10/01/2013 BBC News at Ten

Tonight, a senior police officer is the first to be convicted in the

wake of the phone hacking scandal. April Casburn offered confidential

information on the hacking investigation to the News of the

World. I hope today's verdict demonstrates our commitment to

rooting out that kind of corruption and demonstrates that corruption of

this kind will not be tolerated within the Metropolitan Police

Service. We will be asking how damaging the case has been for the

Metropolitan Police. Also, two senior executives at RBS may be

asked to step down because of the Bank's involvement in rigging a key

interest rate. Three Kurdish activists are shot dead in Paris.

Police say the women were brutally executed. Six prisons are to close.

Ministers say it will save more than �60 million a year. And as

much as half the world's food, some �2 billion, is just Bron away.

Blackpool say their manager, Michael Appleton, is free to hold

talks with Blackburn Rovers, despite being in his current job

A senior officer with the Metropolitan Police has been

convicted in relation to the phone hacking inquiry. Detective Chief

Inspector April Casburn was found guilty of offering to sell

information to the News of the World. She'd said she was acting in

the public interest and denied asking for payment. But the jury

convicted her of misconduct in public office. Detective Chief

Inspector April Casburn leaving court eight convicted criminal.

This senior Scotland Yard officer found guilty of corruption, by

offering to supply information to the News of the World for money.

This case goes back to SEP- 2010 -- September, 2010. It led Scotland

Yard to investigate whether the hacking inquiry should be reopened.

DCI Casburn phoned the paper and tried to undermine her colleagues

investigation, by complaining about the resources they were using. The

journalist who took the call, Tim Ward, said she didn't give her name

but she did leave a number. He told the jury she offered to sell the

paper information about the hacking investigation. No money was handed

over by the News of the World at no story was run. After today's

verdict, 1st April Casburn's fellow met officers, speaking for the

fourth, condemned to corrupt behaviour. I hope today's verdict

demonstrates our commitment to rooting out that kind of corruption

and demonstrates that corruption of this kind will not be tolerated

within the Metropolitan Police Service. April Casburn worked in

the counter-terrorism command of Scotland Yard. She is one of seven

serving or ex-police officers to have been arrested in the fall-out

from the new hacking investigation. This former senior civil servant

has produced a report for the Met workforce, warning about the

dangers of dealing with journalists. It's very important that any law-

breaking is identified. And if there is evidence to support those

allegations, those people ought to be caught. That applies to

everybody, whatever office they hold in Britain. Nobody is above

the law. Nobody should think they are. In the coming weeks, April

Casburn will be back in court for sentencing. She has been told she

could be sent to prison. How damaging has this case been to the

Metropolitan Police? June, what is your assessment? I think April

Casburn has done damage to her cause on possibly two fronts.

Firstly, when she went into the witness box she condemned what she

said was the sexist culture inside the counter-terrorism command here.

