British News & Issues

Afghanistan’s election commission cancelled the second round of a presidential poll today and declared President Karzai the winner after the last-minute withdrawal of his only rival.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said the decision was made because of the cost and risk of organising the vote on Saturday, and because a one-horse race would raise doubts about the president's legitimacy.

"The Independent Election Commission declares the esteemed Hamid Karzai as the president ... because he was the winner of the first round and the only candidate in the second round," Azizullah Ludin, the Karzai-appointed IEC chief, told a packed news conference.

Asked if he was concerned that President Karzai did not have a legal mandate, he told reporters: “We are the commission and we have decided.”

There was no immediate response from Abdullah Abdullah, who withdrew yesterday in protest at Mr Karzai’s failure to meet his “minimum conditions” for a fair run-off, including the dismissal of Mr Ludin.

The United States and its allies here had been pushing for the cancellation of the run-off, fearing low turnout, further fraud and Taleban attacks, and for a power-sharing deal between the two men.

Few had expected the IEC to formally declare Mr Karzai the winner today as he won less then 50 per cent in the first round following the invalidation of more than a million of his votes because of fraud.

The international community had been encouraging Mr Karzai and the IEC to seek a ruling from the Supreme Court – without which Dr Abdullah and other opponents could still dispute Mr Karzai’s mandate.

But most UN and Western officials welcomed the IEC's announcement nonetheless as a signal that Afghanistan’s two-month election crisis might finally have produced a definite – if flawed – result.

Among them was Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, who met both Mr Karzai and Dr Abdullah earlier in the day as part of efforts to broker a power-sharing deal that would allow the run-off to be cancelled.

"I welcome today's decision by Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission to forego a run-off vote and to declare Hamid Karzai as the winner of the 2009 presidential elections," Mr Ban said in a statement.

"I congratulate President Karzai," he added.

Downing Street said Gordon Brown had personally congratulated Mr Karzai.

"The Government welcomes the decision by the Independent Electoral Commission," a No 10 spokesman said.

"The Prime Minister has spoken to President Karzai to congratulate him on his re-election. They discussed the importance of the president moving quickly to set out a unifying programme for the future of Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, UN and Western officials were understood to be still trying to broker a deal under which Mr Karzai and Dr Abdullah would divide up ministries, provincial governorships and other posts between their allies.

They almost reached a deal yesterday, before Dr Abdullah’s announcement, but the talks fell through at the last minute, according to diplomats.

Mr Karzai's camp ruled out a coalition with Dr Abdullah yesterday, but the President is now under increasing international pressure to bring his former Foreign Minister back into government for the sake of national unity.

Both Mr Brown and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, strongly suggested yesterday that Mr Karzai should seek an "inclusive" government.

Diplomats said the US and its allies had accepted that Mr Karzai would remain as President, but were trying to ensure that his next government was inclusive enough to be a credible partner in the fight against the Taleban.

"There's a resignation that Karzai is the player we are going to have to deal with, but he is being told in no uncertain terms, that he is a wounded animal,” one senior Western official told The Times.

“In the eyes of the Afghan people and in the eyes of the international community he has to rebuild his credibility. The first test will be his cabinet. If we see thugs, criminals and drug dealers in the cabinet, international support will wither."

Coleen Rooney, the wife of England footballer Wayne Rooney, has given birth to a baby boy.

The child, who the couple have named Kai Wayne Rooney, was born at 2.20pm at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, their spokesman said.

The spokesman added: “Mother and baby are both absolutely fine. Wayne and Coleen are thrilled with the wonderful addition to their family life.”

The name Kai, a variant of Kay, reportedly means "rejoice" in Finnish. According to another report, the name has Welsh, Scandinavian and Greek roots and means "keeper of the keys". It is also a unisex Hawaiian name meaning "the sea".

He has branded homosexuals satanic, deployed cloud–seeding fighter jets to ensure good weather on bank holidays and ordered riot police to break up anti-Kremlin demonstrations. As mayor, Yuri Luzhkov has ruled Moscow with an iron fist for the past 17 years.

But with only two years of his fourth term left to serve, the populist mayor is coming under a barrage of criticism which some believe could signal the beginning of the end for Russia’s third most powerful politician.

The most common criticism levied at Luzhkov is that he has used his influence to help the business interests of Yelena Baturina, his wife of 18 years and Russia’s wealthiest woman.

In an unprecedented public attack, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the pro-Kremlin ultranationalist leader, last week called for Luzhkov to resign for presiding over “the dirtiest and most corrupt local government in the history of Russia, one which is the stage for the worst kind of fraudulent schemes”.

Zhirinovsky also accused the mayor of fixing recent local elections to favour a pro- Kremlin party.

In a recent opinion poll, voters were asked whether “you believe the rumours about Luzhkov being corrupt and that he provides business assistance to his own wife”; 61% answered yes. Just 1% dismissed the rumours as “definitely not true”. The mayor’s popularity has plummeted to 36%, down by nearly half since April.

“The campaign against Luzhkov is being waged by proKremlin forces. There is an order to hound him, but we won’t take part in this,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the liberal Yabloko party, which, in a sign of the Kremlin’s grip over parliament, has lost all its deputies.

“We don’t want to see him removed because then they could appoint somebody who was unelected and who would do to Moscow anything the Kremlin happens to want.”

In September Boris Nemtsov, a leading opposition politician, published a report in which he accused city hall of awarding lucrative contracts to Baturina’s construction company, Inteko, at the same time as her husband has presided over Moscow’s greatest building boom since the Stalin-era. Critics accuse Luzhkov of allowing city hall to pull down hundreds of historic buildings to make way for glitzy building projects.

“We’ve irrefutable proof,” claimed Nemtsov, “that Luzhkov favoured Inteko while signing permits for commercial development, making Baturina the richest woman in Russia.”

Leonid Gozman, another member of Russia’s beleaguered opposition, publicly called for Luzhkov to be held responsible for Moscow’s rampant corruption.

Baturina, 46, and Luzhkov, 73, have vehemently rejected all accusations and are suing both Nemtsov and Gozman. Luzhkov described Nemtsov’s report as “full of lies”.

The mayor said he had filed about 10 lawsuits a year for the past 17 years — many of which were linked to claims about his wife’s business success. “It’s an impressive figure,” he said.

Baturina, who rose from being a factory worker to Russia’s only female dollar billionaire — said by Forbes magazine to have a post- financial-crisis fortune of £550m — has rejected claims she owes her rise to Luzhkov. Some Russian experts believe her real fortune to be greater than Forbes’s estimate.

In a further blow to the image of Moscow’s first couple, Shalva Chigirinsky, formerly one of the city’s biggest property and oil tycoons, recently claimed in papers submitted to London’s High Court that Baturina secretly owned a stake in an oil producer.

According to Chigirinsky, he entered into a partnership with Baturina in 1999 because “no major projects can proceed in the city without her backing”.

Baturina has said that the claim of a partnership in the oil producer with Chigirinsky is “not only incorrect, it’s the opposite of the truth”.

Some Moscow insiders say the campaign against Luzhkov began after Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, shut down a sprawling wholesale market on suspicion that it was selling smuggled goods.

