A couple accused of carrying out a sex act at a BBC Radio 2 concert in Hyde Park must wait to hear if they face a retrial after the jury was discharged.

Article: Statistics for the second quarter of this year, April to June, show the proportion of 16- to 18-year-olds who were Neet was 9.1% - 168,000 in total.
This is a drop of 1.4 percentage points - 28,000 - on the same period in 2012.
The government hailed the rate for the second quarter of the year as the lowest for more than 10 years.
The Department for Education stressed there had been five consecutive quarters where the 16-24 age group rate was lower than it had been the year before.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said: "With GCSE results out today, I am heartened to see the fall in the number of young people not in work, training or education.
"We are heading in the right direction, but one young person out of work, education or training, is one too many.
"That is why we are continuing to work hard to give young people the skills, confidence and experience demanded by employers and universities.
"Only then can we say we have done everything we can to ensure young people reach their potential and help us compete in the global race."
Analysis of the figures suggested the decrease was driven by two factors:
The figures come out as 16-year-olds are receiving their GCSE results. This group of teenagers will be the first to have to stay on in education or training after their 16th birthday.
Under the new rules, young people will be required to continue their education to the end of the academic year in which they turn 17. From summer 2015, this will rise to staying in education until their 18th birthday.

Summary: There has been a slight dip in the proportion of teenagers not in education, employment or training (Neet) in England.
###
Article: The report questions Olam's accounting practices and says it bears "uncanny" similarities to failed US firm Enron.
Muddy Waters, a US short-seller that has previously gone after Chinese firms, first attacked Olam last week.
Singapore-based Olam said there was "no substance" to the report's broad allegations.
"We will clear our name and hold Muddy Waters accountable for their damaging actions," Olam said.
It added that it would continue to study the report in greater detail and would provide a fuller response in due course.
It has denied Muddy Waters' earlier claims and has started legal action against the firm.
Olam said Muddy Waters made the claims to "create panic among shareholders" and to profit from its short position on its shares.
Short sellers look for assets they believe to be overvalued. They then borrow shares in the firm, sell them and hope to buy them back at a cheaper price, pocketing the difference.
Olam's shares fell 6% in Singapore after the report was published.
Muddy Waters has trained its eye on a number of other firms in the past, most notably China's Sino Forrest, with varying degrees of success.
In its report on Olam, Muddy Waters said that it carried out three months of research into the business and stood by its claims.
The US firm alleges that Olam has produced some of the "worst accounting gaffes", adding that some of Olam's accounting revisions "are so unusual as to suggest irregularities".
Muddy Waters also said that it could not account for 996.2m Singapore dollars ($815m; Â£510m) worth of capital expenditure made by Olam over the past four years.
"We believe that the bondholders in particular should be asking where their money has gone, and how they will get it back," Muddy Waters said in its report.
Muddy Waters claimed that some of the practices being followed by Olam were similar to those of Enron, which went bankrupt in 2001.
It pointed out that Olam's profits were also being boosted by "non-cash accounting gains".
But Olam said it had "complete confidence in its strong,...

Summary: Muddy Waters Research has released a report it says will back up claims that agricultural commodities trader Olam International "will collapse".
###
Article: More than a third of teenagers in care are already living with their third foster family, according to research carried out by The Fostering Network.
The charity said being moved from home to home was "hugely detrimental" to wellbeing and education.
It also said the country needs about 8,000 more foster carers to cope with rising demand.
Around 52,500 of the 63,000 children in care in the UK live with foster families and the vast majority will spend their entire childhoods in foster care with only around 10% being adopted, The Fostering Network said.
The research found that one in four (25%) fostered teenagers are living with at least their fourth family in care, and one in six (17%) with their fifth.
A spokesman said: "Being moved from home to home can have a hugely detrimental effect on children's education, well-being and ability to make and maintain relationships.
"Not being able to find the right foster carer also means that children too often have to live a long way from family, friends and school and are split up from their brothers and sisters."
The charity said the figures showed the need for more foster carers and it predicted the UK would need 8,300 more carers to cope with demand in the coming years.
The survey was released to mark the start of charity's annual annual Foster Care Fortnight campaign, which runs until Sunday 14 June and is the UK's annual awareness campaign about fostering.
Jackie Sanders, director of The Fostering Network, said: "As each year passes, we see more and more children coming into care.
"We need people who can open their heart, and their homes, to vulnerable children and young people and use their skills to help support them to reach their full potential.
"In particular we need people who have the skills, patience and passion to look after teenagers who may have had a really tough time and be facing some real challenges, and to offer them love, stability and security."
The survey was completed in April by 1,125 foster carers about 1,608 children in their care.

Summary: Teenagers in foster care in the UK are being moved too often, a survey has suggested.
###
Article: It says the public must be protected against remotely-controlled drones sharing airspace with regular aircraft.
Current rules on small drones could not apply to commercial operators, such as those carrying cargo, Balpa's chief is to tell a House of Lords committee.
The government says "robust safety measures" will remain in place.
The call from Balpa follows a number of incidents involving drones which have raised safety concerns.
A recent report from the UK Airprox Board, which investigates near-miss incidents in UK airspace, said on 30 May one drone may have been flown "deliberately close" to a passenger plane and could have caused a collision.
The drone came within 25m (82ft) of a plane coming in to land at Southend airport. The report assessed the risk of collision as "high", and that the drone had been flown close enough to the plane "to cause its pilot concern".
Drones, which are officially known as Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), range in size from small craft operated by enthusiasts, TV companies, police forces and surveyors and weighing a few kilograms, to larger military devices.
Balpa says remote aircraft the same size as small passenger planes could be operated commercially in the UK within 10 years.
It says they must meet the same safety standards as piloted aircraft and tough security measures at ground level be in place to ensure they cannot be seized or their computer systems hacked.  A full public consultation should also be carried out before government rules on larger commercial drones are introduced.
Balpa general secretary Jim McAuslan said: "The UK should become a 'safe drone zone' so we can make the most of the major business and leisure opportunities offered by remotely piloted aircraft, while protecting passengers, pilots and residents.
"Large unmanned aircraft, when they come, should be as safe as manned aircraft and the British public should be fully consulted before companies fly large, remotely-piloted aircraft over their homes alongside passenger planes."
Dozens of...

Summary: Strict regulations will need to be introduced before large drones are allowed to appear in the UK's skies, pilots association Balpa has said.
###
Article: Lisanne Beck, 47, allegedly performed a sex act on Simon Murphy, 48, during a Paloma Faith set in September.
The Old Bailey heard the couple were filmed conducting the alleged behaviour, but the jury failed to reach a verdict and were discharged.
The pair, from Swansea, denied outraging public decency.
Judge Peter Rook QC has given the prosecution until Thursday to decide whether to pursue a retrial.
He said: "Whatever the Crown says, it will have been a chastening experience over the last few days, I'm sure everyone will agree with that."
During the hearing prosecutor Tom Cleeve told jurors while "there are some amusing aspects to it... it was not funny at the time" and a 16-year-old girl had to be shielded from what was going on.
He said the two defendants were of "previously good character, but in that afternoon I'm afraid they blotted their copybook".
During the hearing Ms Beck said the film showed she was trying to wake her boyfriend up, while Mr Murphy's legal team said he was completely unaware of what his girlfriend was doing.

Summary:


Edinburgh is closer to becoming the country's first 20mph city after councillors approved plans to begin rolling out the speed limit.

Article: Recorded during the 28-year-old's stag party, he and his friends sing 70s disco hit "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie".
Former team-mate Jamie Langfield said: "It was meant for his wedding only for the people who went there.
"And it has come out and he'll be a bit sheepish about it. But he's the type who'll just take it on the chin."
Langfield admits he was shocked when he first viewed Considine in drag for the rendition of the Baccara song.
"Andrew's a very quiet lad in the changing-room," the goalkeeper who moved from the Dons to St Mirren this summer told BBC Scotland.
"He's very reserved and, when I first seen it, I thought 'that's a bit naughty, a bit risque' and a lot of people have said that as well.
"Probably manager Derek McInnes might have had a wee word with him today, but he will need to take it on the chin and will need to take the banter from the boys as well."
Langfield was famously transfer-listed by Aberdeen in 2007 after his own stag party took place while then manager Jimmy Calderwood was also in Majorca.
"Let's just say I'm not one who is going to complain about people doing stupid things on their stag do," said the 35-year-old.
"I went away with some friends and obviously the one person you don't want to bump into three days into a three-day bender is your manager.
"I didn't realise what had happened and I got back home and I was sitting in the house and I got a phone call from him."
Langfield, who stressed that there had been "no fighting" between himself and the manager, had been entering the final year of his contract.
"I was offered a new deal and I was going to sign it as soon as I came home from Magaluf," he recalled.
"And he just said to me that my behaviour wasn't becoming of an Aberdeen player and that the contract had been withdrawn and I was put on the transfer list.
"Me and Jimmy still get on really well. I accepted what he said to me. I have apologised for it profusely, but he said to me the only thing I could do is work hard and that's what I did.
"It was one of those stupid moments....

