Turkish police storm protest square
By Anonymous on Jun 11, 2013 03:20 am 11 June 2013 Last updated at 00:59 ET 
Turkish riot police have entered Istanbul's Taksim Square where anti-government protesters have been staging demonstrations for close to two weeks.
Hundreds of officers have been using tear gas to disperse activists, eyewitnesses say.
The move comes after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to meet the protest organisers on Wednesday.
The unrest was sparked by a police crackdown on a local protest over an Istanbul park.
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New-look tougher GCSEs revealed
By Anonymous on Jun 11, 2013 03:39 am 10 June 2013 Last updated at 17:07 ET By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent 
Pupils taking English will have to read a whole Shakespeare play
New-look GCSEs for schools in England are to be unveiled, with exams graded from eight to one rather than A* to G.
From 2015, GCSEs will move from coursework and continuous assessment to exams at the end of two years.
There will be an emphasis on more rigorous content, such as making sure that pupils studying English read the whole of a Shakespeare play, a 19th-Century novel and more poetry.
But there is no sign of a change in name to I-level as had been suggested.
The format though may be familiar to anyone who once took O-levels.
Wales and Northern Ireland are keeping GCSEs, but so far are not adopting the changes proposed for England.
International rankings The changes to GCSEs in England will be presented on Tuesday in two reports. Exam regulator Ofqual will explain how the exams will be structured and ministers will give details of the course content.
The reforms will initially apply to a group of core subjects - English language and literature, maths, physics, chemistry, biology, combined science, history and geography.
Hundreds of thousands of pupils will begin studying these revised GCSEs from autumn 2015 and the first candidates to take the exams will be in summer 2017.
Apart from exceptions such as practical experiments in science, there will be a strong push towards exams being taken at the end of two years, rather than in individual units during the course.
Grading will be numbers rather than letters - with eight at the top and one at the bottom. The pass mark will be pushed higher, with claims that it will be pitched at the level of the highest-performing school systems, such as Finland and Shanghai, which have topped international rankings.
The new GCSEs will push for a more stretching, essay-based exam system, reminiscent of O-levels, taken by pupils until the late 1980s.
In history there will be more essays and fewer short-form questions and the removal of a controlled assessment.
In English, responding to concerns that pupils were only reading chunks of books, there will be a requirement to read whole works and an expectation that pupils will study a wider range of of writing from different eras.
Maths will promote the idea of developing independent problem-solving skills, rather than setting types of questions that can be rehearsed.
Push for change This is the latest stage in Education Secretary Michael Gove's drive to reconfigure the exam system.
Last year, Mr Gove announced plans for the scrapping of GCSEs and their replacement with English Baccalaureate Certificates, with each subject to be set by a single exam board.
This re-branding was scrapped and instead GCSEs were to be retained but reformed.
These latest plans will be put out to consultation over the summer, with a timetable that will see the exam boards preparing to produce courses that can be accredited by Ofqual to be taught in schools from autumn 2015.
These changes are for exams in England. The prospect of different forms of GCSEs in Wales and Northern Ireland has raised the question of how they will be distinguished from each other.
It had been suggested that in England the exam could be re-branded as I-levels, but this is not expected to be adopted and it is believed that so far no name change has been decided.
Read in browser » Early death variations 'shocking'
By Anonymous on Jun 11, 2013 02:29 am 10 June 2013 Last updated at 18:59 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News 
The red areas are doing significantly worse than the national average.
An early death rates league table for England has been published by Public Health England.
Figures for the north-west are among the worst, with Manchester, Blackpool, Liverpool and Salford having the most people dying before the age of 75.
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said the variation in rates was "shocking".
The table is part of a new Longer Lives website, which is designed to help councils tackle the health problems in their area.
In April they became responsible for encouraging people to stop smoking, eat better, drink less alcohol and face up to other public health problems.
Regions doing significantly worse that the national average are marked red; those doing better are marked green.
Preventable Around 153,000 people die prematurely each year in England, with three quarters of those deaths down to cancer, heart attack or stroke, lung disease and liver disease.
Prof John Newton, from Public Health England, said: "It is not inevitable that all these people are dying; we know that other countries are doing better than us.
"The message for local authorities is there are a large number of people dying before they should, that there are things that can be done, we have evidence that we are able to address this and that there is big variation across the country."
He said the premature mortality figures had improved, but the UK was still seventh out of 17 European countries for men and 15th for women.
Socio-economic background plays a large part in life expectancy and is part of the explanation of the north-south divide.
The new tool allows councils to compare themselves with others with a similar background.
York is classed as a "least deprived" area and appears green at a national level; yet it comes bottom when compared with other "least deprived" regions.
Waltham Forest in London is in the 15 most deprived areas, yet ranks 73rd out of 150 councils.
