02/08/2011 BBC News at Six

It's down to the wire. America avoids a national default with just

12 hours to spare. In the last few minutes US Senators

have passed a debt deal that allows the Government to borrow enough to

pay its bills. The White House calls it a victory

for the American people, but where has the crisis left the Obama

presidency and America's reputation?

Confidence here was absolutely very damaged by this spectacle they've

seen in Washington of a significant number of elected officials of this

country threatening default. Also tonight:

Man with a mechanical heart. A UK first as Matthew Green prepares to

go home with an artificial heart. Before I couldn't walk anywhere, I

could hardly climb stairs. Now I have been up and walking out and

getting back to a normal life. Somalia's famine, thousands go

hungry as the Government and rebels fight it out.

A real battle now is to find a way to move across the nearby

frontlines and get the aid to where it's needed most.

One third of primary school children in England failed to make

the grade in the three Rs, but overall there's some progress.

The secret garden, Wrest Park was neglected for decades, now restored

to its 18th century glory. Tonight on BBC London: America's

warning over the capital's plans for a super sewer and we reveal the

winners putting their stamp on the Hello, and welcome to the BBC News

at Six. In the last few minutes Senators have passed a bill that

means the most powerful nation on earth avoids the humiliation of not

being able to pay its bills. Without the new law, which includes

budget cuts, America would have been just hours away from reaching

its debt limit of $14.3 trillion. The compromise deal comes after

weeks of bitter division between Democrats and Republicans and

President Obama has been forced to settle for less than he wanted.

From ABC News... At last the American media has had reason to be

cheerful as a deal to save the United States from defaulting on

its debt goes through. The big vote, it's finely today. The Senate is

expected to follow the House's lead and approve that bill that would

raise the Government's borrowing limit and cut federal spending by

some $2 trillion. Right now President Obama is poised to make a

statement at the White House, now the deal has passed through the

upper House of Congress, the Senate. America's politicians have already

jumped the highest hurdle, getting the agreement through the

Republican dominated House of Representatives, where

Conservatives were bitterly opposed to America taking on more debt. And

it took an emotional appeal from the democratic House leader to win

over liberals anxious about the fallout of spending cuts on the

nation's poorest. Please think of what could happen if we defaulted.

Please, please, please come down in favour of again preventing the

collateral damage from reaching our seniors and our veterans. Every

vote counted. And emotions ran high as democratic Congresswoman

Gabrielle Gifford made her first appearance since she was shot and

left for dead in January. She said matters were so bad she had to come

and vote. The last-minute deal may calm markets, but it doesn't solve

everything, as the US Treasury Secretary admitted, America could

still be on the verge of losing its triple A credit rating. It's not my

judgment to make and and they have to make that judgment, but this is

in some ways a judgment on the capacity of Congress to act and

what this deal does is put us in a much better position to make those

tough choices. A humiliating downgrading would ensure that the

US economy and its failings remain at the top of Washington's

political agenda. In a moment we will talk o our

economics editor Stephanie Flanders, but first Mark Mardell is in

Washington. As we heard, weeks of bitter wrangling over this. Who do

you think are the winners and losers? Well, President Obama has

avoided disaster, so in that very narrow sense he is a winner, it

would have been really awful for America and for him if they had

gone over the cliff in 11 hours' time and hadn't got this deal. I

think really President Obama is a loser, he's been forced off his own

agenda. Remember, he came to office promising hope and change and

talking about spending to stimulate the economy and to change the way

America was. Instead, he's been forced down a path of spending cuts.

He didn't want any of this. He's won some minor victories along the

way, stopped it from being worse for him than it could otherwise

have been, I think the Tea Party are the big winners. They don't

necessarily feel that, but they have forced this on to the agenda

and got a lot of what they wanted. Thank you very much.

So you have the biggest economy in the world pulling back, if you like,

from the brink, is that good news for us or not? It's good news the

slight possibility that the federal Government might have actually

defaulted on its debt, that fear has been lifted, it's obviously

good news. As you have been hearing there's still a reus tbg might lose

its rating in international markets, that might have an impact on us.

