Navy makes first 1000 job cuts...

More than 1,000 Royal Navy staff will learn they are being made redundant later as part of a first round of military job cuts.

Of about 1,020 job losses, a third are compulsory. Some 810 sailors applied for redundancy and 670 were accepted.
The navy is cutting numbers by 5,000 to 30,000 by 2015, as part of 22,000 armed forces cuts designed to help save £5bn.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the MoD had to share the blame for the cuts having "helped create the problem".
Earlier this month about 920 soldiers and 930 RAF personnel were told they were being made redundant, in the first tranche of cuts announced in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review.
The next round of redundancies is due in March. The Ministry of Defence is also shedding 25,000 civilian staff over the next four years.
Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Dr Fox reflected on the actions of military chiefs under previous government, saying: "I think the MoD consistently dug a hole for itself that it eventually found that it could not climb out of.
"It is irritating to hear some of those who helped create the problem criticising us when we try to bring in a solution."
A "complete breakdown of trust" between the military and the government over ballooning costs reached its zenith towards the end of Gordon Brown's premiership, the defence secretary said.
'Morale knocked' He added that he wanted the armed forces to "take the pain early" so the military could balance its books and regain lost credibility.
Morale within the forces had "taken a knock" but most people understood that reform "had to be done", Dr Fox said.
Only personnel not on or preparing for deployment, and who have taken all their operational leave, have been considered for redundancy from the Royal Navy.
This includes sailors who took part in the Libya campaign on HMS Cumberland and other ships now being decommissioned.
Plymouth-based HMS Cumberland was the first UK warship sent to Libya earlier in the year.
The MoD says the decisions it faces are not easy but that they will "help to defend the UK, protect our interests overseas and enable us to work effectively with allies and partners to deliver greater security and stability in the wider world".
Many of the job cuts in the coming years are expected through a decrease in recruitment and by not replacing those who leave, but more than half are likely to be redundancies.

Miner killed in Kellingley Colliery roof fall

UK Coal chief executive Gareth Williams confirmed the death of a miner at the Kellingley Colliery

A miner has been killed and another rescued after being trapped following a roof fall in a North Yorkshire pit.

Gareth Williams, the chief executive of UK Coal, confirmed the death at Kellingley Colliery. He said no names would be released at this point.
The two men became trapped up to their waist by debris at the pit near Knottingley on Tuesday afternoon.
Kellingley, which is managed by UK Coal, is one of Britain's deepest remaining mines.
The colliery employs about 600 staff and its two main shafts are 800m (2,600ft) deep.
Part of the mine where the accident happened is called 501 Tailgate and is understood to be three miles lateral distance from the entrance to the pit.
The Yorkshire Ambulance Service said: "We received a 999 call at 16:51 to a report of two men trapped underground at a colliery in Knottingley.
"We deployed a specialist hazardous area response team who are trained to work underground.

Kellingley Colliery is one of Britain's deepest remaining mines

"They went with two doctors, a rapid response vehicle, the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and an incident officer is also on the scene."
A spokesperson from North Yorkshire Police said all emergency services were at the scene, along with UK Coal.
The MP for Pontefract and Castleford, Yvette Cooper, fought back tears as she told Labour supporters at a party conference fringe event there had been a mining accident on the edge of her constituency.
The shadow home secretary apologised to the audience in Liverpool for cutting short her appearance.
She is reported to be on her way to her constituency. A decision on a planned speech due at the conference on Wednesday will be made later.
Kellingley supplies coal to local power stations and produces some coal for households.
On 30 November 2010, 200 workers were evacuated from the pit at Kellingley after a methane explosion underground.
Miner Ian Cameron died after equipment fell on him on 18 October 2009.
In September 2008, Don Cook died in a rock fall.
Earlier this month, four men were killed in a Swansea Valley colliery.

Anyone can make money off a crash...

