The Times reports this morning that

Police fire water cannon and tear gas as Kenyan protesters gather for Odinga rally

Kenyan riot police have used water cannon and tear gas on anti-Government protesters trying to attend a banned rally in Independence Park, Nairobi.
The opposition leader Raila Odinga has called a "people's march" in the hope of galvanising opposition to President Mwai Kibaki who claimed an unexpected narrow victory in last week's disputed election.
Several hundred people poured out of the pro-opposition Kibera slum after dawn to head for the park. Police used water cannon and teargas after the protesters - wearing white scarves, waving leaves and singing the national anthem - sat in the street, blocking traffic, the Reuters news agency reports.

Murder of children who sought sanctuary in a church reports the Guardian

A chilling tour of the Kenyan church that became the scene of mass murder says the Independent

Tears streamed down the cheeks of 18-year-old Sheila Kai as she described the moment before the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in Kiambaa was burnt to the ground.
"They told us to get inside the church or they would kill us," she whispered, describing a gang of more than 200 men. "Then they closed the door."
All possible escape routes were then locked shut with metal chains. Mattresses were placed around the outside of the building, then doused with paraffin and set alight. "People were praying, calling for God, screaming," Ms Kai said.

However the papers have a number of leads this morning


Oil at $100 threatens to choke economy says the Times

The price of crude oil soared to $100 per barrel for the first time yesterday in a trend that could feed through into higher petrol prices and delay an early cut in interest rates this year.
Aggressive buying by speculators, cold weather in the northern hemisphere and the falling US dollar helped to propel the price of oil to a record on the Nymex exchange in New York

£7 more to fill up your petrol tank: As oil tops $100 a barrel, the £5 gallon nears says the Mail


The misery continues for rail travellers reports the Telegraph

The problems at Rugby have contributed to an estimated 150,000 passenger hours of delays - or 17.1 years - caused by Network Rail in the current financial year, according to rail regulators.
Network Rail, which was fined £2.4 million last year for failing to complete a signalling scheme at Portsmouth on time, now faces another multi-million-pound fine after the overruns this week at Rugby and Liverpool Street Station in London, which was expected to be back to normal today.

Commuter chaos may stretch into next week as repairs close lines

Thousands of commuters face the prospect of further disruption to rail travel stretching into next week, after Network Rail again failed to complete key engineering work.
The new year misery affecting Britain’s rail service left up to 200,000 people without their normal rail service yesterday, after overrunning repair work closed London’s second-busiest station and paralysed one of the UK’s busiest railway lines.

Pain of the train says the Mirror

Bungling rail chiefs will be fined £20million after over-running engineering work caused travel misery for hundreds of thousands of commuters across Britain yesterday.
Around 250,000 people returning to home and work after the Christmas break endured chaotic journeys because Network Rail did not hire enough specialists to complete a station revamp.


The start of the US election primaries is well covered

The future starts here says the front page of the Independent

The phoney war is over. Tonight, in school rooms, church halls and private homes across the Midwestern state of Iowa, the first votes will be cast that actually count, kicking off the most unpredictable, the most expensive and arguably the most important presidential election season in modern US history.
Hyperbole is the currency of American politics but this time the superlatives are justified. When the process at last comes to an end, spending by candidates will have far exceeded $1bn. The Democratic and Republican fields are uncommonly strong, but in neither is there a clear favourite. And never have the stakes been higher – not only for the US but for countries all over the planet.

A state in suspense: too close to call for both parties in Iowa says the Guardian

Republican and Democratic contenders to replace George Bush in the White House go into tonight's first real test of public opinion with final polls showing both contests in a dead heat. Tens of thousands of volunteers scoured Iowa yesterday for potential voters, as the candidates issued their final appeals in one of the most open and hotly contested campaigns of the last 100 years.

The Times reports that

Republican race given a new edge as John McCain comes back from dead

A newly competitive John McCain tore up his campaign schedule and raced to Iowa yesterday with new polls signalling one of the most remarkable political comebacks of recent times.
Mr McCain, who had largely abandoned Iowa after polls showed him as an also-ran there, returned on the eve of its caucuses having suddenly leapfrogged into third place. His resurgence in the “Hawkeye state” comes as two new polls show him overtaking Rudy Giuliani as the national Republican front-runner.

According to the Telegraph

'More bad news to come' on data loss

The personal data scandal may be far worse than the Government has admitted MPs warn today, as they announce that there are more cases to come.
Gordon Brown and his ministers have yet to disclose the full extent of the losses, which stem from a "truly shocking" series of failures to protect the public's information, a report says.
This follows a "widespread problem within government" which has put personal data at risk, an influential Commons committee says

The Mail reports that

Doctors order millions hit by violent stomach bug to stay at home

Doctors' leaders warned people struck down by a violent stomach bug sweeping the country not to return to work as GPs reported yesterday that they were 'inundated' with sufferers.
More than 100,000 people a week are catching norovirus, which causes sudden vomiting and diarrhoea, and the numbers contracting the disease will peak this month, it was reported last night.
Thousands of workers and children who fell ill over the holiday period are due to return to jobs and classrooms in the coming days.

