September 27, 2010, 8:14 pm
![Image]( "Tax 'not spent in public interest'")
People think almost half of their taxes are not spent by the Government in the public interest, according to a poll.
The survey across 22 countries also found Britain was the most pessimistic about the state of the economy, with 58% of people expecting bad times over the next year.
The BBC World Service global poll, conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA, found that worldwide people felt on average that 52% of the money they pay in tax is not used in ways that serve the interests and values of the people of their country.
It found Britons believe 46% of their taxes are not spent wisely but also found a willingness among them (36%) to see tax rises as a way to cut the deficit.
Support for the coalition Government taking steps to cut the deficit is higher in the UK than any other European country, at 60%.
And while 37% of Britons are receptive to financial help for the banks, 40% strongly oppose further bail-outs. Just over half - 51% - back an increase in government regulation and oversight of the economy.
A majority of the British public - 69% - also support lowering prices on basic food items through subsidy, in common with 20 other countries surveyed.
Doug Miller, chairman of GlobeScan, said: "As countries struggle to achieve economic recovery, citizens want more active government, but also more effective government intervention in the economy to meet the needs of citizens, including stabilising food prices."
GlobeScan/PIPA interviewed 22,783 people in 22 countries face-to-face or by telephone between June 24 and September 5.
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September 27, 2010, 8:14 pm
![Image]( "Miliband acknowledges voter 'anger'")
Ed Miliband is to try to distance himself from his Labour leader predecessors by acknowledging voter "anger" at the failings of the party in government - particularly its claim to have ended "boom and bust".
In his crucial first conference speech as leader, Mr Miliband will seek to draw a line under 13 years of Labour government by declaring that a "new generation" is now in charge of the party and will usher in "different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics".
Ending boom and bust was Gordon Brown's proudest claim as chancellor and Mr Miliband's admission that it was wrong will be seen as a repudiation of the record of the man who was his political mentor and a bold claim to stake out a position as a leader in his own right.
The speech threatens to be overshadowed by speculation over the political future of his brother David, who lost out on the Labour leadership on Saturday.
Responding on Monday night to reports suggesting he was on the verge of giving up frontline politics, a spokesman said the shadow foreign secretary would not decide whether to seek a place in his brother's frontbench team until Wednesday when the deadline for nominations for the shadow cabinet elections was reached.
In his address Ed Miliband is not expected to apologise for Labour's record in power - and will say he wants to celebrate its many achievements under Mr Brown and Tony Blair. But he will acknowledge that voters feel angry over its failure to stand up to City demands for deregulation ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. And he will leave no doubt that he believes the imposition of tuition fees on university students cost the party support, in an apparent signal that he will push ahead with a move to a graduate tax.
Striking a tone of humility, he will accept that Labour lost voters' trust because it become stuck in "old ways of thinking" and failed to adapt in response to changes in the world.
And he will seek to introduce himself to voters - many of whom know little about him - with what was being billed as the most open and personal speech of his career, in which he will explain how his values and beliefs were drawn from his parents' wartime experience as refugees from the Nazis.
In a detailed account of where he believes the New Labour governments of Mr Brown and Mr Blair went wrong, Mr Miliband will say: "It was courage that made us such a successful political force. But our journey must also understand where it went wrong. How did a party with such achievements to its name end up losing five million votes between 1997 and 2010?
"The hard truth for everybody in this hall is that a party that started out by taking on old thinking became the prisoner of its own certainties."
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September 27, 2010, 8:14 pm
![Image]( "Warning over local TV stations plan")
Advertising revenue alone will not be enough to ensure the success of a Government-backed plan to launch dozens of local television stations, according to a new report.
Nicholas Shott, of investment bankers Lazard, who was charged by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to investigate the proposals said a multi-million pound corporate sponsorship deal could be one way to make it work.
In a letter to Mr Hunt, he said the stations were more likely to succeed in "urban areas", but even there "the economics of a TV business funded mainly by advertising will still be challenging" and "additional revenue sources" would have to be explored.
Mr Shott, who heads a five-member steering group, has published an interim report into their findings.
He wrote: "We believe there may be scope for the local TV sector collectively to be sponsored (at least in the early years) by a large corporate wishing to be seen to support local/community life - a reasonable parallel for this is Barclays' sponsorship of the London bicycle scheme, worth £25 million over five years".
He added that stations could be hosted by existing channels and that discussions had started with "senior management" at the BBC which were showing "early promise".
Mr Hunt will argue the case for more local television in a speech to the Royal Television Society at the Barbican Centre in London.
He is expected to say: "My vision is of a landscape of local TV services broadcasting for as little as one hour a day. Free to affiliate to one another - formally or informally - in a way that brings down costs. Free to offer nationwide deals to national advertisers.
"Able to piggyback existing national networks - attracting new audiences and benefiting from inherited ones at the same time. And able to exploit the potential of new platform technologies such as YouView and mobile TV to grow their service and improve their cost-effectiveness."
He will say that an expansion of superfast broadband and the removal of cross-media rules preventing companies controlling newspapers, television and radio stations will all help make the plan more likely to succeed.
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September 27, 2010, 8:14 pm
![Image]( "UK economic recovery 'under way'")
The UK economy is on the mend and "recovery is under way", a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
In its annual healthcheck on the British economy, the IMF backed the coalition Government's deficit-busting austerity measures, calling Chancellor George Osborne's plans "credible" and "essential".
The body also predicted economic growth of 2% in 2011, although this was lower than its previous estimate of 2.1%, and predicted the rate of inflation would fall back to its 2% target by early 2012.
The IMF's endorsement of the Government's plans to tackle the UK's creaking public finances comes less than a month before the Chancellor sets out his comprehensive spending review.
The IMF statement said: "The plan greatly reduces the risk of a costly loss of confidence in public finances and supports a balanced recovery.
"Fiscal tightening will dampen short-term growth but not stop it as other sectors of the economy emerge as drivers of recovery, supported by continued monetary stimulus."
A spokesman for the Treasury said: "Last year the IMF said Government borrowing was a risk to the recovery. This year the IMF's verdict is that the economy is on the mend and that the Government's deficit reduction plan is essential and will ensure the sustainability of the public finances, tackling the highest deficit in the G7."
The IMF said policymakers at the Bank of England would need to be "nimble" if risks to the economic recovery emerged.
The Bank is currently holding interest rates at an all-time low of 0.5%, and has pumped £200 billion into the economy through its quantitative easing programme.
In its meeting earlier this month the Monetary Policy Committee said it was leaning towards further emergency measures to prop up the economic recovery, and was poised to act.
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September 28, 2010, 1:02 am
![Image]( "Moat Taser 'had no police licence'")
The company that supplied the Taser guns used by police in the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat breached its licence, sources have confirmed.
Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire will write to the Home Affairs Select Committee saying the firm, Pro-Tect Systems, was not licensed to supply the XRep Taser guns to police.
But there was no suggestion that any blame should be attached to the officers involved and the Home Office has stressed that police could use any weapon they saw fit as long as its use was "lawful, reasonable and proportionate".
The XRep Taser, which is fired from a 12-gauge shotgun, was being tested by the Home Office before being approved for use by police forces in England and Wales.
Pro-Tect Systems was licensed to supply the Taser guns to the Home Office for testing, but was not licensed to supply them to police, sources said.
Armed police fired two Tasers at the steroid-addicted former nightclub doorman in an "effort to stop him taking his own life" at the Riverside park area in Rothbury, Northumberland, in the early hours of July 10, an inquest at Newcastle Civic Centre was told.
The stand-off brought to an end one of the biggest manhunts in British history, triggered when Moat shot his former girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, 22, killed Chris Brown, 29, and blinded Pc David Rathband, 42.
But the precise sequence of events regarding the discharge of the XRep Tasers in relation to Moat firing his sawn-off shotgun has not been established and is under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Pro-Tect Systems said it could not comment while the IPCC investigation was going on.
But Moat's brother Angus said officers used his brother as a "guinea pig", adding: "They had not used them before, and that was not the time or the place to conduct an experiment."
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September 28, 2010, 1:07 am
![Image]( "Girl 'killed sex assault accused'")
A 14-year-old girl killed an older man shortly after finding out that he would not be prosecuted for sexually assaulting her, the Old Bailey has heard.
She went to his home with a 14-year-old male friend and, within minutes, Robert Daley, 45, was dying of stab wounds, it was claimed.
The girl and boy, now both 15, deny murdering Mr Daley at his flat in Ferndale Road, Stockwell, south London, on April 23.
The defendants cannot be named because of their ages.
Jonathan Rees QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the girl, her 16-year-old sister and a woman had made claims of sexual assault against Mr Daley. But despite their claims, all three continued to have contact with him.
Mr Rees said Mr Daley was telephoned on the morning he died by a police officer who told him the Crown Prosecution Service had decided to drop the case. Mr Daley then telephoned the older girl, who then contacted the 14-year-olds.
The youngsters arrived at the flat - but five minutes later Mr Daley had been stabbed and collapsed on the floor. Mr Rees said two of the stab wounds in his side had penetrated his heart.
He said the boy was understood to be claiming that he used the knife while trying to defend himself and the girl.
The girl denied taking part in the stabbing, but claimed that, during the visit, Mr Daley sexually assaulted her in the kitchen and the boy stabbed him to help her get away.
Mr Rees added: "There is evidence that she later told people close to her that it was she who stabbed him. It is the prosecution case that both defendants were both responsible."
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September 28, 2010, 1:07 am
![Image]( "Woman held in baby murder probe")
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery of a baby in a garden, police have said.
The baby, named Aliyah by police, was found wrapped in a shawl in a garden in Tinline Street, Bury, Greater Manchester, on September 6.
A 25-year-old woman was arrested, police said. She has been assessed by a doctor and declared fit to be interviewed, and remains in custody, a spokesman added.
A house in Alfred Street, Bury, is currently being examined by police.
Officers believe the woman is the baby's mother, said Detective Superintendent Sam Haworth, of Greater Manchester Police.
"We have made significant progress on the investigation over the last couple of days and this has led us to make the arrest this morning.
"At this stage it is too soon to go into the finer points of the investigation, but we are confident we have found baby Aliyah's mother.
"We are now ensuring she receives any medical help that she might require and she is also getting the best possible support from specially trained officers."
The name Aliyah, meaning beautiful in Arabic, was given to the baby by detectives. She was wrapped in a black and pink zebra print scarf when she was discovered by a member of the public three weeks ago.
She had been carefully placed over the wall of the front garden. Paramedics were called but the baby was pronounced dead at the scene.
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September 28, 2010, 1:48 am
![Image]( "Vow to fight EU migrant benefit bid")
The Government has vowed to fight the European Commission over efforts by Brussels to lift British social security restrictions designed to curb "benefit tourism".
Current social security rules limit benefit claims for immigrants to those who can prove they have a good prospect of finding work and have a long-term commitment to the UK. Migrants considered not to be "economically active" are turned down.
But now the Commission says the so-called "right to reside" rules break EU laws.
A Government spokesman insisted that the current arrangements are "right for the UK" and prevent "unsustainable burdens being placed on our social security system".
However, the Commission's next step is likely to be formal infringement proceedings against the UK which could end in the European Court of Justice.
A ruling against the Government could force changes in the "Habitual Residency Test", introduced more than 25 years ago but tightened further in 2004, when EU expansion extended access rights to citizens of eight poor central European countries.
Government officials say that, without the current restrictions, the Treasury's annual benefits bill could soar by as much as £2.5 billion in payouts such as the jobseeker's allowance, currently only available to those who have previously worked for at least a year in the UK, and income support.
The Government spokesman said: "We are in discussions with the Commission as, in our view, the current rules are within the law and are right for the UK, and changing them now would not be in our interest.
"Our rules fully support the freedom of workers within the EU, whilst making sure that there are reasonable restrictions on access to social security for those who have never worked in the UK.
"This prevents unsustainable burdens being placed on our social security system. We will argue our case and work towards a favourable outcome."
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September 28, 2010, 1:48 am
![Image]( "Moat-link Taser firm loses licence")
The company which supplied the Tasers used by police in the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat has had its licence revoked, the Home Office has said.
Home Secretary Theresa May revoked Pro-Tect Systems' licence to supply the weapons after it "breached its licence by supplying X12 Tasers direct to police that were only available for supply to the Home Office Science and Development branch".
The firm also "breached rules governing the secure transport of the devices and ammunition", the Home Office said.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "Inquiries following the Raoul Moat operation revealed Pro-Tect breached its licence by supplying X12 Tasers direct to police that were only available for supply to the Home Office Science and Development branch.
"The inquiries carried out by Northamptonshire Police also revealed the company breached rules governing the secure transport of the devices and ammunition. Faced with these breaches, the Home Secretary has decided to revoke Pro-Tect's licence to supply Tasers."
The X12 Taser guns use XRep ammunition and were referred to as XRep Tasers at the opening of the inquest into Moat's death.
The move means Pro-Tect Systems, the only supplier of Tasers in the UK, will no longer be allowed to import and sell Tasers.
In a letter to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire said a short-term authority has been granted to allow the firm to dispose of its remaining stock.
He added: "You will wish to know that we are working with Acpo (Association of Chief Police Officers) to ensure that police forces continue to have adequate Taser stocks to cover any transition period that may follow from Taser International identifying a new UK supplier."
Mr Brokenshire said he could not provide any further details due to ongoing investigations and "the possibility of charges being laid against the company".
