The UN report on Britain's children dominates the headlines in this morning's papers,all the qualities feature it predominantly on their front pages as does the Mail,although Robbie Williams features on the front of both the Mirror and the Sun.

British children: poorer, at greater risk and more insecure says the Guardian

Children growing up in the United Kingdom suffer greater deprivation, worse relationships with their parents and are exposed to more risks from alcohol, drugs and unsafe sex than those in any other wealthy country in the world, according to a study from the United Nations.
The UK is bottom of the league of 21 economically advanced countries according to a "report card"' put together by Unicef on the wellbeing of children and adolescents, trailing the United States which comes second to last.

Britain's children: unhappy, neglected and poorly educated according to the Indy,

British children are languishing at the bottom of an international league table examining the physical and emotional well-being of youngsters in the world's wealthiest nations.
Despite living in the fifth richest country, the next generation of UK citizens experience some of the worst levels of poverty. The research found they regard themselves as less happy, and that they drank more alcohol, took more drugs, and had more underage sex than children overseas.
They were also more prone to failure at school, to experience violence and bullying while suffering a greater number of unhappy relationships with both their families and peers.

The Mail calls it

Betrayal of a generation

The damning verdict was delivered in a United Nations report.
Even though Britain is the fourth wealthiest nation in the world, the child welfare agency Unicef found children were far better off and better cared-for in less prosperous countries.

The Times leads on a report from Afghanistan

It’s dawn, and the shelling starts. Time to go into the Taleban maze

As two of its reporters go undercover with the Marines

Their mission, one of the largest undertaken by 3 Commando Brigade since its arrival in Afghanistan last autumn, was to attack and clear positions used by the Taleban on the north bank of the Helmand river, from where the insurgents threaten reconstruction work on the hydroelectric station at the Kajaki Dam.
Backed by American money, Chinese engineers are due to start work on the dam’s power station before spring, but will not do so until a security zone with a radius of six kilometres (about 3½ miles) has been created around the area.
In one of Afghanistan’s many horse-and-cart scenarios, local civilians will be employed on the site once the project is under way. This is intended to undermine the insurgency by inflating the district’s economy. But for it to happen, fighting must come first.

The Telegraph covers yesterdays news from North Korea calling it

North Korea nuclear deal 'a message to Iran'

At marathon six-party talks in Beijing, North Korean negotiators committed the Stalinist state to meeting a 60-day deadline to freeze activity at a plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon in return for fuel oil and other concessions.
The Yongbyon plant provided the plutonium used to conduct North Korea's first nuclear test last October.
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, dismissed criticism that the deal reward-ed "bad behaviour". "Why should it not be seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources, and that strong diplomacy has achieved results?" she said.

According to the Independent,

North Korea agrees to nuclear freeze in return for foreign aid

North Korea and the United States have taken a step back from nuclear confrontation after the reclusive Communist state agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in return for foreign fuel aid.
The deal, reached at six-party talks in Beijing, was hailed by the US President George Bush as "the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programme". His spokesman described it as a "very important first step" towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Whilst the same paper reports that

Blair bypasses Bush to build a consensus on climate change

Tony Blair is to devote himself to fighting global warming when he quits power this summer by promoting an American rethink on the Kyoto protocol.
He discussed his plans for a post-Bush consensus with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who has made climate change a priority for her presidency of the G8 and the EU.
Mr Blair is using Globe, an international forum for parliamentarians to discuss global warming, to persuade the big three polluters, America, China and India, to join global action to tackle climate change.

The Guardian reports on the enquiry into the Forest Gate arrests last year

Forest Gate raid police had no choice, says watchdog

Families caught up in the Forest Gate anti-terrorist raid in east London in which a man was shot yesterday criticised the findings of an independent inquiry into the police operation. The inquiry found Scotland Yard had no option but to act on intelligence that a remote-controlled chemical bomb was hidden in one of the houses raided.

The Telegraph reports that

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said they were "victims of failed intelligence" and had been put through a "terrifying experience".

The Express asks

How many times do we have to say sorry?

Senior officers insisted that they had already apologised three times after two houses were stormed in the search for a deadly chemical bomb.But the Independent Police Complaints Commission has urged them to issue another, “high profile” apology to families caught up in the “terrifying experience”.

Back to the Telegraph which features some potential political scandal,

Questions about the DPP and his friend

Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, was last night refusing to intervene in the controversy over the role of Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, after reports of an affair with a barrister.

Sir Ken, 54, a friend and former colleague of Cherie Blair, the Prime Minister's wife, was privately insisting yesterday that his friendship with Kirsty Brimelow, 37, had no bearing on his job as chief prosecutor for England and Wales.
The Attorney General, who appointed Sir Ken to the post in 2003, was taking the same view. "Lord Goldsmith is away but as far as we are concerned this is a private matter," a spokesman said.

