27/12/2012 BBC News

Tackling child abias. The Government unveils a national

database for children who visit hospitals.

All children in England will have details logged to help doctors spot

the early signs of abuse. The growing north/south divide in

Britain's house prices. Parts of the south-east prosper as prices in

Scotland and Northern Ireland falter.

At least six die as blizzards sweep across parts of the United States.

After a year of unprecedented sales, which gadgets will we take to next?

Good afternoon. All children who visit A&E

Departments in hospital or see their doctor out-of-hours are to be

entered on to a national database to help authorities tackle child

abuse. It is hoped that the system, to be introduced in all hospitals

in England by 2015, will allow professionals to spot the early

signs of neglect and abuse. Luke Walton has this report. A&E

Departments like this one in East London see thousands of children

every year. Their injuries are often conspicuous, but the abuse

that sometimes lie behind them can be less obvious. When it comes to

spotting it, the staff need all the help that they can get.

For every child who has died, had an inquiry, when you look back

through, there are lots of attendances, but no-one had the

whole picture. We want to give each doctor that sees them the whole

picture. The staff will be able to see on

hospital computer if children are on at-risk register, are in local

authority care or have been freak want visitors to other A&Es.

It will be rolled out Nashally in 2015.

The children who are most at-risk of abuse tend to have devious

parents who may well take them to different settings in different

parts of the country. This allows us to have a record of when and

where children have attended A&E Department settings.

Calls for greater co-ordination between the agencies involved in

caring for children, go back to the death of Victoria Climbie more than

a decade ago, but there have been delays in coming up with a solution.

Campaigners say that it is vital that the promises of today are

followed by delivery. It is people that keep children

safe, not systems and databases. We are concerned that the training of

health professionals in child protection is patchy. We hope that

the Department of Health will look at this to ensure that alongside

the announcement, improvements in training can be made.

This announcement will be closely scrutinised by Labour it criticised

a decision by the coalition to halt the implementation of a bigger data

because to tackle child abuse. Amid complaints that it was intrusive.

Weather the new approach will finally fill the gap remain as

point of contention. Well, our correspondent joins us

here now, Philippa, how will the system work? It is a way of

spotting children that are frequently using urb Gent care.

Presenting with what you would call suspicious injuries, bruising, bite

marks, scratching and burns. The evidence is that parents and carers

who abuse go to great lengths to cover their tracks. So the idea is

that even if children come in miles away or months after the last

admission, that they will be spotted. There are concerns about

intrusion on parents.and bureaucracy, the Department of

Health is stressing that it is not more red tape. We log children who

come in. That this is it a way of putting all of the information

together. Also it is about clinical judgment, whether you are talking

about a child who has fallen out of a tree and keeps doing it, or likes

to fight or whether they are a victim of abuse, but this is a

national system that has been recommended since twouds when

Victoria Climbie died. She was seen by dozens of doctors, nurses and

nobody spotted that she was basically being tortured to death.

Thank you very much. It appear as flat year for house

prices in 2012 is mask aggroing north/south divide. The figures

from the Halifax show that the biggest falls in property values

were in Craigavon in Northern Ireland and in Scotland and in

lajshire. The biggest house prices were in Rochester, Basingstoke and

the Southend area. There is a price rise of up to

almost 15%. Emma, what is driving the house prices where you are?

Well, it may look pretty in this area today, but this seaside town

has seen the biggest house price increases than anywhere in the UK,

according to the Halifax. There are a few simple reasons. There are

good schools and a decent commute to London, proving more affordable

for families looking to move from the capital. That is the theme in

the report. That the top performers have been London commuter towns in

the south-east, where on the whole the economy has been buoyant. What

has been driving it is what is happening in London itself, a

housing market all on its own, where the prices continue to defy

gravity with lots of foreign buyers that is producing a ripple effect

where the house buyers and families are looking further afield.

Beyond the south-east, though, it is a different picture, isn't it?

Yes, we did get more evidence of the north/south divide when it

comes to property. The vast majority of the worst fer formers

in terms of price rises have been outside of the south-east. Another

survey shows there is an average of �100,000 different between the

average property in the north and in the south, but the overall

national picture has not changed that much throughout the year. A

fairly stagnant market with little movement in prices or in sales.

That is looking set to continue in 2013.

Emma, thank you very much. The former American President,

George Bsuh Senior, who has been in hospital for treatment for

bronchitis has moved to intensive care. He has been in hospital since

the end of November. It is thought that he developed complications,

but is decide be talking to family and doctors.

