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Gordon Brown is to urge EU leaders to copy Britain's blueprint for tackling global financial turmoil.

At a crunch summit in Paris, the Prime Minister will insist that co-ordinated international action along the lines of his £500bn bank bail-out is the only way to ease "extraordinary" turmoil on markets.

The meeting comes after the US set out a similar plan to the UK's, which will see the Government take significant stakes in banks and guarantee lending between them.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, Mr Brown echoed the warning from US President George Bush yesterday that countries must not "turn against each other" or seek isolation amid the chaos.

"No country - not even the biggest - can make it just on their own at a time like this," he insisted. "We are all in it together and have to work to solve it together."

He said he knew people were "worried", but evoked the spirit of the Blitz in claiming that the UK would "lead the way through".

"I've seen in the cities and towns I've visited a calm, determined British spirit; that, while this is a world financial crisis that has started from America, Britain will lead the way in pulling through.

"And I know that we will come together as a country and emerge a fairer and more successful nation than ever before. Together, we can win the fight for Britain's future."

EU leaders were already due to meet in Brussels on Wednesday. However, Sunday's gathering of eurozone members in Paris was hastily arranged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy after a disastrous week on financial markets.

In a break with precedent, Mr Brown has been invited despite the UK not being part of the single currency.

-Ananova

The Government has seized more than enough Icelandic assets to pay back British savers caught up in the country's banking collapse, it was revealed.

Some £4bn is understood to have been frozen using anti-terror laws last week, compared to the estimated £3bn that UK councils, charities and individuals stand to lose.

Treasury Chief Secretary Yvette Cooper insisted the assets would not be released until a deal had been struck with Iceland's authorities to return British money.

Asked if they could be sold in order to recover the investments, Ms Cooper told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "I think we need to have a proper process for doing this and that is why we sent a team over to Iceland on Friday in order to talk to the Iceland authorities about how that money can get back to the people whose money it really is.

"These discussions are under way at the moment and that is why we have frozen assets in the meantime until we know how people are going to get their money back."

The scale of the assets frozen emerged amid fears that the banking collapse may mean some councils cannot pay their staff this month.

Most of the estimated £1bn invested in Iceland by local authorities was capital, but according to the Independent on Sunday a handful deposited revenue budgets - which include payroll - in order to earn interest.

But an LGA spokeswoman stressed that all councils held reserves, and it was "highly unlikely" there would be any impact. "We are not aware of any councils which have immediate cashflow problems in terms of services or paying staff," she said.

The LGA is urging the Government to relax capitalisation rules for hard-hit councils and allow them to delay payments of business tax rates if necessary.

The Treasury delegation conducting negotiations in Iceland released a statement last night saying "significant progress" had been made. A deal has already been done in principle over an "accelerated" payment for small UK depositors, according to the statement. However, the situation with larger investors has yet to be resolved.

-Ananova

Some bright pupils are being asked to re-take GCSEs to boost the overall results of their schools, it has been claimed.

Independent tutoring expert Dr Mike Ryde claimed some of his young pupils were being asked by their own school to re-sit exams they had taken early at his college, because they had been awarded top marks.

He said: "I have had it a few times, pupils have come to me and said 'my school wants me to take it again'.

"This is because if they know a child is going to get a good mark then they want it to count towards their school's performance."

The performance of schools is judged in part on their GCSE results, which feed into annual national attainment tables.

Dr Ryde is the head of Ryde Teaching Services in Watford, which teaches children below the usual GCSE age. Children can take GCSEs with his college as it is also an assessment centre. But he claimed some schools were then asking pupils to re-take the exam at their own school.

He said: "I had one school call me and ask if they could say a pupil had taken the exam with them because he had got a good grade."

Dr Ryde said more schools should put pupils in for GCSEs early, to reduce the pressure on them to take all of their exams at the age of 16. But he claimed most fail to do so because results of exams taken by younger pupils will not show up in their attainment tables.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Whether a pupil sits a GCSE exam early is a decision for themselves, their parents and the school to take.

"A school may suggest to a pupil that they re-take an exam if it is in the pupil's best interests because they are likely to get a better grade. We would be very surprised to hear of schools asking pupils to re-take exams for any other reason."

-Ananova

UK firms issued 111 profit warnings between July and September as the credit crunch hit retailers, media and support service firms, it emerged.

The figures from Ernst & Young are the highest for the third quarter since the same period in 2001 and almost a third higher than in 2007.

Keith McGregor, restructuring partner at Ernst & Young, said the findings from stock market listed firms were "deeply concerning."

