Conservationists on British archipelago to poison brown rats, which are wreaking havoc on precious bird populations The rat population on the Scilly islands of St Agnes and Gugh may not have quite reached Hamelin-like proportions. Nevertheless, the entire adult population of the two islands has backed plans by conservationists to rid the place of rodents. The problem is not that 3,100 brown rats menace the 70-odd human beings – but they are wreaking havoc on precious bird populations. Tony Whitehead, a spokesman for the bird conservation charity the RSPB, said rats were a problem across the Isles of Scilly, the archipelago lying 28 miles off the southwest coast of mainland Britain. Between 1983 and 2006 it was estimated that the bird population fell by almost 25%. “The availability of food is a major problem but the rats are also having a significant impact on birdlife,” said Whitehead. Two of the key species under threat by rats are the storm petrel and manx shearwater, both of which nest in burrows and so are easy prey for rodents. But the rats are not fussy and also target the Scilly shrew, only found on the islands, crabs and even limpets. A feasibility concluded that the rat population could be eradicated on St Agnes and Gugh, which are linked by a sandbar, because they are far enough away from other islands to make it impossible for other rats to swim across and take their places. The programme is also considered a priority because St Agnes and Gugh are close to an uninhabited island, Annet, which has hugely important colonies of seabirds and the fear is rats could reach there and cause devastation. The RSPB , Natural England and other local conservation groups are asking the European Commission for a grant of £160,000 to bring in pest-control experts to poison the rats. According to the groups, they asked every adult on the islands and nobody objected to the idea. “We’re all very pleased that they are going to try to get rid of the rats,” said Jimmy Paget-Brown, who runs a self-catering cottage on St Agnes. Many islands have armed themselves with vicious-looking rat traps and poison but a rat census found there are still between 20 and 25 rats per hectare. Paget-Brown insisted that it wasn’t obvious that the island was over-run by rats. “It’s not as if you see them running all over the place. I can’t remember the last time I saw one but of course they are there and we’d rather they weren’t.” Rats have been removed from the island of Lundy, off the coast of Devon, in recent years easing pressure on bird populations. It is not just a British problem. The RSPB is carrying out a rat eradication programme on Henderson Island in the south Pacific to try to protect birds including petrels. Conservation Animals RSPB Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Vince Cable’s efforts to curb high executive pay undermined by Tory director of strategy’s comments on maternity rights Startling divisions inside the coaltion have been exposed after Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s strategy guru, proposed the temporary abolition of all maternity rights while Vince Cable, the business secretary, was preparing to meet policy experts on salaries to prepare the ground for new controls on excessive executive pay. The degree to which senior figures in the coalition are pushing in entirely opposite ideological directions underlines the growing sense that the coalition is now struggling to retain a set of coherent ideas. Hilton has always been regarded as a source of originality as much as pragmatic Whitehall-ready policy, but his opposition to any form of employment protection for mothers will alarm centrists in the coalition. He has also suggested the abolition of all consumer rights as part of an initiative to inject life into Britain’s sluggish economy. Cable, responsible for growth policy, yesterday presented limited proposals to abolish outdated shopping legislation. Demands for ever-more urgent deregulation has grown inside the government in the face of evidence that the economy is not growing as fast as the prime minister hoped a year ago, At one point Hilton, a euro-sceptic, advocated Britain ignoring a directive on EU temporary and agency workers’ rights, even though the government had committed itself to implementing the directive. Hilton would always defend himself as willing to advance iconoclastic thinking, but some civil servants are now hitting back claiming he is a diversion from serious policy. Cable is to meet members of the independent High Pay Commisison, a body that is looking at mainly non-legislative ways of curbing undeserved high pay to
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Utility giant and its residential arm British Gas likely to face criticism for £1.3bn half-year profits with price rise imminent Britain’s largest energy supplier, Centrica, faced more public outrage today after reporting £1.3bn in its half-year profits – including £270m for its residential arm British Gas – just weeks after announcing a price hike . But Centrica said adjusted operating profits at British Gas for the six months to 30 June fell by 54% compared with the same period last year, as it battled with a 30% increase in wholesale gas prices and lower consumption. Centrica, which also operates an upstream gas exploration business and a US residential arm, posted a 19% decline in adjusted operating profits from £1.6bn in the same period last year. British Gas plans to lift gas and electricity prices by an average of 18% and 16% respectively from 18 August . Some 9 million customers will be hit when British Gas raises the average dual fuel bill by £190 a year to £1,219, pushing the average monthly bill to £101.58. The price rise comes at a time when household incomes are becoming increasingly squeezed by high inflation and muted wage growth. But Centrica said British Gas saw an 18% year-on-year decline in gas usage in the period, as well as a 3% drop in electricity consumption. The FTSE 100-listed company said British Gas profits were made in the first quarter of the year – with energy being sold at a loss since April. Centrica said without the pending price rise in August, it would make a loss in the second half of the year. However, British Gas did record an increase in customers in the period – up 159,000 to 16.1 million accounts. The upstream gas operations, which include assets in the North Sea and Trinidad and Tobago, saw profits increase 14% to £414m. Centrica Utilities Gas Commodities Energy industry Household bills Consumer affairs guardian.co.uk