What investors are most worried about today and what we should

probably be most worried about is actually the strength of the US

recovery underlying this. We found out recently the US grew by even

slower than we have in the last six months, it's grown by 0.4%, that's

worse than our figures and that's in a year when they haven't been

getting on top of their borrowing. The US accounts for a fifth of the

global economy, it's a big source of our exports, particularly at a

time when there is question marks about the eurozone, lots of

pressure today on Spain and Italy. People are worried when they look

at the deficits coming in, deficit cuts in the US next year, whether

they're looking at an even weaker recovery and that could mean a weak

recovery for us as well, even if this concern about debt has been

lifted. Thank you. In a first for the UK a 40-year-old

-- father who's been critically ill is about to go home after being

given a completely artificial heart. Matthew Green's implant is made of

plastic and metal and it will keep him alive until he gets a human

heart from a suitable donor. The operation was carried out at

Papworth Hospital near Cambridge. Here is our science correspondent

David Shukman. Meet the first man in Britain

walking with a plastic heart. Matthew Green, with his wife Jill

and son Dylan and a bag that's become a new and essential member

of the family, the device that's keeping Matthew alive with a loud

rhythmic beat. Tell me a little bit about how this

extraordinary device is going to change your life. It's going to

revolutionise my life. Before I couldn't walk anywhere, I could

hardly climb stairs, now I have been out to a pub lunch over the

weekend and that felt fantastic to be with normal people again. That's

the alarm that shows that your pressure is a little bit high so we

are going to leave it now. This is the kind of plastic heart with four

valves and two pumping chambers fitted inside Matt aoeu's --

Matthew's chest. Normally this would have to be driven by a huge

pump in hospital, what's new is that Matthew has been given one of

these, a portable pump. It's not light, seven kilos but it does mean

he can get out and about. This animation knows the plastic

heart, here beating in slow motion doing the job of a real one but

it's not meant to be permanent. took us about six hours...

surgeon who fitted the heart here at Papworth Hospital says the aim

is to buy time for Matthew, while he waits for a human heart to be

transplanted. The longest a patient has received and supported by one

of these machines has been over three years, so it does provide

medium to longer term support and this is very important because it

buys us more time to find a suitable heart for Matthew.

latest figures show that 132 people in Britain are hoping for a heart

transplant. But on average, they're waiting six months and while they

do, 15% of them die. So the option of fitting an artificial heart may

be critical, but there are risks. There are almost certainly safer

than the heart they're replacing, but they do have problems. There

are risks of clots and infection. But we know of ways of trying to

get around those and reducing those risks. For Matthew Green and his

family the little bag powering his new heart offers a new lease of

life, his big hope, to go for a bike ride.

A 71-year-old man has become the latest person to be arrested as

part of Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking.

He is understood to be Stuart Kuttner, the former managing editor

of the News of the World. He is the 11th person to be arrested since

police began their latest investigation in January. Our

correspondent Matt Prodger is at Scotland Yard.

Barely a day goes by without another development in the phone

hacking investigation. Today, it was Stuart Kuttner, a veteran of 22

years' service at the News of the World when he left the paper in

2009 as managing editor. We understand he presented himself at

a police station this morning and that police are still questioning

him this evening. This is Stuart Kuttner back in 2009,

telling MPs he may have unknowingly approved cash payments in relation

to phone hacking. A relatively small, but regrettable number of

false cash payments were created and were approved on the whole, not

always, but generally by me. Unknowing. He told them his job as

managing editor was to bridge the gap between journalists and

management at the News of the World. Stuart Kuttner was a high profile

figure at the newspaper. Here he is ten years ago with the family of

murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne, campaigning for a law to name and

shame paedophiles. Sarah's mother last weekend discovered that she

too may have been a victim of phone hacking by the News of the World.

He was once described as the person who came closest to being the DNA

of the organisation, he appeared in public relatively frequently

representing the organisation in the case of Sarah's Law, he did

that, and critically, as the managing editor, that's where the

money goes through. Day by day the number of people arrested in

connection with phone hacking has increased. Among them Andy Coulson,

who resigned as News of the World editor and as the Prime Minister's

director of communications. Rebekah Brooks, his pre-- predecessor. And

three former journalists. Only Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire

have been convicted. This afternoon police arrived at

Stuart Kuttner's home in search of evidence for a criminal

investigation that is still at its early stages, an investigation into

journalists, executives and even the police themselves.

There's been news today about the man who tried to chuck a foam pie

at Rupert Murdoch during the parliamentary hearings. That's

right, just at about the same taoeuplt Stuart -- same time Stuart

Kuttner was arriving at a police station, in Westminster another man

was arriving at court, Jonathan May Bowls, 26 years old from Berkshire,

he had already pleaded guilty to assaulting Rupert Murdoch. If you

cast your mind back to last month during the select committee

proceedings, he he walked to the front of the room, up to the desk

where Rupert Murdoch was sitting and threw a paper plate covered

with shaving foam at him, you will also remember that Rupert Murdoch's

wife leapt to her feet to defend him. Jonathan May Bowls was

sentenced today to six weeks, he will serve three weeks and the

judge said he had disrupted parliamentary proceedings which

were taking place to look into a very serious matter and that he had

shown no respect for the seriousness of that matter. Just to

remind you, that though the phone hacking scandal is a story of high

drama, it has also had its moments of farce.