The market was owned by Telman Ismailov, a close friend of Luzhkov’s, who is believed to have angered Putin by spending £40m on an extravagant party to launch a new hotel in a Turkish resort.

Despite the economic crisis, Ismailov flew in 242lb of beluga caviar and paid Paris Hilton, Sharon Stone and Richard Gere to attend the opening party of the Mardan Palace, which boasts 560 rooms and a five-acre pool and cost £1 billion to build. Ismailov’s subsequent problems were interpreted by some as a warning shot to Luzhkov, who also attended the party.

“In my view we are seeing the beginning of the end of Luzhkov’s long reign,” said a former Kremlin aide who knows the mayor. “He’ll either be asked to step down before the end of his term or will be told not to run again.

“Either way, the Kremlin is starting to look around for someone to take over one of Russia’s most lucrative and powerful posts.”

With difficult state elections and a crucial military decision looming, President Barack Obama sat down with his wife Michelle last month to give an in-depth magazine interview about a subject that has hitherto not ranked highly on the White House political agenda — the state of the first couple’s marriage.

The president used the occasion to complain that when he recently hopped aboard Air Force One to fly his wife to New York for dinner and a Broadway show, “people made it into a political issue”.

Obama went on to insist that his marriage was “separate and apart from a lot of the silliness of Washington”. He then proceeded to discuss his romantic ups and downs in startling detail with a reporter from The New York Times Magazine.

Publication of that unusually candid interview highlighted an intriguing contradiction that has begun to haunt the Obama White House. The president’s family has become one of his most valuable political assets. Yet the attempts by the Obamas to shield their private lives from scrutiny are increasingly being subverted — by the Obamas themselves.

When the interview appeared on the paper’s website ahead of publication today, it prompted a flood of reader reactions from “They are a beautiful couple” and “exceptional role models” to “Why should I care about their marriage?” and “This stuff is none of my business”.

There were also several expressions of concern, echoed privately by Democratic strategists, that the openness of the Obamas about what Michelle described as the “bumps” in their relationship, may help turn a historic presidency into a soap opera. “All this scrutiny cannot be good for a marriage,” worried one of the readers of the Times.

The sense that the Obamas are flirting with disaster by parading their happy family life was magnified by Michelle’s Marie Antoinette-like appearance this week on the cover of Glamour magazine — at a time when many Americans continue to lose their homes or jobs every month.

In the interview with Glamour, Michelle discussed her fashion choices and appeared to tease her husband: “One thing I’ve learnt about male role models is that they don’t hesitate to invest in themselves.” The timing and content of the piece prompted Sally Quinn, a veteran Washington style-watcher, to suggest that the first lady had been badly advised.

“I’m not sure if I had been her adviser I would have said for her to do the Glamour cover because it might begin to trivialise her and what her role is,” she said.

The enthusiasm for the Obama family has until now obliged most Republicans to bite their tongues when discussing Michelle and the children, but there were mutterings last week that the president might be using his enviable private life as a diversion from awkward political realities — notably the prospect this week of Democratic defeats in elections for state governors in New Jersey and Virginia.

“Funny how every time there’s a crisis we end up reading about Michelle,” noted one Republican insider. “It’s great to see that the first couple have such a wonderful relationship,” added a Times website reader. “Now can the president please get down to solving the country’s problems?”

Yet even the hardest-nosed Washington operatives confessed last week that reading about the Obamas’ love life was a lot more fun than ploughing through 1,900 pages of the revised healthcare bill.

In their tell-nearly-all interview, the Obamas came across as a thoughtful, sensible and undeniably appealing couple who have nonetheless experienced the professional and personal strains that any working couple would recognise.

At one point Michelle expressed frustration at her secondary role after the years she spent as a high-earning hospital executive in Chicago: “Clearly Barack’s decisions are leading us. They are not mine, that’s obvious,” she said. “I’m married to the president of the United States, I don’t have another job.”

That the marriage experienced “bumps” came as no surprise: Richard Wolffe, a Newsweek journalist, has already described in his book on Obama’s rise how Michelle at one point became “angry at [Barack’s] selfishness and careerism; he thought she was cold and ungrateful”.

Asked if their marriage had come close to rupture, Obama told The New York Times: “That’s over-reaching it. But I wouldn’t gloss over the fact that that was a tough time for us. There were points in time where I was fearful ... that she would be unhappy.”

Michelle said the strains had been “sort of the eye-opener to me, that marriage is hard. Going into it, no-one ever tells you that. They just tell you, ‘Do you love him ... what’s the dress look like’?”

Valerie Jarrett, the couple’s close friend and White House adviser, said last year’s campaign had initially caused problems when Michelle was depicted as bitter and unpatriotic. Yet she eventually became a valuable surrogate, impressing huge crowds when her husband was absent.

“They both rallied to each other’s defence and support,” said Jarrett. “By having to work hard at it, it strengthened their marriage.”

In the White House, the couple seems to have settled into a comfortable routine of public affection and teasing — Barack sometimes addresses Michelle as Flotus (first lady of the United States) but both sought to dispel the notion that everything in the White House rose garden is pink.

“The strengths and challenges of our marriage don’t change because we move to a different address,” said the first lady. The image of a flawless marriage was “the last thing we want to project . . .this perfection that doesn’t exist”.

Currently condemned to a photogenic but stultifying life as chief fashion plate and do-gooder, Michelle is widely assumed in Washington to be desperate to sink her teeth into a meaty political issue.

Yet she protested, a little too fiercely some thought, that she was “so not interested in a lot of the hard decisions that he’s making ... I have never in my life ever wanted to sit on the policy side of this thing”.

Those latter remarks were in striking contrast to the magazine article’s portrayal of the Obamas as the model of a modern presidential couple. Many Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton, now Obama’s secretary of state, have noted that Michelle seems closer to Laura Bush, wife of George W, in choosing a non-political role.

Hillary Clinton, who famously took an aggressive role in presidential policy-making, notably on healthcare, was the “truly modern and transformational first lady”, noted one of her Democratic supporters. “Michelle has proven to be utterly conventional.”

Yet the bottom line for Obama remains the state of the economy and the progress of the wars he is fighting abroad. While Michelle’s approval ratings remain buoyant, the president’s continue to slide. A poll last week showed only 31% of Americans believe he can control federal spending (down from 52% at his election) and only 28% believe he can heal political divisions (down from 54%).

For all Obama’s glamour and sophisticated intellect, he is in danger of being seen as a failing politician. And familiarity with the details of his private life may quickly turn to contempt.

Alistair Darling is preparing to plough billions more of taxpayers’ money into Royal Bank of Scotland to take the government stake in the bank from 70% to as high as 84%.

A Treasury announcement this week will confirm RBS is signing up to a controversial deal to pump £270 billion of problematic loans into a state-backed insurance scheme.

As part of the deal, the government will pour up to £19 billion of additional capital into RBS by taking up an issue of “B” shares. The subsequent increase in the taxpayers’ stake will leave the bank virtually nationalised, with a small portion of shares left in the hands of private investors.

The further capital injection comes despite attempts by the bank to renegotiate the insurance deal, which takes place under the Government Asset Protection Scheme (Gaps).

