21/10/2013 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten: The go-ahead is given for Britain's

first nuclear power station in a generation.

The site is at Hinkley Point in Somerset and the project will be led

by the French energy firm, EDF, with Chinese help. It will be up and

running in a decade. Ministers reject claims that it's too risky

and too expensive. Investing in nuclear power stations we increase

the chance that bills will be lower than they would have been if they

didn't invest in technologies like this.

And this on the day that NPower became the latest supplier to

announce a big rise in energy prices.

Also tonight: A Ukrainian student pleads guilty to

murdering an 82-year-old Muslim man in Birmingham.

In Greece, a couple from a Roma community charged with abducting a

young blonde haired girl. Australian firefighters say the

bushfires in New South Wales have created an unparalleled emergency.

And the food we waste. Tesco reports 30,000 tonnes in just six months.

There were great goals in the Premier League tonight. Find out if

this was enough to give Fulham victory in a bottom of the table

clash with Crystal Palace? Good evening.

The first nuclear power station to be built in the UK for 20 years will

be at Hinkley Point in Somerset. David Cameron said that Hinkley C

would kick-start Britain's nuclear industry, but critics say it is too

risky, too expensive and will lead to higher energy bills. The Hinckley

C project will be led by the French energy firm EDF and will take 10

years to build. It is expected to generate 7% of the UK's electricity

supply and it is set to create around 25,000 jobs during

construction. In a moment, we'll be looking at Britain's urgent need for

new energy sources, but first our industry correspondent, John Moylan,

reports. Hinkley Point in Somerset. For

almost 50 years it has been generating power for Britain. Now

that's set to continue for decades to come. This expansive land will be

the site of one of the biggest nuclear plants ever built. This is

important because Hinkley Point B one day will have to close.

To mark the occasion, the most powerful man in Britain came to one

of the most powerful places on the planet, Hinkley's existing reactor

to make the case for nuclear. By investing in nuclear power stations

we increase the chance that bills would be lower if we didn't invest

in technologies like this. EDF operates eight nuclear power

plants in Britain. It will have the biggest stake in the pro he ject. --

project. One potential investor, Centrica pulled out, paving the way

for two Chinese firms to to come in. If it goes to plan, the new power

station will be switched on in ten years time just as the existing

reactor in the distance is switched off.

This deal will see private firms and not taxpayers cover the huge ?16

billion cost of construction. In return, the Government will pay 92.

50 for each unit of electricity produced, that's around double the

current price. The Government claims our energy bills to be ?77 lower

than they would otherwise have been assuming a new fleet of plants are

built. EDF and its partners will bear the risk with the costs spiral

out of control, but the plant will add to our bills. So is it a good

deal for consumers? It is an excellent deal for the British

consumers. It will create thousands of jobs and at the same time it will

deliver secure, low-carbon electricity at a price which would

be more competitive than otherwise. Hinkley is for the future, but today

NPower became the third big supplier to announce a price rise. The move

will increase by 10.4% its average dual fuel bill. That will add ?137

to household annual energy costs and hit 3.1 million of its customers.

There is another day, another 10% price rise in energy and we have got

a Prime Minister who is standing up for the energy companies, not

hard-pressed families. That's why we need Labour's price freeze.

The deal still requires EU approval, final contracts should be signed

next year. Assuming that goes ahead, Britain will be entering a new

nuclear age. The coalition says Hinkley C and

others are needed to help fill the energy gap created by declining

supplies of North Sea gas, the decommissioning of older power

stations and rapidly escalating costs. So how far will today's

announcement go to bridge that gap? Our science editor, David Shukman,

is here to tell us more. A new nuclear power station at

hardshipingly is part of an attempt to answer a triple challenge in

British Energy. How to keep the lights on at a price people can

afford while cutting greenhouse gases. Now, this is where nuclear

fits in. Producing about a fifth of our electricity. Coal is the biggest

provider, gas is second and renewables generate over a tenth,

but that's meant to change. The first big challenge is that power

stations that burn coal are being phased out because they could fail

to meet new limits on pollution. That could create a gap between the

power generated and the power needed which means that cities, homes and

factories could face black outs and one leading engineer who chaired a

study on this for the Prime Minister says the new nuclear station at

Hinkley won't come online soon enough.

Hinkley won't help in the short-term. Hinkley won't start

generating until beyond 2020 when it will replace old nuclear power

stations. The second challenge is cost.