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September 28, 2010, 8:23 am
![Image]( "Pushy parents 'risk child's health'")
Parents have been warned they face a "delicate balance" between supporting their child's sporting ambitions and pushing them too far.
In the worst cases, pushy parents risk damaging their child's mental or physical health, according to Rod Jaques, national medical director of the English Institute of Sport, which works with elite athletes.
He said he that in rare but "worrying" incidences a parents' love is "conditional" on the child achieving sporting success, which can lead to youngsters developing eating disorders or inventing injuries.
Addressing the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), Dr Jaques said: "I think it is a tough one when a parent comes into the consultation who is both the coach and parent. It is a potential for conflict of interest there.
"It's a very delicate balance between encouragement and support for that child, and its potential for being a mentor or a tormentor of the child I think is really quite real.
"It is often anecdotally said that behind every injured child is a parent athlete wanting to get out.
"Australians have gone a bit further and called this the ugly parent syndrome and we probably have witnessed this on the side of our rugby fields or football fields of the bawling parent, not just at the referee but at the child on the field of play.
"This love for their child should not be conditional on results and unfortunately it sometimes is."
The conference also heard that private school pupils are more likely to become Olympic athletes than their state school counterparts.
Dr Jaques told delegates that 34% of the Great Britain team at the Beijing games were educated privately, with almost half of Britain's medal haul won by privately educated athletes.
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September 28, 2010, 9:21 am
![Image]( "Girl 'killed sex assault accused'")
A 14-year-old girl killed a "dirty paedophile" who she said had abused her, the Old Bailey has heard.
She and a 14-year-old boy stabbed suspect Robert Daley, 45, after the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the case, jurors were told.
The girl had complained to police, along with her 16-year-old sister and a woman, saying Mr Daley had sexually assaulted them. But she had not made a statement. Prosecutors then decided that no charges should be brought in relation to any of the allegations.
After her arrest, the girl said she had first been abused by Daley at the age of 12 but it had been a year since he last sexually assaulted her.
"She called Robert Daley a dirty paedophile," said Jonathan Rees, QC, prosecuting.
She told police that she and the boy had gone to the man's house to "hustle" him for some money. When she was in the kitchen, he had "started to grope her".
The boy came in, picked up a knife, and stabbed him a few times but Mr Daley would not let go and tried to reach for a weapon himself so the boy stabbed him again, the girl claimed.
She said she was "scared and frightened" and covered in blood and later threw the blade into bushes and burnt her clothes. The girl had allegedly told a friend: "He tried to touch me again and I stabbed him."
It is alleged that the teenager rang the two defendants and they made their way to Mr Daley's home in Stockwell, south London. Mr Rees said that five minutes after they arrived, Mr Daley had been stabbed five times in the side - two of them piercing his heart.
The boy and girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons and who are now both 15, deny murder on April 23. Mr Rees said the boy was understood to be claiming that he used the knife while trying to defend himself and the girl.
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September 28, 2010, 9:21 am
![Image]( "Hundreds feared dead in landslide")
A hillside has collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by a hurricane and a tropical storm, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.
The death toll could rise much higher in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, a town about 130 miles south-east of Mexico City.
Oaxaca state Civil Protection operations coordinator Luis Marin said 100 people were confirmed missing, but Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz told the Televisa television network 500 to 1,000 people could be buried.
At least 100 homes were buried, and residents who made it out have had no success digging out their neighbours, said Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec.
"We have been using a backhoe but there is a lot of mud. We can't even see the homes, we can't hear shouts, we can't hear anything," he said.
An eighth person was killed in another mudslide in the state of Oaxaca.
Weeks of heavy rains, including those brought by Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Matthew, have caused havoc and dozens of other deaths in southern Mexico, Central America and parts of South America.
Vargas said the slide dragged houses packed with sleeping families some 1,300 feet downhill, along with cars, animals and electricity poles.
"We were all sleeping and all I heard was a loud noise and when I left the house I saw that the hill had fallen," Vargas said.
"We were left without electricity, without telephone and we couldn't help them. There was no way to move the mud."
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September 28, 2010, 9:28 am
![Image]( "Ex-president Carter in hospital")
Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has been taken to hospital after suffering a stomach upset on a flight in the United States.
The 85-year-old was resting comfortably at the MetroHealth Hospital, in Cleveland, said the Carter Centre.
Jackie Mayo, a spokeswoman at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, said he was a passenger on a Delta flight to Cleveland and became ill. He was taken off a plane by rescue crews.
The website for Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cleveland said Carter was scheduled to appear today to sign and talk about his new book, White House Diary.
The centre said he was expected to resume his book tour this week.
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September 28, 2010, 9:28 am
![Image]( "Doherty charged over having cocaine")
Rock star Pete Doherty has been accused of possessing cocaine after police investigated the suspected overdose death of heiress Robin Whitehead.
The 31-year-old Babyshambles star was charged with holding the class A substance when he answered bail at a central London police station.
He was one of four people arrested after the 27-year-old film-maker died from a suspected overdose on January 24.
It has been claimed the star attended a party the previous night at a flat in Hackney, east London.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the star will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court alongside two other men on October 18.
Two of Doherty's close friends were also charged with drugs offences.
Peter Wolfe, 42, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, who was staying in the flat where Miss Whitehead died, was charged with supplying cocaine.
Musician Alan Wass, 29, of Latimer Road, west London, was charged with cocaine possession.
Miss Whitehead, known as Robyn, had spent the last 10 days of her life filming a documentary about the singer who has battled with drugs.
She was the granddaughter of the late Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist magazine.
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September 28, 2010, 10:59 am
![Image]( "Miliband brothers 'in rift on Iraq'")
Ed Miliband's first conference speech as Labour leader was in danger of being overshadowed after a bitter rift with brother David spilled into the open.
Despite putting on a public show of loyalty to his younger sibling as he tried to kick-start his stewardship of the party, a barbed remark by the shadow foreign secretary was caught on camera.
The incident came as Mr Miliband disowned large swathes of the previous government's record, condemning the imposition of tuition fees, lax regulation of the City, and Gordon Brown's claim to have ended boom and bust.
But it was his blunt description of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 as "wrong" that provoked an angry response from his elder brother. Mr Miliband, who was in the hall to watch the keynote address, turned to Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman sitting next to him and said: "You voted for it, why are you clapping?"
Mrs Harman was seen to reply: "I'm clapping because he is the leader. I'm supporting him."
The episode reinforces the growing sense that Mr Miliband's career on the frontbenches is coming to an end. Speculation had been mounting that he would refuse to serve in Ed's team after being narrowly defeated in the leadership election.
The former foreign secretary has refused to confirm he will stand in shadow cabinet elections, and after his own well-received speech to conference on Monday - when he appealed for Labour to unify behind Ed - wife Louise was spotted in floods of tears backstage.
