This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Connaught provides a wide range of services including property management for the public sector

Property and environmental services giant Connaught is expected to formally enter administration later, putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The company, which specialises in social housing, said late on Tuesday it was “in the process of appointing administrators”.

However, it added that some subsidiaries would not be affected and would continue to trade “as normal”.

Earlier, the firm said it had failed to secure funding to pay £220m of debt.

Connaught employs almost 10,000 people. Trading in the company’s shares was suspended on Tuesday.

Reports suggest that rival firms, such as Mears, are ready to step in to take over some of Connaught’s contracts.

“The board is saddened to announce that it is in the process of appointing partners from KPMG as administrators of Connaught and its subsidiary, Connaught Partnerships, which comprises its social housing division,” the company said in a statement released on Tuesday.

It added that its other main subsidiaries, Connaught Compliance, National Britannia Holdings, Fountains and Connaught Environmental are not being placed into administration, and “will continue to trade normally”.

In an earlier statement, Connaught said it believed the funding it needed from its lenders to continue operating would “not be forthcoming”.

Connaught provides a wide range of services, including property management for the public sector and affordable housing projects.

It is also involved in waste management, cleaning and forestry services.

Connaught ran into serious difficulties in recent months after it became clear that a number of contracts would be loss-making.

In June, it warned that public spending cuts, designed to reduce the government’s budget deficit, would impact 31 projects, reducing its revenues by £80m this year.

This hit, it said, would push the company into the red for this year.

Shares in the Exeter-based company, which began life in 1982, have lost about 90% of their value since late June.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Examples of “good” dancing and “bad” dancing

Scientists say they’ve carried out the first rigorous analysis of dance moves that make men attractive to women.

The researchers say that movements associated with good dancing may be indicative of good health and reproductive potential.

Their findings are published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

“When you go out to clubs people have an intuitive understanding of what makes a good and bad dancer,” said co-author Dr Nick Neave, an evolutionary psychologist at Northumbria University, UK.

“What we’ve done for the very first time is put those things together with a biometric analysis so we can actually calculate very precisely the kinds of movements people focus on and associate them with women’s ratings of male dancers.”

Dr Neave asked young men who were not professional dancers, to dance in a laboratory to a very basic drum rhythm and their movements with 12 cameras.

Dr Nick Neave explains what makes for good moves on the dance floor

These movements were then converted into a computer-generated cartoon – an avatar – which women rated on a scale of one to seven. He was surprised by the results.

“We thought that people’s arms and legs would be really important. The kind of expressive gestures the hands [make], for example. But in fact this was not the case,” he said.

“We found that (women paid more attention to) the core body region: the torso, the neck, the head. It was not just the speed of the movements, it was also the variability of the movement. So someone who is twisting, bending, moving, nodding.”

Movements that went down terribly were twitchy and repetitive – so called “Dad dancing”.

Dr Neave’s aim was to establish whether young men exhibited the same courtship movement rituals in night clubs as animals do in the wild. In the case of animals, these movements give information about their health, age, their reproductive potential and their hormone status.

“People go to night clubs to show off and attract the opposite sex so I think it’s a valid way of doing this,” Dr Neave explained.

“In animals, the male has to be in good physical quality to carry out these movements. We think the same is happening in humans and certainly the guys that can put these movements together are going to be young and fit and healthy.”

Dr Neave also took blood samples from the volunteers. Early indications from biochemical tests suggest that the men who were better dancers were also more healthy.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Terry Jones said he had prayed over the matter but insisted the Koran-burning would go ahead

A small US church says it will defy international condemnation and go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary.

The top US commander in Afghanistan warned troops’ lives would be in danger if the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida went through with the stunt.

Muslim countries, the US government and Nato have also hit out at the plan.

But organiser, Pastor Terry Jones said: “We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam.”

The controversy comes at a time when the US relationship with Islam is very much under scrutiny.

There is heated debate in the country over a proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre streets from Ground Zero, site of the 9/11 attacks, in New York.

‘Significant problems’

Despite having a congregation of just 50, the plans of the church in Gainesville have gained worldwide notoriety, sparking demonstrations in Afghanistan and Indonesia.

Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said on Monday that the action could cause problems “not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world”.

“It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems,” he said in a statement.

The Vatican, the Obama administration and Nato have also expressed concern over the plan.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that “any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm’s way would be a concern”.

Protesters burned an effigy of Pastor Terry Jones

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen blasted the plans, telling reporters that burning Korans violated the Nato alliance’s “values”.

Dr Jones – author of a book entitled Islam is of the Devil – has said he understands the general’s concerns but that it was “time for America to quit apologizing for our actions and bowing to kings”.