Ministers from the world's richest nations are reportedly on the way to agreeing a deal for troubled eurozone countries.
Following the IMF meeting in Washington, the BBC understands that three elements have been discussed.
They include a so-called "haircut" of Greece's sovereign debt, meaning institutions holding Greek debt would have to write off half of what they were owed.
The plan also envisages an increase in the size of the European Union bailout fund to two trillion euros.
European governments hope to have the plan in place in five to six weeks.
But one independent market trader - Alessio Rastani - told the BBC the plan "won't work" and that people should be trying to make money from a market crash.

Sata selected Zambia president...

Opposition leader Michael Sata has won Zambia's presidential election after two days of vote counting following a tight race with incumbent Rupiah Banda.

Mr Sata was declared winner by Chief Justice Ernest Sakala after polling 43% of the vote with just seven constituencies left to be counted.
The election had been marred by riots in Zambia's northern mining region.
The anger had been prompted by a ban on the media announcing results not verified by the electoral commission.
The electoral commission said it had taken the step after its website was hacked to falsely record a landslide for 74-year-old Mr Sata.
Mr Banda's Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) has ruled Zambia for 20 years and this was the fourth time Patriotic Front (PF) leader Mr Sata had run for the presidency.
He lost the last election, in 2008, by just 35,000 votes which sparked rioting by some opposition supporters in the party's urban strongholds.
'King Cobra' However, they were in jubilant mood after the victory announcement early on Friday morning. The BBC's Louise Redvers, in the capital Lusaka, said parties were expected to continue into the night.

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Michael Sata - Profile

• Started in politics as municipal councillor and served as governor of Lusaka under Zambia's first President, Kenneth Kaunda
• Resigned from Kaunda's United National Independence Party in 1991 and joined Frederick Chiluba's newly-formed MMD
• Served as MMD minister of local government, labour, and health. Was later minister without portfolio, the third-highest post in government
• Formed Patriotic Front in 2001, losing an election that year and in 2006 and 2008

Mr Sata, who reportedly used to sweep floors at London's Victoria Station, has had a lengthy career in politics. He served as an MMD minister for local government, labour and social security, and health before quitting in 2001.

Known as "King Cobra" for his venomous tongue, foreign mining firms - often from China - have frequently been the target of his criticism about labour conditions.
While the party has disputed media reports it is anti-Chinese, it is likely to shake up the way contracts are awarded, our correspondent said.
There were suggestions Chinese firms were bankrolling Mr Banda's re-election bid in the run-up to the poll, with PF candidates expressing surprise at the amount of funds available to the MMD.
Meanwhile, international election observers criticised the MMD for abusing state resources during its campaign and noted serious media bias on the part of the state broadcaster.
However, the PF's promises of more jobs and better education appear to have won over the electorate.

UARS sattelite: New images of tumbling U.S. Spacecraft

An amateur astronomer has recorded images of the out-of-control US satellite as it tumbles back to Earth.

Theirry Legault, from Paris, captured the video as the satellite passed over northern France on 15 September.
The six-tonne, 20-year-old spacecraft has fallen out of orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on Earth on or around 24 September.
The US space agency says the risk to life from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is 1 in 3,200.
Mr Legault, an engineer, used a specially designed camera to record the tumbling satellite through his 14-inch telescope, posting the footage on his Astrophotography website.
UARS could land anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south of the equator - most of the populated world.
Nasa says that most of the satellite will break or burn up before reaching Earth.
But scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the atmosphere. This debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide.
Robust, spherical satellite components such as fuel tanks are often most likely to survive the fiery plunge to Earth, say space experts.

