last week) says he found cancer during the surgery

In court filings, the Seatons argued Mr Seaton should have been awakened from anaesthesia and consulted before Dr Patterson did the surgery.

Clay Robinson, a lawyer for Dr Patterson, argued his client had only removed about an inch of the penis after finding it riddled with cancer, with the rest amputated by another doctor.

He also contended Mr Seaton had signed a document authorising necessary treatment in unforeseen circumstances.

Penile cancer is rare, with only 1,360 new cases and 320 deaths estimated in the US in 2011, according to the National Institutes of Health.

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Is the mosquito menace growing in the UK?

23 August 2011 Last updated at 00:46 GMT By Virginia Brown BBC News Magazine Complaints of mosquito bites are on the rise in the UK. So should Britons brace themselves for a future mosquito menace?

Hovering perfectly at ear level with a lingering, bothersome whine, mosquitoes leave you with bites that lead to itchy, swollen welts.

In much of the world, affected by malaria, repelling them is a matter of life and death. In the UK they are a mere annoyance, interrupting summer holidays and barbecues.

Based on a survey of UK local authorities, reports of mosquito bites over the last 10 years are 2.5 times greater than in the 10 years up to 1996.

NHS Direct statistics show 9,061 calls in England complaining of bites and stings from early May this year to now - up nearly 15% from last summer. Not all bite complaints are due to mosquitoes - many can be attributed to bedbugs, midges and fleas.

But conditions in the UK, particularly in southeastern England, are increasingly hospitable to mosquitoes.

"The wet weather through May and June this year, along with a warm summer, has affected the population because mosquitoes like the standing breeding water," says zoologist Michael Bonsall at Oxford University.

It's difficult to track mosquito numbers accurately, but the UK authorities are trying to do so.

Continue reading the main story Culex pipiens is the most common mosquito in BritainOnly females bite humans, males feed off nectarBites often occur at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes' internal clocks tell them it's feeding timeA quarter of British species do not bite humans but feed on animals and birdsAnopheles mosquitoes are the only known carriers of malariaRed bumps and itching caused by bites is an allergic reaction to the mosquito's salivaThe Health Protection Agency has organised the Mosquito Recording Scheme to look into where and how mosquitoes live and breed.

And the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, with help from the HPA, has created Mosquito Watch, a voluntary reporting system geared towards collecting and analysing various specimens.

Not only do mosquitoes swarm over pools of standing water, including bowls left outside for pets, they appear under man-hole covers and even travel on London's Tube network.

But while mosquitoes transmit deadly diseases in many parts of the world, they do not cause major harm in the UK.

They may spoil picnics in the park, but they are usually only a major problem when Britons travel to countries with malaria, dengue or other mosquito-borne diseases.

But once upon a time, malaria-carrying mosquitoes could be found in the salt marshes of southeastern England.

It is believed that malaria - literally "bad air" - dates back at least to Roman times in the UK, and outbreaks occurred as recently as the years just following World War I.

British doctor Ronald Ross, who discovered the malarial parasite living in the gastrointestinal tract of the Anopheles mosquito in the 19th Century, recruited teams to eliminate the larvae from stagnant pools and marshes.

The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) has been spotted as close as Belgium

Malaria in England had effectively died out by the 1950s, mostly due to the draining of much of the marshland where mosquitoes bred.

But because of the growth of global travel, the number of imported cases of the disease in the UK has risen, with nearly 2,000 a year today.

In many cases, live mosquitoes have been found on aircraft, or travelling in luggage, having been transported from countries with malaria.

On rare occasions, people may even have contracted malaria in Europe and North America, dubbed "airport malaria".

Five of the 30-plus species of mosquito found in the UK are not native. One variety is coming alarmingly close to the UK. The Asian tiger mosquito - Aedes albopictus - known for its white and black striped pattern has been spotted as close as Belgium.

Continue reading the main story

It is possible that Aedes albopictus [Asian tiger mosquito] could make its way to the UK”

End Quote Dr James Logan Medical entomologist While the species does not carry malaria, it does transmit West Nile virus, Yellow fever and dengue.

"It is possible that Aedes albopictus could make its way to the UK," says Dr James Logan, medical entomologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

"Because they lay their drought-resistant eggs in transportable materials, like used tyres, there is a possibility that they can be transported to a country where they are not normally found.

