28/02/2012 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten - a British press photographer injured in Syria is

smuggled to safety. Paul Conroy works for the Sunday Times - rebels

say the operation to free him cost a number of lives. There was

tremendous loss of life. The group with Paul lost three activists.

the whereabouts of a badly injured French journalist, Edith Bouvier,

are still unclear. The UN says the violence in Syria has so far

claimed at least 7,500 lives. We'll be looking at the latest

international pressure on Syria to end the bloodshed. Also tonight...

Barclays is reprimanded for trying to avoid paying half a billion in

tax one Lib Dem says it's normal practice. Barclays tax-avoidance

factory down at Canary Wharf, it is the most productive factory in

Britain. A year after Japan's nuclear disaster, our correspondent

is one of the few allowed into the Fukushima plant. The next challenge

is to dismantle this power station, made more difficult by the fact it

is highly radioactive here. A world of squalor - a special report on

the illegal immigrants who want to leave Britain but can't. And a slow

rescue as an Italian cruise ship with 1,000 on board is towed

Good evening. The injured British press photograher Paul Conroy has

been smuggled out of Syria in an operation that according to

activists cost a number of lives. But the whereabouts of Edith

Bouvier, an injured French journalist, are still unclear

tonight. As the Assad regime steps up its attacks on rebel areas, the

UN says that 7,500 people have died in the violence so far. Our

correspondent Paul Wood sent this report from Beirut. The shelling of

Homs, as unrelenting today as it has been for the past three weeks.

The regime is killing 100 civilians each day across the country,

according to the UN, many of them in Homs. Heavy artillery is being

used indiscriminately. This little boy's home was destroyed by a shell.

Incredibly, he is still alive. Rescue workers freed him, and he is

now recovering in a makeshift field hospital. The British photographer

Paul Conroy escaped all of this and is now in Lebanon. His paper, the

Sunday Times, said he was in good shape and in good spirits. His

family said they were overjoyed and relieved. We have heard he is out,

we do not know where he is. When we hear from him on the phone or see

him on the doorstep, we will be very happy. The badly injured

French journalist Edith Bouvier was with him in the makeshift hospital,

and there is confusion over the whereabouts of her and of two other

journalists with them. They were under siege in the Baba Amr quarter

of Homs. After leaving, they still had to get out of Syria. This

activist helped them to flee. TRANSLATION: They were coming under

a lot of fire. They had to travel on foot, going from house to house,

and there were rockets fired at them, even tank shells. The

evacuation across the border took three or four hours. The cost has

been high. Most of the group was forced to turn back, Paul was able

to go ahead. There was tremendous loss of life. The group with Paul

lost three activists, the group returning lost six activists.

all began with the death of the war correspondent Marie Colvin in Homs.

Her body remains there, along with that of the photographer Annie

Jesien. Her girlfriend pleaded for the remains to be returned home.

The waiting is insufferable. All religions recognise that to say

goodbye, you need a body. I have promised everybody, his friends,

his family, that I will not leave him there. Many others died today,

as every day. Efforts by the Red Crescent and the Red Cross to get a

temporary ceasefire have so far failed. Many opposition activists

risked their lives, some even gave their lives, to help the

journalists trapped in Homs. Those involved in that effort say they

did it in the hope that the outside world will take action to help the

many thousands of civilians who remain behind and under bombardment.

Barclays bank has been ordered by the Treasury to pay half a billion

pounds in tax which it had tried to avoid. It was accused by customs of

designing two schemes to avoid the tax. Robert Peston explains.

Barclays, like all the Big banks helped out by taxpayers with

emergency loans during the bank crisis, is keen to show how it is

now being a good citizen, with its contribution to economic growth,

and with the way it does business, including, it said, paying a lot of

tax. It is all part, said the TV executive, of the Barclays ethos.

Rebuilding trust requires banks to be better citizens. I believe in

this passionately. And so it looked pretty embarrassing for Barclays

that the Treasury is closing down two new tax avoidance schemes which

it has been using. Barclays tax- avoidance factory down at Canary

Wharf, it is the most productive factory in Britain, tax avoidance

schemes roll-off that production- line like Rolls-Royces. It is

highly aggressive. It is all about protecting tax revenues for the

customs. The Treasury says it will get back �500 million in tax.

