24/05/2012 BBC News at One

Concerns mount over the future of the eurozone as EU leaders fail to

come up with a solution. They want Greece to stay in the Euro, but the

uncertainty sees business activity across Europe, heading to a three-

year low. There were good innovative ideas to help growth in

Europe, but bad ideas too. A financial transaction tax is a bad

idea. A deeper double dip recession, the UK economy shrank by more than

was thought at the start of the year. The sister of Shafilea Ahmed,

whose parents are accused of murdering her, said she told the

police what happened as it haunted her for a long time. The number of

criminals re-offending hits a record high, but the number of

first-time offenders falls. And the last seven-mile stretch of the

Midlands links motorway is opened at 10.30am. Spaghetti Junction,

Britain's most famous intersection, turns 40. On BBC London: Stuck in a

tunnel for three hours. Hundreds are stranded. How a squeeze on

family incomes could force Good afternoon. Welcome to the BBC

News at 1.00pm. Concerns over the future of the eurozone continue to

mount dispilot efforts by France and Germany to calm the crisis.

Business activity in Europe is the lowest it has been for three years.

Economists say worries over Greece, whether it stays in the Euro are

having a broader economic effect. An informal summit of European

leaders, did little to boost confidence as they disagreed over

how to tackle the crisis. They finished after 1.00am. No firm

decisions, that was expected, but are they in danger of sleep-walking

Europe into a deadly stage of this crisis? He, insists not. The

President of The European Council spoke of a focused and frank de

bait about measures to boost growth. As for Greece... We want Greece to

remain in the Euro area while respecting its commitments.

Greece does leave theow eow, nobody knows what would happen, but the

assumption is that no economy in Europe would be immune. Already

confidence across the Continent is being battered, a survey showing

that European business activity falling to a near three-year low.

Germany, the strongest economy here, suffering as well. The leaders last

night disdiscussed ways to get their economies growing again. But

many, including the Deputy Prime Minister, himself a proud pro-

European, worry about how the crisis is moving. You can't create

growth. You can't build a prospering economy on the shifting

sands of debt and deficit. David Cameron wants Europe to be more

competitive. Others are pushing for a tax on financial transactions to

raise money to boost growth. He does not think much of that. There

were good ideas to help growth, but bad ideas too. A financial

transactions tax is a bad idea. France's new President, among

others, favours such attacks. Francois Hollande suggested ideas

the Germans are opposed too. Still, German's leader holds the purse

strings. Angela Merkel says cutting Government debt is the priority. If

one thing has become clear, it is that the leaders have no immediate

fixs to a rapidly evolving crisis. That is dangerous. Confidence in

the Euro's stability has been shaken. There are those who fear a

full-scale banking crisis in parts of the Continent, if that continues.

Time is not on their side. Our correspondent is in Berlin for us.

So, still no agreement. What happens now? I think that they talk

a lot behind the scenes and they hope a lot. There is a fundamental

disagreement between Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande. She is

absolutely adamant that no more money can be put into this thing.

She is heavily constrained by German politics. She needs to get

the fiscal pact through the German Parliament with a two thirds

majority. She will have to fight to do that. There will be all of that

arguing behind the scenes, but not about the basic premise of whether

more money goes into it. At the same time, they talk openly here

about plan B. They say let's talk about plan A, but then mention plan

B. That is the Greek exit. I have no doubt at all that various parts

of the European Union and certainly the German government are preparing

for plan B which is a Greek exit. Yesterday the bund bank --

Bundesbank said it could be done, it would be painful but managable.

Thank you very much. Britain's double-dip recession is deeper than

thought. Figures show that the economy shrank by 0 .3% in the

first three months of the year, rather than 0. 2%. It was due to a

bigger contraction than construction output than previously

estimated. Britain's economic machine has gone further into

reverse. Total output, known as GDP, fell more than previously estimated

in the first three months of the year. The recession is deeper than

expected as output fell between January and March. The biggest fall

came in the construction industry, with a bigger tumble in activity

than in the final quarter of last year. Public spending cuts are

having an impact. The public sector accounts for a large proportion of

construction output. The Government hoped that the private sector would

strength ento pick it up, unfortunately, this is not the case.

