13/09/2011 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at 10: Taliban fighters bring chaos to Kabul, raising new

questions about security. The gun battle is still going on after

militants target the US embassy and NATO headquarters. The

international force hits back and NATO says the plans to handle the

security will not be disrupted. Taliban tried to test transition,

but are they can't stop it. Transition is on track and it will

continue. We will have the latest from Kabul, where at least seven

people have died in the violence. On the eve of another strike ballot

on pensions, union members reject the advice of the Labour leader.

do believe it was a mistake for strikes to happen last summer, and

I continue to believe that. months after the tsunami and

nuclear crisis, we go back to one of the worst affected Japanese

towns. I will be reporting from the

nuclear ghost town of Japan. Radiation levels are surprisingly

low but when will it be saved to return?

The British man who gave the world papa it has died.

I will be here with Sportsday on the BBC News Channel, including the

best of the action in the Champions' League with Chelsea and

Good evening. There's renewed concern about the stability of

Afghanistan following a wave of attacks by Taliban fighters in the

centre of Kabul. The targets include NATO headquarters and the

US embassy. The attacks have raised new questions about the ability of

the Afghan security forces to take over the country's security, but

NATO says the strategy will not be disrupted. Our correspondent

Quentin Sommerville was in the centre of Kabul when the attacks

started and he sent this report. Running for cover. Running from the

Taliban were sold in the heart of Kabul's embassy district. The

police opened fire on the attackers above them. The Taliban brought an

arsenal of weapons with them, here in one of the busy streets in the

city a rocket lands. There was gunfire or around the area. This is

the US embassy over here, and ISAF headquarters. It seems like a

significant attack. Gunfire broke out across the neighbourhood, we

headed for cover. The target was the US embassy. Guards took up

positions on the roof, Inside staff scrambled for cover. NATO soldiers

joined the Afghan police. This residential area became a war-zone.

Afghan and international soldiers side-by-side, taking aim at the

Taliban hiding inside the building. The gunfire was heavy and sustained.

Attack helicopters were called in to fire on the insurgents. This

attack started with a suicide bomber at the Abdul Haq roundabout.

Militants then fired on the US embassy and the ISAF headquarters.

They fired from a building which was still under construction.

Across the city, a police station and the airport were also attacked.

The Taliban fought on. 10 hours later, at least one fighter is

still a live in the building. Afghan security forces needed

foreign help. They reacted quickly, they brought helicopters in, which

is the first time Afghan security forces used their own helicopters

for an operation like this. They responded well. ISAF helped them

and it seems as if the situation is under control. The attack would

have likely lasted longer without that assistance. ISAF says it has

the Taliban on its back but, but in Kabul people feel that assessment

seems optimistic. The assault is the latest in a

series of attacks that have undermined the fragile sense of

security in Kabul. In August militants killed eight people at

the headquarters of the British Council, and in June suicide

bombers managed to get inside the Intercontinental Hotel. This latest

assault will prompt questions about how a handful of Taliban fighters

managed to launch such a prolonged attack. Here's our security

correspondent, Frank Gardner. It has become a familiar sight, a

truck bomb exploding last weekend at a NATO base in northern

Afghanistan, killing five. This was, until recently, a largely safe area.

No longer. Taliban have crept ever closer to the capital, Kabul. They

can't capture it but they are doing their best to make the transition

from NATO to Afghan control look doomed. We are witnessing that the

Taliban are trying to test transition, but they can't stop it.

Transition is on track, and it will continue. That is because political

decisions have been taken to speed up the training of Afghan troops

and handover security to them. NATO says it can't troops performed well

today. Afghan troops and their NATO allies were also -- always going to

beat back this attack, but this was not about taking territory. The

insurgents wanted to prove they could puncture ISAF defences.

Coalition casualties have been rising steadily until this year.

