£1bn plan to electrify rail line

Diesel trains currently operate on the Great Western Main Line A £1bn plan to electrify the main rail route between London and Swansea has been announced by the government. A second line between Liverpool and Manchester will also be converted from diesel to electric. Ministers say electric trains are lighter and more energy efficient, cutting the running cost and environmental impact of train services. The Conservatives welcomed the move but said the government was leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill. Upfront investment Transport Secretary Lord Adonis told the BBC the massive investment involved would be worth it. "With the electric trains you get a quieter, cleaner, more reliable and much cheaper train which benefits passengers and it also benefits the taxpayers because it's much cheaper to keep an electric railway going," he said. Electric trains are quieter, cleaner, more reliable and cheaper, says Lord Adonis "But you've got to put that upfront investment in. Governments historically have been very averse to making long-term investments. "We've taken the decision that the right thing for the country is to have an electrified railway across the principal main lines and that's why we're going ahead with electrifying the Great Western Main Line." He said the investment would pay for itself over a 40-year period and that there would be no impact on fares. 'Greener and cleaner' Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at London's Paddington station for the announcement, said improving the rail network was important for the"This is the future. It's greener, it's cleaner, it's faster, it's more reliable. It's making the railways fit for the 21st Century and encouraging more passengers to use the railways," he said. The move means an electric version of the new Super Express intercity train unveiled last year will be introduced on the Great Western line. The government and rail industry agree electrification will bring major benefits. Electric trains do not carry their own fuel - weighing around six tonnes for a non-electric intercity train - and have lighter engines. Network Rail will buy specialist electrification trains capable of automating the installation job. The Campaign for Better Transport is concerned the investment will lead to an increase in fares but ministers say electrification will mean cost savings in the running of trains. 'Transport cuts' Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said: "Yet again Labour are maxing out Network Rail's credit card, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill. "After [Business Secretary] Lord Mandelson announced cuts to the transport budget, how can we believe that Labour can announce £1.1bn of new spending without impacting on existing transport commitments or putting further strain on public finances already stretched to breaking point?" Six tonnes of fuel and eight miles to the gallon: Why diesel trains are being consigned to history Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker said: "This must be just the start of the project. The Liberal Democrats want virtually the entire network electrified by 2040." The RMT rail union has called for "cast iron" assurances from the government that the decision will not hit jobs at the UK's only train manufacturer, Bombardier. The Derby-based firm has bid for a contract to build 200 diesel trains, some planned to be used on the Great Western line, against rivals from Spain and China. The union's general secretary, Bob Crow, said: "RMT welcomes today's announcement on electrification and is calling on the government to do some joined-up thinking and ensure that there is no risk at all to Bombardier from the expected cancellation of diesel orders. "There is no reason why Bombardier can't produce rolling stock for the electrified lines as well as meeting demand from the overall expansion of rail services and the call to end overcrowding." League table Britain went through a period of electrification between the 50s and 80s in which two other main lines, the East and West, were converted. Many commuter lines into London from the home counties are also electrified, using a third rail system rather than overhead cables. But Britain still has proportionally less electric railway than most Europeancountries and is below Macedonia in the league table.The announcement means Wales will have its first stretch of electrified railway.Between Manchester and Liverpool a smaller project to electrify the line via Newton-le-Willows has also been given the green light. This will have the added benefit of allowing Transpennine trains between Manchester airport and Glasgow to run on electric power.The government is still considering electrifying another major diesel route, the Midland Main Line between London and Sheffield, but has not committed the proposal

'Lack of help' for abuse victims

Many abused children suffer serious psychological damage A shortage of therapy services is leaving the victims of child sex abuse struggling to recover from their ordeal, a charity has claimed. The NSPCC said there were an estimated 5,188 children and young people in Scotland who were seeking therapy after being abused. But it said research showed there were only 134 therapeutic services available across the country to meet this need. The Scottish Government said it was "committed" to helping abuse victims. Debbie Allnock, a researcher with NSPCC, said abuse had "devastating" consequences for children, but there seemed to be no explicit recognition of the needs of children and young people who are being, or have recently been, sexually abused. Their suffering may only get noticed when they show significant signs of distress, anguish or damaging behaviours Debbie Allnock NSPCC Experiences of sexual abuse are common among people with severe long-term behavioural, criminal and addiction problems, she said. Ms Allnock added: "It takes bravery for a young person to tell someone about their sexual abuse and ask for help. "But their suffering may only get noticed when they show significant signs of distress, anguish or damaging behaviours. They may then have a long wait for the support they desperately need." The researchers said they were only able to collect detailed data on a number of therapeutic services in Scotland and the UK-wide report can only give a "snapshot" of the situation in Scotland. A more in-depth picture of therapeutic services in Scotland will be published in the next couple of months. 'Robust safeguards' Ms Allnock added: "It is vital that effective specialist support is readily available when children want it, for as long as they want it. "This helps reduce their psychological injury and enables them to lead more fulfilled lives." A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We are committed to protecting children from all forms of abuse, including sexual abuse, and ensuring robust safeguards are in place for those at risk. "That is why the Scottish Government has launched a comprehensive review of multi-agency child protection guidance, is establishing the Multi-Agency Resource Service (MARS) for complex child protection cases, and is working with HMIE on a second cycle of proportionate child protection inspections, to ensure that services offer effective protection to children at risk from abuse. "We are also providing £130,000 per annum to ChildLine Scotland to give children at risk access to confidential advice and support."

