Friday’s strike sees Robert Peston and Laura Kuenssberg missing from TV and radio news, as Newsnight goes off air The strike by BBC journalists on Friday leaves the corporation’s TV and radio services without star reporters including Nick Robinson, Robert Peston and Laura Kuenssberg on one of the biggest days so far in the phone-hacking story following the resignation of Rebekah Brooks. BBC2′s Newsnight, which has enjoyed a ratings boost in the past two weeks as viewers have tuned in to catch up with comment and analysis of the latest twists and turns in the phone-hacking saga, is also off air on Friday night because of the 24-hour strike by members of the National Union of Journalists. The current affairs show, which was to have been presented by Gavin Esler, is being replaced by a 2010 repeat of Have I Got News For You. However, BBC1′s main news bulletin at 1pm went out as normal and the 6pm and 10pm bulletins are due to go ahead as planned. Robinson, the BBC political editor, and Kuenssberg, the chief political correspondent about to join ITV News as business editor, have been regular fixtures on TV and radio bulletins and the BBC News channel as key elements in coverage of the News International scandal played out at Westminster. Peston has also delivered several scoops about the unfolding story, leading rival media organisations to accuse News International of leaking stories to the BBC journalist. Viewers and listeners tuning in to BBC News programmes on Friday morning found disruption to the breakfast shows on BBC1 and Radio 5 Live and Radio 4′s Today . BBC1′s Breakfast was off air, replaced by a BBC News channel simulcast, while the regular 5 Live Breakfast hosts Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden were replaced by Ian Payne and Julia Bradbury. Listeners to Radio 4′s Today were treated to a repeated documentary about the Russian communist revolution in the runup to 7am. However, from 7am the BBC’s flagship radio news programme ran pretty much as normal with regular presenters Sarah Montague and Justin Webb, who is in Japan reporting on the aftermath of the tsunami that struck earlier this year. The World at One and PM, Radio 4′s flagship evening news programme at 5pm, are also off air. The 1pm World at One news programme was replaced by a 15-minute bulletin, with the rest of the hour-long show taken up by a repeat of an edition of The Prime Ministers on 19th-century statesman Robert Peel. In place of PM will be a repeated of the contemporary history show Document, about the Polaris missile, with an edition of Soul Music at 5.30pm. Radio 4′s 8pm political discussion show Any Questions has also been taken off air. Replacing the scheduled broadcast of the panel programme which usually hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby will be an omnibus edition of Radio 4′s series exploring Winston’s Churchill’s life outside politics, Churchill’s Other Lives. Saturday’s edition of the follow-up call-in programme Any Answers will be replaced by an edition of My Teenage Diary, according to the BBC. The late night Radio 4 news programme The World Tonight is giving way to an edition of Meeting Myself Coming Back just after the 10pm news bulletin. Radio 5 Live is running a slightly slimmed-down news service with short news bulletins on the hour and half hour, with 15-minute bulletins planned for 1pm, 5pm and 6pm. The BBC World Service’s English-language service will be running five-minute news at the top of the hour and two minutes on the half hour. Picket lines were mounted from midnight on Friday outside BBC premises across the country, with the NUJ predicting a “solid response” to the walkout. The BBC admitted it expected widespread disruption to services and said it was disappointed by the industrial action and apologised to viewers and listeners. Negotiations with the NUJ over compulsory redundancies at BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring continued until the eve of the strike, but no agreement was reached. The NUJ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, accused the BBC of “provoking” a strike over a handful of job losses, but the corporation said there were 100 posts for which compulsory redundancy was “regrettably unavoidable”. Stanistreet said the union offered a number of solutions to the dispute, adding that an offer from the conciliation service Acas for peace talks had not been taken up by BBC management. “There are so many people who want to leave the BBC that this could be resolved through negotiations. The NUJ has a longstanding policy of no compulsory redundancies, and it is clear that our members at the BBC are fully prepared to stand up for their colleagues under threat,” she said. “Jobs are being saved and created at management level, but journalists are losing theirs. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that BBC management wants thousands of its journalists to go on strike rather than settle the dispute.” A BBC spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the NUJ is intending to strike and apologise to our audience for any disruption to services this may cause. “We have had to reduce the number of posts in World Service and BBC Monitoring by 387, following significant cuts to the central government grants that support these services. In a significant majority of cases we have been able to reach this through voluntary redundancy or redeployment. “However, there are in excess of 100 BBC posts for which compulsory redundancy is regrettably unavoidable, and this is our focus, regardless of whether staff are members of unions.” A further 24-hour strike is due to take place on 29 July. •