In Syria, reports from the city of Hama say that people are fleeing to

nearby villages as a Government offensive continues into a third

day. Protesters have accused the Army of shelling and shooting

civilians indiscriminately. More than 100 people were killed in Hama

on Sunday after a major assault. In New York the nights Security

Council is holding a -- nights nights -- Security Council is

holding a second round of emergency talks.

Barclays half-year profits have fallen by a third to just over �2.5

billion. Barclays has announced plans to cut at least another 1400

jobs by the end of this year, bringing the total to 3,000.

One in three children leaving primary school in England don't

have a good grasp of reading, writing and maths, according to

Government figures. Overall, there's been a slight improvement

on last year with 67% of 11-year- olds reaching the expected level.

Our education correspondent Gillian Half-a-million 11 year-olds in

England took tests in May. Today's results show two-thirds of them had

a good grasp of the basics but one in three will start secondary

school this September struggling to meet the Government's standard

known as level four. These children must be fluent in reading by the

time they leave primary school, regardless of their background,

special needs and ability, and it is focusing on how we teach

children to beat in reception and the first year of primary that is

the government focus. Some unions are reluctant to see these results

as a fairly bad teachers. A quarter of schools boycotted the tests

saying they did not give an accurate picture of what children

are capable of. They argue SATs put pressure on pupils, teachers and

that the staff for the curriculum. Teacher assessment is the way to be

clear about what it is that children can do and then to have

sampling tests so that we can ensure that across the system, we

are going in the right direction. With one-third of children

struggling to make the grade, learning to read for pleasure is

what improve standards. Abbeys east London Library, children of all

abilities are encouraged to read at least six books while off from

school and the governments says SATs will continue to be used to

measure their progress. This year's results throw up some interesting

challenges. There has been a drop of 8% in the brightest children

gaining top marks. That might suggest the most clever on not

being stretched. Some boys continued to struggle: One in 10

have a reading age of the seven- year-old when they left primary

school. That means they are at least five years behind many of

their classmates. Some of the most common predictors of students'

success of things like mother's education level, that is the best

predictor, Father's education level, household income. The government

says it will help children by spending more money on the poorest

schools and introducing a new phonics Test at six to identify

pupils to struggle with reading and writing. -- pupils who struggle.

Our top story: US senators have passed a crucial deal on debt.

President Obama said it was important to show America could

live within its means. Coming up: Three days after his

wedding, Mike Tindall talks about his next big day. On Saturday,

against Wales. On BBC London: It is a fixture of

the capital's summer. Why you may have to pay to go to the Notting

Hill Carnival. And the beach volleyball star from

Southend giving up for next year's The United Nations is warning that

more than half-a-million people on now at risk of dying from

starvation across East Africa. With those needing urgent help set to

rise to 15 million. Famine has already been declared in parts of

war-torn Somalia and there are fears that not enough aid will get

across the front line. Andrew Harding is in the capital,

Mogadishu. Yes, this situation is

deteriorating fast. The famine itself seems to be spreading and

Al-Shabab, the militant group who control so much of Somalia, is also

increasingly, we understand, preventing hungry families from

getting out, to Kenya, Ethiopia and Mogadishu. Some viewers may find

some of this report distressing. Visiting Mogadishu? It is best to

be prepared. We are heading into a city that has forgotten the meaning

of safety. It is our gunmen against the rest. Neither front line, we

find the famine's latest fugitives. Tens of thousands have come here,

seeking food and hoping for security. They are in bad shape.

The familiar images, as shocking as above. Twins here, both fighting

for life. Their mothers, all of the mothers, have fled from territory

controlled by the Islamist group, Al-Shabab.

TRANSLATION: The militants killed my son, they tied him up and shot

him because they was -- he was carrying a bag of food aid and they

said it came from the infidels. world is getting more supplies into

Mogadishu now. Soup kitchens in every district. But it is not hear

that Somalia's famine must be defeated. This is an almost

impossibly difficult, dangerous place for foreigners to operate.

You can see how much security we need just to move around the centre

of Mogadishu and the real battle is to find a way to move across the

nearby frontline and get the aid to where it is needed most. Here is

one way. UN food, block by Al- Shabab, is handed over to trusted

local charities that do have access throughout Somalia. Everybody knows

us, we are confident we can deliver food to anywhere in the country,

especially in the south. So this could be the solution to end the

famine? In a wave. One of them. one of them. They need is

overwhelming here but the politics is messy. Somalia is not an easy

place to help. So for all the many organisations

trying to help this region, money is still an issue but the big

concerns are a lack of time to help those already staffing and a lack

of access to the heart, the growing heart, of Somalia's famine.

