28/01/2013 BBC News at Six

High-speed trains from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds. The next

stage of a new line between the south and north of England is

reveal. Trains will travel up to 225 miles per hour, slashing

journey times. The project will not be completed for 20 years. With

improved connectivety and shorter travel times, we would be able to

do so much more business. It is the uncertainty is the main problem. We

don't know as a business, can we invest, hire more people?

Also on tonight's programme - blown into the sea, the baby that spent

up to ten minutes in freezing water, strapped to its pushchair, survives,

thanks to a dock master. I went over. The buggy was upside down and

jumped (The Green deal. Long-term loans for insulation and boilers,

in a bid to cut our energy bills. It is a truth... And one of the

nation's favourite books is 200 years old today. We mark the

anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Coming up: Another blow for England Good evening. Welcome to the BBC

News at Six. The Government has revealed its preferred route for

the latest phase for the proposed high-speed rail link beyond London.

There will be two branchs of the high-speed track. One to Manchester,

the other to the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds. There are

concerns about the impact on the environment. Here is our transport

correspondent. I am sure commuters here would be

delighted to be getting on a brand new train. Quite a lot will be

retired by the time the new station opens here in Leeds. It is a highly

controversial topic and hugely expensive. The Government says

high-speed rail will generate at least 100,000 jobs. It has put it

now at the heart of our economic plans for the future. It is just a

very fast train line. The Government says HS2 will bring the

country closer together. Shrinking journey times between the biggest

cities. The coalition's big guns were out in force today, claiming

the new line will speed up our sluggish economy. I think it's

vital for Britain f we are to succeed in the global race. Other

countries have high-speed rail networks. We need it too. For

Britain there is a benefit for linking up our major cities.

know the route from London to Birmingham. Today's announcement

covers the cover on to Leeds and Manchester. With five stops,

travelling at 225 miles per hour, HS2 will slash journey times. Hon

don to Leeds, down from two hours 12, to one hour, 22. London to

Manchester from 2 hours eight minutes to an hour and eight

minutes. Birmingham to Leeds, down from two hours, to less than an

hour. It doesn't look much today, does

it? Just a rainy road junction like any other. This is going to be the

site of the new station in Leeds City centre. I wouldn't rush to buy

a ticket just yet though. There will not be anyone boarding a high-

speed train here for another 20 years. It is high speed and highly

controversial N the centre of Leeds, Stephen Webb workforce a business

sending out electronic parts across the world. It is a global business.

We have to access customers and suppliers who would often aroive in

the UK via London and being able to get them here to see our operations

in Leeds easily and quickly would be a fantastic benefit to us.

the edge of the city, the new line could go through this man's family

farm. It is the uncertainty. We don't know as a business, can we

invest, or hire more people? Is the Government going to concrete over

what we have spent three generations building? Critics say

it is a mistake putting the Sheffield station five miles out of

town. Passengers in Nottingham and Derby must share a station, again,

several miles from both cities. There are doubts that high-speed

rail does really spread wealth to the regions. The claim it will heal

the north-south divide is a massive statement. It will attract people

to work in London from a distance. There's a long way to go before

people are travelling at this speed in Britain. The first high-speed

train will not depart for another 13 years We've had a mixed reaction

to the announcement of this route today. A lot of people realising

for the first time it may go near their home. My colleague has been

out in the Midlands, where there are plenty of people worried about

this affect this line will have on their communities. The scene at

Birchmoor village hall was mirrored across the country today, as

residents pinpointed where the proposed route would run. Today was

all about the detail, which homes, businesses and parts of the

landscape would be affected? People here believe their community will

be blighted for years to come. Mary has a chronic illness and is

desperate to sell her home. This could take 15 years. I probably

haven't got 15 years. So, for me, you've got to fight your corner and

my corner is, I want to move. People here have lived with the

roar of the M42 for years. The plans would see the road moving

during the construction of the rail link. The field behind me would

become the motorway, causing huge disruption. But for some

communities, there was good news - a station at Toton in

Nottinghamshire will put the small suburb on the map and bring

investment. It is quite exciting. I would be quite pleased. I actually

work in London quite a lot. It couldn't come quick enough for me.

It will bring benefits. This are new housing in the pipeline. It's

going to bring better connections to London and things like that.

Despite a positive outcome here, for thousands of people, there is a

threat of upheaval, without the benefits of a new station nearby.