The terms have ended up being even more onerous for the bank, with RBS now expected to shoulder an additional £20 billion of losses on its own balance sheet before it claims on the government insurance.

The scale of the state aid at RBS has also prompted a savage response from Brussels, which is imposing penalties on all European banks bailed out during the financial crisis.

Neelie Kroes, the European competition commissioner, has ordered RBS to sell its Churchill and Direct Line insurance operations, a network of more than 300 branches, and large parts of its investment bank. An outline agreement was reached between Kroes and Stephen Hester, the RBS chief executive, on Friday.

The outcome is harsher than the bank expected. It was already committed to reducing its balance sheet by 40% and selling off a slew of international businesses. RBS attempted to sell its insurance arm under former boss Sir Fred Goodwin but the sale plans were dropped shortly after Hester arrived. Hester thought insurance would form a central part of the bank’s recovery plan.

Kroes has enforced the break-up of RBS after taking a stand against the Gaps programme. She is said to object to the concept of states taking potentially huge liabilities for years into the future.

Lloyds Banking Group, which is 43% owned by the taxpayer, was also destined to join the Gaps programme. However Eric Daniels, its chief executive, has managed to escape the scheme after lining up a £21 billion fundraising, which will be unveiled on Tuesday.

This will involve a £14billion rights issue and a £7billion debt swap. In addition £5billion will be raised from disposals, including Cheltenham & Gloucester, Intelligent Finance internet bank and some Scottish branches.

Meanwhile, UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the taxpayers’ investment arm, has started to search for about 12 new executives to beef up the Lloyds management team.

Lord Myners, the City minister, has forced those banks advising RBS and Lloyds to cut their fees.

Silvio Berlusconi today said he would not resign even if he was convicted of corruption as a new trial date was set for later this month.

The Italian Prime Minister, 73, now faces two trials following the loss of his immunity from prosecution.

Last month the Constitutional Court overturned a law which Mr Berlusconi pushed through Parliament shortly after being elected last year giving him immunity as long as he held high office. The Court said this infringed the principle that all Italians are equal before the law.

In the first trial to be resumed Mr Berlusconi will be accused in Milan on 16 November of tax fraud and false accounting over the acquisition of TV film rights by Mediaset, his media company. Milan prosecutors say Mediaset bought the rights at an inflated price from two offshore companies controlled by Mr Berlusconi.

Today judicial sources said a second trial would start shortly afterwards, on 27 November. In that case Mr Berlusconi is charged with paying a $600,000 bribe to the British tax lawyer David Mills, estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, to withhold evidence in court on Mr Berlusconi's behalf in corruption trials in the 1990s.

Last week the Milan appeals court upheld a four and a half year sentence against Mr Mills for accepting the bribe from Mr Berlusconi. The Court of Cassation, Italy's highest appeals court, has until April 2010 under Italy's statute of limitations to decide whether to convict Mr Mills definitively or acquit him. In Mr Berlusconi's case this time limit is extended until 2011 because of the period during which the case against him was suspended because of the immunity law is taken into account.

In interviews with Bruno Vespa, a leading television presenter, for a forthcoming book Mr Berlusconi repeated his frequent claim that the prosecutions brought against him were politically motivated and that he has "the support of the people". Extracts from the book were published today in the Italian press.

"I still have faith in the existence of serious magistrates who hand down serious verdicts, based on facts," he said. "If there were a conviction in trials like these, we would be facing such a big subversion of the truth that I would feel even more duty bound to stay in my post to defend democracy and the rule of law."

Mr Berlusconi, who has scarlet fever and has not been seen in public for two weeks, last week phoned a television discussion show from his sickbed to launch a ten minute diatribe against "Communist" magistrates and judges as well as the "left wing" press. After the Constitutional Court ruling last month he claimed he was "the person the most persecuted by the judiciary in all history."

Mr Berlusconi has also been dogged by sex scandals since May when Veronica Lario, his wife, demanded a divorce, saying she could not "stay with a man who frequents under age girls". She also said he needed help for "sex addiction" and had offered political posts to television showgirls. Magistrates in Bari are investigating claims that showgirls and "escorts" were paid to attend Mr Berlusconi's parties in Rome and Sardinia.

Supporters of Mr Berlusconi, including il Giornale, owned by Mr Berlusconi's brother Paolo, family, have said that the resignation last week of Piero Marrazzo, the centre Left governor of Lazio region, over a scandal involving transsexual prostitutes is proof that the Left "does not have the moral high ground" in criticising Mr Berlusconi's private life.

The Left points out that however Mr Marrazzo was not Prime Minister and that, whereas he took the "honourable course" and stepped down, Mr Berlusconi has refused to do so despite being accused of having spent the night of the US Presidential election a year ago with a prostitute.

Italian press reports said aides to Mr Berlusconi had sought to "get him off the hook" over the impending trials by introducing a Parliamentary measure amending the statute of limitations to shorten still further the time allowed for a conviction and appeal in corruption cases.

The measure had been included in a package of EU directives due to be "nodded through" in Parliament, reports said. This however had been blocked by deputies and senators in Mr Berlusconi's own coalition who noticed the clause and objected that it had "nothing to do with Europe".

Cracks have begun to appear in the coalition, with Giulio Tremonti, the Finance Minister, and Gianfranco Fini, the Speaker of the Lower House and co-founder of the ruling People of Liberty party, tipped as successors if Mr Berlusconi falls.

Tens of thousands of postal workers have "solidly supported" a fresh strike, crippling mail deliveries across the UK in the latest motion of walkouts to hit the Royal Mail.

Members of the note Workers Union braved pouring lavish to mount picket lines outside mail centres on the poll consecutive hour of industrial animation in a bitter row over jobs, pay and modernisation.

A confederation official said the likewise proscription was again backed solidly by workers, again insisted members of the governmental were smooth giving strong sustain to the postmen again women.

Around 77,000 delivery and crowd bastinado leave be on strike whereas 24 hours, with fresh action planned in the eventual week unless marathon talks between the two sides produce a breakthrough.

The union has announced a third wave of 24-hour national walkouts prospective Friday, November 6 and Monday November 9, involving all its 121,000 postal members, although frantic efforts were continuing this weekend to find a peace deal.

Negotiators from the union and the troop were considering a series of proposals haggard ripening during talks last week chaired by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

The two sides are aiming to resume negotiations early approaching second and said they booked to make no comment this biking on the prospects of determination an agreement.

CWU passable secretary Billy Hayes said: "It is not essential for this strike to take stabilize and the union remains focused on reaching an agreement. We belief that little Mail will again now be equally focused.

"CWU is adamant to perform an agreement or make enough progress to call off query functioning next week."

Mark Higson, managing director of facile Mail condemned the union for calling more strikes, warning existing would "distract" from the stillness efforts.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, today gave his strong backing to Tony Blair's candidacy to be the first permanent president of the European Union.

But he ruled himself out of the other high-ranking post created by the Lisbon treaty, high representative for foreign affairs, saying: "I am not a candidate for that. I am not available. I have got a job that I am absolutely committed to and proud to do."