Of the early deaths, 103,000 are classed as preventable. The hope is that councils can learn from each other to reduce deaths in their area.
| Top ten areas | Premature death rate (per 100,000 people) | Bottom ten areas | Premature death rate (per 100,000 people) |
|---|
| Based on data for 2009-11 |
| Wokingham | 200 | Manchester | 455 |
| Richmond upon Thames | 202 | Blackpool | 432 |
| Dorset County Council | 207 | Liverpool | 389 |
| Surrey County Council | 209 | Salford | 382 |
| South Gloucestershire | 209 | City of Kingston upon Hull | 375 |
| Rutland | 209 | Middlesbrough | 370 |
| Harrow | 210 | Knowsley | 360 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | 213 | Blackburn with Darwen | 354 |
| Bromley | 214 | Tameside | 352 |
| Hampshire County Council | 215 | Nottingham | 351 |
Commenting on the figures, the Health Secretary said: "This shocking variation in early and unnecessary deaths means people's lives are needlessly cut short, and that cannot continue unchecked.
"I want areas to use the data released today to identify local public health challenges like smoking, drinking and obesity and to take action to help achieve our ambition for saving 30,000 lives a year by 2020."
Local authorities are being given £5.4bn over two years for public health.
However, the Local Government Association said the tool would provide "useful insight," but it urged caution.
Cllr Zoe Patrick, chairwoman of the organisation's community wellbeing board, said: "Using it out of context to create any sort of national league table dangerously oversimplifies matters and ignores the very complex socio-economic and cultural factors that affect the premature mortality rate.
"Attempts to measure performance and rank councils in this way are therefore deeply troubling. Not to mention that improving the public's health is not the sole responsibility of local government. We need to work with our partners in the NHS, PHE and central government to address a whole range of inequalities and issues in order to help everyone lead healthier lives.
"The reality is that in many cases it could take years before we see reductions in the number of those suffering with conditions like cancer or heart disease as a result of new public health initiatives.
"Government must make a long-term commitment to public health and provide councils with the right resources if we are going to have a real impact."
Read in browser » US spy leaker 'goes to ground'
By Anonymous on Jun 10, 2013 10:29 pm 10 June 2013 Last updated at 18:50 ET 
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Ed Snowden explains why he became a whistleblower (Video courtesy of The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras)
An ex-CIA employee who leaked details of US top-secret secret phone and internet surveillance has disappeared from his hotel in Hong Kong.
Edward Snowden, 29, checked out from his hotel on Monday. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to be still in Hong Kong.
Earlier, he said he had an "obligation to help free people from oppression".
It emerged last week that US agencies were gathering millions of phone records and monitoring internet data.
A spokesman for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the case had been referred to the Department of Justice as a criminal matter.
Mr Snowden was revealed as the source of the leaks at his own request by the UK's Guardian newspaper.
Transatlantic fallout Hong Kong's broadcaster RTHK said Mr Snowden checked out of the Mira hotel on Monday.
Reuters news agency quoted hotel staff as saying that he had left at noon.
Ewen MacAskill, a Guardian journalist, told the BBC he believed Mr Snowden was still in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong - a Chinese territory - has an extradition treaty with the US, although analysts say any attempts to bring Mr Snowden to America may take months and could be blocked by Beijing.
Mr Snowden is believed to have arrived in Hong Kong on 20 May. A standard visa on arrival in the territory for a US citizen lasts for 90 days.
Continue reading the main story US media response
A USA Today editorial accepts that "the primary result of Snowden's actions is a plus. He has forced a public debate on the sweepingly invasive programs that should have taken place before they were created". But, it goes on, "pure motives and laudable effects don't alter the fact that he broke the law".
An editorial in the Chicago Tribune argues that "some new restrictions" in the US intelligence gathering programme may be in order, adding: "If the government is looking for, say, calls between the United States and terrorists in Pakistan or Yemen, why can't it simply demand records of calls to certain foreign countries. Is there no way to narrow the search to leave most Americans out of it?"
Robert O'Harrow in the Washington Post writes that the growing reliance on contractors in US intelligence gathering "reflects a massive shift toward outsourcing over the past 15 years, in part because of cutbacks in the government agencies". He argues that this "has dramatically increased the risk of waste and contracting abuses... but given the threat of terrorism and the national security mandates from Congress, the intelligence community had little choice".
His revelations have caused transatlantic political fallout, amid allegations that the UK's electronic surveillance agency, GCHQ, used the US system to snoop on British citizens.
Foreign Secretary William Hague cancelled a trip to Washington to address the UK parliament on Monday and deny the claims.
Mr Snowden is described by the Guardian as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, a defence contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
He told the newspaper: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.
"If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.
"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things. I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded."
Mr Snowden said he did not believe he had committed a crime: "We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me."
But he admitted that he could end up in jail and feared for people who knew him.
'Core values' 
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Guardian journalist Ewen Macaskill: "He's been planning this for a couple of years"
In a statement, Booz Allen Hamilton confirmed Mr Snowden had been an employee for less than three months.
"If accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm," the statement said.
At a daily press briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said he could not comment on the Snowden case, citing an ongoing investigation.
The first of the leaks came out on Wednesday night, when the Guardian reported a US secret court ordered phone company Verizon to hand over to the NSA millions of records on telephone call "metadata".