Summary: Aberdeen defender Andrew Considine has been backed to shrug off the publicity over a cross-dressing music video that has made the Scot an internet hit.
###
Article: The Discovery Project will offer 14 to 19-year-olds with ASD help with their homework, revision and applications to college or university.
They can also attend yoga and circus skills classes to boost their co-ordination and social skills.
The initiative aims to ease anxieties and prepare them for further education.
One in three people on the autistic spectrum aged between 16 and 24 are not in education, employment or training, Cardiff University said.
That figure is more than double the number among the general population despite those with ASD often displaying above average levels of intelligence.
People with ASD often struggle to interact in social situations and to adapt to change, the institution said.
Only 15% of adults with autism are employed full-time and of those who graduate from university, 26% are unemployed - the highest rate in any disability group.
Scott McKenzie, widening access officer at Cardiff University, said that while there was a lot of help available once students get to university, getting there in the first place was a big challenge for some.
"New environments can generate a lot of anxiety for young people on the autism spectrum, but it needn't be a barrier to entering further or higher education," he said.
"With the right support, pupils can have the confidence to overcome their anxieties and go on to become experts in their chosen field, with the ultimate aim of helping them gain a foothold on the career ladder."
Cardiff University vice-chancellor, Prof Colin Riordan, said it was vital prospective students with ASD knew support was available.
"I'm hopeful that this bold and worthwhile initiative will serve to encourage more prospective students on the autism spectrum to continue their education and realise their academic potential here at Cardiff."

Summary: Students at Cardiff University will mentor teenagers with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) as part of a new scheme to encourage more to attend university.
###
Article: Mr Clegg said the house arrest-style system would be reformed but refused to be drawn on its replacement.
In a speech on civil liberties, he pledged to reform libel for the internet age and to protect everyone from academics to "humble bloggers".
He said the current libel system had turned the UK into a "laughing-stock".
The government's massive review of counter-terrorism laws is expected to be published within weeks.
That review has been overseen by Lord Macdonald QC, a Liberal Democrat peer and former director of public prosecutions.
But its publication has been delayed amid tense discussions in government over the future of control orders. The home secretary can impose the house arrest-style measures on people suspected of involvement in terrorism who cannot be charged because they have not yet committed a crime.
In each case, controlees face restrictions on their liberties including home curfews, electronic tagging and a ban on who they are allowed to contact and where they can go.
The Liberal Democrats made a manifesto pledge to scrap the scheme, But supporters of control orders say there is no alternative for a small number of potentially dangerous people.
In his speech to the Institute of Government think tank, Mr Clegg said: "This is not a straightforward trade-off between liberty or security, as if one must come at the expense of the other. It is about how we balance the two.
"The Government has not been consumed by some sort of almighty row between peaceniks on the one hand and securocrats on the other.
"While the full details of the review are still to be decided, there will be significant reform.
"Control orders cannot continue in their current form. They must be replaced.
"And we will introduce a system that is more proportionate, in line with our long-held commitment to due process and civil liberties; that seeks to disrupt and impede would-be terrorists from carrying out their heinous crimes; and that continues to focus on bringing terrorists to justice."
Responding to the speech, Lord Reid,...

Summary: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has denied there is an "almighty row between peaceniks and securocrats" over the future of control orders.
###
Article: The action plan is aimed at multinational companies that shrink their tax bills by shifting their profits from one country to another.
Firms including Starbucks, Amazon and Google have been accused of pursuing such strategies.
They have all said they operate within the law.
The OECD says 44 nations making up 90% of the world economy favour its plan.
Announcing the proposals, the OECD's head of tax, Pascal Saint-Amans, told journalists in Paris that they would "change the rules of the game" by making sure companies paid taxes in the country where profits were generated.
At present, firms can exploit agreements intended to avoid double taxation of profits by using them to obtain double tax deductions instead.
They also use internal billing procedures to ensure that profits are registered in countries where corporate tax levels are lower.
Under the OECD plan, a country-by-country model would require firms to declare their revenue, profit, staffing and tax paid in each jurisdiction.
The measures will go before finance ministers at the next meeting of G20 nations in Australia this weekend.
Richard Collier, tax partner at PwC said the changes would have a big impact on global firms.
"The scale and scope of change surpasses what many people had anticipated at the outset.
"The big worry for businesses is that different tax authorities will require different information, which could add to the administrative and cost burden for businesses."
Anton Hume,  at accountants BDO, said the measures could result in companies moving away from tax havens: "It may mean that a lot of activities are onshored again."

Summary: Moves to tackle corporate tax avoidance on a global scale have been unveiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
###
Article: Members of the city council's transport and environment committee agreed on Tuesday a traffic regulation order enabling the charges.
It is now planned to introduce the 20mph network over six phases.
Phase one of the Â£2.2m project covers much of the city centre, from Queen Street to the Meadows.
Lesley Hinds, Edinburgh city council's transport convener, said: "The aim was to create safer, more attractive streets for all road users."
The limit, which will eventually cover 80% of the capital's roads. The roll out will be complete by 2018.
The scheme is designed to improve safety and encourage more people to walk or cycle.
Despite the change, speed limits on key arterial routes into the city will remain at 30 or 40mph.
About 50% of the city's roads are already 20mph.
Phase two of the project, in the north of the city, is due to begin in October.
Phase three is to start in February 2017, then phase four in June 2017, phase five in October 2017 and phase six in February 2018.

Summary:

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The German car giant reported pre-tax profits of 3bn euros (Â£2.5bn), a 27% jump from the same period in 2016.
BMW said it would buy 15% of Here, which is co-owned by Audi, BMW and Daimler.
The car manufacturer also cited

BMW's first quarter profits rose more than expected after the value of its stake in the mapping service Here was boosted by an investment by Intel.

Article: The National Trust wants to introduce charges at Pont ar Daf car park near Storey Arms on the main A470.
The trust owns and manages the central Beacons, and says it wants to build a visitor centre and improve the car park's safety and security.
Ramblers Cymru criticised the move, saying walking should be free and accessible for everyone.
The trust, which spends more than Â£100,000 a year on the upkeep of Pen y Fan and other parts of the Brecon Beacons, is to submit a planning application later this year.
Pont ar Daf car park was created in the 1960s after road improvements left a section of the A470 isolated from the main carriageway.
'Brew and a view'
It was soon adopted by walkers because it offered easy access to Pen y Fan.
The mountain stands at 886m (2,907ft) and is the highest peak in southern Britain.
"If you arrive at the car park you have access to the three most important things, a loo, a brew and a view," said National Trust property manager Philip Park.
"If we are successful in gaining permission the offer will remain essentially the same, but it will be designed to meet the higher expectations of visitors to the area nowadays.
"We believe this development can really improve the enjoyment that visitors can experience in this wonderful part of Wales."
Recovering addicts
Mr Park said the trust's initial plans had gone out to consultation.
But director Angela Charlton said: "Ramblers Cymru believes walking should be free and accessible to all and we are disappointed that the National Trust feel they have to start charging for parking.
"People have been freely walking Pen y Fan for many years.
"Ramblers Cymru works with groups such as Turning Point who use Pen y Fan for inspirational training for recovering addicts.
"We hope this will not have a detrimental effect."

Summary: Walkers could be charged to visit Pen y Fan, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons.
###
Article: They are worried mistakes could be made with vulnerable adults and children resulting in a situation like Baby P.
Toddler Peter Connelly died in north London in 2007, after suffering more than 50 injuries. A report found he was "failed by all agencies".
Some staff in Wales have 43 child cases to deal with, which Unison said is double the recommended number.
Concern has also been raised over the "relentless" cutting of social work budgets.
Councils said there was a real need for government "at all levels" to ensure the system can meet demand.
The figures, which were obtained by BBC Wales, were described by the British Social Workers' Association (BASW) as "worrying".
BBC Wales asked each council about social workers who had been allocated the most cases - and what their caseloads were.
This included cases classed as being "on review" which may not need constant attention.
One social worker in Ceredigion had 29 cases, while another in Conwy had 144.
Conwy council said the 144 cases were adults and many did not require checking more than once a year.
When asked specifically about child social work, seen by some as more complex cases, numbers ranged from 22 in Newport to 43 in Merthyr Tydfil and Gwynedd.
Robin Moulster, from BASW said: "I don't think I could guarantee with those sort of numbers that there couldn't be another big public inquiry.
"This may appear a bit overdramatic but I think sometimes it's a bit like 'there for the grace of God' that we haven't got another Baby P situation."
Mr Moulster said it should not have to wait until councils are put into special measures for issues to be addressed.
He said he had heard of some councils with newly-qualified social workers given large caseloads "in very high pressured areas of work".
"There is a risk things can get missed and serious situations can happen," he added.
Dominic MacAskill, head of local government for Unison, said there were some worrying signs.
"It's possible perhaps to retain a fairly large caseload and juggle things around a bit, but...

Summary: A warning that some social workers in Wales have workloads which are too high has been raised by unions.
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Article: A report on Friday said the authority had improved its financial management, but needed to boost the ability of councillors and managers to monitor performance.
An action plan has been introduced to improve management of the workforce.
The council is also not yet ready to take back control of its education service, the report found.
Auditor General Huw Vaughan Thomas said: "Merthyr council is making progress, thanks to the external support it is receiving, but without such help, the prospect for continuing to make progress is limited.
"That's why I urge the council and Welsh government to continue working together to keep up the level of support.
"The county borough continues to face significant challenges and needs to draw on outside help to deliver its priorities."

