18/08/2011 BBC News at Six

The frantic scramble for a university place, tens of thousands

are expected to miss out after another record A-level year.

There's intense pressure for students trying to get to

university before next year's It's just useless system really.

Should have fixed it up, they should have known a lot of people

are applying this year and done something about it.

Also tonight: 20,000 people gather for the funerals of the three men

killed during the riots in Birmingham.

In Salford, Prince Harry meets emergency crews attacked by looters

as they tried to put out the flames. Killed by a shark on honeymoon in

the Seychelles, Ian Redmond's wife describes the moment he was

attacked. The most awful scream, and I can still hear it and I

closed my eyes. And the return of the otter, 30

years after they almost vanished from England they're back in every

County. I will be here with the sport later

on the BBC News channel, including what action there was at the Oval

as the first day's play is Good evening, welcome to the BBC

News at Six. Tens of thousands of students are scrambling to get a

university place tonight after another record year for A-level

passes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There's an

intense battle going on now for places as students try to get to

university before the increase in tuition fees in England next year.

At one point today there were 400 students a second trying to phone

the UCAS clearing system in the hope of finding a place. Here's our

education correspondent Reeta Chakrabarti.

Joy for some, bitter disappointment for others. This year's A-level

results saw the usual mix of triumph and dejection, with boys

narrowing the gap with girls and overall results slightly up on last

year. Three As. Well done! Biology an A. For all those now guaranteed

a university place there are nearly 200,000 others who aren't. How have

you done? Not well. They now go into clearing where people who

haven't got a place are told where they can apply, with 400 phone

calls a second the demand here has been huge and part of the website

crashed repeatedly. I do apologise to everyone who's had any anxiety

added to this, it is a tough day for everybody. UCAS is 100%

dedicated to providing the services to applicants and to member

universities and colleges. Jacinthan is now in the clearing

system. He spent a frustrating morning struggling to get advice.

It's just useless system really, they should have fixed it up a

little bit. They should have known a lot of people are applying this

year. Here at the University of West London they've taken as twice

as many calls as last year but there are only a quarter of the

number of free places and that picture is similar nationally with

more pupils eligible for clearing than last year, but fewer vacancies.

Judging from last year, tens of thousands could fail to fullfill

their dream of going to university. 210,000 missed out on a place in

2010. But this year there are 8,500 more applicants and nearly 3,700

fewer courses with vacancies. Elizabeth from Newcastle is an A

grade student but is scrapping the gap year she wanted because tuition

fees rise next year. I wanted sometime to work and maybe make

some money before university, but then when I found out about the

whole fees changing we weren't sure if it was worth having a gap year.

I am not sure exactly how it works but it it doesn't sound like the

best situation. Rose has decided on an apprentice scheme, training to

be a plumber and avoiding university altogether. Fees and the

payments and I don't think I could afford it all and I would need help

from my parents and and I would rather have my own money where I

can spend it and enjoy it. Jacinthan finally got through to

clearing and was offered a different course at a university of

his choice, a happy ending, at least for him.

Let's talk to our political correspondent Vicky Young at

Westminster. There are going to be a lot of

disappointed students tonight, aren't there? Yes, there's many

factors putting pressure on places, not least of course many students

trying to avoid that rise in tuition fees which is due to come

in, in England, up to �9,000 a year in some cases, it doesn't apply to

students elsewhere in the UK. The message from ministers is don't

panic. They say the rise in applications isn't that high and

the message they want to ram home is you don't pay back any of the

money until you have graduated and earning more than �21,000 but it

does seem from the pictures we saw today that they're not doing enough

to quell the panic among students. The one thing that coalition

ministers don't want to have suggested is that the plan to put

up tuition fees is putting off students particularly from poorer

backgrounds. Thank you. There is a lot more on the BBC News

website, including a special Q and A on the options you have.

Around 20,000 people have lined the streets of Birmingham this

afternoon for the funerals of the three men who were knocked down and

killed during last week's riots. Haroon Jahan, Shazad Ali and Abdul

Musavir were killed while protecting their property from

looters. Four people have been charged with their murders. Our

Midlands correspondent Claire Marshall reports.

The three young men make their final journey through their

community, their families by their side.

