It's eight o'clock on Thursday, the 29th of March.
Tehran says it will give British diplomats access to the fifteen Royal Navy personnel seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Tony Blair is to confirm the break up of the Home Office -- and the creation of a new Ministry of Justice.
A parliamentary committee has delivered a scathing verdict on Margaret Beckett's handling of payments to farmers when she was Environment Secretary.
IRAN
Iran says it will let British diplomats visit the fifteen sailors and marines captured in the Gulf. But Tehran is insisting that the crisis cannot be resolved until Britain admits that the sailors had strayed into Iranian territorial waters. That's something Britain has explicitly denied. Senior Iranian officials refused to be drawn on when they might release the only woman among the captives -- saying it would happen "as soon as possible." Here's our diplomatic correspondent, Bridget Kendall:
KENDALL: Speaking to reporters at the Arab summit in Saudi Arabia, the Iranian foreign minister said Iran was prepared to offer British officials access to the prisoners and was also exploring the possible release of the only female detainee, Fay Turney. But he also warned that the standoff could only be resolved if Britain admitted the servicemen and woman had been in Iranian waters when arrested, even if by mistake. In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said Britain awaited further details on possible consular access; no official offer had yet been made. But so far, there's little sign of Britain giving ground on its claim the sailors were abducted from Iraqi waters. Most bilateral contacts with Iran are being put on hold and diplomats say Britain is now exploring how far it can persuade other allies in Europe and at the United Nations to rally round.
IRAN 2
A British businessman been speaking about his experience at the hands of Iranian interrogators. Rupert Wise was taken prisoner sixteen months ago. Here's our security correspondent, Frank Gardner:
GARDNER: Rupert Wise never planned to visit Iran, but in late 2005 he, his wife and an Australian yachtsman were seized by Iranian coastguards after sailing from Dubai to the disputed gulf island of Abu Musa. They were taken to the Iranian mainland, held for two weeks, and questioned repeatedly by a succession of interrogators who suspected them of spying. The first thing the did, said Mr Wise, was to separate the couple and quiz them separately to see if their stories matched. The Western captives were filmed extensively, denied consular access for days and told to sign documents which they could not understand. There was no physical abuse, but when one team appeared to have finished with them they would be replaced by another from a different ministry.
HOME OFFICE
Britain is to have -- for the first time -- a Ministry of Justice. The government is to confirm that -- in response to a string of crises at the Home Office and a review of counter terrorism capabilities -- the department will be divided in two. The changes will see the Home Secretary losing control of the sentencing and treatment of offenders. Here's our Home Affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw:
SHAW: This is one of the biggest reorganisations in White Hall in recent years, it is being driven by the Home Secretary John Reid, who described his department as 'dysfunctional' in the wake of the foreign prisoner crisis. As the reforms take effect over the coming weeks, Mr Reid will be able to focus on policing, security and terrorism. His slimed-down department will absorb counter terrorism strategy from the Cabinet Office. He'll also keep overall control over the immigration and nationality directorate which is set to become an executive agency. The Lord Chancellor Lord Faulkner will take on probation, prisons and sentencing, as well as retaining responsibility for the court system and constitutional affairs. It's understood that his department will be know as the 'Ministry of Justice'.
HOME OFFICE 2
The reforms have won the backing of the Liberal Democrats -- but the Conservatives' home affairs spokesman, Damian Green, says the Home Office will suffer:
GREEN ACT: Separating it out is likely to make things worse rather than better, so I think this is just the Government looking for a way of appearing of being active rather than getting to grips with the real problems that have affected the Home Office for years.
FARMS
The committee of MPs that monitors the work of the Department for the Environment has condemned the way that a new system of payments to farmers was introduced. Its report says the Minister at the time -- Margaret Beckett -- and her senior officials should have been held to account. The committee describes what happened as a fiasco and a catastrophe which may cost the taxpayer half a billion pounds. Its Conservative chairman, Michael Jack, told us that the department had failed to heed the warnings that were given:
JACK ACT: If Mrs Beckett had still being in post, we would I'm sure have been calling for her resignation, but instead we point out that perhaps there is a need to re-examine the Ministerial code, to define more sharply when people take responsibility because fundamentally this report is one about accountability in government. On something like this where the bill could be half a billion pounds between the farming industry and the tax payer, and nobody actually takes responsibility there is something wrong.
