Another suicide in Bridgend has the attention of the papers this morning.

17 hangings,13 months,1 town,1 question,why says the front page of the Sun

THE stunned people of Bridgend found themselves living in the shadow of death yesterday after yet another young suicide victim was found hanging from a tree.
While police and politicians maintained there was no link between Jenna Parry’s death and SIXTEEN previous hangings in the area, local people feared otherwise.
Security guard Michael Bennett, who stumbled on the 16-year-old’s body as he walked his dog, said: “I can’t understand it at all. What is going on? I feel shaken to the core. Why are youngsters around here doing this?”

The Mail and the Express both have pictures of Jenna Parry on their fornt pages

Police stressed yesterday they had found no evidence of a suicide pact among local teenagers over the last year.
They said the number of apparent suicides was exceptional, but there was no reason to believe there had been any kind of internet pact.
A task force set up to investigate suicides in the area urged parents and young people to talk to each other about their worries and fears. says the Mail

The Times also leads with the story

Schools on alert after 17th Bridgend suicide

After months of denying any link between the deaths, police chiefs finally admitted that young people in the town now saw killing themselves as a way of dealing with their problems. Assistant Chief Constable David Morris said: “These are vulnerable young people. Taking one’s own life may be becoming an acceptable option to young people for issues that they are facing.”
Schoolchildren will now be encouraged to talk openly about their problems and to confront the consequences of suicide.

Adios Castro says the front apge of the Independent

Just a few more months and it would have been 10. Fidel Castro had already seen off nine US presidents, and had he hung on until 20 January 2009, George Bush would have joined them.
Undoubtedly Mr Castro would have liked nothing better, but physical frailty, it seems, has had the last word. But, as long as he lives, his shadow will fall over whoever succeeds him. And as long as Mr Castro draws breath, he will be a reminder of how little has changed in this corner of the world since Dwight Eisenhower – the 34th president and first on the Castro contemporaries list – bequeathed to his successor, John Kennedy, a secret plan to invade Cuba that resulted in the 1961 fiasco of the Bay of Pigs.

The Guardian reporting that

Castro, 81, who has been in worsening health since July 2006, released a letter in the dead of night on the website of the official communist party newspaper Granma that announced his intention to end his long domination. Cubans awoke yesterday to find that the era that began near the start of the cold war was over.
The announcement comes just days before Cuba's national assembly is due to meet to select a head of state and is expected to pave the way for Castro's brother Raúl to officially become the new leader. Raúl Castro, 76, has been the effective leader of Cuba since an acute infection in his brother's colon forced him to temporarily cede power. Raúl is the world's longest serving defence minister and is believed to have a firm grip on the armed forces and security apparatus

Bush's democracy call as Fidel Castro resigns says the Telegraph

Cuba should embrace "democracy" in the wake of Fidel Castro's resignation after 49 years in power, President George W Bush has declared.Responding to the 81-year-old president's decision to step down, Mr Bush, who is on an official visit to Rwanda, said a "democratic transition" should now begin.

Fidel my time has commie says the Sun adding

The announcement comes after he survived more than 600 US-led plots to kill him — including bids to hand him an exploding CIGAR and jab him with a poison pen.

The Telegraph leads with the news that

Migrants must pay a tax to enter UK

Foreigners coming to Britain are to face a new "immigrant tax" under Government plans to try to make them help pay for the schools and hospitals they use, ministers are to announce.They will have to pay a special levy on entering the country which will be used to provide extra funding for public services

There is much coverage of the Pakistani elections

Rivals close in as Musharraf suffers Pakistan poll rout says the Guardian

The political endgame loomed for President Pervez Musharraf last night as his party was evicted from power and his arch rival, Nawaz Sharif, arrived in Islamabad to negotiate a place in the new government.
Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League (Q), was swept aside in a tide of anti-Musharraf sentiment. With 96% of votes counted after Monday's election, the party had won just 39 of 268 contested seats, down from 118.
The rout claimed a number of powerful political scalps, including Musharraf confidante Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, rumoured to have left the country within hours of defeat, and the party's backroom powerbroker Chaudhry Shujat Hussain.

