06/06/2013 BBC News at Ten

Edinburgh is admitted to hospital following abdominal tests. Hours

after attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace he was taken to

hospital, for an operation tomorrow. He's expected to stay at The London

Clinic for up to two weeks - the palace says it was not an emergency

admission. The Duke will be 92 next week. We'll have the latest on his

condition. Also tonight: Labour promises a

three-year cap on welfare spending if it wins the next election.

In Syria, after the battle for Qusair, a special report on the

extent of the devastation. Physical construction in Qusair is immense

and shocking. But something even more worrying has happened here.

Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, pleads not guilty

to phone hacking and corruption. And we report from inside Guantanamo

Bay, where most of the detainees are on hunger strike. In Sportsday

Serena Williams blasts her way into the French Open final in 46 minutes.

Good evening. The Duke of Edinburgh was admitted to hospital earlier

today. Buckingham Palace said it was not an emergency admission, and the

Duke would be having an exploratory operation tomorrow at The London

Clinic. The Duke, who's 91, is expected to stay in hospital for up

to two weeks. Our royal correspondent, Nicholas Witchell,

has the latest. Buckingham Palace this afternoon and one of the garden

parties that the Queen gives every summer. And there at her siefd as

usual was the Duke of Edinburgh, looking entirely untroubled.

According to guests he seemed well and was telling jokes, as is his

habit, but it transpires that in recent days the Duke has had tests

and what the Palace describes as abdominal investigations. He was

taken by car this evening to the London Clinic for what the Palace

describes as an exploratory operation. Such an operation is

expected to take place tomorrow. It is thought it will involve a general

anaesthetic. A young person might be able to get over an operation like

that within a few days, but for an older person, the cardia vascular

system, the heart and the lungs and the other organs are older and take

more time to recover. Although the Duke pulled out of an engagement on

Monday night he was with the Queen at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday for

the service marking the 60 years since her Coronation. Yesterday he

was visiting a ship, the SS Robin, at the royal Victoria dock. There

was no hint of any problem then. That too was the impression of the

guests at the garden party at Buckingham Palace this afternoon.

didn't look ill. He was joking and smiling and walking around, and

making a very big effort this week, which has been such a special week

for the Queen, to be there by her side. As my son and I were leaving

the Palace in our car going up to Victoria, he was going in the

opposite direction in another car. We did think it was strange to see

him jetting away from Buckingham Palace right after the party.

inescapable fact is that the Duke will be 92 on Monday.

Notwithstanding that he's been continuing with a busy diary of

engagements. He was in Canada two weeks ago. He had a noticeably

bruised right eye on that occasion, another sign of which the greater

vulnerability of his advancing age, but it didn't stop him. I regret

that circumstances have prevented me from seeing more of the third

Battalion in recent years. Twice last summer, notably of a very damp

afternoon on the Thames for the Jubilee river pageant, he had to go

into hospital with a bladder inn fection. He was able to leave

hospital after a few nights. It was a similar story at Christmas 2011

when there was a serious health scare, a blocked coronary artery.

Even then the Duke was leaving hospital after less than a week. On

this occasion, Buckingham Palace says the Duke will be in hospital

for up to two weeks. The Queen will be continuing with her programme as

normal. For the latest from the London

Clinic tonight Nicholas Witchell is there for us. What more can you tell

us this evening? This as I understand it is the sequence of

events. There were routine tests which produced a result which caused

the doctors to feel that they needed these abdominal investigations, as

the Palace has described them. Some of those took place here at this

hospital and they caused the doctors to feel they needed to take it a

stage further and admit the Duke for these exploratory operation. It is

exploratory. It is not we are told an emergency. He is said to have

been in good spirits when he walked into the hospital earlier this

evening. I'm not going to speculate about what they may be exploring

except I understand it is nothing to do with his heart. Clearly if it is

centred on his abdomen, and it is nothing to do with his bladder. He

had two instances of a bladder infection last year. What's in

everybody's mind is the fact that in four days' time he will be 92 years

old. For anybody of that ij to undergo an operation under general

anaesthetic inevitably will be quite challenging. Nick, thank you.

