12/01/2013 BBC Weekend News

A new warning to the Prime Minister over the dangers of a referendum on

Europe. Lord Heseltine says putting it to a

national vote will be an unnecessary gamble for David

Cameron. Sectarian violence flares again in

Belfast and more police officers are injured.

And a French hostage is feared to have died in Somalia, in a failed

rescue operation. Good evening. Lord Heseltine, the Government's

advisor on economic growth has warned David Cameron that holding a

referendum on Britain's relationship with the European

Union would be an unnecessary gamble. It said it could create a

cloud of uncertainty and drive away Business lead remembers warning of

damaging uncertainty. Lord Heseltine is well-known for

his pro European views. He campaigned for Britain to join the

euro. Now he is a Government advisor on economic growth and is

openly criticising Mr Cameron's What we need to be focusing on is

how we can get jobs and growth in this country, not heading for the

departure lounge from Europe. The problem with that approach,, is if

you are an investor thinking about putting your money into Europe, you

will not do that if you think Britain is going to leave the

There are question marks over how realistic a full-scale

renegotiation really is., given this some seen area figures in

Brussels are already warning the UK can't just cherry-pick the bits of

the EU it fancies being part of. Of course there is a gruch Tory MPs

who won't be satisfied unless the We are not going to be part of the

euro. We have rightly decided to stay out of it. We need less

Government from Europe. They need more. So this is the time for us to

get a new deal. We want it trade and co-operate with them. But we

don't need all the rules, taxes and interferences. The first public

vote on Europe since the 1970, could still be a long way off. Mr

Cameron has some tricky There has been more violence in

Belfast with clashes between loyalists and nationalists

protesters. Trouble flared after a city centre demonstration against

the council's decision to limit the number of days the Union Flag is

To some of these protesters, the Union Flag isn't just a symbol,

it's a weapon. On the edge of east Belfast,

loyalists clashed with nationalists, as they returned from a protest.

They are angry at the decision to restrict the flying of the flag at

City Hall. With this dispute now over a month old, sectarian

tensions have risen again and violence has returned to these

streets. What I saw was republicans arming themselves with stones and

firing on women and kids. These people were horrified, they were in

distress, coming back from a peaceful protest. Again, there was

water cannon and huge numbers of police officers on the streets of

east Belfast. This road separates a nationalist area from a loyalist

area. And once more, police are stuck in

the middle. Hundreds of police jeeps sitting there, doing nothing

to stop these people coming in to destroy our houses. I'm a taxpayer.

I own my house. It is a disgrace. This country is being held to

randsom by peaceful protesters. There have now been 40 days of

protests and many nights of violence. For the police, the

injury toll keeps rising. More than 70 officers have been hurt. The

cost of policing all this - �7 million and rising. Most of the

flag protests have been peaceful, including this one at City Hall

today. But with weeks of trouble and roads being blocked, many in

Belfast are deeply frustrated, particularly, as there seems no end

to this dispute It's time people woke up and got on with life. There

is a recession. Everything else. Look at the business suffering. It

is not right. People don't deserve this.

SIRENS Just like last night, loyalists

took out their anger on the police today. Again, the principles of

protest, lost in violence. That was Chris Buckler reporting.

He joins us from Belfast now. Chris, is there any sense of at all of an

end to this? Not in so many senses, Nick. We have trouble continuing in

east Belfast tonight with the police advising people to avoid the

area. Reports of a car on fire and still these clashes with the police,

particularly taking the Brunt of that. There have been five officers

injured we understand today aLen and of course a number of baton

rounds as they try to keep control. -- alone. It is important to

emphasise it is happening in small pockets of Northern Ireland.

Yesterday we saw trouble on the edge of north Belfast. Today it is

east Belfast again where there has been trouble over a number of weeks.

The difficulty in terms of trying to get this stopped, is that the

City Council, to restrict the flying of the flag made a

democratic decision to do that. Because the make-up of the council

hasn't changed, there is no prospect of that changing at least

in the short term. It's it's been confirmed that two men who were

stabbed to death in Birmingham City Centre last night were homeless

sellers of the Big Issue. Their identities have not been officially

released. A 23-year-old man was arrested following the killings

yesterday evening. A French hostage is believed to have been killed in

Somalia, during a failed raid it frae him by French special forces.

-- free him. At least one soldier was killed along with 17 members of

the kidnap group. But the militant group, Al-Shabab, claims the

hostage and a French intelligence officer is still alive, and being

held by them, along with a wounded French commando.

Denis Allex had been a hostage in Somalia for three-and-a-half years.

You can see the toll it took on him. The French intelligence officer was

being held by these men, Al-Shabab, an Islamist militant group which

has been fighting for control of someal why for years and has links

with Al-Qaeda today France announced its special forces have

launched a daring night-time rescue mission, killing 17 militants but

failing to bring Denis Allex home. TRANSLATION: Very violent fighting

took place, very violent, during which - and I speak with great

caution because everything leads to this conclusion - that sadly, Denis

Allex was killed by his captors. But inside war-ravaged somealia,

Al-Shabab now insist their hostage survived and claim another French

soldier was taken prisoner. The mission clearly failed. But was its

timing linked to events on the other side of Africa? French troops

have just launched an offensive against Islamists in Mali. Paris

may have been concerned that its hostage in someal why could have

been killed as a form of retaliation.

And there are several other French citizens being held in Africa.

Their fate is also uncertain. France still has several military

bases and strong influence in its former colonys across the continent.

-- colonies. But a hi-profile brings risks to men like Denis

Allex. Now to football and in today's

early Premier League game, Queens Park Rangers' boss Harry Redknapp

took on his former club Tottenham Hotspur at Loftus Road. Redknapp's

team grabbed a share of the points but remain bottom of the stable.