The metadata include the numbers of both phones on a call, its duration, time, date and location (for mobiles, determined by which mobile signal towers relayed the call or text).
Continue reading the main story Major US security leaks
- Pentagon papers, 1971: Daniel Ellsberg leaks study showing the government had knowledge it was unlikely to win Vietnam war
- Watergate, 1972: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reveal extent of cover-up over burglary at Democrat National Committee HQ
- Iran-Contra affair, 1986: Iranian cleric reveals illegal US arms sales to Iran, the proceeds of which are later used to fund Nicaraguan Contras
- Valerie Plame, 2003: Ms Plame is revealed to be an undercover CIA agent, ending her covert career
- Abu Ghraib, 2004: Publication of pictures showing abuse of detainees at Iraq prison by US officials turns initial media reports of abuse into full-blown scandal
- Bradley Manning, 2010: The soldier downloads thousands of classified documents from military servers and hands them over to Wikileaks
On Thursday, the Washington Post and Guardian said 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 the internet companies deny giving the US government access to their servers.
Prism is said to give the NSA and FBI access to emails, web chats and other communications directly from the servers of major US internet companies.
The data is used to track foreign nationals suspected of terrorism or spying. The NSA is also collecting the telephone records of American customers, but said it is not recording the content of their calls.
US director of national intelligence James Clapper's office said information gathered under Prism was obtained with the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (Fisa).
Prism was authorised under changes to US surveillance laws passed under President George W Bush, and renewed last year under Barack Obama.
Mr Obama has defended the surveillance programmes, assuring Americans that nobody was listening to their calls.
Read in browser » PS4 set to be cheaper than Xbox One
By Anonymous on Jun 11, 2013 12:31 am 10 June 2013 Last updated at 21:54 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter 
The head of Sony's gaming division showed off the console early in its E3 press conference
Sony has unveiled its PlayStation 4 console.
Although many of the video games machine's features were previously announced it February, the firm kept the look of the box hidden until a press conference at the E3 trade show.
The firm said the machine would offer gamers "unparalleled power".
Sony's gaming division accounted for $7.5bn (£4.8bn) worth of sales in its last financial year, representing just under 10% of its total revenues.
The firm has acknowledged that sales of its PS Vita handheld console fell behind expectations, adding to pressure for the PS4 to be a success.
Its predecessor, the PlayStation 3, beat the Xbox 360 in terms of global shipments but was in turn outsold by Nintendo's Wii, according to market research firm IDC.
However, the Wii U - which launched in November - has failed to meet its sales projections, something Nintendo has blamed on delayed games releases.
"It's a big opening, the Wii U hasn't performed up to Nintendo's expectations or that of the broader industry" IDC's gaming analyst Lewis Ward told the BBC.
"You only get about once a decade to reset expectations around what a platform will be, and therefore the launch of the PS4 has the potential to move Sony back into the pole position it was at with the PS2."
However, it will also face competition from the Xbox One which Microsoft is pitching as an "all-in-one" entertainment system, while Sony has said the PS4 had been designed with video gamers as its focus.
Even so, the Japanese firm took time to highlight new video programming and music services for the PS4 before it discussed its games.
Read in browser » Lloyds admits PPI shortcomings
By Anonymous on Jun 11, 2013 03:28 am 10 June 2013 Last updated at 20:47 ET 
Lloyds said employees were undergoing retraining
Lloyds has admitted shortcomings in the handling of complaints at a centre set up to deal with PPI mis-selling.
It comes as an undercover reporter at the Times said staff at one of the bank's complaints handling centres had been taught to "play the system".
The reporter said he was told to ignore possible fraud by Lloyds salesmen and that most complainants would give up if rejected the first time.
Lloyds said it had identified issues at the centre independently.
It added that it believed that some of the comments made to the reporter were "isolated" and were now being addressed.
The Times reporter said he was told that a job as PPI complaint handler could be "morally difficult" and that they should effectively turn a blind eye to the risk of fraud.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) was designed to cover loan repayments for policyholders who became ill, had an accident or lost their jobs. Yet it was mis-sold by banks on a massive scale to customers who did not want or need it.
Retraining "Earlier this year we became aware of issues at a PPI complaints handling centre called Royal Mint Court in central London," Lloyds said in a statement.
"This site was operated for us by a third party supplier, Deloitte. Following further investigations we took immediate action, and in May concluded our contract with Deloitte and moved to a new supplier.
"Some of the comments made by trainers to the Times reporter are not endorsed by Lloyds Banking Group and we believe they do not reflect our high training standards or our policies," it continued.
"We believe the comments to be isolated and they are now being addressed. Following the discovery of these issues and under the guidance of a new supplier the employees are currently undergoing retraining in line with our policies and procedures."
To date Lloyds has paid out £4.3bn to 1.3 million customers who were victims of the PPI mis-selling.
BBC business editor Robert Peston said it was "massively embarrassing" for the bank - especially as it had come in a week when MPs and Lords are finalising a report on how to improve standards in banking.
He added that the Financial Conduct Authority had been working with Lloyds to address the issues raised by the Times,
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