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Moazzam Begg Charged With Terror Offences

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 01 Maret 2014 | 14.44

Ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg has been charged with providing terrorist training and funding terrorism overseas, West Midlands Police have said.

The 45-year-old British citizen, from Hall Green, Birmingham, was one of four people arrested earlier this week on suspicion of terrorism offences linked to the Syria conflict.

He will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court today alongside a woman, Gerrie Tahari, 44, of Sparkbrook, Birmingham, who is charged with facilitating terrorism overseas.

Both were arrested on Tuesday with two other men held on suspicion of facilitating terrorism overseas.

The pair - a 36-year-old man from Shirley, Solihull, and a 20-year-old man from Sparkhill, Birmingham, who is the son of Tahari - remain in police custody.

Guantanamo detainees were reportedly trained to be secret agents Begg was released from Guantanamo Bay in January 2005

Begg was held by the US government at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba for nearly three years after being arrested in Pakistan in February 2002.

He was detained on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda before being released without charge in January 2005.

He was allowed to return to the UK where he was arrested by police before being released without charge.

Begg is a director of Cage - which campaigns "against the War on Terror" - and has always maintained that he has never been involved in any kind of terrorist activity.

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.


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Floods Fund: £2m To Support Tourism Firms

Tourism businesses affected by the recent flooding are to get a £2m boost from the Government.

Culture Secretary Maria Miller says the money will fund experts who will visit affected areas and offer practical advice to tourism firms such as how to access business support measures.

The advice sessions will be hosted by VisitEngland and run throughout March.

The fund comes on top of  the £10m set aside by Prime Minister David Cameron last month to help flood-hit businesses generally.

Ms Miller said: "We want to help all those tourism businesses that have been affected by the horrendous floods get back on their feet as quickly as possible.

"Experts will be put on the ground to help small businesses with practical advice and communications while a bespoke Easter marketing will bring people back to the areas hit."

Welcoming the funding, VisitEngland chief executive James Berresford said: "Our message to customers is 'Business as usual'.

"Despite many areas having been affected by bad weather and some travel disruption, the tourism infrastructure is largely unaffected."

VisitBritain chief executive Sandie Dawe said: "International tourism is worth around £1.5bn to the economies of south west England and Wales.

"We are already getting out the message that it is a great time to travel to Britain and will be intensifying that activity over the coming months."

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.

:: Watch Sky News' special programme 'Battered Britain: From The Air' about the effect of the recent storms on the UK's landscape on Sunday, March 2, at 4pm.


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RBS Reaches Deal To Award £550m Bonus Pot

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 26 Februari 2014 | 14.44

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to pay approximately £550m in staff bonuses for 2013 after securing the agreement of the Treasury agency that is its biggest shareholder.

Sky News has learnt that the taxpayer-backed bank will disclose the sum - which is higher than previous reports had suggested - alongside its annual results on Thursday.

The bonus pot for 2013 is certain to reignite a row over pay at RBS because it will also announce a loss for the year estimated at £8bn, the biggest since its bail-out by the Government in 2008.

UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the body which manages taxpayers' stake in the bank, is understood to have signed off on the payments in recent days.

The sum of around £550m will represent a fall on the 2012 bonus pot of £679m of just under 20%, which Chancellor George Osborne is expected to cite as evidence that RBS is exhibiting restraint on bonus payments.

Last year's figure was further reduced by £72m to £607m because of the clawback of previous years' deferred bonuses, undertaken as a consequence of RBS's £390m fine for its role in the Libor-rigging scandal.

RBS is expected to have reduced the 2013 bonus pool by at least £25m under a commitment it gave 12 months ago to reduce bonuses in subsequent years.

It is unclear whether RBS will also announce a plan on Thursday to seek shareholder approval at its annual general meeting in May to allow it to pay bonuses worth double the value of senior employees' basic salaries.

Other UK banks are planning to do so, but RBS found itself at the centre of another political row last month when Labour leader Ed Miliband urged David Cameron to use the Government's stake to block any such request.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Cameron told Sky News: "With our particular responsibility for RBS, I can tell you that I don't only want to see the level of pay and bonuses come down overall, I want to see it come down per-person, per-capita as well."

The Prime Minister said last month that new European rules on bankers' pay, which the Government is challenging, could exacerbate the riskiness of banks.

He said: "This European directive... in some ways might make things worse, because you could see rates of pay go up.

"You can claw back a bonus, the taxpayer can get the money back. You can't claw back [basic] pay."

Thursday's bonus announcement will come as Ross McEwan, RBS's new chief executive, unveils a plan that will mean the bank's 120,000-strong workforce shrinking to barely two-thirds of that number following the sale and closure of several business units.

RBS and UKFI declined to comment.

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.


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Nursing Staff Cuts Linked To Higher Death Rates

Hospitals are experiencing higher patient death rates as a direct result of nursing cutbacks, according to a study of hospitals in England and eight other countries.

Data from 300 European hospitals shows that every extra patient added to a nurse's workload increases the risk of death within a month of surgery by 7%.

The level of training the nurse had undergone also had an impact, the study said, with university degrees going a long way towards making up for reduced staffing levels.

A 10% increase in the proportion of nurses holding a bachelor degree was associated with 7% lower surgical death rates, the findings published in The Lancet journal revealed.

Since September last year, every newly-qualified nurse in the UK has had to possess a university degree.

Figures for 30 English hospitals showed that on average every one of their nurses looked after around nine patients, which is one more than professional bodies would like.

Spain appeared to have the most overworked staff, with an average 12.7 patients per nurse. But in Spain every nurse had a bachelor degree, compared with only 28% in England at the time the data were collected in 2009-10.

In some other countries the patient-to-nurse ratio was significantly smaller. Norway had a ratio of 5.2 to one, the Irish Republic 6.9, the Netherlands seven and Finland and Sweden 7.6.

Lead researcher Professor Linda Aiken said: "Our findings emphasise the risk to patients that could emerge in response to nurse staffing cuts under recent austerity measures, and suggest that an increased emphasis on bachelor's education for nurses could reduce hospital deaths."

The study analysed information on more than 420,000 patients admitted to hospitals in Belgium, England, Finland, the Irish Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Researchers compared nurse workload and education and patient outcomes, taking into account the age and sex of patients, types of surgical procedure, chronic conditions, and the kind of technology available in a hospital.

The overall percentage of surgical patients who died within 30 days of admission was low, ranging between 1% and 1.5% per country. In England, the average rate was 1.4%.

Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: "It is worrying to see that researchers found the mean ratio of patients to nurses in England is above eight, as we know that this can compromise patient safety.

"The RCN has also expressed concern at the skills mix in UK hospitals as trusts get rid of more senior nurses to save money, meaning there is far less experience on many wards, and the full extent of this will be revealed in our upcoming Frontline First report."

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the Government would not introduce a legal minimum because staff requirements were a "different number for different wards".

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.


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