The new leader will have been hoping to put the controversy behind him when he emerged to set out his vision of how to revive Labour. Mr Miliband vowed to oust David Cameron from power at the first opportunity and save Britain from the "miserable" Conservative agenda of austerity and cuts.
He sought to shake off the "Red Ed" tag applied by critics, and insisted he would have "no truck" with irresponsible strikes called by the unions whose votes propelled him to victory. But union leaders warmly welcomed his support for many of their key priorities on protection for agency workers, family-friendly working hours and the living wage. And business groups voiced concern at his attack on excessive pay and support for a banking levy.
Ed Miliband professed ignorance of the comment when he was approached by the BBC at the conference venue later. "I haven't seen that," he said. "All I know is that David has been incredibly gracious both since Saturday and in response to my speech, where he sent me a very nice message." He added: "Different people have different views about that in our party. I am leading this party in a way to win back votes from people."
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September 28, 2010, 10:59 am
![Image]( "Eiffel Tower evacuated amid threat")
The Eiffel Tower has been evacuated after officials received a bomb threat from a telephone booth, the second such alert at the monument in two weeks.
Police closed down the immediate surroundings of the tower, France's most visited monument, blocking off traffic.
Officers put tape across a bridge leading over the Seine River to the monument, and dozens of police stood guard in the area.
The anonymous caller phoned in the threat to the tower from a nearby neighbourhood, the Paris police headquarters said, adding the company that runs the monument asked police to evacuate it.
The Eiffel Tower was emptied September 14 after a similar phone threat, although police found nothing suspicious after combing the 1,063ft tower.
On Monday, the bustling Saint Lazare train station in Paris was briefly evacuated and searched.
France is on alert for possible terror attacks on crowded targets and National Police Chief Frederic Pechenard said last week that authorities suspect al Qaida's North African branch of plotting a bomb attack on a crowded location in France.
That group, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the Sept. 16 abduction of five French nationals and two Africans in northern Niger.
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September 28, 2010, 10:59 am
![Image]( "Cameron in more armed forces talks")
David Cameron is to hold fresh talks on the future shape of the armed forces following next week's Tory Party conference as negotiations on defence cuts go down to the wire.
The Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) in Downing Street specifically to look at the defence element of the forthcoming strategic defence and security review (SDSR).
While the discussions - involving senior ministers, officials and military top brass - were described as "substantial", it is understood no final decisions were taken on where the spending axe will fall.
Instead officials were instructed to carry out more work in preparation for a further meeting of the NSC, possibly as early as the end of next week, once Conservative ministers are back from their party conference in Birmingham.
It was broadly agreed nothing in the SDSR should undermine current operations in Afghanistan - which will be seen as a sign that the Army has been largely successful in its battle to maintain troop numbers until at least 2015.
Mr Cameron also emphasised that while the SDSR was being conducted against the backdrop of the tightest government spending review in a generation, it should not be driven purely by the need for cuts. The Prime Minister was said to have stressed the importance of ensuring that military capabilities were matched to future potential threats, while at the same time delivering efficiency savings at the Ministry of Defence.
Nevertheless with ministers talking of a £38 billion "black hole" in the MoD budget over the next 10 years, it is being acknowledged that difficult decisions will have to be taken regarding the future equipment programme. With the SDSR due to report "around the time" of the comprehensive spending review on October 20, the time for debate and discussion is rapidly running out.
There is intense speculation that the Royal Navy's surface fleet and the RAF's fleet of fast jets could face hefty cuts as the MoD struggles to get its finances back on a sustainable footing.
The meeting at No 10 was attended by both the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, and his successor as the head of the armed forces, General Sir David Richards, who will have the job of implementing the SDSR conclusions. Senior ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Foreign Secretary William Hague, Defence Secretary Liam Fox, and Home Secretary Theresa May, were also present.
A No 10 spokesman said: "The National Security Council met today under the Prime Minister's chairmanship. This was the latest in a series of meetings on the strategic defence review.."
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September 28, 2010, 1:29 pm
![Image]( "Workers join Europe cuts protest")
Workers are to take part in rallies and protests across the UK and in Brussels as part of a day of action against Government spending cuts and austerity measures adopted by many European countries.
Delegates at the Labour party conference in Manchester will stage a lunchtime protest, holding up hundreds of signs in different languages in support of public sector jobs and services.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "All across Europe governments have become obsessed with immediate deficit reduction and are embarking on cuts programmes of such magnitude that the fragile recovery of the continent's economies is threatened."
He said: "Unions aren't asking governments to ignore the deficit, just to discard the timetable that demands deficit reduction now and instead to concentrate on boosting growth and jobs. We also need a fairer system of taxation so that Europe's economies can get back onto a firmer footing and avoid the risk of another recession.
"If there was ever a case why severe cuts in spending are not the answer we need look no further than across the Irish Sea where the spectre of a double-dip recession is looming large, and where despite huge cuts in spending, Ireland faces another austerity budget, its fourth in two years."
Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, said: "Nurses, social workers, dinner ladies and teaching assistants are fed up of taking the flack for a crisis caused by greedy bankers. We must protect these committed public sector staff, who work tirelessly to provide vital services to the vulnerable, poor and sick.
"It is the public sector that will help us recover from the recession, but cutting hard and fast is not just devastating the lives of committed public sector staff, but also their families, communities and local businesses. We know that there are alternatives to the savage plans proposed by the ConDem Government and we must look at these - everyone in Europe deserves to live in a fair society."
Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, said: "Workers across Europe face the same threat to jobs, pensions, public services and that threat originates from exactly the same source - the centralised banks and the political elite who do their bidding. It would be madness for us in Britain not to co-ordinate our response with other European workers under attack.
"The whole of the EU project was constructed to deliver a bankers Europe aimed at breaking up and privatising public services and hammering down on living standards and job security to deliver the pro-business agenda."
A large group of workers will travel from Britain to join a march in Brussels which will be led by John Monks, general secretary of the European TUC, accompanied by the leaders of 50 trade union organisations representing workers from 30 countries.
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September 28, 2010, 1:29 pm
![Image]( "'Terror threat' closes Eiffel Tower")
Intelligence officials have intercepted a credible terror plot against Britain and France, raising security fears at the Eiffel Tower, but failing to raise the overall threat level in either country.
The Eiffel Tower was briefly evacuated on Tuesday evening after officials received a bomb threat called in from a telephone booth. It was the second such alert at the monument in two weeks.
The warning came as French officials were put on alert for possible terror attacks. British officials, too, have been aware of a possible attack but the terror threat warning has not changed from "severe".
"There have been a succession of terror operations we've been dealing with over recent weeks but one to two that have preoccupied us," said one British government official. "Still, it hasn't been to the degree that we have raised the threat level."