Board meets after school arson

Education authorities will have to find new facilities for the school's 400 pupils Education authorities are to meet later to discuss a plan to accommodate 400 pupils whose north Belfast school was destroyed by arsonists at the weekend. Much of Whitehouse Primary School on the Doagh Road, Newtownabbey, was destroyed in the blaze on Saturday. Only the nursery section of the school survived the early morning fire. Whitehouse Primary is the fourth school to be targeted by arsonists in the greater Belfast area in the past few days. Northern Eastern Board officers hope to be able to provide facilities for the pupils when the new school year begins in September. Gordon Topping, chief executive of the North Eastern Education and Library Board, said there were already plans for a new school on the site but now board officers would have to press the Education Department to release funding quickly to get the rebuild started.

Surtees dies after F2 race crash

Henry Surtees (l) had his first F2 podium finish on Saturday

The son of motorsport legend John Surtees has died after being hit on the head by a wheel during a Formula 2 (F2) race at Brands Hatch in Kent.

Henry Surtees, 18, was airlifted to the Royal London Hospital after he was struck by a wheel which flew off Jack Clarke's car.

Sunday's race was red flagged while Surtees was removed from the scene.

His father won the Formula 1 World Championship in 1964 having previously won seven motorcycle world titles.

The accident happened between the circuit's Westfield Bend and Sheene Curve.

John Surtees is the only man to win F1 and motorcycle world titles

Clarke's car hit a tyre wall and a wheel came off, hitting Henry Surtees on the head, knocking him unconscious.

The teenager's car then collided with the trackside barriers.

A spokeswoman for South East Coast Ambulance Service said Surtees was taken from the scene by helicopter.

On Saturday, Surtees claimed his first F2 podium finish, coming third in the opening race of the Brands Hatch weekend.

No-one from Brands Hatch was available for comment.

Facebook claims 250 million users

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Photo Courtesy: AFP.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the number of people using the online social networking service has climbed to 250 million.

"The rapid pace of our growth is humbling and exciting for us," Zuckerberg said in a message posted at Facebook's official blog.

"For us, growing to 250 million users isn't just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made."

Palo Alto, California-based Facebook was founded in 2004 and has become the most popular online social networking service, eclipsing News Corporation-owned MySpace.

On Monday, it was revealed that a Russian Internet company is offering to buy $100 million worth of stock from Facebook employees in a deal that would value the fast-growing social network at $6.5 billion.

The Russian company, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which invested $200 million in Facebook in May, is offering $14.77 per share of Facebook common stock.

The tender offer will close "some time in August," said Jennifer Gill, a DST spokeswoman.

Facebook chief executive Zuckerberg said at the time that the decision whether to sell stock was up to employees and that the offer "is recognition of Facebook's growth and progress towards making the world more open and connected."

US computer software giant Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007, a deal that valued the company at $15 billion.

While its number of users has grown at an amazing clip, Facebook, unlike other Web giants such as Amazon, eBay, Google and Yahoo!, has yet to prove how it is going to translate traffic into cash.

"As of today, 250 million people are using Facebook to stay updated on what's happening around them and share with the people in their lives," Zuckerberg said in the Wednesday blog post.

"As we celebrate our 250 millionth user, we are also continuing to develop Facebook to serve as many people in the world in the most effective way possible. This means reaching out to everyone across the world."

Will history repeat itself in Afghanistan?

British forces were defeated at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880

British military intervention in Afghanistan has a chequered history, making it easy to conclude that British forces will fail again. But such a conclusion is a mistake and does a disservice both to troops fighting there and to history itself, writes military historian Dr Huw Davies.