Summary: Merthyr Tydfil council still needs government help to improve its performance, the auditor general said.
###
Article: The "outrageous" jail term showed how far the Saudi authorities would go to silence those speaking out for human rights and political reform, it said.
On Sunday, a court in Jeddah convicted Mr Abu al-Khair of charges including "undermining the regime and officials".
He was also fined $53,000 (Â£31,000) and ordered to disband his organisation.
The Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, which Mr Abu al-Khair founded, said the activist would refuse to sign the verdict or appeal because he did not see the court as legitimate.
HRW said Jeddah's Specialised Criminal Court - which tries terrorism cases - had convicted Mr Abu al-Khair on "vague charges that stem solely from his peaceful activism".
In addition to the charge of "undermining the regime", Mr Abu al-Khair was found guilty of "inflaming public opinion", "insulting the judiciary", "harming public order", founding an unlicensed organisation, and violating the anti-cybercrime law.
Although the court suspended five years of the sentence, it also imposed a 15-year ban on travelling abroad and told him to shut down all of his internet accounts.
Mr Abu al-Khair refused to respond to the charges against him during the trial, his wife Samar Badawi said. He referred instead to a note submitted to the judge declaring that he did not recognise the court's legitimacy.
"This outrageous sentence against Waleed Abu al-Khair shows how far Saudi Arabia will go to silence those with the courage to speak out for human rights and political reform," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director.
"Saudi Arabia has invariably dealt harshly with its citizens who criticise Saudi policies, but putting a peaceful activist behind bars for at least a decade over his social media comments and statements to news media is a new low," she added.
The US state department also said it was "troubled" by Mr Abu al-Khair's sentence.
"We urge the Saudi government to respect international human rights norms, a point we make to them regularly," spokeswoman Jen Psaki...

Summary: The sentencing of the prominent Saudi human rights activist Waleed Abu al-Khair to 15 years in prison has been condemned by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
###
Article: The German car giant reported pre-tax profits of 3bn euros (Â£2.5bn), a 27% jump from the same period in 2016.
BMW said the value of the stake in Here had risen by 183m euros.
The car manufacturer also cited improved earnings from its Chinese joint venture, BMW Brilliance Automotive, for its higher profits.
The US chip giant Intel said in January it would buy 15% of Here, which is co-owned by Audi, BMW and Daimler.
Here develops technology that feeds mapping information to autonomous and semi-autonomous cars.
It also makes digital products that provide information on the location of upcoming hazards, traffic, road signs and charging points for electric vehicles, as well as an alternative positioning system to GPS.
BMW is due to publish its detailed first-quarter results on 4 May.

Summary:


Voters across England are going to the polls for council elections and a parliamentary by-election in South Shields.

Article: The recording was made in 2012 at a time when Mr Cushnahan was still working as an adviser to Nama.
The payment was made by the County Down property developer John Miskelly during a meeting in a hospital car park.
Mr Miskelly said "payments made by me to any persons have been lawful".
Mr Cushnahan has denied any wrongdoing and told BBC Spotlight NI he would not be providing any further responses because of the ongoing National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation.
The chairman of the Irish Parliament's Finance committee has said an all-island commission of enquiry into Nama may be required.
Fianna Fail's John McGuinness said a "cross-border effort must be made to get to the end of this, to get to the truth".
The recording was broadcast by the Spotlight programme on Tuesday.
Nama is the Republic of Ireland's "bad bank" which was established in 2009 in the aftermath of the Irish banking and property crisis.
It took effective control of a huge property loan book in Northern Ireland and formed a committee to advise on that part of its portfolio.
Mr Cushnahan, a former banker, was appointed to that committee by the DUP in May 2010 and served until November 2013.
According to what Mr Cushnahan says on the recording he was going to help Mr Miskelly with a refinancing deal which would get his assets out of Nama.
Mr Cushnahan also claimed he could influence a senior Nama official, Ronnie Hanna.
There is no direct evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Hanna and he firmly denies that he had any improper dealings with Mr Cushnahan.
In a later recording of Mr Cushnahan, also broadcast by Spotlight NI, he appears to encourage Mr Miskelly to lie to police if they ask questions about their Nama-related dealings.
In a statement, Mr Miskelly said: "Since 2007/8 I have consistently and truthfully reported financial crime and corruption with the relevant authorities…
"My overriding aim has always been to highlight wrongdoing and corruption and have all of these matters fully investigated by the appropriate authorities.
"I have at all time...

Summary: Businessman Frank Cushnahan, who has been at the centre of the £1bn Nama deal controversy, was recorded accepting a £40,000 cash payment from a Nama borrower.
###
Article: Dr Gethin Thomas, a coaching science lecturer, also believes children should be split by ability as young as possible.
The Irish and Welsh rugby unions suggest starting scrums at under-nine level; they start at under-10 in England and under-11 in Scotland.
But Dr Thomas said children should not be in scrums until they are 13.
The call comes after World Rugby's chief medical officer, Dr Martin Rafterty, said changes could be made to tackle laws in order to reduce the risk of concussion.
When it comes to tackling, the home nations are almost unanimous in the way they introduce it to young players.
They all begin with tag rugby and bring in tackling at under-nine level, except for Ireland, where they start contact a year earlier.
Dr Thomas, who lectures at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, recently worked with the Rugby Football Union in England.
He said: "I wouldn't introduce scrums until 13 or 14 years old and when I spoke to a number of elite coaches, they agree.
"The same goes with lineouts - there's no reason to begin lineouts unless you can lift and individuals aren't strong enough to lift."
Last month, Wales and Worcester Warriors forward Jonathan Thomas was forced to retire from rugby on medical advice, after he was diagnosed with epilepsy thought to have resulted from multiple head traumas.
Wales wing George North also suffered from concussion in the run up to the World Cup, after suffering four blows to the head in a five-month period last season.

Summary: Banning scrums in children's rugby could help cut the number of injuries in the game, an academic has said.
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Article: Under proposed new rules, the UK would be required to run a budget surplus when the economy is growing.
He is expected to revive a committee that last met more than 150 years ago to help balance the nation's books.
William Pitt the Younger convened the Committee of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt to repair the UK's finances after the Napoleonic Wars.
Mr Osborne will also take inspiration from other countries' more recent fiscal triumphs - the chancellor will say he is following the lead of Canada and Sweden in the late 1990s.
Their balanced budget rules helped them to withstand the financial crisis, he will say.
But economic watchers are waiting to hear how - and if - the plan will work.
Some experts have some misgivings about how the potential new rules would work.
John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "While running a budget surplus is a laudable aim, economic history shows that the national interest sometimes requires fiscal flexibility.
"It is impossible to predict global economic conditions with any certainty, so no government should put itself into a fiscal straitjacket that limits its scope to respond.
"Any move to constrain future spending should explicitly exclude infrastructure, which is an investment rather than just a cost.
"Roads, railways, energy grids and broadband drive productivity and job creation - and it is time for government's contributions to national infrastructure to be removed from the debate on the deficit and the national debt.
"Far too often, Britain's infrastructure needs have been sacrificed to short-term spending considerations. This must stop."
Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, says governments should be trusted to manage public finances, with the ability to run a deficit if necessary to stimulate the economy.
"It's almost unnecessarily putting a constraint on policy making," he says.
Mr Williamson also asks what the implications would be if the government broke the deficit rule.
"Is it more of a PR...

Summary: George Osborne is expected to look to the past to achieve a novelty in the modern-day UK - an economic surplus.
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Article: Holyrood has taken on a range of new devolved tax and spending powers, including the ability to set a Scottish rate of income tax.
The Scottish government, the parliament and external experts will take part in the review and draft recommendations.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said the budget process needed to "evolve".
Mr Mackay is to delay his draft budget this year, citing uncertainty following the Brexit vote.
Scotland has inherited a range of new fiscal powers in recent years, from the ability to set a Scottish rate of income tax and power over air passenger duty to a share of VAT receipts.
A Scottish Fiscal Commission has been set up to scrutinise new tax and borrowing powers, and is to carry out forecasts of tax revenues and GDP.
The review group will look at the changes needed to make sure there is proper oversight and scrutiny of how the new powers are used.
Members of the group include civil servants working on the finance committee, government managers and external experts such as the Auditor General Caroline Gardner, Revenue Scotland chief Elaine Lorimer, and Sean Neill of the Scottish Fiscal Commission.
Finance committee convener Bruce Crawford said: "Holyrood's budget process was designed nearly 20 years ago, at a time when the Scottish government's budget was largely determined by Westminster through the Barnett formula.
"With Scotland's new tax powers, the Scottish government is about to become responsible for raising much more of what it spends, and will rely on tax forecasting in order to set out its draft budget before parliament each year.
"Understandably, the government will want to rely on the most accurate forecasts of tax revenue possible in order to ensure confidence and credibility in its budget. Equally, however, the finance committee will want to ensure that any new budget process still includes sufficient time for proper parliamentary scrutiny."
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said he was "very supportive" of the group's establishment.
He added: "Scotland's budget process needs to...

