THE HEADLINES AT 0800 ON MONDAY 30TH JULY

THE HEADLINES AT 0800 ON MONDAY 30TH JULY

It's eight o'clock on Monday the thirtieth of July. The headlines:

Gordon Brown is to hold formal talks with President Bush for the first time since becoming prime minister.

A parliamentary committee has dismissed calls for an increase in the time terrorist suspects can be held without charge.

Oxfam says Iraq is suffering a humanitarian crisis -- with eight million people needing emergency aid.

And thousands of homes in Gloucestershire should get their mains water back today -- but it won't be fit to drink.

GORDON BROWN

Gordon Brown has arrived in the United States for his first transatlantic summit as prime minister. He was flown from Washington by helicopter to the presidential retreat at Camp David, to be greeted by George Bush, who then took the wheel of a golf buggy to drive his guest to a private dinner. Later today, the two men will be joined for formal talks by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Our Political Editor, Nick Robinson, is travelling with the Prime Minister:

ROBINSON: The suits, the ties worn by Gordon Brown and George Bush said that this would be a different first summit than the one which kicked off a close friendship and a long political headache for Tony Blair. Both men know that this get-together will be studied as much for body language and mood music as diplomatic outcomes. Both, however, are likely to want something to show for it beyond warm words about the special relationship, a shared history and shared values. Privately, both men will want to know how far the other is thinking and planning for withdrawal of their troops from Iraq but there is unlikely to be much they can say publicly about that today beyond pledging not to cut and run. Instead, both men are likely to want to highlight their approach to another war - that in Darfur. Gordon Brown hopes to secure American backing for a new United Nations resolution to be passed this week. It would not only mandate the sending of a nineteen-thousand strong force to the war-torn region but promise long-term political and economic support for the reconstruction of it. That and a renewed push for a deal on world trade would allow both men to call this summit what they want to call it - a success.

TERROR

A Parliamentary committee has rejected fresh calls for an increase in the amount of time terrorist suspects can be questioned by police. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has said there's evidence that the current 28 day limit doesn't give police enough time to investigate complicated terror cases. Gordon Brown announced plans to consult on the issue when he unveiled his anti-terrorism strategy last week. Here's our Home Affairs Correspondent, Rory Maclean:

MACLEAN: The joint committee on Human Rights concludes that there is not a clear case for increasing the detention powers beyond twenty-eight days. This is despite the home office producing a document highlighting the complexity of recent terrorism cases and pointing to an investigation where charges only followed on the twenty-seventh day of detention. However, the government accepts that so far no suspect who has been released would have been charged if they'd been held beyond twenty-eight days. The Human Rights Committee also wanted to know whether people were being held longer on weak evidence in case something stronger turned up and at what stage the evidence used to charge suspects was discovered during the detention period. The committee also criticised the powers of house arrest under terrorism control orders as very far removed from anything like a fair procedure.

HUMAN RIGHTS

The chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Labour MP Andrew Dismore, said that it would take strong evidence in individual cases to convince him that more than twenty eight days detention was acceptable:

DISMORE ACT: There isn't actually any evidence to suggest that twenty-eight days is being inadequate and indeed the police aren't asking for any longer at the moment and when the Prime Minister announced the proposals, last week, even he was saying that there're maybe circumstances where detention could be necessary beyond twenty eight days - very cautious and I think what we are seeing is a sort of an anticipatory approach rather than actually looking of what's happened. We're not saying that we can't have pre-charge detention what we're saying there needs to be evidence based for any extension beyond that and of course we need to have proper judicial supervision which don't have at the moment.
 
INDIA

An Indian doctor who was detained in Australia, accused of links to the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow, has arrived at Bangalore airport in southern India on his way home. Mohammed Haneef said he felt he had been victimised by the Australian authorities and he was glad his honour had now been restored.