A recent events in the eurozone suggest that this is going to get

worse. Construction output in the first quarter fell by 4.8%. The

earlier estimate was a 3% drop. Manufacturing was flat. Service

industries grew by 0 .1%. Again, an unchanged figure. So what about the

consumer side of the economy? The figures show that spending growth

has slowed. Household budgets are under pressure as inflation is

running ahead of average pay rises. The Bank of England warns that this

could continue into next year. If so, there will be not much

incentive for people to spend more. This jeweller in Cardiff is doing

well, but looking at the reasons, it underlines how some are

struggling to get by. There are two types much customers, those who

have money, those who tonight. -- don't. The once who have money are

spending. The ones who have not, sadly, they are selling their

family air looms. The economy will get a boost from the Olympics,

according to the Bank of England, but the governors warned that the

Jubilee celebrations will pull the growth down. Reading which way the

economic wind is blowing will be hard as ever. Norman Smith is in

Westminster for us, let's talk about the summit, the Prime

Minister looking frustrated about the lack of progress? Yes, speaking

to Mr Cameron's aides this morning, he said that they don't seem to

have made much progress. That typifies the mood in Downing Street.

-- Downing Street. They think that eurozone leaders are gripped by a

manana syndrome with the stoms are put off and ov. We have had 18

summits since David Cameron became the Prime Minister in which all of

them have had the eurozone dominating the debate. The debate

is now moving from how on earth to keep Greece in the eurozone to what

on earth do you do if and when Greece falls out of the eurozone?

In other words, the focus of political attention is moving to

the contingency measures to minimise the economic impact of

Greece falling out, that would then have on the British economy.

the double dill -- double-dip recessions looking deeper, how

worried are the Government? They are going to stick with their

deficit reduction strategy, that retains the confidence of the

markets, but it does represent a ratcheting up of the pressure on

the Government to re-cast plan A. It comes in the week that Laganside

Court, the ice maiden of the IMF, warns that there should be more

quantitative easing. May be maybe a cult to VAT and the cut coming to

the Bank of England, warning that the growth figures could be hit by

the Dymond. While it may be possible to stick with plan A

through a quarter of negative growth, possibly two, maybe three,

if it gets beyond that, it becomes plottically very difficult. Thank

you very much. The sister of the 17-year-old, Shafilea Ahmed, whose

parents deny her murder has told Chester Crown Court that she told

the police about the murder because it haunted her for a long time. She

had had enough. Judith? Earlier in the week the jury were told that

the police had spent years investigating Shafilea Ahmed's

murder until the final piece of the jigsaw was put in place, say the

pros kuegs, when Alesha Ahmed implicated their parents, when she

came forward. This morning the court heard about the reasons why

Alesha Ahmed decided to speak out. Iftikhar Ahmed arrived at the court

with members of his family, alongside his wife, Farzana. The

couple listening to the evidence from their daughter, Alicia, who

said that her parents murdered her sister. Shafilea Ahmed was last

seen alive in September, 2003. Alesha Ahmed told the court she saw

her sister being suffocated by her mother and father, but did not tell

the police about it until 2010. Speaking from behind a screen, she

told the jury she snapped after continued pressure from her parents

to get married in Pakistan and Shafilea Ahmed's body was

discovered by a river in Cumbria, five months after she went missing.

Her parents deny murdering her. The case abeen adjourned until Monday.

-- has been adjourned until Monday. Alesha Ahmed said that her

relationship with her parents had not been as extreme as the one that

they had with Shafelia, but she did feel she was going down the same

path that her sister had gone down in terms of the pressure of going

to Pakistan, in terms of being 21 years oil, -- years old and in

terms of being married. That it was a lot of pressure. One of the

reasons she finally snapped and decided to speak out. The computer

manufacture, Hewlett Packard is cutting 27,000 jobs,% of the global

workforce. The company has struggled to compete in a

marketplace dominated by smart phones and tablet computers.

