On a day when the papers cannot agree on the main news the Independent leads with

The Green betrayal

Green lobby turns on Government over failure to curb air and road travel

It is the Great Green Betrayal. With environmental issues becoming ever more critical, the green policies of Gordon Brown's government are standing still or even going backwards, it became clear last night. On the day of a major warning that time is running out to solve the problems caused by climate change, it emerged that Britain's own green policies are stalled or backsliding in three crucial areas.
First, environmental taxation, which could help curb greenhouse gas emissions and much other pollution, is actually falling rather than rising – and falling substantially, a powerful all-party group of MPs revealed.
Second, the Government has no plans to intervene in the aviation sector to cut rapidly growing emissions, Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, made clear.
And third, national road pricing as a means of curbing traffic and cutting down emissions from cars is similarly not on the agenda, Ms Kelly disclosed.

Energy firms tell Treasury: don't bring in windfall tax reports the Guardian

Energy companies last night launched a pre-emptive strike on the government ahead of next week's budget, warning that any windfall tax on the industry would undermine investment in green power projects and other measures to combat climate change.
The companies fear ministers are considering a windfall tax on the industry after a public outcry greeted moves to raise household bills by as much as 15% in recent weeks.


The Express also picks up Ruth Kelly's announcement yesterday on its front page

PAY TO DRIVE IN THE FAST LANE

Motorists face having to pay for the privilege of driving on motorways, it emerged last night.
They would be charged a special toll for using the fast – or so-called Lexus – lane and also be ìfinedî for straying into it if they are not carrying passengers.
But the controversial proposals to cut congestion under Government plans to overhaul the road network were dismissed as ìpottyî by critics.

Pay to drive at 70 mph says the Telegraph

Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, unveiled her blueprint for a network of toll and car-share lanes yesterday.

At the same time she in effect abandoned plans for national road pricing.

The paper leads with the story that

Questions over £1,500 tax subsidy for Scots

Gordon Brown has ordered a review of the controversial Barnett formula under which Scottish people receive £1,500 subsidy each a year from English taxpayers, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.The Prime Minister wants the policy re-examined in an attempt to head off mounting English resentment over the millions of pounds of public money sent to Scotland every year.

The Times has a picture of a devolution leader on its front page

The Big Man of Ulster politics the Rev Ian Paisley quits front line after 40 years

After more than 40 years of saying No and just one of affirming Yes, the Rev Ian Paisley announced last night that he was bowing out of politics in two months’ time.
Mr Paisley bowed to the inevitable by stepping down before he would wish as Northern Ireland First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, which he founded, after concerted pressure from colleagues and grassroots discontent.
The forced resignation of his son, Ian Paisley Jr, last month as his right-hand man was the final straw for Mr Paisley, who was beginning to look isolated in office. Without his son at his elbow to steer him through, his agenda was going to be almost impossible

And the Guardian reports as another polititan bows out

Livingstone's race adviser quits after email leak

Lee Jasper, the mayor of London's controversial and beleaguered race adviser, resigned last night following months of allegations of impropriety and cronyism.
Jasper, who was suspended from his job by the mayor last month, finally quit after fresh accusations that he had failed to declare his friendship with a woman involved in two organisations that received funds from the mayor's office.
A spokeswoman for the Greater London Authority paid tribute to Jasper's record in fighting racism, and added: "Lee Jasper has stated that in light of material published today that he has tendered his resignation. The mayor has accepted it."

Livingstone's £120,000 race adviser blames 'racists' as he resigns over saucy emails says the Independent

The chief race relations adviser to the Mayor of London resigned last night, claiming he was the victim of a "racist" and "relentless media campaign".
Lee Jasper stood down after fresh allegations in London's Evening Standard yesterday. The newspaper alleged that the49-year-old had sent a series of explicit emails to a woman linked to two organisations that benefited from hundreds of thousands of pounds in grants from City Hall.


Celebratory culture on the front of the Times as the paper reports

UN condemns Britain's celebrity cocaine culture

The price of cocaine has fallen to a record low as a United Nations report says that celebrity users have made the drug socially acceptable.
Police say privately that cocaine is becoming as acceptable in middle-class Britain as cannabis was a generation ago and that they are losing their battle against the drug.
The UN drug control agency’s annual report, published today, puts the blame at the door of celebrity culture and accuses the police of turning a blind eye to the rich and famous who misuse the drug.

Billions spent waiting times increased says the Mail

Hospital waiting times are longer than under the Conservatives, despite £90billion being ploughed into the health service this year alone.
The average wait for treatment in hospital is now 49 days, up from 41 days in 1997, the year Labour took power with a promise to "save the NHS".
Ministers say they have delivered on their promise to reduce very long waits. By the end of the year no one should wait more than 18 weeks compared with the 18-month waits which were common under the Tories

The Telegraph reports that

Sale of cheap alcohol could be banned

The sale of cut-price alcohol in supermarkets could be banned under plans being drawn up by ministers. Happy hours and other promotions in pubs could be curtailed.There will also be a new code on the responsible sale and promotion of alcohol, which will be made a condition of awarding a licence to shops, pubs, and nightclubs.Tax on alcohol is also expected to be increased in next week's Budget after ministers disclosed they now believe drink prices are at "historically low levels".

Labour is 'in denial' over booze violence caused by 24-hour licensing says the Mail

Ministers were forced to admit that there is 25 per cent more serious violence in the early hours of the morning - and that a promised reduction in alcohol-fuelled disorder has not materialised.