Summary: A "fundamental" review of the Scottish Parliament's budget process has been launched to take account of Scotland's new fiscal powers.
###
Article: Elections are being held in 27 English county councils and seven unitary authorities, last contested in 2009, as well as in Anglesey in Wales.
Labour are defending the South Shields seat in a contest caused by the resignation of David Miliband in March.
Mayoral contests are also being held in Doncaster and North Tyneside.
Polls for all the contests opened at 07:00 BST, and close at 22:00 BST.
Blue sky and sunshine are covering much of England, as millions of voters choose who will represent them on their local council.
More than 2,300 seats are up for grabs in county councils and unitary authorities across the length and breadth of England, including Derbyshire, Lancashire, Somerset, Essex, Surrey, Leicestershire, Kent, Durham, Bristol and Cornwall.
The Conservatives and Labour are putting up candidates in most seats, with 2,263 and 2,168 candidates respectively.
The Lib Dems have 1,763 candidates. UKIP is fielding 1,745 candidates, three times as many as it did the last time these seats were fought in 2009, and the Greens have 893 candidates.
Other parties standing include the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which is fighting 120 seats, the BNP, with 99 candidates and the English Democrats, with 38 candidates. There are around 900 independent candidates.
No elections are taking place in London, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
The majority of council results are expected on Friday between 11:00 BST and 18:30 BST, although six councils - Lincolnshire, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Gloucestershire and Hampshire - will declare their results in the early hours of Friday morning.
The result for the South Shields by-election is also expected early on Friday morning.

Summary:


Horses can tell if people are happy or angry, according to a new experiment.

Article: The exams regulator said an increase in 15-year-olds sitting exams early was mainly to blame.
The A* to C pass rate fell to 62.8% after it had remained stable at 66.6% for three years.
The percentage of the highest A* to A grades also dipped to 17.9%, down from 19.4% in 2016.
Qualifications Wales had warned that an increase in early entries in some subjects was likely to mean lower results.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which collates exam data for Wales, England and Northern Ireland, said changes in entry patterns - particularly for 15-year-olds - and the high proportion of pupils who took the two new mathematics GCSEs early in November, had a substantial impact on the results.
It said more students had "banked" a result and not returned to sit the exam again this summer - many whom have achieved a Grade C or above that would otherwise appear in these latest results.
As a consequence, it warned that reliable conclusions could not be drawn from direct comparisons between results this summer and the previous one, or between summer results across the UK.
Education Secretary Kirsty Williams said Wales has seen "some of the biggest changes in qualifications in decades" which had been "really challenging for pupils and teachers".
She said this was reflected in this year's overall GCSE A* to C grade pass rate.
Ms Williams said she was "concerned" about the high number of pupils being entered early for their exams and that the current situation was "unsustainable".
"We have signalled to schools that early entry should only be considered if it is in the interest of individual children, but what we've seen is entire cohorts of children being entered," she said.
Ms Williams added the "perverse incentives" that drive some schools to enter children early "should be taken out of the system".
The overall A* to G pass rate was also down from 98.7% to 96.9%, but the percentage of the highest A* grades remained at 6.1%.
While the fall in grades has been linked to the increase in 15-year-olds sitting exams early,...

Summary: The GCSE A* to C pass rate in Wales has fallen to its lowest level since 2006, after some of the biggest changes in decades to the exams system.
###
Article: Hotel Chocolat's push to increase online gift-giving is paying off, according to boss, Angus Thirlwell.
The firm's website sales rose 20% in the year to the end of June.
And Mr Thirlwell says in uncertain economic times he expects more people to switch from giving more extravagant presents to his firm's products.
Customers bought £91.1m worth of chocolate from the luxury chain between June 2015 and June 2016. That was 12% more than in the previous year.  Sales in stores grew as well as on the website.
The company's annual profits before tax were sharply higher, rising from £2.9m to £8.2m.
"We've been upping our marketing efforts. We've got a lot of new customers who've discovered the gift-sending side of what we do," the company's chief executive and co-founder Angus Thirlwell told the BBC.
The company, which sells its premium chocolate online and in 83 stores in the UK and abroad, is still emphasising its "hedonistic" credentials at the luxury end of the market, and continues to focus marketing on its high cocoa and relatively lower sugar content, to tap into the "wellness" trend for healthier eating.
But Mr Thirlwell said he thought there were also opportunities for the company to benefit from people "trading down".
"For example a corporate 'thank you' in the past might have been a hamper [but] you can send [our large] Chocolatiers Table for £100 pounds."
For that you'd get a 1.5kg box of chocolates including tiramisu, raspberry pannacotta and carrot cake flavours.
"It's expensive for a box of chocolates, but it's not expensive when you see the effect it has on people," said Mr Thirlwell.
Hotel Chocolat was floated on London's AIM market for smaller companies at the end of May this year, and these are the first set of results it has issued.
The company began as an online retailer in 1993, founded by Mr Thirlwell and his business partner Peter Harris, and was originally named Chocs Express. In 2003 it changed its name and a year later opened its first physical store in Watford.
It introduced an innovative...

Summary: This Christmas, instead of a luxury hamper, you may find a 'hedonistic' box of chocolates arriving at home or at work.
###
Article: A team of 12 scientists and engineers has begun work at remote Lake Ellsworth.
They are using a high-pressure hose and sterilised water at near boiling point to  blast a passage through more than two miles of ice.
The aim is to analyse ice waters isolated for up to 500,000 years.
The process of opening a bore-hole is expected to last five days and will be followed by a rapid sampling operation before the ice refreezes.
Lake Ellsworth is one of several hundred lakes known to exist beneath the ice-sheet - its waters kept just above freezing temperature by the warmth of the rocks below.
It is thought that the lake has been cut off from the outside world for long enough to raise the possibility that microbial life has evolved in unique ways.
This will be the first attempt to use highly sterilised equipment to collect samples of water and sediment from a body of water so deep and isolated for so long.
The aim of the project is to investigate the limits of where life is possible so preventing any contamination has been integral to the design of the equipment.
Chief scientist Prof Martin Siegert told the BBC that "everything has to be done in ultra clean conditions."
"We don't want to contaminate this pristine environment - and unless we keep the experiment very clean, we're likely just to measure the things that we bring down us with, which would be pointless."
The engineer in charge of the hot water drilling, Andy Tait, described the operation as "huge but delicate".
"Although hot-water drilling technology has been used extensively by scientists in the past, this is the first time we've ever attempted to go through 3km of solid ice - this will be the deepest borehole ever made this way.
"We've fired up the boilers to heat the water to 90Â°C.  The water pressure coming out of the hose will be around 2,000 PSI - 15 to 20 times more powerful than the kind you wash your car with.
"It is the most effective way to obtain rapid, clean access to Lake Ellsworth."
The next two days will be spent drilling out a 'chamber' the...

Summary: A British research team in Antarctica has launched a long-awaited project to hunt for life in a lake hidden beneath the ice-sheet.
###
Article: One study in the journal Current Biology has shown how a species of bat uses a quiet "stealth mode" of the clicks it uses to locate its prey.
Another from a Royal Society journal showed that a moth can distinguish between clicks that mean it has been spotted, and clicks that mean a strike.
This allows the moths to choose when to spend energy on defensive measures.
Moths live for just a few days and must evade predators and find a mate, often without eating.
Bats eat a wide array of insects but many species prefer the simple, high-nutrition snack that a moth provides.
They both navigate and hunt by emitting a stream of ultrasound clicks and listening for the echoes in a natural form of sonar, with the clicks repeating faster and faster as the bats close in on prey.
Some moths, upon hearing the clicks, are known to reply with their own high-intensity clicks, or to fly erratically in looping evasive manoeuvres, or even to simply drop out of the sky.
The interplay between bats' strategies to hunt and the moths' strategies to avoid being eaten are frequently cited as a classic example of co-evolution.
"It often seems like predators and prey are going through a contiunous cycle or 'arms race', where each is trying to outwit the other," said Hannah ter Hofstede, the University of Bristol researcher who co-authored the Current Biology study.
"The predator is always trying to capture the prey and that selects for better defences in the prey. Over evolutionary timescales, that causes gradual changes in both groups."
In a strategy that may be a moth-hunting adaptation, some bats are known to use clicks that are at a frequency, or pitch, either above or below moths' hearing ranges.
High-pitched clicks have a larger range, while lower-pitched clicks are absorbed less by the atmosphere It remains unclear whether these pitch-shifting techniques adapted specifically to bypass moth defences or simply to cope in certain environments or situations.
Dr ter Hofstede and her colleagues were able to listen in on the Barbastella bat...

Summary: Researchers have revealed more detail about the evolutionary "arms race" between bats and moths.
###
Article: 10 February 2016 Last updated at 14:11 GMT
A team at the University of Sussex put heart monitors on horses and showed them pictures of faces to see how they reacted to different emotions.
They found that the angry faces made the horses' heart rates speed up quicker than the happy faces.
Amy Smith, one of the researchers, explains more.

Summary:


The removal of the Elephant and Castle roundabout has been causing chaos for commuters, with motorists complaining of queues of more than an hour.

Article: The claimant count was down by 600 over the month to 30,500, which was the 16th consecutive monthly decrease.
However, the figures also suggest that economic inactivity is rising again.
Economic inactivity refers to people of working age who are neither in work or looking for a job.  The rate in Northern Ireland is persistently above the UK average.
It had been on a downward trend from 2013/14 but has now increased over the last three quarters.
The inactivity rate now stands at 27.4% compared to a UK rate of 21.5%.
Of the estimated 321,000 economically inactive people in Northern Ireland, just under a third were long-term sick or disabled.
Just over a quarter were students, 23% were looking after the family/home, 10% were retired and 8% cited another reason for inactivity.
In 2015, the Northern Ireland Executive published a strategy for tackling economic inactivity.
It aimed to support people with work-limiting health conditions, lone parents and people with caring commitments to get back into work.
The strategy has not been implemented due to budget pressures.