The Mirror takes a more personal perspective

WIFE'S TEARS AS DPP REFUSES TO DENY AFFAIR CLAIM

Lady Linda, 51, left for work at 9am with swollen, bloodshot eyes, refusing to comment on allegations that the dad-of-three has been seeing Kirsty Brimelow - a blonde barrister 17 years his junior.
Clearly distraught and not wearing her wedding ring, she stumbled into her VW Polo and sped off.
A neighbour who did not want to be named said: "She looked devastated. I can't believe she's having to go through this.
"She's clearly been crying and looked as if she barely slept."

The Independent tells

MPs' travel expenses revealed after two-year battle for secrecy

a former Labour minister claimed more than £16,000 for mileage and a Conservative backbencher ran up a bill of almost £6,000 on taxis, as MPs' travel claims reached £5m. The first breakdown of Westminster's travel expenses, released under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, has revealed wide discrepancies between claims.
MPs are reimbursed for all parliamentary travel costs, whether it be by car, taxi, rail or air, and they were paid an average of £7,700 in 2005-06. After losing a two-year battle to keep the details of the travel claims confidential, the House of Commons finally published them last night.
They disclosed that the biggest claim for car use was registered by the former tourism minister Janet Anderson, who represents Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire. She received £16,612 for driving more than 60,000 miles during the 12-month period.

The Mirror's lead is the

TORMENT OF ROBBIE

ROBBIE Williams' mum Jan last night said his decision to go into rehab on his 33rd birthday was "the best gift he could have given himself".
The worried 56-year-old drugs counsellor vowed to join the tormented singer in America to support his desperate battle against prescription pill addiction as friends revealed he has cut himself off from the outside world.
Robbie's gloom deepened so much he told aides he has repeatedly had suicidal thoughts and begged them to get him help.

The Sun thinks it knows the reasons under the headline

Happy Pills,sleeping pills,60 silk cut and twenty red bull every day

ROBBIE Williams was plunged into depression after his old mates in Take That eclipsed his solo efforts with their hit reunion tour and album.
The insecure superstar downed more and more prescription pills to cope as he watched the nation fall in love all over again with the boyband that launched his career.
Manic-depressive Robbie was deeply troubled long before he checked into an exclusive Arizona rehab clinic on his 33rd birthday yesterday.

Back to road pricing and the Times reports that

Livingstone’s £8 zone heads west, but traffic jams are as bad as ever

Congestion in central London is almost as bad as it was before the daily charge was introduced four years ago, according to official figures.
Traffic delays have risen sharply in the past two years and will rise further next week when the zone doubles in size with a westwards extension into Kensington and Chelsea, Transport for London said.
The loss of most of the benefits of congestion charging is causing concern in other cities that have been considering whether to follow London’s lead.

Whereas the Mail tells us

Revealed, what Blair isn't telling you about road tolls

The full extent of Tony Blair's ambitious pay-as-you-drive road tolls plan is revealed - with a string of hidden elements unearthed.
Under the scheme, motorists will pay by the mile for use of the roads.
The charges will be higher at peak times as a disincentive to drive and to reduce congestion. Drivers will pay less, or nothing at all, to travel at quieter, offpeak times.
However, a document sent by the Government to ten councils seeking to run pilot schemes sets out far more extensive plans than have been officially announced.

The Mirror reports on

BNP 'BOMB FACTORY'

BNP election candidate stockpiled explosive chemicals because he feared Britain was on the brink of civil war, a court heard yesterday.
Robert Cottage also told friends he wanted to shoot Tony Blair.
Police raided the 49-year-old driver's home after a tip off from wife Kerena.
They found 21 chemicals, ballbearings air guns and crossbows.
And a diary entry read: "Easiest way to save country is to assassinate Tony Blair."
Cottage, of Colne, Lancs, admits possessing explosives but denies plotting to cause a blast.
The Manchester trial continues.

And of course there are Valentine stories,the Guardian reporting

Antony and Cleopatra: coin find changes the faces of history

Two of history's most famous Valentines are gently debunked today by analysis of an exceptionally well-preserved Roman coin, which gives the lie to the fabled beauty of Cleopatra and the manly features of her lover Mark Antony.
Far from possessing the classical looks of Elizabeth Taylor, or the many other goddesses who have played her on stage and screen, the Egyptian queen is shown with a shrewish profile while Antony suffers from bulging eyes, a crooked nose and a bull neck.

The Telegraph

Love gives you cocaine rush, say researchers

The effects of love on the brain are similar to those of cocaine, according to a team that has studied scans of lovestruck people.
Romantic love could be an emotion as fundamental as hunger or thirst, according to the brain scans of young men and women who had fallen madly in love, or were lovelorn, by Arthur Aron, a social psychologist at The State University of New York at Stony Brook.

And the Mail says

Guess who hates Valentine's Day ... and it's not men

is the day for hopeless romantics. Or it would be if they weren't so hopeless.
More than half of women - 54 per cent - can't stand Valentine's Day. And the reason, it would seem, is the ineptitude of their other halves.