Education takes a front seat in the papers this morning.

'Studio schools' planned for pupil malcontents reports the Telegraph

Excluded and disaffected pupils will be sent to special "studio schools" under plans being drawn up by the Government.The new schools will teach teenagers how to run their own businesses and will combine work experience with learning qualifications in an environment closer to a workplace than a classroom.
They will provide "high quality" practical learning for pupils aged between 14 and 19 - many of whom will have been excluded from mainstream schools - in an effort to keep them in education.

Tory plan to make schools follow academy model reports the Guardian

The Conservatives are to try to seize the education choice agenda from Labour this week by proposing that most schools be freed from the control of local authorities along the model of city academies.
David Cameron says his party will back a supply-side education revolution to help the most disadvantaged children avoid falling behind in their earliest years. The move comes as research shows children are commuting up to 50 miles a day to go to a state school, with 250,000 attending schools outside their catchment area.


We will ban mobiles in classrooms say Tories says the Mail

The measure is contained in an education policy document intended to help hand back power to teachers.
Under proposals to be unveiled by David Cameron tomorrow, heads would get the final say on expulsions.
They would also be allowed to impose legally-binding behaviour contracts on pupils.

Adding that

Yesterday the proposals were greeted with derision by Labour, which said teachers already had many of the powers being proposed.

Too fat to work is the headline in the Times

Almost two thousand people who are too fat to work have been paid a total of £4.4 million in benefit, it emerged last night. Other payments went to fifty sufferers of acne and ten incapacitated by leprosy.
Billions of pounds is being paid in benefits to people claiming to be unable to work because they suffer from depression, stress, fatigue and unknown or unspecified diseases. the paper going on to say

The full list of ailments of the 2.7 million people claiming £7.4 billion in incapacity benefits, obtained by using Freedom of Information laws, will fuel suspicion that it is being used to keep them off the official jobless total. It will also fuel the debate over whether British workers could have been hired for more of the one million new jobs taken by migrants since 1997.

New disability test to get tough on claimants that are too SPOTTY or FAT to work says the Mail

Political spats take prominence also,the Independent reporting

Clegg complains as Lib Dem leadership race turns ugly

The Liberal Democrat leadership contender Nick Clegg made a complaint to the party's chief whip last night against his rival Chris Huhne, accusing him of backing a dossier entitled "Calamity Clegg". The document, a background briefing with quotations from Mr Clegg on public services reform and proportional representation, should not have carried the Calamity tag, Mr Huhne's team said last night in an effort to defuse the row.

Gordon Brown a bully? Ministers spring to defence of ‘interfering’ leader says the Times following yesterday's stories

Ministers had to defend Gordon Brown yesterday over accusations that he was bullying, interfering and micromanaging his Cabinet.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, denied suggestions of a rift with the Prime Minister, adding that he was working very closely with Mr Brown on the Government’s European agenda and that he was proud to serve under him. He was speaking after it emerged last week that Mr Brown had made Mr Miliband change a speech on Europe, dropping pro-European passages on EU defence

Terror expert slams detention plan reports the Mirror

Gordon Brown's plans to increase detention without charge were slammed last night - by one of his own anti-terror advisers.

The Prime Minister wants to extend the limit for quizzing terror suspects from 28 days to 56 or 58.
But former intelligence officer Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP, said that would help al-Qaeda's propaganda attacks. Mr Mercer who fought terror in Northern Ireland, said: "No matter how much we say this is not internment our enemies will trumpet that it is. And many will believe them.

Maddy returns to the headlines in the tabloids

Witness 'saw Murat's girlfriend with Madeleine' reports the Mirror

Detectives last night said they were "100 per cent sure" of finding Madeleine McCann alive after a witness told how she allegedly saw Robert Murat's girlfriend carrying a child wrapped in a blanket.
The woman claimed Michaela Walczuch, 34, handed the youngster over to a man in a car just two days after Maddy vanished from her holiday apartment on May 3.

WHY WE KNOW SHE IS ALIVE says the Express

MURAT'S GIRL HAD MADDIE says the front page of the Sun

THE girlfriend of Madeleine McCann suspect Robert Murat was yesterday accused of handing over the youngster to a man two days after she disappeared.
Metodo 3, the detective agency hired by parents Gerry and Kate to find their daughter, found a witness who had seen the exchange in central Portugal on May 5.
The witness is sure the child being put into a car was Maddie.

The Guardian leads with the story that

Blair unveils huge jobs plan to bolster Middle East peace talks

In his first major initiative since becoming the international community's Middle East envoy in June, Blair will outline plans including industrial parks and agricultural ventures in the West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza. The announcement will be made jointly with the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, and the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, in what is hoped will be a new spirit of cooperation.

