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The former justice secretary, Jack Straw, has blasted a “huge racket” of insurance companies, the police and recovery firms who pass on customer details to personal injury lawyers.

Straw said the practice had driven a surge in no-win, no-fee claims this year which put up premiums – all with the insurers’ knowledge. “It’s become a huge racket,” he said. “The insurance companies are complicit in this. They should and could have said this is outrageous.” He said the firms could make £200 to £1,000 per referral. Police involvement was revealed to the Commons’ transport select committee in research conducted by the insurance company Swiftcover showing police had received “commission fees” of between £5 and £25 for calling local breakdown firms or garages who then passed the information on.

In one year West Midlands police made £622,275 from such referrals, with 25,000 vehicles. Four other forces revealed pay structures. According to the submitted evidence, two forces declined to share information on the “grounds it would ‘damage their third party relationships’”.

The Association of Chief Police Officers denied selling details of people involved in accidents to lawyers.

On the BBC’s R4 Today programme, Straw said he had investigated for six months after complaints from constituents over the cost of their insurance premiums and nuisance calls. He had spoken to executives from two of the UK’s largest insurers who admitted the practice, calling it the “industry’s dirty secret”.

The MP for Blackburn said police involvement was a breach of the spirit of data protection rules, as the practice is not illegal. He said a personal friend was bombarded with calls offering to get free claim money after being in an accident.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/28/jack-straw-insurance-customer-details

A 34-year old female journalist has been released on bail after she was arrested by Scotland Yard on suspicion of illegally accessing voicemail messages.

Press Association royal reporter Laura Elston was arrested when she attended an appointment at a central London police station at around 3pm.

Scotland Yard said Elston was questioned on suspicion of intercepting communications, contrary to section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000.

She was later released on police bail to reappear in early October.

It is not known if Elston has ever worked at the News of the World, which up to this point has been the main focus of Operation Weeting.

On Thursday last week a 39-year-old woman was arrested at her home in West Yorkshire by Scotland Yard officers as part of Operation Weeting, on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. She was released later the same day after questioning at a West Yorkshire police station.

The woman, believed to be Terenia Taras, contributed more than 30 stories for the News of the World as a freelance between 1998 and 2004, although Scotland Yard would not confirm this.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said she had been bailed to return to a West Yorkshire police station in mid-October.

Taras is the ex-girlfriend of Greg Miskiw, the News of the World’s former assistant editor (news), who is currently in the US.

She has also written occasionally for other tabloids including, most recently, the Sunday Mirror and, less often, for the Daily Mail. Her last bylined article appeared in the Sunday Mirror in December 2007.

In April a senior reporter at the News of the World, James Weatherup, was arrested and questioned. Weatherup, who has also worked as a news editor with the Sunday tabloid, was released after questioning.

The paper’s chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, and assistant editor (news) Ian Edmondson, were also held in April and released on police bail to return in September.

Days later the Met launched Operation Weeting, after receiving “significant new information” from News International.

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said on Wednesday the Operation Weeting team remained at 45 strong and was continuing its wide-ranging inquiry into phone hacking as well as providing information for the civil court claims.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/27/phone-hacking-woman-arrested

Public sector strikes will go ahead on Thursday after ministers failed to reach a settlement with union leaders over pension reforms, despite appearing to offer a significant compromise.

Two hours of talks left the unions and government still fundamentally divided with major unresolved gaps in opinions, according to Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.

Unions said they had made no progress on the most contentious proposals – to increase public sector workers’ contributions, change the system of uprating schemes, and raise the pension age for government employees.

PCS, the civil service union, called the talks a farce and, along with three other unions collectively representing 750,000 teachers, lecturers and civil servants, confirmed Thursday’s walkout will go ahead. But the biggest public sector union, Unison, indicated the government had given enough ground to delay their strike ballot until later in the summer, in the hope of further concessions.

The government described the talks as constructive and indicated that it was preparing to offer concessions on the local government scheme, which is funded and has 3.5m mostly low-paid members.