The "productive scientific life" of UARS ended in 2005 when it ran out of fuel

Nasa said scientists would only be able to make more accurate predictions about where the satellite might land two hours before it enters the Earth's atmosphere.
The 1 in 3,200 risk to public safety is higher than the 1 in 10,000 limit that Nasa aims for.
But agency officials stress that nobody has ever been hurt by objects re-entering from space.
Mark Matney, a scientist with Nasa's Orbital Debris Program Office, told Space.com that there was "always a concern".
But, he added: "Populated areas are a small fraction of the Earth's surface. Much of the Earth's surface has either no people or very few people. We believe that the risk is very modest."
UARS is one of the biggest American satellites to make an uncontrolled re-entry in more than 30 years. However, the Skylab space station, which also made an uncontrolled plunge through the atmosphere in 1979, was about 15 times heavier than the tumbling satellite.
Experts say that a recent expansion in the Earth's atmosphere due to heating by ultraviolet radiation has been causing UARS to fall to Earth faster than expected. The expansion increases the atmospheric drag on satellites in space, hastening re-entry.
The US satellite was deployed in 1991 from the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to study the make-up of Earth's atmosphere, particularly its protective ozone layer.
Nasa has warned members of the public not to touch any pieces of the spacecraft which may survive the re-entry, urging them to contact local law enforcement authorities.

Federal Reserve launches 'Twist' stimulus initiative...

The Federal Reserve has announced its long-awaited Operation Twist scheme to help stimulate the flagging US economy.

The Fed will spend about $400bn buying back bonds maturing within three years and swapping this for longer-term debt.
While the initiative pumps no new money into the economy it has the effect of keeping long-term interest rates down and boosting mortgage lending and loans to companies.
First used in the 1960s, it was named after the dance craze of the time.
The news did little to bolster sentiment on Wall Street, with shares falling heavily after the announcement.
"Recent indicators point to continuing weakness in overall labor market conditions, and the unemployment rate remains elevated," the Fed said in a statement.
"There are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets."

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“Start Quote

Officials at the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are not happy to be the only game in town. Far from it. ”

Stephanie Flanders Economics editor, BBC News

• Read Stephanie's blog

The move by the Fed comes amid deepening gloom about the global economy, with the International Monetary Fund slashing growth estimates for the US, Europe, and Japan.

On Wednesday, the Bank of England said members of its Monetary Policy Committee had considered a new round of quantitative easing to pump money into the economy.
Analysts said the Operation Twist move was larger than had been expected, and comes after leading Republicans this week urged the Fed not to intervene in the economy more than it has.
John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital, said: "The Federal Reserve has taken its next best shot at reviving the economy. The effectiveness of the 'twist' remains to be seen, but the acknowledgment of the downside risk to the economy is in line with the recent data points and the IMF outlook

Polio strain spreads to China from Pakistan...

Polio has spread to China for the first time since 1999 after being imported from Pakistan, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed.

It said a strain of polio (WPV1) found in China was genetically linked with the type now circulating in Pakistan.
At least seven cases have now been confirmed in China's western Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan.
The WHO warned there was a high risk of the crippling virus spreading further during Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca.
Polio (also called poliomyelitis) is highly infectious and affects the nervous system, sometimes resulting in paralysis.
It is transmitted through contaminated food, drinking water and faeces.
'Right things done' On Tuesday, the WHO said the polio cases in Xinjiang had been detected in the past two months.
The Chinese authorities are now investigating the cases, and a mass vaccination campaign has been launched in the region.
"So far all the right things are being done," WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer told Reuters news agency.
Polio was last brought into China from India in 1999. China's last indigenous case was in 1994.
Pakistan is one of a handful of countries where polio remains endemic.
WHO officials had been warning for some time that the virus was spreading within the country to previously uninfected areas.
The UN's children fund, Unicef, has said that eradicating polio from Pakistan depends on delivering oral vaccines to each and every child, including the most vulnerable and the hardest to reach.
Polio was virtually eliminated from the Western hemisphere in the 20th Century.

Asteroid "killed off early birds"

Many early bird species suffered from the same catastrophic extinction as the dinosaurs, new research has shown.