Comparing it to the TV series, she memorably described it as Life On

Mars in the 21st century. Although she has been convicted, she has

thrown mud and she knows that mud will stick. Secondly, in the last

couple of years we've heard a lot about relationships between the

police and the press. I think some members of the public will be

asking, why, if you have a senior officer on a good salary and she

feels disgruntled about something, why her first port of call would be

a tabloid newspaper? In response, Scotland Yard has been robust. They

say that these cases are rare and they say the fact that there has

been a successful prosecution in this case shows that they do hold

their own to account. Two senior executives at Royal Bank of

Scotland may be asked to step down, following the rigging of its key

lending rate. There's no suggestion that either man was involved in any

malpractice. RBS is likely to face fines and penalties of hundreds of

millions of pounds for its involvement in the scandal. Robert

Peston and covered the story. The LIBOR market manipulation scandal -

a huge black cloud over the city. Two banks, Barclays and the UBS,

have been fined and humiliated, and later this month there will be a

third, the one taxpayers earn -- own most of. RBS has delivered the

final phase of the positions and had to atone for its LIBOR market

rigging of since. I've learned that a couple of senior RBS executives

are likely to quit, that bonuses awarded but not paid in 2009 and

2010 are likely to be taken back from bankers. And that fines and

penalties will be more than Barclays. Whose fine was �290

million. While UBS of Switzerland paid �940 million. Penalty spot RBS

will probably be somewhere in between. At Barclays, its chairman

and its famous chief-executive, Bob Diamond, quit not long after its

LIBOR punishment was announced in the summer. At RBS, because the

market rigging went on well into 2010, John Hourican and Stephen

Nielsen are expected to resign, even though they never knew about

or sanctioned the wrong doing. But RBS's top boss, Stephen Hester,

won't be going. And what about those bankers who actually broke

the law? It certainly is appropriate to hit people in their

pocket. But I think more important still is proper accountability. So

I think if there is criminal wrongdoing, but people need to be

punished with prison sentences. former UBS executives were today

asked to account for what went wrong by the UK's Parliamentary

Commission on banking standards. I'd like to begin by asking you,

how do you rate this as a scramble in terms of banking scandals in

history? I was shocked when I read about it. I felt embarrassed and

ashamed. Banks are paying for their sins in the boom years. Until they

redeem, neither they or the economy can recover. Three Kurdish

activists have been shot dead in Paris in what the French government

is calling an execution. The victims, all women, including the

founding member of the Kurdish independence group, the PKK, which

has been involved in an armed struggle with the Turkish

government but is now taking part By the time the bodies were removed

this morning, riot police were forming a cordon around the murder

scene. Turkey did this, screamed the Kurds. Among them the yellow

flags of the militant group the PKK. The women were found in a locked

room of the information centre beside shell casings. They'd been

shot in the head. The Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, promised a

thorough investigation. They were executed, he said. It's an

extremely grave matter. The three women were Turkish-born activists

within the PKK movement. The key figure was Sakine Cansiz, a co-

founder of the group in the 1970s. Another was Fidan Dogan. The third

was a young activist, Leyla Soylemez. Since 1984, the PKK has

been fighting a bitter guerrilla war with Turkey, demanding human

rights and autonomy for Kurds in the south-east of the country. In

recent weeks the Turkish government has been holding talks with the

leader of the group, Abdullah Ocalan. Sakine Cansiz was a good

friend of his. She was deeply involved in those peace talks, and

many here believe she was the target. Not all agree with the

jailed leader, Ocalan. There are splits in the PKK. Nationalists

would point within the army. They don't want this war to be ended

because for them it is not a Kurdish problem. It is a problem of

terrorism. With terrorism we have to fight it until the last

terrorist. Tonight they grieved at the Community Centre in Paris,

hundreds came. It's another dark chapter in the murky history of

Kurdish exile. One that could yet have repercussions for this

tentative peace process. Six prisons are to be closed by the

government to save more than �60 million a year. It's the biggest

programme of prison closures in England for decades. Hundreds of

prison officers' jobs are at risk. The Ministry of Justice says some

new accommodation will be made on existing sites, and its drawing up

plans for a new jail with room for 2000 inmates. Crews pre-press and

has stood here since 1877. -- Shrewsbury prison. But staff were

today told the prisoners will be gone and along with them their jobs.

It's a very sad day for the prison, because of all the hard work the

staff and the Government have put into it. Everything will carry on

as near normal as possible until the date of the closure. This is

the biggest programme of prison closures we years. Six entire jails

plus a significant parts of three more. The Justice Secretary

believes in what he calls putting more of the right people in prison.

But he also has to make cuts, and newer prisons are cheaper to run.

This is all about moving to -- trying to move as fast as you can

to a more modern prison state, so we can keep up the number of prison

places. The population inside the walls of Britain's prisons is still

growing. But the government can close old prisons because it is not

growing as fast as want predicted. There are currently 84,000 people

in prison, yet there is Spaceport 90,000. It is estimated that number

would be reached until 2018. Even so, today's announcements will

reduce the number of spaces by 1540, at least until new capacity is

built. Including more than 1000 spaces in four new mini jails and a

super prison of 2000, dwarfing Wandsworth - Britain's current

biggest. But there's no date for that, raising concerns. Prison

places aren't like taps you can turn on and off. It's very easy to

close prisons down but it takes a lot of time to plan, construct, pay

for, build and open prisons. The Government's announcement today is

very complacent. The risks, well, the prison population can fluctuate

wildly. After the 2011 riots, up to 100 people a day were being jailed.