Future tax savings of �2 billion for all banks will be stopped. The

Treasury's crackdown on Barclays' tax avoidance scheme is a warning

to all big companies that the Government wants them to obey the

spirit of the tax rules as well as the letter. We have sent a very,

very clear signal to banks and other entities that this government

takes tax-avoidance seriously, and we will act to stop it. But in

taking tax that Barclays thought it had already avoided, there may be

risks. Retrospection is always a bad signal, because it destroys a

little bit of faith in the tax system, a bit of the certainty, it

worries people that anything they do might be countered

retrospectively. So the Government needs to use it very, very rarely

and in very, very carefully defined circumstances.. Ministers need

every tax penny available to close the Government's deficit, and all

companies now know that slashing their tax bills can be humiliating,

in all circumstances. The Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, has told

the BBC that he has changed his mind in recent years on the

benefits of more competition within the NHS, but he insists that the

latest changes to his health reforms for England do not

undermine the principles of the bill. Nick Robinson has the story.

What makes the NHS's heart beat? Doctors and hospitals co-operating,

not competition, according to those fighting to kill the Health Bill.

But this, say ministers, is how competition works for patients - a

heart scan in a private clinic, paid for by the NHS and

commissioned by a group of local doctors. If they offer a service

which gives the patients a better deal, then I do not see why we

should not use them as an example to other hospitals in the NHS, to

reorganise their services to be as good as the private sector. Is that

what you mean by competition in the NHS? Absolutely. It is that word,

competition, which is causing the coalition so many problems. Today I

asked the Health Secretary how important it was in his

prescription for the NHS. Competition is part of how the NHS

can improve services, but it has to be competition for quality, not

competition on price. When you first became Health Secretary, you

said, the first guiding principle is to maximise competition. You

said it was the first principle. is one principle. We have developed

the legislation since then. Are you saying that you have changed your

mind a little since you said it was the first guiding principle? Yes, I

have, because competition is a means to an end, not an end in

itself. So, are you changing your mind this week about the fact that

more safeguards are needed on competition? No, I am not. More

problems for Andrew Lansley today from the very first GP practice he

visited it as Health Secretary. have discussed several times what

you do here. This doctor pioneered the idea at the heart of the pill,

groups of GPs by in the health care, but now he says the bill should be

dropped. Everything could be achieved without the bill. What we

are very clear about is that we do not want to continue this

restructuring, this bureaucracy, it is taking us away from our real

focus, which is on patient care. is yet another doctor whose backing

the Health Secretary has lost. He was a cheerleader for you, and he

has changed his mind. What he and his colleagues do not yet

appreciate is that the only way in which they actually will have

something which is sustained into the future, enabling them to

develop all the opportunities they have, is if we get rid of two tears

of bureaucracy. Is it his fault that he does not understand? It is

probably because the BMA and a lot of other organisations are

constantly telling people things which are not in the organisation.

Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought, I have messed this up,

I am not the man for the job? visit people in the NHS all the

time, I have done so for years, and I know absolutely what they think.

The Health Service looks like it is fighting for its life, but the

Government insists it will survive. The Metropolitan Police has

confirmed today that it low and a retired police horse to the former

chief executive of News International Rebekah Brooks. She

looked after the horse between 2008 and 2010, before the force we

examined allegations of misconduct at the News of the World. The

danger posed by the nuclear crisis in Japan last year was so great

that officials drew up plans for the possible evacuation of the

entire city of Tokyo. For weeks after the tsunami and earthquakes

struck last March, engineer has fought to avert a massive disaster

at the Fukushima nuclear plant. For the first time, international

journalists have been allowed into the side, and among them is our

Getting ready to face the radiation at for Kashima, boiler suits and

masks, protection against the contamination. We were being taken

to the power station, the first group of foreign journalists

allowed in. Through the exclusion going, 12 miles of overgrown fields

-- exclusion zone. Abandoned homes. And the source of fear for the

Japanese people for almost one year now. The power station was rocked

by explosions. The tsunami had triggered meltdown is in three of

the reactors. Japan's leaders feared they would have to order the

evacuation of Tokyo. It is only when you are standing here, you can

appreciate the force of the explosions that destroyed those

reactor buildings. You can see men in the skeletons there, working on

it. These reactors are now in a state of cold shut down. It means

they are called to below boiling point. The next challenge is to

dismantle this power station. It is made more difficult by the fact it

is highly radioactive and it could take up to 40 years. Then we were

driven right pass the reactors, scarred by the power of the sea.

The wreckage of trucks still litters the ground. In places, it

is too radioactive for humans to venture. Elsewhere, the rate -- the

workers were busy, maintaining the coolers systems vital to keeping

reactors under control. TRANSLATION: I worked here before

the disaster, so since my plant is in the condition, I think it is my

mission to stay here. What they fear, though, is another earthquake,

a second tsunami. It could tip the nuclear disaster into crisis once

Coming up, from the heart of American industry, workers ponder

the presidential race and the merits of public control. We keep

inching towards socialism, one of the first steps in that is to start

Thousands of illegal immigrants, who volunteered to be deported from

Britain, have found themselves unable to return home. The economic

downturn has led to a lack of work, but Britain can't deport them as

many destroyed their identification documents when they arrived here.

Chris Rogers reports on the squalid conditions suffered by many of

those who are now living rough. Is this where you sleep?

Jagdish's family pay �10,000 to smugglers to smuggle them into

Britain. He came here from India for a better life. -- smuggle him.

This is what he'd got. 4,000 miles from home, out of work and

penniless, he has found refuge in a derelict garage. TRANSLATION: When

I left and came here, I was told life was good here. It is not just

me, other boys came up for work. You can see what state we are in.

There is no work, no government help. Jagdish has cut himself off

from his family. He would rather they think he is dead and living

like this. They sold land and took old loans to get me out of India,

to improve lives, but when you get here there is nothing. Jagdish is

desperate to be deported back to India, but like most illegal

immigrants, he destroyed his ID papers to make deportation

difficult. Now he is pleading to go home, but he must prove his

identity, and that could take years. And there are thousands of others

stuck in the same bureaucratic no- We found dozens bedding down under

bridges in west London. Every day they spend in this misery, they

slip further into a destructive cycle. It is now midnight, and

nearly all of the man that live under this bridge have gone to bed,

wrapping themselves in duvets and jumpers to try to keep warm. The

temperature at the moment is freezing. The atmosphere is very

intense, there is a lot of people who have been drinking all day.

Some of them are clearly taking drugs as well. It is a very

intimidating place to be. In India, my life is better. 21-year-old

Jaspal was jailed for shoplifting. Now he is back on the streets and

taking heroin. They arrested me, they told me they would send a bad,

but they don't send me back because I have no place -- passport or

papers. Where do you get the money to buy drugs? Shoplifting. It is

very cold outside, I can't sleep if I don't buy drugs. The only form of

top available are handouts from homeless charities, who claimed the

repatriation system is overwhelmed. They have paid work pending with

the Indian High Commission. The Indian High Commission are dragging

their heels -- paperwork pending. It is a bit of a mess, really.

The Indian High Commission and the UK Border Agency say establishing

the true identity of these men can be complex, and the time it takes

to issued emergency travel documentation Berry's case by case.

Efforts are being made to speed up Jagdish has this warning to those

who think Britain is a land of opportunity. They are mad, they

should look at this and see what kind of a life it is. But for now,

it is a life that Jagdish and others like him cannot escape.

Police are investigating the death of a schoolboy in Dorset. It is

thought Kyle Rees, who was 16, was struck on a head, possibly by a

cricket ball. Another 16-year-old has been arrested on suspicion of

manslaughter and freed on bail. Flowers have been left outside

Portchester School in Bournemouth, where the incident happened. Robert

wall is there. What can you tell us? We know that this incident took

place at the end of the Monday lunch break at Portchester School,

a specialist sports college. One line of inquiry is that there was a

fracas in the playground, during which objects were thrown. It was

during that period that Kyle Rees sustained his injuries. He was

rushed to Southampton specialist urological unit in a critical

condition. Police -- neurological unit. Police have spent time at the

school, cordoned off part of the grounds, talking to staff and

pupils. They say the 16 your they arrested was initially on suspicion

of assault but it became a suspicion of manslaughter. He has

been bailed. You can imagine the reaction at the school. Specialist

counselling has been offered. Kyle Rees was a popular, talented people,

about to take his GCSEs and the whole school community is said to

Nearly 50,000 patients with all metal hip replacements will need

annual checks, because of safety concerns about the devices.