According to the Times

Bribe’ for foreign prisoners to return home triples to £3,000

The enhanced incentive is being offered until the end of next month as the Prison Service struggles with a record jail population.
The revised package was introduced by the Home Office without any publicity or formal announcement last month after prison numbers had soared by more than 2,000 in six weeks. adding

It is the second time in three months that ministers It is the second time in three months that ministers have quietly increased the incentives package. In November they increased the standard £800 package to £1,500 for a limited period.

For the second day running the Mirror runs with the Shannon story

Best pal's heartbreak plea

Heartbroken Megan Aldridge sat all alone in her school playground yesterday, hoping and praying for the return of her "bestest friend" Shannon Matthews.
For the last two years the painfully shy youngsters have been inseparable, each taking comfort from the presence of the other.
But since Shannon, nine, disappeared two weeks ago eight-year-old Megan has been left on her own again. At school she has no one to share her misery. At home, the tears flow.

The Sun also has the story on its front page

As fingers are pointed at family-it's not me says Stepdad

THE stepdad of Shannon Matthews last night insisted he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Craig Meehan, 22, was responding to cruel gossip in which “fingers are being pointed” at the lost nine-year-old’s family and friends.It was unwittingly fuelled on Monday by Shannon’s mum Karen, who told of her fears that the little girl had been abducted by someone known to her.

Whilst the paper tells us that

Shannon's home circled by sex beasts

NEARLY 1,400 registered sex offenders live within 25 miles of Shannon Matthews’ home, The Sun can reveal.
Many are based just a five-minute drive away.And disturbingly, 11 have gone to ground in the past year, leaving cops with no clue to their whereabouts.

Continuing one of the weeks themes the Times reports

Many thousands will miss out on their first choice of school

Nearly half of children in some local authorities in England have missed out on their first choice of secondary school this year, according to a survey of local authorities by The Times.
London authorities did particularly badly. Only 51 per cent of parents in Wandsworth, 59 per cent in Kensington and Chelsea and 63 per cent in Barnet got into their first-choice school, while Westminster disappointed nearly a third of applicants

Meanwhile the Independent reports

Former minister says Government is 'thrashing around' on school reform

The former Labour education secretary, Estelle Morris, last night mounted a scathing attack on the Government's school reforms, warning there was a risk that "we thrash around from one initiative to another" with ministers and senior education figures failing to ask key questions about whether reforms were actually working.
In one of the starkest criticisms of the Government's education policy by a former cabinet minister, Baroness Morris of Yardley said there was "cause for concern for both politicians and educationists" over the lack of impact on disadvantaged children of government schools policies.

Gordon Brown faces largest revolt on EU vote predicts the Telegraph

Backbench rebels said they expected at least 30 Labour MPs to defy the party whips in a final attempt to ensure the British people have a say on the Lisbon Treaty.Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, said Wednesday's vote could be "very close", although she predicted the Government would scrape home with the support of a majority of the 63 Liberal Democrat MPs.

Threat of war as Venezuela and Ecuador order troops to Colombian border reports the Guardian

Venezuelan and Ecuadorean troops deployed on Colombia's frontier last night as South America's military and diplomatic crisis escalated into a dangerous showdown between President Hugo Chávez and Colombia's US-backed government.
Venezuela started shutting crossing points on the 1,400-mile border to try to isolate its neighbour after Bogotá made a series of extraordinary allegations about the Venezuelan leader funding Marxist guerrillas intent on building a uranium-enriched "dirty" bomb.

The Times adds

President Correa of Ecuador called his Colombian counterpart, Álvaro Uribe, a “bold-faced liar”. President Uribe demanded that the International Criminal Court try President Chávez of Venezuela for genocide.
America weighed in, with President Bush accusing Mr Chávez of “provocative manoeuvres” and declaring US support for Colombia

The Independent reports from

Ashkelon, the new target for Hamas missiles

Ashkelon, a growing city of 120,000 people with its 12km of sandy Mediterranean beaches, gardens and tree-lined boulevards, seems a far cry from the low-income Israeli development town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of repeated Qassam rocket attacks which have claimed 13 lives in Israel since 2004. Let alone from the Gaza town of Jabalya, about 13km south, where the day's death toll of Palestinians was already in the 40s by the time Mr Biton – one of five people to suffer light to moderate physical injuries from the Grads – was hit on Saturday

US issues warning as China boosts military reports the Telegraph

China's military budget will rise by a fifth this year, the government announced as it rejected American warnings over the threat posed by the rapid modernisation of its armed forces.Officials announced this year's military budget on the eve of the opening of the National People's Congress, the country's rubber-stamp parliament, which meets for two weeks each year.

Back to the Uk and the Mail reports

Dozens of missing schoolchildren feared forced into arranged marriages

Dozens of children are missing from school amid fears they have been forced into arranged marriages, it was revealed yesterday.
In Bradford, 33 children remain "unaccounted for" after being off school for at least two months with no explanation.
The Government is also concerned about another 14 areas of the country where it is feared children under 16 could also be missing from school rolls.

FAMILIES HIT AGAIN AS BORROWING COSTS RISE says the Express

The Halifax and Abbey yesterday decided to pass on to new borrowers the higher cost to banks of buying money in the credit markets.
The move will affect new borrowing by existing customers. First-time buyers will also bear the brunt of the credit squeeze when they try to get on the housing ladder.

Finally the Mirror reports on

Man scoops £3m lottery jackpot after buting last-minute lucky dip ticket

Arthur netted last Wednesday's jackpot with a lucky dip ticket but the dream almost didn't come true. He explained: "I was coming home from work and I thought that I couldn't be bothered to get out and get a ticket.