President Obama has cut short his Christmas holiday in Hawaii in an

effort to agreement on the budget for the dead line for what is known

as the fiscal cliff approaches to the end of the year.

There are feers that the US economy could fall -- there are fears that

the US comi could fall back into a recession.

A severe storm that whipped up tornadoes in the United States has

brought heavy snow to the midwest. At least six people have died and

thousands more are without electricity. Hundreds of flights

have been cancelled as the extreme weather moves to the north-east.

When the snow came it came fast. Within a couple of hours, about 30

centimetres had fallen on Indianapolis.

It is basically a white-out. You looked out the window, you could

hardly see outside. You could not even see the cars out to the front.

A massive winter storm, dropping record amounts of snow from

Arkansas to the midwest, up to Illinois and Indiana. A single

weather system, but more than just the snow. Tornado systems were

ripping through towns with little or no warning.

We were sitting in the livingroom, doing Christmas with the family.

Then the sirens went off. Then we heard what sounded like a freight

train coming through. We grabbed the women and the children. We ran

to the bathroom, threw them in the tub and we stood watch over

eeverybody. Property damage, power cuts and

hundreds of flights cancelled too. We are from Dallas. That is where

it was pretty bad. The ice was on the roads. They did have the sand

infrastructures out. The sand trucks came out. It was not too bad

in the morning, but we were kind of concerned.

In parts of the country, the clean- up operation is under way. The

impact of this storm is still being felt. It is predicted that there is

more bad weather on its way. The car manufacture, Toyota has

agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle hundreds of lawsuits from

vehicle owners in America. It follows a problem with floor mats

that became trapped under neath the accelerator pedals on a number of

models. Toyota has recalled more than 14 million vehicles.

Officials in China are investigating how a shark tank

exploded in a shopping centre. The aquarium burst with no warning last

week, but the CCTV pictures have been just made public. 16 people

were injured and three sharks died in the incident.

Here a Government minister is urging well-off pensioners who do

not need their winter fuel payment to give the money to charity. Nick

Hurd said he could congratulate any pensioner who chose to donate their

allowance. Let's go to Westminster. Chris, why

is the minister saying this? On the face of it it sounds odd, doesn't

it? A minister suggesting that money should be given away at a

time when twhr is not a lot of money in the Westminster pot and

the Government is handing money out to all pensioners. The winter fuel

payment payment is available to anyone who can access the state

pension it is worth �200 a year if you are in your 60s or 70s, �300 if

you are in your eighties or older. The Government will not get rid of

the benefits it was in the book of promises signed up to a couple of

years ago. So if you are a pensioner on modest means, a

millionaire footballer, or an actress, you get it the Government

is to stick with the current plan, but you can give the money away if

you like. I suspect soon that the benefits could disappear the other

side of the election. Now with more than 90% of adults

owning a mobile phone and half of us using gadgets on social media

sites it is clear we are becoming a nation increasing -- increasingly

obsessed with technology, but which gadgets made the headlines in 2012?

We have been having a look. Everywhere you look you will find

screens, big and small, not just in the BBC's newsroom, but in people's

hands it has been the year of the touch screen device. With a couple

of helpers I've been looking back. Paul is a technology analyst, Keza

reviews video games for a living. We look back on a year when the Web

went mobile and more and more people started to use tablets and

smart phones and the battle between the technology giants grew fiercer.

Now I want you turning on the tablets. Tablets, smart phones and

e-reader arrived in all sorts of sizes and flavours, giving the

consumers more choice. The only really good tablet the

only good e-reader was the tablet, but this year it is different.

There is the Google Nexus tablet. That runs on android. This one, the

Kindle Fire HD. This is a lot of people moving into the Apple's

space. When it comes to smart phones and

tablets it is not hardware that people are buying but fashion?

Reare looking to a content to get on to the devices. It is about the

apps that they buy, the music that they download on to it or transfer

to other devices that they have got. Now the gaming. Two new consoles,

the Wii U and the Sony Vita arrived, but gaming is changing.

A really interesting year for video games, we can play games on smart

phones, tablets, on any device that you have. People are not moving

away from consoles, many play games on those, but lots of other people

are joining in on smart phones and tablets.

So, what is next? Paul points to the 3D printer.

Now they are about �1,000, but each year they will be chaefer and what

they make is more sew fist cased. There is the Raspberry Pi, it could

revolutionise how people think about computing. P is a bit like

the Spectrum from the eighties. I love technology, it is so ek

sesible. It is no longer a nerdy thing. It is something that