There have been warnings that higher contributions could tip the scheme into surplus while forcing low-paid workers out.

Lord Hutton, the Labour former business secretary who drew up the blueprint for the coalition’s pension reforms, last week warned that the proposed three percentage point increase in contributions might trigger a mass opt-out, jeopardising the viability of the scheme.

The minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said in a joint statement that the talks would now continue into July – although one Whitehall source also suggested that there was no pressing deadline to end the talks before the pension contributions are due to kick in next April.

“We recognise that the funding basis for the local government pension scheme is different. There are important implications for how the contributions and benefits interact, as both Lord Hutton and the unions have set out. On that basis, we have agreed to have a more in-depth discussion with local government unions and the TUC about how we take these factors into account,” the statement said.

“While the talks are ongoing it is obviously disappointing that some unions have decided on industrial action. But what the recent ballot results show is that there is extremely limited support for the kind of strike action union leaders are calling for. Less than 10% of the civil service workforce has voted for strike actions and only about a third of teachers.”

Barber said: “In some areas it’s clear that there is the possibility of agreement, but in terms of some of the key issues there is clearly a major gap between our position and that of the government.

“The strikes will be taking place on Thursday. Four unions balloted their members and reached that decision and that reflects the degree of anger and worry and real fear there is across everyone who works for public sectors that their pensions are under threat.”

Dave Prentis, the head of Unison, which has 1.2m members in the pension scheme, said his union would not now ballot until after further talks in the summer, indicating that they went into the talks fully expecting to do so. “There was a sense that today we were in real negotiations,” he said.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the National Union of Teachers, the University and College Union and the PCS all confirmed they would go ahead with Thursday’s strike. Some unions have privately said they will stick with the talks – despite believing they are doomed – to avoid the public relations disaster of being perceived to be responsible for negotiations collapsing. Unions and government are eager to win over public opinion ahead of strikes. One ComRes poll suggested that although 55% of people believe the public will not support coordinated strikes, 78% agree it is unfair for low-paid public employees to “pay the price for mistakes made by bankers before the financial crisis”.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/27/public-sector-strikes-pensions-teachers-thursday

Britain is facing a tsunami of house repossessions as soon as interest rates start to rise, one of the country’s leading bankers has warned.

Richard Banks, the chief executive of UK Asset Resolution (UKAR), the body that runs the £80bn of mortgages bailed out by the taxpayer during the banking crisis, also said in an interview with the Guardian that the Labour government’s pleas at the start of the crisis for lenders to keep families in their homes was forcing some homeowners further into debt.

In a warning that the industry may have been too lenient with some of its customers, he said he believed a policy of “tough love” would be fairer to people facing long-term difficulty in keeping up payments on loans taken out when house prices were at their peak and personal incomes on the rise.

His warning came the day after the international bank regulator said the Bank of England, which has kept rates at 0.5% for more than two years, would have to raise rates shortly to curb inflation.

The Bank of International Settlements said the policy of the Bank of England, whose rate-setting committee is split over whether or not to increase borrowing costs, was “unsustainable”.

With 750,000 customers, UK Asset Resolution, set up to run the nationalised mortgages of Bradford Bingley and parts of Northern Rock, is the country’s fifth largest mortgage lender. But 23,000 of those mortgage holders are more than six months behind with payments and Banks admitted the projections for the number of people falling behind on payments could get “scary” if lenders did nothing to prepare for higher rates.

“You can see if you don’t do something about it, you can see a tsunami,” he said. “If you don’t get into the hills you could get drowned by this. If you don’t manage this properly it could get very messy.”

He regards it is an industry-wide problem, albeit one that might be concentrated at UKAR as its customers include buy-to-let landlords and so-called self-certified borrowers – those without salaried income. UKAR, through three calls centres in Crossflatts, West Yorkshire, Gosforth, Newcastle, and Doxford, Sunderland, has begun cold-calling customers it believes are at risk of falling behind on payments in an attempt to keep their mortgage payments on schedule.