Meanwhile the Express forecasts

£140 RISE IN COUNCIL TAX

MILLIONS of householders could be hammered with an extra £140 a year on their council tax bills, it emerged last night.
The latest burden is set to be imposed to settle hundreds of thousands of sex discrimination claims against local councils. Council chiefs yesterday revealed that £2.8billion was needed to foot the bill for women alleged to have been unfairly paid less than male colleagues.

Most of the papers report that

Patients forced on to the streets as fire engulfs cancer hospital

Fire swept through one of Britain's leading cancer hospitals yesterday, severely damaging operating theatres and wards, and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of staff and patients.
More than 125 firefighters were involved in fighting the blaze at the Royal Marsden Hospital in south-west London which broke out in a fourth-floor room and rapidly spread along the roof of the building.
Three people – one patient and two firefighters – received treatment for smoke inhalation while other patients received checks on the pavement outside the building before being moved to other hospitals says the Independent

The Sun reports

DOZENS of cancer patients fled in tears yesterday as fire ripped through the world-famous Royal Marsden Hospital.
Heroic surgeons defied the flames to carry on operating before they too had to evacuate the building.
Medics wrapped blankets around shivering and bewildered patients as they huddled on mattresses on the ground outside the London hospital.

It though leads with the news that

WEEPING Joey Barton is struggling to handle tough prison life despite his hardman image.
The 25-year-old soccer star — involved in a series of scrapes on and off the pitch — is living in constant terror of being attacked behind bars.
He has been heard sobbing in his cell after jail tough guys branded him a “scumbag”.
And Barton has spent much of his prison cash allowance buying cigarettes, custard, coffee, tobacco and rice pudding for other lags to make sure they leave him alone.

The front page of the Mirror leads with

Father beaten to death looking for lost dog

A dad-of-two was beaten to death by vodka-crazed teenagers after going out to find his missing collie.
Ron Sharples, 52, was confronted as he walked down the street in the early hours.
The mild-mannered projects engineer was knocked down with such force his head made a noise "like a gunshot" as it hit the ground. He was declared dead in hospital.

The Telegraph reporting that

Sixth violent death mars New Year celebrations

Meanwhile the paper reports

Tax credit blow to working families

Gordon Brown's flagship tax credit policy is penalising working families while rewarding unemployed single parents, a leading Left-wing think tank claims.
A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, often described as New Labour's favourite think tank, shows that 1.4 million children live in households that are officially impoverished despite at least one parent going out to work.
The report is scathing of Mr Brown's tax credits, saying they fail low-income families by punishing them financially if both parents work.

According to the Times

Supersize comprehensives blamed for bad behaviour in the classroom

An explosion in the number of supersize schools with 1,500-plus pupils has led to a decline in classroom discipline and limited academic achievement, new research suggests.
Pupils in schools catering for more than 1,000 children are nearly three times more likely to be excluded than those in smaller establishments. There is also evidence that children in smaller schools are performing better academically — only 38 per cent of secondaries in England have fewer than 1,000 pupils, yet these include eight of the ten top state schools.

The Mail reports on

How doctors lie on death certificates to hide the true scale of the toll from hospital infections and reports

a growing scandal over NHS superbugs. Yesterday Tory leader David Cameron said hospitals should be fined for every patient who catches an infection on their wards. But would such a crackdown just lead to more secrecy about superbugs?
In 2006 almost 56,000 elderly hospital patients caught C. diff, which is spread by poor hygiene, dirty hands and soiled bedding. Amazingly, we still don't know how many of these people died because the figures have not yet been released by the NHS.
In 2005, the latest year that death statistics for C. diff were available, 3,807 hospital patients died, a rise of almost 70 per cent over the previous 12 months.

DIET CHANGE COULD STOP 70,000 DYING says the Express

The average adult currently eats too much salt, saturated fat and added sugar, research published by the Strategy Unit in the Cabinet Office says.
But people are still not eating enough fruit, vegetables, wholegrains or oily fish.
Bringing the nation's diet in line with nutritional guidelines would cut the number of deaths linked to cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Finally the papers are full of bad weather predictions

Drivers face snow misery says the Mirror

Britain is bracing itself for snowstorms across the country today.
Bitter easterly winds from Siberia are sweeping across the country, sending temperatures below freezing.
Gritters and snow ploughs were put on standby last night after the Met Office issued severe weather warnings for most areas. Forecasters were predicting snowfall up to two inches (5cm) deep in parts of England and Wales and up to six inches 20cm (15cm) in Scotland by tonight.

snow threatens to cause travel chaos for millions says the Mail

Call this cold? Siberia doesn't says the Telegraph

Today, as Britain sinks shivering into its "Siberian winter" - temperatures slipping below zero, an inch or so of snow adding to the general rail and road chaos - the message from here in Russia is: You're being hoodwinked.In fact, the view is that the Met Office should be done under the Trade Descriptions Act. "They're insulting us by calling a slight chill a Siberian winter," says a friend from that ice-clad region. "That kind of temperature tells us spring has arrived."