Summary: The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Northern Ireland continued to fall in June.
###
Article: Criticism included claims they have been pressured to remain silent and of misrepresentation of information.
The two sides of the debate said the comments raised questions about the rival campaigns.
The claims, made in a programme for Channel Four, came ahead of the 18 September referendum.
The Dispatches documentary, entitled "The Great British Break Up?", contacted 50 companies and business leaders believed to have concerns over independence.
Five told the programme privately they had been contacted by the Scottish government and said they "felt pressured to stay quiet about their views".
Of the five;
A further 14 claimed to know of other businesses who felt under pressure.
The programme also heard from London School Economics professor, Patrick Dunleavy, who previously said UK ministers misrepresented his research when they published its analysis of the fiscal implications of independence.
The economist later said the initial set-up costs to duplicate core Westminster functions would be around Â£200m.
He told Dispatches: "It's very hard to describe it in polite terms actually, it's very crude, it's alarmist, it's not been checked and it rests on a whole series of, you know, false steps . . . that makes this a very dubious document.
"A dodgy dossier, you might call it."
In addition, Gavin Hewitt, former chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said he or senior members of his staff had met with SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson, on at least six occasions over the past two years.
He told the programme: "He [Mr Robertson] and the SNP have regularly tried to get the message to the Scotch Whisky Association that the Scotch whisky industry should stay out of the independence debate.
"He was, I think, trying to neuter business comment. There was a genuine fear that in fact if we were seen to scupper by coming out publicly against independence, there would be retribution down the track."
Prof Dunleavy spoke to the programme, to be shown on Monday evening, after the Treasury used his figures to...

Summary: Business leaders and an academic have hit out at the Scottish and UK governments over their conduct in the independence referendum debate.
###
Article: The plan would extend the current system, which allows parents to share leave and statutory parental pay.
It was announced by Chancellor George Osborne as the Conservative conference began in Manchester.
Labour's Harriet Harman had proposed a similar policy in a manifesto for women.
Mr Osborne's plan involves extending the current system of shared parental leave - which allows a total of 52 weeks off - to cover grandparents as well as a child's mother and father.
Families will also be allowed to split statutory shared parental pay - which is Â£139.58 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
The Conservatives say the policy will particularly benefit single mothers who, without a partner to share leave with, will now be able to do so with one of their child's grandparents.
Mr Osborne also hopes the option will allow parents to return to work more quickly if they want to.
He said more than half of mothers rely on grandparents for childcare when they first return to work after having a baby.
He said: "Research shows two million grandparents have either given up a job, reduced their hours or taken time off work to look after their grandchildren.
"Allowing them instead to share leave with their children will keep thousands more in the workplace, which is good for our economy."

Summary: Working grandparents will be allowed to take time off and share parental leave pay to help care for their grandchildren, the government has said.
###
Article: Cleaners at Heathrow had written to the airport's boss complaining a deal for a higher rate of pay had been applied only to directly employed staff.
The deal had been part of conditions to allow Heathrow's expansion.
Heathrow has now accepted the principle of higher pay for all, but says it has yet to work out its implementation.
Citizens UK, the community activist group which has supported the airport cleaners, welcomed the commitment from Heathrow but said there were "serious and urgent questions about the timeframe".
Last month, cleaners and other agency staff at the airport wrote to Heathrow's chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, saying they were missing out on the London living wage.
This London living wage is Â£9.75 per hour - higher than the mandatory National Living Wage of Â£7.20 per hour for workers aged over 25.
The Airports Commission's report into airport expansion set a number of conditions for Heathrow, including that the airport should adopt the London living wage.
But this was applied only to directly employed Heathrow staff - and contract workers wrote to Mr Holland-Kaye to say that low wages denied them "dignity".
The contract staff argued that the pay levels - which for a 40-hour week could be less than Â£15,000 per year - were not enough for the cost of accommodation and transport in London.
"This means that some of us have to work several jobs in order to be able to feed our families," said the letter, organised by Citizens UK.
"This puts a lot of pressure on our family life as it means we work very long days and have little time to spend with our children."
A letter this week from Heathrow's chief executive to the union says: "The Davies Commission report contained a condition for Heathrow to 'demonstrate leadership as a community employer by adopting the London living wage'.
"We have accepted this condition as part of the planning consent."
But the letter says the airport will have to work with suppliers to see how it could apply the London living wage to all staff.
"We will announce...

Summary: The GMB union has welcomed plans by Heathrow to extend the London living wage to airport staff hired through outsourcing agencies.
###
Article: The roundabout, which saw more than 80 collisions and 90 people injured in 2012-14, was replaced with two-way traffic on Sunday.
Transport for London (TfL) said congestion was due to "traffic getting used to the new layout".
"It's a very busy junction and it always will be," a spokesman said.
The reintroduction of two-way traffic at the junction for the first time in 50 years was a "key milestone" in the £25m transformation at Elephant and Castle, TfL said.
In addition to the new road layout, left turns from Newington Causeway towards New Kent Road and right turns from New Kent Road to Newington Causeway have also been banned.
But road users took to Twitter to complain about their Monday morning commute.
"It's 8am and the queue for the new #elephantandcastle junction starts somewhere south of Camberwell. allow extra 1hr 4 journey (or walk!)", a Twitter user posted.
"Shock horror! All approaches to Elephant and Castle worse than ever. Only TfL could spend millions and millions to make something worse!" tweeted @tango97.
Andy Woodward tweeted: "Delays around Elephant and Castle even worse today. If this was the tube there would be outcry. Commuters use buses too!"
Road users had been advised of traffic changes with a countdown to the traffic switch and advisors and police were on site to help keep traffic moving, the TfL spokesman said.
A spokesman for London TravelWatch said: "It's early days - we need to wait and see how it pans out."
TfL plans to convert the space created by removing the roundabout into a new public area.
It will replace subways with new pedestrian crossings, create new cycle routes and introduce a 20mph speed limit, TfL said.

Summary:


"A bit of a punt" - the BHS business plan.

Article: Debbie Wilcox was speaking after Friars Walk was sold to a Canadian investment firm last month, wiping out the debt.
But under the deal the council will pay a £500,000 annual subsidy for up to 15 years if rental incomes do not rise.
Ms Wilcox said front-line services would not be affected as funds have been set aside to cover any costs.
She admitted there had been many sleepless nights because councils should not be about running shopping centres.
Friars Walk was completed in 2015 by the developers Queensberry Real Estate.
The firm had failed to raise enough private sector funding but went ahead with construction after the council agreed to provide them with a loan which at the time it described as "unprecedented".
The sale of Friars Walk to Talisker Corporation wiped out £84m worth of borrowing and interest charges on Newport council's books.
The local authority is in line to receive extra funds, depending on future revenues, but it also liable to pay the 15-year £500,000 annual subsidy if extra revenue fails to materialise.
The council believes the subsidy will only last a few years.
Ms Wilcox said: "I cannot deny that we had many sleepless nights over it because it is not the normal every day thing that we do.
"It did actually determine a lot of the other business because until that was settled, we could not move on untrammelled.
"It did not dominate business in so far as we have our public services to run but nevertheless it took an increasing amount of officers' time."
At the time the original loan was agreed in 2013, when the former council leader Bob Bright was in post, the authority said it was the first in the UK to borrow money on that scale in order to fund a development project.
The council insisted the loan was needed to prevent the scheme from failing and to continue with the regeneration of the city centre.
Ms Wilcox said that if the deal had collapsed then the council would have been forced to take on the ownership of Friars Walk.
She said: "We would look to have sold it at a later date but...

Summary: An £84m debt to fund a shopping centre in Newport had hung over the local authority, preventing it from moving on, the council's leader has said.
###
Article: That's the equivalent of almost four work days a month and doesn't include the time spent thinking about meals or shopping for ingredients.
Just imagine how much more we could achieve if we did something else instead.
That's the thinking behind a small but growing market of beverages led by the Silicon Valley start-up Soylent, Finland's Ambronite and UK based Huel - companies aiming to liberate us from the tyranny of food while offering a healthy and sustainable alternative.
All three claim to offer a complete meal in a drink. You don't even have to worry about the washing up.
"We are living in a real period of overwork. We think the more we do the better we are," says Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed and director of the Better Life Lab at New America, a non-partisan think tank in Washington.
"We place value on having a crammed calendar, rushing around trying to show how busy and important we are. It's no wonder people don't take time to eat any more."
Commercial meal replacements and food supplements have been around for decades and are frequently used by athletes and people trying to lose weight. But what makes these drinks different is the notion of saving time rather than calories.
Elon Musk, the 44-year-old multi-billionaire head of SpaceX and Tesla, spent one dollar a day on food when he was a struggling entrepreneur. Musk once remarked "if there was a way that I could not eat, so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal".
Soylent and its competitors appear to offer the solution.
"Soylent in particular is very popular in the tech community," says Anthony Shop, head of Social Driver, a Washington-based digital marketing agency.
"Tech start-ups often have a philosophy that they're there to crush it for a few years and hopefully get a payout.
"That's the reason many start-ups provide food for employees. It's to keep them [in the office] so that they work even more. So some people are sucking down Soylent so they can spend an extra hour...