He added: "The end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth brought some of the most turbulent weeks for banks and financial markets in a generation; weeks that have completely redefined the banking landscape and reminded us that the credit crisis is far from over."

Support services saw the most warnings to investors with 23 out of 209 companies in the sector, the highest ever recorded for this part of the UK economy. It comprises companies ranging from recruitment agencies to engineering services and Government contractors.

The research said the sector was exposed to industries currently in turmoil, such as the financial and property sectors. The Office for National Statistics recently said the service sector as a whole failed to grow for the first time in six years during the three months to July 2008.

General retailers are also expecting to be a casualty of current economic turmoil.

The sector issued 13 profit warnings out of 78 companies, almost double the number issued in the third quarter of 2007.

E&Y said retailers will struggle to make a profit this Christmas as they need increase their prices to balance escalating overheads at a time when consumers are spending less.

One fifth of the media sector has issued profit warnings in the year to date.

-Ananova

The Government's controversial plans to increase the terror detention limit to 42 days will be effectively killed off by a defeat in the Lords, one of the measure's leading critics said.

Former shadow home secretary David Davis said he expected peers to overwhelmingly reject the proposals in a vote on Monday.

Mr Davis, who resigned as an MP to force a by-election over the Government's record on civil liberties, said: "I think it will be dead."

Peers will vote on increasing the pre-charge custody time limit for terror suspects from 28 to 42 days.

Mr Davis told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "I think it will be thrown out by a huge majority."

He said the measure, contained in the Counter-Terrorism Bill, no longer had support from the public and the Government would not have the political will to force it through using the Parliament Act to overrule the House of Lords.

The Tory MP said: "It was something that was profitable for the Government - they thought by having 42 days and us opposing it they would make us look weak and them look strong. That was when 70% supported it, now it's about 30% supporting the Government."

He continued: "Their own party probably won't support them in the Parliament Act, so I think it's probably over."

Gordon Brown narrowly got the measure through the Commons by just nine votes in a major test of his authority in June.

Mr Davis shocked Westminster by standing down as MP for Haltemprice and Howden in protest at the result and was re-elected after a campaign designed to highlight what he described as the "erosion" of civil liberties under Labour.

-Ananova

A mother who is campaigning for justice after the rape and murder of her teenage daughter in India is being summoned to answer allegations of neglect, her lawyer has said.

Fiona MacKeown believes the authorities have made a number of attempts to cover up the death of Scarlett Keeling as an accident.

The body of the 15-year-old was found on Anjuna beach in Goa on February 19. She had been left in the care of a 25-year-old tour guide while the rest of the family went travelling.

Now Goa's Directorate of Women and Child Development has ordered Mrs MacKeown, 43, to appear before the courts on October 15.

Her lawyer, Vikram Varma, said she would not attend the hearing and the allegations had "no substance".

Mr Varma said powerful forces in Goa wanted to cover up Scarlett's death. He said: "They have prejudged her. They will try to ensure that Fiona does not come to India to give her testimony about Scarlett. They want what happened to Scarlett to be an accident."

Mrs MacKeown, from Bradworthy, Devon, went travelling with her six other children leaving Scarlett in Anjuna.

Police said initially that her death was an accidental drowning but, after a sustained campaign by Mrs MacKeown, the results were re-examined and a second post-mortem examination held.

The results revealed Scarlett was killed and a murder investigation was launched. The tests also showed that Scarlett was given Ecstasy, cocaine and LSD on the night she died.

Nerlon Albuquerque, the police officer who first investigated the death, was dismissed in April. Two men were arrested, Samson D'Souza, 29, and Placido Carvalho, aged between 30 and 35, who have appeared in court on suspicion of drugging Scarlett and assisting in the murder by that act.

-Ananova

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams is to join Christian and Muslim scholars for the start of a conference aimed at promoting understanding between the two faiths.

Dr Williams and the Grand Mufti of Egypt Sheikh Ali Gomaa will be among those addressing A Common Word, a conference at Cambridge University involving academics from around the world.

The event coincides with the first anniversary of the publication of A Common Word Between Us and You, a letter from 138 Islamic scholars, clerics and intellectuals.

Addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders, the letter warned that the survival of the world could be at stake if Muslims and Christians could not make peace with each other.

"If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world - with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before - no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants.

"Our common future is at stake," the letter said. "The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake."

The scholars also used quotations from the Bible and the Koran to illustrate similarities between the two faiths, such as the requirement to worship one God and to love one's neighbour.