Continue reading …Friday’s strike sees Robert Peston and Laura Kuenssberg missing from TV and radio news, as Newsnight goes off air The strike by BBC journalists on Friday leaves the corporation’s TV and radio services without star reporters including Nick Robinson, Robert Peston and Laura Kuenssberg on one of the biggest days so far in the phone-hacking story following the resignation of Rebekah Brooks. BBC2′s Newsnight, which has enjoyed a ratings boost in the past two weeks as viewers have tuned in to catch up with comment and analysis of the latest twists and turns in the phone-hacking saga, is also off air on Friday night because of the 24-hour strike by members of the National Union of Journalists. The current affairs show, which was to have been presented by Gavin Esler, is being replaced by a 2010 repeat of Have I Got News For You. However, BBC1′s main news bulletin at 1pm went out as normal and the 6pm and 10pm bulletins are due to go ahead as planned. Robinson, the BBC political editor, and Kuenssberg, the chief political correspondent about to join ITV News as business editor, have been regular fixtures on TV and radio bulletins and the BBC News channel as key elements in coverage of the News International scandal played out at Westminster. Peston has also delivered several scoops about the unfolding story, leading rival media organisations to accuse News International of leaking stories to the BBC journalist. Viewers and listeners tuning in to BBC News programmes on Friday morning found disruption to the breakfast shows on BBC1 and Radio 5 Live and Radio 4′s Today . BBC1′s Breakfast was off air, replaced by a BBC News channel simulcast, while the regular 5 Live Breakfast hosts Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden were replaced by Ian Payne and Julia Bradbury. Listeners to Radio 4′s Today were treated to a repeated documentary about the Russian communist revolution in the runup to 7am. However, from 7am the BBC’s flagship radio news programme ran pretty much as normal with regular presenters Sarah Montague and Justin Webb, who is in Japan reporting on the aftermath of the tsunami that struck earlier this year. The World at One and PM, Radio 4′s flagship evening news programme at 5pm, are also off air. The 1pm World at One news programme was replaced by a 15-minute bulletin, with the rest of the hour-long show taken up by a repeat of an edition of The Prime Ministers on 19th-century statesman Robert Peel. In place of PM will be a repeated of the contemporary history show Document, about the Polaris missile, with an edition of Soul Music at 5.30pm. Radio 4′s 8pm political discussion show Any Questions has also been taken off air. Replacing the scheduled broadcast of the panel programme which usually hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby will be an omnibus edition of Radio 4′s series exploring Winston’s Churchill’s life outside politics, Churchill’s Other Lives. Saturday’s edition of the follow-up call-in programme Any Answers will be replaced by an edition of My Teenage Diary, according to the BBC. The late night Radio 4 news programme The World Tonight is giving way to an edition of Meeting Myself Coming Back just after the 10pm news bulletin. Radio 5 Live is running a slightly slimmed-down news service with short news bulletins on the hour and half hour, with 15-minute bulletins planned for 1pm, 5pm and 6pm. The BBC World Service’s English-language service will be running five-minute news at the top of the hour and two minutes on the half hour. Picket lines were mounted from midnight on Friday outside BBC premises across the country, with the NUJ predicting a “solid response” to the walkout. The BBC admitted it expected widespread disruption to services and said it was disappointed by the industrial action and apologised to viewers and listeners. Negotiations with the NUJ over compulsory redundancies at BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring continued until the eve of the strike, but no agreement was reached. The NUJ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, accused the BBC of “provoking” a strike over a handful of job losses, but the corporation said there were 100 posts for which compulsory redundancy was “regrettably unavoidable”. Stanistreet said the union offered a number of solutions to the dispute, adding that an offer from the conciliation service Acas for peace talks had not been taken up by BBC management. “There are so many people who want to leave the BBC that this could be resolved through negotiations. The NUJ has a longstanding policy of no compulsory redundancies, and it is clear that our members at the BBC are fully prepared to stand up for their colleagues under threat,” she said. “Jobs are being saved and created at management level, but journalists are losing theirs. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that BBC management wants thousands of its journalists to go on strike rather than settle the dispute.” A BBC spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the NUJ is intending to strike and apologise to our audience for any disruption to services this may cause. “We have had to reduce the number of posts in World Service and BBC Monitoring by 387, following significant cuts to the central government grants that support these services. In a significant majority of cases we have been able to reach this through voluntary redundancy or redeployment. “However, there are in excess of 100 BBC posts for which compulsory redundancy is regrettably unavoidable, and this is our focus, regardless of whether staff are members of unions.” A further 24-hour strike is due to take place on 29 July. •