The bank is also trying to tackle customers behind with payments for six months or more and at risk of repossession.

His concern about a surge in repossessions is partly the result of moves by the industry early in the 2008 crisis to grant so-called forbearance to help customers stay in homes by, for example, reducing monthly interest payments. “We as an industry, as a kneejerk reaction in the emergence of the crisis, and because the government asked us to be forbearing to customers in the hope it would all go away, we have been too lenient with some customers.

“It’s a tough love approach,” he said. “It’s treating customers fairly, not nicely, because if you can’t afford your mortgage you are only increasing your indebtedness. If we allow you to increase your indebtedness, that’s not really fair to you.”

This month the Council of Mortgage Lenders forecast a rise in repossessions from 40,000 this year to 45,000 next. This figure would still remain well below the 75,500 peak of 1991. The remarks by Banks follow a warning last week from the new regulator set up to spot financial risks in the system – the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) inside the Bank of England – that warned banks may be providing a “misleading picture of their financial health” if they were not making big enough provisions for borrowers in difficulty.

Forbearance has been brought into play in up to 12% of mortgages, the FPC said.

It also noted that the most “vulnerable” households were concentrated in a few banks. It did not scrutinise UKAR but noted that the two other bailed-out banks, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, had the largest exposure to customers whose mortgages were bigger than their value of their homes.

Last month, the Financial Services Authority issued a guide to handling forbearance in which it warned: “Arrears and forbearance support provided with due care by firms has a beneficial impact for both the firm and the customer … However, where such support is provided without due care or any knowledge or understanding of the impacts, it has potentially adverse implications for the customer, for the firm’s understanding of the risks inherent within its lending book, and in turn for the regulators and the market.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/27/house-repossessions-wave-interest-rates-rise

Ramallah, West Bank (CNN) — In a small showroom in the West Bank city of Ramallah, two Palestinian security guards carefully watch over a masterpiece by one of the most famous artists in modern history.

The “Buste De Femme,” painted by Pablo Picasso in 1943, is estimated to be worth $7 million. It was borrowed from the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, by the International Academy of Art Palestine for a monthlong display in the West Bank.

Khaled Horani, art director of the academy, says the project took two years of negotiations, preparations and overcoming some political obstacles.

“This is the first time in history where a masterpiece of Picasso comes to Palestine in the occupied territories and also the first time we are going to show a masterpiece to the Palestinians,” Horani told CNN.

While Horani acknowledges that just some 20 kilometers (about 12.4 miles) away, there are many contemporary masterpieces in Jerusalem museums. He is quick to point out the limitations for art lovers who live in the West Bank.

“It’s not accessible for Palestinians from the West Bank to go there and see the artwork,” making reference to Israeli security restrictions. “This raises the questions around the political situation and art in general and its accessibility,” Horani said.

Painted just a few years after the Spanish Civil War, the “Buste De Femme” one of Picasso famous paintings. The Spanish artist wanted to express his feelings about the bloody war that had torn apart his homeland.

Professor Lynda Morris of Norwich University College of the Arts in England and a specialist on Picasso, compared it with the political situation in the West Bank.

She said Picasso strived to understand both sides of the Spanish Civil War, and that holds lessons for today. “… Probably in the West, we know much more of the Israeli side more than the Palestinian side, and the importance to begin to address that balance,” Morris told CNN.

Twenty feet away in an adjacent room of the academy, the special packing crate for the painting has been put on exhibit as well with the shipping label “From Eindhoven to Palestine” displayed prominently.

“This is the smallest museum and this box will be part of the exhibition,” Horani told CNN in an advance preview of the painting.

He said the painting’s 24-hour journey from the Netherlands to the West Bank was documented as it made its way to Tel Aviv. It was then escorted by an Israeli security firm to Qalandia checkpoint and then on to Ramallah.

The painting exhibition, which officially opened its doors to the public on Friday, was attended by Palestinians and international art lovers.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad went to the opening. He said the painting would go back to the Netherlands taking with it a little bit of the region with it.