Parliament's spending watchdog said that the Government missed out on

�1 billion in tax revenue because of job cuts at HM Revenue & Customs.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said that the decision to

axe more than 3,000 jobs undermined efforts to collect unpaid tax. The

News Corporation lobbyist, Fred Michel, says he had the impression

that the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, was aware of details passed

on to him about the BSkyB bid. He was giving evidence at the Levla

and asked about his dealings, his job was to rule on the possible

takeover. Lots of Government ministers find themselves in

trouble, few would imagine having their department's actions examined

in anything like this very public scrutiny. It was a News Corporation

lobbyist who we heard from giving evidence, but in reality it was the

reputation of the Culture Secretary, Jermaine -- Jeremy Hunt, at stake.

Is Adam Smith to be sticking to his previous words? A scathing shouting

reporter can be simple enough if you have your get away planned, but

Fred Michel had to make a crucial decision about his future, the

questions that matter Paula Radcliffe asked here. Where

answering is an optional and Fred Michel was under eoath. I don't

think that any inappropriate took place. News Corporation wanted to

buy the shares in BSkyB it did the not own. The Culture Secretary,

Jeremy Hunt, had to decide whether or not to intervene, but the

material released showed how often Fred Michel was in touch with Adam

Smith. 159 telephone calls, 158 e- mails, 779 texts, over which 90%

were exchanged with Adam Smith? Jeremy Hunt had prescribed the

briefing as persuasive. So what did Fred Michel think of the

sympathies? That Jeremy Hunt was probably supportive of some of the

argue ms we were putting forward and made them public. The Cabinet

Secretary denied this had been left to the inquiry to buy time for

Jeremy Hunt, in any case that time is up. Adam Smith, who resigned

over this affair is to give his evidence this afternoon.

Campaigners have made up their minds of course, illustrating the

usual subtlety of the media stunt, their belief that the advisor is a

scapegoat. Jeremy Hunt believes that he has not done anything wrong.

The key issue is that Fred Michel, that lobbyist exaggerating? The

information he was getting, the contact he had, the feedback he had

from the special adviser, Adam Smith? We hear from Adam Smith this

afternoon, for obvious reasons, his item will be vital. The top story:

Concerns mount over the future of the eurozone as EU leaders fail to

come up with at solution for the crisis. Coming up: Thousands crowd

on to the streets as the Olympic Torch Relay travels across

Herefordshire. On BBC London: How singing can help people living with

West Midlands Safari Park. Love on a branch line, the volunteers who

have brought the age of steam back to Essex. It's more than 100 years

since Queen tick Torah's Diamond Jubilee Quarter was celebrated, now

a website featuring her private dairies has been launched online.

The journals that run to more than 43,000 pages begin when Victoria

was 13 and end ten days before her death at the age of 81. Who better

to unveil the site than our current Queen in her jubilee jeer -- Jeeb

Lee year. The Queen inspecting the dairies, journals that Queen

Victoria began writing at an early age, instricted that they should be

re-written, omiting anything unsuitable. The result, over 100

volumes, digitised on to a website and launched by the present Queen.

13 of Victoria's original dairies These are the most important days

of any 18-year-olds. This is a surviving diary from being a

princess, they had been housed here in Windsor calf, now they are

online for all to see. As are the 111 re-written journals spanning

her reign incorporating her original coloured sketches. This

room at the Royal Archives contains the papers of Queen Victoria and

Prince Albert from the 19th century. We decided to digitise them, we

thought that they would be of most interest to the public. They

contain the details of what Queen Victoria did each day. It took four

months to scan the journals using the machine in Windsor castle. It

is the latest machine to make these documents from the Royal Archives

widely available. Last month the scrap book was launched. With many

extracts from her writings. An insight into the Monarch who for

now has had the longest reign in our history. A leading charity says

most local health Trusts in England are restricting access it cataract

operations. The Royal National Institute of Blind People says

nearly 60% of Primary Care Trusts are forcing people to live with

serious and unnecessary sight loss. The Government says if patients

need treatment they should be able to get it. One in three people over

65 in the UK is diagnosed with cataracts, removing them is one of

the most common forms of surgery. Demand for the procedure is growing

with the ageing population and added cost pressures for the NHS.