The big question for a lot of people - how much is a ticket going

to cost? Well the Government says it will be roughly in line with the

rest of the railways. Britain has a high-speed line. It takes people

from Kent into London, on tickets on that line can be 20% more

expensive. Thank you very much. The former Liberal Democrats Cabinet

minister Chris Huhne and his ex- wife are to stand trial, charged

with intending to pervert the course of justice. It is alleged Mr

Huhne persuaded Vicky Pryce to take penalty points after he was caught

It is nearly a year since Chris Huhne was first charged. Finally,

today he stood in the dock here at Southwark Crown Court and heard the

charge read out T allegation, as you say, is during 2003, when

police were carrying out an investigation into a speeding

vehicle on the M11, that Chris Huhne falsely claimed his wife was

driving that vehicle. It is claimed he was acting, carried out an

intend intending to pervert the course of justice.

He said he was pleading not guilty. Also in the dock was Vicky Pryce,

his former wife, who has faced the same charge and in the past has

pleaded not guilty. So the trial of them both will start on Monday.

Again, that is nearly a year since Chris Huhne resigned as Energy

Secretary and said he would clear his name. Apologies for the sound

there. A baby who spent up to ten minutes in the sea in Somerset

after his buggy was blown in by strong winds is recovering in

hospital after an extraordinary escape. The six-month-old boy was

being pushed along the harbour at Watchet when his pushchair was

swept into the freezing waters. The dock master heard the baby's mother

screaming and dived in to save him. Just six months old - Sam Cooper-

Stephens is lucky to be alive tonight, after being swept into the

sea during a storm. It was a sudden gust of wind that blue Sam's

pushchair off the harbour -- blew Sam's pushchair off the harbour

wall. It was high tide. He went under the muddy water for close to

ten minutes. Sam's dad still can't believe what happened. And he can't

believe his son is alive and well tonight after being rescued.

response of everyone was pretty amazing. It couldn't get much

better than that. What he's like, that son of yours? Brilliant!

was the dock master, George Reeder, who jumped in to save Sam. To start

with, the baby was unresponsive, but after the kiss of life, he came

to. I saw a little bit of breath coming out. A few bubbles. I

thought, he's all right, he's alive. Brilliant. A little miracle. It's

thought the cold water may actually have protected Sam's brain and/or

begans and helped save his life. This afternoon, his dad gave a

thank you hug to the local woman who resuscitated the baby at the

scene. She had been trained in first aid.

I've never had to use it in real life. It's a bit of a shock when

you do. It comes nach arely. naturally. Sam was airlifted to

hospital in Taunton, where he is said to be making excellent

progress tonight. His family have paid tribute to everyone in their

small community who came to the rescue.

Police in Bristol have revealed that an officer had tried to stop a

car shortly before it allegedly knocked down and killed a married

couple. Ross and Clare Simons were knocked off their bike yesterday

afternoon. Police say officers tried to follow the car but lost

sight of it. A man and woman have been arrested. Police investigating

allegations of corrupt payments by journalists to a public officials

have arrested a prison officer at his home in Kent T man, who is 40,

is being held on suspicion of conspiracy to cause misconduct in a

public office. He is the 58th person to be detained as part of

Operation Elveden, which is running alongside the police inquiry into

phone hacking. In Mali, French-led forces have entered Timbuktu, which

was seized by Islamist rebels nearly 10 months ago. A military

spokesman said troops moved in after taking the airport without

firing a single-shot. David Cameron spoke to the French President last

night and said Britain was happy to give more help, but British troops

will not be sent in a combat role. The taking of Timbuktu began last

night when French troops, backed by Malian soldiers, advanced on the

airport. In the end, they secured it without a shot being fired. The

rebels had melted away into the desert. "From what they have left,

we can see they had explosives like Afghanistan."

Now the French say their forces have entered the legend dri city

itself. Last year, the Islamists demolished ancient shrines there,

claiming they were unIslamic. It seems in the last few days they may

have burned further buildings and priceless manuscripts. Now,

apparently, the ancient trading post is on the way to being

liberated. The all-important battle for Mali began two weeks ago when

the French intervened to take back rebel-controlled areas. From the

capital Bamako, they moved north to take daibdaib and then advanced to

take goo. Today, they entered -- Already, in Mali's liberated towns,

residents have been out on the streets to celebrate and erase the

symbols and slogans of the rebels Islamic rule. In Paris, the French

President warned that in northern Mali the battle is not over.