"Some studies suggest that they could survive the UK winter, however, to date this species has not been found in the UK and the HPA are keeping a watchful eye on it."

Bonsall agrees and adds that predictive models show how malaria-carrying species could even make their way to areas such as the North Kent marshes, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Mosquitoes are becoming immune to the insecticides used to treat them - via spray or bed nets, according to a recent study from Senegal. Between 2007 and 2010, insects with a resistance to a popular type of pesticide rose from 8% to 48%.

"This could be a big problem for future control," says Dr Hilary Ranson, head of the vector group at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

But according to Dr Logan, the health infrastructure and access to drugs in the UK means malaria is unlikely to take hold and cause major problems.

Unlike much of the world, the rise of the mosquito will be a nuisance in the UK rather than a serious threat.

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Riots were a one-off - minister

24 August 2011 Last updated at 09:15 GMT Crispin Blunt believes the prison population will be back to normal within six months Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt has said the disturbances in English cities this month were a "one-off" event.

Mr Blunt said the justice system could cope in the short-term and there would be no long-term effect on the prison population in England and Wales.

Last Friday the number of inmates hit a record of almost 87,000, largely driven by the riots, but the government expects numbers to fall again in 2012.

Mr Blunt was speaking at the launch of a tougher community service regime.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said Mr Blunt believed harsher terms for rioters were justified under case law.

But the coalition's long-term plan to reform prisons and sentencing was unaffected by the riots, our correspondent added.

Ministers have said they want to cut costs by reducing the population through the introduction of the more robust community sentences for some offenders and improvements in the rehabilitation of offenders.

Adequate punishment?

Since the riots, the prison population has gone up by more than 1,000.

As of Tuesday, there were 797 suspects on remand, almost two-thirds of all those to have so far come before the courts.

Prisons chiefs have devised contingency plans in case they run out of space.

In his first interview since the disturbances, the prisons minister said that he was completely confident the system could cope and that the jail population would be back to where it was before the trouble within six months.

"We are completely confident that the prison system and justice system are going to be able to cope with what the police are producing for us," he told the BBC.

"This is an exceptional event. There will be a one-off increase in prison numbers as people serve their sentences.

"What we have to do is make sure there are prison places for those sent to prison by the courts and we will continue to do that regardless of how many people are sent to prison."

His comments came as he promoted the Ministry of Justice's previously-announced plan to make more use of community-based sentences for some offenders.

Mr Blunt confirmed that from next year unemployed offenders doing unpaid work - known as community payback - will be made to do it full-time rather than spread out over many months.

Under the current arrangements, offenders can work as little as six hours a week on manual labour projects such as cleaning up graffiti.

The scheme aims to force offenders to work a minimum of 28 hours over four days with the fifth spent looking for a job. Ministers say the punishment will also be delivered more immediately after sentence.

Some 100,000 offenders are given community sentences every year and the public can nominate online the jobs they want doing.

Labour said "tough community sentences" were appropriate in some circumstances but questioned how the government's plans could be achieved under planned cuts to probation services.

A spokesman said: "People will want assurances that sentences being served by offenders in the community are providing adequate punishment as well as rehabilitation and that they are being carried out safely with proper supervision."

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of probation union Napo, said: "Previous attempts to have offenders doing payback all week have failed because they would have lost their Jobseeker's Allowance as they would have been unavailable to seek work.

"This proposal gets round that problem; however, the scheme will only be viable if it is properly resourced, if it doesn't put council workers out of work and that the offenders are fit to carry out the tasks."

Paul McDowell, from the crime reduction charity Nacro, said the "proposals must strike the right balance between punishment and public protection".

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West pushes for Syria sanctions

24 August 2011 Last updated at 09:58 GMT President Assad says his security forces are tackling "armed criminal gangs" The US and several European nations have called for the UN to impose sanctions against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and his ruling circle.

But the draft resolution circulated at UN headquarters in New York faces opposition from veto-wielding members of the Council like Russia and China.

The UN says more than 2,200 people have died since protests began in mid-March.

A UN report has also said Mr Assad's regime could be guilty of crimes against humanity.

The draft resolution put forward on Tuesday names President Assad along with 22 members of his ruling circle, as well as Syria's General Intelligence Directorate.