Summary: The average American spends 67 minutes a day eating or drinking, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
###
Article: The company stated it is confident it will produce a 60in (152cm) Ultra HD rollable TV by 2017.
LG unveiled one of its first flexible TVs at CES - a global consumer electronics and technology trade show - earlier this year.
Experts say flexible screens could see TVs used in more creative ways.
The new flexible panel has a resolution of 1,200x810, which is left undistorted even after it has been rolled into a 3cm cylinder.
LG says the flexibility was achieved thanks to using a backplane made of "high molecular substance-based polyimide film" instead of plastic.
The second panel is transparent and is said to greatly surpass earlier models, with the company boasting of a significant reduction in hazy images and a 30% increase in transmittance, which is responsible for the screen's transparent effect.
The company has claimed its new screens prove they are on track for much larger, Ultra HD-capable flexible screens in the near future, asserting they are "confident" they can deliver a 60in rollable panel by 2017.
"Flexible screens are an exciting prospect. First off, they're far more durable than conventional screens, meaning that we can expect to see bigger, better screens in, for example, aeroplanes," said Stephen Graves, online deputy editor at Stuff.tv.
"They also create the potential for some completely new gadget designs. Imagine a 10in (25cm) iPad that you can fold out into a 16in (40cm) screen - effectively doubling up as a small desktop computer or TV monitor."
Jeremy White, product editor of Wired magazine said that these new screens would be ideal for retail or exhibition display.
"Being able to curve screens around complex retail display units or using the transparency to have the screen envelop the product itself on a stand would certainly be eye-catching.
"And of course this is all leading to flexible tablets as well, which will possibly be the most useful application of flexible screens to the average consumer."
Evan Kypreos, editor of TrustedReviews, said that rollable TVs could be produced by 2017...

Summary: LG has announced the release of two new paper-thin TV panels, with one that is so flexible it can be rolled into a 3cm diameter tube.
###
Article: Local politicians hope to have more say on how the region's budget of more than £22bn is spent each year.
The plans would mean one of the leaders of the 10 councils stepping up to run the Combined Authority full-time.
The ideas are set out in a memo sent to councillors and seen by BBC News.
It reads: "Greater Manchester is a single economy bigger than Wales or Northern Ireland, yet has considerably less freedom over its strategic priorities.
"The platform we have created through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, providing clear leadership and a track record of delivery, means we are ideally placed to be a trailblazer for city devolution."
The document also sets out a list of changes council leaders would pursue under the new structure, if it is approved by Westminster.
This includes the re-regulation of Greater Manchester's bus services, potentially bringing routes and fares under council control, rather than commercial operators.
Council leaders also want control over funding for business and trade and investment, alongside "significant influence if not control" over £500m which the government currently spends on skills and training schemes.
Discussions on the devolution of spending powers have been ongoing for years with local leaders believing they are better placed than civil servants in Westminster to decide how billions of pounds of funding should be spent in Greater Manchester.
David Cameron's promise of more powers for Scotland during the recent referendum campaign led the region's leaders to push their case further and Chancellor George Osborne has indicated he's ready to make some form of an announcement on devolution in the Autumn statement.
Mr Osborne has made it clear he wants Greater Manchester to have an elected mayor but the region's council leaders don't think that would work. Instead, they're offering to appoint an "11th leader" who would oversee the Combined Authority and be a full-time figurehead for the region.
It's not yet clear how this "11th leader" would be selected. Greater...

Summary: Greater Manchester's council leaders want to appoint an "11th leader" as part of efforts to convince the government to devolve more power to the region.
###
Article: That's how one financier described Dominic Chappell's plans for acquiring and reviving BHS to MPs today.
Andrew Frangos of Cornhill Capital was approached by the three-time bankrupt Chappell to raise money secured against property to use as working capital - the money you need for day to day running of a company.
Mr Frangos said that BHS was not the limit of his ambitions and that Chappell had plans to one day buy Arcadia - the parent company run by Sir Philip Green. Ultimately, Chappell didn't use Cornhill Capital and the two of them are in dispute over unpaid bills.
He was joined in the commons by representatives from accountants Grant Thornton and lawyers Olswang to explain their involvement as advisers to Mr Chappell.
Both made extensive use of client confidentiality protection but several important themes emerged.
Retail Acquisitions Limited did not delve very deeply into the pension problems. Meetings between Chappell and the Chris Martin, chair of the BHS pension scheme, totalled less than half an hour and Grant Thornton's Mark Byers said he was denied the usual access to the pension trustees and their advisors.
On the bigger picture, MPs asked what the professional advisers made of this "punt". Why did they believe that a retail novice with a chequered financial background could succeed in turning BHS around when a feted retail tycoon had failed? We got two interesting answers.
First, a central part of the turnaround plan involved getting the landlords for the 164 stores to agree to reduce the rent. Mark Byers, from Grant Thornton said it would be difficult to have that negotiation, for BHS essentially to plead poverty, as long as BHS was part of the bigger Arcadia group.
Second, it wasn't their job.
So far there is no smoking gun. What is emerging from these sessions is that lots of professional firms were tasked with making sure small bits of the deal ticked a number of boxes. No one, it seems, was there to look Mr Chappell in the eye and judge whether he had the ability, or even the intention, of...

Summary:


Jeremy Corbyn has accused the chief of the defence staff of political bias after he criticised the Labour leader's anti-nuclear stance.

Article: However, for a pair of kestrels nesting on the Forth Road Bridge, it has become home.
Bridge workers discovered the birds of prey while repairing steelwork underneath the carriageway.
They have built a nest with six eggs inside the end of a girder hanging over the Firth of Forth estuary.
The birds have been named Mr and Mr Younger, after Younger's Kestrel Lager.
David Gill, Amey maintenance supervisor, said: "When we saw the eggs, we immediately cleared the area and instructed staff to avoid carrying out any works that might disturb the nest.
"I've heard of kestrels nesting on the bridge before, but it's pretty unusual. You'd think they might prefer a quieter location.
"We're happy to have them here though, and have affectionately named them Mr and Mrs Younger.
"We'll come back and finish our repairs once the chicks have hatched and flown the nest.
"In the meantime, we've carried out a temporary repair on a local defect quietly and there won't be any impact on users of the bridge."
Kestrels are fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it an offence to kill, injure or take a kestrel, or to take, damage or destroy an active nest or its contents.

Summary: For most young couples, the inside of a steel girder with 80,000 vehicles a day thundering overhead would not seem like an ideal location to start a family.
###
Article: The proposal followed a consultation which attracted more than 600 responses.
It would also see the introduction of a licensing scheme for the killing of wild salmon caught in rivers.
The moves have been welcomed by the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards.
Scotland's biggest salmon netting company, Usan Salmon, said it was confident it would be allowed to start catching again once accurate salmon stock measurements have been taken.
A Scottish government notice states: "In terms of paragraph 11 of schedule 1 to the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 2003 (the Act) notice is hereby given that the Scottish ministers propose to make conservation regulations under section 38 of the Act to introduce a licensing system for the killing of wild salmon in Scotland and a prohibition on the taking of salmon outwith inland waters."
It said: "The general effect of this proposal will be: (a) to prohibit the taking of Atlantic salmon outwith inland waters. (b) to prohibit the killing of salmon in Scotland without a licence."
Objections to the regulations must be submitted by 19 August.
The Scottish government said no decision had yet been taken but it would consider all the responses.
A spokeswoman said: "Our consultation on wild fisheries reform is ongoing and we are in the process of engaging with stakeholders."

Summary: Plans for a complete ban on catching wild salmon using coastal nets have been announced by the Scottish government.
###
Article: The diplomat, Thae Yong Ho, had served as deputy to the ambassador and was responsible for promoting the image of his country to British audiences.
He had reportedly lived in the UK for 10 years with his wife and family and disappeared from his home in west London several weeks ago.
Neither the Foreign Office nor the embassy has commented.
Read more: My friend the North Korean defector
"A DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] diplomat in London is going through procedures to seek asylum in a third country," a report in the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo said.
"The DPRK Embassy made belated attempts to figure out the diplomat's whereabouts, but has failed," the paper's report added, citing an anonymous source.
The paper said that in this context "a third country" means one that is neither North nor South Korea.
By the BBC's Korea correspondent Stephen Evans
North Korea has an embassy in west London. The diplomats there can be charming, particularly over curry at their favourite curry house. Their children are in nearby state schools and one is a stalwart of the local tennis club.
The other side of their lives, though, involves keeping tabs on North Korean defectors who often settle in New Malden in south-west London.
Two of the officials were probably the men who turned up at a barber shop in London to object to a picture in the window of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with the caption "bad hair day".
They are also thought to have escorted Kim Jong-un's brother to an Eric Clapton concert in the Albert Hall.
My friend the North Korean defector
Mr Thae's main mission in London had been to spread the message that North Korea and its leadership under Kim Jong-un had been misreported and misunderstood.
In one speech, he argued that it was the British who had been brainwashed by their ruling class. "If the people in this country, or in America, knew that there is a country in the world, where there is a free education, free housing, free medical care, then they'd have second thoughts," he said, to...