In a letter of response published earlier this year, Dr Williams welcomed the document as a "significant development" in relations between Christians and Muslims.

The organisers of the conference said it would examine practical and "ground-breaking" steps that the two religious faiths could take to ensure they deepen mutual understanding, action and friendship.

The event comes after Dr Williams was heavily criticised earlier this year following a BBC interview in which he suggested that the adoption of some aspects of Islamic sharia law in the UK seemed "unavoidable".

-Ananova

A pedestrian died after two stolen cars collided and hit a block of flats, police said.

The cars hit the flats on the London Road in Bedford just before 4am.

A local 25-year-old man, believed to have been walking home after a night out in Bedford, was seriously injured and died at Bedford Hospital, police confirmed.

A Bedfordshire Police spokeswoman said his details would be revealed when an inquest is opened by the coroner.

The spokeswoman said six people have so far been arrested in connection with the incident, which involved a Ford S Max and a Hyundai Coupe, both believed to have been stolen overnight from the Bedford area.

She said all six had been arrested on suspicion of taking a vehicle without consent.

She said: "Three of the people that have been arrested are at Bedford Hospital South Wing, two of which are described as receiving treatment for serious but not life-threatening injuries."

She said the third was receiving treatment for minor injuries and the remaining three people arrested are being held at Greyfriars police station.

The impact of the crash caused extensive damage to the building, which is owned by Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association.

The crash left a hole in the wall of one resident's bedroom and damage to a neighbouring flat and stairwell.

-Ananova

SO........ were both cars stolen together ? Or did car theives collide ?

Careful when you go to 3rd world countries kids . this is what happens .

Wow!!! Good job.

Three men drugged and raped more than a dozen gay victims at sex orgies before injecting them with HIV-contaminated blood, a trial has heard.

Twelve of the victims, who range in age from their 20s to their 40s, are now HIV positive, the court in the Dutch city of Groningen was told.

The three HIV-positive suspects are accused of intentionally spreading the deadly virus at sex parties they promoted on the internet.

They face up to 21 years in jail if convicted of aggravated assault, rape, and the illegal possession of drugs.

The trio, aged 35, 48 and 49, were arrested in May last year after a number of their 14 alleged victims laid charges.

The prosecution alleges they were sedated with a combination of ecstasy and the date rape drug GHB before being raped and injected with a cocktail of their assailants' blood.

"The victims hope that their assailants will be punished," said the victims' lawyer Fred Kappelhof.

"They are hoping the trial will provide an answer to the question of why this happened to them."

If the men are convicted, the victims plan to launch civil proceedings for compensation.

In June 2006, health authorities reported a rapid rise in HIV infections among homosexual men in Groningen, and issued warning pamphlets at gay meeting areas.

The trial is expected to last a week.


sky news

That's awful...

Inflation hit a 16-year high in September but the year-long spiral in the cost of living could soon be over, experts said.

Economists said the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which hit 5.2% last month because of soaring gas and electricity bills, would decline rapidly as the economy slows.

September's CPI was the highest since the benchmark was introduced in 1997 and the biggest since March 1992 by historic data. A year ago it stood at 1.8%.

After energy price hikes - and an earlier round of increases in January - electricity prices are up 30.3% and gas costs up almost 50% year on year.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at Global Insight, said CPI was "almost certainly now at its peak, or very near to it". "Very weak economic activity, rising unemployment and extended tight credit conditions will increasingly dilute underlying inflationary pressures," he said.

The Government also faces paying out billions more in benefits and pensions after the headline Retail Prices Index (RPI) reached 5%.

September's RPI - which was last higher in July 1991 - is used by the Government to calculate pension increases for the coming year. Pensions usually increase by 2.5% or headline RPI, whichever is higher. A 5% rise in the current £47 billion cost of the basic state pension could add more than £2 billion to Government costs.

The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which cut rates by 0.5% last weekonomy weakens. This left some economists warning of inflation undershooting the 2% target as oil and food prices drop back and businesses lower their prices to attract customers as the economy slows.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper said: "Now that oil prices are coming down it's really important that utility companies pass on price decreases to customers as soon as possible."

-Ananova

David and Victoria Beckham's housekeepers are under police investigation after being accused of stealing property from the couple and trying to sell it on eBay.

Eric and June Emmett, who worked at the Beckhams' Hertfordshire mansion, were arrested on Friday on suspicion of theft from a private address. Their son Gareth, 25, was held on Monday night over the same alleged offence. All three were questioned and released on police bail.

