Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 13 Oct 2010

published 13 October 2010

Our popular news catch-up service is posted Monday to Friday at 8.0 am, and on weekends at 11.0 am. You can rely on it to keep you up to date with the main news talking points... CHILE MINE rescue going smoothlyTwenty-two miners had been winched to the surface by 9pm tonight as the operation to rescue them from the collapsed San Jose mine continued apace. Wearing sunglasses to protect his eyes from the glare of TV lights, Florencio Avalos, 31, was the first of the 33 men to emerge at 4.15am today UK time from the Phoenix escape capsule. President Sebastian Pinera hugged him and said: "This won't be over until all 33 are out." In pictures: the mine rescue BOOKER GOES TO HOWARD JACOBSONThe Man Booker Prize for fiction has gone to the English novelist Howard Jacobson for his humorous exploration of Jewishness, The Finkler Question - the first time in its history that the prize has gone to an out-and-out comic novel. Jacobson said he would spend his £50,000 prize money on a handbag for his wife. "Have you seen the price of handbags?" Victory for comic writing BIGGEST FRENCH PENSIONS STRIKE SO FARFrench unions protesting at the government's plan to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 staged their biggest strikes so far yesterday. Half of all flights to and from Paris Orly airport were cancelled. And only one in three TGV trains was running. Eurostar claims the London to Paris service was unaffected. ENDACOTT gets GOLD AND SILVER IN DELHIA third athlete has failed drugs test at the Commonwealth Games. The unnamed competitor is from the host nation India and tested positive for nandrolone. Meanwhile, Nigerian sprinter Osayemi Oludamola has been stripped of gold in the women's 100m after her failed test earlier in the week. England's Katherine Endacott has now been promoted to silver. Endacott also won gold in the women's 4x100m relay last night, a feat matched by the English men's team. Tom Daley strikes gold in Delhi US soldier faces discipline for norgrove death A US Navy Seal involved in the failed rescue attempt that led to the death of British hostage Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan last week is likely to face disciplinary action. According to the Guardian, he threw the fragmentation grenade that killed Norgrove, but failed to inform his superiors until long after the event. ALAN YENTOB 'TO LEAVE BBC'One of the BBC's most experienced programme-makers, Alan Yentob, is due to step down as creative director in the management shake-up ordered by director-general Mark Thompson, according to the Times. Yentob, who has been with the BBC ever since he joined as a graduate trainee in 1968, would lose his £183,300 salary and high-flying expense account - but could continue to present the arts programme Imagine on a freelance basis. Is Alan Yentob exit wishful thinking? BAN ON OPENLY GAY US TROOPS SUSPENDEDGay rights campaigners are claiming a major victory after the ban on openly homosexual troops serving in the US military was effectively suspended on Tuesday. Judge Virginia Phillips ordered that the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' law introduced by President Bill Clinton, under which any troops whose homosexuality was exposed could be fired, was unconstitutional, violating America's First and Fifth Amendments. HAGUE VISITS MOSCOW UNDER LITVINENKO SHADOW Foreign Secretary William Hague has flown to Moscow for talks with President Dmitry Medvedev, claiming "the door is open" to better relations but admitting that the poisoning of former spy Alexander Litvinenko in London four years ago still casts a shadow over Anglo-Russian relations. Moscow has refused to meet an extradition request for former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, who is strongly suspected of having murdered Litvinenko. The First Post's Litvinenko File HIGH COURT BACKS LIVERPOOL SALELiverpool fans are rejoicing after the High Court ruled that the club's current owners, unpopular Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett, could not block the sale of the debt-ridden club. They had tried to sack the board after it agreed to sell to the owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team for £300m. Hicks and Gillett said they had been 'frozen out' of negotiations, but the court found against them and the club could now change hands as soon as Thursday. Liverpool sale on as US owners lose court case 14 dead in attack on iran's Revolutionary guardsAn explosion at a base belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards has killed 18 people and injured 14. The blast hit an ammunition dump yesterday in Lorestan province in north-western Iran, a region which has suffered a number of attacks recently by Kurdish separatists. The Revolutionary Guards, an elite fighting force, are a powerful pillar in Iran's leadership heirarchy and control a huge business empire.