Summary: A diplomat at the North Korean embassy in London has defected and fled abroad with his family, BBC News understands.
###
Article: That's the conclusion of a new analysis presented here at the UN climate conference near Paris.
Researchers said construction would see emissions four times higher than the 2 degree target by 2030.
They say the building plans are in conflict with the carbon cutting agendas of countries like India and China.
The Climate Action Tracker analysis says that 2,440 coal fired power stations are planned around the world before 2030.
Emissions from the world's existing plants will be 150% higher than what is consistent with a 2 degree target, says their report.
COP21 Live: read the latest from Paris
But if all those in the planning stage are actually built, the outlook would be far more pessimistic.
"If all of them were to be built, they would emit 6.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2030," said Dr Niklas Hohne, one of the research team.
"If you add all of the power plants that are existing today and will still be operating in 2030, you come to 12 gigatonnes from coal fired power in 2030 and that's actually 400% higher than is necessary for 2 degrees."
Scientists say the 2 degrees target is the threshold of dangerous warming. Temperatures have already gone up around one degree from pre-industrial times, according to the latest research.
The coal study looks at eight countries including India, China, Indonesia and the European Union. All of them have submitted national carbon cutting plans, termed INDCs, promising to reduce or cap their emissions.
But many of these countries are pushing ahead with plans for coal fired power as a way of getting as many of their people on the electricity grid as rapidly as possible.
"For seven of the nine countries, the planned coal plants threaten their INDCs," said Markus Hagemann of the NewClimate Institute, who took part in the study.
"This would lead to higher emissions from coal plants and it would undermine the country's efforts and it could also lead in a worst case to a displacement of renewable energy."
The researchers believe that in many nations the apparent contradiction is...

Summary: Attempts to keep global warming to 2 degrees will be wildly off course if all planned coal fire plants are built.
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Article: Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton told the BBC's Andrew Marr that refusing to launch nuclear weapons would "seriously undermine" Britain's "deterrent".
And he said he would be worried if such a view "translated into power".
Mr Corbyn called on the defence secretary to "take action" against Sir Nicholas over his comments.
In a statement, the Labour leader said: "It is a matter of serious concern that the chief of the defence staff has today intervened directly in issues of political dispute.
"It is essential in a democracy that the military remains politically neutral at all times.
"By publicly taking sides in current political arguments, Sir Nicholas Houghton has clearly breached that constitutional principle. Accordingly, I am writing to the defence secretary to ask him to take action to ensure that the neutrality of the armed forces is upheld."
Mr Corbyn, a leading member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, sparked a row with his shadow cabinet at his party's annual conference when he revealed that would never press the "nuclear button" - and he has since praised Scottish Labour's rejection of Trident.
Mr Corbyn has said he was elected Labour leader on a platform of opposing Trident renewal and that he is committed to "promoting an international nuclear weapons convention which would lead to a nuclear-free world".
Asked about Mr Corbyn's refusal to use nuclear weapons, Sir Nicholas said: "It would worry me if that thought was translated into power as it were."
He added: "The whole thing about deterrence rests on the credibility of its use.
"When people say you're never going to use the deterrent, what I say is you use the deterrent every second of every minute of every day and the purpose of the deterrent is that you don't have to use it because you successfully deter.
"If a prime minister said they would never press the nuclear button, "the deterrent is then completely undermined," he added.
"Most of the politicians I know understand that and I think that, dare I say, the responsibility of power is probably...

Summary:


The company that conducts most of America's rocket launches has released details of its next generation vehicle.

Article: Figures from the Labor Department showed the US economy created 178,000 jobs in November, while the jobless rate fell to 4.6% from 4.9% in October.
The data adds to recent evidence of healthy growth in the economy, although wage growth was weaker than expected.
Most analysts think the Federal Reserve will raise rates at its next meeting.
"This was the last hurdle on the path to a December hike, and it has been cleared convincingly," said Luke Bartholomew, investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management.
"It is now incredibly hard to imagine what would stop the Fed from going [for a rate rise]."
The Federal Reserve will hold its next two-day policy meeting on 13-14 December.
Last month, the chair of the Fed, Janet Yellen, indicated that the US central bank could raise interest rates "relatively soon", adding that the US economy was "making very good progress".
Recent figures indicated that the US economy grew at an annual pace of 3.2% in the third quarter of the year.
The US economy has been creating jobs at an average of 180,000 jobs a month this year, although that is down on the average of 229,000 recorded in 2015.
Despite November's robust jobs figures, earnings grew by less than expected. Average hourly earnings fell 0.1% from the month before, and that reduced the annual increase in wages to 2.5% from 2.8% in October.
The job creation figures for September and October were also revised, with the latest estimates indicating that 2,000 fewer jobs were added in the two months than previously thought.
Before these figures the markets were pretty clear about what they think the Federal Reserve will do when it meets later this month; it will raise interest rates. The jobs numbers have further reinforced that expectation.
It was a pretty robust figure for job creation, well ahead of economists' estimates of what is needed to keep up with a growing population.
Also striking was a decline of 220,000 in the number who are working part-time for economic reasons.  This is another measure of what economists call...

Summary: The US unemployment rate fell to a nine-year low in November, adding to expectations that US interest rates will rise later this month.
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Article: The average home in Dwyfor put 22% less waste in their black bins in November 2014 than in the same month in 2013.
As a result, recycling and composting rates in the county have increased from 54% in March to 57.4% last month.
The council said the waste reduction in the Dwyfor area alone would save it Â£100,000 a year.
The first phase of three-weekly bin collections was introduced in October, with 19,000 households in Meirionnydd and 26,000 in Arfon set to follow suit next year.
Food waste and recyclable products are still collected weekly.
The council said it was now well placed to hit Welsh government targets, which require councils to recycle at least 58% of their waste by March 2016, and 64% by 2020.
Councillor Gareth Roberts said: "The people of Dwyfor have delivered an early Christmas present for our environment and for the Gwynedd council taxpayer."
Waste collection changes were introduced in Gwynedd to help the council bridge a Â£50m funding shortfall between now and 2017/18.

Summary: The amount of waste sent to landfill in Gwynedd has fallen since controversial three-weekly bin collections were introduced to the first 15,000 homes.
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Article: Drew Nelson says an impasse at Westminster "will help to focus minds".
As part of its Northern Ireland Plan, which will form the basis for negotiation should next month's general election prove inconclusive, the Democratic Unionist Party says it will ask Westminster for "legislation for a new way forward on parading which respects the fundamental rights of assembly".
The Orange Order says the the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 is weighted heavily in favour of nationalist protestors.
Mr Nelson, the order's Grand Secretary, told the BBC One Northern Ireland programme The View "whichever party is in power they should review and amend this legislation because the legislation is flawed - not to buy some votes to keep them in power for a few years but because it's the right thing to do".
"Opportunities arise at different times and if there is a hung parliament, which is speculation at the moment, it may be that will help to focus the minds," he added.
"Anyone who can achieve some advantage by using some leverage would be foolish if they didn't take that opportunity and, if the unionist family which is returned to Westminster have an opportunity by virtue of their numbers to exercise greater influence than they are able to when it is not a hung parliament, then they should take that opportunity"
But others tell the programme that in their view neither the Conservatives or Labour are likely to negotiate on parades to buy DUP support.
Garvan O'Doherty, a Londonderry businessman who helped broker agreement on parades in the city, said he would "suggest the two main parties will stay clear of this issue".
"It is too hot for them and it is up to us locally to resolve once and for all," he said.
"We've go to stop going round in circles. We need to make a stand and we need to compromise."
A former parades commission chair Peter Osborne agrees.
"If you go back 20 years, you see in Portadown and elsewhere from then on that if you take these issues into high level political involvement it won't work," he...

Summary: A senior Orangeman says a hung parliament may provide an opportunity for unionists to push for new parades legislation more favourable to the Loyal Orders.
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Article: St Patrick's Church in Glenamaddy, County Galway, offered people the traditional blessing from the comfort of their cars on Wednesday morning.
Hundreds availed of the service over an hour and a half.
Parish secretary Breda Keaveney said the unique event was "very peaceful and so dignified".
"The weather stayed dry, the sun was shining down on us and the mood was overwhelmingly respectful - it was a beautiful event," said Ms Keaveney.
Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, a season of reflection and preparation before Easter.
Catholics traditionally attend a Mass at which their foreheads are marked with ash in the shape of a cross.
The Galway church's modern approach was designed to appeal to those who do not have time to attend Mass.
St Patrick's conveniently has a lane that leads right up to its front door.
Locals drove to the door, received their ashes and drove off on their way to work, school or the shops.
"We had people with hospital appointments, people going to work, parents, farmers, school children, bus loads of people," said Ms Keaveney.
"We just couldn't have anticipated how popular it would be - thankfully there were four of us on hand because we had hundreds to get through, but everyone was very patient.
"The response was so positive, everyone was very complimentary and encouraging. At the end of the day, we're in changing times and you have to move with them and not be judgemental.
"We're lucky that we have a very lively, youthful parish who are open to new ideas."
The idea, which was first reported last week, was agreed by the church's pastoral council and parish priest Fr Paddy Mooney.
"We looked at the situation on the ground. People and families are on the move all the time," he told the Irish Catholic.
"It's about meeting people where they are."
The church also set up a Lenten petition box in its grounds that allows people to submit prayer requests during Lent without having to leave their car.
"We're just putting it in front of people to help them think of Lent, as a reminder of it,"...

