US surveillance leak source revealed
By Anonymous on Jun 10, 2013 03:19 am 9 June 2013 Last updated at 15:32 ET 
The National Security Agency has been monitoring phone and internet communications data
A former CIA technical worker has been identified by the UK's Guardian newspaper as the source of leaks about US surveillance programmes.
Edward Snowden, 29, is described by the paper as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Guardian said his identity was being revealed at his own request.
The recent revelations are that US agencies gathered millions of phone records and monitored internet data.
The Guardian quotes Mr Snowden as saying he flew to Hong Kong on 20 May, where he holed himself up in a hotel.
On Wednesday night, the Guardian reported a US secret court had ordered phone company Verizon to hand over to the National Security Agency (NSA) millions of records on telephone call "metadata".
That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that the NSA tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to track online communication in a programme known as Prism.
All deny giving the US government access to their servers.
The NSA has filed a criminal report with the US Justice Department over the leaks that sparked the controversy.
Prism was reportedly established in 2007 under changes to US surveillance laws passed under President George Bush and renewed last year under Barack Obama in order to provide in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information on foreigners overseas.
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Four held after Islamic school fire
By Anonymous on Jun 10, 2013 02:48 am 10 June 2013 Last updated at 02:48 ET 
Pupils and staff were able to return to the Darul Uloom school building on Sunday morning
Four teenagers have been arrested after a fire at an Islamic boarding school in south-east London.
About 128 pupils and staff were evacuated from Darul Uloom School, in Foxbury Avenue, Chislehurst, on Saturday.
Two 17-year-olds and two 18-year-olds were arrested on suspicion of arson on Sunday, the Metropolitan police said.
Police said the fire caused minor damage and two people were treated for the effects of smoke inhalation.
The teenagers are in custody at a south London police station.
Commander Simon Letchford told BBC London: "It's only by luck that the fire attack didn't prove to be fatal.
"Fortunately [it] was identified very quickly."
A police spokesman said officers were asking members of the public to remain calm and not to speculate as to the cause of the fire.
He added: "There is an increased police presence around potentially vulnerable locations in the borough of Bromley and across London."
Read in browser » New UK visa rules 'causing anguish'
By Anonymous on Jun 09, 2013 07:02 pm 9 June 2013 Last updated at 19:02 ET 
The committee says immigration rules are too restrictive and a review is needed
New migration rules for people from outside the European Union are "tearing British families apart", a group of MPs and peers have claimed in a report.
It said thousands of Britons have been unable to bring a non-EU spouse to the UK since July 2012, when minimum earnings requirements were introduced.
Children have also been separated from a parent, the committee said.
The Home Office said the rules are designed to ease the burden of migration on the taxpayer.
Rules that came into force a year ago require any British citizen who wants to sponsor their non-European spouse's visa to be able to show they earn at least £18,600 a year, rising to £22,400 to sponsor a child, and a further £2,400 for each further child.
The inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, which is calling for an independent review of the minimum income requirement, looked at more than 175 cases from families affected by the new rules.
Forty-five claimed their inability to meet the income threshold had led to the separation of children, including British children, from a non-EU parent.
In one case, a woman from outside Europe was separated from her British husband and two sons, including a five-month-old baby she had been breastfeeding.
'Children shouldn't suffer' The committee also heard from a number of UK sponsors in full-time employment at or above the national minimum wage who reported that they were unable to meet the income requirement.
Wider evidence suggested that 47% of the UK working population last year would fail to meet the income level to sponsor a non-European Economic Area partner, the committee said.
By the government's own estimate, almost 18,000 British people will be prevented from being reunited with their spouse or partner in the UK every year as a result of the news rules, it added.
Baroness Hamwee, chairwoman of the inquiry and Liberal Democrat home affairs lead in the House of Lords, said the committee was "struck by the evidence showing just how many British people have been kept apart from partners, children and elderly relatives".
"These rules are causing anguish for families and, counter to their original objectives, may actually be costing the public purse," she said.
Liberal Democrat APPG member Sarah Teather MP said that "whatever the objective of the policy, children shouldn't suffer as a result".
A Home Office spokesperson said the rules had been designed to make sure those coming to the UK to join their spouse or partner would not become a burden on the taxpayer and will be well enough supported to integrate effectively.
"High-value migrants would not be refused because their British spouse or partner was not employed," he said.
"They can meet the income threshold by having cash savings of £62,500 or through their own private income, for example from investments. We have also introduced greater flexibility for those holding investments to liquidate them into cash in order to meet the rules."