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Chatshow host made remarks about tabloid journalism practices on Desert Island Discs and in 2007 interview Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, has for the second time in a week denied that he printed stories obtained through phone hacking. CNN, which now employs him in New York as a chatshow host, issued the latest denial over comments Morgan made in a Radio 4 Desert Island Discs interview , which threatened to drag him into the scandal. In another interview, Morgan expressed sympathy with the News of the World royal reporter, Clive Goodman, who had been jailed for phone hacking, saying he was merely a “fall guy for an investigative practice that everyone knows was going on”. The 2007 Press Gazette interview was tweeted by MP Louise Mensch. Last week she locked horns with Morgan on a CNN show, when he robustly denied any involvement saying he had “never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone or published any stories based on the hacking of a phone”. Hours earlier, CNN issued a statement saying Morgan’s 2009 Desert Island Discs interview did not contradict that statement. In the interview, presenter Kirsty Young asked: “What about this nice middle-class boy, who would have to be dealing with, I mean essentially people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs, who do all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff. How do you feel about that?” Morgan replied: “Well, to be honest, let’s put that into perspective as well. Not a lot of that went on. A lot of it was done by third parties, rather than the staff themselves.” He continued: “That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work. I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to, and I make no pretence about the stuff we used to do. “I simply say the net of people doing it was very wide and a lot encompassed the high and low end of the supposed newspaper market.” In the CNN statement, Morgan said there was “no contradiction between my comments on Kirsty Young’s Desert Island Discs show and my unequivocal statements with regard to phone hacking”. “Millions of people heard these comments when I first made them in 2009 on one of the BBC’s longest-running radio shows, and none deduced that I was admitting to, or condoning illegal reporting activity.” “Kirsty asked me a fairly lengthy question about how I felt dealing with people operating at the sharp end of investigative journalism. “My answer was not specific to any of the numerous examples she gave but a general observation about tabloid newspaper reporters and private investigators.” But the emergence of the tape shows how sensitive the issue of phone hacking has become for all newspapers. Morgan, who is a Twitter enthusiast, has been conspicuously quiet on the issue of phone hacking since the scandal blew up three weeks ago. Phone hacking Piers Morgan CNN Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers TV news Television industry United States Lisa O’Carroll guardian.co.uk
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Price of NHS reforms soaring out of control says Labour as new total put at £1.49bn – up £160m in six months The cost of the government’s plans to restructure the NHS is rising at almost £1m a day, the Guardian has learned. Buried in a spreadsheet put out by the Department of Health as part of its revised business plan last week, officials admitted that the cost of transition was now £1.49bn. This figure is £160m more than the previous estimate, issued six months ago, when the reforms bill was first published. In January the department estimated the total cost of the structural change to be £1.33bn. The health bill was amended after suggestions by a committee set up by David Cameron, the Future Forum, to head off criticism over the wide-ranging reforms. But the effect appears to have been to increase significantly the cost of the upheaval to the taxpayer. A new impact assessment will now be completed by the Department of Health following the forum’s recommendations. Analysis by the Health Service Journal has shown that the transition to placing health budgets in the hands of GPs had already cost £228m since July last year. The size, scale and cost of the reforms have long troubled MPs and health service professionals, who point out that cutting staff also costs huge sums in redundancy payments. Trade unions claim that three-quarters of the estimated cost of the transition will go towards redundancy payments to 20,000 staff, suggesting average settlements of more than £45,000. John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said: “People will be shocked at the scale of wasted cost due to David Cameron’s NHS upheaval. These new figures, slipped out by the Department of Health, show that the costs of this unnecessary reorganisation are spiralling out of control.” Alan Maynard, professor of health economics at York University, said: “The delays and time taken for the reforms have really begun to affect morale and work ethic. People just won’t work if they don’t know where they will be next year or whether they have a job.” The department said the benefits of the changes