Assessment for surgeries start with eye-sight tests, Government

guidelines say that the impact on quality of life, such as reading

and driving should be considered, but the Royal National Institute of

Blind People say that many trusts are choosing to ignore this.

responded to the charity's freedom of information request on access to

surgery 60% restricted this by imposing standards on the treatment

for eye-sight tests. 40% said they had no such restrictions and said

that they would operate where the cataracts cause symptoms. The Royal

National Institute of Blind People says that delaying dream --

treatments means that the pairbs suffer. We think this is due to

costs. That is unfortunate. This is a cheap operation, about �00 and it

is one of the most cost-effective operations on the NHS. The Royal

College of Opthalmologists says that the restrictions are down to

financial pressures, not clinical needs. The Department of Health

says that they will act against a local health body that stops

patients having cataract treatments on the basis of cost alone. Figures

show that a record proportion of offenders sentenced for serious

crime has a criminal record. The statistics for England and Wales

show that almost a third had 15 or more previous convictions or

cautions. Danny, tell us more about the figures? The figures show that

for people sentenced by the courts last year in England and Wales for

indictable offences, that is more serious offences, 90% had a

criminal record, but when you look at the most persistent offenders,

there is a clear trend. The number of persistent offenders, those with

15 or more cautions has increased to 102,000, that is up 6,000 in a

year, and almost double the number a decade ago. Now these people tend

to be older, but more than a third were under the age of 30, almost

all of them are male and they tend to be convicted of offences such as

drug crimes, burglary, theft, but there are a proportion, about

12,000, convicted of violent offences. What is behind the rise?