Also, ministers are simultaneously planning reforms in the

rehabilitation of offenders. If that wasn't to go well, it might

result in more criminals ending up In Pakistan, police say more than

100 people have been killed in a series of bombings across the

country. The worst attack was in the south-western city of Quetta,

where 81 people killed when a suicide bomber targeted a snooker

wall. A car bomb was detonated outside, killing police and rescue

workers. A lawyer for one of the five men

charged with the abduction, rape and murder of a woman in Delhi last

month say the suspects have been tortured and forced to admit the

crime. All five men appeared in court today amid heavy security as

protests continue across India demanding justice for the victim.

Andrew North sent this report. Back in court for the five accused

in the case that has put India on trial for its attitude towards

women. The government's new fast- track justice is in the dock, too,

with his defence lawyer telling the police had been torturing his

client. He was kept under torture for 15 days. Is still being

tortured in jail by prisoners under the direction of the police people.

The five men arrested for this brutal crime, allegedly tortured

23-year-old student Jyoti Singh, then repeatedly raped her. A friend

to was what they told us what happened when they boarded the bus.

-- who was with her. TRANSLATION: Base switched off the lights and

attacked me, beating me with an Iron Jack. My friend tried to call

the police, but they snatched her phone, then they threw us out and

tried to run as over. Two weeks after their nightmare on his bus,

she died of massive internal injuries. Her father says India

must abandon old attitudes towards rape. TRANSLATION: Parents tried to

preserve their honour and not talk about it, but this has the opposite

result, it encourages more rape. Nearly one month later, the

protests go on. They have opened new questions over Indian

preference is for sons rather than daughters, with so many baby girls

being aborted, it is missing 50 million women. Jyoti Singh aspired

to break away from the traditional path expected of many Indian women

and to lift her family out of poverty. She was working in a call

centre to support them and to pay for their studies. That is what has

brought so many people out on the streets, because in many ways she

embodied the Indian dream of a better life.

Her friend says the protests give him hope, but for now all he can

Coming up on the programme: The big-budget Lincoln leads the Oscar

nominations, but could a rather smaller romantic comedy steal the

As much as half of all the food produced in the world, some 2

billion tonnes, is thrown away every according to a new report.

The Institution of Mechanical engineers blames poor engineering

and agricultural practices, inadequate infrastructure and poor

storage facilities along with overly strict sell-by dates and

cheap of us. In the UK, more than 20% of vegetable crops are not

harvested because they are not considered attractive enough for

consumers, as Jeremy Cooke reports. With the global population soaring,

we are living on a hungry planet. Food production has never been

higher, farmers across the world working at maximum capacity. But

too much of their produce ends appear, and today's report says

that up to half of of the world's food is wasted. In the UK,

supermarkets are criticised for rejecting food which can go to

waste because it is not visually perfect and because their multi-buy

deals tempt us all to buy food that we do not really need. Feeding more

and more people has always been about producing more and more food.

Today's report, though, suggests another answer. What the report as

shown is that by tackling waste and losses, we can go a long way to

feeding the current and future population. Clearly, there was

waste, but how much is probably impossible to say. Today's figures

are questioned by leading experts, but it is generally agreed there is

way too much. There has been intense activity here, we have seen

dozens of these trucks coming and going, and we are told that this

plant alone processes something like 25 tons of food waste every

day. And of course it is a similar picture in a similar sites across

Reliable numbers are hard to get, but one estimate says the UK wastes

7.2 million tonnes of food per year. Of this, 4.4 million tonnes is said

to be avoidable waste, with a total value of �12 billion. It all costs

the average UK family an estimated �480 per year. Before you know it,

it has gone off anyway. It seems wrong that we are throwing good

food away. In less developed countries, poor harvesting,

inefficient transport and inadequate storage facilities mean

that in some places 80% of the rice harvest is said to be lost. Here at

home, the food for thought is for all of us to think more carefully

about how much we by and how much Britain's most senior civil servant

has acknowledged that Andrew Mitchell resigned as chief whip

after claims that he had called police officers plebs could have

been the victim of a conspiracy. Sir Jeremy Heywood, who

investigated the altercation, made the statement as he was interviewed

in Parliament. There were unanswered questions, including the

possibility of a gigantic conspiracy, or a small conspiracy.

We decided that, on balance, we would let matters rest.

evidence in parliament today. Live du Downing Street and deputy

political editor James Landale. big question is why, why it the

most senior civil servant in the land thought there might be a

gigantic conspiracy against a Cabinet minister involving the

police, why didn't he raised it with the police? Sir Jeremy's

answer was that was not within his remit. He was investigating e-mails

which apparently showed that Andrew Mitchell swore at police, but the

e-mails had been sent by a policeman pretending to be a

civilian who had never been near Downing Street. Jeremy Heywood said,

on the basis of the e-mails, that was enough to recommend to the

Prime Minister to keep Andrew Mitchell, but he did not see the

police dog, the officers involved, and he did not investigate whether

the word pleb was used. For the MPs on the committee, it was not good

enough. They said he had not been the right man for the investigation

and Downing Street have not done enough to protect a minister who,

eventually, they were forced to lose. So some food for thought for

the men and women who work in there. Thank you very much, James Landale.

In Venezuela, supporters of President Hugo Chavez have taken to

the streets of the capital on the day that he was meant to be sworn

in for a new six-year term. President Chavez, a controversial

beggar on the world stage, has led the oil-rich stage since 1999. He

remains in Cuba after surgery for cancer. Allan Little sent this

report. Many said his absence today would

provoke a constitutional crisis, a power vacuum. This was their

response, legions of his supporters converging to declare that Hugo

Chavez was there, for he is the people and they are him. I am

Chavez, the slogan says. The message is that whatever is

happening to Hugo Chavez, his revolution is alive and well and

here to stay. This is where his power lies, in the vast shanty

towns where Venezuela's were live. He has spent the country's huge oil

wealth on welfare, healthcare and housing. They love him for it, and

there's something almost religious in the devotion he inspires.

I have a lot to thank him for, she told me, I used to live in a shack,

the President gave me an apartment. Chavez swept to power 14 years ago

promising a socialist revolution, offering himself as a global

alternative to Western capitalism. He challenged the US power and made

friends with America's enemies. Among Venezuela's educated middle

classes, he is profoundly unpopular, hated by many and even feared. This

oncologist in the country's leading cancer clinics says that, under

Chavez, violent crime has swept Venezuela. A number of my friends

and colleagues go around in armoured vehicles. Basically, very

scared for their lives and the lives of their families. Every week,

one of my friend's families is hit by a kidnap. So that is the sort of

terror we live in. But in the face of this mobilised loyalty,

Venezuela's opposition seemed only cowed and weakened. They have

dropped their demand for fresh elections and called off arrival

demonstration of their own. For now at least, there is no power vacuum

here, for the streets still belong, Lincoln, the American Civil War

drama, leads the way in this year's Academy Awards with 12 nominations.

Daniel Day-Lewis is buying for best actor. Amid the big-budget epic, a

rather smaller scale romantic comedy has emerged as a strong

contender for the award to be presented next month. Arts editor

Will Gompertz has this report. OK, we got it. Could this be the

year for the romcom? It might be if the eight nominations for Silver

Linings Playbook leads to a clutch of Oscars for the movie. The film

tells the story of a man, played by Bradley Cooper, with bipolar

disorder. I used to be on lithium. I am tired, are you going to walk

me home? You have poor social skills. It stars have been

shortlisted in all four acting categories. I am the President of

the United States! Clothed in immense power! Daniel Day-Lewis

could win the third best art scare -- best actor Oscar for his

betrayal of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln has 12 nominations,

including one for the veteran director himself. The what is your

name? Django. The D was silent. Quentin Tarantino's film about

slavery has made the prestigious best picture category. I do not

think we are going to win with his film, all right, all right? But

being invited to the party is a lot of fun! Ang Lee's film of Life Of

Pi, featuring a computer-generated tiger, received 11 nominations. The

battle for the best actor's Oscar makes for an interesting story.

Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest- ever nominee for her performance.

One day the ground is going to sink... And the 85-year-old

Emmanuel Rivett is the oldest ever nominee in the category for her

performance in Michael Haneke's Amour. Les Miserables as his

leading the charge for British film with eight nominations, including

one for Hugh Jackman as leading actor, to whom I spoke about Oscars

recently. If nothing else, it really is the industry, no offence

to the Australian awards, but it is the pinnacle! Skyfall, the latest

Bond movie, was overlooked, but the opening number by Adele was one of

its five nominations. If he won, it would cap of a remarkable period in