will “far outweigh” the costs. The Co-operation and Competition Panel (CCP), the government body that investigates competition issues in the NHS, says that patients are losing out as a result of restrictions on their choice of provider of NHS care. An investigation found that nearly half of the NHS’s primary care trusts were blocking competition by guaranteeing NHS providers set amounts of work before patients can be sent to the private sector, or restricting the number of services that private hospitals can offer. The panel said that the expected benefits of patient choice – to patients and taxpayers – will not be fully realised. Trusts are also rationing procedures to cut costs. A freedom of information request by the health service GP magazine has found that, out of a survey of 111 PCTs, two-thirds are rationing “non-urgent” treatments such as tonsillectomies, cataract surgery and hip replacements. The issue of competition in the NHS is explosive. A controversial study by academics at the London School of Economics claims almost 1,000 lives were saved by the NHS being subject to competition. But Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary, University of London, said the study was “fundamentally flawed”. The paper, written by Zack Cooper, of the London School of Economics, and quoted by the prime minister last month, showed patients with more choice of hospitals had lower death rates. Cooper found that mortality rates of patients with heart disease fell faster in the more “competitive areas of England”. Thus the academics estimate that the reforms led to relative reduction of about 900, or around 7%, in heart attack deaths in the English NHS between 2006 and 2008. NHS Health Public finance Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
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America’s political leaders now have just six days to agree a deal to raise the limit on US borrowing Global stock markets suffered fresh losses on Thursday as the US debt talks remained deadlocked, leaving investors braced for shockwaves to rattle the financial world . With no sign of a deal in Washington, there were heavy losses in Asia overnight. There was also a scrabble to sell shares in Europe, as traders reacted to the worst day’s trading in two months on Wall Street on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 fell 54 points at one stage of 5,802, but later clawed back most of the losses as the nervy morning session continued. There were sharper falls on the German and French markets. America’s political leaders now have just six days to agree a deal to raise the limit on US borrowing, and traders are having to confront the possibility – unthinkable just a few weeks ago – that they will fail. “The rout in global equity markets continues as concern builds over the failure of US lawmakers to serve up any meaningful progress regarding the debt ceiling,” said Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets. “This one item really is dominating the agenda right now.” Europe’s own debt crisis was also in focus, with Standard & Poor’s downgrading Greece’s credit rating. Earlier, Asian markets had seen heavy falls amid concern that the US, the world’s biggest economy and its biggest creditor, might default on its debts. Japan’s Nikkei lost nearly 1.5%, closing 145,84 points lower at 9,901.35. The US government moved to crush speculation that America has more time to resolve the crisis, insisting that the Treasury only has enough funds to last until 2 August. “The problem is there is not enough money because we can no longer borrow money to pay all our bills. You’re basically running on fumes,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters in Washington. “It is a crisis situation.” President Obama continues to push for a long-term deal to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans, though, are proposing a short-term extension – followed by fresh negotiations in 2012. Carney denied that Obama is looking to avoid a repeat of the current debacle in an election year. “It’s not about the re-election,” he said. “The issue here is the effect on the economy.” A short-term deal also raises the chances of America losing its AAA credit rating , warned Michael Hewson of CMC Markets. “Politicians do appear to be making some progress, however a major sticking point would appear to be the Republican insistence of a second vote on a debt ceiling rise before the 2012 election. Given recent comments by ratings agency S&P this may not be wisest course of action by US leaders and could well precipitate a ratings downgrade in the coming months,” Hewson said. The Republican plan is due to be debated and voted on this Thursday, after House speaker John Boehner was forced to rework the legislation – which did not initially deliver the spending cuts he had promised . Gary Jenkins of Evolution Securities is also concerned that the US is flirting with a downgrade, although rating agencies could be placated by a credible long-term fiscal plan to tackle America’s debt. “On the current proposals a downgrade is still likely in my opinion, but at this stage of more concern is the possibility that they don’t even raise the debt ceiling. Surely they couldn’t be that stupid?” Jenkins wrote in a research note. The interest rate on US 10-year government debt remained slightly above the UK equivalent, at 2.97% v 2.963% suggesting that Britain’s gilts are seen as a less risky investment than American Treasuries . Another Greek downgrade S&P warned that banks holding Greek debt will suffer significant losses via the rescue package announced last week, as it cut the country’s rating to CC. S&P said that the upcoming restructuring of Greek debt was a “distressed exchange” because private creditors will suffer losses if they agree to swap or rollover their loans into new 30-year bonds, and accept a “haircut” on the value of the the debt. S&P added that it will probably assign a “low-speculative-grade rating” to new Greek debt. In other banking news, Credit Suisse announced plans to cut 2,000 jobs. HSBC is also reported to be planning to eliminate thousands of positions worldwide in a cost-cutting drive. US economy Economics United States Ratings agencies Financial sector Stock markets European debt crisis Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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Premier Wen Jiabao has called for a sweeping and transparent probe into the crash between two bullet trains, which killed at least 39 people Design flaws in signal equipment and human error caused the high-speed train crash in China last weekend that killed at least 39 people, a railway official said. The preliminary finding comes in the face of public anger about the government’s handling of the accident near Wenzhou in Zhejiang province. Premier Wen Jiabao, who arrived in Wenzhou on Thursday to check on the investigation and the conditions of the survivors, has called for a sweeping and transparent probe into the crash between two bullet trains, which also hurt more than 190 people. Six train cars derailed and four fell about 65 to 100 feet from a viaduct Saturday night after one train plowed into the back of another train that had stalled after being hit by lightning. An Lusheng, head of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, said there were design problems with the signal light equipment at the Wenzhou South Station and dispatchers did not send any warnings after the lightning strike. “After the lightning strike caused a failure, an interval signal machine that should have shown a red light mistakenly upgraded it to a green light instead,” An said in comments carried by state broadcaster CCTV. The Beijing National Railway Research and Design Institute of Signal and Communication, which designed the signal equipment, on Thursday issued a letter of apology to the families of the victims and the injured passengers. It said it would cooperate with the investigation and would “have the courage to assume responsibility and accept the punishment deserved.” Wen’s visit comes a day after more than 20 relatives of people who died in the crash gathered at the Wenzhou South Station, holding banners demanding answers regarding the accident’s cause, Chinese media reported. “After such a big thing has happened, the railway departments cannot hide behind while they let the local governments deal with it and solve it. They are slow and won’t show their faces. Is it the government that wants to protect them, or has the government been threatened by them?” one man surnamed Lin who lost his elder brother, Lin Xiao, in the crash, told the Yangcheng Evening News. The government has ordered a two-month safety campaign for its railway system amid questions about how the crash occurred. Wen called for the campaign to be widened to target all transport infrastructure, coal mines, construction sites, and industries dealing with dangerous chemicals. The accident was the biggest blow yet to China’s burgeoning high-speed rail ambitions that have been highlighted as a symbol of the countries rising economic and technological prowess. Rapid expansion of the services has been dogged by concerns about safety, corruption scandals and criticism that schedules are impractical and tickets too expensive for ordinary Chinese. Open just one month, the much-hyped 820-mile Beijing-Shanghai line has been plagued by power outages and other malfunctions. Saturday’s accident outside the eastern city of Wenzhou prompted an outpouring of anger among the public and even in the usually docile state media, with questions posed over the cause of the crash and the government’s handling of the aftermath. The firing of three top officials at the Shanghai Railway Bureau did little to tamp down criticism that authorities made only passing attempts to rescue survivors while ordering tracks swiftly cleared to restore service. China Rail transport guardian.co.uk
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Opposition leader undergoes hour-long NHS procedure for respiratory condition – but has it improved his voice? An expectant cluster of doctors, of both the medical and spinning variety, gathered around a bedside in Grays Inn Road, London, to await an event that could determine the outcome of the next general election. It was Ed nose day at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear hospital. Ed Miliband had been asleep for an hour, recovering from an operation his team ludicrously continued to insist was solely about tackling a deviated septum in his nose, so making it easier for him to sleep, and possibly for his wife Justine to be spared the odd snore. The Labour leader’s spin doctors continued to blather on about how obstructive sleep apnoea is a respiratory condition, leading the throat to repeatedly narrow or close during sleep. This meant air did not get into Miliband’s lungs properly, so waking him in the middle of night, leaving him with nothing to do but think about the future of European social democracy – a subject that would make most people lapse back comatosed, but has an enlivening effect on a Milimind. But everyone knew that all this medical detail was spin doctor obfuscation. In reality, the hour-long operation was a giant gamble. No one knew whether when he awoke the sound of Miliband’s voice would be transformed. Would the new Bold Ed of recent weeks, willing to tear down the Murdoch empire, be given a voice to match – a lustrous blend of Laurence Olivier, Barry White and Kathleen Turner? Or would it resemble a squeaky chainsaw liable to make voters run screaming from the room? As research has shown the sound of a voice is worth more votes to politicians than the content of their speeches, the operation