Musharraf resigned to ceremonial role says the independent

Severely weakened by a crushing election defeat and facing the prospect of possible impeachment, Pervez Musharraf has reportedly resigned himself to serving a "ceremonial" role as the country's president.
Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and part of an American delegation that met with Mr Musharraf yesterday morning, said the president appeared to have accepted the reality of the election result, which saw his parliamentary allies soundly defeated.

The Times reports that

Disc listing foreign criminals lost for a year

Serious offenders on the run from the Netherlands have been able to commit further crimes in Britain after the Crown Prosecution Service mislaid a computer disc containing their details.
Home Office ministers were told within the past two or three weeks that a disc containing details of 4,000 offenders whom the Dutch authorities wished to trace had been missing for almost a year.
The disc contained DNA details of 4,000 offenders, some of whom are believed to be murderers and rapists, which the Dutch sent to Britain to be checked against the national DNA database.

Lost data lets killers roam free for a year says the Telegraph

Police chiefs were co-ordinating a manhunt across England and Wales to try to catch the suspects. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is expecting to be briefed about the unfolding scandal by Friday. The problems began last January when Dutch prosecutors sent a CD containing the DNA profiles of 4,000 suspected rapists to the Crown Prosecution Service in London.

The ramifications of Northern Rock continue,the Mail leads with the headline

End of the 100 per cent mortgage

Mortgages which let people borrow more than the value of their home were dramatically scrapped yesterday.
Some of the country's biggest lenders signalled a new era in home loans - forcing would-be buyers to produce a deposit.
Major lenders Alliance & Leicester and Abbey both pulled the plug on the controversial 125 per cent deals

The Independent reveals

Businessman hired to save Northern Rock is a non-dom

Ron Sandler, the troubleshooter brought in by Gordon Brown to oversee the rescue of Northern Rock, has been revealed to be a non-dom who does not pay UK taxes on his offshore earnings.
Mr Sandler will be paid £1m a year for turning the nationalised bank around, and will be expected to pay taxes on his UK earnings. But the revelation of his non-domiciled tax status constitutes an embarrassment for the Government which recently announced measures to penalise non-doms by imposing a tax of £30,000 a year after they have lived in Britain for seven years. The Zimbabwe-born Mr Sandler, who holds a German passport, has lived and worked in the UK since the mid-1980s, and would be eligible for the £30,000 annual payment.

The Times reports that

Shrewd savers take advantage of Northern Rock's 'sovereign-backed wealth'

Alistair Darling tried to placate mounting concern yesterday that state ownership will allow Northern Rock to trump the loan and savings rates offered by banks and building societies.
His intervention came amid signs that investors were heeding the advice of analysts to take advantage of Northern Rock’s deposit accounts, some of which are among the best in the market.
Northern Rock is also about to become the only mortgage lender offering 125 per cent deals after four major lenders selling similar deals pledged to pull out of the market.

The Guardian meanwhile carries a poll which shows

Anger at gap between rich and poor - ICM poll

A sharp drop in economic confidence is hitting poorest people hardest, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that economic optimism has fallen away since the start of 2008, with a majority of voters now worried about their financial circumstances and the cost of living.
The poll indicates the potential political threat to Labour from falling house prices, rising energy prices and the credit squeeze, which led to the nationalisation of Northern Rock at the weekend

The Express adds to the economic woes on its front apge with the headline 10% water bills
Families were last night facing soaring water bills – as energy firms were poised to unveil massive profits.
Water companies have been given the go-ahead to impose increases of up to 10 per cent, adding as much as £30 to a typical annual bill.
The rise comes on top of inflation-busting increases in previous years, with millions of households still reeling from higher energy bills


And the Telegraph tells us

Cost of a cuppa and beer to soar

The price of a cup of tea is forecast to reach a record high while the cost of a pint of beer could soon hit £4, industry experts warned yesterday.Shortages of tea from Kenya - currently in the grip of post-election political turmoil - and soaring malted barley prices are behind the increases

Although perhaps not all bad news

Millionaires' Rows: More than 2,000 streets have homes costing at least £1million repoprts the Mail

The figures demonstrate the astonishing extent of the property boom over the past decade.
In 2000, just 322 streets boasted houses that would fetch seven-figure sums


The front page of the Mirror tells of a tragedy

Ski hero Hayden Waller, 12, killed on school trip 'saving friend'

Tearful pals paid tribute yesterday to hero Hayden Waller, 12, who plunged to his death trying to save a classmate on a school skiing trip.
One poignant message left on a bouquet at the school gates said: "I will always miss you, friends forever. Love from Izzy."
Brave Hayden was killed when he tried to catch a friend who lost his footing and fell off a steep mountainside in the Austrian Alps.