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A tumultuous week for the eurozone ends with the results from the European Banking Authority’s annual banks healthcheck 3.34pm: German bonds are rising as Spanish and Italian government debt comes under pressure 3.20pm: But Sony Kapoor, MD of Re-Define, an economic think tank, says the unprecedented level of detail contained in the stress tests will be a “real punch” that’ll lead to a roller coaster few days. “The EBA has done everyone a big favour by shining the light of transparency on opaque risks in the European banking system.” “The next few days are likely to deliver a roller coaster ride as the new information contained in the stress tests is digested and everyone waits for EU policy makers to make up their mind on Greece.” “The bank-sovereign links that the stress tests reveal means that the pressure to sort out the Euro crisis and put in place a good bank resolution framework will increase sharply.” 3.06pm: Germany’s bankers have complained that the stress tests are going to provide so much detail that they might actually “exacerbate” the sovereign-debt crisis. “Given the tense situation which already exists in money and capital markets, we believe publishing the results with the present level of detail would exacerbate the sovereign-debt crisis,” the ZKA Central Credit Committee, representing Germany’s banking associations, wrote in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News. “To avoid further capital market turmoil, which would fly totally in the face of what the stress test was actually intended to achieve, we believe the level of detail needs to be significantly reduced.” More detail from Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil here 2.38pm: If you’re wondering why you should care about whether or not some banks you’ve never heard of go bust or not, Larry Elliott just chipped in to remind us that the collapse of Austrian bank Credit-Anstalt in 1931 led to the Great Depression . 2.28pm: Still confused about how it all works? Read Jill Treanor’s dummy’s guide 2.08pm: Here’s a good little Bloomberg video in which Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Jean-Pierre Lambert says he expects nine of the banks to fail. We says the results have already started leaking out and Spanish, Greek and German banks will all fail to make the grade. 1.45pm: Feeling stressed today? You ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s judgment day for Europe’s banks as EU regulator, the EBA, will publish the results of their stress tests at 5pm. About 10 of the 91 banks are expected to fail the test, which requires them to hold enough capital to protect against a collapse. The benchmark is 5% core tier one capital. Those expected to fall short include six small Spanish banks, three Greek banks and perhaps some German banks, with Germany’s Helaba pulling out of the test earlier this week. UK banks are expected to pass the test, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everything is A-OK – last year Ireland’s banks collapsed four months after being given a clean bill of heath. However, the tests have seen been toughened. The test results will presented as PDFs on the EBA website European banks European debt crisis Europe Europe Banking European Union Rupert Neate guardian.co.uk
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A tumultuous week for the eurozone ends with the results from the European Banking Authority’s annual banks healthcheck 3.34pm: German bonds are rising as Spanish and Italian government debt comes under pressure 3.20pm: But Sony Kapoor, MD of Re-Define, an economic think tank, says the unprecedented level of detail contained in the stress tests will be a “real punch” that’ll lead to a roller coaster few days. “The EBA has done everyone a big favour by shining the light of transparency on opaque risks in the European banking system.” “The next few days are likely to deliver a roller coaster ride as the new information contained in the stress tests is digested and everyone waits for EU policy makers to make up their mind on Greece.” “The bank-sovereign links that the stress tests reveal means that the pressure to sort out the Euro crisis and put in place a good bank resolution framework will increase sharply.” 3.06pm: Germany’s bankers have complained that the stress tests are going to provide so much detail that they might actually “exacerbate” the sovereign-debt crisis. “Given the tense situation which already exists in money and capital markets, we believe publishing the results with the present level of detail would exacerbate the sovereign-debt crisis,” the ZKA Central Credit Committee, representing Germany’s banking associations, wrote in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News. “To avoid further capital market turmoil, which would fly totally in the face of what the stress test was actually intended to achieve, we believe the level of detail needs to be significantly reduced.” More detail from Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil here 2.38pm: If you’re wondering why you should care about whether or not some banks you’ve never heard of go bust or not, Larry Elliott just chipped in to remind us that the collapse of Austrian bank Credit-Anstalt in 1931 led to the Great Depression . 2.28pm: Still confused about how it all works? Read Jill Treanor’s dummy’s guide 2.08pm: Here’s a good little Bloomberg video in which Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Jean-Pierre Lambert says he expects nine of the banks to fail. We says the results have already started leaking out and Spanish, Greek and German banks will all fail to make the grade. 1.45pm: Feeling stressed today? You ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s judgment day for Europe’s banks as EU regulator, the EBA, will publish the results of their stress tests at 5pm. About 10 of the 91 banks are expected to fail the test, which requires them to hold enough capital to protect against a collapse. The benchmark is 5% core tier one capital. Those expected to fall short include six small Spanish banks, three Greek banks and perhaps some German banks, with Germany’s Helaba pulling out of the test earlier this week. UK banks are expected to pass the test, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everything is A-OK – last year Ireland’s banks collapsed four months after being given a clean bill of heath. However, the tests have seen been toughened. The test results will presented as PDFs on the EBA website European banks European debt crisis Europe Europe Banking European Union Rupert Neate guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Troubled Actress Lindsay Lohan discussed her sobriety while drinking wine, then complained bitterly that she deserved the starring role in Black Swan , reports a Miami journalist. Lohan pointed out that she “took ballet until she was 19 and was indignant that she was not considered for Black Swan ,” writes reporter…
Continue reading …Police fear that a killer member of staff could be on the loose in a British hospital. After a nurse noticed that several patients had unexpectedly low blood sugar levels, the hospital found that vials of IV saline solution appeared to have been injected with insulin. A dozen patients were…
Continue reading …Lady Gaga’s account is one of the most popular on YouTube but that didn’t save it from being suspended for copyright violations yesterday. Before it was reinstated later in the day, a notice said the account had been pulled because of “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s copyright policy,” AP…
Continue reading …New York’s 9/11 memorial expected to attract up to 10,000 visitors a day – in pictures
July 15, 2011 No Comment
Demand was so high when reservations for passes to visit New York’s September 11 Memorial opened this week that the online box office temporarily crashed. Click through the gallery to see what the site will look like when it opens in September, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
Continue reading …New York’s 9/11 memorial expected to attract up to 10,000 visitors a day – in pictures
July 15, 2011 No Comment
Demand was so high when reservations for passes to visit New York’s September 11 Memorial opened this week that the online box office temporarily crashed. Click through the gallery to see what the site will look like when it opens in September, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
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Thirty governments and groups including Nato and Arab League recognise Libya’s transitional council as ‘legitimate authority’ Libyan rebels fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi have won recognition as the country’s “legitimate authority” from the entire international contact group co-ordinating policy on the crisis. Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister, announced the largely symbolic move at an Istanbul meeting of the group – one of a swath of political and economic measures designed to ratchet up pressure on Gaddafi. Britain also announced it was deploying four more fighter aircraft to take part in Nato’s bombing campaign. “The entire Libyan contact group decided to recognise the NTC [national transitional council] as the legitimate authority of Libya,” Frattini told reporters. “So [there is] no other option but for Gaddafi to leave.” The recognition will be officially announced when the meeting’s final document is released later on Friday. Diplomats billed the move as a boost to the Benghazi-based rebel council, though it is legally complex since most contact group countries still maintain diplomatic relations with the Gaddafi regime and have embassies in Tripoli and Libyan missions in their own capitals. Britain has said for some time it regards the NTC as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people but it recognises states, not governments. “It’s a strong signal of support for the NTC and reflects the growing consensus that it is increasingly competent, is reaching out to Libyan people across the country and reinforces the point that Gaddafi must go,” said an Foreign Office spokesman. For some countries the decision may have legal implications with regard to making Libyan state assets frozen by UN sanctions available to the NTC. The UN envoy on Libya, Abdul-Elah al-Khatib of Jordan, is to be authorised to present terms for Gaddafi to leave power in a Turkish-drafted package that will include a ceasefire to halt fighting and usher in a political transition. It is unclear whether Gaddafi will be required to leave the country. The Libyan leader, wanted for crimes against humanity by the international criminal court, has repeatedly insisted he will not stand down. The contact group, meeting for the fourth time since the crisis began in March, is made up of more than 30 governments and international and regional organisations, including Nato, the EU and the Arab League. Libya Nato Arab and Middle East unrest European Union Middle East Africa Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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