42 killed in China plane crash
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Six killed in motorway pile-ups
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Pakistan braced for flood diseases
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MPs among 32 killed at Somali hotel
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UK-supplied planes 'attacked Yemen'
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Safety fears at fatal crash airport
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Independents to meet Oz leaders
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Stem cell ruling to be contested
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BP 'ignored firm's oil well fears'
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72 bodies found dumped in Mexico
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US Senator clears primary hurdle
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Teacher's 'terrorism assignment'
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Truck suicide bomber shot dead
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Escaped prisoner recaptured in pub
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G20 pathologist 'unfit to practise'
The pathologist who first ruled that newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson died from natural causes at the G20 protest was said to be unfit to continue practising at a disciplinary hearing.
A General Medical Council (GMC) Fitness to Practise Panel found that Dr Freddy Patel had behaved "irresponsibly" during three other post-mortem examinations.
Simon Jackson QC, representing the GMC, told the hearing that Dr Patel's lack of understanding or ability to recognise his "serious failings" in the cases suggested he could make future errors of judgment.
He said Dr Patel's failure to spot marks which suggested a five-year-old girl had been the victim of violence prior to her death "created a potential risk of a loss of crucial evidence".
Mr Jackson said the pathologist had a duty to act as a "gatekeeper", adding: "There may be no further opportunity to find and report such findings if the body were to be cremated."
Mr Jackson said Dr Patel should have reported marks on the young girl's body, especially one over her left shoulder blade, which would have prompted further investigation as they raised the "index of suspicion" about her death in 2002. "This would probably have prevented the distressing events which followed, without the need for the child being buried then having to be exhumed," he said.
The girl's body was dug up so a second post-mortem could be carried out.
On Wednesday the panel found Dr Patel was irresponsible and failed to meet professional standards when he carried out a post-mortem examination on a four-week-old baby in 2003. He did not obtain full skeletal X-rays prior to the examination as recommended by the Royal College of Pathologists' guidelines.
Mr Jackson said this was a "significant failure" and if the X-rays had been carried out first, "it would have completely altered the way this post-mortem examination would have been completed".
Dr Patel carried out the post-mortem at 7.20am, before the 9am start time for the radiologist, and Mr Jackson said the decision "brings into question his whole judgment and approach".
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Spy death police probe private life
Detectives investigating the murder of a British code breaker are examining whether he lived a double life.
The spotlight was on the private life of GCHQ mathematics prodigy Gareth Williams as investigators hunted for clues to identify his killer.
The 30-year-old's decomposing body was found stuffed into a bag in the bath of his central London Government flat on Monday.
But the mystery over his final hours has since deepened after a post-mortem examination failed to identify a cause of death.
Further tests will determine if the cycling fanatic was asphyxiated or poisoned, as well as if drugs or alcohol were present in his system. A pathologist found Mr Williams had not been stabbed or shot and there were no obvious signs of strangulation.
Police have refused to categorise the case as a murder inquiry, despite the bizarre circumstances, as they insist he may have died innocently.
One line of inquiry is that he is the victim of sex game that went wrong and questions remain over why he was not discovered sooner.
Mr Williams was days from completing a one-year secondment to the headquarters of MI6 from his job at national "listening post" GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Police believe Mr Williams's body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight and it is thought he was on holiday at the time of his death.
Further details of Mr Williams continued to emerge as friends described him as an extremely bright, quiet and determined man.
Childhood friend Dylan Parry, 34, said Mr Williams was academically gifted but socially naive and could be easily led. Mr Parry went to school with Mr Williams at Uwchradd Bodedern secondary in Anglesey, North Wales. "It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock."
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UK personnel in terror hotspots
Teams of British military personnel are now stationed in terrorist hotspots Yemen and Pakistan, official figures show.
About 20 members of the Royal Navy are based in Yemen, and a similar number of Navy personnel and Army officers are serving in Pakistan.
Last year, there were no members of UK forces stationed in the two countries, according to statistics released by the Defence Analytical Services Agency (Dasa).
The figures do not include troops deployed on operations and temporary assignments, so the real numbers could be higher. Yemen and Pakistan have frequently been accused of harbouring extremists and exporting terrorism around the world.
Two of the July 7 2005 London bombers trained in Pakistan, and the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner bombing on Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is believed to have been radicalised by al Qaida in Yemen.
Prime Minister David Cameron sparked a diplomatic spat last month when he said that Pakistan should not be allowed to "look both ways" and "promote the export of terror", while Britain's ambassador to Yemen, Tim Torlot, escaped unharmed when a suicide bomber targeted his car as he travelled to work in the capital, Sana'a, in April.
No members of the UK's regular Armed Forces were stationed in Yemen, Pakistan, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in October 2009, according to Dasa figures. But British troops were based in the countries from January this year, including about 20 in Qatar and 10 in the UAE.
The Navy team in Yemen is made up of about 10 officers and 10 other ranks, while in Pakistan there are about 10 members of the Navy and 10 Army officers. The numbers are not precise because they are rounded to the nearest 10. The assistance British forces are giving to Pakistan is politically sensitive.
Former defence secretary John Hutton confirmed in a Parliamentary answer in April 2009 that there were 24 UK military personnel based in Pakistan carrying out roles including training, liaison and diplomatic duties.