The words of this Muslim prayer are the first words said to newborns

and the last said to those dying. Tariq Jahan seeks comfort as he

prepares to bury his own son. Haroon Jahan and the brothers

Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir were hit by a car during Birmingham's

worst night of looting. We spoke to the last surviving brother of

Shazad and Musavir, he hasn't been able to eat or sleep since they

were killed. He took this photo of them on their first family holiday

to Blackpool. How will your brothers be remembered by your

family and the community? Heroes all the time, every time, lovely

kids. Not even one person I know has said anything bad. They're

remembered by true heart, yeah, and speaking from the heart all the

time, whatever come on the tongue is the truth. Thousands have come

here today, this is very near where the young men were born and grew up

and where they died. People have come from overseas, across the

country and they've come from the local area. They've come here to

honour them. How was it for you seeing so many

people here today? It was incredible feeling and very bizarre

feeling. I don't think we will ever see anything like this in

Birmingham again. You feel sad, but you do feel that despite that

sadness that their deaths actually achieved something. A father's

goodbye. This ceremony was just one part of the long process of

grieving and healing. In London police have released

dramatic CCTV pictures of the looting of a shop in Clapham

Junction last week. The pictures taken last Monday show a man

appealing to a large group outside a Carphone Warehouse store. He is

attacked with a fire extinguisher before the looters enter the shop

through the smashed window. Detectives would like to hear from

the victim who is yet to be identified, or anyone who witnessed

the incident. Further sentences were handed out

today in Manchester in relation to the riots. A university student was

jailed for 16 months for theft after he was caught looting alcohol

from a supermarket in Manchester. 21-year-old Conrad McGrath, who

pleaded guilty to burglary at an earlier hearing, was told that he

had thrown away a lot and it was a heavy price to pay for such

behaviour. Thomas Downey, who was caught helping himself to doughnuts

from a Krispy Kreme shop in Manchester was also jailed for 16

months. The 48-year-old had just been released from Strangeways

prison on the day of the riots. Prince Harry has been to Salford

where he's met local people and emergency workers affected by last

week's riots. Firefighters told him how they had been pelted with

bricks as they tried to put out the fires in shops and cars which were

started by looters and rioters. Chris Buckler reports.

Past the Bingo and over the road to the shops, a day out for the Prince

in Salford. Harry went to see some of the businesses that had been

damaged in the rioting. A visible show of support for a community

that got caught up in chaos. It's good for the community. Somebody

like that to come to Salford, it's not an you get somebody like that.

He is not the first person you expect to meet in the main street?

You never know, do you. This visit was intended to boost morale. But

seeing a Royal after the riots didn't impress everyone. They never

come any other time do they? It's only because of the riots. That's

all it's about. Why can't they come when nothing is happening? Aside

from the repairs Salford does have problems that will take time and

money to fix, including unemployment and anti-social

behaviour. To make things happy here you need more community

centres, more football, rugby. There's nothing here, nothing for

people to do. But that doesn't excuse what happened last week. And

how to prevent trouble is a subject of debate on every street. Spare

the rod and spoil the child and that's what's going on here. Until

they Lordship. You think there needs to be stronger discipline?

children, yes. Those who were on the frontline in the riots were

recognised today. Each of the emergency services receiving a

Royal visit. The firefighters Prince Harry has been meeting were

directly involved in dealing with the disorder in Salford. Across

Greater Manchester there were more than 300 fires and several crews

came under attack. We were getting hoax calls with house fires, so we

could be attacked. Vehicles attacked with bricks. Many of those

who met the Prince and tackled the trouble are from this community,

and they say the rioters don't represent the residents.