On to the day's other main news. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has

promised to put a three-year cap on welfare spending if he wins the next

election. Outlining a new approach to social security, Mr Miliband said

Labour would have a laser focus on how every pound was spent. The

Conservatives say the plan lacks detail and credibility. Our

political editor Nick Robinson reports. Public spending and the

cost of welfare. Two things which Labour knows it has yet to persuade

many voters to trust them with. Which is why the party unveiled a

plan today to cap the amount the next Government can spend on

welfare. Jobs for everyone who can work and help to make that happen

must be the starting point for social security reform, because it

is right and because it cuts the costs of worklessness. Ed Miliband's

argument today on a visit to London's City Airport was that you

can't cut the benefits bill by simply cutting benefits. You have

instead, he claimed, to cut unemployment, low pay and high

rents. Some of which the biggest councils in the country have all

come to us and said if they had the power to negotiate on behalf of

tenants on housing benefit, they could get far greater savings than

the individual on their own. So a Labour Government would give

councils that power. These young people were helped into work by

their local council. The Labour leader says he would subsidise firms

to take on the young long-term unemployed and force them to take

the jobs. He argues that if businesses were invent advised they

would increase wages for the low paid and that too would cut the

benefit bill. I've been here two-and-a-half years now. Fantastic.

Ed Miliband says Labour's welfare policies mark a departure from the

current Government's who he claims are paying the price for failure.

The critics will ask whether they are a departure from Labour's past.

There's nothing of any substance in this speech. What we've got are the

Labour Party worried about their image on welfare. They've become the

welfare party. They've voted against �80 billion of savings on welfare.

They say they are in favour of a limit but don't tell us what they

would cut. The idea of a welfare spending cap was raised by the

Government, not Labour. Both sides agree it should apply to that part

of the benefit bill not affected by rises in unemployment, which

benefits would it cover? No-one said. How high would the cap be?

No-one said that either. Therefore we simply can't know who would be

affected. Is your message to the country that you can cut the welfare

bill without any real losers? my message to the country is we can

keep welfare bills under control by making the right decisions and cut

the costs of failure. Are you saying you can cut the cost of welfare

without there being any real losers? I'm saying we do need to cut the

numbers of people on benefits. We need to cut the number of people on

unemployment benefits, because that is a massive problem for our

country. Labour has been walking a tightrope with the public this week,

trying to reassure those people who see it as a party of big spending,

without alienating those who want to see coalition cuts reversed. Labour

wants to give families more money and the people more money. If they

are saying they are going to keep a cap on that shouldn't they be

putting caps on other things other than the thing you are voting for

them for? I think #24er looking for quick fixes. He is very brave to say

that, because it is a change of direction for the Labour Party. I

think it is a change that's inevitable. Labour hope a new

political debate has taken you have a this week about who can best be

trusted to keep the lid on the cost of welfare.

Live to Westminster and Nick is there for us. All the focus there

today on welfare, but let's talk about something else Mr Miliband is

contending with, a controversial party donation. He is accused of not

practising what he has preached on the issue of tax avoidance. A it is

a charge made by his political enemies, by George Osborne, the

Chancellor in particular, because of the news that emerged about a

particular donation to the Labour Party. A very significant donation,

one. .65 million that was given not in cash but in shares. The man who

gave the money, John Mills, rather unhelpfully for the Labour Party

told the Daily Telegraph he had done it because it was tax efficient. He

went on to point out if had simply written a cheque instead of giving

the money in shares he would have had to do that from post-tax in

income. Half of what he planned to give would, in other words, gone to

the taxman, to the Government and not the Labour Party. The electoral

commission approved this donation, it has not breached any rules. It is

clearly within the law. Labour has said that. The difficulty of course

is just a few weeks ago it was Ed Miliband who was saying that for

large companies following the law when it came to tax avoidance was

not really good enough. Nick, thank you.

Syrian Government forces have been consolidating their hold on villages

around the key town of Qusair, which they seized from rebel fighters

yesterday after a two-week offensive. The fierce fighting over

Qusair reflects its strategic importance. It sits on a key route

north from the capitalm Damascus, and close to the border with

Lebanon. Our correspondent, Lyse Doucet, was the first western

journalist to enter Qusair after it fell. She returned there today.

Qusair is calmer today. There is non-of which the edginess we saw in

the immediate aftermath of battle. There's more traffic on the streets.

But it is almost all soldiers. Taking away whatever they can find

in whatever way they can. We saw almost no civilians in Qusair.

