:00:15. > :00:17.Good afternoon. The Foreign Secretary, William
:00:18. > :00:25.Hague, says the Algerian hostage crisis remains the "top priority"
:00:25. > :00:28.until every British national is accounted for. Mr Hague is this
:00:28. > :00:31.morning holding an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis.
:00:31. > :00:36.Algerian special forces are still hunting the Islamist gunmen at the
:00:36. > :00:39.remote desert gas plant, according to the state news agency. Ten
:00:39. > :00:48.Britons are still thought to be unaccounted for. Bridget Kendall
:00:48. > :00:53.reports. The kidnap nightmare continues for some, for others, it
:00:53. > :00:59.is over. Two Norwegians who had been held,
:00:59. > :01:02.made it back to Oslo overnight. In algears Airport, freed Algerian
:01:02. > :01:09.hostages have been telling their story. They describe how the
:01:09. > :01:13.militants sought out foreigners. TRANSLATION: They attacked the
:01:13. > :01:17.living quarters and the factory as well. There were two groups. One
:01:17. > :01:25.group returned to the factory, the other to the living quarters. Their
:01:25. > :01:28.goal was foreign hostages. TRANSLATION: I told them I was an
:01:28. > :01:35.Algerian Muslim. They said I should not be scared, that they had not
:01:35. > :01:40.come for me. Meanwhile, deep in the Sahara
:01:40. > :01:44.desert where Algeria meets Libya, the stand-off with the natural gas
:01:44. > :01:50.plant is in its fourth day. How many foreigners are there is not
:01:50. > :01:56.clear. Algeria reports that the remajoring hostages and the heavily
:01:56. > :02:00.armed kidnappers are holed up in a corner of the plant, surrounded by
:02:00. > :02:04.Special Forces. In London, William Hague, chairing a Cobra meeting,
:02:04. > :02:08.said that the crisis would stay a top priority until every British
:02:08. > :02:12.citizen was accounted for. The Americans are urging the Algerians
:02:13. > :02:16.to be careful. For all of the relief for those who managed to get
:02:16. > :02:20.away, there is increasing concern about those being held and
:02:20. > :02:21.uncertainty as to how to free them The severe weather is continuing to
:02:21. > :02:24.cause disruption across the UK. Safely.
:02:24. > :02:28.Drivers are being warned of fresh ice on already treacherous ground
:02:28. > :02:31.in some parts of the country. At Heathrow, both runways are open
:02:31. > :02:41.today but there are still delays as hundreds of flights had to be
:02:41. > :02:46.cancelled. Philippa Thomas has the latest. Hundreds of people spent
:02:46. > :02:52.the night at Heathrow Airport after snow fell on the ground and a third
:02:52. > :02:56.of flights were cancelled. British Airways a-- apologise as passengers
:02:56. > :03:01.tried to get some sleep huddled on the floors.
:03:01. > :03:07.They are just bundled up. They are trying to find space on the floor.
:03:07. > :03:09.The airport supplied mats, blankets, food, water and the other
:03:09. > :03:14.necessities. The snowploughs have been at work.
:03:14. > :03:18.All of the stands and the taxiways have been re-opened but the airport
:03:18. > :03:21.faces a huge challenge in getting everything back to normal. In the
:03:21. > :03:26.early hours of this morning, Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5
:03:26. > :03:31.looked like a refugee camp. Now it just looks like an extremely
:03:31. > :03:37.crowded airport terminal. Thousands of passengers, desperate to get
:03:37. > :03:41.away. On many roads drivers have been reduced to a crawl. Freezing
:03:41. > :03:47.temperatures have created treacherous driving conditions. The
:03:47. > :03:52.highways say that the fleet of snowploughs will be out in force
:03:52. > :03:58.throughout the weekend. The worst- hit area is to the West. Parts of
:03:58. > :04:02.Wales had as much as 25 centimetres of snow. In Northern Ireland,
:04:02. > :04:08.around 900 moments are without power after a day of heavy snow and
:04:08. > :04:12.high winds and it is not over yet. The Met Office issued warnings of
:04:12. > :04:19.snow from eastern Scotland to the north-east and more is expected to
:04:19. > :04:23.push up to the south-east tomorrow from France.
:04:23. > :04:28.Chris Eakin is at Heathrow Airport for us. Chris, what is the latest
:04:28. > :04:33.there at the moment? The runways are operating but they will have to
:04:33. > :04:37.be anti-iced, as they call it. That takes about 20 minutes. That will
:04:37. > :04:42.have another knock-on effect. I can tell you that passengers in
:04:42. > :04:46.Terminal 5 have been told not to join the check-in queues, unless
:04:46. > :04:52.the flights are within two hours, a sign of the chaos there and anger,
:04:52. > :04:57.as we heard, from those who had to sleep stkwrofr night on the floor.
:04:57. > :05:01.-- overnight on the floor. The M40 is closed, it may re-open shortly.
:05:01. > :05:05.There are four train companies affected. They are London middle
:05:05. > :05:11.Eurostar, south-west Trains and Virgin. So the snow may be great
:05:11. > :05:13.fun for many but it is still causing traffic and travel misery
:05:13. > :05:16.for others. Thank
:05:16. > :05:17.The Highstreet retailer Blockbuster is to close 129 of its shops in the
:05:18. > :05:21.coming weeks. You. The disgraced former cycling
:05:21. > :05:23.champion, Lance Armstrong, says he still hopes that one day he'll be
:05:23. > :05:26.able to compete again, despite being given a lifetime ban from
:05:26. > :05:36.sport for doping. In the second part of a televised interview with
:05:36. > :05:41.Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong said he didn't deserve the punishment. The
:05:41. > :05:46.worst part was not losing the titles on the sponsorship, Lance
:05:46. > :05:52.Armstrong, said, it was losing the cancer charity, Livestrong.
:05:52. > :05:57.That was the most haunting. To get the call, two parts, one, to step
:05:57. > :06:01.down as the chairman but stay on the board. Stay involved.
:06:01. > :06:09.It wasn't enough. He lied time and again, of course,
:06:09. > :06:13.so what made him do it? That is a guy who felt invincible, was told
:06:13. > :06:17.he was invincible, truly believed he was invincible.
:06:17. > :06:22.Lance Armstrong says he wants to compete again. Yet he faces a life-
:06:22. > :06:26.long ban. If you are asking me, do I want to
:06:26. > :06:31.compete again? The answer is, hell, yes. I'm a competitor.
:06:31. > :06:35.As for that ban, others, he said, had been dealt with far more
:06:35. > :06:39.leniently. I deserved to be punished, I'm not
:06:39. > :06:43.sure that I deserved the death penalty. Lance Armstrong is in
:06:43. > :06:47.Hawaii, but he face as lot of disappointed people when he returns
:06:48. > :06:53.to his home town, here, probably more than anywhere else, people