Mr Emmett, 55, from Nazeing, near Waltham Abbey, Essex, said the allegations against him were "fabricated nonsense".

Suspicions were raised when memorabilia belonging to the former England captain and his pop star wife apparently appeared on the eBay auction website. Former Spice Girl Victoria's parents, Tony and Jackie Adams, reportedly spotted some of their daughter's designer clothes on offer to bidders, along with the footballer's worn boots, and then discovered the items were missing from the couple's Rowneybury House mansion.

Speaking at his large detached home in a leafy part of the Essex village on the edge of London, Mr Emmett initially said: "No comment", but added: "What is in the papers is fabricated nonsense. Totally fabricated, 99% of it is totally untrue."

Asked how the eBay site could be traced to his address, Mr Emmett said: "It doesn't involve myself, that is for sure."

Mr Emmett said he had run his own company for 30 years and had no need to steal from the Beckhams.

Later, the gate into the couple's driveway was sealed with plastic cable ties - thought to be intended to discourage reporters from knocking on their door.

A spokeswoman for eBay said they were still trying to establish with Hertfordshire Police which items were involved in the allegations and how they had been obtained. Items auctioned on the website have a clear paper trail back to the seller, she said, making it very difficult to get away with selling stolen goods. "Anyone stupid enough to try to sell anything that is not 100% legitimate makes a big mistake when they try to do it on our site," she added.

A spokesman for the Beckhams said: "There has been an incident and the matter is in the hands of the police."

-Ananova

"Another great plot" is being investigated by the authorities, counter-terrorism minister Lord West warned.

"There is another great (terrorist) plot building up again and we are monitoring this," he told peers during a debate on new security laws.

Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, revealed the existence of the plot as the House of Lords continued debating the Counter Terrorism Bill.

He gave no more details of the threat.

His warning came less than 24 hours after peers forced the Government to abandon plans to extend maximum pre-charge detention for terror suspects to 42 days.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith dropped the measure from the Bill after it was defeated in the upper house by 191 votes.

But she warned critics that they were exposing the country to a greater risk.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve later described Lord West's comments as "reckless in the extreme".

"We are told the police have to strike a balance between early arrest during a developing terrorist conspiracy in order to protect the public, and waiting long enough to ensure there is enough evidence to secure a conviction," Mr Grieve said. "The minister's comments give us the worst of all worlds - cutting across both objectives."

A Home Office spokesman said: "We have always been clear - as has the director general of the Security Service (MI5) - that there are many plots, individuals and groups under investigation. We don't elaborate on specific plots or individuals."

-Ananova

National assessment tests for 14-year-olds have been scrapped by the Government.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls announced that they would be replaced by more frequent classroom assessments by teachers in years 7, 8 and 9.

The Key Stage 3 tests - introduced by the Tories in 1993 - had become "less and less relevant", he said.

Mr Balls said: "We need a more intensive focus in the early years."

He stressed that the compulsory national testing of 11-year-olds at Key Stage 2 were "here to stay".

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the announcement was an "admission that the current testing system has failed". She said: "For too long, English, mathematics and science teachers in secondary schools have found themselves skewing everything to enable their pupils to jump through a series of unnecessary hoops.

"The marking disaster of this year's tests has clearly been the last straw. A mixture of incompetence and an endemic shortage of markers must surely have propelled Ed Balls to take the view that at least part of the testing system was unsustainable."

Parents welcomed plans to scrap Sats tests. Margaret Morrisey, of parents group Parents Outloud who used to work as an Ofsted lay inspector, said it was the "first sensible thing Mr Balls has done since becoming Schools Secretary". She said: "He should now scrap the whole lot. We are teaching the children to take these tests and supposing that all children are the same."

The school report cards, based on practice in New York, are intended to provide parents with a simpler and more comprehensive snapshot of a school's performance. They will be introduced in addition to existing assessments and Ofsted reports.

An expert group of headteachers and education specialists will be charged with working out the details of the reforms.

-Ananova

Nationalised lender Northern Rock has said that no legal action will be taken against former directors at the centre of the group's collapse last year.

Management said a review by lawyers and accountants into the previous regime, headed up by chief executive Adam Applegarth, had found "insufficient grounds to to proceed with any legal action for negligence".

Northern Rock also said it was "well ahead" of its Government loan repayment target, having paid back more than half the £26 billion owed to leave £11.4 billion outstanding as at September 30.

Before running into funding problems last summer, Northern Rock was one of the UK's biggest and most aggressive mortgage providers, advancing loans worth as much as 125% of home values.