Consumers are hit by rising energy prices. Another of the big six hiked

its charges today. Mainly because of surging global demand for gas. So

having a stable supply from nuclear power is meant to help, but it will

only make a difference in the long-term. The problem is that this

each type of energy has pros and cons. Nuclear is steady and

low-carbon, but it is relatively expensive. Wind is carbon-free, but

intermittent and planting turbines out at sea is the most expensive

option. Coal is the cheapest, but it is the most polluting which is why

it is phased out. Gas is cleaner, but most of it has to be imported.

Exploiting shale gas here is one solution, but it requires fracking

and there is opposition to that. All of this comes as the British

power system is meant to move away from fossil fuels. So nuclear which

produces no greenhouse gases is one option. The Government has set tough

targets for reducing carbon emissions, but some environmental

groups say nuclear is the wrong way to go about meeting them. We do

acknowledge that nuclear is a low-carbon power source, but there

are a lot of disadvantages like nuclear waste. No one knows what to

do with it and the idea that the Government can cap the costs seems

to us non-sensical. Building one nuclear power station

only goes part of the way to tackling contradictory pressures,

the need to keep supplies going and cut energy costs and do something

about climate change. There is a long way to go.

How does today's announcement affect the political debate about energy

and costs going into the future? Let's talk to James Landale at

Westminster. James, how do you see this changing now?

Well, Huw, it gives the Government something to talk about. Ministers

spent all day saying that the Hinkley Point deal shows they are

thinking seriously and long-term about the economy and energy unlike

past Labour Governments the coalition has shown it is capable of

making big investment decisions in nuclear and other projects,

decisions which it claims if you flick a switch, the light will turn

on and your bills reduce. I think the difficulty the Government faced

today is while there has been broad political support for nuclear power

stations, there have been searching questions. Is this, is the price

right? How much of a gamble is it? Who is going to bear the risk here?

How much of a subsidy is it? Will it meet EU State aid rules? Will the

bills reduce? The Energy Secretary said he couldn't give guarantees and

it would have to be a clairvoyant to know how much the project will cost

in the long run. So I think today helps the Government reinforce its

message that it is thinking about frying to fix the economy in the

long-term. It doesn't help so much with the short-term political

accusation that it I -- appears powerless in the face of rising

energy bills. The Government is doing everything it can to reduce

energy bills in the short-term now and not sometime in the future that

may happen as a result of this nuclear deal.

A student from Ukraine who told police that he hated non-whites has

pleaded guilty to the murder of an elderly man in Birmingham. Mohammed

Saleem was stabbed in the back as he walked home from a mosque in the

Small Heath area. Pavlo Lapshyn also admitted terrorism offences and

causing an explosion near a mosque in Tipton earlier this year. Sian

Lloyd reports. Pavlo Lapshyn described by detectives as calm,

calculated and committed. The 25-year-old Ukrainian was an award

winning student. This picture taken in Kiev at the residence of the

British ambassador shows him being presented with a prize for his PhD,

a work placement at this software firm in Small Heath in the heart of

Birmingham's Muslim community. But within five days of arriving here,

he had committed murder. His victim was 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem who

was walking home from his local mosque. It was in this quiet street

that Pavlo Lapshyn stabbed Mohammed Saleem three times in the back. He

told police he targeted the grandfather just because he wasn't

white. His family were at the Old Bailey to hear Lapshyn plead guilty

and admit causing explosions and preparing for acts of terrorism. He

was targeted because of his faith, his beard and his clothing

represented who he was. Pavlo Lapshyn chose to kill him that night

with only that intention in mind. After the murder, he planned attacks

on local mosques. The CCTV images show Lapshyn on his way there. He

carried the explosive devices in a green bag. They were hidden inside a

child's lunch box which police say looked similar to this one. In his

flat, police found evidence of bomb-making equipment, officers said

he had carefully planned his attacks. The first explosion was in

Walsall in June. A week later, another device went off in

Wolverhampton. The last a nail bomb, was timed to go off during Ramadan

in Tipton. He is a dangerous and evil and ill informed man. And there

is no justification for the crimes he committed or the intent he has.

Lapshyn's father said today that he was shocked. His tutor spoke to the

BBC. TRANSLATION: I didn't believe then

and don't believe now that he can commit something like that in a

premeditated way on his own. As a student, he had never voiced any

nationalistic opinions. Police say Lapshyn insisted that he

had acted alone. He will be sentenced on Friday. In Greece, a

couple have appeared in court charged with that of being a blonde

haired girl named Maria, who is thought to be around six years old.

