BBC cheats says the Mirror
Bare faced cheats says the Sun as many of the papers carry pictures of Pudsey bear one of the shows that the BBC has owned up to having a fraudulent phone in
The shaming of the BBC... now the police may be called in says the Mail
The BBC's credibility lies in tatters today after a series of humiliating admissions that it has been routinely conning the public.
Licence-fee payers were repeatedly ripped off in phone-in competitions on a string of shows including some of its most trusted charity fundraising programmes such as Children In Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief.
The BBC's damaging confession may open the way for a police fraud investigation and unprecedented fines. And the corporation warned that more revelations will follow because more shows are under investigation.
The Telegraph reports that
The BBC faced a grave crisis of public trust last night after admitting that a series of flagship children's and charity phone-in programmes had deliberately deceived viewers.Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief all featured fake competition winners, the corporation said.
An internal investigation, ordered after the BBC's apology to the Queen last week, also disclosed serious breaches of editorial standards involving a series of other phone-in shows. In some instances production staff posed as competition winners.
After the scale of the deceptions became clear, Mark Thompson, the director-general, immediately suspended all phone-related competitions on television and radio. Interactive and online competitions were also halted.
The Guardian saying
On what was dubbed a "black Wednesday" for public service broadcasting in the UK, Ofcom also unveiled a damning report into premium phone lines that uncovered a "systemic failure" in their operation.
The Times leads with the story that
New death plot chills relations with Putin
The murder of a second Russian dissident on British soil was averted last month when police and intelligence agencies intercepted a suspected killer in London, it was confirmed last night.
In a move likely to damage already strained relations between Britain and Russia, Scotland Yard said that officers arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on June 21 and held him for two days. He was later handed over to the immigration service and deported back to Russia.
The man arrived in London in mid-June allegedly with orders to murder the billionaire Russian exile Boris Berezovsky, a staunch opponent of President Putin, who has been granted asylum to live in Britain.
The plot to kill Boris Berezovsky reports the Independent
Has the Kremlin declared open season on the Russian dissident community in London? Boris Berezovsky and the former Chechen rebel Akhmed Zakayev certainly think so. And it seems that British security officials share their fears. Yesterday the outspoken tycoon was taking no chances, after it emerged that a Russian man had been arrested and deported on suspicion of plotting to kill him.
Mr Berezovsky appeared at a news conference, held only 200 yards from Downing Street, accompanied by several bodyguards and a unit of London police, and accused Vladimir Putin of trying to kill him last month.
The paper leads though with the question
CAN THIS BE HIS ROAD MAP TO REDEMPTION
Tony Blair arrived in Lisbon last night to begin a second career in which he must know that success may prove even more difficult than being the first British Labour prime minister to win three elections in a row.
Mr Blair will be anointed as Middle East envoy by the international Quartet, the EU, UN, Russia and the US, knowing the history of the region is littered by the failures of his predecessors as international peacemakers.
On the one hand Mr Blair brings considerable assets to the job, including success in Northern Ireland, and a real interest in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which has no doubt been sharpened by, but did not begin with, the desire to make good for the fiasco of Iraq.
On the other hand, it is hard at present to see how he can succeed without coming at some point into collision with both Israel, where he is justly regarded as a friend, and his chief sponsor President Bush.
Meanwhile the Guardian leads with
Insurgents form political front to plan for US pullout
Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.
In their first interview with the western media since the US-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police - said they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaida for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.
Speaking in Damascus, the spokesmen for the three groups - the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas - said they planned to hold a congress to launch a united front and appealed to Arab governments, other governments and the UN to help them establish a permanent political presence outside Iraq.
Review heralds U-turn on classification of cannabis as ‘soft’ drug reports the Times
Gordon Brown signalled a tougher approach to “soft” drugs yesterday with a surprise announcement of the second review in two years of the classification of cannabis.
Concern has been raised over the increased use of more potent “skunk” forms of the drug. There have been fears that its use is linked to psychotic illness, depression and suicide among young people.
It is the second time in a week that the Prime Minister has revealed plans to reverse policies of Tony Blair’s Government. Last week Mr Brown effectively abandoned plans for a supercasino in Manchester and it is understood that the Home Office became aware of the proposed review of cannabis classification only in the past two days.
And the Telegraph reports more governement announcements
Single parents will be made to seek jobs
Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, announced yesterday that the age at which lone parents will be expected to start seeking work will be cut from 16 to 12 next year.
In 2010, it will be reduced even further to just seven - four years lower than the age recommended by the Government-commissioned Freud report on future of welfare earlier this year.
Single parents who fail to find a job after 12 months will be required to join "specialist return-to-work" schemes, which will include full-time work experience or community work, an approach which mirrors the workfare schemes used in America.
Unveiling the Government's latest Green Paper on welfare reform, Mr Hain said the plans were designed to lift thousands of children and young people out of poverty. The private and voluntary sector will also be given a bigger role in getting people off benefits.
Six million Britons are living in households where nobody works says the Mail
costing the taxpayer almost £13 billion a year in benefits alone, a spending watchdog report reveals today.
An astonishing one in six households across the country are officially classified as 'workless' - having adults of working age but none with a job - and almost 1.8 million children are now growing up in these homes.
Make driving age 18 to save lives, say MPs reports the Guardian
New drivers should be forced to take a year to learn and face a zero alcohol limit to cut the number of deaths caused by novice motorists, MPs urge today.
Young male drivers are now the biggest killer of young women in the UK, according to the report from the transport select committee. They are also a danger to themselves: more than three times as many are killed as young female drivers, although they are more likely to pass the driving test.
The same paper is reporting that
Police investigate alleged Ealing byelection leak
Police launched an investigation last night into allegations that someone had broken electoral law by leaking the results of the postal ballots in today's Ealing Southall byelection.
A posting on a Daily Telegraph website - subsequently pulled - claimed that the Tories were neck and neck with Labour and the Liberal Democrats trailing in third place, about five points behind.
It is possible for campaign headquarters to get a sense of the results of postal voting, but it is a breach of electoral law to communicate this information because it could influence voters going to the polls. Anyone found guilty of leaking such information can face six months in prison.
4 WEEKS OF POST CHAOS says the Mirror
UNIONS are threatening to cripple postal deliveries for up to a month with a series of orchestrated walkouts.
Furious union leaders will launch two weeks of strikes starting from 7pm next Wednesday as they turn up the heat in their pay dispute.
And they warned the backlog created by the nationwide action could take a further fortnight to clear as posties work to rule.
As revealed in Tuesday's Mirror, the Communication Workers Union is escalating the dispute.
And, as predicted, they will use "guerilla tactics" with differ ent groups of workers called out on strike as days go by with the aim of maximising disruption. But postal workers will only take two days' action each in the two-week cycle of walkouts to minimise wage loss.
New York commuters flee steam explosion reports the Indy
An underground steam explosion tore through a Manhattan street near Grand Central Station on Wednesday during the evening rush hour, sending residents running for cover amid a plume of steam.
New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said it was not terrorism-related. A fire department spokeswoman said some people were taken to area hospitals, but no details were available. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was headed to the scene. Subway service was suspended because of the explosion.
A titanic geyser of what appeared to be steam and earth continued to erupt from the center of 41st Street after the blast, generating a tremendous roar. adding that
Heiko H. Thieme, an investment banker in midtown, had mud splattered on his face, trousers and shoes. He said the explosion was like a volcano. "Everybody was a bit confused, everybody obviously thought of 9-11," he said, referring to the 2001 terror attacks that demolished the World Trade Center.
Nuclear crisis in Japan as scientists reveal quake threat to power plants says the Times
The world’s biggest nuclear power station stands directly above an active earthquake faultline, which provoked an atomic spill this week, seismologists revealed yesterday.
The disclosure that the Kashiwazaki plant was prone to further earthquake damage threw Japan’s nuclear industry into crisis as seismologists recommended that up to a third of the country’s 55 atomic power stations should be closed for inspection.
In addition to the seismic threat to the Kashiwazaki plant, scientists identified an active threat to one of Japan’s oldest nuclear power stations and demanded that it should be closed immediately.
The former head of the country’s top authority on earthquake prediction told The Times that the Shizuoka plant posed a serious safety risk and that atomic experts were calling for it to be shut down.
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that
Anger grows over Brazil plane crash
The Brazilian government came under fierce attack yesterday after the worst air disaster in Brazilian history claimed an estimated 200 lives.
The accident happened on Tuesday evening as a crowded Airbus-320 passenger plane belonging to the Brazilian company TAM landed at Sao Paulo's domestic airport, Congonhas. Witnesses said the plane appeared to run out of control after touching down, shooting off the runway and over a busy road before smashing into a warehouse and exploding. adding
Yesterday, as authorities struggled to identify severely burned bodies pulled from the wreckage, aviation experts and relatives of victims accused the government of not acting to close the airport, where the runway has been repeatedly criticised as dangerously short. According to the Brazilian press the runway was recently reopened after repairs but had not yet been "grooved", a measure that helps pilots reduce a plane's speed.
Nelson Mandela launches Elders to save world reports the Telegraph
Greeted by a 30-strong choir and hailed by a line-up of fellow elder statesmen eager to embrace him, Nelson Mandela celebrated his 89th birthday yesterday with a new initiative demonstrating the moral authority he still carries deep into his retirement.The former South African president will be the leading figure in the "Global Elders", a group of "12 wise men and women" who will address global problems by offering expertise and guidance.
Finally the Sun reports
Oh my God,I 've signed up for a pub team
OH dear, Becks. Whatever have you gone and done?
David Beckham has landed himself in a footballing armageddon by signing for the LA Galaxy.
When the ex-England skipper arrived at the Home Depot Center on a £125million deal last week he stated his ambition was to take US football to a different level.
Little did he realise that, on the evidence of the Galaxy’s 3-0 home defeat against Mexican side Tigres, lifting them to a level of rock bottom will be a major achievement.
Frankly Becks’ new team resembles a Sunday morning pub side.
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