IRAQ

The charity, Oxfam, says nearly a third of the population of Iraq is in need of emergency aid. The agency says the Iraqi government is failing to provide basic essentials such as water, sanitation and shelter and -- in many cases -- the situation has worsened since the American-led invasion of 2003. From Baghdad, here's Nicholas Witchell:

WITCHELL: This report makes alarming reading. It suggests that seventy percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies compared to fifty percent prior to the invasion and nearly thirty percent of children are malnourished, again a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Overall Oxfam says the continuing violence in Iraq is overshadowing a humanitarian crisis with eight million Iraqis, nearly one in three of the population in need of emergency aid. Oxfam says that despite the difficulties caused by the security situation, the Iraqi government and other governments should be doing more to meet the basic needs of the population in terms of water, sanitation, food and shelter. The report also reveals the scale of the country's refugee problem. More than two million people have been displaced inside Iraq, a further two million have become refugees in Syria and Jordan.

EQUITY

A group of MPs is urging the Bank of England to look at the impact of private equity firms on the economy. The Treasury Select Committee raises questions about the large sums they tend to borrow to take over other companies. It also calls for a closer examination of the tax breaks they enjoy - but stops short of making concrete recommendations. The Labour MP, John McFall - who chairs the committee - told us about his concerns:

MCFALL ACT: There are profound questions on the issue of taxation, for example taper relief and carried interest. There is a memorandum of understanding signed between the industry and the government in 1987 and then updated in 2003, I've called that a memorandum of incomprehensibility. I want the government to explain that.

The chairman of the British Venture Capital Association, Wol Kolade, said the amount of debt taken on by private equity firms shouldn't be a cause for alarm:

KOLADE ACT: The levels of debt have increased, that's clear. Having said that, though, the people who run private equity firms have been involved in these types of deals for many many years, and have been through many many cycles, so this is not a new thing for them. Debt is only one component of the transaction. The central view of private equity is to try and improve companies through improving their profits, their sales growth and driving valuable growth that way.

FLOODS

More than 65-thousand homes in Gloucestershire are expected to have their mains water supply restored today - although it won't be fit to drink. About 130-thousand households have been without running water since a major treatment works was flooded more than a week ago. Bob Walker reports from the village of Dumbleton:

WALKER: About three-thousand homes, many of them in villages to the east of Tewkesbury, had their supplies restored yesterday. Running water should return to an extra sixty-five-thousand homes by the end of the day, although people in parts of Gloucester and Cheltenham may have to wait a little longer. Engineers managed to restart the Mythe treatment works near Tewkesbury yesterday. Now, they have to recharge fifty-four miles of major trunk water mains and twelve-hundred miles of water pipes. People are being warned not to drink tap water because the pipes were submerged beneath flood waters and may have been contaminated. Instead, they will have to continue to collect drinking water from bowsers on streets throughout Gloucestershire or use bottled water supplied by the army and the emergency services.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

The reported payment of five-figure bonuses to senior executives at the Environment Agency has come in for further criticism. The Agency has described the sums as "modest" and said they reflected success across a range of objectives. But one of its former chief executives, Ed Gallagher, told TODAY that after the recent flooding he would probably repay the money if he was still in charge.

TORIES

The Conservatives are calling for radical reform of special needs education. The Party's policy commission will say the job of evaluating children's needs should be taken away from local education authorities and given to independent assessors. The report will also say that including children with special needs in mainstream schools has "dramatically failed" many people.

HURRICANES

Scientists say the number of hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean has doubled in the past century. A study published by the Royal Society says part of the cause is warmer sea temperatures resulting from climate change. Matt McGrath has the details:

MCGRATH: Scientific analyses in recent years suggest hurricane numbers have increased since the mid-nineteen-eighties. This new study though looks at the frequency of these storms from 1900 to the present and it says about twice as many form each year now compared to one-hundred years ago. Some researchers say hurricanes are cyclical and that an increase in their number is just a reflection of that natural pattern. But the authors of this study say it's not just nature - they say the frequency has risen across the century rather than rising and falling with the natural cycle. Instead the authors say that man-made climate change, which has increased the temperature of the sea surface, is the major factor behind the increase in numbers.