More than 2000 charities across England have had their funding cut

or completely withdrawn by local councils, according to research

from a union-backed anti-cuts campaign. Charities helping the

children and the elderly are affected. Councils blame reductions

in their budgets but ministers He has come for welfare advice, one

of 700 new clients this centre has taken on over the last year in east

London. But his adviser is about to deliver some bad news. I am sorry

to let you know that this service is coming to an end because the

funding is ending in two weeks. Closing this advice centre at the

very time the government is bringing in major changes to

welfare benefits is causing more people to have more problems and

they will end up with no way to go. Local government funding was

absolutely vital to this centre in the heart of one of the poorest

boroughs in the country. It is one of more than 2000 charities that

has either theme its funding cut or even withdraw altogether. But

today's figures are just a snapshot. Many believe that the cuts to the

voluntary sector will be far deeper. Nearby, these elderly residents

were enjoying their heatwave but funding for this drop in centre is

only guaranteed until next April. don't know what I will do to be

honest. I don't. I am on my own. Most of us are. I have met some

nice people since I have been here and come to the centre. About a

quarter of all charities get some funding by the state and cash-

strapped councils like here, Tower Hamlets, are being forced to spend

less. It is tough times but by contrast, the government is seeking

to help charities. We have set up a �100 million transition fund which

is already existing nearly 1,000 charitable and voluntary

organisations. But back at the debt centre, they are already packing up.

The government hopes its "big society" plans will eventually

create more opportunities for charities. The question is, how

many of them will be around to take advantage?

Most newly weds would be relaxing on a beach by now but not Zara

Phillips and Mike Tindall. The honeymoon is on hold. They both

returned to their professional sports careers.

He may be the newest member of the Royal Family but for Mike Tindall,

it was back to the day-job as the rugby star resumed training. At the

same time, his new wife also returned to work. A professional

horse rider launching a range of equestrian clothing. Just three

days after the Queen's granddaughter married her fiance in

Edinburgh. Both of us are back to work and that is what we do.

Unfortunately we are in the middle of the season. We will keep

working! I knew I had to come back and put the work in and hopefully

get picked. Does it help that your new wife is also a professional

sports person was mad yes. It was a no-brainer. She has got a big

competition this week. It fitted him perfectly. We will sort a

honeymoon out later. Mike Tindall has been a key player in the

England side for more than a decade, winning the World Cup in 2003, and

some of his team-mates from the trial for among the guests at his

wedding. The wedding is still the best day

of my life. For Zara Phillips, it is all about next summer's Olympic

Games. For her husband, more immediate concerns. Last weekend,

Mike Tindall's private life was the centre of attention but this

Saturday, it will be his professional life, as he and his

team-mates come here to take on Wales as part of the country's

World Cup preparations. It has been described as Britain's

biggest secret garden. For the first time in half a century, Wrest

Park in Bedfordshire has reopened to the public. Designed nearly 300

years ago, it was neglected, but now it has been restored to its

former glory. From an orangery, a Chinese bridge

and temple, to canals. Wrest Park's designers were the best in their

day. To help them, as this photo from 1890 shows, there was a garden

work force of 30 men but a change in ownership last century left the

part in a state of neglect. When English Heritage took ownership

five years ago, they started to restore the park so that it can

once again reclaim its place as one of the great gardens of England.

What makes it important is that you can walk through 300 years of

Garden History at Wrest Park. There is element of each of those major

centuries that you can still see in their original form. Gardiner spent

weeks over winter digging up this lawn, which should never have been

there, to revert the rose garden -- gardeners. The Italian garden,

which had been planted with dreary plants, now looks like this,

transformed to its original 1882 design. And the lake has been

restored to its 18th century appearance with gravel paths.

Gardener and broadcaster Matthew Biggs believes the work being done

will return the gardens to how the original owners had envisaged them.

The de Greys wanted to make this wonderful landscape and we are

going to see it again. How exciting is that! That is why everybody

should come and have a glimpse. Gardens are for everyone. You one

of the restoration project is complete, at the cost of �4 million,

1 million of which was a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Just 90

more used to go until Wrest Park is truly restored to their splendour

of centuries past -- just 19 more used to go.

We have seen the two faces of the Close to an inch of rain in eastern

Scotland. The emphasis for the wet weather is changing. Anywhere from

the Home Counties, Yorkshire commit East Anglia and overnight, some

pretty intense thunderstorms are rumbling around. It will be a very

misty and Monday-night. -- Monday- night. If you downpours across

Yorkshire first thing tomorrow. The heat will be building once again.

We could see it a few showers in Dorset but across much of the south

coast, it will be a bright day. Come inland though, perhaps up to

30 degrees, and that could set off a few afternoon thunderstorms. Some

of those will be torrential. But many of you will stay dry. Scotland

will be having a brighter day tomorrow and filling warmer. Be

fine day across Northern Ireland as well. The sunshine will turn hazy

across Wales. Only a small risk of a shower in Wales and the south-

west of England. But that will change from tomorrow night. Heavy

rain starting to work its way up from the south-west and through

Thursday that will push its way through many parts of Wales and