Summary: A unique drive-thru Ash Wednesday service at an Irish church has been described as "beautiful and overwhelmingly respectful".
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Article: The concept will be known as Vulcan, and it is expected to start operations in 2019.
United Launch Alliance - the joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin - currently flies the Atlas and Delta rockets.
These are routinely used to loft Nasa science probes, spy satellites and other US national security missions.
In time, both vehicles will be retired as the new Vulcan components come on stream.
The first element to be introduced will be the first-stage booster, which will feature an all-new, all-American liquid-fuelled engine.
This will enable ULA to end its use of Russian-made RD-180 rocket motors – something Congress has mandated.
Politicians on Capitol Hill dislike the fact that American national security missions are launched with the aid of Russian propulsion technology.
ULA's preference is to incorporate a liquid methane-oxygen power unit currently being developed by Blue Origin, the space company run by Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.
When the new Vulcan booster makes its debut, it will initially be married to the current Centaur upper-stage of the Atlas.
But early in the 2020s, this too will be replaced by a bespoke upper-stage that should give the new rocket a performance that allows it to exceed even the Delta IV Heavy – the biggest, most powerful rocket in the world today, capable of putting upwards of 25 tonnes in a low-Earth orbit.
Critically, though, the Vulcan will be substantially cheaper to build and operate.
"A Delta IV Heavy at today’s launch rates costs about $400m, give or take, depending on the mission and its complexity. I fully expect the Next Generation Launch System to be less than half that," said Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance.
Some cost savings will be made by recovering and reusing the engines on the first-stage booster following a flight.
The idea is that after separation from the upper-stage, the engines would detach from the propellant tanks and fall back to Earth, deploying an inflatable shield to protect them from burning up on re-entry into...

Summary:


Mystery surrounds the fate of more than 100 teenage girls who were abducted from a school in the remote north-east of Nigeria.

Article: A machine that can "smell" dollars - like a sniffer dog senses narcotics - is being developed.
For the first time, chemists have captured the unique fragrance of US paper money.
They announced their discovery at the American Chemical Society meeting.
"Money sniffing is an unknown art. No-one had ever tried to find these aromas," said Dr Joseph Stetter, of KWJ Engineering.
"We found that US currency emits a wide range of volatile organic compounds that make a 'fingerprint' we can identify in less than a minute."
His firm is developing a handheld cash detector for border police, called the Bulk Currency Detection System (BCDS).
In the past fiscal year, US officials seized more than $106m in smuggled cash heading to Mexico - the bulk of it laundered drug money.
But that's only a whisker of the estimated $39bn that crosses the border undetected every year - hidden in clothing, baggage and vehicles.
Current checks are done by guards with dogs - but training is expensive and time-consuming.
Airport-style X-ray scanners have had some success detecting currency - but they are large and impractical for busy border checkpoints.
To find a swifter solution, the US Department of Homeland Security made a public challenge to scientists to develop "a device that will search for and identify bulk quantities of currency - secreted on persons, in hand baggage and luggage, and/or in privately owned vehicles."
This money-sniffing machine must pass three intimidating challenges.
First - it must be precise enough to pick up the whiff of dollar bills amid a cacophony of background aromas.
"It has to work even in the presence of car exhaust, perfumes, food, and at a range of temperatures and humidity," said Dr Suiqiong Li, a researcher at KWJ.
"You need a smart algorithm to sort the needle from the haystack."
Next - it has to deliver a reading within seconds at hectic border crossings. There is no time to send samples off to a lab.
And finally, the probe has to be portable - light enough for a guard walking up and down a line of...

Summary: Criminals are smuggling billions in US bank notes into Mexico every year, but help could be on the way for border guards.
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Article: Palaeobiologist Matt Friedman told the BBC that the fish provided crucial evidence about the evolutionary development of jawed vertebrates.
As a remote relative of humans, it provides important evolutionary clues.
"It is the deepest branch of our family tree that bears the kinds of jaw bones found in humans," Dr Friedman said.
The fossil was found at China's Xiaoxiang Reservoir, and was reported by the journal Nature on Thursday.
Scientists say that the heavily armoured fish, Entelognathus primordialis, is a previously unknown member of jawed vertebrates also known as gnathostomes. It has a complex small skull and jaw-bone structure.
"This is an unexpected discovery that inverts schoolbook teaching on the evolution of bony skulls," Dr Friedman told the BBC.
"Up until now it had been thought that the anatomical peculiarities of bony fishes - the group that would eventually give rise to human beings - are specialisations that arose later in vertebrate evolutionary history in our own bony fish lineage."
"But now that narrative has been turned on its head."
Dr Friedman said that the fish's jaw was much more like that of a modern bony fish - which is why its discovery may offer a new perspective on the early evolution of these creatures.
His review of the significance of the fossil find also appears in the latest edition of Nature.
Scientists say that the evolution of jaws is one of the key episodes in the evolution of vertebrates, but the gap between jawed and jawless vertebrates is so large that it is hard to work out the individual evolutionary steps in the transition.
"While this fossil does not tell us anything about the origin of jawed fishes from jawless ones, it does tell us about subsequent modifications to jaw structure that we thought were unique to bony fishes," Dr Friedman said.
It is thought that modern jawed vertebrates, such as sharks and bony fishes, emerged from a collection of jawed, armoured fishes known as placoderms.
Entelognathus primordialis has jaw-bone features previously restricted to...

Summary: A leading British scientist has said that the discovery of a 419-million-year-old fish fossil in China is a stunning and spectacular development.
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Article: Solihull Sixth Form College admitted the decision was "extreme", but said it had taken it in response to mobile phones being used during toilet breaks.
The college said in the past mobiles had been smuggled into the toilets by an "inventive" minority of students.
Principal Paul Ashdown sent an email to parents explaining the new policy.
In a statement, the college said it was implementing the measure during examinations to make students aware that it was simply not worth trying to cheat.
The statement said: "A very small minority of students attempt to cheat and they use increasingly inventive and sophisticated techniques, including using mobile phones smuggled into the toilets.
"The majority of students will not need to use the toilet during an exam. But, if they do, our experienced invigilator team will supervise closely but sensitively to ensure that no cheating takes place."
Students caught cheating risk being disqualified from that exam by the exam board, and possibly disqualified from all their other exams, according to the college.
The statement also said: "We are protecting the future chances of our students by implementing strict security measures."
Mobile phones are banned from exam rooms, which is standard practice, according to the college.
In a post on the Solihull Updates Facebook page, Birmingham student Abby Carter said: "Not being allowed to close the door is absolutely ludicrous, accompanying to the toilet and even a pat down and check of the cubicle would be fine, but being made to use the toilet with the door open is disgusting! This surely cannot be legal!"
The new rule is due to come in when mock exams take place later this month.

Summary: A college's exam students will have to be accompanied to the toilet during loo breaks and leave the cubicle door open, after attempts to cheat last year.
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Article: Australia sends asylum seekers to the Manus Island detention centre under its offshore processing policy.
But the five judges on the Supreme Court's bench ruled the camp breached section 42 of the constitution, which guarantees personal liberty.
The court said "all steps" should be taken to end the "illegal" detention.
Currently around 850 men are held on the island, around half of whom have been judged genuine refugees.
Papua New Guinea's constitution guarantees personal liberty for all people, except in defined circumstances relating to crime, illegal immigration and quarantine.
In 2014, Papua New Guinea's government amended section 42 of the constitution to add a paragraph that allowed for "holding a foreign national under arrangements made by Papua New Guinea with another country".
But the Supreme Court ruled this amendment was unconstitutional, as it did not meet a requirement to respect "the rights and dignity of mankind".
It said that because the asylum seekers and refugees had not voluntarily entered Papua New Guinea, the situation of illegal immigration did not apply to them.
"The detention of the asylum seekers on Manus Island in Papua New Guineaâ€¦ is unconstitutional and illegal," it said.
"Both the Australian and Papua New Guinea governments shall forthwith take all steps necessary to cease and prevent the continued unconstitutional and illegal detention of the asylum seekers or transferees at the relocation centre on Manus Island and the continued breach of the asylum seekers' or transferees' constitutional and human rights."
Manus Island: Australia's Guantanamo?
Australia's controversial asylum policy
Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement that the court's decision did not change Australia's immigration policy.
"People who have attempted to come illegally by boat and are now in the Manus facility will not be settled in Australia," the statement said, repeating the government's long-standing policy.
The opposition Labor party urged the government to hold urgent talks...

Summary: Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court has ruled that the detention of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island is unconstitutional.
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Article: The military says all but eight of the 129 girls have escaped, but parents of the girls say many are still missing.
It is thought Islamist militant group Boko Haram took the girls to forested areas near the Cameroonian border.
The group is waging a bloody campaign for an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
Nigerian students living in fear
What is Nigeria's Boko Haram?
Also on Wednesday, 18 people were killed in an attack in the Gwoza district of north-eastern Nigeria, local officials told the AP news agency.
The BBC's correspondent in Lagos, Will Ross, says the Nigerian military's statement that most of the girls had escaped their captors contrasts sharply with other information available to the BBC, including the claims of parents of pupils at the school. They insist "many" of their children are still missing.
The raid on the boarding school is a great source of embarrassment for the Nigerian authorities who say their military campaign against the militants is succeeding, he adds.
Hours before the military issued its statement, the governor of Borno state Kashim Shettima said the vast majority of the girls were still missing and offered a reward of 50m naira ($308,000; Â£184,000) for information.
The air force, army, police, local defence units and volunteers have all been involved in the search for the schoolgirls.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "shocking" mass abduction and called for the girls' immediate release.
"The targeting of schools and schoolchildren is a grave violation of international humanitarian law," he said in a statement.
"Schools are, and must remain, safe places where children can learn and grow in peace."
The BBC's Hausa Service says Boko Haram has kidnapped civilians in the past - usually women to work as sex slaves.
Gunmen reportedly arrived at the school in Chibok, a remote area of Borno state, late on Tuesday, and ordered its teenage residents on to lorries.
A local politician said about 50 soldiers had been stationed near the school ahead of annual exams, but were...

Summary: