22/04/2013 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten, a minute's silence in Boston, marking a week since the

bomb attack on the city's marathon. The city fell silent in memory of

the three people killed and the dozens injured in the attacks last

Monday. Earlier, they had held the first of the victims' funerals. The

surviving suspect, who is in hospital, has been charged and he

could face the death penalty. will prosecute this terrorist threw

our civilians system of justice. And tonight, police in Canada say

they have prevented a terrorist attack linked to al-Qaeda and

arrested two men. We will have the latest. Also in the programme...

Nurses' leaders say they are hugely disappointed by plans to make

trainee nurses gain experience as healthcare assistants. Inside Burma,

the violence spreads but the EU lifts the majority of sanctions.

Will Britain suffer a triple-dip recession? Why North Sea oil and

gas might hold the key. And a hat- trick by Van Persie secures a 20th

league title for United. Coming up in Sportsday on the BBC News

Channel, Luis Suarez is charged by the FA for biting a Chelsea player.

Liverpool say they still want to Good evening. A week after the

Boston bombings, the surviving suspect has been charged with

conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who

is 19, could face the death penalty if he is convicted. In Boston and

other American cities, people have observed a minute's silence to mark

the moment when the attacks This was Boston at 2:50pm this

afternoon, one week to the minute after the bombs went off. A brief

and painful moment's silence, as one of America's biggest cities all

but stopped. Office workers left their desks, flags hovered at half

staff, as the city remembered a terrible week. One week ago, a

young woman, Krystle Campbell, went to watch the marathon tower here on

a friend. Today, she was buried, one of three killed in the attack.

Friends and relatives came to say goodbye. Her parents said simply,

we are devastated. Central Boston was packed with people on marathon

day. No-one could have imagined what would happen next. Police say

two men had mingled with the crowd, placing backpacks with presser

cookers inside, packed with explosives, designed to cause death

and serious injury. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with

using a weapon of mass destruction. If found guilty, he will face life

in prison or the death penalty. His older brother was killed in a gun

battle with the police on Friday. Last year he had gone to Russia and

the Caucasus, raising questions about who he met and whether he was

radicalised there. Crucially, even though the FBI had spoken to him,

they knew nothing about this trip because his name was misspelt.

went to Russia, and apparently, the misspelling of his name was such

that he did not pop up in the system. Did he in turn chilly spell

his name wrong way, or did the Russian airline get it wrong? I do

not know. This time last week, this area was packed with thousands of

runners and spectators. What followed will forever be remembered

as one of Boston's darkest hours. Slowly, the barricades are being

removed, and the streets are reopening, but life here feels very

far from normal. An impromptu memorial near the site of the

bombings grows by the day. I spoke to someone this weekend who grew up

in Belfast and he said, they were so used to this. It is another eye-

opener for us. Could kick it is absurd, I ran the Boston marathon

in 1990... It is very sad. It has been a week of tears and unanswered

questions. In a country that often feels immune to the outside world,

what happened here has unsettled many in America. More details are

coming in from Canada, where police say they have foiled a plot linked

to al-Qaeda to bomb a passenger train. Our North America editor,

Mark Mardell, is in Washington tonight. What have we learned?

Canadian police are saying that with the help of the FBI, they have

arrested two men and stopped a plot to blow up a passenger train which

we think was going to be travelling between Toronto and New York. They

say an attack was not imminent, the route had been identified, rather

than a specific train, but the men had the capacity and the intent to

do this murderous act. The Canadians will not say why they

were in the country, but they are not Canadians. The most intriguing

part is that they say they have got support from Al-Qaeda, direction

and guidance, from Al-Qaeda in Iran, which is bizarre on the face of it.

You would have thought that Al- Qaeda and Iran were the deadliest

of enemies. In fact in the past, Iran has sheltered elements of Al-

Qaeda under semi-house arrest. The American authorities have accused

Iran of helping Al-Qaeda to the limited extent of allowing fighters

and money to move through its territories. This will be raising

very serious questions, and there will be hard questions for Iran

from America. The Health Secretary has criticised the main nursing

union the Royal College of Nursing for their response to some of the

planned reforms following the scandal at Stafford Hospital. The

RCN says plans to make trainee nurses gain basic experience as

healthcare assistants are "hugely disappointing", but Jeremy Hunt

said it was all about improving patient care. Our health

correspondent, Dominic Hughes, Providing dignified and

compassionate care is a fundamental part of nursing. But when that

culture of care fails, as it did at Stafford Hospital, the consequences

can be devastating. As part of its response to the Francis Inquiry

into the stuff for disaster, ministers suggested that would-be

nurses should spend a year working as care assistants, much longer

than the minimum three months recommended by the Francis Inquiry.