Neither side can win outright so what are the Taliban trying to

achieve with these attacks? I think what they tried to do is

demonstrate internally in Afghanistan and externally in the

United States and elsewhere that they still have sufficient

capability to maintain not only a presence, but a real threat to the

government in Afghanistan. Which is why peace talks with the Taliban

are inevitable. 10 years ago they were beaten, now they are to be

given an office for negotiations. The chairman of News International

James Murdoch has agreed to return to Westminster to answer further

questions about phone hacking. He has been recalled by MPs on the

Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It follows his appearance with his

father in July when he insisted he was not aware of widespread

problems at the News Of The World until earlier this year.

The Boundary Commission for England has published proposals for the

biggest redrawing of the electoral map in a generation. The number of

MPs at Westminster will be cut to 600. England will lose 31 seats,

and Northern Ireland two seats. All seats will now be roughly the same

size, with around 76,000 voters in each one.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has angered some trade union members by

criticising the strikes held in June about pension reform. He was

heckled in London when he warned unions they have to change or risk

being sidelined. Three unions are expected to announce tomorrow they

will be asking members to undertake further strikes in November.

He had not seen nothing yet, that is the message from public sector

unions to the government. Tomorrow, Britain's biggest unions look set

to announce they are balloting their members for more strikes. The

cause - cuts d'etre pensions. -- to their pensions. Ed Miliband came to

give his first speech as Labour leader to the TUC conference. He

was determined to prove he was his own man. They understand why

millions of decent public sector workers are angry, but while

negotiations were going on I do believe it was a mistake for

strikes to happen last summer. And I continue to believe that. They

didn't like that one bit. Negotiations with the government

over pensions, they say, are effectively over. No, they are not!

There was more to come. There are cuts the Tories will impose which

we can't reverse in government, and it is straighter for me to say that

to you now. I am very angry that Ed Miliband, who after all is part of

the Labour Party, the leader of the Labour Party which is a child of

the trade unions, will not defend a or right to strike. Labour leaders

are not normally heckled here, but Ed Miliband will not mind that. If

it conveys the message he wants to get over, that he understands

workers' anger but he also knows the public don't want to see their

lives disrupted by strike action. Tomorrow this conference will

debate pensions. Union leaders whose members have not taken strike

action until now are preparing to announce that they do now plan to

ballot their members. It is the biggest ballot that will have ever

been undertaken in this country for industrial action but we have no

choice. I wasn't expecting him to be on the picket line next time we

take strike action. He said don't strike while there are negotiations.

And it will be interesting what his position will be after the

negotiations. It strikes follow, there could be more days for Ed

Miliband which will be much more uncomfortable than today. How did

it feel to be heckled by the TUC? came here with some positive

messages and tough messages, and frankly that is my job. I tell

things as I see them. Tonight in north London, strike has protested

against the sell-off of council services and the threat to their

pensions. They think the public is on their side. The question is, is

Ed Miliband? Let's look ahead and consider what

those big unions might be saying tomorrow. Our industry

correspondent is that the TUC. What can we expect? It does look

increasingly likely tonight that some of those big unions will

announce plans to ballot members on strike action tomorrow. The news

could come on the big debate in pensions in the morning, or later

in the day in a key meeting. By close of play tomorrow, it is

likely we will have had this decision. The significance of this

moment is it changes the dispute from one that involved hundreds of

thousands of workers to one that could involve over a million

workers. Plans for a strike in November are pretty advanced at the

moment but a senior union leader has told the BBC there could be

several one-day strikes in the future. That raises the prospect of

some more serious and widespread industrial action that have seen in

Britain for years. Coming up: why giving children what

they want may not be the best way to make them happy.

Higher energy bills and the rising cost of clothing have helped to

push up inflation once again. Government's preferred measure, the

consumer prices index, increased to 4% last month. Experts are

predicting the figure will rise further because of higher gas and

Half slowdown? What slowdown? You could not see much consumer boom in

East London this morning, when Europe's biggest urban shopping

centre opened for business. In a sense, we are spending more, which

is not getting -- we are just not getting much more in return. The

main measure of inflation rose to 4.5% last month, the highest in

nearly three years. The broader RPI measure also rose to 5.2%. The

price of clothing has helped push up the figures, up by a record 5.2%

in the past year. Almost the only thing that is cheaper now than it

was then is Your TV. Prices in the electronics category are down by

11.5%. The squeeze on consumers has been good for business at discount

stores like this one, but with rising prices, Poundland does not

want to become �1.50 land. A good example would be 1.5 kilos of sugar,

which we sold for �1. The prize went so high that we could not do

that and maintain the value. And we were not prepared to offer a

product that was not amazing value, so that has been delisted. There

was a lone voice for higher interest rates on the Bank of

England's Monetary Policy Committee. He has not changed his mind.