It calls for targeted sanctions against those "responsible for or complicit in ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, violent repression against the civilian population in Syria," the AFP news agency reports.

But the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said the resolution contained no military threat, as the Syrian people "have been very clear they don't want any foreign military intervention".

Ms Rice told CNN that Mr Assad "needs to know that he is on a dangerous and immoral course that will have significant consequences for his leadership".

'Dialogue needed'

However Russia - a close ally of Mr Assad and which has veto power in the Security Council - has said it sees no need for further action beyond a council statement on 3 August condemning the violence.

China, which also has veto power, said Mr Assad and the Syrian opposition "should seek to peacefully and properly resolve the issue through dialogue and consultations".

"The future of Syria should be decided by Syria itself," said foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu in Beijing.

Both China and Russia voted against a UN Human Rights Council resolution on Tuesday calling for an independent investigation into violence by the Syrian government, including allegations of the use of tanks and snipers against unarmed civilians. The motion eventually passed with 33 votes in favour.

The Security Council said the inquiry would establish the facts in Syria and where possible "identify those responsible with a view of ensuring that perpetrators of violations, including those that may constitute crimes against humanity, are held accountable".

Syria's ambassador said the vote had been unbalanced.

Also on Tuesday, the European Union widened its sanctions against Syria, adding 15 people and five institutions to those already targeted.

Syria's protests first erupted in mid-March and have continued despite the crackdown. The demonstrators are demanding the removal of President Assad, whose family have been in power for 40 years.

As well as civilians, human rights groups say 500 soldiers have been killed and thousands arrested since March. The government has blamed the unrest on "armed criminal gangs".

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Schools, sites closed after quake

24 August 2011 Last updated at 16:32 GMT Residents in New York spoke about the quake which was caught on camera in Washington and at a media briefing in NYC

A day after an earthquake rattled the US east coast, Washington schools remained closed and inspectors are assessing damage to national monuments.

The magnitude-5.8 quake, which some people initially feared was a terrorist attack, caused no known deaths or serious injuries.

Engineers have been studying cracks in the Washington Monument, and some federal office buildings are shut.

The quake centred on the state of Virginia but was felt widely.

It was one of the most powerful tremors to hit the US east coast since 1897.

High-rise fright

The quake shook Washington DC for about 30 seconds at lunchtime on Tuesday, with the White House, Pentagon and Capitol buildings among sites evacuated across the city.

Engineers are evaluating cracks found in the Washington Monument

In New York City, the tremor sent many people fleeing high-rises such as the Empire State Building.

"I ran down all 60 flights," accounting office worker Caitlin Trupiano said. "I wasn't waiting for the elevator."

One of the most damaged buildings in the US capital was Washington's century-old National Cathedral: three capstones broke off and cracks appeared in some walls.

Pictures posted on the cathedral's website showed the extent of the damage, including fallen statues.

"Experts are tirelessly working to assess the building damage, both structurally and aesthetically," the cathedral managers said.

At the Washington Monument, the obelisk-shaped memorial to America's first president, engineers discovered cracks in the stones at the top.

They are evaluating how to repair the monument so it can be reopened to tourists.

Just two days after the start of the academic year, 126 Washington school buildings were closed on Wednesday.

Poking fun

DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said the sites were being examined by structural engineers.

The quake epicentre was near the Virginia town of Mineral, population 430

A handful of federal buildings were also shut on Wednesday, including some offices of the homeland security, agriculture and interior departments.

Some residents of apartments in the Washington DC suburbs were staying in shelters awaiting structural surveys at those buildings.

Two nuclear reactors were taken offline as a precaution near the epicentre of the quake, but no damage was reported.

The fuss generated by the relatively mild tremor has prompted some teasing, not least over on the west coast in California, where such events are much more common.

Images of toppled lawn chairs and wonky picture frames were posted on social networks.

The earthquake that devastated Japan in March released 60,000 times more energy than Tuesday's in the US.

It struck some 84 miles (135km) south-west of Washington, at a depth of 3.7 miles.

The epicentre was near the town of Mineral, in the state of Virginia, the US Geological Survey said.

Three aftershocks were recorded on Tuesday, measuring from 2.2 to 4.8 in magnitude.

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