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Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has called for an end to a "benefits culture" on council estates as he unveiled proposals to give tenants who pay rent and make a positive contribution help in buying a stake in their homes.

Mr Duncan Smith said he wanted to see a major overhaul in housing policy to reward social housing tenants who make a positive contribution and look for work.

Speaking on GMTV, Mr Duncan Smith said the report aimed to change the aspirations of people living on estates.

He said social housing should be seen as part of a "back-to-work process".

"We shouldn't lock people into this for life because that takes away all incentive for people to seek work and change their lives," he said.

He said all governments over the past 30 years were to blame for a "benefits culture" in which children growing up on estates were less likely to see adults in work.

His remarks were made as his think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), set out a stark assessment of the decline of working class areas over the past half-century.

It calls for an overhaul of housing policy to put an end to the "cycle of destructive behaviour" of poverty, family breakdown and crime on council estates which have deteriorated into "ghettos".

Its proposals include new incentives to discourage social tenants getting into a downward spiral of benefits dependency. Jobless social housing tenants who try to find work could be given an equity stake in their homes under the proposals in the report.

The CSJ also calls on a future Conservative government to consider rewarding people who demonstrate a desire to get back on the path to self-sufficiency with stakes in their own homes. That could include people who pay their own rent, rather than relying on the state, and make contributions to the local community.

-Nova

Tougher inspection regimes for child protection services across the country have been introduced to avoid a repeat of failings exposed by the Baby P tragedy.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls has ordered every local authority in England to review its arrangements for safeguarding children in the light of a damning report about Haringey Council.

He also announced that Ofsted would now carry out an unannounced inspection of child protection practice in every area of the country each year.

Ofsted warned that many councils were failing to learn lessons from the most serious incidents of child abuse because their internal investigations were inadequate.

Inspectors were sent into Haringey in north London last month after the trial of those responsible for 17-month-old Baby P's brutal death.

Their report led to two senior councillors resigning, three managers being suspended and three social workers being taken off child protection duties.

There was anger that Haringey's director of children's services, Sharon Shoesmith, remained on full pay despite being removed from her post by the Government.

Mr Balls said he would be "astonished" if Ms Shoesmith received any pay-off or compensation for losing her job, but stressed that this was a decision for the council to make.

The council's chief executive, Dr Ita O'Donovan, said Ms Shoesmith would not receive a compensation package or return to her post.

"We have to follow the employment law of this country," Dr O'Donovan said.

-Nova

Supermarket giant Tesco has reported a halving in UK sales growth in the third quarter after it said like-for-like sales rose by 2%.

The 2% figure for the 13 weeks to November 22, excluding fuel, was down from the 4% reported in the previous three months.

Tesco said inflation had fallen "substantially" in the three months to the end of September, with prices in its stores falling even faster, according to the retailer.

It said the recent launch of cut-price ranges - such as its new 'Discounter' lines - was helping lower prices for cash-strapped shoppers, but had deflated its sales by "between two and three percentage points".

However, Tesco said the move was seeing it attract 300,000 more customers each week.

"We are also beginning to see strongly improving sales volumes - this is an important change, as inflation begins to subside across the industry," said Tesco.

Its upbeat outlook on customer numbers and sales volumes comes despite recent reports that it is seeing swathes of shoppers defect to rivals Asda and Morrisons.

Switching data from industry researchers TNS Worldpanel showed that in the 12 weeks to November 2, around £22 million of spending shifted from Tesco direct to Asda, according to The Times.

Tesco said its UK business had made "solid progress", but admitted it was not immune to the wider economic troubles.

Total group sales rose by 11.7% in the three-month period, with total UK sales growth of 5.9%.

-Nova

A coroner leading the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes is due to begin summing up evidence for the jury.

Former High Court judge Sir Michael Wright is tasked with bringing together the final account of how the innocent Brazilian met his death on a south London Tube train.

It is the last stage before the 11-person jury, which has sat since September 22, is sent out to consider its verdicts.

Jurors heard from 100 witnesses, including the two men who shot dead the innocent Brazilian at point-blank range on a carriage at Stockwell station on July 22 2005.

For the first time, the public was given a full account of the incident from key witnesses on board the Underground carriage where the shooting took place.