Another British official, who spoke on the same terms, would not confirm the plot was "al Qaida inspired" but said there was an "Islamist connection" and that the plots were in an early stage. No other details were given.
Since the September 11 terror attacks in the United States nine years ago, the terror group has moved outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan to other countries such as Somalia and Yemen.
German officials denied they had intercepted threats, saying there had been no change to their threat level.
French police on Tuesday closed off the surroundings of the Eiffel Tower, France's most visited monument. Officers pulled red-and-white police tape across a bridge leading over the Seine River to the monument. Officers stood guard.
Bomb experts combed through the 324-metre (1,063-ft) tower and found nothing unusual, the Paris police headquarters said. Tourists were let back inside about two hours after the structure was emptied.
Police responded to a similar false alert at the tower on September 14, also following a phone threat. On Monday, the bustling Saint Lazare train station in Paris was briefly evacuated and searched.
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September 28, 2010, 1:30 pm
![Image]( "Fox warns PM over defence cuts")
Defence secretary Liam Fox has warned the Prime Minister that "draconian" spending cuts while the country is at war will result in "grave consequences", it has been reported.
In a private letter leaked to The Daily Telegraph, he advised David Cameron the risk of "seriously" damaging morale across the Armed Forces "should not be underestimated".
And he warned the party could provoke a "brutal" international reaction if it fails to "recognise the dangers and continue to push for such draconian cuts at a time when we are at war".
In his letter, written ahead of the National Security Council (NSC) meeting on the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the Defence Secretary refused to back any substantial reduction in the Armed Forces.
Dr Fox also suggests the Tories could destroy "much of the reputation and capital" they have accrued on defence.
If cuts go ahead he warns the "range of operations that we can do today we will simply not be able to do in the future".
Dr Fox said later he was "appalled" his letter had been handed to the press and described the leak as "totally unacceptable".
"It is entirely normal that ministers should make representations to the Prime Minister during the Strategic Defence and Security Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review. That is an entirely proper part of the process of government," he said.
"The Prime Minister is fully entitled to expect that those representations to be made in private and kept private. I am extremely angry that this confidential communication has been made public."
And he insisted the Government would "collectively" reach decisions that were "in the national interest". "It is totally unacceptable that a highly confidential letter from me to the Prime Minister should be leaked to the Daily Telegraph," he added. "I am utterly appalled by this breach of trust and have ordered a full investigation to find out how it happened. We will stop at nothing to ensure that the culprit is found."
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People think almost half of their taxes are not spent by the Government in the public interest, according to a poll.
The survey across 22 countries also found Britain was the most pessimistic about the state of the economy, with 58% of people expecting bad times over the next year.
The BBC World Service global poll, conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA, found that worldwide people felt on average that 52% of the money they pay in tax is not used in ways that serve the interests and values of the people of their country.
It found Britons believe 46% of their taxes are not spent wisely but also found a willingness among them (36%) to see tax rises as a way to cut the deficit.
Support for the coalition Government taking steps to cut the deficit is higher in the UK than any other European country, at 60%.
And while 37% of Britons are receptive to financial help for the banks, 40% strongly oppose further bail-outs. Just over half - 51% - back an increase in government regulation and oversight of the economy.
A majority of the British public - 69% - also support lowering prices on basic food items through subsidy, in common with 20 other countries surveyed.
Doug Miller, chairman of GlobeScan, said: "As countries struggle to achieve economic recovery, citizens want more active government, but also more effective government intervention in the economy to meet the needs of citizens, including stabilising food prices."
GlobeScan/PIPA interviewed 22,783 people in 22 countries face-to-face or by telephone between June 24 and September 5.
Ed Miliband is to try to distance himself from his Labour leader predecessors by acknowledging voter "anger" at the failings of the party in government - particularly its claim to have ended "boom and bust".
In his crucial first conference speech as leader, Mr Miliband will seek to draw a line under 13 years of Labour government by declaring that a "new generation" is now in charge of the party and will usher in "different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics".
Ending boom and bust was Gordon Brown's proudest claim as chancellor and Mr Miliband's admission that it was wrong will be seen as a repudiation of the record of the man who was his political mentor and a bold claim to stake out a position as a leader in his own right.
The speech threatens to be overshadowed by speculation over the political future of his brother David, who lost out on the Labour leadership on Saturday.
Responding on Monday night to reports suggesting he was on the verge of giving up frontline politics, a spokesman said the shadow foreign secretary would not decide whether to seek a place in his brother's frontbench team until Wednesday when the deadline for nominations for the shadow cabinet elections was reached.
In his address Ed Miliband is not expected to apologise for Labour's record in power - and will say he wants to celebrate its many achievements under Mr Brown and Tony Blair. But he will acknowledge that voters feel angry over its failure to stand up to City demands for deregulation ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. And he will leave no doubt that he believes the imposition of tuition fees on university students cost the party support, in an apparent signal that he will push ahead with a move to a graduate tax.
Striking a tone of humility, he will accept that Labour lost voters' trust because it become stuck in "old ways of thinking" and failed to adapt in response to changes in the world.
And he will seek to introduce himself to voters - many of whom know little about him - with what was being billed as the most open and personal speech of his career, in which he will explain how his values and beliefs were drawn from his parents' wartime experience as refugees from the Nazis.
In a detailed account of where he believes the New Labour governments of Mr Brown and Mr Blair went wrong, Mr Miliband will say: "It was courage that made us such a successful political force. But our journey must also understand where it went wrong. How did a party with such achievements to its name end up losing five million votes between 1997 and 2010?
"The hard truth for everybody in this hall is that a party that started out by taking on old thinking became the prisoner of its own certainties."
Advertising revenue alone will not be enough to ensure the success of a Government-backed plan to launch dozens of local television stations, according to a new report.
Nicholas Shott, of investment bankers Lazard, who was charged by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to investigate the proposals said a multi-million pound corporate sponsorship deal could be one way to make it work.
In a letter to Mr Hunt, he said the stations were more likely to succeed in "urban areas", but even there "the economics of a TV business funded mainly by advertising will still be challenging" and "additional revenue sources" would have to be explored.
Mr Shott, who heads a five-member steering group, has published an interim report into their findings.
He wrote: "We believe there may be scope for the local TV sector collectively to be sponsored (at least in the early years) by a large corporate wishing to be seen to support local/community life - a reasonable parallel for this is Barclays' sponsorship of the London bicycle scheme, worth £25 million over five years".
He added that stations could be hosted by existing channels and that discussions had started with "senior management" at the BBC which were showing "early promise".
Mr Hunt will argue the case for more local television in a speech to the Royal Television Society at the Barbican Centre in London.
He is expected to say: "My vision is of a landscape of local TV services broadcasting for as little as one hour a day. Free to affiliate to one another - formally or informally - in a way that brings down costs. Free to offer nationwide deals to national advertisers.