Consumers cannot move forward in their spending or increase the

amount of things they want to buy in an environment of higher

inflation. That is one of the ways in which inflation can be bad for

growth in the shorter term. When we look at the weakness of growth in

the economy, we need to recognise that the rise in inflation and the

relatively high rate of inflation is contributing to that. Andrew was

inside the bank. He said they were underestimating the risk of high

and rising inflation. On that, he has turned out to be right. But

others said the true risk was of slow growth. Unfortunately, they

have turned out to be right as well. The economy is pretty weak. We are

not in a recession, but we are risking at least one quarter of

falling output. We think economic growth this year will be only 1%.

We do not want to see it any worse. Rising gas and electricity prices

are likely to push inflation up to 5% by the end of the year. But it

is too late for the Bank of England to do anything about that. The

debate now is whether it should do more to support the recovery.

British children are among the least happy in the developed world,

and the reason, according to the charity UNICEF UK, is a lack of

contact with parents and too much emphasis on material gain. UNICEF

published its first findings four years ago, and has now investigated

the prime cause of children's unhappiness.

Mariana is 7 1/4. Like most little girls of her age, her world is

filled with pink plastic. Our culture of materialism ships the

play and the lives of our children. But according to the United Nations

children's fund UNICEF, in Britain, it distorts the relationship

parents have with their kids. Obviously for her, a trip to

toyshops is a big thing. She will say, I want that. I want that one.

The UNICEF research suggests that British parents want to be good

parents, but they are not sure how. They find they are often too busy

or too exhausted to engage with their children, so they compensate

by buying them toys and gadgets and cloves. -- clothes.

A Norwich took part in the UNICEF project, which painted a picture of

British life in which parents trade quality time with their children

for the money to buy cupboards full of expensive toys. Although she has

always strived to make time to play with her daughter, the project made

her re-evaluate her own priorities. The were times when I was chatting

to friends or my mother and saying I feel so guilty that I do not have

the time to spend with my daughter. That was one big issue for me. I

felt awful. I do not feel so bad now. The research team compared

British parents with their counterparts in Sweden and Spain,

and found, in their words, a stark contrast. In other European

countries, family time is given greater importance. We need to

support families, who are under so much pressure. In Sweden, for

example, they try to protect families against commercial

pressures by having a ban on advertising aimed at children under

12 years old. We could consider that. Four years ago, UNICEF

sparked national soul-searching with analysis showing child well-

being in the UK at the bottom of a league of developed nations. This

year, they recruited 14-year-old Vanessa to an international panel

of young people, in the hope of understanding why British

children's happiness lags behind. It is great if you spend more time

with them. You have got to make a child emotionally happy as well as

physically happy, if that makes sense. For this family, happiness

is playing together with toys they have made themselves from old

cardboard boxes. But today's report says that for many parents, such

simple pleasures prove too difficult. Our children want our

time, but instead we buy them things.

Six months ago, emergency workers in Japan were launching their

desperate fight to control the nuclear power station at Fukushima.

Three of the reactors were overheating and a vast cloud of

radioactivity had escaped, following the powerful earthquake

and tsunami. More than 100,000 people living within 12 miles of

the plant were ordered to leave their homes. Our science

correspondent is one of the few journalists to have ventured back

to the deserted town of Tomioka. The nuclear ghost town of Tomioka.

We have arrived in a long street of shops, and there is no one here. We

are a few miles inside the exclusion zone. A radioactive cloud

blew over here six months ago, but experts have assured us that

radiation levels have now fallen. A local farmer has slipped us past

security. This is the main street? It is completely empty. He wants us

to see how his community has suffered. We find that it was hit

by the earthquake and the tsunami, and then by the leap from the

Fukushima power station. This used to be a town of 16,000. This is the

main street. But as you can see, it is completely deserted. Motorbikes

abandoned, shops completely empty. No traffic at all. Weeds growing up

in this forecourt. A shop wrecked in the earthquake still completely

untouched. And all the time that we have been here, the radiation level

has been surprisingly low. The problem is this. If you get down to

ground level, it shoots up. No problem for us on a very quick

visit. But what scientists are wrestling with is have dangerous

this contamination is and will continue to be in the long term. It

was back in March that explosions at the nuclear power plant released

radioactive material. The leaks contaminated some areas more

severely than others, but everyone within 12 miles of this devastation

was ordered out. This man decided to stay on. He does not bother with

protective clothing. In the ruins of a farm, spiders have taken over.

Their webs stretch of everything, but he clears a path for us. He

wants to show us something. This is a distressing sight. It is a cattle

shed. The owners left in such a hurry that they were not able to

release their animals. Here are two that have died. In each of these

pens, there are two more, making a total of 60. Some animals broke

free and are roaming wild. The farmer tries to care for a new

generation born in the nuclear zone. He wants to keep his community

going. TRANSLATION: There is no

electricity, gas or water. But all the people still want to

come back. Even my mother and father. Their wish is to die here.

After three hours here, we check our radiation dose. It is roughly

half what you get from a chest X- ray. The farmer refuses to think

about radiation. He is determined to stay on. But he lives by

candlelight. Most of his food is tinned. A dog is his only companion.

He wants his town to return to normal, but it will be a long wait.

A team of British detectives has arrived in Kenya to help

investigate the murder of the British tourist David Tebbutt and

the kidnap of his wife. The Foreign Office says it's concerned for the

safety of Judith Tebbutt, who was taken by armed men reportedly

heading towards Somalia. Her husband, a publishing executive

from Hertfordshire, was shot dead by the gang.

In football, the group stage of the Champions League got under way

tonight, with both Chelsea and Arsenal taking on German opposition.

In Germany, Arsene Wenger was seething silently. Banned from

communicating with his Arsenal team. Robin Van Persie operated on

instinct, having won the ball, he ran forward to receive it. It

worked nicely. Hopefully, under UEFA rules, Wenger is still allowed

to applaud. 87 minutes gone, Arsenal still winning their fragile

confidence rebuilding. Then this, an unstoppable way for Dortmund

Borussia to draw the game. Chelsea's �15 million failure is

the description Fernando Torres is trying to avoid. He is trying too

hard against Bayer Leverkusen. Boyish and their Villas-Boas is the

latest manager to try to meet Roman Abramovich's European expectations.

After a goalless hour, he was thankful for the defending of David

Lewis. The perfect ending might have been a Torres goal. He did all

the hard work for the new signing. And the win is what really matters.

Richard Hamilton, one of the most influential British artists of the

past century, has died at the age of 89. He is widely regarded as the

inventor of pop art. Hamilton produced paintings, prints and

sculptures, but will be best remembered as the master of collage.

The art work that made Richard Hamilton's name. It is a collage he

produced in 1956, with cuttings from magazines featuring glamourous

images from modern life. The idea was to blur the line between high

and low culture. Pop art had arrived. Richard Hamilton might

have referenced consumerism in his work, but he was not a frivolous

man. He was an intellectual, deeply concerned with the world in which

he lived. He was one of the most influential artists of the post-war

period, admired by the likes of Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. But

he was always modest when talking about his own career. When I look

back on it now, it has got its ups and downs. But when I look at a

retrospective exhibition, I think I did pretty well on the whole.

work was to become one of the defining images of the 1960s. It is

of what Robert Fraser, Hamilton's art dealer, and the singer Mick

Jagger, handcuffed and shielding their faces from the paparazzi,

having been arrested on drugs charges. Like much of his art, it

is an entertaining image that packs a powerful political punch. His

work has been exhibited internationally and has had a

significant impact. contribution was enormous. He has

made critical art works, but he has also set an example for how artists

go about questioning the world around them. Richard Hamilton, who

was working on a new exhibition when he died, will be greatly

missed, particularly by the many artists around the world who he