:00:26. > :00:31.Good afternoon. At least three people have died
:00:31. > :00:35.after an Italian cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Tuscany
:00:35. > :00:40.last night. The Italian authorities say that they are still searching
:00:40. > :00:48.for up to 50 possible missing people. Coastguards were asked to
:00:48. > :00:52.evacuate more than 4,000 passengers from the Costa Concordia near to
:00:52. > :00:56.the island. Eyewitnesses say that some passengers began to jump from
:00:56. > :01:02.the ship as it began to list. The Foreign Office says that there were
:01:02. > :01:07.British people on board, but cannot give the numbers. Yesterday, the
:01:07. > :01:13.Costa Concordia steaming out of the port of Rome, on the last leg of a
:01:13. > :01:17.week-long cruise. Now on her side a wrek, resting on the seabed. Why?
:01:17. > :01:22.There is no official word, but look at this picture. Closing in you can
:01:22. > :01:29.see a huge gash, perhaps 50m long on the pordside. In calm waters,
:01:29. > :01:33.something must have gone very wrong. -- portside. Whatever the ship hit
:01:33. > :01:37.it happened at night. Then it limped to the port, sinking with
:01:38. > :01:41.more than 4,000 passengers and crew aboard. As they struggled to get
:01:42. > :01:46.off, the stricken vessel listed over in the darkness.
:01:46. > :01:51.TRANSLATION: Everything was shaking. The tables falling everywhere.
:01:51. > :01:56.Panic, the ship was leaning, we did not know what to do. They took us
:01:56. > :02:01.to the main deck as the ship was sloping and we had to shift the
:02:01. > :02:06.weight. We had no idea what to do. The Costa Concordia is typical of
:02:06. > :02:09.today's huge, plush cruise ships. It is nearly 1,000 feet long with
:02:09. > :02:15.five restaurants, a nightclub, a casino it is like a floating town.
:02:15. > :02:22.Now it lies on the seabed. Later you could see how the ship
:02:22. > :02:25.sank more and more. Then it sank, in half an hour, it
:02:26. > :02:31.sank, the half of the side of it into the water.
:02:31. > :02:35.Three are confirmed dead, 50 are unaccounted for. The Italian
:02:36. > :02:40.authorities are still searching the ship. It is known that Britons were
:02:40. > :02:43.on board. The Foreign Office has sent a team to offer assistance.
:02:43. > :02:47.Passengers are being ferried to the port of Santo Stefano. Our
:02:47. > :02:51.correspondent is there. Alan, what is the latest? Well, we have been
:02:52. > :02:58.hearing through the morning of a major search and rescue operation
:02:58. > :03:02.continuing with the dozens of coastguard vessels searching the
:03:02. > :03:07.waters around the vessels and helicopters deployed. Here in the
:03:07. > :03:11.port we have been watching some people coming back, the passengers,
:03:11. > :03:18.many wrapped in blankets, towels, many looking dazed and exhausted.
:03:18. > :03:23.One man telling of chaotic scenes of eating dinner in the dining room
:03:23. > :03:27.and then the ship jolting, plates, wine bottles, everything flying
:03:27. > :03:32.across the room. The French Prime Minister, France
:03:32. > :03:38.France fans has defended his Government's economic policies.
:03:38. > :03:44.Following the decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade the rating of
:03:44. > :03:52.France and eight other eurozone countries. Francois Fillon said he
:03:52. > :03:56.would push on with the situation. The government here have tried to
:03:56. > :04:01.keep the triple-A rating a top priority, but Francois Fillon
:04:02. > :04:07.explaining that although the downgrade was serious it needed to
:04:07. > :04:12.be kept in perspective. TRANSLATION: It was an alarm call.
:04:12. > :04:16.It should not be overdramatised, nor underestimated.
:04:16. > :04:21.It helped French pride that the downgrade was one of several in the
:04:21. > :04:27.eurozone. France, Austria, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia have been
:04:27. > :04:32.downgraded by a notch. The ratings levels of Italy, Spain, Portugal
:04:32. > :04:35.and Cyprus were reduced bir two notches. In France, there were
:04:35. > :04:39.protests last night outside of the offices of Standard & Poor's, but
:04:39. > :04:44.the agency says that its ratings reflect the economic reality.
:04:44. > :04:50.The measures that have been taken so far are simply to tighten the
:04:50. > :04:54.fiscal rules. We think that there is a misdiagnosis of the problem.
:04:54. > :04:57.We see that as more of one of competitiveness.
:04:57. > :05:03.For France's Nicolas Sarkozy, this is not just economic bad news, but
:05:03. > :05:07.a political set back too. He promised to keep the triple-A.
:05:07. > :05:12.Presidential elections are in just 1 hundred days.
:05:12. > :05:16.A 24-year-old mon has been arrested on suspicion of murder
:05:16. > :05:19.fortunatelying the deaths of a couple in Birmingham. Avtar Singh-
:05:19. > :05:24.Kolar and Carole Singh-Kolar were found dead by their son who, is a
:05:24. > :05:28.placeman on Wednesday morning. 50 people have been killed and 100
:05:28. > :05:34.injured in a suicide bomb attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
:05:34. > :05:39.Witnesses said that the attack occurred outside of Zubair, south-
:05:39. > :05:43.west of Basra. The attack comes at the close of
:05:43. > :05:47.the main -- one of the main Shi'ite holidays.
:05:47. > :05:51.The Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls says that Labour will back the
:05:51. > :05:56.Government's decision to cap public sector pay in order to reduce the
:05:56. > :06:00.deficit. In a speech that true an angry response, he said that Labour
:06:00. > :06:05.could not commit to any of the coalition cuts should the party
:06:05. > :06:11.come to power. Ed Balls said that the Chancellor's handling of the
:06:11. > :06:14.economy has forced his hand. Pay re strictiveness in the public
:06:14. > :06:18.sector in this Parliament, matching the private sector would have been
:06:18. > :06:22.necessary, whoever was in government, but George Osbourne's
:06:22. > :06:27.economic mistakes now mean difficult decisions on tax,
:06:28. > :06:31.spending and pay and it is inevitable that they will last
:06:31. > :06:35.longer. It is inevitable that pay restraint will have to continue for
:06:35. > :06:40.longer. Labour cannot duck that reality, we won't. Jobs must be our
:06:40. > :06:45.priority before the pay. Tesco's defended a decision by its
:06:46. > :06:50.UK chief operating officer to sell more than �200,000 of the firm's
:06:50. > :06:55.shares a week before it issued a profits warning. A company