Nurses' leaders say it looks like a policy drawn up on the back of a

number lope. Who is going to employ these tens of thousands of health

care assistants, who is going to monitor them, who is going to make

the decision at the end of the year that they are now fit and

appropriate to go forward to nurse training? These are reasonable

questions which to date nobody in government has been able to answer.

But there will College of Nursing stands accused of a conflict of

interest. With the Prime Minister backing the health care assistant

scheme, the Health Secretary says the RCN itself has questions to

answer. They have trade union responsibilities for the nursing

profession, but they also have responsibilities as a Royal College

to raise professional standards, which is what did not happen. They

need to be very careful about criticising the Government for

accepting what Robert Francis said needs to happen, when they have

failed to respond to some serious criticisms themselves. This

political row reflects an underlying tension over the future

direction of the national health Service in England. There is

another big worry for nurses - declining staff levels, and the

impact on patient safety. An RCN impact on patient safety. An RCN

survey of more than 2000 nurses reveals concerns about staff

numbers. Almost three-quarters were not confident that staffing levels

were always safe, and of these, three out of four felt levels

In some places, the number of nurses has stayed the same, but the

amount of work they are doing has gone up considerably. It feels like

it is getting increasingly dangerous. There is not enough

staff in the wards, it is happening all the time the Government the

Government says it is up to each trust to decide on appropriate

staffing levels. Pilot projects are planned, but the RCN predicts that

the policy will be dead within a year.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, says he is "appalled" by

reports that more than 100 people were killed by Syrian government

forces in a suburb of the capital, Damascus. One opposition group has

put the number of dead at nearly 500. The Syrian government says its

troops have been carrying out an offensive against "terrorists" in

two districts of the city, and has blamed the killings on rebel forces.

Our Middle East editor, Jeremy We're using these state TV pictures

of the aftermath of the fighting because the authorities here did

not allow the BBC to visit the town - Syrian television said local

people welcomed the elimination of terrorists in Jdaidet al-Fadel,

including foreign jihadists. What is not clear is how many died.

Civilians as well as rebel fighters are believed to have been among the

casualties. The rebel fighters were still showing defiance by YouTube

last week. Opposition sources called it a massacre. Britain

condemned the Assad regime. world has failed so far in its

responsibilities to the Syrian people. This is a barbaric way of

waging any conflict. It should be absolutely unacceptable to the

world. This is just outside Damascus, close to the fighting,

where 120,000 Syrians are sheltering, having been displaced

from their homes. The numbers are such that the UN's monthly food

rations for one family are being split between three. Two years ago,

the UN world Food Programme was feeding 100,000 inside Syria. Now,

it is more than two million, and they are planning on four million

by the end of the year. Millions are trapped in this war, sometimes

fearing both sides. This shopping mall is one of the best is places

here. -- one of the better places here. Two families, 19 people,

sleeping in one space. This man says he is worried about the kids.

They are all stressed and they have to be patient, he says. We cannot

deliver what these people really need, which is peace. Everybody

living here has moved two or three times from their homes in the far

north-east of this country, they have come here, and all they want

to do is go home to their land and look after their children under

families. Attempts at the United Nations to find a political

solution to the war have not got off the starting line because the

big Western powers, Britain, France and the United States, cannot find

enough common ground with the Russians, who support President

Assad. Even if they could make an agreement, there is no guarantee

that it would work. The most likely outcome at the moment for Syrians

is a long and hard descent into something even worse than they have

Massive increases in health spending would not be possible if

Labour win the next election, according to Ed Miliband. He spoke

to Nick Robinson, the first of a series of interviews with the main

Westminster party leaders ahead of next month's elections.