The meteorite impact that coincided with the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, also saw a rapid decline in primitive bird species.
Only a few bird groups survived through the mass extinction, from which all modern birds are descended.
Researchers at Yale University have published their findings in PNAS this week.
There has been a long standing debate over the fate of the earliest "archaic" birds, which first evolved around 200 million years ago.
Whether their populations declined slowly towards the end of the Cretaceous period, or whether they suffered a sudden mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary is unresolved, owing to conflicting evidence.
DNA studies have attempted to date the origin of modern birds; some suggest that they appeared before the extinction of dinosaurs, with large numbers of them surviving through the extinction event.
But the molecular clock suffers from "method issues", explains Dr Longrich of Yale University, and well-dated fossils are needed for "stratigraphic constraint" of the extinctions.
There are problems with the fossil record however. It is incomplete, owing to the extreme rarity of bird fossils.
Bird bones are very difficult to preserve as fossils as they are small and light, and easily damaged or swept away in rivers.
But the new research, headed by Dr Longrich, has made use of fragmentary bird fossils collected up to 100 years ago, from locations across North America.
New diversity The fossil deposits, in North and South Dakota and Wyoming in the US, and Saskatchewan in Canada, date from the last 1.5 million years of the Cretaceous period.
More precise dating places the bird fossils to within 300,000 years of the extinction event - a very short period on geological timescales.
These fossils had been studied before, but they have been "shoehorned" into modern groups on the basis of their overall similarity.
Dr Longrich and his team have reanalysed and reclassified these important fossil fragments, using features of the shoulder joint to assign the fossils to modern and ancient groups.

Archaic birds like Archaeopteryx looked very different to modern ones

The shoulder bone, or "coracoid" is used for classification because it is the most common bone fragment preserved, and it doesn't vary much between individuals of the same species.
Analysing 24 specimens, the researchers identified 17 species, seven of which were "archaic birds" that are not seen after the K-T mass extinction.
These findings show for the first time a diversity of archaic birds alive, right up until the end of the Cretaceous.
This would mean that the archaic birds went extinct abruptly 65 million years ago, and that modern birds must have descended from just a few groups that survived the event.
'Nail in the coffin' Among the primitive species identified, there is considerable variation in size, but there are few other specific adaptations.
Modern birds, on the other hand, have a huge range of adaptations to their particular behaviours or living environments.
This variation would have therefore come about during an explosive evolutionary radiation from the few surviving groups, during the first 10 million years or so following the K-T mass extinction.
"It's similar to what happened with mammals following the age of the dinosaurs." said Dr Longrich.
"Given that the extinction affected mammals, reptiles, insects and plants, it would be remarkable if birds survived the event unscathed," the scientists say in an introduction to their research.
There is growing evidence for the theory that the archaic birds survived until the extinction; more and more bird fossils are being found in Madagascar, Mongolia and Europe.
But these fossils are not well dated, unlike the newly analysed fragments from North America.
Dr Longrich said that this evidence was "a nail in the coffin of the idea of a slow decline".

Economy enters "dangerous" phase...

The global economy has entered a "dangerous new phase" of sharply lower growth, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The organisation warned that continuing political and economic woes in the US and eurozone could force them back into recession.
The IMF says the prognosis for economies in the developed world is "weak and bumpy expansion".
It predicts their GDP will expand "at an anaemic pace of 1.5% in 2011".
The IMF believes global growth will shrink to 4% in 2012, from 5% last year, on factors such as "major financial turbulence in the eurozone".
It slashed its growth projections for the 17-nation eurozone to 1.6% in 2011, down from 2% predicted in June. Next year growth will be 1.1%, down from 1.7%, it forecast.
The US - the world's largest economy - is likely to have weak growth "for years to come".
UK worries

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“Start Quote

The Fund has moved one step closer to saying the downside scenario has arrived. But it has stopped short of saying it. This is entirely understandable at a time when confidence is at a premium”

Stephanie Flanders Economics editor, BBC News

• Read Stephanie's blog
• Italy has debt rating cut by S&P
• 'No panacea' from emerging states
• Eurozone in crisis graphics: Deficits

And the UK, the growth forecast for 2011 has also been revised downwards, from 1.5% to 1.1%, while the forecast for 2012 was cut to 1.6%, from 2.3%.