General comparisons of Britain's first three wars in Afghanistan and the current conflict, are difficult and fraught with pitfalls and traps. However, if one compares the specific experiences of soldiers and officers, there is much to learn from Britain's history in Afghanistan.

A lone British survivor arrives in Jalalabad in 1842 Enlarge Image

Many know that the British tried three times between 1839 and 1919 to subjugate Afghanistan, and each time they failed.

But when dealing with the history of British military involvement in Afghanistan, and in the difficult business of looking for parallels between then and now, it is necessary to separate the general from the specific.

The reasons for the wars in the 19th Century were somewhat different and incomparable with the reasons for the war now. If general comparisons of the conflicts are made, without looking at the specifics, it might be easy to conclude that there is little hope for success in Afghanistan.

The First Anglo-Afghan War broke out when Britain invaded Afghanistan because she feared Russian encroachment into Central Asia. The British were eventually routed and the 16,000 strong army forced to flee Kabul in the winter of 1841. Only one man survived the retreat.

Britain invaded Afghanistan again in 1878 for largely the same reasons. Despite a terrible defeat at Maiwand on 27 July 1880, the British were surprisingly successful elsewhere on the battlefield.

Unlike today, the Afghans showed an inability to adapt their tactics and the British dominated in several battles. Yet the British failed to achieve a political settlement and, as they were unable to occupy the country, chose instead to isolate it, while retaining influence in Afghan foreign affairs.

General Frederick Sleigh Roberts and his staff in Afghanistan, around 1880

The third war broke out when Afghanistan declared independence from this quasi-British rule in 1919. However, for Britain, the Bolshevik Revolution had reduced the Russian threat and, with military spending crippled in the wake of the World War I, interest in Afghanistan gradually waned.

General comparisons, then, suggest that Britain has neither the military capability, nor the political will, to complete or attain victory in a conflict in Afghanistan.

Much has changed since 1919, though. The British Army has fought innumerable counter-insurgency campaigns elsewhere, the lessons of which are proving useful now. Technological advancements have also allowed swifter and more reliable analysis of intelligence, a critical aspect of any counter-insurgency campaign.

The Cultural Dimension

It appears that there is also a renewed focus on the importance of understanding the culture, traditions and customs of the Afghan population. It is here that the specific experiences of British officers and soldiers in 19th Century Afghanistan can prove useful.

Troops behind fortifications at Kabul during the Second Afghan War

During the First Anglo-Afghan War, for example, certain British officers spent much of their time learning about the culture of the local populations. In doing so, political, economic and social solutions to violent problems were unearthed.

In 1839, the British military had the difficult task of convincing the Afghan population to accept the new ruler, Shah Shuja, as he was from a different tribe to that of the deposed ruler, Dost Mohammed.

Shah Shuja's ascension to the throne in Kabul inevitably caused a shift in the balance of power, and those who had enjoyed political power under Dost Mohammed were cast aside and replaced with their rivals. This in turn caused widespread political disenfranchisement that manifested itself in violent rebellion.

Why, then, did the British fail in Afghanistan in 1841, and will the same thing happen today? Audio-slideshow: Old Afghanistan

The instinctive reaction of the British then, as now, was to meet violence with violence. But then, as now, commanders quickly recognised that violence was not necessarily the solution.

Instead, the granting of some reasonable demands might buy off the support of those that were politically disenfranchised. Then, as now, the difficulty for the British lay in identifying and separating those who were die-hard supporters of the rebellion against British authority, from those who simply felt oppressed and whose loyalty could be bought.

Cultural understanding proved critical for the British in reaching these conclusions.

Inevitably, then, as now, there were those whose resistance to and hatred of the West could never be defeated without recourse to violence.

Captured guns are inspected towards the end of the second Afghan war

Why, then, did the British fail in Afghanistan in 1841, and will the same thing happen today? In 1841, those in political charge in Afghanistan and British India did not perceive this "cultural solution" as being worthy of any merit. Despite the efforts of a minority of officers and soldiers, the preferred British method was retaliatory violence.

For most, the "cold, hard steel of the bayonet" enforced the authority of the British Empire. Ultimately, this almost indiscriminate use of violence alienated that segment of the population that might otherwise have supported Britain and Shah Shuja.

The difference now is that much more attention is being devoted to understanding the culture of Afghanistan and to finding solutions that do not necessarily involve military action. Efforts are being made, with some success, to incorporate cultural understanding in all military activities, from fighting to reconstruction.

But with a resurgent Taliban, apparently committed to an extremist vision of Islam and harbouring terrorists, it will also be necessary and unavoidable to use military force. Awareness of the cultural dimension will not necessarily guarantee victory, but ignorance of it, history shows us, will guarantee defeat.