"Able to piggyback existing national networks - attracting new audiences and benefiting from inherited ones at the same time. And able to exploit the potential of new platform technologies such as YouView and mobile TV to grow their service and improve their cost-effectiveness."
He will say that an expansion of superfast broadband and the removal of cross-media rules preventing companies controlling newspapers, television and radio stations will all help make the plan more likely to succeed.
The UK economy is on the mend and "recovery is under way", a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
In its annual healthcheck on the British economy, the IMF backed the coalition Government's deficit-busting austerity measures, calling Chancellor George Osborne's plans "credible" and "essential".
The body also predicted economic growth of 2% in 2011, although this was lower than its previous estimate of 2.1%, and predicted the rate of inflation would fall back to its 2% target by early 2012.
The IMF's endorsement of the Government's plans to tackle the UK's creaking public finances comes less than a month before the Chancellor sets out his comprehensive spending review.
The IMF statement said: "The plan greatly reduces the risk of a costly loss of confidence in public finances and supports a balanced recovery.
"Fiscal tightening will dampen short-term growth but not stop it as other sectors of the economy emerge as drivers of recovery, supported by continued monetary stimulus."
A spokesman for the Treasury said: "Last year the IMF said Government borrowing was a risk to the recovery. This year the IMF's verdict is that the economy is on the mend and that the Government's deficit reduction plan is essential and will ensure the sustainability of the public finances, tackling the highest deficit in the G7."
The IMF said policymakers at the Bank of England would need to be "nimble" if risks to the economic recovery emerged.
The Bank is currently holding interest rates at an all-time low of 0.5%, and has pumped £200 billion into the economy through its quantitative easing programme.
In its meeting earlier this month the Monetary Policy Committee said it was leaning towards further emergency measures to prop up the economic recovery, and was poised to act.
The company that supplied the Taser guns used by police in the stand-off with gunman Raoul Moat breached its licence, sources have confirmed.
Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire will write to the Home Affairs Select Committee saying the firm, Pro-Tect Systems, was not licensed to supply the XRep Taser guns to police.
But there was no suggestion that any blame should be attached to the officers involved and the Home Office has stressed that police could use any weapon they saw fit as long as its use was "lawful, reasonable and proportionate".
The XRep Taser, which is fired from a 12-gauge shotgun, was being tested by the Home Office before being approved for use by police forces in England and Wales.
Pro-Tect Systems was licensed to supply the Taser guns to the Home Office for testing, but was not licensed to supply them to police, sources said.
Armed police fired two Tasers at the steroid-addicted former nightclub doorman in an "effort to stop him taking his own life" at the Riverside park area in Rothbury, Northumberland, in the early hours of July 10, an inquest at Newcastle Civic Centre was told.
The stand-off brought to an end one of the biggest manhunts in British history, triggered when Moat shot his former girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, 22, killed Chris Brown, 29, and blinded Pc David Rathband, 42.
But the precise sequence of events regarding the discharge of the XRep Tasers in relation to Moat firing his sawn-off shotgun has not been established and is under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Pro-Tect Systems said it could not comment while the IPCC investigation was going on.
But Moat's brother Angus said officers used his brother as a "guinea pig", adding: "They had not used them before, and that was not the time or the place to conduct an experiment."
A 14-year-old girl killed an older man shortly after finding out that he would not be prosecuted for sexually assaulting her, the Old Bailey has heard.
She went to his home with a 14-year-old male friend and, within minutes, Robert Daley, 45, was dying of stab wounds, it was claimed.
The girl and boy, now both 15, deny murdering Mr Daley at his flat in Ferndale Road, Stockwell, south London, on April 23.
The defendants cannot be named because of their ages.
Jonathan Rees QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the girl, her 16-year-old sister and a woman had made claims of sexual assault against Mr Daley. But despite their claims, all three continued to have contact with him.
Mr Rees said Mr Daley was telephoned on the morning he died by a police officer who told him the Crown Prosecution Service had decided to drop the case. Mr Daley then telephoned the older girl, who then contacted the 14-year-olds.
The youngsters arrived at the flat - but five minutes later Mr Daley had been stabbed and collapsed on the floor. Mr Rees said two of the stab wounds in his side had penetrated his heart.
He said the boy was understood to be claiming that he used the knife while trying to defend himself and the girl.
The girl denied taking part in the stabbing, but claimed that, during the visit, Mr Daley sexually assaulted her in the kitchen and the boy stabbed him to help her get away.
Mr Rees added: "There is evidence that she later told people close to her that it was she who stabbed him. It is the prosecution case that both defendants were both responsible."
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery of a baby in a garden, police have said.
The baby, named Aliyah by police, was found wrapped in a shawl in a garden in Tinline Street, Bury, Greater Manchester, on September 6.
A 25-year-old woman was arrested, police said. She has been assessed by a doctor and declared fit to be interviewed, and remains in custody, a spokesman added.
A house in Alfred Street, Bury, is currently being examined by police.
Officers believe the woman is the baby's mother, said Detective Superintendent Sam Haworth, of Greater Manchester Police.
"We have made significant progress on the investigation over the last couple of days and this has led us to make the arrest this morning.
"At this stage it is too soon to go into the finer points of the investigation, but we are confident we have found baby Aliyah's mother.
"We are now ensuring she receives any medical help that she might require and she is also getting the best possible support from specially trained officers."
The name Aliyah, meaning beautiful in Arabic, was given to the baby by detectives. She was wrapped in a black and pink zebra print scarf when she was discovered by a member of the public three weeks ago.
She had been carefully placed over the wall of the front garden. Paramedics were called but the baby was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Government has vowed to fight the European Commission over efforts by Brussels to lift British social security restrictions designed to curb "benefit tourism".
Current social security rules limit benefit claims for immigrants to those who can prove they have a good prospect of finding work and have a long-term commitment to the UK. Migrants considered not to be "economically active" are turned down.
But now the Commission says the so-called "right to reside" rules break EU laws.
A Government spokesman insisted that the current arrangements are "right for the UK" and prevent "unsustainable burdens being placed on our social security system".
However, the Commission's next step is likely to be formal infringement proceedings against the UK which could end in the European Court of Justice.
A ruling against the Government could force changes in the "Habitual Residency Test", introduced more than 25 years ago but tightened further in 2004, when EU expansion extended access rights to citizens of eight poor central European countries.
Government officials say that, without the current restrictions, the Treasury's annual benefits bill could soar by as much as £2.5 billion in payouts such as the jobseeker's allowance, currently only available to those who have previously worked for at least a year in the UK, and income support.
The Government spokesman said: "We are in discussions with the Commission as, in our view, the current rules are within the law and are right for the UK, and changing them now would not be in our interest.
"Our rules fully support the freedom of workers within the EU, whilst making sure that there are reasonable restrictions on access to social security for those who have never worked in the UK.