It is back, the soap box, but who is following in John Major's

footsteps? I will tell you what we are campaigning on in local

elections. Ed Miliband says we have to try something to break down

barriers between politicians and the people. You can watch me and

David Cameron shouting at each other in the House of Commons once

a week and it is pretty boring and it does not tell us much about

politics. We have to do something different and that is why I am here.

In Lancashire and elsewhere, the public need to know what he is for,

not just what he is against. That is the advice of Tony Blair, John

Reid and David Blunkett, and other former Labour ministers. People say

that Ed Miliband is struggling to connect with the electorate, we can

see it in the opinion polls. He is trying what John Major tried.

people take their own views. I have tried a different way of

communicating with people. You are struggling a bit, aren't you? The

economy is in a dreadful state and the Labour Party is barely ahead.

don't see it that way. After La Caixa retirement village, the

Labour leader spoke about how to look after the elderly outside

expensive hospitals, saving the NHS money. Ed Miliband. Hello.

party is setting up a commission into how to integrate health and

social care. We are not here for votes. We are here to understand

because this is a great example of the way people can live

independently when they are all there. How to govern when there is

no money is the question Labour finds hardest to answer. People are

saying that they would like a Labour Government to do what they

did before, spending more on the health service, unprecedented

increases, but it will be very difficult next time. I am saying to

people that there will not be a lot of money to spend. So does spending

go up or is it the same as the coalition Government's plans?

will look at what the coalition Government set out and look at our

own plans before the election. People are saying that you will not

be any different, so why can you not answer the simple question of

spending more? We have to set out our spending plans before the

election. There are concerns that only those already with Labour

support him. Others tell him that the public is not clear what the

talk of a new economic settlement really means. This is his answer.

have a different way forward. We have to back the money. That means

getting the people that do not go to university proper qualifications.

Let's get the banking system working. A different way of running

the economy compared to the past. So what did people make of the

Miliband message before the polls? Did it feel like different

politics? Same as before. We have heard it all, promises, promises.

Is he up to being Prime Minister? hope so. Do you hope so or do

believe it? I do believe, yes. Fingers crossed? Yes. It is not the

soapbox that wins the election, but as John Major could tell Ed

Miliband, popular policies on things like tax and spending. For

Labour that is still work in progress.

The European Union has lifted all sanctions against Burma apart from

arms sales in response to recent political reforms in the country.

It warned that Burma needed to address significance challenges,

especially regarding its minority Muslim communities. Since military

rule ended, religious and community tensions have boiled over, starting

in western Burma, where hundreds have been killed and 125,000 people

from the Rohingyas Muslims have been displaced. The authorities

have been accused of complicity. The violence has now spread to

central Burma. Looming over Burma. Pylons that

targets a minority and threatens the future of our nation. --

violence. These images were filmed last month. Mobs ransacking a

Muslim gold shop. Buddhist monks stirred sectarian hatred against

Muslims. After news spread that a man had been killed, there was more

violence. A man, badly burned, lies on the ground. The image is too

graphic to show. The instinct of The police, heavily outnumbered,

stand by. On the second day, police reinforcements are here, but the

killing and burning go on. A young man is dragged out and hacked to

death. Violence against Muslims first erupted last June, when

thousands of people were driven from their homes in western Burma.

Our report by Human Rights Watch accuses the Government of ethnic

cleansing of the minority Rohingyas Muslims. What we have found is that

the Burmese Government and security forces are responsible for attacks

on Rohingyas Muslims in which crimes against a manatee were

committed. -- against humanity. We want to know who should be

prosecuted for those crimes, including members of command.

Government rejected the allegations, which came as the EU announced it

was dropping most sanctions against Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi told me by

telephone that she supported the lifting of sanctions. You will be

aware that there are groups that so it is premature to allow the

dropping of sanctions when there is so much violence in the country.

do not that we should to link economic sanctions to the violence,

which have a lot to do with rule of law and of the socio-political

problems. We cannot go on relying on sanctions for ever to aid the

democracy movement. The Government, the opposition and the

international community are now focused on the presidential

elections of 2015. There is danger that in -- the violence can

overturn the promise of freedom. A woman has denied deliberately

starting a fire which killed five members of the same family in North

Wales. 43 year-old Melanie Smith is accused of deliberately setting

fire to a push chair in a shared hallway. Lee-Anna Shiers, her son,

nephew and niece and her partner Liam Timbrell all died as a result

of the blaze. The Liverpool player Luis Suarez

has been charged with violent conduct by the Football Association

for biting an opponent. The striker has previously been involved in

some controversy and could face another long ban. He has been fined

by Liverpool, but they insist he has a future at the club.

