Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 6 Oct 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... PRINCE HARRY 'CAPTURED BY TALIBAN' Channel 4 has defended its decision to make a dramatised documentary based on what might have happened if Prince Harry had been captured by the Taliban when he served with the British Army in Afghanistan in 2007/08. It shows the prince, played by actor Sebastian Reid, being subjected to mock executions and forced to appear in propaganda films while negotiations are carried out to free him. The film will be broadcast on October 21. Anger at film of Taliban capturing Prince Harry CAMERON: YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOUDavid Cameron today acknowledged that people were "anxious" about the impact of welfare cuts but said: "There is no other responsible way". He told the Conservative party conference in his first speech as PM that it was right that those with the "broader shoulders" should bear the largest burden in the effort to reduce the national deficit. Echoing the wartime words of Lord Kitchener, he said: "Your country needs you". Cameron's speech in full SINGER GAMU NHENGU FACES DEPORTATIONGamu Nhengu, the 18-year-old singer denied a place in the live finals of The X Factor, has been told she and her family must return to Zimbabwe or face deportation from Britain, according to today's tabloids. Cheryl Cole, the X Factor judge who angered fans by choosing another singer, Cher Lloyd, over Gamu, claims she was told by producers not to pick Gamu because of worries over her immigration status. Johnny Dee: Gamu didn't fit the script TIMES SQUARE BOMBER GETS LIFE Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-born American who tried to blow up a car bomb in New York's Times Square on May 1, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Manhattan's federal court yesterday. Shahzad, 31, said he felt no remorse for the attempt - the bomb failed to detonate - and told the court: "The defeat of the US is imminent". He smirked as Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum announced the sentence. WESTERNERS ATTACKED IN YEMENBritish embassy staff in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, escaped serious injury when militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their car this morning. One staff member and passers-by were slightly injured. In a separate attack, a French contractor was killed and a UK contractor badly injured when a security guard at a Austrian gas company in Haddah, on the outskirts of Sanaa, opened fire. LIVERPOOL FC 'sold' to red sox owners Liverpool FC could be sold to the owners of baseball team the Boston Red Sox after the club announced that the board had agreed a takeover. However, Liverpool's current owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are against the deal, thought to be worth £300m, as they believe it undervalues the club. They attempted to sack those members of the board who supported the takeover and a legal battle over the future of the club seems inevitable. Civil war at Anfield WOULD-BE BRITISH TERROR LEADER KILLED One of the targets of the recent wave of US drone attacks inside Pakistan was a British man who was being groomed to head an al-Qaeda faction based in Britain, according to Newsnight. Their task would have been to carry out Mumbai-style attacks in Britain, France and Germany. A "trusted, senior security source" told the BBC programme that Abdul Jabbar was one of several militants killed by the drone attack in northwest Pakistan in September. LIB DEMS CALL FOR BANK BONUS TAXA new tax on bankers' bonuses is needed immediately, according to the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott, amid estimates that the City will be handing out £7m in bonuses this year. Oakshott was speaking after one of the country's leading bankers, RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton, admitted publicly that the only way bonuses could be reformed was with regulation. 'SECRET TALKS' TO END AFGHAN WARHigh-level talks aimed at bringing the war in Afghanistan to an end have begun in secret between Taliban officials and the government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, according to a report in the Washington Post. Afghan and Arab sources told the Post that the Taliban representatives are, for the first time, authorised to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organisation based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar. "They are very, very serious about finding a way out," one source said of the Taliban. 'SAFE' TO DRINK DURING PREGNANCY It is safe for pregnant women to drink alcohol occasionally - one or two units a week - without any risk to their babies, according to a study of 11,500 children, and interviews with their mothers, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The findings challenges the government's advice that women should abstain from drinking throughout pregnancy
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