President Obama has called for the resignation of Syria's President

Assad following a violent crackdown on anti-Government campaigners. Mr

Obama has imposed tough new sanctions and signed an order

freezing all Syrian Government assets. This afternoon the Prime

Minister also called for President Assad to step down. David Cameron

and his French counter-- and German counterparts issued a joint

statement saying he had lost all legitimacy. Our correspondent Adam

Brookes joins us from Washington. How significant could this prove to

be? Well, for five months Washington has sat and watched the

Syrian Government try to beat down these political protests, often

violently. Today, President Obama announced that in his eyes the

regime of President Assad is finished, that President Assad

should step down, and allow political change in Syria to take

its course. He also announced those tough new economic sanctions

against Syria. Minutes later out came Britain, France, Germany,

saying much the same thing. What we have here is a big complex

choreographed effort to squeeze Syria, force President Assad from

power. We should note that the Americans said also today that

there will be no military intervention in Syria, that that is

not on the cards. The Israeli military says it's

carried out an airstrike on Gaza, at least five Palestinians were

killed in the raid. It followed a series of attacks on vehicles in

southern Israel which killed seven people. In the first attack a bus

was fired on by gunmen. Later a car and a military patrol vehicle were

also targeted. It's the first attack on the border area for

several years. The widow of the British man killed

by a shark on honeymoon in the Seychelles has been speaking about

the attack for the first time. Gemma Redmond described hearing her

husband Ian screaming for help as he was snorkelling yards from the

beach. She's been speaking in an interview for BBC radio in the

Seychelles to our correspondent. This is one of the last pictures

taken of newlyweds Ian and Gemma Redmond just days before Ian was

killed by a shark in an horrific attack. Today police have been

patrolling the beach where Ian was killed as authorities try to catch

the deadly shark. Ian's wife Gemma, now a widow at the age of 27, has

been speaking to the BBC about what she saw. I could see the top of his

snorkel because he had an orange band around it so I could always

follow where he was. All of a sudden I heard this "help" and then

I heard it again and I heard "help", and the most awful scream. I can

still hear it when I close my eyes. Gemma Redmond doesn't blame anyone

for what happened, and describes her husband's death as a tragic

accident on which she will continue to replay in her mind. I ran up to

the boat and the man who had pulled the speedboat in wouldn't let me

get to it and I screamed at him it's my husband and he looked me in

the eyes and he said go on then. I could see Ian was laid back in the

boat. He looked up at me and I looked up at him and I could see a

mixture in his eyes of fear and of a realisation, relief that he had

seen me, that I was. Gemma's being supported by her parents who have

flown to the Seychelles to be with her. She says she's touched by all

the support and help she's had from people on the islands. After nine

years together and only ten days as a married couple, she now faces the

difficult journey of taking her Our top story tonight: Thousands of

students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are in a last-

minute rush for university places after another record A-level year.

Once the leader of the mighty Soviet empire, Mikhail Gorbachev

talks to us about the coup that nearly toppled him from power.

On the BBC News Channel, I will have all of the business news,

including another volatile day on global stock markets. The FTSE ends

the day down 4.5%, the biggest fall He was once his sport's enthusiasts

who loved the outdoor life but a catastrophic stroke left him

trapped in his own world. His only way of communicating now is by

blinking. The 46 year-old cannot be named for legal reasons. He wants

to die that his wife wants him to live, so his only option is to seek

outside help. Assisted suicide is illegal in the UK and asking a

doctor or lawyer for help could result in a prosecution. Another

man is trying to challenge the law. This is Martin in the room that he

hardly leaves. We are not using his real name. We cannot identify him

or his family for legal reasons. After a severe stroke he is unable

to speak and virtually unable to move. At 46 he is desperate to die.

Life is not worth living. It is exceedingly difficult for Martin to

communicate. The only way he can talk to me is through this computer.

He stares at a particular letter and then very slowly he forms words.

He has said several times to me that all he wants to do is dire. --

is die. How do you want to do that? In Switzerland, where it is legal.

Martin's wife says that she understands his desire to travel to

the Dignitas Clinic in Zurich but cannot bear to help him, and as no

relative will help him, Martin would need outside help to get

there. I couldn't. I just did not do it. I have tried so much to try

to convince him to live but it does not work. He just cannot carry on

as he is. Following the Debbie Purdy case, you prosecution

guidelines were published for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

They have been interpreted as offering some reassurance for

family members that have helped relatives to die out of compassion.

But the guidelines suggest that anybody who assists the suicide in

a professional capacity is more likely to be prosecuted. As a

lawyer I face the crazy position whereby I am not certain if it is

lawful for me to advise my client. If I was a relative or a friend, I

could arrange membership of Dignitas, but his appointment, go

with him and come back and be confident that I would not face

prosecution. Many believe that the current guidelines are too lax.

They are alarmed at the possibility of further changes which could make

assisted suicide easier. If this case is won, it could lead to a

weakening of the protection that is offered by the law. Many disabled

people would be very worried about that and might feel that this could

lead to situations in which they are put under pressure to end their

own lives. Martin faces a long wait as his case rumbles through the

courts. For those that say you should continue to live as he is,

he has a simple message. They should try it.

It has been another turbulent day on the markets. The FTSE has had

its biggest fall since November 2008 and the Dow Jones in America

has also fallen heavily. Robert Peston is here. What is driving

this? Let's look at the FTSE 100 index. Down 4.5%. That is a 239

drop in points, which is the 12th biggest ever points fall in the

history of the FTSE. It is it never good but not as big as the falls in

France, where shares are down by 5.5% and in Germany by 5.8%. And in

Wall Street, shares are roughly about 4% off tonight. What has been

driving investor anxiety for the past few weeks? Fears that the

biggest economy in the world, the US, is tumbling back into recession.

There was an influential survey today showing that factory output

in Pennsylvania and the surrounding area is contracting very sharply

indeed. And there are further signs of weakness in eurozone, the banks,

and if you add that together, you get a picture of investors that are

increasingly fearful. The work by US banks has not been working.

It was one of the great world events of the late 20th century.

