:00:08. > :00:11.A new warning to the Prime Minister over the dangers of a referendum on
:00:11. > :00:13.Europe. Lord Heseltine says putting it to a
:00:13. > :00:20.national vote will be an unnecessary gamble for David
:00:20. > :00:23.Cameron. Sectarian violence flares again in
:00:23. > :00:27.Belfast and more police officers are injured.
:00:27. > :00:37.And a French hostage is feared to have died in Somalia, in a failed
:00:37. > :00:46.
:00:46. > :00:49.rescue operation. Good evening. Lord Heseltine, the Government's
:00:49. > :00:52.advisor on economic growth has warned David Cameron that holding a
:00:52. > :00:58.referendum on Britain's relationship with the European
:00:58. > :01:08.Union would be an unnecessary gamble. It said it could create a
:01:08. > :01:26.
:01:26. > :01:35.cloud of uncertainty and drive away Business lead remembers warning of
:01:35. > :01:37.damaging uncertainty. Lord Heseltine is well-known for
:01:37. > :01:41.his pro European views. He campaigned for Britain to join the
:01:41. > :01:51.euro. Now he is a Government advisor on economic growth and is
:01:51. > :02:00.
:02:00. > :02:04.openly criticising Mr Cameron's What we need to be focusing on is
:02:04. > :02:09.how we can get jobs and growth in this country, not heading for the
:02:09. > :02:13.departure lounge from Europe. The problem with that approach,, is if
:02:13. > :02:15.you are an investor thinking about putting your money into Europe, you
:02:15. > :02:25.will not do that if you think Britain is going to leave the
:02:25. > :02:38.
:02:38. > :02:43.There are question marks over how realistic a full-scale
:02:43. > :02:47.renegotiation really is., given this some seen area figures in
:02:47. > :02:52.Brussels are already warning the UK can't just cherry-pick the bits of
:02:52. > :03:02.the EU it fancies being part of. Of course there is a gruch Tory MPs
:03:02. > :03:04.
:03:04. > :03:08.who won't be satisfied unless the We are not going to be part of the
:03:08. > :03:11.euro. We have rightly decided to stay out of it. We need less
:03:11. > :03:16.Government from Europe. They need more. So this is the time for us to
:03:16. > :03:19.get a new deal. We want it trade and co-operate with them. But we
:03:19. > :03:23.don't need all the rules, taxes and interferences. The first public
:03:23. > :03:31.vote on Europe since the 1970, could still be a long way off. Mr
:03:31. > :03:35.Cameron has some tricky There has been more violence in
:03:36. > :03:39.Belfast with clashes between loyalists and nationalists
:03:39. > :03:42.protesters. Trouble flared after a city centre demonstration against
:03:42. > :03:50.the council's decision to limit the number of days the Union Flag is
:03:50. > :03:58.To some of these protesters, the Union Flag isn't just a symbol,
:03:58. > :04:02.it's a weapon. On the edge of east Belfast,
:04:02. > :04:07.loyalists clashed with nationalists, as they returned from a protest.
:04:07. > :04:10.They are angry at the decision to restrict the flying of the flag at
:04:10. > :04:15.City Hall. With this dispute now over a month old, sectarian
:04:15. > :04:19.tensions have risen again and violence has returned to these
:04:19. > :04:22.streets. What I saw was republicans arming themselves with stones and
:04:22. > :04:27.firing on women and kids. These people were horrified, they were in
:04:27. > :04:30.distress, coming back from a peaceful protest. Again, there was
:04:30. > :04:33.water cannon and huge numbers of police officers on the streets of
:04:33. > :04:38.east Belfast. This road separates a nationalist area from a loyalist
:04:38. > :04:41.area. And once more, police are stuck in
:04:41. > :04:45.the middle. Hundreds of police jeeps sitting there, doing nothing
:04:45. > :04:50.to stop these people coming in to destroy our houses. I'm a taxpayer.
:04:50. > :04:54.I own my house. It is a disgrace. This country is being held to
:04:54. > :04:57.randsom by peaceful protesters. There have now been 40 days of
:04:57. > :05:01.protests and many nights of violence. For the police, the
:05:01. > :05:05.injury toll keeps rising. More than 70 officers have been hurt. The
:05:05. > :05:09.cost of policing all this - �7 million and rising. Most of the
:05:09. > :05:13.flag protests have been peaceful, including this one at City Hall
:05:13. > :05:17.today. But with weeks of trouble and roads being blocked, many in
:05:17. > :05:22.Belfast are deeply frustrated, particularly, as there seems no end
:05:22. > :05:26.to this dispute It's time people woke up and got on with life. There
:05:26. > :05:31.is a recession. Everything else. Look at the business suffering. It
:05:31. > :05:35.is not right. People don't deserve this.