It was a moment that left football open mouth. Luis Suarez sank his

teeth into Branislav Ivanovic's arm and the impact had only just begun.

With sport united in disbelief, Luis Suarez has been fined by his

club. Despite the condemnation, Liverpool say they are not getting

rid of him. We have to work with him on his is a plain but he is a

very important player to the club. -- on his discipline. He is popular

with his team mates. We would love to see him here throughout his

contract. Luis Suarez now faces his latest lengthy ban. He got seven

matches for biting an opponent at his previous club Ajax, and eight

last season for racially abusing Patrice Evra. Today the players

union said they would be offering him anger management counselling.

Liverpool were criticised for defending the Luis Suarez and the

racism row and this time they have taken swift action. -- for

defending Luis Suarez in the racism row. But this is another day does

controversy. Luis Suarez has brilliance as well as baggage. Fans

are divided over his conduct. saluted disgusting but football is

driven by money, greed. -- absolutely disgusting. There were

no marks on his arm. It was playful. He should have nothing done to him.

But the FA said that the three- match ban for violent conduct would

be insufficient. It seems that Luis Suarez's season may have ended in

shame and disgrace. The latest key evidence of the

state of the British economy will be made available later this week.

The big question is whether growth in out put has come out of negative

territory, avoiding a triple dip recession. Becky the sector is the

production of oil and gas. We report from Aberdeen. -- a key

sector. There are long time, oil and gas

and was an economic security blanket, making the economy looked

stronger than it was, but no more. We will find out whether the

British economy carried on shrinking in the first three months

of the year, or whether it managed to grow. It will be a close run

thing. What happens out here could make all the difference between

growth and a triple dip recession. Oil and gas production peaked a

while ago but unexpected events like the Gulf of Mexico disaster

have said it tumbling, with output down 30% in two years. It is for a

variety of reasons. Some to do with unplanned shutting down, others to

do with checking our kit out, and taxes, to. The economy has grown by

just 1.5% since the election. But if you take out oil and gas

production, the onshore economy has grown 0.3 0.2%. And there was no

double-dip recession last year. -- has grown by 3.2%. You might say so

what? It is still a weak recovery. But what happens in the North Sea

had explained why employment has kept rising even as growth and tax

revenues have slumped. Historically North Sea oil and financial

services have been more important to growth and tax revenues than to

employment. Professor Kent literally wrote the book on North

Sea oil. He says that billions there being invested in new fields

could see it help the economy again as early as next year. In the North

East of Scotland the supply chain is experiencing extremely busy

times. We see that particularly with oil but also gas to a limited

extent, and it can turn round and start increasing. Maybe not this

year but next year. Long term, North Sea production has nowhere to

go but down, but like most local businesses, this technology company

plans to be here long after the oil has gone. It is probably 50% home

market and 50% for export. The expertise that we have been the UK,

in London and in Aberdeen, puts us in a good place to support these

things on a global basis. North Sea oil and gas might be about to do

the Chancellor of favour. Avoiding a return to recession on Thursday

could still be a close run thing. Manchester United have secured

their record 20th League title after a 3-0 victory over Aston

Villa. Manchester United insisted they were taking nothing for

granted, but impossible dream? He did not look that way after just

one minute. This nothing cross was met by a non-existent defence and

Robin van Persie scored his first. If that was workmanlike, this was

outstanding. Wayne Rooney's vision. Robin van Persie's finish. Rarely

is football more beautiful. Rarely is this man speechless. Pity Aston

Villa. There strip might have been fluorescent but their defence went

missing again. Robin van Persie with time to sort out his hat-trick.

What else could Robin van Persie possibly do? Yes, clear off the

line. The second half was not over but the flags had already long been

printed. And then it was official. Manchester United have been here

many times before. The jury still flowed. Words could not suffice. --

the Joy still flowed. And as for Sir Alex? He can't dance but at

least two tried! The fact that this season has been a classic, if not a