The child was found during a raid on a Roma community last week, and DNA

tests revealed the child wasn't related to the couple. An appeal for

the child's identity has resulted in more than 8000 calls. Loving

adoptive parents or the abductors of Maria? The first images today of the

couple suspected by police of kidnapping a little girl for unknown

reasons. The 39-year-old male and his partner denied charges of

abduction. They say Maria was given to them by her Bulgarian mother and

-- who couldn't care for her. They were remanded in custody until the

trial. Members of the Roma community rallied in their defence. New

footage appears to show Maria dancing in the village in central

Greece, where she lived. She was originally said to be four years

old, but her birth certificate was falsified and medical tests now

suggest she is five or six. The spot where she lived is near the town

Farsala, a quiet, unassuming place. Today the house was locked up, no

answer at the door, just signs of a child's life strewn across porch. A

neighbour said the couple was taking care of her well. She was crying

when the police took her, she said. So what if she is blonde, she was

their child. But in the next-door shop, Costas told me he found her

present is unusual. I simply don't know how she ended up here, he

said. We just tried to film in the larger Roma community over there but

we were attacked and chased away. They believe they are marginalised

and that negative stereotypes of them will now only be reinforced.

But many Greeks say it is the involvement of some Roma illegal

activity that created that perception in the first place.

Either way, the case of Maria has exposed the lack of social

integration here. So what now for this mysterious case? The charity

that is looking after Maria has had over 8000 calls from 23 countries.

Greece's Prime Minister says the hunt is leading far and wide. We

have sent her DNA to all the police and all the world, so they can make

the procedure easy for anyone who thinks there is some possible

relationship between the little girl and her parents. Widening their

search into other Roma communities, after suspecting similar cases

elsewhere. Several new arrests have been made. What secrets lie in these

deprived areas, and do they hold the key to Maria? More than 60 bushfires

raging in Australia tonight, threatening many homes and in some

cases engulfing entire communities. They are burning across New South

Wales, but the worst affected area is the Blue Mountains west of

Sydney, where it is feared that two fires, one of them spanning 187

miles, could merge. Temperatures of 37 Celsius have been reported and

winds up to 50 mph are fanning the flames. A state of emergency has

been declared. Our correspondent has just sent this report. Around the

clock firefighters here are battling for control. But the task is

massive. The biggest fire in the Blue Mountains has a perimeter

stretching almost 200 miles. Some of the fight is being carried out from

the air. And on the ground, thousands of firefighters, most of

them volunteers. What they are doing is backburning, fighting fire with

fire. Basically, controlled fires to burn off vegetation before the

really dangerous fires can get here. What they are worried about is

if several of these huge blazes merge into one massive fire later in

the week. But the weather isn't helping. Temperatures today rose

into the high 30s. And the real fear is the arrival of strong winds

forecast for Wednesday. Many living here have been watching nervously to

see if the fires can be held at bay. I've been anxious for them to burn,

because then we can stop worrying about it. We've been watching from

over there for two days, it is creeping this way. It was kind of

the sooner they got here, the sooner we could get a nights sleep. And

it's not just his home under threat. Nearby, firefighters

discover a pet possum, injured but still alive. It is not known what

damage the fires have wreaked on this country's unique wildlife.

Hundreds of houses here have already been lost. Families left with

nothing. Many more homes could go before this emergency is over. This

is probably one of the biggest fire situations I've had around here in

the 20 odd years I've been doing it. You don't have multiple fires,

it's usually separate areas on fire. 50 miles away, Sydney, Australia's

biggest city, is cloaked in smoke. It's feared these fires are

uncomfortably close. And all this before summer has even started. The

Co-op group has lost overall control of the cooperative bank in a deal to

save the banking arm of the business. The group had hoped to

retain control of the bank by using a stock market flotation, to plug

its ?1.5 billion debt. Today, US investors secured majority

ownership. The Co-op will keep 30%, the largest single stake. Bosses

insisted the lender would retain ethical values. The US Secretary of

State, John Kerry, says that America is reviewing the way it gathers

intelligence, after France complained about the reported

monitoring of millions of phone calls. The data, based on leaks from

the former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, suggest that French

officials and French companies were monitored, as well as alleged terror

suspects. Our correspondent is in Paris, that's where the remarks were

made. When he talks about reviewing the way it gathers intelligence,

does he say any more about that? It is never easy visiting one of your

key allies on the date you are accused of spying on them. It's

inevitable tonight that John Kerry would be asked a question about the

latest revelations in this scandal. He said tonight it was a balance of

protecting the security and the privacy of our citizens. But clearly

that appertains us much to French citizens as it does to American

citizens. What is particularly shocking about this Le Monde report

today is the depth and scale of it. 17 million phone calls and text

messages over a period of 30 days, from December to January this year.

