Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Friday 19 Nov 2010

published 19 November 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. MINERS MISSING AFTER NEW ZEALAND BLASTAs many as 27 miners are thought to be trapped underground after an explosion today at the Pike River coal mine on the South Island of New Zealand. First reports talk of a major incident. The mayor of the nearest town, Greymouth, told Radio New Zealand: "We're just keeping our fingers crossed but it's not good." RUSSIA JOINS BOYCOTT OF NOBEL CEREMONYThe political fallout from the award of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo means the December 10 ceremony in Oslo may have to be cancelled. Nobel rules say the prize must be collected by the laureate or a close family member. Liu's wife has been placed under house arrest and his brothers are being "monitored". Russia has now announced that it will boycott ceremony. ROYAL WEDDING DAY 'TO BE A BANK HOLIDAY'So much for a royal wedding to suit the age of austerity: David Cameron is in favour of William and Kate's wedding day being declared a Bank holiday. The last time a new Bank holiday was mooted back in 2007, the CBI said it would cost the nation £6bn. A spokesman at St James's Palace said the couple were grateful for the PM's comments but recognised that a Bank holiday was "very much a matter for the Government". Investment advice: forget the tea towels, take the cake MYSTERY VAPOUR TRAIL: CHINESE NAVY IN THE FRAME According to a report today for The First Post by defence correspondent Robert Fox, UK and US experts are taking seriously the possibility that on November 8 the Chinese Navy test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine operating only 35 miles off the California coast. The possible incident came to light when a CBS news cameraman caught a mysterious vapour trail on film. Robert Fox: Was it a Chinese missile? IRELAND READY TO ACCEPT €100BN LOANAfter days of humming and hawing, the Republic of Ireland's finance minister Brian Lenihen has finally admitted that Dublin needs outside help to stabilise its banking system. A loan of €100bn from the EU, designed to reassure international investors, is likely to be accepted within days. Lenihen said he felt "no sense of shame" having fought hard to keep the Irish economy on an even keel. SILVIO BERLUSCONI'S STICK-ON PENISItalian art historians are in uproar after learning that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi personally ordered that two ancient marble statues in the courtyard of his Rome residence should have missing parts restored. As a result, the naked Mars has a new penis, and Venus a new hand. Both parts are attached using magnets and are removable. Experts say the 'surgery' is tasteless. ASTRONOMERS DETECT 'FIRST ALIEN PLANET'A team of astronomers believe they have detected in the Milky Way a planet, the size of Jupiter, that has come from another galaxy. Announcing their finding in Science, the team, who work at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, and at the European Space Agency, say the planet lives 2200 light-years away inside the Helmi stream, a ring of ancient stars that cuts through the plane of the Milky Way. NAMIBIA 'BOMB' WAS A DUMMY A suspected bomb intercepted at an airport in Namibia on Wednesday as it was about to be loaded on to a flight to Munich was a US-made dummy that was designed to test security, according to German officials. "The luggage turned out to be a so-called real test suitcase made by a company in the United States," said Germany's interior minister Thomas de Maiziere. Arsenal's Jack WIlshere cautioned for assaultArsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere has been cautioned for common assault. The 18-year-old was arrested on August 29 after a fight in Kensington High Street, west London, in which a man suffered minor facial injuries and a woman suffered a broken arm. Wilshere had been out celebrating Arsenal's victory over Blackburn Rovers. WEDDING-WATCH: TODAY'S MOST DESPERATE STORY Today's award for 'Most desperate William and Kate engagement story' goes to the Daily Mail which suggests William was attracted to Kate because she looks remarkably like his childhood nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke. The paper cites primo copulism - the impulse to "fall in love with someone who reminds us of a person with whom we shared a significant bond in childhood".