Read in browser » Disability payment changes begin
By Anonymous on Jun 10, 2013 03:25 am 9 June 2013 Last updated at 19:00 ET 
Disability Living Allowance is claimed by more than 3 million people
A new system of benefit payments affecting disabled people has started rolling out across Britain.
Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) are replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) as part of the government's welfare reforms.
The government claims PIPs will target resources more effectively towards those who need it most.
But a charity warns that almost a fifth of claimants - 600,000 people - could eventually lose their benefits.
Since April, thousands of new claimants in the north of England have already applied for PIPs. Now, new claimants of working age in the rest of Britain will also have to apply for a PIP, rather than DLA.
Northern Ireland will join the system later.
From October, PIPs will be extended further, when the government will start to re-assess existing claimants, but only those who circumstances have changed.
The vast majority of the 3.2 million people who currently claim DLA will not be re-assessed until 2015 or later.
Many disabled people fear having to be put through the new in-person tests to test their eligibility.
Phil Sumner, a former postman who has multiple sclerosis, told the BBC that the prospect of an interview is "quite intimidating".
"It's like being judged again. Filling out forms is bad enough. Face-to-face, I don't like anyway," he said.
Savings Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) suggest that 450,000 will no longer be able to claim the benefit by 2018.
But the disability charity Scope said that - including those who would have claimed in the meantime - 607,000 people will miss out in total.
The government claims the new system will better target those who need help.
Under DLA, most people filled in their own application forms, and did not have to re-apply, even if their health improved.
"Seventy-one percent would have indefinite awards, without regular checks," the disabilities minister, Esther McVeigh, told the BBC.
"So this is about targeting billions of pounds a year at the people who need it most."
Continue reading the main story Analysis
Emma Tracey BBC News
Before PIP launched, the government promised disabled people a simpler application process. The 55-page DLA form was not only long, but also complicated.
To start a claim, applicants must ring DWP. This causes problems for those unable to use the phone.
"I've had deaf people contact me on Twitter asking what on earth they are supposed to do," disability rights campaigner Kaliya Franklin says. "There's a textphone number but most deaf people don't have the technology. They send text messages instead these days but there's no option for that."
You can appoint someone to make the detailed 15 minute-long phone call on your behalf.
But Ms Franklin is concerned for those with mild to moderate learning difficulties, who live independent lives but would struggle to understand the three-step PIP claims process. The difficulty, she says, is that "most of these people fly under the radar".
However Scope believes the main motive is to spend less.
"Disabled people believe this reform is an excuse to save money," said Richard Hawkes, Scope's chief executive.
"It doesn't help that the minister is able to predict exactly how many disabled people will receive support before they have even been tested," he said.
Expenditure on DLA has gone up by 32% in the last 10 years.
But the government insists the introduction of PIPs is not about saving money.
Expenditure is still expected to rise from £12.6bn in 2009/10, to £13.8bn in 2015/16.
However, with 450,000 fewer people expected to receive the benefit by 2018, the cost to the taxpayer will be much smaller than it otherwise would have been.
Interviews Under the new assessment system, 75% of applicants will be required to attend face-to-face interviews.
Those interviews will look at people's ability to wash, dress, cook and make journeys. But they will also assess reading and verbal communication skills. The government says they will therefore test mental, as well as physical health.
But Scope says the planned test is "deeply flawed."
Scope claims it will be a "tickbox-style medical assessment", which will not achieve the desired objective. It is worried that there could be a repeat of problems that occurred with the fitness-to-work test, known as the Work Capability Assessment.
Thousands have appealed successfully against their adjudications in such cases.
But Capita, one of the firms carrying out the assessments, has tried to ease fears about the tests. "It is more of an interview than a medical assessment," said Stephen Duckworth, the head of Capita's PIP programme.
"Applicants could be asked to bend over and touch their toes, but it will not be more complicated than that," he told the BBC.
An independent review will examine the new PIP payments in 2014, before most people are reassessed for the benefit.
Read in browser » Grooming victims 'being failed'
By Anonymous on Jun 09, 2013 08:32 pm 9 June 2013 Last updated at 20:32 ET 
There have been at least a dozen major criminal investigations into child sexual exploitation in recent years
Victims of child sexual exploitation and street grooming are still being failed, despite a series of high-profile trials, MPs have said.
The Home Affairs Committee said exploitation was an increasing "large-scale nationwide problem".
It said police forces, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service must bear responsibility for failings.
The NSPCC called for "a culture change among police, CPS, the judiciary, and all child protection professionals".
There have been at least a dozen major criminal investigations into grooming in recent years, some of which are continuing.
The MPs began taking evidence on sexual exploitation and grooming after nine men from Rochdale were convicted in 2012.
Seven men are currently awaiting sentencing after being convicted last month of involvement in a major sex trafficking ring in Oxford.
The committee said that recent cases had typically involved large networks of Pakistani-heritage abusers who preyed on vulnerable white girls, although it added that this was just one form of sexual exploitation.
The MPs said: "Despite recent criminal cases laying bare the appalling cost paid by victims for past catastrophic multi-agency failures, we believe that there are still places in the UK where victims of child sexual exploitation are being failed by statutory agencies.
"The police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service must all bear responsibility for the way in which vulnerable children have been left unprotected by the system."
'Failed twice' The report said that social services directors around the country must take direct responsibility for properly investigating allegations. This must include ensuring that their staff treat exploited girls as victims, rather than collaborators who had given their consent to enter a life of sex trafficking and prostitution.
The committee singled out Rochdale and Rotherham councils, saying both had failed to grasp the seriousness of the problem.
The committee said that both councils had been "inexcusably slow" to realise what had been going on in their areas thanks "in large part to a woeful lack of professional curiosity."
The successful Rochdale trial had only gone ahead because the chief prosecutor for north-west England, Nazir Afzal, had overturned a previous decision to drop the case.
Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the committee, said: "Officials who fail to act, for example in places like Rotherham or Rochdale, must not be allowed to evade responsibility through early retirement or resignation for other reasons and should not be paid compensation of any kind."
The MPs also backed the introduction of video-recorded cross-examination of child victims to make it easier for them to give evidence without being distressed by appearing before a live court session.
David Tucker, NSPCC head of policy, said: "The victims in recent child sexual exploitation cases were too often ignored or treated as troublemakers.
"There now needs to be a culture change among police, CPS, the judiciary, and all child protection professionals, so they better understand how grooming gangs operate, and how young people's behaviour could be a sign they are at risk of, or suffering, sexual exploitation."
He also called for "tougher action against predatory sex offenders who deliberately target the most vulnerable children, including sentences that reflect the seriousness of the crimes committed and act as a strong deterrent".
Barnardo's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie said: "Victims of child sexual exploitation are being failed twice, once by the failure to prevent them becoming victims in the first place and again by the failure to take swift action once that abuse has come to light."
She added: "In recent years there has been great progress in addressing this issue at a national and local level, but everyone coming into contact with vulnerable teenagers needs to remember that they are children too, and cannot consent to their own abuse."
'Patterns of abuse' The MPs said there was a public perception that abusers were Asian and the victims were white - but it said the full picture was more complicated.
"There is no simple link between race and child sexual exploitation," said the report. "It is a vile crime which is perpetrated by a small number of individuals, and abhorred by the vast majority, from every ethnic group.
"Authorities should not focus on just one model of child sexual exploitation to the exclusion of others or they will become blinded to other patterns of abuse taking place.
"Stereotyping offenders as all coming from a particular background is as likely to perpetuate the problem as is a refusal to acknowledge that a particular group of offenders share a common ethnicity."
Labour's shadow crime and security minister, Diana Johnson, said no-one who read the committee's "truly shocking" report could be "in denial about the extent or horrific nature of child sexual exploitation in the UK".
"What is vital now is that these recommendations are not lost," she added, calling for "an expert-led review to produce clear and co-ordinated recommendations across Government".
Read in browser » Prince Philip turns 92 in hospital
By Anonymous on Jun 09, 2013 08:21 pm 9 June 2013 Last updated at 20:21 ET 
The Duke of Edinburgh has had a series of health problems in recent years
Prince Philip is spending his 92nd birthday in hospital as he continues to recover from abdominal surgery.
The Duke of Edinburgh underwent the operation under general anaesthetic at the London Clinic on Friday.
Following the op, a Buckingham Palace statement said Philip was "progressing satisfactorily". The hospital admission was pre-arranged and not an emergency, the palace has also said.
There will be two gun salutes in London on Monday for the prince's birthday.
The first will be at Green Park at 12:00 BST, fired by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, followed by another at the Tower of London an hour later carried out by the Honourable Artillery Company.
The Queen was expected to spend the weekend at Windsor Castle while her husband continued his recovery.
The palace statement described the surgery as "an exploratory operation following abdominal investigations".
"Further updates will continue to be issued when appropriate," it added.
The duke was admitted to hospital on Thursday straight after a Buckingham Palace garden party, where guests said he showed no signs of being unwell.
It emerged that he had been having unannounced "abdominal investigations" at the hospital in the days before.
The results from the exploratory operation are being analysed, and Prince Philip's hospital stay is expected to last about two weeks.
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