Cyclone death toll in Bangladesh may top 10,000 says the Independent

Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis are in urgent need of food and shelter after the devastating cyclone which tore through parts of the country leaving at least 2,200 confirmed dead. One aid group said the final death toll could top 10,000.
Emergency workers said more than three million people had been affected by the storm and many of those who needed help most urgently were in hard-to-reach places. "There are many villages in remote areas, including on sandbank islands, that are yet to be reached," said Heather Blackwell of Oxfam. "We don't know the losses in those regions. It could take weeks before we know exactly how bad this cyclone was."

The paper leads with

Save the whale. Again

They're the whales that behave like dolphins, leaping right out of the water in one of the most spectacular animal displays on earth. They've enchanted millions. And they're the ones the Japanese are now off to kill.
Not content with harpooning minke whales, fin whales, sei whales, Bryde's whales and sperm whales – all unnecessarily, all in the face of hostile world opinion and all in the laughable guise of "scientific research" – the Japanese whaling fleet set off yesterday to hunt the best-loved whale of all, the humpback.

The Telegraph reports that

New 'superbug' may be killing hundreds

Hundreds of patients are dying each year from a new "untreatable" hospital infection, a leading expert has warned.Pseudomonas is dangerous because it is especially virulent in intensive care units and has become increasingly resistant to treatment, says Professor Mark Enright, an authority on healthcare-acquired infections

Treasury seeks to get round rules on loans to Rock says the Times

Northern Rock will formally acknowledge receipt of up to ten bidders today as the Treasury wrangles with Brussels about a possible indefinite extension of emergency support to the stricken bank.
The Newcastle-based group is expected to post a statement detailing receipt of proposals from companies including Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and JC Flowers, the private equity firm. The bids are likely to price the bank lower than its present market value.

Pressure mounts on Darling as Northern Rock sale gathers pace says the Indy

the Chancellor will come under pressure to explain how long the Government intends to continue funding the bank. The Treasury has refused to comment on reports that it is working to change the status of its funding to Northern Rock to "restructuring aid" to comply with European Union regulations regarding state aid. The Government has until February to make the change, by which time a sale of the bank may have been agreed.

The papers continue to cover the excavasions in Margate

House of horrors: Police to search another NINE properties across Britain after bodies found in Margate reports the Mail

Police are to search nine properties across Britain following the discovery of the bodies of two teenage girls.
The move follows the finding of the remains of Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol, at a house in Margate, Kent, last week.
Now two properties in Glasgow, one near Edinburgh, four in Brighton and two in Hampshire are set to be examined in minute detail in the hunt for further victims.


Freeze to kill 30,000 UK poor reports the Mirror

Thirty thousand people will die from cold this winter because the cost of heat is too high for them, campaigners have warned.
Victims die because they are unable to pay their bills, even though billions of pounds in benefits goes unclaimed, said the Warm Homes pressure group.
Their shock prediction means 250 deaths a day in four million cold, damp and unhealthy homes across the country.
The UK has one of the worst excess winter death rates in Europe, nearly twice that of Germany and the Netherlands.

Many of the papers report

More than 50 killed in Ukraine coal mine blast

Ukraine was last night mourning one of the deadliest mining disasters in its 16-year history as an independent country, after at least 56 people were killed in an underground explosion - with 44 still missing.
Rescue teams said there was almost no hope of finding more survivors at the Donbass colliery in eastern Ukraine. A methane explosion ripped through the mine at 3.11am yesterday, turning the 1,000-metre (3,280 feet) deep shafts into an inferno of fire and smoke. says the Guardian

Saudi pipeline blast kills 28 reports the Independent

The cause of the fire, which broke out just after midnight, was maintenance work, the company, Saudi Aramco, said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi said 12 people were missing and an unspecified number were wounded. The fire did not disrupt gas supplies, he told reporters during an OPEC summit in Riyadh.
The fire broke out while contract workers were linking a new pipe to the pipeline during maintenance, Aramco said.

Finally the Guardian reports that

King's outburst generates £1m-worth of ringtones

When the Spanish king Juan Carlos turned to Hugo Chavez and said to him, a touch irritably, "Why don't you shut up?", little did he know that his breach of diplomatic protocol would become a smash hit across the country.
Were the king to claim image rights over his less-than-diplomatic outburst, he could find himself a nice little earner, as those five famous words have become a multi-million euro business, selling ringtones, mugs, T-shirts and websites.adding

An estimated 500,000 people have already downloaded the ringtone, generating around €1.5m (£1m), but many companies have circumvented any potential problems over rights by using an actor's voice instead of the king's.