It's eight o'clock on Tuesday the 28th of November. The headlines:
The BBC has expressed its disappointment at the resignation of its chairman, Michael Grade, who's joining ITV -- Mr Grade said it was an opportunity he couldn't resist.
Police investigating the death of Alexander Litvinenko have found evidence of radioactive poison at the offices of an exiled Russian billionaire.
And Alan Freeman -- the DJ who entertained generations of pop pickers -- has died.
GRADE 1
The BBC has expressed surprise and disappointment at the sudden departure of its chairman, Michael Grade, for its main rival, ITV. He's to become the commercial broadcaster's executive chairman. In a statement this morning, Mr Grade said it had been a tough decision to leave the BBC, but the appointment was an opportunity he couldn't resist. Mr Grade, who's been BBC chairman for two-and-a-half years, has been steering the corporation through its complex negotiations with the government for its next licence fee settlement -- arguing for an increase above the rate of inflation. Here's our Media Correspondent, Torin Douglas:
DOUGLAS: The news was confirmed by ITV to the Stock Exchange this morning and by the BBC governors, who said they were disappointed. The timing is bad for the BBC, which is still negotiating the next licence fee. Michael Grade was also due to take over as chairman of the new BBC Trust, which will replace its board of governors on January the 1st. Instead, he'll be running its biggest rival. The BBC director-general, Mark Thompson, said many would find Mr Grade's decision "surprising", but the BBC was sorry to see him go and wished him the best for the future. He released a letter from Mr Grade, who said it had been a "huge personal decision" to leave the BBC. He had been faced with the choice of getting back into programming or 'governing' the BBC from a distance.
GRADE 2
Jeff Randall, who broke the story of Mr Grade's appointment in The Daily Telegraph, told us the offer from ITV seemed too good to resist. He quoted from an ITV news release confirming the appointment:
RANDALL: Michael Grade's salary, it says, will be eight-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand pounds per annum, but he will also have a bonus, share awards, pension provisions - the total package is worth clearly much more than a million pounds a year. Here at the BBC, Michael was earning something like a hundred-and-forty-thousand pounds.
POISONING
Scotland Yard detectives are now carrying out tests at five locations across London, where traces have been found of the radioactive poison that killed the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko. Two more sites were detected yesterday, among them the offices of the exiled Russian billionaire, Boris Berezovsky. Ben Ando reports:
ANDO: Polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that appears to have cause the mysterious death of Alexander Litvinenko at a hospital in London last week, has now been found not just at the sushi restaurant where he'd lunched three weeks earlier, but also at the offices of his friend, the Russian oil oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, and at the premises of Erinys, a private security firm. All of the locations are within half a mile of each other in central London. It's not yet clear how the radioactivity got there, though Mr Litvinenko had visited Erinys recently, and reportedly went to Mr Berezovsky's offices on the day he fell ill. Three people have been tested for radiation sickness by the Health Protection Agency. Forty hospital staff are being monitored.
POPE
A major security operation is being mounted in the Turkish capital, Ankara, for the start of a four-day visit by the Pope. There've already been protests against the visit, most of them by Muslim groups angered by his speech two months ago in which he used quotes linking Islam to violence. Our Europe Editor, Mark Mardell, reports:
MARDELL: The Turkish government says the security for the Pope's trip will be higher than that surrounding President Bush's visit two years ago. Fifteen-thousand police have been assigned to guard him, and their anxiety is understandable. The Pope infuriated many in this mainly Muslim country when he quoted the remarks of a Byzantine emperor that Mohammed had brought only evil and inhumanity to this world. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party has Islamic roots, had said he hadn't got time to see the Pope because he had to go to a NATO summit, but he's now finally agreed to a brief meeting as they cross paths at Ankara airport. With talks about Turkey joining the European Union on a knife-edge, there is extreme sensitivity here about the attitude of the Christian West towards their country, and the Pope's visit may be a focus for those concerns.
COUNCIL TAX
Local authorities in England have been warned by ministers to keep council tax rises to below five per cent next year. Later today, the government will announce details of its annual grant settlement -- but the Local Government Association believes many councils won't get enough to cover the rising cost of services.