Except in one family. They are not staying long. They fled a year ago

and came back to find their home was unrecognisable. It had been occupied

by the rebels. It is a rebel T-shirt. A symbol of the Free Syrian

Army's Faruk brigades. Up stairs they show me what the fighters left

behind. A rifle scope. Clothes still hanging on hooks. And on the wall a

list of their blood groups. We are not here long and soldiers turn up.

Syrians and Lebanese Hezbollah, now working side by side. We spoke to

some Hezbollah off camera and they confirmed they are now doing regular

rotations into Syria. They come across the border. It is so close

you can even see it from the edges of Qusair. That's why the battles

here have been so fierce over the last 18 months. Why the Government

deployed overwhelming force. We saw some of the makeshift weapons the

opposition were told to bring in. These men wave us down. They want us

to see other improvised devices. TRANSLATION: This is what the rebels

call freedom. They hate us. Before Qusair was plunged into war,

this was a city where Syrians of many beliefs lived together. The

Church here was not just destroyed, it was desecrated. The physical

destruction in Qusair is immense and shocking. Something even more

worrying has happened here. The social fabric has been ripped apart.

Rebuilding Qusair may just be a matter of time. Rebuilding trust?

That may never happen. The possibility that Britain might

send arms to the Syrian opposition is being resisted by dozens of

Conservative MPs. More than 80 have signed a letter to the Prime

Minister demanding a parliamentary debate and vote before any weapons

are sent. David Cameron says that no decision has yet been made to arm

the Syrian rebels. The Coronation Street actor William

Roache has been charged with five historical offences of indecent

assault. The actor was arrested this morning after attending a police

station by appointment. The police have confirmed the offences, or the

alleged offences involve four girls between the age of 12 and 16.

David Cameron's former Director of Communication has appeared in court

to enter a plea of not guilty to phone-hacking and corruption

charges. The alleged offences date back to when he was the Editor of

the News of the World. Andy Coulson was the Editor of the

News of the World and today was the latest in a series of senior figures

from the paper to make their way to Southwark Crown Court. He stood in a

dock occupied the day before by News International Chief Executive

Rebekah Brooks and her husband, who were in court today, and answered

the charges put to him. They include illegally intercepting

communications, better known as phone-hacking, specifically

accessing mobile phone voicemail messages. Andy Coulson pleaded not

guilty, as did another defendant, Ian Edmondson. A second set of

charges cover alleged conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office

including paying officers for confidential royal phone

directories. Andy Coulson pleaded not guilty to two charges. Ian

Edmondson was not accused of this offence. This has been a week of

hearings, partly to decide how future trials are organised. That is

not easy. Three big police investigations have produced a

series of interconnected charges. There is expected to be a single

major trial covering all the phone-hacking allegations here in

September. But there will be plenty of legal argument before then. In a

case with dozens of barristers and defendants.

Now, the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that

his government will press on with plans to redevelop a park in

Istanbul, despite days of nationwide protests. He said extremists were

manipulating the anti-government demonstrations. Jeremy Bowen is in

Istanbul tonight. What is your latest assessment of things there?

Well, the protest is very much going on at the moment. More people here

at the moment than yesterday. I have been walking around the area. Quite

a relaxed atmosphere. It feels like a festival. Now, they are saying

they are not going to go. Mr Erdogan is a pragmatic politician. He has in

the past done big U-turns. He doesn't appear to want to do one on

this particular subject. Are the two sides on a collision course? Well,

perhaps they are. Unless one side or the other can offer the other

something which will allow them to back down. Always a sensible thing

in any negotiation. No negotiation is going on at the moment. On the

opposition side here, no-one to negotiate with. Turkey is a new

territory. Mr Erdogan has never faced a challenge like this before

in his ten years in office. So, really, the country waits.

Thank you very much. A mass hunger strike by detainees at

Guantanamo Bay is now in its fourth month. Of the 166 detainees at the

American-run facility for alleged terror suspects, 103 are refusing

food. In the past 24 hours, the number being force fed has risen to

41. It's been seen as a deep embarrassment for President Obama.

His executive order to close the camp within one year was signed

four-and-a-half years ago. Jonathan Beale has been inside Guantanamo Bay

and he sent this report. The start of another day at one of

the world's most infamous jails. Guantanamo is still here after more

than a decade. Inside, no sign of any let-up with prisoners locked up

for 22 hours a day. The US military describes all those being held as

"dangerous men" picked up on the battlefield, even though most have

never been charged. Most are also now on hunger strike. This is a

standard cell... We were shown around by guards who didn't want to

be identified. It is a place where nothing is quite what it seems.

