Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Friday 10 Dec 2010

published 10 December 2010

Our popular news catch-up service is posted Monday to Friday at 8.0 am. You can rely on it to keep you up to date through the working day with the main news talking points. CONFUSION OVER SAKINEH ASHTIANI 'RELEASE'There is confusion this morning over whether Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery, might have been freed from jail. On Thursday, official photos showing her with her son (above) at home in the city of Osku suggested she had either been freed or allowed home leave. But state-owned Press TV said later Ashtiani had been taken home to film a TV special in which she would confess to murdering her husband and show viewers the scene of the crime. Is Ashtiani free? New photos sow confusion STUDENTS TARGET CHARLES AND CAMILLAProtesting students could hardly believe their luck when a limo containing Prince Charles and Camilla drove into the middle of demonstrators in central London last night. The car got splattered with white paint and a window was broken. The royals, en route to the Royal Variety Performance, were unhurt. In the Commons, despite many Lib Dem MPs voting against, the coalition's controversial proposal to raise the cap on tuition fees went through by a majority of just 21. Police chief: students lucky not to be shot In pictures: Camilla and Charles meet the students BURMA COULD GO NUCLEAR - WITH NORTH KOREAN HELP WikiLeaks continues its US embassy cables dump despite Julian Assange being in custody - and the latest revelations suggest the Burmese junta could be building missiles and nuclear sites with help from North Korea. The documents cite witnesses who say North Korean workers are helping Burma construct a concrete-reinforced underground bunker in the jungle. Dockworkers and foreign businessmen are quoted as having seen evidence of nuclear sites. You read it here first: Americans ask if Burma is building a bomb JAMIE OLIVER BREAKS BOOK RECORDJamie Oliver's latest book, 30-Minute Meals, which accompanies a C4 television series, has sold 735,000 copies in 10 weeks, making it Britain's fastest selling non-fiction title of all time. The previous record holder was comedian Peter Kay's memoir, The Sound of Laughter. To become the bestselling cookery book in history, Oliver still needs to pass the million mark set by Delia Smith's How To Cook (Book 1). KATIE PRICE 'HURT' BY FRANKIE BOYLE JOKE Lawyers for Katie Price - aka glamour model Jordan - have reported C4 to Ofcom after the channel declined to issue a public apology for a "hurtful" and "despicable" remark made about her disabled son, Harvey, by comedian Frankie Boyle on Tramadol Nights. Boyle said: "I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter - she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her..." C4 defended Boyle's right to make "an absurdist and satirical comment on high profile individuals whose lives have been played out in the media". ASSANGE: 'SWEDEN DID NOT SUCCUMB TO PRESSURE'Swedish media commentators and politicians have dismissed the theory that foreign governments put pressure on prosecutors to have WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange arrested, according to the Guardian. One Swedish columnist, Oisin Cantwell, compared Assange's celebrity backers to the Hollywood stars who gave unquestioned support to film director Roman Polanski when he was arrested last year, accused of raping a 13-year-old. AL-MEGRAHI 'NOT IN A COMA' SAY SCOTSLockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is not in a coma and "close to death", as reported yesterday by Sky News, according to officials at East Renfrewshire Council which, under the terms of his compassionate release in August 2009, still monitors his health. A council spokesman told the Herald the rumour was unfounded. "We are in contact with Megrahi regularly and whenever we need to be for the purposes of supervision," he said. Lockerbie bomber Megrahi 'close to death' in Libya SHRIEN DEWANI GRANTED BAILBusinessman Shrien Dewani, who is accused of having his wife Anni murdered while on honeymoon in South Africa, has been granted bail as he awaits extradition to face trial in Cape Town. The decision was made despite opposition from the South African authorities and after claims in the Sun newspaper that Dewani was caught on CCTV meeting with taxi driver Zola Tongo, who says he was paid to kill Anni, before and after the carjacking in November. Honeymoon murder: bail as CCTV footage emerges RELEASE LIU XIAOBO NOW, SAYS NOBEL CHAIRMAN The winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, was represented at today's ceremony in Oslo by an empty chair. Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland used the occasion to call for Liu's immediate release from jail. He praised China for lifting millions of people out of poverty but said that now it was a leading world power, the country needed to "regard criticism as positive". China's anti-Nobel plan fails to go peacefully 14M WATCH CORONATION STREETCoronation Street's live hour-long 50th anniversary show on Thursday night was the most watched episode of the soap opera for seven years, with an average audience of 14m. Critical reaction to the show, in which two characters, Peter Barlow and Molly Dobbs, appeared to be killed off, was largely positive. But the peak viewing figure of 14.9m was some way behind a live episode of EastEnders in February which attracted 15.6m viewers.