Miliband said that a Blair presidency would be "very good for Britain as well as very good for Europe" and said he was "puzzled" by Conservative opposition to the prospect of having a British politician in such a senior European role.

The foreign secretary, a close personal ally of Blair, appeared to suggest that the former prime minister would be interested in the post only if it gave him real political clout in the international arena.

The leaders of the 27 EU member states meet in Brussels on Thursday to thrash out the remit of the new president, with some of the smaller states believed to favour a low-profile role involving little more than chairing meetings.

Miliband indicated that Blair wanted a job in which, when he arrives in foreign capitals, "the traffic does need to stop" and he is guaranteed access to political leaders at the highest level.

The foreign secretary told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "I think it is very important for Europe that it has a strong figure in that role, it has someone able persuasively to advocate the case that is decided by the 27 member states of the EU.

Miliband said he expected the new president to be selected by the 27 EU leaders soon after the Lisbon treaty is finally signed by Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, the only member state which has not yet ratified.

"I think this is an important moment for Europe. It has got a new commission, hopefully with the passage of the Lisbon treaty a new system of running its affairs, a more efficient system," said the foreign secretary.

"It needs to take that opportunity, otherwise we will find the world run by America and China without any reference to us."

Asked if Blair wanted the job of president of Europe, Miliband told Marr: "It all comes down to what the heads of government want the job to be.

"It's about whether or not Europe wants a strong leader in that position. I think that hasn't yet been resolved in the minds of a number of Europe's leaders.

"My own view is that we need somebody who can do more than simply run through the agenda. We need someone who, when he or she lands in Beijing or Washington or Moscow, the traffic does need to stop and talks do need to begin at a very, very high level. I think Europe has suffered from the lack of that clarity."

Under the terms of the Lisbon treaty, the new president of the European Council will be selected by the heads of government of the 27 member-states, voting by qualified majority. The president will serve for a maximum of two fixed terms of two and a half years, replacing the current system under which each member-state provides a president on a six-month rotating basis.

The treaty provides for the president to chair the council's meetings and co-ordinate its work, but also states that he or she should "ensure the external representation of the union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy", opening up the possibility of the post becoming the "voice of Europe" in talks with other global powers.

Miliband said that other European leaders found it difficult to understand why a British party such as the Conservatives might oppose having a British politician in the continent's top job.

"In every other country of Europe, they would be delighted if one of their former prime ministers was being nominated by governments around Europe; his case was being pushed by governments around Europe – for a senior European position," he said.

"The Europeans I talk to view with bemusement this argument from the Conservatives that somehow it is bad for Britain to have a former British prime minister in a leading role in Europe. Some of them can't quite believe it.

"It must be good for us to have someone who is a former British prime minister and knows Britain well, who as we know is a powerful advocate for policies agreed in the appropriate democratic processes in the EU. That seems a very good thing, not a bad thing."

Welfare reforms forcing single parents to look for work or risk losing benefits are "family friendly", Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said.

Lone parents whose youngest children are aged 10 or 11 will be switched from Income Support to the tougher Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) which is paid at the same rate but requires them to attend fortnightly JobCentre interviews and show they have applied for jobs or lose benefits.

Ms Cooper said: "What we want to do is help more parents in to work, but also to do so in a family friendly way."

She said under the new regulations, parents would only have to look for part-time work.

She told GMTV: "They may also be able to look just for work that fits with school hours if they're lone parents as well because I do think it's important often to be able to pick the kids up from school and as a mum I know how important it is to be able to spend time with the children."

She said single parents would be able to access other benefits and that even part-time work could help lift them out of poverty. She added: "I do think it's right that as the children grow older there are more responsibilities on parents to start looking for work. We know that is good for both the parents and children as well."

Single parents' campaign group Gingerbread has accused the Government of failing to provide the necessary support to help them find work.

Parents of children aged 12 or older were switched on to JSA last year, and the change will be extended to all single parents with children aged seven or over in October next year. Plans to remove 300,000 lone parents from Income Support were announced in 2007 as part of a drive to achieve an 80% employment rate, which some critics say is no longer feasible in the light of rising joblessness caused by the recession.

The Department for Work and Pensions promised then the increased obligations to look for work would be matched by "personalised help and support", with greater flexibility for JobCentre staff to respond to individual circumstances.

But Gingerbread released a report suggesting the lone parents who moved on to JSA a year ago did not get the support they needed. Many did not get the meetings with a New Deal adviser to which they are entitled, said the charity. And others felt under pressure to find work and demoralised by repeated rejections.

Thousands of British Airways cabin crew are to be balloted for industrial action in a row over new contracts, it has been announced.

Unite said 14,000 of its members at the airline will vote on whether to launch a campaign of action in protest over the imposition of the employment contracts.

Derek Simpson, the union's joint general secretary, said: "BA management's determination to impose unacceptable contractual changes on cabin crew leaves us no alternative."

He added: "We will strongly support our members if they vote for industrial action, while of course remaining ready to negotiate with the company. Negotiation, not imposition, is the only proper way to conduct industrial relations."

Cabin crew had already decided to hold an emergency meeting next Monday to decide whether to fight plans to cut jobs, freeze pay and introduce worse wages and conditions for new staff.

Thousands of workers are expected to attend the meeting, at Sandown Racecourse in Surrey, two weeks before the cuts come into effect.

Two former sections of the Transport and General Workers Union - Bassa and Cabin Crew 89 - have joined forces for the first time in over 20 years to hold the joint meeting.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh met with Unite leaders earlier this month after which the airline issued a statement which said: "The discussion, about cabin crew pay and productivity issues, was open and frank."

Unite have complained that the changes being introduced next month constituted a "fundamental attack" on the jobs, wages and career prospects of all 14,000 cabin crew members of the union. "They will not only hit the customer service core of the business, but will forever undermine BA's international reputation as a premier airline with premier crew providing a premier service.

"You are now being bullied into the very real possibility of accepting inferior contracts in just a few weeks' time," union leaders said in a letter to workers earlier this month. While we accept these are tough times for aviation generally, we do not accept that this is a company on its knees. This is still a prestigious airline with a high reputation to uphold not only at home, but also around the globe."

More than a quarter of school staff (28%) have had a false allegation made against them by a pupil, according to a survey.

One in six (17%) have had a false claim made against them by a member of a pupil's family, according to the study by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).

One half (50%) of school staff said they or a colleague had had a false allegation made against them in their current school or college by a pupil or a member of a pupil's family.

These were the key findings of a survey of 1,155 ATL members working as support staff, teachers, department heads and school leaders in state and private schools around the UK.

In half the cases the allegation was immediately dismissed by the school, and the police were notified in only 16% of instances.

ATL general secretary Dr Mary Bousted said: "School staff are having their careers blighted by false allegations and their private lives damaged as a result of the stress. We are losing good teachers, heads and support staff to the detriment of children's education. We all accept the protection of children is paramount, but that should not be at the expense of natural justice - school staff have rights too.

"This survey suggests huge numbers of staff are facing false allegations every week. It's time the balance was redressed so that school staff are not presumed guilty until proven innocent. The right to anonymity should be re-examined, to reduce the damage to the lives of innocent staff and make it less difficult to reintegrate into school.