:05:35. > :05:40.SIRENS Just like last night, loyalists
:05:40. > :05:44.took out their anger on the police today. Again, the principles of
:05:44. > :05:50.protest, lost in violence. That was Chris Buckler reporting.
:05:50. > :05:55.He joins us from Belfast now. Chris, is there any sense of at all of an
:05:55. > :05:57.end to this? Not in so many senses, Nick. We have trouble continuing in
:05:57. > :06:02.east Belfast tonight with the police advising people to avoid the
:06:02. > :06:05.area. Reports of a car on fire and still these clashes with the police,
:06:05. > :06:10.particularly taking the Brunt of that. There have been five officers
:06:10. > :06:16.injured we understand today aLen and of course a number of baton
:06:16. > :06:19.rounds as they try to keep control. -- alone. It is important to
:06:19. > :06:24.emphasise it is happening in small pockets of Northern Ireland.
:06:24. > :06:27.Yesterday we saw trouble on the edge of north Belfast. Today it is
:06:27. > :06:31.east Belfast again where there has been trouble over a number of weeks.
:06:31. > :06:34.The difficulty in terms of trying to get this stopped, is that the
:06:34. > :06:38.City Council, to restrict the flying of the flag made a
:06:38. > :06:41.democratic decision to do that. Because the make-up of the council
:06:41. > :06:46.hasn't changed, there is no prospect of that changing at least
:06:46. > :06:49.in the short term. It's it's been confirmed that two men who were
:06:49. > :06:54.stabbed to death in Birmingham City Centre last night were homeless
:06:54. > :06:57.sellers of the Big Issue. Their identities have not been officially
:06:57. > :07:00.released. A 23-year-old man was arrested following the killings
:07:00. > :07:04.yesterday evening. A French hostage is believed to have been killed in
:07:04. > :07:08.Somalia, during a failed raid it frae him by French special forces.
:07:09. > :07:13.-- free him. At least one soldier was killed along with 17 members of
:07:13. > :07:17.the kidnap group. But the militant group, Al-Shabab, claims the
:07:17. > :07:23.hostage and a French intelligence officer is still alive, and being
:07:23. > :07:26.held by them, along with a wounded French commando.
:07:26. > :07:30.Denis Allex had been a hostage in Somalia for three-and-a-half years.
:07:30. > :07:35.You can see the toll it took on him. The French intelligence officer was
:07:35. > :07:39.being held by these men, Al-Shabab, an Islamist militant group which
:07:39. > :07:42.has been fighting for control of someal why for years and has links
:07:42. > :07:48.with Al-Qaeda today France announced its special forces have
:07:48. > :07:55.launched a daring night-time rescue mission, killing 17 militants but
:07:55. > :08:00.failing to bring Denis Allex home. TRANSLATION: Very violent fighting
:08:00. > :08:05.took place, very violent, during which - and I speak with great
:08:05. > :08:13.caution because everything leads to this conclusion - that sadly, Denis
:08:13. > :08:17.Allex was killed by his captors. But inside war-ravaged somealia,
:08:17. > :08:22.Al-Shabab now insist their hostage survived and claim another French
:08:22. > :08:26.soldier was taken prisoner. The mission clearly failed. But was its
:08:26. > :08:31.timing linked to events on the other side of Africa? French troops
:08:31. > :08:34.have just launched an offensive against Islamists in Mali. Paris
:08:34. > :08:37.may have been concerned that its hostage in someal why could have
:08:37. > :08:41.been killed as a form of retaliation.
:08:41. > :08:46.And there are several other French citizens being held in Africa.
:08:46. > :08:53.Their fate is also uncertain. France still has several military
:08:53. > :08:59.bases and strong influence in its former colonys across the continent.
:08:59. > :09:02.-- colonies. But a hi-profile brings risks to men like Denis
:09:02. > :09:06.Allex. Now to football and in today's
:09:06. > :09:11.early Premier League game, Queens Park Rangers' boss Harry Redknapp
:09:11. > :09:15.took on his former club Tottenham Hotspur at Loftus Road. Redknapp's
:09:15. > :09:22.team grabbed a share of the points but remain bottom of the stable.