News Headlines - 06 September 2013

▽Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in West - NYTimes.com

The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men. The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.

▽Nuclear error : Nature News & Comment

Given the government’s past actions and information policies, one might doubt whether it would be any more competent than TEPCO at managing the situation and communicating it to the public. Over the weekend, it turned out that radiation doses near the leaking tanks are 18 times larger than first reported: leakage that started as a mere ‘anomaly’ has turned into a genuine crisis. Japan should start consulting international experts for help.

▽HS2: David Cameron pledges to fight for rail project amid fears over rising costs - Mirror Online

David Cameron today vowed to “step up” support for the HS2 rail line, admitting the Government had failed to make a case for the multibillion-pound project. The PM hit out at the “unholy alliance” of critics of the fast service, which will run from London to Birmingham and the North.

▽Parliament Hearing to Focus on BBC Severance Dispute - NYTimes.com

An increasingly bitter dispute between Chris Patten, the head of the BBC Trust, and Mark Thompson, the former director-general of the BBC, will get a public airing on Monday before a committee of the British Parliament.

▽Lord Hall: The Director-General who pledged to clean up BBC told to return cash - The Independent

Tony Hall, the BBC Director-General, is under mounting pressure to pay back the ￡24,500 in additional pension contributions he received when he resigned from the corporation to lead of the Royal Opera House 12 years ago. It has emerged that Lord Hall, who has vowed to crackdown on a culture of excessive pay-offs at the corporation, was given the bonus payment when he left his ￡204,000-a-year job as BBC head of current affairs in 2001. He quit the BBC to become chief executive of the Royal Opera House, on what is believed to have been a higher salary, after losing out to Greg Dyke in his bid to become Director-General.