"We would also like heads to avoid putting an automatic bar on staff having contact with colleagues, because cutting contact with colleagues compounds stress and feelings of isolation so makes a return to school less likely even when allegations are proved false."

ATL executive member Louise Davies said: "There are serious concerns that staff are at risk of allegations by a few pupils and copycat claims by others. If a pupil has a record of making allegations then staff should be aware of this so they can be extra vigilant for their own safety.

"The pupil may also need to be professionally supported as to why they make such claims."

A scrap dealer is being questioned over the disposal of a car linked to the murder of Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

He is understood to be Nirmal Gharu, 40, of west London, who was interviewed by police on August 4 over the same matter, and was arrested at 9.30am after voluntarily attending a police station.

Police believe a red Daewoo Nexia car could have been used to transport the 13-year-old's body.

Amanda Dowler, who was known to family and friends as Milly, vanished while walking home from school in Walton-on-Thames on March 21, 2002.

Six months later, her skeletal remains were found 30 miles away by mushroom pickers in Yateley Heath, Hampshire. Her death remains one of Britain's most notorious unsolved crimes.

Earlier this month, divers searched Bedford Lake, near London's Heathrow Airport, for the Daewoo Nexia but said they found "nothing of any relevance". Investigators received new information suggesting the car had been dumped there but said after the search they had no plans to return to the lake.

Despite extensive searches over the past four years there are still no signs of the car. Prime suspect Levi Bellfield has admitted driving the car but claims he was carrying building materials. Officers have been painstakingly building a case against Bellfield since he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in November 2004 over other matters.

The 41-year-old was told last year that he would die in jail after he was found guilty of murdering students Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22. He was also convicted of the attempted murder of schoolgirl Kate Sheedy, 18. All of the women were attacked near bus stops in south west London.

Bellfield, a former nightclub bouncer and wheelclamper, was arrested and interviewed over Milly's death four years ago. Officers believe they have compelling circumstantial evidence which links him to the crime.

Last month, Crown Prosecution Service solicitors were handed a dossier of evidence by Surrey Police and are now considering whether to charge Bellfield with murder. It emerged that detectives investigating Milly's murder obtained new evidence, which cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, last December.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne has called for emergency action to ban banks from paying big cash bonuses and force them to lend the money to hard-pressed firms and families instead.

He said premier Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling's plans to ease the credit crunch and reform the banks had failed.

Mr Osborne told an audience in the City: "It is time for the Government to act - and act decisively."

He added: "We cannot wait for the Prime Minister's promised land of a new responsible bonus culture which looks more remote than ever. We need to take emergency steps to support bank lending and move the economy forward this winter. The banks have to understand that we are all in this together.

"I am today calling on the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority to combine forces and stop retail banks - in other words the banks that lend directly to businesses and families - paying out profits in significant cash bonuses. Full stop. That includes their investment banking arms. Then the cash that would have been paid out should be put on to banks' balance sheets explicitly to support new lending."

Mr Osborne stressed he was not trying to block cash bonuses for low-paid counter staff or call centre workers. And he said where firms needed to award bonuses to high-flyers to remain competitive they should be paid in new shares in the companies.

The shadow chancellor said Britain would then be in step with President Barack Obama's administration: "The Obama administration's new policy will see the cash remuneration of the top bankers cut by 90%, and banks have been told to pay out in shares instead. America is acting. Britain at the moment is not. We are a party that believes in enterprise and a competitive economy.

"We know financial services have a huge role to play in Britain's future. The politics of envy will play no part in our plans. But we do need the politics of common sense. There can be no justification for using taxpayer support and guarantees to pay cash into the bank accounts of bankers when the rest of the economy is in such desperate need of that cash."

The shadow chancellor also urged the introduction of new, smaller banks to lend "responsibly" to families and businesses and said the country urgently needed a plan for growth and to restore economic confidence.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne said: "George Osborne made the wrong call on saving the bank system - and now he's trying to play catch-up. The problem is he's playing it badly. The bonus plans he's floating are weaker, not stronger than the change we've already put in place."

Union bosses have launched a renewed attack on the Government as crucial talks aimed at averting further postal strikes began.

Dave Ward, of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said ministers could not continue "sitting on the sidelines" as negotiations continue in the deadlocked row over jobs, pay and modernisation.

Leaders of the CWU were meeting Royal Mail bosses after TUC general secretary Brendan Barber invited the two sides to hold talks.

Up to 120,000 workers are set to stage a fresh round of strikes from Thursday unless progress is made.

Mr Ward, before entering the latest discussions, said the dispute was "fundamentally" about jobs and workers' terms and conditions.

"The change that postal workers are facing is on a scale that's greater than any other UK industry at the present time and I think what we are going to do today is end that confusion about what this dispute is about," he said.

He said the issue of the Royal Mail's pension deficit - thought to total about £10 billion - needed to be resolved urgently.

"There's no prospect of us building a successful future for the Royal Mail and for the workforce unless the Government actually deal with that issue," he said.

"That's why we keep saying the Government can't keep sitting on the sidelines."

He added: "We will deal with the issues around the industrial side of the Royal Mail but there are things that the Government have to deal with. Unless we fund a solution to the pensions deficit very quickly then this company has no prospect of building a successful future."

A man accused of assaulting pop star Leona Lewis is not fit to attend court, a judge was told.

Peter Kowalczyk, 29, was charged with striking the Bleeding Love singer during a book signing.

A hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court heard he has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and is being examined by psychiatrists.

After a short hearing of legal argument, District Judge Daphne Wickham adjourned the case until November 23 at the same court. Kowalczyk did not appear in the dock and remains in secure accommodation at Lambeth Hospital in south London.

Kowalczyk's solicitor, Mark Fidler, said the results of the psychiatric tests would dictate what approach is taken to the case. The court heard Kowalczyk is on unconditional bail but is unable to leave hospital because of an order under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act.

Kowalczyk, of Waterloo, south London, was arrested at Waterstone's book shop in Piccadilly on October 14.

Witnesses said Lewis was struck by a fan as she signed copies of her autobiography.

The 24-year-old had been signing autographs for about 90 minutes when a man lashed out, leaving her with bruising to the side of her head. Security officers stepped in and held the man on the floor until police officers arrived and arrested him.

Lewis was taken to see a doctor as a precaution, but needed no further treatment. The star cancelled a day-long promotional visit to Germany the next day as she recovered from the ordeal.

She later thanked fans for their support and said the incident left her "extremely hurt and upset".

Owen will be centre of attention on Sunday as he makes his first return to Liverpool - the club which nurtured him and for whom he scored 158 goals - as a player for their fiercest rivals.

Manchester United's signing of the one-time Anfield hero raised some eyebrows in the summer but the 29 year-old repaid some of Ferguson's faith with a dramatic derby winner against Manchester City last month.

Now United will be hoping he can repeat the trick in a Premier League game which Liverpool, after four successive defeats in all competitions, can ill afford to lose.

"That will never be forgotten," Ferguson said. "I don't know if it puts him in the history books but it will certainly never be forgotten.

"He is only just starting with us. He has only been here a few months and I hope the boy is here for a long time.