Mrs Beckett has said she hasn't yet seen a copy of the report. She says she took her decisions in good faith and on the basis of the advice she was given at the time.
TURKEY
One person has been killed and ten injured in an explosion in the kitchen of a five-star hotel hotel in southern Turkey. It's not yet clear what caused the blast at the hotel in the resort of Belek, near Antalya on the Mediterranean coast. A number of foreign tourists are said to be among those hurt.
CASINO
The Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell has admitted that the government has "no plan B" after proposals for a Manchester super-casino and more than a dozen smaller gambling complexes were rejected by the House of Lords. Ministers say it will be several weeks before they can begin trying to sort out the disarray. Our political correspondent, Mark Sandars reports on the aftermath of last night's humiliating defeat:
SAUNDERS: It was double or nothing for the government, it had to win in both houses of parliament. It did secure a majority in the Commons, fighting off a rebellion of Labour MPs but the government lost by just three votes in the Lords. Its plans for super casino in Manchester and sixteen smaller casinos across the UK are in tatters. The government's opponents say that it tried to push the measures through Parliament without them being examined thoroughly. Ministers say they'll now reflect on last nights vote and try to salvage what they can from their policy. The could compromise by beefing-up parliamentary scrutiny of where any super casino could be built, and allow MPs and Peers a separate vote on the sixteen other casinos, but they'll be no new proposals until after the May elections.
CASINO ACT
One of the Labour peers who voted against the government was Lady Kennedy. She told this programme there was no evidence of a public clamour for super-casinos -- and explained why she was opposed to the idea:
KENNEDY ACT: Super casinos - we know wherever they are in the world - are a magnet for crime. And I saw one recently in Melbourne, I saw them recently in New Mexico, and we're really talking about drugs, drink, prostritution. I mean Melbourne, just seeing the young women hanging around the outer rim of the super casinos was just horrible. And it doesn't regenerate an area. In fact it's dragged usually areas down.
SMOKING
A survey by the BBC of workingmen's clubs suggests many of them fear the forthcoming ban on smoking in public places could put them out of business. The clubs claim they're particularly vulnerable because so many of their customers smoke. The ban starts in Wales on Monday -- Northern Ireland follows suit at the end of next month and England introduces it in July. Luke Walton reports:
WALTON: More than five hundred working men's clubs responded to the survey. Around eighty percent expect the smoking ban to reduce takings, while twenty percent fear it will shut them down altogether. Club officials worry that their regular customers will stay at home instead. Though the government argues that in Scotland, where the ban already in place, licensees haven't been as badly hit as predicted. The survey also asked clubs about opening membership to women, a move that's been resisted by some. That too may be changing. Three quarters of clubs say they want women to be allowed to hold national membership cards for the first time.
RELIGION
The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales -- Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor -- has hit out at changes in the law which -- he said -- were preventing Christian organisations from serving the public. In a lecture last night, he said new regulations applied to schools and adoption agencies were in conflict with the moral sense of Christians:
O'CONNER ACT: I am not claiming that there is an attempt to supress in our country the basic freedom of religious belief. But freedom of religion is much more than the freedom to worship: it is the freedom to act according to that belief in the service of others.
THAI
A Swiss man has been jailed for ten years in Thailand, for spray-painting graffiti over posters of the country's King. It's the first time a foreigner has been sent to prison for breaking the country's strict laws forbidding criticism of the Royal Family. From Bangkok, our correspondent, Jonathan Head, reports:
HEAD: Ten years in jail for defacing a few posters: that must seem like draconian punishment to fifty-seven-year-old Oliver Jufer, who pleaded guilty to committing the offences last December. But the judge was about as lenient as he could be. He gave Mr Jufer four years for each of the five counts of lese-majeste, close to the minimum and he then halved the sentence. Such is the sensitivity of the issue, it's receiving little attention in the Thai media. Most Thais feel a deep reverence for their monarch. But they also fear discussing the institution because of the severe penalties for criticising members of the royal family.
GORILLAS
The Duke of Edinburgh will officially open a new five million pound home for the gorillas at London Zoo today. The bars and the cages have gone, and in their place is an enclosure resembling an African rainforest -- separated from visitors by a moat and sheets of glass.
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