“Destination Palestine, by itself, is of great significance to us,” Fayyad said. “It is really moving to see this great work of Picasso is here and this portrait goes back to Eindhoven and part of Palestine will be with it,” Fayyad told CNN after touring the exhibition.

Art connoisseur Ola Abu Gharbieh said seeing the work in the West Bank made her proud.

“Palestinians are artistic. They are fond of art, and they had the chance and opportunity to bring such a universal and international work of art here in Palestine, and I wish to have similar experiences in the future.”

Christine Hadid, a Palestinian architect and a self-avowed art lover, said the exhibit helped break through common stereotypes people hold about Palestinian society.

“This is really a big thing. We can show the world we can do something like this. Our life is not only focused on war and on all the bad things that happen to us while we are living in closure” Hadid said.

“This breaks all closures to Ramallah and Palestine. Maybe next time we will have a masterpiece by another artist — Van Gogh or someone else. It’s a first step for bigger events hopefully.”

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/3tSHYIBs2gk/index.html

(CNN) — Iran announced Monday that it has built its first ballistic missile silos, airing video of one of the facilities as it began a new round of military exercises.

The hardened, underground launch sites will allow Iranian commanders to fire missiles more quickly, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported. A military statement carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency said the silos were capable of launching long-range missiles.

The announcement came as the Islamic republic opened a new round of war games, dubbed “Great Prophet 6.” Iran is expected to test-fire several types of missiles during the exercise, state news agencies reported.

Iran’s development of missile and nuclear fuel technology has led to U.N. sanctions and accusations from the United States that the clerical regime is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran says it has a right to peaceful nuclear technology, but the International Atomic Energy says it can’t verify whether Tehran’s nuclear program remains entirely peaceful.

The United States and the Soviet Union built more than 1,400 silos to protect their long-range missiles during the Cold War era.

In the Iranian statement, military spokesman Col. Asghar Ghelichkhani said the facilities were designed and built with domestic expertise.

Western observers say Iran currently has missiles capable of hitting targets up to about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) away, a range that would cover nearly the entire Middle East and part of southeastern Europe. Iran also launched its first satellite in 2009.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/-T2WNnh5Hr0/index.html

Damascus, Syria (CNN) — Syria’s embattled government allowed about 200 activists and intellectuals, including some it had previously jailed, to hold a conference on democratic reform Monday at a Damascus hotel.

“We must change this tyrannical regime to a democratic, civilian one,” Louay Hussein, a writer and one-time political prisoner, said. “How that transition happens is a question this conference is trying to address.”

Hussein said the conference would “not necessarily” find an answer to that question, “But that is the big question in this country now.”

About 200 Syrian dissidents gathered in the hotel ballroom, including several signatories of a 2005 declaration that called for a democratic transition. But some of those who have been risking arrest or bodily harm as President Bashar al-Assad tries to suppress a wave of anti-government protests say the people in the hotel don’t necessarily speak for them.

“The big question regarding this conference is, where are the young people?” asked Wissam Tarif, a pro-democracy activist based outside Syria. “Where are the people who are on the streets? Where are the voices of the people who are from Daraa, or from Douma, or from Jisr al-Shugur, or from Idlib? I think those are the voices that have been missed so far.”

Tarif is executive director of the Spain-based human rights group Insan, which says more than 630 people have been killed and 8,000 jailed in the clampdown. Other human rights activists have put the death toll at more than 1,100.

For its part, a Syrian military spokesman said Sunday that more than 400 police officers and government troops and police have been killed battling “armed gangs.” CNN cannot independently verify either claim.

But Maan Abdul Salam, one of the activists who gathered in Damascus, said, “I think it’s time for us to say our political statement.

“There is the statement coming from the street, there is the statement coming from the authorities and there is the statement coming from everywhere outside the country,” he said. “It’s time for this group to say what they think and find solutions.”