"I think he is well capable of doing that. He is showing he is a terrific professional, he lives his life the right way and there are no complications with him."

Owen has largely been restricted to substitute's duties since moving to Old Trafford and got another 20 minutes in Wednesday's Champions League win at CSKA Moscow.

But with Wayne Rooney still a doubt for Sunday due to a calf injury, he could be in line for a start despite the likelihood of a hostile reception.

Ferguson added: "When he came on on Wednesday I think he did very well, his movement troubles opponents.

"There is nobody better at holding the line in the last third than him, he is very seldom offside. That is experience, of course, but also talent."

After an injury-ravaged spell at Newcastle, the opportunity for Owen to join United came as a surprise.

With an England World Cup place to aim for, Owen is hoping the move can resurrect his international career.

His injury record is a factor Ferguson had to take into consideration and the player can perhaps be grateful to a former Newcastle team-mate and ex-United star for helping secure the move.

"Michael is capable of scoring in any type of match at the highest level," Ferguson said. "He has proved that, we knew that.

"Looking at his CV, I think any club in the world would have taken him. The issue was his playing record over the last two or three years and that obviously put some clubs off.

"But I spoke to one or two people about him - Nicky Butt was almost forcing me to sign him, he had so much good to say about the lad.

"I think it was good advice and I took that on board."

Rooney's fitness will be assessed at training on Saturday, his 24th birthday.

The former Everton star was injured during England's World Cup qualifier in Ukraine a fortnight ago.

Darren Fletcher is another doubt for the game but Ryan Giggs and Patrice Evra return after suffering knocks against Bolton last week.

Victory for United would extend their advantage over Liverpool in the table to 10 points.

The 64-year-old wore a white skirt and black jacket to collect the Silver Marc Aurelio Jury Award at the Auditorium Parco della Musica on Friday.

A Danish movie about a gay love affair between two members of a neo-Nazi group won top honors while Meryl Streep picked up a career achievement award.

The winning movie, "Brotherhood," takes a hard look at the neo-Nazi group that the leading character, Lars, joins after leaving the army.

The group carries out raids on homosexuals, but Lars and his mentor in the group, Jimmy, begin a love affair that they try to keep secret.

"Brotherhood" is the first feature film by Nicolo Donato, a 35-year-old who previously worked as a fashion photographer.

The jury handing out the awards was headed by Oscar-winning director Milos Forman.

The best actor award went to Italy's Sergio Castellitto, who played a single parent and blue-collar worker dreaming that his son will become a boxing champ in the movie "Alza la Testa."

The festival paid homage to Streep through the career award and a retrospective of her work.

Her cooking flick "Julie & Julia," in which she plays Julia Child, was shown out of competition and was chosen to close the festival.

At the award ceremony, a black-clad Streep was presented with the career achievement prize by Giuseppe Tornatore, the Italian director who won an Oscar for best foreign film with "Cinema Paradiso."

President Obama will almost certainly not travel to the Copenhagen climate change summit in December and may instead use his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to set out US environmental goals, The Times has learnt.

With healthcare reform clogging his domestic agenda and no prospect of a comprehensive climate treaty in Copenhagen, Mr Obama may disappoint campaigners and foreign leaders, including Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, who have urged him to attend to boost the hopes of a breakthrough.

The White House would not comment on Mr Obama’s travel plans yesterday, but administration officials have said privately that “Oslo is plenty close” — a reference to the Nobel ceremony that falls on December 10, two days into the Copenhagen meeting.

The White House confirmed that the President would be in Oslo to accept the prize, but a source close to the Administration said it was “hard to see the benefit” of his going to Copenhagen if there was no comprehensive deal for him to close or sign. Another expert, who did not want to be named, said he would be “really, really shocked” if Mr Obama went to Copenhagen, adding that European hopes about the power of his Administration to transform the climate change debate in a matter of months bore little relation to reality. The comprehensive climate change treaty that for years has been the goal of the Copenhagen conference was now an “unrealistic” prospect, Yvo de Boer, the UN official guiding the process, said last week.

Chinese and Indian resistance to mandatory carbon emission limits has so far proved an insurmountable obstacle to crafting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that is acceptable to the US. America has also slowed the process through its reluctance to accept climate change science or the carbon cap-and-trade mechanism to combat global warming.

Only 57 per cent of Americans believe that there is strong evidence that the world has grown warmer in recent decades, down from 71 per cent a year ago, according to a new poll. Partly as a result, the White House is having to wage a vote-by-vote battle in Congress for a climate change Bill that would embrace cap-and-trade. The Bill will not be signed into law until next year at the earliest but is considered essential for any global deal.

Mr Obama flew to Boston yesterday to make the case for a wholesale American switch to clean energy, and to launch a six-week drive to persuade the world that the US is at last serious about joining international efforts to combat climate change.

He will have his work cut out. As a presidential candidate, he held out the hope of signing a cap-and-trade Bill in time for Copenhagen. Since then, a deep recession and months of delays on healthcare reform have pushed climate change into third place on the domestic US agenda, after financial regulatory reform. That reform is seen as essential for cap-and-trade because of the need to rebuild trust in complex financial instruments after “an incredible nativist backlash against new markets” caused by the banking crisis, according to Paul Bledsoe, a former White House official at the National Commission on Energy Policy.

For Mr Obama to travel to Copenhagen would be “completely out of keeping” with the American political climate and with precedent, Mr Bledsoe said. The most senior White House official to attend a past UN climate conference was Vice-President Al Gore in 1997. He signed the Kyoto Protocol, but the failure by Congress to ratify it since has been a defining theme of a decade of climate change talks.

In Mr Obama’s absence, the US delegation will be led by Todd Stern, the Administration’s special envoy on climate change. Analysts believe Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, could fly in at the last moment, but as one analyst said of both Mrs Clinton and Vice-President Joe Biden: “They only want to be associated with success, not failure.”

The gap between hopes of what Mr Obama can do and reality was on show this week when another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rajendra Pachauri of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he thought the President should be doing more. Instead, the Obama Administration is seeking to lower expectations before Copenhagen by drawing attention to its short tenure in office, the long years of US foot-dragging on climate change under his predecessor and recent progress on domestic climate change legislation.

The Duke implied criticism of ministers for failing to adequately to make the case for the conflict.

“It all comes back to leadership. They [the soldiers] want to know the leadership is interested and concerned in their welfare. They are tremendously loyal people fighting in a campaign.”

The Duke, the fourth in line to the throne who served on the front line in the Falklands War flying Royal Navy helicopters, said: “They are being remarkably more successful at it than is being adequately communicated.”

While he understood the public misgivings over the military operation, which has claimed the lives of more than 220 British military personnel, the government he said had been right to fight the Taleban.

He said: “If we were not to try to make a change and difference in Afghanistan then it would affect our nation state. At the time in 2003 there was a clear and present danger to the UK.”

In the wide ranging interview the Duke also defended his use of helicopters on official engagements which has earned him the unwelcome nickname of “Airmiles Andy”. He said: “It’s the most cost-effective and sensible way to maximise the use of the time I have available. I probably use the helicopter less than other members of the Royal Family.”