TRANSLATION: Northern Mali is still under the control of terrorists, so

it is up to the Africans to enable Mali to restore its territorial

integrity. Thousands of African troops are on their way to help.

Clearing towns of militants is the easy bit. Tracking them down in

Mali's deserts will be much more difficult.

Details of the next phase of a high-speed rail route are launched.

Coming up: Mr Darcy! That moment, that book. Pride And Prejudice is

200 years old today. What is the secret of its own during appeal?

In the business news, London's FTSE 100 goes through the 6,100 barrier.

And ice and is accused of failing Is it is being called the most

ambitious home-improvement programme ever. The government has

launched a scheme to offer householders long-term loans to

make their houses more energy efficient. The loans would then be

repaid with interest through your energy bills. Campaigners warn the

scheme is too complicated. Across Britain, in millions of

households, energy pours out of windows, roofs and walls. The

government wants our homes to become more energy efficient and

green. Under the plan, a range of options like loft insulation are

available to help reduce energy costs which are then paid for

further down the line. The great thing about the Green Deal is it

works for everybody. The higher your energy bills, the more savings

you will be able to make, regardless of what your income is.

The Green Deal finance would be available to pretty much any body.

You have not got any double-glazing at all. This woman had her house

assess this morning. This stage typically costs �100 up front. She

needs a new boiler and wash -- solid fuel insulation. But the loan

repayments are more than �500 a year. If she goes ahead, there are

no upfront costs to the improvements to the roof or Windows,

for example. Instead, it is paid for by a loan which is repaid

through interest through higher energy bill. But the loan is linked

to the property which means any new owner or tenant has to take on. The

golden rule is the repayments on a loan should never be bigger than

the savings you make on your household energy bill. But aware of

concerns that very few people seem to know about the Green Deal, today

the government was even offering cashback to households in England

and Wales if they sign up to the 16th -- scheme sooner or later.

Will this plug the gap in our inefficient housing stock? Some

feel the loan on the property could deter future buyer. Others warn

that the programme is too complex. It may be too complicated for a lot

of people, especially now when people do not want to take on more

debt, even to save money on their energy bills. It remains to be seen

whether this scheme will grow and take-off as the government hopes.

Eight the government insists this will cut our bills and carbon

emissions and going green will create thousands of jobs as well.

The Brazilian government has declared three days of national

mourning after more than 230 people were killed in a fire in a

nightclub in the city of Santa Maria at the weekend. Most of those

who died were students and teenagers. Reports say the fire

began when a member of a band playing in the club lit a flare on

the stage. Julia Carneiro reports. They were young, with their lives

ahead of them, victims of one of the world's deadliest nightclub

fires. Families and friends gathered at a local gymnasium where

bodies had been taken for identification. Many of those who

died where students at the local university. TRANSLATION: I have

lost my son. He was full of life, full of Health and only 27 years

old. So sad. Investigators are now trying to piece together what

happened that the Kiss nightclub in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The fire is thought to have started when a band playing on stage lit a

flare set in the ceiling alight. The blaze took hold quickly,

creating a cloud of toxic smoke. was dancing with my friends and the

music stopped. My friend grabbed me and pushed me and shouted, run, run.

That is when the confusion started, people running and stepping on each

other. The witnesses claimed that security guards initially kept the

only exit door locked. It was hard to get out. The smoke spread very

quickly. I only stayed there for a few seconds but it felt like an

eternity. Firefighters and paramedics struggled to get into

the venue, with most of the beck -- victims dying from smoke inhalation.

This nightclub fire in a small provincial city has sent shockwaves

throughout Brazil and the wider world. Questions are being asked

how this was allowed to happen, why the death toll was so large and who

ultimately is to blame. The answers may come later. For now, it is time

for relatives to bury their dead and begin to come to terms with

this terrible tragedy. In Afghanistan, the government is

trying to persuade Taliban fighters to surrender their weapons and

reintegrate into their communities. The campaign is making slow

progress and intelligence experts are warning of increase in suicide

attacks as NATO forces begin their withdrawal. Frank Gardner sent this

report from Afghanistan. The Afghan capital, Kabul, is today

a busy, bustling city. Few of NATO's 100,000 troops are anywhere

to be seen. They are starting to leave now. On a drive around the

city with a deputy commander, he tells me Afghanistan is a different

place from when they arrived 11 years ago. It is remarkable how

things have progressed in the broader civil society sense. Access

to healthcare is very different to what it was. Education has moved on

hugely. There are 20 million mobile telephone users now. In terms of

the progress towards the sort of things we would understand from our

countries, there has been a momentum which is not irreversible

but it has progressed in an extraordinary way. But the Taliban

have not gone away. Soon, Afghan security forces like these will

have to fight them on their own. The man who led the intelligence

war against the insurgents for most of the last ten years, says the

attacks are set to get worse. NATO withdraws forces, and reduces

its presence in Afghanistan, the Taliban are going to change their

tactics. They are going to modify their strategy and they are going

to do more and more spectacular attacks.