Would you shackle somebody if they were going to watch TV? Those are

humane restraints. You don't call it shackling? It's a humane restraint.

Force-feeding, too, is a term that is avoided. Instead, they call this

enteral feeding, inserting a tube through a prisoner's nose and down

to their stomach. You call it enteral feeding? Yes.I call it

force-feeding. It is force-feeding, isn't it? It is a bit of semantics.

Less emotional. It is a medical procedure. We do this to regular

patients who need to be fed. Again, you can choose to call it what you

like. 41 detainees are being fed this way twice a day, restrained in

this chair to ensure they survive. It is now a war of wills, defiant

detainees met with an equally firm hand. The old privileges of communal

living withdrawn from all but the most compliant. We would lock them

down there for two hours so we can secure those yards, check it for

safety. They are making noise about something. Life isn't too happy here

at the moment? At least with one detainee! That is one detainee?It

is. You know who that is?I don't know which one that is. You are

welcome to look into the cell here. You sense the tensions are high here

behind the razor-wire fences. We have been kept well away from those

prisoners who are locked up inside. But we have occasionally heard their

strike? Well, their initial issues were to do with changes in camp

rules. Their primary issue is that they want to go home. No-one here

knows how this hunger strike will end. Or whether President Obama will

finally be able to deliver on his promise to close down this prison.

Britain is to give �20 million in compensation to thousands of Kenyans

who were tortured during the Mau Mau uprising against British colonial

rule in the 1950s. Some 5,000 victims will receive payouts.

William Hague said the Government sincerely regretted the abuses. He

did stop short of giving a formal apology.

President Obama is to hold his first summit with China's new leader, Xi

Jinping, in California tomorrow. One of the issues he will raise is the

level of cyber attacks on the US state and on US companies which

originate in China. Theft of intellectual property by Chinese

hackers is alleged to be costing American firms hundreds of billions

of dollars each year. They are some of America's most

powerful businessmen. In Beijing, looking for deals. Behind the

smiles, worries. Their companies' secrets are being stolen by Chinese

computer hackers. We get intrusions daily. They come from all over the

world. Some of those come from China? We believe so, yes.The

designs for America's latest Stealth fighter have been taken and China is

now building its own Stealth planes. Firms like Coca-Cola have been

targeted and Google's secret codes, too. Google traced that intrusion to

computers here. The thefts are happening every day and US patience

is thin. From our point of view, this is Communist China coming over

and stealing our secrets and using them against us. Unfortunately,

Chinese behaviour is feeding that image. President Xi Jinping will be

told that many of the attacks have been traced to China's own army. A

special PLA unit operating from this site in Shanghai. Both sides agree

military espionage is to be expected but America says the focus on US

companies and technologies must stop.

TRANSLATION: What is the fuss? Getting information, especially

military information from other countries didn't just begin with the

internet. Spying has been around for hundreds of years. It is normal.

you go online, you see China has a growing industry around cyber

attacks. You can find lessons in hacking, hacking software for sale,

even Chinese hackers for hire. This one will steal any information you

want and for �20 an hour take any website you like offline and it says

the service is 100% guaranteed. China is churning out cheap but

skilled Praguers and some aren't launching -- programmers and some

aren't launching attacks but helping stop them. Mostly, it is for money.

The largest amount I ever saw is like 100 million. So like �10

million? Yes.America is warning cyber theft is now harming US

companies and jobs, damaging American competitiveness and

innovation. If it gets worse, the issue could poison relations with

China. Let's have more on the main story,

the news that the Duke of Edinburgh has been admitted to hospital for up

to two weeks for an exploratory operation. Nicholas Witchell is at

the London Clinic for us. Despite the shock of this news, it is worth

stressing that Buckingham Palace has been saying it was not an emergency

admission? Yes. That is something that they are stressing. An

exploratory operation, that is the phrase used by the Palace. We

presume tomorrow, under general anaesthetic, an exploratory

operation after abdominal investigations, presumably giving

rise to something that the doctors feel need to be explored further. An

exploratory operation under general anaesthetic on someone who will be

92 in four days' time. He was, we are told, in good spirits when he

came in here earlier this evening and that is how he looked at the

garden party this afternoon. The Queen will be continuing with her