The Duke, the UK special representative for trade and investment, also insisted that the financial sector should not be demonised because of the latest wave of bankers’ bonuses. “They are not all evil or bad.”

In his reports to the Prime Minister and ministers in his trade ambassador role he has privately warned that there was a danger of driving investment away from Britain because of the plans to close tax loopholes enjoyed by millionaire non-domiciled residents.

The Duke, who is colonel-in-chief of a number of regiments, has made a number of trips to Afghanistan since the conflict began. “There are families who are having to suffer the ultimate sacrifice of losing one of their sons, brother, or loved one, They, particularly the troops on the ground, need to know there are people who think that the job that they are doing is thankless and unbelievable. It should come from everyone, not just the government.

A £20million, decade-long investigation overseen by the World Health Organisation (WHO) will publish evidence that heavy users face a higher risk of developing brain tumours later in life,

The conclusion, while not definitive, will undermine assurances from the government that the devices are safe and is expected to put ministers under pressure to issue stronger guidance.

A preliminary breakdown of the results found a “significantly increased risk” of some brain tumours “related to use of mobile phones for a period of 10 years or more” in some studies.

The head of the Interphone investigation said that the report would include a “public health message”.

Britain’s Department of Health has not updated its guidance for more than four years. It says that “the current balance of evidence does not show health problems caused by using mobile phones”, and suggests only that children be “discouraged” from making “non-essential” calls while adults should “keep calls short”.

In contrast, several other countries, notably France, have begun strengthening warnings and American politicians are urgently investigating the risks.

The Interphone inquiry has been investigating whether exposure to mobile phones is linked to three types of brain tumour and a tumour of the salivary gland.

Its head, Dr Elisabeth Cardis, backed new warnings.

“In the absence of definitive results and in the light of a number of studies which, though limited, suggest a possible effect of radiofrequency radiation, precautions are important,” she said.

“I am therefore globally in agreement with the idea of restricting the use by children, though I would not go as far as banning mobile phones as they can be a very important tool, not only in emergencies, but also maintaining contact between children and their parents and thus playing a reassurance role.

“Means to reduce our exposure (use of hands-free kits and moderating our use of phones) are also interesting.”

The project conducted studies in 13 countries, interviewing tumour sufferers and people in good health to see whether their mobile phone use differed. It questioned about 12,800 people between 2000 and 2004.

Previous research into the health effects of mobile phones, in the short time they have been in use, has proved inconclusive. However, a breakdown of the latest findings, seen by The Daily Telegraph, shows that six of eight Interphone studies found some rise in the risk of glioma (the most common brain tumour), with one finding a 39 per cent increase.

Two of seven studies into acoustic neurinoma (a benign tumour of a nerve between the ear and brain) reported a higher risk after using mobiles for 10 years. A Swedish report said it was 3.9 times higher.

A summary said a definitive link could not be proved because of difficulties with subjects’ memories.

An Israeli study found heavy users were about 50 per cent more likely to suffer tumours of the parotid salivary gland.

The Interphone inquiry has faced criticism for including people who made just one call a week, and leaving out children, which some experts said could underplay the risks. Some results for short-term use appeared to show protection against cancer, suggesting flaws in the study.

The final paper, funded partly by the industry, has been delayed as its authors argued over how to present the conclusions. But it has been sent to a scientific journal and will be published before the end of the year.

A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said there was “no hard evidence at present” of harm to health. Use by children for non-essential calls should be discouraged, he added.

A spokesman for the Mobile Operators Association said more than 30 scientific reviews had found no adverse health effects.

Lord Mandelson today denied union claims that he was orchestrating the postal strike.

The Business Secretary described CWU's accusations as "complete stuff and nonsense from beginning to end".

Lord Mandelson spoke out as he toured the new headquarters of eaga, in Gosforth, Newcastle.

He was officially opening their HQ, called Partnership House, which used to be known as the Northern Rock Tower.

Refuting the union claims he said: "The CWU know that is complete stuff and nonsense from beginning to end.

"What is at the heart of this dispute is the nature and speed of change at the Royal Mail and the modernisation that is necessary to secure its future.

"Of course Government support that, and indeed we have put £1.2 billion on the table to help bring it about, but there is no substitute for the management and workforce agreeing on the detail of how change is going to be implemented.

"That relationship, certainly between the management and parts of the CWU has broken down, and they have got to put it back together again and they have got to do so by talking, by negotiation rather than strike action.

"I hope we will see very intensive discussions between the two sides to avert further strike action next week."

Earlier this week, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes accused Lord Mandelson of being "extremely unhelpful" by "repeating the management mantra that is blatantly untrue".

He added: "While the CWU and management are working hard to reach an agreement, Lord Mandelson is misrepresenting the facts to Parliament and undermining any progress being made in the talks."

Less than a year ago, Chancellor Alistair Darling was predicting a return to growth in the second half of this year in his Pre-Budget Report.

He forecasted falling output for the first two quarters of this year, but said he then expected the economy "to start to recover" thanks to stimulus measures such as his temporary VAT cut.

Mr Darling's prediction - along with those of many experts - have been blown out of the water by the extent of the recession, which has been far from the "shorter and shallower" downturn first envisaged.

By April's Budget, the Chancellor was expecting growth to return "towards the end of the year" and now the spotlight will be on the latest round of forecasts in next month's Pre-Budget Report.

If the current 3.5 per cent contraction for the economy this year is revised lower in November, it will reverberate across the entire public finances.

The current record £175 billion in net borrowing is likely to rise as tax receipts fall short of predictions and estimated benefit payments increase, heaping more pressure on the public purse.

The 1.25 per cent growth also predicted for next year and much stronger 3.5 per cent advance pencilled in for 2011 will also come under extreme pressure - meaning that the Government will have to borrow more for longer and making attempts to tackle the country's structural deficit that much harder.

Mr Darling currently forecasts growth "at the turn of the year" - a form of words open to wide interpretation which gives him room to manoeuvre should the economy continue to flounder.

As the first Chancellor since Norman Lamont to oversee a recession, he is sticking to his guns on Government support for the economy to prevent an even deeper slump - but will be desperately hoping the recovery begins sooner rather than later.

A cross-party group of MPs today demanded an urgent review of the guidelines for newspapers and magazines with "sexually graphic" front covers.

The MPs, including Tory former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and the Weald) and ex-Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell (Fife NE), said the review should consider whether pornographic magazines should be concealed in bags instead of displayed on the top shelf of newsagents.

They also called for the inquiry to examine whether a cinema-style age rating system should be introduced for magazines.

In a Commons motion tabled by Labour's Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes), the MPs state that "politicians, retailers, publishers and distributors have a collective responsibility to protect children and young people from displays of sexually graphic material that they are not emotionally equipped to deal with".

The motion calls for an urgent review of existing guidelines drawn up between the Home Office and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents.

The MPs said a review "must consider the availability of sexually graphic publications to children and young people, the positioning of these publications on the shelves of retailers, the potential for concealing these publications in bags and consider the question of age-rating such publications".

They warn that failure to follow the revised guidelines could lead to calls for legislation covering all aspects of the availability and display of sexually graphic material to children and young people throughout the retail and publishing industries.