The future of the Soviet Union hung in the balance as a military coup

and folded in Moscow. 20 years on, the man at the centre of it all,

Mikhail Gorbachev, has spoken exclusively to the BBC. He has

accused the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of castrating his

country's electoral system and urged him not to stand in the

presidential elections. At a private dinner in Moscow, the

former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev mulls over what happened

20 years ago with old colleagues. It also called, he says, starting

from my opponent's anger at the elections I brought in. That is

what led to the military coup against me. A dramatic showdown in

the heart of Moscow. The future of the world at stake. As BBC Moscow

correspondent, I witnessed it first hand. It was here exactly 20 years

ago in central Moscow that the leaders of the coup made their move.

On the orders of the Vice President, the KGB chief and others, tanks

rolled down the central thoroughfare towards the Kremlin,

passed astonished shoppers. The coup leaders said that Gorbachev

was too sick to rule and they were taking over power. It looked like a

classics of it -- classic Soviet military crackdown, reimposing

hardline control over the whole country. Gorbachev was on holiday

by the Black Sea. Where he refused to join the plotters, he found

himself under house arrest. They surrounded us with the cars down by

the shore and everywhere. At the entrance, they parked cars so that

nobody could drive past. In Moscow, crowds flocked to protect Russia's

fledgling democracy. The leaders of the coup panic and their plot

crumbled. In its aftermath, the Soviet Union soon collapsed and

swept Gorbachev from office. The day in Berlin, Gorbachev is greeted

as a hero for helping to end the Cold War and bringing down the

Berlin Wall. But his concern now is Russia's current Prime Minister,

Vladimir Putin, who he says it should not stand again as President.

Vladimir Putin and his team give stability but that kills

development and results and stagnation. The electoral system

that we have is nothing remarkable, but they have simply castrated it.

I apologise for my choice of words but they really have circumcised it.

He says that Russia needs to get back on the path to democracy and

Vladimir Putin is not the leader to do it. Tomorrow we will report from

Moscow and speak to those caught up in the momentous events 20 years

ago. Rain has affected the first day of

play in the 4th Test between England and India at the Oval.

Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook got through without any problems

until lunchtime when the rain fell. They have not been able to get back

out and play has been abandoned for the day.

After more than 30 years of work to clean up England's rivers, otters

are now back and living in every English county. They almost

disappeared in the 1970s as their habitat was polluted by pesticides.

Now they have finally been spotted in Kent, the last county where none

were recorded. Our correspondent is on the River Eden.

Yes, we are in the lovely grounds of Hever Castle. That is the River

Eden, one of two rivers in Kent where otters have finally been

spotted. If you are conservationist, you will know that is highly

significant news. They are the comeback kids of the English

countryside. By the 1970s, otters were absent in most of the country,

endangered in a few places where they managed to hang on to survival.

Slowly they have returned, moving South and East, and now in the

rivers of Kent, they are back. year when we did the national

survey we had otters in every county Parkend, nearly. Over the

last year we have definitely had some sightings. -- every county

except Kent. Now their water is clean and their habitat is

plentiful, a far cry from the 70s when pollution and persecution

nearly wiped them out. This one was born in captivity. Her charm has

helped the public to understand and support efforts to bring them back.

Everything has to be right. You need to have the right clean water

for the bugs and beasties that they like to eat. They all have to be

perfect for the otter, right at the top of the food chain. So the

otters have returned but their future survival is far from secure.

Even cleaner water and improve habitat is essential for these

vulnerable new colonies to become thriving populations. So there is

still work to be done. The hope is that one day of the otter will

become a common sight across our A lot of rain today.

Yes, good if you are run off to but not if you are a cricket fan.

Torrential rain in Dorset. The rain exploded through the cause of the

morning, and those bright colours show intense rain in Southampton

and Bournemouth. These were the images taken through the day, the

flooding in the streets of Bournemouth. The rain has extended

further North and it is pretty miserable across East Anglia and

the South East of England. Here, the rain will go away, but the

showers in Scotland will continue through the night. It turns into a

clear night and cold. Tomorrow, something much brighter and much

warmer. Some showers in North East Scotland, and cloudy in Northern

Ireland. Some rain here, but for many it will be a day of spells of

sunshine and it will feel warmer. A bright and fine day across northern

England, East Anglia and the South. With the rain today, temperatures

were in the low teens. Tomorrow it may even be 22. It has been

pleasant this afternoon across Cornwall and in the beaches of the

South West it will be fine, with spells of sunshine. The same in

Wales. The sunshine may turn hazy as the cloud increases through the

day. In Northern Ireland, bright spells today, but tomorrow will be

cloudier with some rain, coming into the West of Scotland. Further

East in Scotland, there will be southern spells and maybe 19 in

Edinburgh. Central areas will see some cloud and rain over the

weekend. Sunny spells further North. Then there is the risk of more

heavy rain across south-eastern England and East Anglia on Sunday.

That needs to be watched. Lots going on and there are some weather

warnings in force for you to look up online.