Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

17/10/2014

Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.

3 hours

Last on

Fri 17 Oct 2014 06:00

Friday's running order

0633

The Royal navy vessel the RFA Argus sets off today carrying military personnel to Sierra Leone - all part of the UK's response to the ebola crisis. Our reporter David George is in Falmouth from where the RFA Argus will depart.

0635

The police say that more than 200 arrests related to terrorism have been made already this year, across, England Wales and Scotland. Our home affairs correspondent is Danny Shaw.

0645

The Labour Party has produced a plan designed to allow football supporters to have a greater stake in their clubs, by allowing them to form trusts that would be entitled to seats on the board and have the right to purchase a share of the clubs assets. Clive Efford is the shadow sports minister.

0650

Three members of a Dutch motorcycle club called 'No Surrender' are leading a Kurdish battalion fighting against the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq. This is according to the leader of the club - the biggest in Holland. These biker gangs aren't normally open to outsiders. Anna Holligan gained rare access to one of their gatherings.

0654

On yesterday's programme the former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson called for an end to wind turbine development, saying wind power cannot be depended upon for power generation. Owen Paterson also said the costs of wind energy are prohibitive and that offshore wind is proving to be a failure. Let's explore his views with Professor Roger Kemp from the Department of Engineering at Lancaster University.

0709

UK pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline says its Ebola vaccine is "going to come too late" to stop the current epidemic in West Africa. The company is one of several trying to fast track a vaccine to prevent the disease spreading. Simon Cox has been looking into this for File on Four on Radio 4.

0712

Search and rescue operation are resuming in the Annapurna region of Nepal after one of the country's worst mountaineering disasters -- the extent of which is now becoming clear. At least 28 trekkers, guides and porters were killed when snowstorms suddenly set in -- accounts are emerging from the survivors of ill equipped groups struggling down from high altitudes. Paul Sheridan, a police officer from Doncaster, is one of those survivors - and told us what happened.

0716

Business news with Justin Rowlatt.

0719

All this week our North America correspondent Aleem Maqbool has been travelling south on the blues highway - five days, five reports looking at some of the big concerns ahead of the US mid-term elections. He's reached the terminus of that journey this morning - New Orleans.

0731

When someone falls into a persistent vegetative state - how do you determine the extent of any signs of activity in their brain? One of the tests that has been used is to ask a patient to imagine playing tennis - and then monitor the networks in the brain. Now, researchers at Cambridge University say they have a new technique - Dr Srivas Chennu is from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge - and also on the line is Sandra Bell whose son Ed has been in a persistent vegetative state for the last 12 years.

0741

A Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship leaves Falmouth today for Sierra Leone as part of the UK's assistance in the ebola crisis. RFA Argus has 225 military personnel on board. Captain David Eagles is in command.

0748

The number of terrorism-related arrests has jumped this year, apparently as a result of the fighting in Syria and Iraq: 218 so far in England, Wales and Scotland, according to the Metropolitan Police. The figures are said by the police to be evidence of the 'huge volume of work' involved in tracking those who may go to the middle east or who have returned. Mark Rowley is assistant commissioner at the Met, with responsibility for terrorism.

0810

It will take two weeks for the Royal Navy vessel - tasked with helping Sierra Leone deal with the ebola crisis - setting off from Cornwall today to reach Freetown. It is a crisis far beyond the realm of public health - in Sierra Leone schools are closed, factories shut down, farms largely deserted - fragile economies and livelihoods are being decimated. And yet the UN says its billion dollar appeal for ebola has so far raised just a hundred thousand dollars. In a moment - the International Development Secretary Justine Greening, but before that a first hand account of the impact of ebola on Sierra Leone. Rocco Falconer founded the educational charity Planting Promise there six years ago while he was still at university here in Britain - he is due to return to Freetown tomorrow

0818

Peter Brook is the theatre director who changed everything in the sixties. He brought to theatre in this country a European perspective that revolutionised performance, and influenced a generation of directors and actors. He's now 89, but still talking about theatre with the same enthusiasm and bite. So it's a coup for the Victoria and Albert Museum to have acquired his vast personal archive - his own writings and recollections, and correspondence with fiends from Tennessee Williams to Laurence Olivier, Samuel Beckett to Ted Hughes. When the vast archive is catalogued it will be an insight into a life in the theatre. For many theatregoers, Peter Brook opened a door to a different world with his extraordinary staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Royal Shakespeare company in 1970, which is celebrated as one of the most influential productions of the last half century.

0831

Vladimir Putin will meet President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine today, in the margins of a summit for European and Asian leaders in Milan, with the relationship between Ukraine and Russia still tense. Yesterday, President Putin warned Europe that there were 'major transit risks' to gas supplies coming west from russia through the winter, because of Europe's position of the Ukrainian crisis. The European Commission is drawing up plans to try to secure supplies if the Russian threat materialises. Andreii Kuzmenko is charge d'affaires at the Ukrainian embassy in London. Michael Bradsahw, prof of global energy at the Warwick Business School.

0838

Fear is stalking the financial markets -- primarily it seems, fear about the Eurozone and particularly Greece where the government is planning its exit from the EU and IMF programme tasked with putting the economy back on track. Stephanie Flanders is JP Morgan Asset Management's chief market strategist for the UK and Europe and Constatin Michalos is head of the Athens Chamber of Commerce

0844

A significant moment in Britain's industrial history is due to be marked today. The owners of the UK's last viable deep coal mine - Hatfield Colliery in South Yorkshire - meet energy firm bosses to try to secure the mine's survival. In a sign of its desperate finances, Hatfield had to borrow 4-million pounds last month from its own workers' union - the NUM. So what does its plight mean for a once great British industry? Tom Bateman reports.

0849

It is one of the most enduring mysteries of modern physics - dark matter .. invisible particles that help hold galaxies together. How do they do this? Scientists from the University of Leicester now say they may have the answer. Astronomer Dr Andy Read co authored the research.

0853

Football fans often talk about trying to get a grip on their clubs, and there have been some examples of where it works - AFC Wimbledon, Portsmouth and Exeter City in the football league, Hearts in Scotland. Now Labour is proposing legislation that would establish rights for supporters who set up a trust - seats on the board, and the right to buy a slice of shares in the club on a change of ownership. Could it work? And if it did, would it be a good idea anyway? David Conn writes on football for the Guardian. Simon Jordan is the former owner of Crystal Palace.

〶Δ

All subject to change.

Broadcast

  • Fri 17 Oct 2014 06:00