"It would be wise for both governments and businesses [in the UK] to develop contingency plans in case such a double dip scenario does emerge," said John Hawksworth, PwC's chief economist.
Among the major advanced economies, the IMF now thinks Germany and Canada will be the only countries to grow by more than 2% in 2011.
In 2012, none will grow that fast, except Japan, as its economy rebounds from this year after an earthquake and tsunami ravaged the country.
BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders points out that the shorter-term growth forecast has been cut for every country listed - with particularly large downward revisions for the US and Italy.
Acting together The IMF stressed strong leadership would crucial in staving off recession in the US and eurozone.

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“Start Quote

We have the discipline and the determination to put right the huge deficit and debts we were left by the last government ”

William Hague MP UK Foreign Secretary

• IMF cuts growth forecast for UK

IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said that eurozone countries were lagging in the race to solve the sovereign debt crisis.

He said: "There is a wide perception that policymakers are one step behind the action. Europe must get its act together."
The perceived weakness in eurozone governments' response is one of the main factors behind the recent market turmoil.
"Leaders must stand by their commitments to do whatever it takes to preserve trust in national policies and the euro," the report said.
The IMF's statements come after credit rating agency Standard and Poor's downgraded Italy's debt rating amid mounting concerns about the country's finances.
And on Monday, the IMF warned Greece to implement agreed reforms or miss an 8bn-euro bailout instalment set for October, viewed as vital to keeping state finances afloat.
"Fragile" financial institutions needed to get private cash to survive over funds from the public purse, or be "restructured or closed", said the IMF.
In a speech on Tuesday, European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia also warned more banks in the region may need extra cash.
He said: "The worsening of the sovereign debt crisis, its impact on a fragile banking system and the continuing tensions in funding markets all point to the possible needs for further recapitalistion of banks on top of the nine that failed the stress tests earlier this year."
US concerns

Greece must continue with unpopular spending cuts and tax rises, the IMF says

The IMF report also voices concerns about the US economic recovery and the chance it might "suffer further blows" including a weak housing market and worsening financial conditions.
It warns that either of the issues could drag both the US and the euro area into recession.
It suggests that the US needs to devise a plan to "put public debt on a sustainable path and implement policies to sustain the recovery".
The IMF has also voiced fears that the US is facing what it calls a "very sluggish recovery of employment".
"Although [US] unemployment is below post-World War II highs, job losses during the crisis were unprecedented and came on top of lacklustre employment performance during the preceding decade," the report said.
It added that news of the US housing market had been disappointing, with "no end in sight to the overhang of excess supply and declining prices".

Afghan Peace Negotiator Assasinated...

The chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been killed with several other people in a bomb attack in Kabul, officials say.

Mr Rabbani was killed at his home by a suicide attacker who officials believe had concealed a bomb in his turban.
He was meeting members of the Taliban at the time. The council leads Afghan efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.
Mr Rabbani is a former president of Afghanistan and also led the main political opposition in the country.
A senior adviser to the peace council, Masoom Stanakzai, is also thought to have been seriously wounded in the attack.
On hearing the news Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided to cut short his visit to the US but briefly met President Barack Obama, who condemned the killing as a "tragic loss". Both men reinforced their determination to continue the quest for peace.
President Karzai said: "This is a sad day for us in Afghanistan but a day of unity and day of continuity for our efforts."
Abdullah Abdullah, the leader of the opposition in the Afghan parliament, said Mr Rabbani's killing was "a big loss for all the people of Afghanistan", describing the former president as a man who "strove until his last breath to bring peace".
Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) condemned the attack, with Isaf commander Gen John R Allen saying that "the face of the peace initiative has been attacked".
'Special message'

