Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Monday 5 Jul 2010

published 5 July 2010

Missed the news over the Wimbledon final weekend? Couldn't be bothered with Andrew Marr on Sunday morning? The First Post's catch-up service, posted at 8.0 am every Monday, is designed to help... CHIEF EXECS GET RICHER DESPITE RECESSION Chief executives at Britain's top 100 companies have received pay rises of five per cent on average since the beginning of 2009, despite falling revenues and profits during the recession. A study by pay consultants MM&K also found that FTSE 100 bosses' pay had quadrupled over the past 10 years, during which period share prices have mainly declined. The findings are published at a time when shareholders are becoming increasingly vociferous about 'fat cat' pay deals such as the £7.5m golden hello for Marc Bolland at M&S (above). More... POLICE HUNT FUGITIVE GUNMAN Police in Newcastle and Gateshead are still searching for a fugitive gunman, Roaul Moat, who came out of jail at the end of last week and then shot his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart, murdered her new lover, and gunned down a policeman. It is believed that Stobbart had misinformed Moat while he was in prison that her new boyfriend was a policeman, thinking this would persuade him to leave them alone. It is now feared Moat, a 37-year-old bodybuilder, may want to "go out in a blaze of glory" and try to provoke police marksmen into shooting him. More... KACZYNSKI DEFEATED IN POLISH ELECTIONJaroslaw Kaczynski appears to have failed in his bid to succeed his identical twin brother as president of Poland, following Lech Kaczynski's death in a plane crash in April. With votes still being counted, Bronislaw Komorowski, who is the governing party candidate and has been acting president since the crash, looks set to win by a small margin. He told supporters on Sunday: "Tonight we will open a small bottle of champagne and tomorrow we will open a big bottle." Observers say his victory offers a rare period of stability, with the PM and the president belonging to the same party. NADAL AND WILLIAMS WIN WIMBLEDON World number one Rafael Nadal has won his second Wimbledon title after beating 12th seed Tomas Berdych in straight sets. The Spaniard took two hours and 13 minutes to beat Berdych 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 yesterday. In the women's final on Saturday, American Serena Williams beat Russian Vera Zvonareva 6-3, 6-2 to win her fourth Wimbledon title. More... DR CONGO OIL TANKER BLAST KILLS 220 At least 220 people have been killed after a truck carrying oil blew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tanker overturned on Saturday in the village of Sange, near the border with Burundi and began gushing oil over the street. A crowd of people gathered, many of whom began to siphon the valuable oil into jerry cans. But the fuel ignited within an hour, causing a fireball that engulfed the bystanders. RUSSIAN 'SPY' ANNA EMBARRASSED BY COVERAGEAnna Chapman, one of 10 people arrested in the US on suspicion of being part of a Russian spy ring, has told her lawyer she is embarrassed by the media coverage of her exploits. Intimate details of Chapman's life have been picked over in the newspapers in the week since her arrest, culminating in a nude picture of her in the Sunday tabloids. Robert Baum said: "She was embarrassed by some of the photos that were obviously taken from her Facebook pages." More... OSBORNE BUDGET 'UNFAIR TO WOMEN' A detailed audit of George Osborne's emergency budget shows women in Britain will shoulder about 70 per cent of the burden. The study was conducted by the House of Commons library for Yvette Cooper, Labour's shadow welfare minister. It shows that of the nearly £8bn net revenue to be raised from taxation and benefit cuts by the financial year 2014-15, men will pay £2.2bn while women will pay £5.8bn. Cooper told the Guardian: "They [the coalition government] have just launched the fiercest attack on family support in the history of the welfare state." BP TESTS GIANT OIL-SKIMMING TANKEREngineers will today determine the success of oil-skimming being undertaken by a giant tanker in the Gulf of Mexico. The Taiwanese vessel, A Whale, can process 21 million gallons of oily water per day, returning clean water back into the sea. Between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil per day are still leaking from BP's Macondo well and clean-up operations have been on hold for almost a week due to the passage of Hurricane Alex. TONY BLAIR 'TO LOSE £2M A YEAR SECURITY'Tony Blair is to have his round-the-clock security team - reportedly costing £2 million a year - scaled back as part of police budget cuts. The number of officers guarding the former PM's central London home is expected to be cut later this month. Foreign Secretary William Hague has also hinted that the huge expenses claimed by his bodyguards on overseas trips will be more carefully scrutinised in future. Blair's security team reportedly claimed £250,000 in expenses in a single year - including limousine hire and five-star hotel rooms. The officers are also said to be paid overtime even when they are asleep. CRISTIANO RONALDO IS A FATHERPortuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has announced on Facebook that he has recently become a father. The statement, posted yesterday, reads: "It is with great joy and emotion that I inform I have recently become a father to a baby boy. With the agreement of the mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, I will have exclusive custody of my son." Correio da Manhã reports the mother is "from North America and had the child in early June". More...