Key controversies involving surveillance outside his Tulse Hill home, incidents in the control room at New Scotland Yard and Mr de Menezes's journey towards Stockwell were also examined at length.

C2 and C12, the two firearms officers who shot the electrician, both choked back tears as they appeared in the unlikely surroundings of Surrey County Cricket Club's home ground, in south London.

The shooting came two weeks after London was rocked by the July 7 bombings that left 52 victims dead.

On July 21 a second gang of Islamist extremists attempted to murder dozens more with home-made rucksack bombs. As counter terrorist police scoured the capital for the escaped would-be suicide bombers, Mr de Menezes was mistaken for one of them and shot dead.

Sir Michael is expected to use two days taking the jury back through the key evidence heard at the Oval cricket ground, south London.

-Nova

Firebrand cleric Abu Qatada has been returned to jail after an immigration court ruled he breached the terms of his bail.

A panel of judges at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) was told the radical preacher plotted to leave Britain.

Qatada, 47, who was described by a judge as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe", was under 22-hour curfew until his arrest last month.

Mr Justice Mitting told a short hearing in central London that Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, would be detained under immigration laws.

He said: "For the reasons outlined in the judgment, the Commission revokes bail and directs that Othman be detained under immigration powers..."

Neither Qatada nor his legal team were in court to hear the judgment.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was pleased with the verdict.

She said: "I'm pleased the court has agreed that Qatada should have his bail revoked.

"He poses a significant threat to our national security and I am pleased that he will be detained pending his deportation, which I'm working hard to secure."

-Nova

Thousands of British tourists stranded in Thailand are facing chaos and confusion as a court banned the country's ruling party.

The father of a British tourist stuck in the resort of Phuket said his daughter had told him how fights had broken out among thousands of tourists besieging a military airfield.

Some Britons were escaping from the strife-torn country on relief flights which were taking them to London via Hong Kong, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.

But many faced a battle to get away, with the UK not actually laying on any extra flights but merely liaising with foreign airlines to get as many Britons away as possible.

Anti-government protesters have sparked the travel chaos in Thailand by occupying and forcing the closure of the main Bangkok international airport.

It was not immediately clear what would be the effect of the ruling by Thailand's Constitutional Court that the main ruling party be dissolved and the prime minister and 36 party executives be banned from politics for five years.

Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell said major airlines including Qantas and Emirates were laying on extra flights with UK Government support to help people stranded in Thailand get home.

An Emirates flight leaving Chiang Mai airport on Monday night was expected to carry well over 100 British nationals.

In a statement released by the Foreign Office, Mr Rammell said: "We are continuing to work with our international partners to support efforts to defuse the unrest in Thailand. Several thousand British travellers remain stranded in Bangkok. Our priorities are to ensure their immediate welfare and to find ways of ending their uncertainty and helping them get home."

Gulf Air, Malaysian Airways, Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific and Silk Airways are also expected to provide additional flights, mainly out of Phuket.

-Nova

The Tories' lead over Labour has been slashed to just one point in the latest poll.

The ComRes survey for The Independent put the Conservatives down two since last month on 37% and Labour up five on 36%, suggesting the "Brown bounce" is still on track. The Liberal Democrats were up one on 17%.

If repeated in a general election, the findings would apparently give Labour a small majority because of imbalances in the UK's first-past-the-post electoral system.

The poll will encourage renewed talk of a 2009 election, coming after indications since last week's Pre-Budget Report (PBR) that the Tories had put an end to a recent Labour surge.

They are the best findings for Labour since January, when an Ipsos Mori poll put the party one point ahead of the Tories.

The ComRes survey suggests working class voters have responded well to the PBR, which heralded a new 45p top rate of income tax for those earning more than £150,000 a year.

Labour support among the bottom social group DE has risen to 51% from 35% last month, it found.

-Nova

An Iraqi court has sentenced to death Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, for his role in crushing a Shia uprising in 1991.

It is the second death sentence passed on Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein.

The court also condemned a senior Baath Party official, Abdulghani Abdul Ghafour, to hang for the same crime.

In February, Majid was condemned to hang for genocide over the killing of 100,000 people during the 1988 Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurds.

The latest verdicts were issued after a trial which heard harrowing testimony of how the Iraqi army crushed the rebellion by Iraq's Shia community.

The uprising followed Saddam Hussein's defeat by US-led forces in the first Gulf War in 1991.