Medicines watchdog announced new guidance after reports that

microscopic particles from the implants could leak into the blood,

causing tissue damage. The new advice comes after a joint BBC

Newsnight and British Medical Journal investigation. You can see

the full investigation on Newsnight on BBC Two at 10:30pm.

Michigan and Arizona are tonight's main battlegrounds in the race to

be the Republican challenger to President Obama in November. It is

becoming a tense, hard-fought contest between Mitt Romney and

Rick Santorum. The stakes are especially high for Mitt Romney in

Michigan, his home state. As Mark Mardell reports, the eventual

winner will need to convince voters that they will manage the economy

better than President Obama. Crowds gape at the Hot rods at the

Detroit exhibition. You don't travel far in this state without

lobbing the smell of oil. Manufacturing is Michigan's beating

heart, one that nearly stopped. Now GM is making record profits. This

plant has put on a third shift, 800 new jobs. They make heavy-duty

pick-up trucks, the workhorse of the American economy. They say it

must mean things are getting better. We have seen a nice growth spurt in

the truck market, which is also good for contracting, building,

home starts. When I see heavy-duty trucks moving at this rate, it is a

good sign for the economy. But the GM's current success is paid for by

the American taxpayer. They got part of Obama's hugely

controversial bail-out of the industry. This -- workers like Lisa

We may not have had a job. We feel it may have been a tragedy for our

country to lose General Motors. Mitt Romney thinks the bail-out was

wrong. He stresses he loves his home state and its main industry,

but he defends his opposition to the Government's stabbing him.

These companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, just like

airlines and other industries. main opponent, Rick Santorum,

agrees. That means paying, I understand that. It also means

limited government allowing markets to work because we believe they are

more efficient over time. It has not stopped him attacking Mitt

Romney's position. He turned his back on Michigan workers.

President's team has piled in as well. When 1 million jobs were on

the run, every Republican candidate turned their back and even said led

Detroit go bankrupt. A group of tea party supporters were unanimous,

telling me the bail-out was appalling. I have a problem with

the government picking and choosing. I am a small businessman. If we

fail, we fail. There is no bail-out. Record stores went under because

the record industry changed, nobody bailed me out. We keep inching

towards socialism. One of the first steps in that is to start taking

over businesses. Whoever wins the primary, this argument will be

central to the general election in November. With Barack Obama arguing

that by saving plants like this one, he has rescued the American economy

from a much worse fate. His opponent will say big spending and

in government have set the country on a dangerous track. -- and big

By this time tomorrow, the 1,000 passengers and crew of the Costa

Allegra hope to be safely ashore. The Italian cruise ship is being

towed to the Seychelles after breaking down in the Indian Ocean

after a fire in the generator room. The Allegra is from the same fate

as the Costa Concordia, which capsized off the coast of Italy six

weeks ago. As Claire Marshall explains, it has meant renewed

concern for one particular mother. This was supposed to be a luxury

cruise, but now the Costa Allegra is being pulled into port. Slowly,

by a truck. The passengers on board have had no hot food, no lights and

no air conditioning for almost two days. They have to sleep on Dec. It

is just too hot in the cabins. At home near Birmingham, Jayne is

waiting for news of her daughter. Rebecca is working as a dancer on

board. When your loved ones are in that situation, all you want to do

is make contact. All I want to do is give her a big hug. I want to

greet her off that plane and know that she is safe. She speaks from

experience. Her son, James, supplied the Costa Concordia

disaster. Like his sister, he was a dancer. How do you feel, that this

has happened to both your children? Gutted, really, that it should

happen. All the ships that are sailing in the ocean, and the two

that have come into difficulty being the two my children have been

on. The route to rescue has had to change, and as a result, it is

taking longer. The nearest island in the Seychelles is apparently too

small to let the passengers off. is the safest place for the people

on the boat. There is no reason to disembark people, to put them on

other ships or a helicopter. They will remain on the Costa Allegra.

There is no communication with the ship... Jayne is not even able to