"This prevents unsustainable burdens being placed on our social security system. We will argue our case and work towards a favourable outcome."
Parents have been warned they face a "delicate balance" between supporting their child's sporting ambitions and pushing them too far.
In the worst cases, pushy parents risk damaging their child's mental or physical health, according to Rod Jaques, national medical director of the English Institute of Sport, which works with elite athletes.
He said he that in rare but "worrying" incidences a parents' love is "conditional" on the child achieving sporting success, which can lead to youngsters developing eating disorders or inventing injuries.
Addressing the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), Dr Jaques said: "I think it is a tough one when a parent comes into the consultation who is both the coach and parent. It is a potential for conflict of interest there.
"It's a very delicate balance between encouragement and support for that child, and its potential for being a mentor or a tormentor of the child I think is really quite real.
"It is often anecdotally said that behind every injured child is a parent athlete wanting to get out.
"Australians have gone a bit further and called this the ugly parent syndrome and we probably have witnessed this on the side of our rugby fields or football fields of the bawling parent, not just at the referee but at the child on the field of play.
"This love for their child should not be conditional on results and unfortunately it sometimes is."
The conference also heard that private school pupils are more likely to become Olympic athletes than their state school counterparts.
Dr Jaques told delegates that 34% of the Great Britain team at the Beijing games were educated privately, with almost half of Britain's medal haul won by privately educated athletes.
A 14-year-old girl killed a "dirty paedophile" who she said had abused her, the Old Bailey has heard.
She and a 14-year-old boy stabbed suspect Robert Daley, 45, after the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the case, jurors were told.
The girl had complained to police, along with her 16-year-old sister and a woman, saying Mr Daley had sexually assaulted them. But she had not made a statement. Prosecutors then decided that no charges should be brought in relation to any of the allegations.
After her arrest, the girl said she had first been abused by Daley at the age of 12 but it had been a year since he last sexually assaulted her.
"She called Robert Daley a dirty paedophile," said Jonathan Rees, QC, prosecuting.
She told police that she and the boy had gone to the man's house to "hustle" him for some money. When she was in the kitchen, he had "started to grope her".
The boy came in, picked up a knife, and stabbed him a few times but Mr Daley would not let go and tried to reach for a weapon himself so the boy stabbed him again, the girl claimed.
She said she was "scared and frightened" and covered in blood and later threw the blade into bushes and burnt her clothes. The girl had allegedly told a friend: "He tried to touch me again and I stabbed him."
It is alleged that the teenager rang the two defendants and they made their way to Mr Daley's home in Stockwell, south London. Mr Rees said that five minutes after they arrived, Mr Daley had been stabbed five times in the side - two of them piercing his heart.
The boy and girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons and who are now both 15, deny murder on April 23. Mr Rees said the boy was understood to be claiming that he used the knife while trying to defend himself and the girl.
A hillside has collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by a hurricane and a tropical storm, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.
The death toll could rise much higher in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, a town about 130 miles south-east of Mexico City.
Oaxaca state Civil Protection operations coordinator Luis Marin said 100 people were confirmed missing, but Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz told the Televisa television network 500 to 1,000 people could be buried.
At least 100 homes were buried, and residents who made it out have had no success digging out their neighbours, said Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec.
"We have been using a backhoe but there is a lot of mud. We can't even see the homes, we can't hear shouts, we can't hear anything," he said.
An eighth person was killed in another mudslide in the state of Oaxaca.
Weeks of heavy rains, including those brought by Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Matthew, have caused havoc and dozens of other deaths in southern Mexico, Central America and parts of South America.
Vargas said the slide dragged houses packed with sleeping families some 1,300 feet downhill, along with cars, animals and electricity poles.
"We were all sleeping and all I heard was a loud noise and when I left the house I saw that the hill had fallen," Vargas said.
"We were left without electricity, without telephone and we couldn't help them. There was no way to move the mud."
Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has been taken to hospital after suffering a stomach upset on a flight in the United States.
The 85-year-old was resting comfortably at the MetroHealth Hospital, in Cleveland, said the Carter Centre.
Jackie Mayo, a spokeswoman at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, said he was a passenger on a Delta flight to Cleveland and became ill. He was taken off a plane by rescue crews.
The website for Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cleveland said Carter was scheduled to appear today to sign and talk about his new book, White House Diary.
The centre said he was expected to resume his book tour this week.
Rock star Pete Doherty has been accused of possessing cocaine after police investigated the suspected overdose death of heiress Robin Whitehead.
The 31-year-old Babyshambles star was charged with holding the class A substance when he answered bail at a central London police station.
He was one of four people arrested after the 27-year-old film-maker died from a suspected overdose on January 24.
It has been claimed the star attended a party the previous night at a flat in Hackney, east London.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the star will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court alongside two other men on October 18.
Two of Doherty's close friends were also charged with drugs offences.
Peter Wolfe, 42, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, who was staying in the flat where Miss Whitehead died, was charged with supplying cocaine.
Musician Alan Wass, 29, of Latimer Road, west London, was charged with cocaine possession.
Miss Whitehead, known as Robyn, had spent the last 10 days of her life filming a documentary about the singer who has battled with drugs.
She was the granddaughter of the late Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist magazine.
Ed Miliband's first conference speech as Labour leader was in danger of being overshadowed after a bitter rift with brother David spilled into the open.
Despite putting on a public show of loyalty to his younger sibling as he tried to kick-start his stewardship of the party, a barbed remark by the shadow foreign secretary was caught on camera.
The incident came as Mr Miliband disowned large swathes of the previous government's record, condemning the imposition of tuition fees, lax regulation of the City, and Gordon Brown's claim to have ended boom and bust.
But it was his blunt description of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 as "wrong" that provoked an angry response from his elder brother. Mr Miliband, who was in the hall to watch the keynote address, turned to Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman sitting next to him and said: "You voted for it, why are you clapping?"
Mrs Harman was seen to reply: "I'm clapping because he is the leader. I'm supporting him."
The episode reinforces the growing sense that Mr Miliband's career on the frontbenches is coming to an end. Speculation had been mounting that he would refuse to serve in Ed's team after being narrowly defeated in the leadership election.
The former foreign secretary has refused to confirm he will stand in shadow cabinet elections, and after his own well-received speech to conference on Monday - when he appealed for Labour to unify behind Ed - wife Louise was spotted in floods of tears backstage.
The new leader will have been hoping to put the controversy behind him when he emerged to set out his vision of how to revive Labour. Mr Miliband vowed to oust David Cameron from power at the first opportunity and save Britain from the "miserable" Conservative agenda of austerity and cuts.
He sought to shake off the "Red Ed" tag applied by critics, and insisted he would have "no truck" with irresponsible strikes called by the unions whose votes propelled him to victory. But union leaders warmly welcomed his support for many of their key priorities on protection for agency workers, family-friendly working hours and the living wage. And business groups voiced concern at his attack on excessive pay and support for a banking levy.