was no trivial matter. Many British politicians, including George Osborne and Lady Thatcher, have undergone coaching to deepen the timbre. However, Labour voters hoping that the operation would have some magical oratorical impact have been disappointed. Those who have spoken to Miliband (no audio is yet available) say he sounds the same. “It did not change his voice, and nor was it intended to,” said his office. He will now spend some “slow time” in his north London home before heading off on holiday to Devon with his family. With his poll ratings well out of the emergency ward, he will be able to sleep easier before the haul towards his autumn party conference speech, an event that makes the most equable personality wake in the small hours in a cold sweat. Ed Miliband Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Officials estimate that there are 38,000 organised criminals active in Britain working in 6,000 groups A record £161m worth of assets, including sports cars, watches, diamond earrings, designer clothing and fine china was recovered from criminals in Britain last year. The Home Office disclosed the figure, the highest since the introduction of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, as ministers prepared to publish their new strategy to tackle organised crime. They said a further £49m of assets was returned to victims, while £831m of cash and ill-gotten gains such as seized illicit drugs were denied to criminals during 2010-11. It is officially estimated that there are 38,000 organised criminals active in Britain working in 6,000 groups involved in the drugs trade, human trafficking, child exploitation and cybercrime as well as more traditional areas such as armed robbery and organised vehicle theft. Ministers have complained that too many of them regard themselves as “untouchables”. It is also estimated that organised crime costs the UK £20-£40bn a year in social and economic costs. The organised crime strategy, to be published on Thursday, promises to make a difference by “ensuring a co-ordinated national approach across government, law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies”. It will also pave the way for the establishment in 2013 of the National Crime Agency (NCA), which will set the “national operational agenda” for fighting serious and complex crime. The NCA will for the first time have the power to direct other police forces and law enforcement agencies in ensuring that appropriate action is taken at the right level against organised crime. It will have the power to link local to national and cross-border efforts to tackle organised crime. The agency has already suffered an early setback, however, in that the senior chief constable, Bernard Hogan-Howe, who was frontrunner for the head of the shadow NCA to be set up this year, has already been drafted in as temporary deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police in the aftermath of Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation. “Organised crime has a local impact but a global reach. To tackle it effectively we need a strategic, co-ordinated response at every level from community policing through to international partnership,” said Home Office minister James Brokenshire. “The organised crime strategy will bring a new emphasis on the prevention of organised crime alongside a greater push to ensure that more prosecution and disruption activity takes place against more organised criminals, at a reduced cost,” said Brokenshire. “This, alongside the launch of the new National Crime Agency, means that we will ensure that those who commit serious and organised crime are tracked down, pursued, brought to justice and their ill-gotten gains are stripped away.” Crime Police Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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British honeymoon couple Ben and Catherine Mullany were murdered on the holiday island of Antigua Two men were convicted today of murdering British honeymoon couple Ben and Catherine Mullany on the holiday island of Antigua. Kaniel Martin, 23, and Avie Howell, 20, shot the Mullanys in their chalet in 2008. The pair, who refused to face questioning in court, had protested their innocence throughout their two month long trial, which saw more than 90 witnesses give evidence. But the men were found guilty by a jury in Antigua’s High Court in St John’s today. Mr and Mrs Mullany were both shot in the back of the head during a dawn raid at their luxury hotel chalet on the holiday island in 2008. Mr Mullany, a student physiotherapist, and Mrs Mullany, a doctor, who were staying in the five-star Cocos Hotel, had only been married just over two weeks. Mrs Mullany died instantly. Mr Mullany was flown back home to south Wales in a desperate attempt to save his life. But despite the efforts of his wife’s medical colleagues in Swansea his life-support was turned off a week after he had been shot. The couple were buried in the grounds of the same church where they had married a little over a month previously. It has taken almost three years for their killers to be brought to justice. Two weeks after killing the newlyweds, Howell and Martin then went on to murder 43-year-old shopkeeper Woneta Anderson. Mr and Mrs Mullany’s parents broke down in tears as the jury of eight men and four delivered its verdicts – following an anxious 10 hour and 20 minute wait. The family said it would never be able to comprehend the nature of the couple’s deaths. A statement said: “There is no joy at today’s verdict, just a sense of relief that after three years of waiting there is justice for our children, and for Woneta Anderson and her family. “These two individuals can never again inflict the same anguish and devastation to any other family as they have to ours.” Antigua & Barbuda guardian.co.uk
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