ABORTION
There are calls for a change in the law to make it easier for British women to have abortions. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service says it should no longer take two doctors to agree for the procedure to go ahead. It's carried out research suggesting nearly sixty per cent of British adults support so-called "abortion on demand". The chief executive of the BPAS is Anne Furedi:
FUREDI: It seems to me that, particularly in early pregnancy, abortion is an acceptable back-up to a woman's birth control, and I think that, whereas most of us feel that abortion is an unpleasant thing for a woman to have to go through, we think that it should be available for those women who need it.
SCHOOL TRIPS
Ministers are announcing a series of measures aimed at encouraging teachers in England to organise more school trips. More than eight-million pupils go on trips annually, but a series of accidents have made some teachers and parents wary about them -- in the past nine years, twenty-five children have died on school trips, and five teachers have been found guilty of gross negligence. But on the Today programme, the schools minister, Jim Knight, told us children should take advantage of the trips:
KNIGHT: Obviously, you know, if a teacher is being grossly negligent inside the school or outside, then they're going to be liable. But given the millions and millions of trips that go on every year from our schools - ninety per cent of children access those trips - then I don't think it's a massive problem.
MENTAL HEALTH
The government will begin its third attempt to introduce new mental health legislation today. Critics, including psychiatrists and social workers, will protest against the plans in Westminster, arguing that people may be detained too easily or treated in the community without their consent. From Westminster, here's our Political Correspondent, Laura Kuenssberg:
KUENSSBERG: People with personality disorders can only be detained if they'd respond to psychiatric treatment. But prompted by the 1998 conviction of Michael Stone for the murder of Lin and Megan Russell, the government have been trying, with little success, to change that. Its third attempt to introduce new laws starts today. Peers will debate ministers' plans to make it easier for people with personality disorders to be detained, and to introduce compulsory treatment in the community. But a lobby of psychiatrists, psychologists and others will demonstrate against the plans in Westminster.
WATER
A coalition of environmental groups, which includes anglers, the National Trust and the RSPB , is warning that the Britain's water system is in crisis. In a report, they say the amount of water being drawn from lakes and rivers for domestic use, along with pollution and soil erosion, are having a catastrophic effect on wildlife. Our Environment Correspondent ,Sarah Mukherjee, reports:
MUKHERJEE: It's estimated that four-million people enjoy angling as a hobby. Until now, angling groups have been reluctant to get involved in environmental campaigning. But today, they're at the forefront of this new report, which is highly critical of current water management. They give several examples. In the south-west, lakes supplied by the River Tamar have been covered in toxic algal blooms caused by agricultural pollution; millions of tonnes of raw sewage are discharged every year by Victorian drainpipes into the River Thames; and the River Mimram in Hertfordshire has dried up, because so much water is being taken from it to supply homes and businesses. Today's report says domestic water use should be cut by twenty per cent, and fines for water pollution hugely increased.
LOW MOTIVATION
A survey carried out in six countries suggests Britain's workforce is one of the least enthusiastic in the Western world. According to the sixteen-thousand people who took part in the research, it's those at the lowest levels within companies who are the least motivated. Here's our Labour Affairs Correspondent, Stephen Cape:
CAPE: According to the findings, senior managers are to blame for failing to motivate their workforce, and the survey found that this reflected on staff. Less than a third of those questioned in the UK were happy with their working conditions. This compared to just under half surveyed in Norway, and thirty-eight per cent in the United States and Australia. The least satisfied were junior managers and below. The study concluded that staff retention rates remain high in businesses where the workforce is satisfied.
PRINCE CHARLES
The Prince of Wales has arrived in Sierra Leone at the start of a four-day visit to West Africa. He's there to see how the country is returning to normal after the eleven-year civil war which ended in 2002. Among his engagements, he'll be meeting British troops training the Sierra Leone forces.
FREEMAN
The radio presenter, Alan Freeman, has died at the age of seventy-nine. He'd broadcast for forty years on the BBC and commercial stations, and was best-known for his chart show, Pick of the Pops. His fellow presenter on Radio Two, Bob Harris, said that in his day, Freeman had revolutionised British radio:
HARRIS: Really, the generation that I associate Alan with is that generation that emerged on the light programme. By comparison with the pace of the network at that time, Fluff came in like a sort of Exocet missile. He just brought in such energy with him, and just sounded very different from pretty much everything else around him. It was slick and fast and smooth and sort of wisecracking. That was a sort of precursor of what was then just about to happen with the pirates.
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