And Hussein said the street protests are needed to “put pressure on the state to stop its dominance over society.” If that doesn’t happen, he said, “Then we are definitely at risk of going back to jail — and for a very long time.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday’s conference was “a worthwhile step,” but told reporters that “the violence has to stop.”

“For it to be truly significant, it has to be part of a cessation of violence against the Syrian people. It has to be part of an embrace of the idea that they need to have a national dialogue about their future, and that that transition needs to take place with the regime leading it or getting out of the way.”

The al-Assad family has ruled Syria since 1971, with Bashar al-Assad taking power after his father’s death in 2000. He held out a promise of reforms and a “national dialogue” in a speech last week that was met with widespread skepticism.

Hussein said he expected the government to try to exploit Monday’s conference and hold out those who attended as “the reasonable ones.” But he added, “We will always try to defend the street, because it is also a reasonable, right and peaceful street that always protests peacefully.”

CNN’s Hala Gorani and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/O2nCIupPiLU/index.html

26 June 2011
Last updated at 23:48 GMT

Holland was awarded an OBE in 2003

Presenter Jools Holland is to be honoured for his contribution to music and broadcasting.

The 53-year-old will receive the Music Industry Trusts’ Award at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel on 7 November.

Chairman of the award committee, David Munns, said they were looking for “someone special for our 20th anniversary”.

“There is no one in the UK more associated with popularising music than Jools,” he added.

More than 1,000 guests will attend the charity event in aid of Nordoff Robbins and the BRIT Trust.

Previous recipients of the award include Sir Tom Jones, Sir Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Other past recipients have included Beatles producer Sir George Martin, James Bond composer John Barry and Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records.

Lifelong passion

Holland, whose careers has spanned some 30 years, said it was “wonderful to be honoured”.

“My lifelong passion is music, and I’ve been so lucky to be able to indulge this for more years than I care to think about.”

The musician started playing piano at an early age, and was a founding member of the group Squeeze in 1974. In 1987, he formed his Rhythm Blues Orchestra, which continues to tour today.

He has presented Later… With Jools Holland since 1992, and was awarded an OBE in 2003 for his services to the British music industry.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-13921246

28 June 2011
Last updated at 01:50 GMT

The Blue Peter garden opened at Television Centre in 1974

Children’s programme Blue Peter will make its final broadcast from the BBC’s Television Centre studios later.

During the show’s farewell to the west London studios, there will be an attempt at a world record for the most people simultaneously hula-hooping.

After its summer break, Blue Peter will be broadcast from Salford, Greater Manchester, as part of the relocation of several BBC departments.

The Blue Peter garden will be sited on a studio roof at the BBC’s new complex.

Children’s programmes are moving to the BBC’s new Salford development, along with BBC Sport, TV’s Breakfast and Radio 5 live.

Blue Peter is the longest-running children’s programme in the world, after first being broadcast in October 1958. Television Centre opened in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, two years later.

BBC arts correspondent David Sillito says few programmes have been more identified with Television Centre over the years than Blue Peter.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-13937621

27 June 2011
Last updated at 14:41 GMT

Sharon Gless will star as retired teacher Jane Juska in the play

Cagney and Lacey star Sharon Gless is to appear on the London stage in an adaptation of A Round-Heeled Woman.

The 68-year-old will star as a divorcee in the play about a woman’s sexual liberation in later life, based on Jane Juska’s work.

Gless starred in the world premiere of the play in San Francisco last year, and later had a run in Miami from December 2010 to February 2011.

The show will run at the Riverside Studios in west London from 19 October.

The run is scheduled to run until 20 November.

A Round-Heeled Woman tells the story of retired Californian English teacher Juska, who realises after 30 years of being “severely deprived” of touch that she still liked men.

After placing a personals ad in The New York Review of Books and receiving 63 replies from men aged between 32 and 84, the play follows her experiences.

Gless has trodden the boards twice before in London – in the stage version of Stephen King’s Misery and in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two.

But she is best remembered as detective Christine Cagney from the long-running 1980s US police drama opposite Tyne Daly.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/entertainment-arts-13927925