Researchers say that there should be studies to examine why this

hard-core group are still in the criminal gist system, but it

suggests that policies to reform criminals, whether through

imprisonment or community programmes, they are just not

working. Thank you very much. Amnesty International has accused

the United Nations of failing to -- of failing the leadership to match

the kouj of protestors. A report says that the -- to match the

courage of protestors. We have this report. These are among the latest

pictures from Syria. More amateur video, apparently showing the

shelling of buildings, an insistent image of the government's crackdown

on decent. The violence and the build shed here continues despite

the presence of observers, the UN issued warnings about the risk of

all-out Civil War. Amnesty International claims that the

crisis in Syria is the most telling example of why the UN Security

Council is now looking tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for

purpose. It is redundant as a guardian of global peace. Thousands

of people died in Syria. We had made a clear case as did many other

agencies as to what was happening there constituted crimes against

humanity, but there was no action from the court of law. So what we

are asking is that -- koun critical. So what we are asking is that when

there are grave incidents, that the use of the veto cannot be allowed

without a clear explanation of why it is happening. Amnesty is

accusing governments of failing to show leadership to match the

courage of protestors. There should be a test for world leaders to

place rights over self-interest and profit. Amnesty calls the past year

tumultuous, millions of people taking to the streets to demand

freedom, justice and dignity, putting lives on the line and some

of them securing memorable victories. Dictators have fallen,

but in the dictatorship. Amnesty international's view of the impact

of a remarkable year of protesting for human rights. For that warning,

the gains are still vulnerable. Egyptians are voting for the second

day in the country's first free presidential elections, 15 months

after Hosni Mubarak was ousted. Kiwis are being reported as polling

stations, turnout does not appear as high as yesterday. The military

council has promised a fair vote and civilian rule. Britain's most

famous motorway interchange is 40 years old. When Spaghetti Junction

was built it joined up the M1, M5 and M6. It includes six roads,

three canals, two rivers and a railway. Back then it cost �10

million to build, now it costs �7 million to maintain. Sophie, you

get a great view of the scale of the thing. You can see why it has

become such an important landmark for Birmingham and the West

Midlands. Back in 72, they could not wait for it to be open. You

could come on a coach trip to watch the site being built. It is enough

to get your head in a spin. Britain's most iconic motorway

junction and its most complex, but you need a bird's eye view to see

how it earned its nickname. In 1972, they had never seen anything like

it. The last seven-mile stretch of the Midlands links motorway will be

officially opened at 10 .3am. Reports are coming in of a build-up

of traffic. It appears that many can't wait to try out the multi-

level interchange at Gravelly Hill. I declare this runway open! It's

always been controversial and even today it is still dividing opinions.

Would you reckon Spaghetti Junction is a monstrosity or a thing of

beauty? I think it is a thing of bouty. If you live in the Midlands,

any way. It's been here for 40 years. People know it. I think you

either love it or hate it. I don't think there are many people down

the middle really. Most will say that they love it, it belongs to

Birmingham. Because of the wear and the tear and the cor ocean, it

needs almost constant attention. This is where the repair work goes

on, and there is a lot on Spaghetti Junction. We are directly beneath

the northbound carriage way of the M. If I touch this here I can feel

the vibrations of the lorries driving past. They have marked out

the next section to be fixed. is 40 years old now. It is getting

on, but if we maintain it we can keep it going for another 40 years

and another 40 years after that. There is tranquility too beneath

the concrete. Though it has taken a long time, people here have learned

to love it. Back in 1972, the film that we used part of did not show

the moment that the first traffic cone was put out, but there are

many there today. That is as it is being turned into a managed

morltway. The hard shoulder. The promise that for the next 40 years,

less congestion and fewer traffic jams, but it is probably too early

to commit to them. Now, day six of the torch relay. These are the

latest pictures that we have. There is the Olympic swimmer Sharron

Davis. There with the torch. A huge crowd turning out yet again to see

her as she carries the torch it passed through Gloucester this

morning, Herefordshire as well. Huge crowds there. A great sight.

Later on today the flame is to pass through West Midlands Safari Park,

where apparently, two elephants have been trained to salute it. Not

carry it, though, thank goodness. Let's have a look at the weather

with Nick. Botbot I will make it The weather today, I will make it

look good for all of us. The sun is staying with us.

There have been some exceptions, but some of the low cloud is

starting to clear away. We have seen the odd, isolated

downpours getting going. There could abheavy downpour, but

few and far between. Inland, there could be a little

cloud, but inland with have main the sunshine and the warmth. The

odd shower into the south-east of England later on. You will be

unlucky to catch one. In south-east England, some of the coasts are

misty in places. That will hold the temperature down compared with

inland. Some of the low cloud, Somerset,

south-east Wales, the West Midlands, beginning to clear and clearing

from Cardigan Bay. Northern Ireland, lots of sunshine here.

And it is a stunner for the Chelsea Flower Show, the warmest day of the

week. Tomorrow not so warm. There will be

a breeze. That will be a player in England and Wales for the next few

days. Into this evening and the rain dying away. A low cloud in

north-east England and Scotland. It will be a warm night. 18 Celsius,

making it stick -- sticky. The low cloud and the mist clearing from

the west and Northern Ireland. Increasing sunshine, and increasing

breeze tomorrow. That shifts the warmth to the west tomorrow. The

warm spots, the warmer colours building over western parts of the

The temperatures in the east a little lower in the breeze, but it

is strong sunshine. It could burn more quickly than you

may have done. Then the all-important weekend. We

still have the brisk easterly on Saturday. Easing on Sunday. We see

the weather front coming to the south-west on late Saturday night

and Sunday with a few showers, leaving cloud in the north-east and