Intolerable, said the foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. I wonder

how much of that is for public consumption. He will know, as we do

by now, that the French foreign intelligence agencies are involved

in similar activity. But the timing is interesting because the EU

leaders go to a summit on the Digital economy on Thursday. The

French are pushing for much tighter restrictions on data in

telecommunications. In Italy, a memorial service has been held for

hundreds of African migrants who died when their boat sank near the

island of Lampedusa earlier this month. The UN estimates that more

than 30,000 people have risked their lives so far this year, hoping for a

better life in Europe. Many of the migrants come from Eritrea and

Somalia, but now increasing numbers of refugees from Syria are making

the journey to flee that country's Civil War. Many had four ports in

Egypt, including Alexandria, from where our correspondent has sent

this report. Rough seas lashed the shores in Alexandria. For many,

fleeing warfare in Syria this is the gateway to Europe. Smugglers take

them on a perilous voyage. Some pay with their lives. For others, the

dream of escape has ended here in detention. Hundreds are being held

at Egyptian police stations. We managed to film covertly in this

one. Even infants have been detained, like this baby. He has

already been trapped here for a month. This woman is stranded two, a

prisoner of her grief. Wrapped in white, the bodies of three of her

daughters. She wanted to take them to safety in Sweden, but they

drowned ten days ago when a smuggler's vessel sank.

TRANSLATION: I was kicking and kicking and trying to stay afloat. I

looked over and saw my handicapped daughter was gone. She went under

the water, goodbye, my child. My other daughter held onto my neck and

said, where is my sister, did she drowned? I had to tell her she was

saved. Suddenly water came on top of us. I saw three white lights. I

didn't know then my third daughter was also gone. Egypt says Syrian

refugees are being treated decently here, but that's not how it looks.

They say they are being treated like convicts and are facing growing

hostility. More and more Syrians are now fleeing these shores. They say

they were welcomed here in the past under President Mohamed Morsi, but

everything changed when he was ousted in July. Syrians are accused

of backing the Muslim Brotherhood. Many say they have no choice but to

go. This woman is one of them. We are concealing her identity because

she still has family in Damascus. Having fled Syria are almost two

years ago, now she's ready to flee Egypt's. I think the sea will be

more merciful to us than the people here, she says. Once you get to

Europe you become a human being. Now we are not human. She knows she

could be cheated by the traffickers, arrested by the police

or drowned at sea, but better death, she says, than life without dignity.

For the first time, Tesco has published its figures on the food

wastes, and the supermarket disposed of some 30,000 tonnes of food in the

first six months of this year. They also discovered that half of all

bakery items and more than two thirds of salads in barracks were

discarded at some stage in the food process will stop Tesco is to change

some of its displays and end some of its in-store promotions as a result.

A mountain of rubbish, piles of household waste. Look more closely

and you will see about a third biggest food. From not so fresh

fruit and veg to the inevitable bags of salad. Tonnes of it, a never

ending stream of recycling. Whether its potatoes, carrots, leftovers,

gravy, it's all there. At the heart of the matter, the big supermarkets.

Tesco today revealing that dashed back tens of thousands of tonnes of

its food is given to charity and sent for animal food or used to

generate energy. They are trying to make changes. We think we can do

more to help customers to reduce waste, so more of what they buy is

consumed in the home. And also we can help our suppliers. Is

calculator that almost 15 million tonnes of food and drink are wasted

each year by suppliers, retailers and household in the UK. In the

first six months of this yet, Tesco wasted almost 30,000 tonnes. But

households are throwing away less food. In 2011 we wasted 7.2 million

tonnes. That is 13% less than in 2007. Carmen's fridge is typical of

so many. She and her daughter checking out the sell by dates. Not

good news. Two packets of corn on the cob, one from last week and one

from the week before. Part of the problem is overwhelming choice in

the supermarkets. I go shopping and generally tend to buy the same

things each week, they often don't get used. Things like bags of salad,

carrots, broccoli. A big part of this is consumer choice and consumer

behaviour. Perhaps the most obvious way for us to reduce the mountain of

food waste is for all of us to bring home less from the supermarket. But

to seriously tackle the problem would demand changes not only of

consumers but also of the food industry. That is all from us. A

first look at the papers