Dr Huw Davies is a lecturer in Defence Studies, King's College, London based at the UK Defence Academy

Troops 'fighting for UK's future'

Fifteen UK soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last 10 days Foreign Secretary David Miliband has insisted fighting in Afghanistan is key to ensuring UK security, after eight soldiers were killed in 24 hours. Some 184 service personnel have died there since 2001, more than the 179 killed during the war in Iraq. But Mr Miliband dismissed calls for UK forces to withdraw, saying they were stopping Afghanistan becoming "a launch pad for attacks" by terrorists. "This is about the future of Britain," he added. Fifteen soldiers have died in 10 days in southern Afghanistan as UK troops continue Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther's Claw. See a graph of UK troop deaths in Afghanistan This major assault against the Taliban in Helmand aims to improve security ahead of next month's Afghan elections. Lt Col Nick Richardson, in Afghanistan, told the BBC it had resulted in more casualties because troops had been "taking the battle to the enemy". "It's the only way to secure a future for Afghanistan and ultimately eliminate the risk posed to the international community that the Taliban and insurgents there bring," he said. BBC defence and security correspondent Rob Watson When British troops were first deployed to southern Afghanistan three years ago the then defence secretary expressed the hope that they would complete their mission without a shot being fired. It has instead been the most high intensity fighting British troops have faced since the Korean War in the 1950s. To critics, the ferocity of the fighting is proof of how ill thought out the whole mission has been all along. Defenders of the operation, however, say it was always bound to be difficult and that the casualties while regrettable have been suffered in a worthwhile and winnable cause. Certainly the deployment to Afghanistan of around 10% of Britain's army has proved a real strain on manpower, equipment and finances. For now at least though, Britain remains firmly committed to staying the course. "We ask people to remember 9/11 and 7/7 and ask themselves whether they thought trying to prevent this from happening would be a worthwhile cause." The Stop the War coalition has announced an emergency protest in London on Monday, calling for British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan in light of the heavy losses. A group spokesman said: "The troop surge which was meant to pacify Helmand province has become a nightmare for the British army. "This unwinnable war must stop now." However, Mr Miliband said troops were there to "ensure that Afghanistan can not again become an incubator for terrorism and a launching pad for attacks on us". "This is about the future of Britain because we know that the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan have been used to launch terrible attacks, not just on the US but on Britain as well," he added. Britain's mission in Afghanistan would not be over until the country was secure, he said. Mr Miliband refuted claims by Conservative leader David Cameron that those fighting on the front line were not properly equipped - particularly with helicopters. Equipment pledge The foreign secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government had spent £10bn on equipment for force protection - including 1,200 new vehicles - in the last five years. Former defence secretary John Hutton told the BBC it could be time to "tilt the balance" away from funding high-tech equipment for conflict between nations, towards resources for counter insurgency operations. And Chancellor Alistair Darling said the government would always ensure that front-line troops were well-resourced. FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme "You can't send troops into the front line and not be prepared to see it through in terms of the equipment, the resources that they need," he added. BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said many on the front line talked about helicopters being in short supply. But she added: "Some say they have better personal kit than they've had before. "They do complain about the sheer weight of it. It was 45C there two weeks ago... it's physically absolutely exhausting." On Friday in Helmand, five soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles were killed in two separate blasts near Sangin, while a member of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment died near Nad Ali. A day earlier, a soldier from 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in a blast near Nad Ali while another from Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, attached to 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was killed fighting insurgent forces near Lashkar Gah. HAVE YOUR SAY The British soldiers must suspend all activities in Afghanistan and come home Kenneth, London Send us your comments Col Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004, said: "You develop immense bonds of comradeship between all ranks, and therefore if one of your number is killed or even seriously wounded... it hits you hard." But he added that the Taliban were suffering casualties "in the region of a hundred enemy dead for every one of our dead", which were not being reported. Jane Ford, whose son Pte Ben Ford, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, died in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2007, backed the UK's mission. "We've got to say to these lads: 'You're doing a good job'," she said. "We are sorry they're losing their lives, it's awful. But if we pull out now, that bully [the Taliban] has won." BRITISH CASUALTIES IN AFGHANISTAN MARCH 2006 - JULY 2009 1: Highest monthly toll with 19 dead including 12 killed when a RAF Nimrod crashes in Afghanistan. 2: British death toll reaches 100. Among the 13 fatalities in June is the first British female soldier. 3: British casualties surge as major offensive against Taliban begins in the south. Many are lost to powerful Improvised Explosive Devices.