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Analysis

Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul

Mr Rabbani will be a hard man for President Karzai to replace.
Although he was an ethnic Tajik leader from the north, Mr Rabbani had support in Pashtun areas in the south and east. He was seen as one of Afghanistan's cleverest and most influential politicians.
And he had some of the tightest security of any Afghan leader. His convoys were always heavily protected and included several identical vehicles with blacked-out windows to confuse potential attackers.
The best guess is that he was killed by Taliban who did not support the talks initiative he led. Karzai supporters see his death as a blow to peace efforts, but how much he achieved is unclear.
His peace council is credited with bringing over hundreds of Taliban field commanders, but to date Mr Rabbani had failed to woo any senior figures away from the insurgency.

Mr Rabbani's residence is in a prosperous district of Kabul, on the edge of a high security area close to the US embassy and the district where the Taliban launched a 20-hour attack last week, leaving 25 dead.

The attack is likely to fuel concerns over security in the capital. Security forces have closed off a number of streets in the district and the police are out in force, reports say.
Speaking to the BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul, counter-terrorism officials described the sequence of events leading up to the killing.
They said two Taliban commanders had arrived with Mr Stanakzai in a red Corolla to meet Mr Rabbani.
The commanders told household staff that they had special messages from the Taliban for Mr Rabbani.
The officials added that as guards approached to search the men, Mr Stanakzai shouted: "We know them. They are our own people."
As one of the Taliban commanders went to embrace the former president, he detonated explosives concealed in his turban.
"No-one was checked. Shortly after that we heard an explosion. Everyone started shouting: 'They killed Ustaad Ustaad [a term of respect]'," a member of Mr Rabbani's household said.
''One of the attackers' heads is missing. The second attacker is arrested but he is injured. The driver was arrested before he could flee," intelligence sources told the BBC.
Our correspondent adds that Tuesday's meeting with the Taliban commanders had been kept secret, with some of Mr Rabbani's aides being informed about it just a few hours before it had begun.
He says Mr Rabbani had returned to Afghanistan from abroad a few days ago specifically for the meeting.
When the High Peace Council was set up in October 2010, Mr Karzai described it as the greatest hope for the Afghan people and called on the Taliban to seize the opportunity and help bring peace.

Mr Rabbani (centre) had been overseeing efforts to persuade the Taliban to give up arms

But many members of the council are former warlords who spent years fighting the Taliban and their inclusion led to doubts as to whether it could succeed in its mission.
Mr Rabbani was ousted as president by the Taliban in 1996. After that he became the nominal head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, made of mostly non-Pashtun ethnic groups.
When they swept back into Kabul, backed by US forces, and toppled the Taliban in 2001, he was still recognised by the UN as the official president of Afghanistan.
Series of assassinations But he was a controversial figure who had many enemies, including the Taliban, the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul says. Many were surprised when Mr Rabbani was put in charge of peace talks.

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Burhanuddin Rabbani

• Senior figure in the mujahideen who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s
• President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 and then again in 2001
• Senior member of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance from 1996 to 2001
• Made leader of Peace Council constituted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai tasked with negotiating with the Taliban

• Obituary: Burhanuddin Rabbani

In the 1970s it was Mr Rabbani who founded the parties that ended up becoming the Afghan mujahideen who took on the Soviets, and many blame him and his friends for the death and destruction of the civil war days.

Although people will mourn his violent death, there are also many who will celebrate it, our correspondent adds.
However, analysts say, his death will not necessarily prevent peace talks from continuing.
The killing is the latest in a series of assassinations of senior politicians and security commanders across the country.
In July, President Karzai's half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at his home in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, by his own head of security. Two months earlier, Gen Daud Daud, the top police commander in northern Afghanistan was killed in a suicide bomb attack.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of these killings.