So far 11 MPs from the three main parties have signed Mr Roy's motion.

A man who murdered his boss and tried to kill three other people "in acts of callous wickedness, cruelty and inhumanity" was sentenced to life in prison today.

Russell Carter, 53, was found guilty of killing Kingsley Monk and three counts of attempted murder after a three-week trial last month.

He was told today he would serve 30 years in prison before he is eligible to apply for release.

Mr Monk, 45, was strangled, probably with his own tie, at Driverline 247 in New Inn, Pontypool, south Wales, last October, Newport Crown Court heard.

He was bound and gagged by Carter, who repeatedly kicked him and beat him with a piece of pipe.

Three other men, Gethin Heal, Nathan Taylor and Robert Lewis, were also tied up and doused with fuel as they arrived for work.

Carter, of Rumney, Cardiff, launched the lethal attack at the office, brandishing what he was later to claim was a toy gun and claiming he was owed £3,000.

He fled the office after setting it on fire with the intention of killing the three witnesses still inside.

Sentencing, Recorder of Cardiff Judge Nicholas Cooke QC told Carter: "These crimes were acts of callous wickedness, cruelty and inhumanity which beggar belief.

"The murder was frenzied and horrific. You terrorised Mr Monk before killing him. Your intention was to kill and you killed."

Addressing the attempted murders of the other men, the judge said: "Here your intention was evil. The fate you meant for these three men was horrific.

"It showed your unfeeling cruelty. You wanted them to die, either by being burnt alive or by asphyxiation as they lay bound and helpless.

"Whatever your grievance with Mr Monk, these men had done you no conceivable harm. That you intended so terrible an end to those who had done you no harm identifies you as both extremely dangerous and thoroughly bad."

After returning its verdicts, the jury - nine of whom were in court to hear the sentencing - was told that Carter committed a violent armed bank robbery in the US years before he returned to Britain and killed his boss.

But because no formal agreement exists to alert the UK of his criminal past, the authorities here did not know until the Newport trial was already under way.

It meant Carter was able to work as a lorry driver while in breach of parole in the US after serving part of a 20-year jail term there.

The defendant, who delayed proceedings for an hour because he said he could not summon the dignity required, remained impassive throughout as the judge sentenced him to 25 years for the attempted murders and 10 years for false imprisonment, to run concurrent with his sentence for the murder.

The judge acknowledged he would probably die in prison.

The Growth Enterprises Market (GEM) will open with 28 businesses selected by regulators to debut on the Shenzhen-based exchange, including China’s first listed film company.

The market, which opens for trading on October 30, is aimed at nurturing small and medium-sized Chinese enterprises that have traditionally struggled to raise funds from a banking sector that favours state-controlled behemoths.

Beijing, which has talked about launching a market to rival the Nasdaq or London’s AIM for more than a decade, hopes that the Shenzhen GEM will spur indigenous creativity as China seeks to reduce its traditional reliance on export manufacturing.

Companies specialising in computer software, medicine, ship design and bio-engineering have been selected in the first batch of 10 initial public offerings, many of which are reported to be oversubscribed.

They have announced plans to raise almost £600m, with analysts calculating average share prices at 55 times 2008 earnings, compared with an average price-earnings ration of 36 times on China’s main boards so far this year.

Regulators also said they had installed new checks to reduce the risk of the new market driving speculation among China’s 100 million stock-broking account holders. The market is not open to foreign investors.

IPO launches in China have often followed a pattern of steep price rises followed by even steeper falls as investors took quick profits.

In the new market shares that increase or decrease by 80 per cent on its first day of trading will be suspended until 3 minutes before the market closing time.

Analysts have remained sceptical as to whether Chinese small businesses will be sufficiently strong to emulate the success of some Nasdaq enterprises.

They point to the relative failure of the Hong Kong GEM market which launched 10 years ago during the dot.com bubble period but currently has a total market capitalisation of just £6.6bn, or 0.6pc of the value of the main board.

The study, released by a congressional advisory panel, found cases suggesting that China's elite hacker community has ties to the Beijing government, although there is little hard evidence.

The commission report details a cyberattack against a US company several years ago that appeared to either originate in or come through China and was similar to other incidents also believed to be connected to the country.

According to the analysis, the company noticed that over several days, data from its network was being sent to multiple computers in the US and overseas.

While the report does not identify the company, it contends that the attackers targeted specific data, suggesting a very coordinated and sophisticated operation by people who had the expertise to use the high-tech information.

An internet protocol (IP) address located in China was used at times during the episode.

Barring proof, the study by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warns that the sort of expansive and sophisticated computer resources that have been seen in cyberattacks on the US and other countries "is difficult at best without some type of state sponsorship."

The study contends that the Chinese, long reported to be stoking a massive military build up, has also made computer warfare a priority.

The Chinese government is said to view such cyberprowess as critical for victory in future conflicts - similar to the priority on offensive cyber abilities stressed by some U.S. officials.

Potential Chinese targets in the US, according to the report, would likely include Pentagon networks and databases to disrupt command and control communications, and possibly corrupt encrypted data.

The report notes, however, that penetrating such classified systems would be time consuming and difficult.

"The US Embassy in Bern submitted the formal extradition request to the Federal Office of Justice on 22 October 2009, within the deadline of 40 days stipulated under the bilateral extradition treaty," the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said in a statement.

The request would be forwarded to the canton of Zurich, where Polanski was detained upon his arrival on September 26 to collect an award at the city's film festival.

A local court will then hold a hearing and, "based on the results of the hearing and the information provided by Polanski's lawyer," the justice office will decide if it should accept the extradition request.

"The authorities in Zurich will take charge of the Roman Polanski hearing. They will hold a verbal hearing that would be transmitted to us," Folco Galli, spokesman for the justice office, said.

If the federal justice office accepted the extradition request, Polanski can appeal against the decision before the country's top criminal court.

He will also have a further chance to appeal to the federal supreme court.

Polanski's lawyer Herve Temime said the film director will fight the US request.

"Mr Polanski is not changing course. He will not accept the US extradition request," Temime told AFP.

The director of "Rosemary's Baby", "Chinatown" and "The Pianist" has been regarded as a fugitive by US authorities since he fled the United States in 1978 after admitting to sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski had initially been charged with rape and five other felonies before later pleading guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

But he fled the United States before sentencing and has never returned, even missing the Oscar award for "The Pianist" in 2003.

Following his arrest in Switzerland, he has asked to be released on bail pending extradition, but Switzerland's top criminal court on Tuesday rejected the request, saying there was a "high" risk that he could flee the country.

The 76-year-old film-maker had put up his property in the luxury Swiss ski resort of Gstaad as bail, according to court documents.

His lawyers have also argued that given his age and in view of his two children who are still in school, Polanski would not put at risk over half of his assets by jumping bail.

However, Switzerland's federal criminal court assessed that the bail was not in line with requirements set by the law.

Highlighting the high risk of flight, the court noted Polanski's dual French and Polish nationalities.

It pointed out he could travel across the borderless Schengen zone, which includes Switzerland and its neighbours, "without problem and without travel documents."