News Headlines - 16 January 2014

▽Stewart and Natasha Sutherland: Couple face jail for taking children on term-time trip | Metro News

A couple who took their children out of school for their first family holiday in five years risk being jailed for refusing to pay fines imposed under a new law.
Stewart and Natasha Sutherland will appear in court after they took their three children to the Greek island of Rhodes during term time.
Under laws which came into effect on September 1, they were fined ￡360, but were unwilling to pay and the penalty doubled to ￡720.

▽BBC News - Philippines web abuse ring smashed in UK-led operation

A paedophile ring that streamed live child abuse from the Philippines over the internet has been broken up after an operation by UK police and their counterparts in Australia and the US.
The National Crime Agency says 17 Britons have been arrested in Operation Endeavour, which spanned 14 countries.

▽Japan machinery orders hit five-year high - FT.com

Japanese companies are gearing up for significant new investments in domestic factories, distribution networks and other infrastructure this year, government data suggested on Thursday, in a shift that would bolster the country’s Abenomics-driven expansion.
Orders of new machinery by businesses, considered a leading indicator of overall capital investment, surged to a five-year high in November, rising 9.3 per cent to Y882.6bn. The year-on-year increase, which handily beat analysts’ expectations, was the second in two months and the fifth biggest on record.

▽BBC News - Rates of gout in UK 'soaring'

The prevalence of gout - traditionally associated with too much port and an unhealthy lifestyle - is soaring in the UK, according to a study.
One in 40 people in the UK is affected, according to analysis of 15 years of results, in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases journal.

▽BBC News - Gene therapy 'could be used to treat blindness'

Surgeons in Oxford have used a gene therapy technique to improve the vision of six patients who would otherwise have gone blind.