It was forced to turn to the Bank of England for emergency support after the money markets froze, leaving the group facing a funding crisis.

Northern Rock's nationalisation in February led to 1,500 job losses as it scaled back activity to pay back the Government.

The lender has been reducing the size of its mortgage book in order to pay back its Government borrowing, and repaid £15.4 billion during the nine months to September 30.

But the group's mortgage arrears figure jumped by nearly 60% during the last three months, reflecting the fact that it has been left with poorer quality loans. The percentage of its estimated 600,000 mortgage accounts more than three months in arrears was 1.87% at September 30, up from 1.18% at the end of June.

Northern Rock also saw the number of properties in its possession jump 491 during the period to 4,201. Most of the repossessions were for properties secured with a "Together" mortgage, which allowed buyers to borrow up to 125% of the property's value.

Chairman Ron Sandler has warned that the bank, which racked up a near £600 million first-half loss to June 30, would be "significantly" loss-making this year.

-Ananova

House prices dived by 2.7% during August as the number of first-time buyers getting on to the property ladder slumped to a record low, figures have showed.

The average cost of a home dropped to £211,410 during the month, driven down by a 5.1% fall in the value of flats and a 3% slide in the cost of terrace houses, according to Communities and Local Government.

The figures came as the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said just 15,600 people bought their first home during the month, the lowest level since it began to collect data in 2002 and less than half the 34,800 who bought a property in August last year.

The drop was accompanied by a further tightening in lending criteria, with first-time buyers now putting down average deposits of 16%, the highest level recorded by the CML, and borrowing just 3.18 times their income - the lowest multiple since March 2006.

Across all buyers, a total of just 42,200 mortgages worth £6 billion were advanced for house purchase during August, both new record lows. Gross lending for the month, which includes all types of mortgages, totalled £19.7 billion, a 20% fall compared with July's figure and 42% below the sum advanced in August 2007. It was also the lowest monthly level since February 2005.

The mortgage squeeze is continuing to have an impact on the housing market, with estate agents now struggling to sell even one property a week. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its members had sold an average of just 11.5 homes during the three months to the end of September, the lowest level since its survey first began in 1978.

At the same time, the number of surveyors reporting house price falls during September also increased for the first time since April. Overall, 84.2% more chartered surveyors reported seeing further price slides during the month compared with those who saw price rises, up on the figure of 81.8% more who reported falls in August.

Figures from CLG showed that house prices lost 3.4% of their value during the year to the end of August, after the annual rate of house price inflation fell for the 10th month in a row. The fall is far less severe than the drop of 12.4% recorded by both Halifax and Nationwide for the year to the end of September, but the CLG figures tend to lag other indexes, and further steep falls are expected in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, an economist told MPs that house prices could fall by a further 5% to 10% before the bottom of the market was reached.

Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee, David Miles, Professor of Finance at Imperial College London, said further falls of this level, which would leave homes around 20% cheaper than they were at their peak, could mean the housing market would stabilise.

-Ananova

Two track workers arrested 11 months ago over the Grayrigg rail crash, in which a woman died and 22 passengers were injured, have been cleared and will not face any action, their union announced.

The Rail Maritime and Transport union hit out at the arrests, saying the two men had been living under a "shadow of suspicion" for the best part of a year following the accident in Cumbria in February 2007.

The union said at the time it was "mystified" that the two men had been arrested, adding that they now deserved an apology.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said neither of the men was directly involved in maintenance on points in the area of the accident and neither had faced any disciplinary action.

"Both the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) interim report and Network Rail's own report have pointed clearly to management failings and lack of resources, and it is those structural failings that still need to be addressed.

"NR's spending targets have been slashed by 30% over the last five years and we have raised concerns about the workloads placed on individuals on a number of occasions. NR is still dogged by inappropriate practices brought in by private contractors and there is still too much emphasis on getting things done quickly and cheaply rather than properly and safely."

The union said there should be a joint public inquiry into the Grayrigg incident and the 2002 Potters Bar rail accident, with a remit to study the fragmentation of the industry.

Mr Crow added: "Our two members have been living under the shadow of suspicion for the best part of a year and the very least they deserve is an apology for arrests that should never have been made."

An 84-year-old woman from Glasgow died when a Virgin train from London to Glasgow derailed at a speed of around 95mph at Grayrigg.

An initial report by the RAIB blamed a faulty set of points for the crash. A later inquiry by NR released in September last year, found systematic failures in track patrolling and management.

-Ananova