Like this one, on our first morning in Kabul, a triple suicide bombing

at the traffic headquarters. Officials tell us there are four on

average attacks foiled each week. From Kabul, we flew in a NATO

helicopter to see what security is like in one of the provinces. Here,

the government is offering former insurgents money to give up their

guns and reintegrate themselves into village communities. It is

having mixed results. The men behind me, who do not want to show

their faces, we are told are all former Taliban insurgents. The

problem is, we have no means of knowing. Even if they are, the

numbers so far are still very small, just 6,000 reintegrating him more

than two years. The men's details are registered biometric live. They

are taking a risk doing this and they have been reprisals. Kidal is

not say. While we were there, a motorbike bomber struck in the

bizarre -- Ghazni is not safe at. NATO has fought to a stalemate. Now

it is leaving, the Afghan forces must decide who to trust and how to

stop this country once again becoming a haven for international

terrorism. Finally, Jane Austen described the

book as her own darling child. Today, Pride And Prejudice is

celebrating its 200th anniversary. The past decade has seen an

explosion in sequels and spin-offs to the novel which still sells tens

of thousands of copies every year in the UK alone. Will Gompertz

assesses the novel's appeal. A rare 200 year-old first edition

of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice. Her Regency novel about

five unmarried sisters, with its famous opening line. It is a truth

universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good

fortune, must be in want of a wife. It is a truth universally

acknowledged that Jane Austen are originally called Herbert First

Impressions. Because they can be inaccurate. And can lead people to

jump to conclusions based on nothing more than pride, and

prejudice. I should be very happy to dance with the. This is Jane

Austen's house in Hampshire where she completed Pride And Prejudice.

She was happy and productive here. Every morning she would come

downstairs and play the piano for couple of hours and then she would

get on with her one domestic duty of the day to make breakfast for

her mother and sister. She would then clear it all away, after which,

she would sit down at this table by the window and right. Jane Austen,

who never married, called the book, My own darling child. A literary

creation which has since been adopted by several writers,

including P D James. There is a perfection about this book. The

prose is marvellous. It is always lucid, always Clear, it is elegant

and it is spiced with witticisms and with real humour. Produces from

Hollywood to body would have made films based on a Pride And

Prejudice and then there is the 1995 BBC adaptation which

introduced a new generation to Elizabeth Bennet and... Mr Darcy!

And to Colin Firth is six years later played another Mr Darcy.

verbally incontinent spinster who dresses like her mother and drinks

like a fish. I Holly stole the plot in making Mr Darcy beat Mark Darcy.

I thought it had been well researched over couple of centuries

and I thought she would not mind, Jane Austen, and anyway, she was

dead. Jane Austen's remarkable ability to observe and characterise

human behaviour is epitomised in Pride And Prejudice, a love story

which no matter how many times it is retold, always has the same

ending. Let's have a look at the weather

Hello. It is very noisy out there. The wind is howling. The heavier,

more persistent rain will be clearer why. We have some sharp

showers to come. The rain never really clears away from the south

coast. It starts to push back overnight towards the south of

Wales. It will be a mild night, as the wind drops right at the end of

the night. It could turn chilly in the far north-east of Scotland. The

wind will pick up again. It means more cloud and more rain. The rain

will sweep its way northwards and eastwards. It will turn wetter

through the day in Scotland. Some heavy rain over the hills.

Temperatures are reasonable eight degrees. It will be mild a further

south. Northern Ireland may have some late sunshine in the West. The

rain easing off in the Midlands towards the south-east of England.

Still cloudy and windy. Into South Wales and Devon we have amber rain

warnings from the Met Office. There is the risk of further flooding.

The wetter weather across the south will linger into Tuesday night. To

the north we have that deep area of low pressure. The winds in Scotland

will be the main concern. There could be some travel destruction. -

- disruption. The rain in the south-east will clear on Wednesday