More examples of violent Britain in the Express which reports

PELTED WITH STONES… MP WHO DARED TO TACKLE GANG OF YOBS

A top Tory MP was pelted with stones and suffered a torrent of abuse as he confronted a gang of youths bent on causing trouble.
Shadow Minister Tobias Ellwood, 40, told yesterday of his anger over the late-night attack.
Mr Ellwood, a 6ft 3in former soldier, was at the wheel of his car when he spotted the 10-strong group of teenagers climbing into an elderly woman’s garden and using it as a public toilet.

The Sun reports that

CORONER yesterday demanded better protection for troops after an Army girl pal of Prince William died in a blast when her armoured vehicle failed to shield her.
Joanna Dyer, 24 — who trained at Sandhurst with Wills — and three comrades stood little chance when the bomb buried under a road in Iraq was detonated.
Molten shrapnel tore through the underbelly of their Warrior troop carrier, which only had armour on its top and sides.
Yesterday Coroner David Masters vowed to “go to the top”.

The Guardian leads this morning with the news of

Stop Blair: ambition to lead Europe hits fierce opposition

Tony Blair's hopes of becoming Europe's first president are running into mounting opposition across the EU, with Germany determined to stymie the former prime minister.
A "Stop Blair" website run by pro-Europeans has launched a petition against him; a transnational, cross-party caucus in the European parliament is forming to campaign against a Blair presidency; senior officials in Brussels are privately dismissive about the new post going to a Briton; and senior diplomats in European capitals also doubt that Blair is the right person for the post being created under Europe's new reform treaty.

The Telegraph reports

'Kosovo's freedom is worth clash with Russia'

Confrontation with Russia is a price worth paying for Kosovo's independence, a senior Western official said yesterday. senior diplomatic source in Pristina said that "Europe has stood up and been counted" by backing Kosovo's independence.
It had done so despite "Russian muscle flexing" as Moscow sought to maintain influence in the Balkans and support its key ally in the region, Serbia. The Western official said: "We wanted to do it [work towards Kosovo's independence] with Russian co-operation. But the Russians chose not to. But it is worth sorting out Kosovo even so."

BA worst in Europe for lost bags and delays says the Times

British Airways loses more bags and operates more delayed flights than any other big airline in Europe, a study has found.
Nine passengers on a typical BA jumbo jet find that their bags are missing when they arrive at their destination. BA’s performance worsened last year, with 26.5 bags lost per 1,000 passengers, compared with 23 in 2006.
The airline was 50 per cent more likely to lose a bag than the average European airline, which mislaid 16.6 bags per 1,000 passengers. Only Air Portugal, which is less than a fifth of the size of BA, lost a higher proportion of bags

The Telegraph reports that

£1 billion 'wasted' on students who drop out

More than one-in-five of the 230,000 full-time students entering university each year - an estimated 50,000 - drop out before graduating. About 28,000 leave within 12 months.Despite investment of more than £800 million to support working-class students, the 22 per cent drop-out rate is no better than in 2002, MPs say. and adds

Ministers were last night accused of effectively forcing universities to take large numbers of unsuitable students to meet Labour's manifesto pledge to ensure 50 per cent of all school leavers participate in higher education by 2010.

Finally the Guardian reports on the

Homeless man lived at Gatwick


chef who has made Gatwick airport his home since losing his job in 2004 has been taken into custody after pleading guilty to breaching an asbo banning him from the airport. Anthony Delaney became homeless after losing his position as restaurant chef in Buckinghamshire.
He moved back to Sussex where, his lawyer, Peter Knight, told Lewes crown court yesterday, he "found it very difficult to support himself or find a new job without a permanent address".
Knight said: "He started using the facilities at the airport out of sheer desperation, and has become trapped in a cycle of misfortune," leaving just once a week to pick up his jobseeker's allowance. After ignoring airport authorities' orders to stay away he was given an asbo in 2006, banning him from the airport and its train station until 2011. But he has been stopped by airport security 30 times and was found at south terminal on the same day that he was released from jail, where he spent 95 days for breaching the asbo.