Ed Miliband professed ignorance of the comment when he was approached by the BBC at the conference venue later. "I haven't seen that," he said. "All I know is that David has been incredibly gracious both since Saturday and in response to my speech, where he sent me a very nice message." He added: "Different people have different views about that in our party. I am leading this party in a way to win back votes from people."
The Eiffel Tower has been evacuated after officials received a bomb threat from a telephone booth, the second such alert at the monument in two weeks.
Police closed down the immediate surroundings of the tower, France's most visited monument, blocking off traffic.
Officers put tape across a bridge leading over the Seine River to the monument, and dozens of police stood guard in the area.
The anonymous caller phoned in the threat to the tower from a nearby neighbourhood, the Paris police headquarters said, adding the company that runs the monument asked police to evacuate it.
The Eiffel Tower was emptied September 14 after a similar phone threat, although police found nothing suspicious after combing the 1,063ft tower.
On Monday, the bustling Saint Lazare train station in Paris was briefly evacuated and searched.
France is on alert for possible terror attacks on crowded targets and National Police Chief Frederic Pechenard said last week that authorities suspect al Qaida's North African branch of plotting a bomb attack on a crowded location in France.
That group, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the Sept. 16 abduction of five French nationals and two Africans in northern Niger.
David Cameron is to hold fresh talks on the future shape of the armed forces following next week's Tory Party conference as negotiations on defence cuts go down to the wire.
The Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) in Downing Street specifically to look at the defence element of the forthcoming strategic defence and security review (SDSR).
While the discussions - involving senior ministers, officials and military top brass - were described as "substantial", it is understood no final decisions were taken on where the spending axe will fall.
Instead officials were instructed to carry out more work in preparation for a further meeting of the NSC, possibly as early as the end of next week, once Conservative ministers are back from their party conference in Birmingham.
It was broadly agreed nothing in the SDSR should undermine current operations in Afghanistan - which will be seen as a sign that the Army has been largely successful in its battle to maintain troop numbers until at least 2015.
Mr Cameron also emphasised that while the SDSR was being conducted against the backdrop of the tightest government spending review in a generation, it should not be driven purely by the need for cuts. The Prime Minister was said to have stressed the importance of ensuring that military capabilities were matched to future potential threats, while at the same time delivering efficiency savings at the Ministry of Defence.
Nevertheless with ministers talking of a £38 billion "black hole" in the MoD budget over the next 10 years, it is being acknowledged that difficult decisions will have to be taken regarding the future equipment programme. With the SDSR due to report "around the time" of the comprehensive spending review on October 20, the time for debate and discussion is rapidly running out.
There is intense speculation that the Royal Navy's surface fleet and the RAF's fleet of fast jets could face hefty cuts as the MoD struggles to get its finances back on a sustainable footing.
The meeting at No 10 was attended by both the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, and his successor as the head of the armed forces, General Sir David Richards, who will have the job of implementing the SDSR conclusions. Senior ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Foreign Secretary William Hague, Defence Secretary Liam Fox, and Home Secretary Theresa May, were also present.
A No 10 spokesman said: "The National Security Council met today under the Prime Minister's chairmanship. This was the latest in a series of meetings on the strategic defence review.."
Workers are to take part in rallies and protests across the UK and in Brussels as part of a day of action against Government spending cuts and austerity measures adopted by many European countries.
Delegates at the Labour party conference in Manchester will stage a lunchtime protest, holding up hundreds of signs in different languages in support of public sector jobs and services.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "All across Europe governments have become obsessed with immediate deficit reduction and are embarking on cuts programmes of such magnitude that the fragile recovery of the continent's economies is threatened."
He said: "Unions aren't asking governments to ignore the deficit, just to discard the timetable that demands deficit reduction now and instead to concentrate on boosting growth and jobs. We also need a fairer system of taxation so that Europe's economies can get back onto a firmer footing and avoid the risk of another recession.
"If there was ever a case why severe cuts in spending are not the answer we need look no further than across the Irish Sea where the spectre of a double-dip recession is looming large, and where despite huge cuts in spending, Ireland faces another austerity budget, its fourth in two years."
Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, said: "Nurses, social workers, dinner ladies and teaching assistants are fed up of taking the flack for a crisis caused by greedy bankers. We must protect these committed public sector staff, who work tirelessly to provide vital services to the vulnerable, poor and sick.
"It is the public sector that will help us recover from the recession, but cutting hard and fast is not just devastating the lives of committed public sector staff, but also their families, communities and local businesses. We know that there are alternatives to the savage plans proposed by the ConDem Government and we must look at these - everyone in Europe deserves to live in a fair society."
Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, said: "Workers across Europe face the same threat to jobs, pensions, public services and that threat originates from exactly the same source - the centralised banks and the political elite who do their bidding. It would be madness for us in Britain not to co-ordinate our response with other European workers under attack.
"The whole of the EU project was constructed to deliver a bankers Europe aimed at breaking up and privatising public services and hammering down on living standards and job security to deliver the pro-business agenda."
A large group of workers will travel from Britain to join a march in Brussels which will be led by John Monks, general secretary of the European TUC, accompanied by the leaders of 50 trade union organisations representing workers from 30 countries.
Defence secretary Liam Fox has warned the Prime Minister that "draconian" spending cuts while the country is at war will result in "grave consequences", it has been reported.
In a private letter leaked to The Daily Telegraph, he advised David Cameron the risk of "seriously" damaging morale across the Armed Forces "should not be underestimated".
And he warned the party could provoke a "brutal" international reaction if it fails to "recognise the dangers and continue to push for such draconian cuts at a time when we are at war".
In his letter, written ahead of the National Security Council (NSC) meeting on the Strategic Defence and Security Review, the Defence Secretary refused to back any substantial reduction in the Armed Forces.
Dr Fox also suggests the Tories could destroy "much of the reputation and capital" they have accrued on defence.
If cuts go ahead he warns the "range of operations that we can do today we will simply not be able to do in the future".
Dr Fox said later he was "appalled" his letter had been handed to the press and described the leak as "totally unacceptable".
"It is entirely normal that ministers should make representations to the Prime Minister during the Strategic Defence and Security Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review. That is an entirely proper part of the process of government," he said.
"The Prime Minister is fully entitled to expect that those representations to be made in private and kept private. I am extremely angry that this confidential communication has been made public."
And he insisted the Government would "collectively" reach decisions that were "in the national interest". "It is totally unacceptable that a highly confidential letter from me to the Prime Minister should be leaked to the Daily Telegraph," he added. "I am utterly appalled by this breach of trust and have ordered a full investigation to find out how it happened. We will stop at nothing to ensure that the culprit is found."