He said Britain was working with the US and the Pakistani Frontier Corps to improve security on the border with Afghanistan but refused to give more details, citing "security reasons".
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RBS to close 14 insurance offices
Royal Bank of Scotland has said it is axing 14 of the 27 offices in its Churchill and Direct Line business under existing plans to cut 2,000 jobs.
Two offices will be shut in Glasgow, impacting more than 640 staff, while the raft of closures will also see offices shut in locations including Peterborough, Cardiff and Bristol.
The part-nationalised bank delivered the blow to staff on Thursday afternoon as part of a previously announced move to shed jobs at the insurance division, which it was ordered to sell by the European Commission by 2013.
It said the offices will be shut over the next three years, although some are closing as soon as the fourth quarter of this year.
RBS hopes to redeploy staff where possible, with some employees transferred to nearby offices where there are more than one in the same location.
More than 400 job losses are expected from the closure of the bank's Atlantic Quay and St Vincent Street offices in Glasgow, although around 200 staff are likely to be redeployed. About 660 staff are also being impacted by the Peterborough closure and another 480 in Bristol.
RBS - 83% owned by the taxpayer - said in May that 2,000 jobs would go at its insurance arm, which includes the Direct Line, Green Flag, Churchill and Privilege businesses and employs 16,000 people.
The group speeded up the plans after the European Commission said it must sell 318 branches as well as the insurance business to soothe competition concerns following its Government bail-out.
Rob MacGregor, national officer at trade union Unite, said: "RBS staff are continuing to pay the price for the bank's failure with their jobs. They are trying to do the best job they can during a hugely stressful period of uncertainty.
"Unite is calling on RBS to come clean with staff and clarify the impact of the restructuring and end the uncertainty. Unite will hold RBS to account over any compulsory job losses that result."
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785% rise in NHS weight-loss ops
There has been a 785% rise in weight-loss surgery over five years, NHS figures have shown.
Data compiled by the NHS Information Centre revealed a rapid rise in the number of operations carried out for the most obese people in England. Data for 2003/04 showed there were 480 procedures, rising to 4,246 in 2008/09. The upward trend suggests the figures for 2010 could be even higher.
From 2003/04 to 2004/05, the number of procedures jumped from 480 to 747. It then rose again the following year to 1,023, then 1,928 in 2006/07, 2,703 in 2007/08 and 4,246 in 2008/09.
Of operations carried out in 2008/09, 42 involved removing part or all of the stomach. Another 1,378 included fitting a gastric band to make the stomach smaller, 504 were for stomach stapling and 2,210 involved a gastric bypass.
Some 124 operations involved inserting a "bubble" in the stomach to fill it up. People may have undergone more than one procedure in the same operation.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) recommends the surgery only for the morbidly obese (body mass index of 40 or more, or 35 if there is another existing condition which could improve with surgery, such as diabetes). But people must have failed on other methods, such as traditional diets, first.
Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said: "These figures just show how bad things have got with the obesity epidemic.
"We have alternative ways of losing weight but when people realise this is a possibility, they could go for it. Worse still, there is a premise that if you feed yourself up you get to the bar - 35 BMI with co-morbidities or 40 without - then the operation would be yours.
"These operations cost money and the PCTs are trying to raise the bar of who's eligible. There's something in the order of 500,000 people who might be eligible for surgery.
Peter Sedman, bariatric surgeon and spokesman for the Royal College of Surgeons, said: "The number of operations in the UK has increased so dramatically partly because of the rise in obesity but also we are beginning to catch up with a backlog that has been building for decades and we are only now beginning to catch up with the US and other European countries in providing this care."
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Students lead 20% immigration rise
Net migration to the UK soared by more than 20% last year, fuelled by growing numbers of overseas students and a drop in the number of Britons leaving to live abroad, figures have shown.
The increase was bad news for the Government, given its aim of reducing net immigration to "tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands", the left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said.
Net long-term immigration rose to 196,000 last year from 163,000 in 2008, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed. While 4% fewer people arrived in the UK last year - 567,000 compared with 590,000 in 2008 - the number who left fell further, by 13% to 371,000.
The number of visas issued to students rose 35% to 362,015 in the year to June, other Home Office figures showed. The overall number of visas issued was also up, by 8%, and broke the two million mark, rising to 2,076,925, compared with 1,917,460 in the year to June 2009.
But there was an 18% fall in visas for highly-skilled workers - down to 28,410 from 34,555 - and a 9% drop in the number of visas for skilled workers - down to 66,140 from 72,570. The number of temporary employment visas was also down 17% to 66,495 from 79,890 in the year to June 2009.
The figures also showed the number of people granted settlement in the UK rose 37% to 224,390 in the year to June, up from 163,660 in the year to June 2009.
The Government's objective of cutting net immigration was "becoming harder to reach", the IPPR said. "Meeting it looks likely to have serious economic costs for the UK, and may not deliver the political result that the Government seeks."
Immigration minister Damian Green said the figures showed why the UK "must tighten our immigration system in order to reduce net migration to manageable levels".
Mr Green added that the Government was still committed to reducing the level of net migration to "tens of thousands each year, not hundreds of thousands".
But Sir Andrew Green, chairman of campaign group Migrationwatch UK, said: "If we are to stem the inexorable rise of our population to 70 million within 20 years, of which 68% will be the result of immigration, economic migrants should be expected to leave after four years and their departure recorded."
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