Witnesses told of mass executions and family members being thrown from helicopters.

The judge said the court had decided to execute Majid "by hanging for committing wilful killings and crimes against humanity".

Ten other defendants received sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison.

The court, the Iraqi High Tribunal, was set up to try former members of Saddam's government and was the same one that sentenced the former dictator to death.

'Right-hand man'

It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people were killed as troops carried out massacres around the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and shelled towns and villages across southern Iraq in the campaign.

Many Shia who participated in the uprising say they had expected US forces to back them, but former US President George Bush instead ordered his forces to halt at the Iraqi border, leaving the rebels at the mercy of Saddam's troops.

Often considered to be Saddam Hussein's right-hand man, Majid served as Iraq's defence minister.

And as a member of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, he was regularly called upon to crush regional uprisings.

He was given the nickname "Chemical Ali" for orchestrating the Anfal campaign and ordering poisonous gas attacks in a brutal scorched-earth campaign of bombings on Kurdish towns and villages in northern Iraq in 1988.

He has also been accused of ordering the gassing of 5,000 Kurds in the Kurdish village of Halabja, also in 1988.

Majid, 68 was arrested in August 2003 following the US invasion of Iraq.

He was first sentenced to hang in June 2007 for his role in the Anfal killings but his execution was held up by legal wrangling. He remains in American military custody.

-BBC News

Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron have rioted for several hours. Reports say several Palestinians were injured.

Violence broke out as rumours spread that Israeli forces were about to evict the settlers from a disputed building in the mainly Palestinian city.

Settlers and their supporters threw stones at Palestinians and Israeli police, damaging homes and cars.

Similar incidents were reported in several other parts of the West Bank.

The eviction was ordered by the Israeli supreme court in November.

The settlers have been involved in several clashes since the eviction order was issued, and have desecrated a mosque and a Muslim cemetery.

In the northern West Bank, near Nablus, dozens of settlers clashed with Palestinians and border police, and blocked roads in a show of support for the settlers in the centre of Hebron. There were several arrests.

Several hundred hard-line religious settlers live in the centre of Hebron under heavy military guard amid some 150,000 Palestinians.

Hebron is holy to both Jews and Muslims as the site of the cave that Abraham bought as a burial site for his wife Sarah.

The settlers say that they bought the house in a legal transaction from its Palestinian owner for nearly US $1m. He says he pulled out of the deal.

The Israeli high court is yet to rule on who owns the disputed building, but says it must be vacated while the decision is made.

All settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law though Israel disputes this.

-BBC News

Babies born by Caesarean section are more prone to developing asthma, say Dutch researchers.

In a study of almost 3,000 children, birth by Caesarean was associated with a 80% increased risk of asthma by age eight compared with vaginal birth.

The association was even stronger in children whose parents had allergies, suggesting a genetic predisposition to the disease, it is reported in Thorax.

Previous research has linked Caesareans with the development of allergies.

In total, the team looked at 2,917 children, 247 of whom were born by caesarean.

Around 12% of the children were diagnosed with asthma for which they were treated with inhaled steroids by the time they were eight years old.

The researchers found that the 9% of children who had two allergic parents were almost three times more likely to be asthmatic by the time they were eight compared with children whose parents were not allergic.

Immunity

Study leader, Dr Caroline Roduit, now based at the Children's Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland, said rates of asthma had soared in industrialised countries in parallel with a rise in Caesarean section births, which have increased from 5% in the 1970s to more than 30% in 2000.

She suggested that one reason for the association between Caesareans and asthma could be the priming of the immune system after birth.

Other research has shown babies born by Caesarean are not exposed to microbes as soon as babies born by vaginal delivery.

Previous studies in this area have produced conflicting results but the authors said the size of the study, the long monitoring period and and the definition of asthma to include inhaled steroids, strengthened the findings.

"The increased rate of Caesarean section is partly due to maternal demand without medical reason," said Dr Roduit.

"In this situation the mother should be informed of the risk of asthma for her child, especially when the parents have a history of allergy or asthma."

Dr Mike Thomas, chief medical adviser to the charity Asthma UK, said previous studies had also suggested that Caesarean section might increase the risk of asthma.

He said: "Sometimes a Caesarean section is needed for medical reasons, but where possible a natural birth is better."

-BBC News