Another pastor at the church told the BBC that members intended to burn several hundred copies of the holy book on Saturday evening, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in defiance of an order by the city not to hold an open air bonfire.

Muslims consider the Koran to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the holy book is deeply offensive to them.

An interfaith group of evangelical, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim leaders meeting in Washington on Tuesday condemned the proposals as a violation of American values and the Bible.

News of the bonfire has also sparked protests in Afghanistan and Indonesia.

In Kabul on Monday, about 500 protesters chanted “long live Islam” and “death to America” as they set fire to an effigy of Mr Jones.

Thousands of mostly Muslim demonstrators rallied around Indonesia at the weekend.

Story retracted

Claims that US soldiers have desecrated the Koran in both Afghanistan and Iraq have caused bloodshed in the past.

There were deadly protests in Afghanistan in 2008, when it emerged that a US soldier deployed to Iraq riddled a copy of the holy book with bullets.

And further lives were lost in Afghan riots in 2005 when Newsweek magazine printed a story alleging that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.

The story later turned out to be false and was retracted by the magazine.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Iran insists that its uranium enrichment programme is purely peaceful

The latest report from UN weapons inspectors has raised new fears that Iran could be building the capability to make nuclear weapons.

Until now, most experts believed that there were certain clear “red lines” that Iran would need to cross in order to make a bomb. Most importantly, it would need to block UN monitoring, in order to divert uranium from the existing programme to make it suitable for a nuclear warhead.

But it seems from the latest UN report that Iran is trying to stretch or blur those “red lines”, enabling it to move closer to the ability to make a bomb without a major confrontation with the UN or the West.

Iran has continued to allow access to the UN inspectors – any attempt by Iran to end that would trigger a major international crisis.

But the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report shows Iran is playing a delicate game, co-operating, but at the same time limiting the UN’s access to key plants and information.

The leading think-tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said Iran was taking a “minimalist” approach to its so-called Safeguards agreement with the nuclear inspectors, under which they are granted access to monitor the nuclear programme.

The ISIS warned that Iran was “degrading” that Safeguards agreement to such an extent that there was now a danger of Iran diverting uranium into a bomb-making programme and of that remaining undetected for a significant period of time.

Amongst the issues raising concern is Iran’s policy on which inspectors to accept.

The IAEA believes Iran is trying to exclude inspectors with a good knowledge of Iran’s programme in favour of those with less experience of it.

Iran has also refused to provide detailed plans of new plants outside Qom and in Arak.

Whether Iran is in breach of its agreement with the UN by doing this is disputed.

But the IAEA says Iran’s approach “does not allow the agency to build confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities”.

Or as the ISIS puts it – the approach increases fears that “Iran may seek to increase its capability to divert nuclear material in secret and produce weapon-grade uranium in a plant unknown to the inspectors or western intelligence agencies”.

Until recently Iran was only enriching uranium to around 3.5%. To make a nuclear bomb this would need to be further enriched to around 95% purity.

Iran recently began fuelling its first nuclear power station, at Bushehr

That process would take at least a year, and it would be difficult to do it in secret, unless Iran took the radical step of expelling the UN inspectors. That, the theory goes, would give the world a clear warning sign, time to rally an international coalition to take action.

But Iran has now produced 22kgs of uranium enriched to 20%.

The Iranian government says it needs this to fuel the Tehran research reactor, though outside experts doubt that Iran has the know-how to convert it into a useable form for this purpose.

And by producing this higher grade of uranium, Iran is also reducing the time it would take to enrich it to weapons grade, perhaps down to just a matter of months.

It’s a very different approach from Iran’s neighbour Iraq, which engaged in very open clashes with UN inspectors, often blocking them from key sites.

Instead, Iran is managing to keep most of its differences with the inspectors “under the radar”, never precipitating a major head-to-head confrontation.

None of this is proof, or even clear evidence, that Iran intends to build a bomb.

Iran insists that its uranium enrichment programme is purely peaceful. But none of the uranium being produced at the controversial Natanz plant is being used in the newly opened Bushehr reactor, Iran’s only major reactor.

Iranian officials do enjoy outwitting the West as a point of pride.

There are advantages for Tehran in building up its capability to make a bomb, without necessarily taking the final decisive step in that direction.

And a recent report by another leading think-tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), not to be confused with the ISIS, pointed out that Iran was unlikely to have workable delivery system, in other words a big enough missile to use with a nuclear bomb, until around at least 2015.

Nevertheless, this latest UN report is likely to increase nervousness in Western capitals that the sooner or later the dispute over the Iranian nuclear programme may come to a head.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Paul Weller was the first star to arrive on the red carpet

Nominated artists, including Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal and The XX, are arriving in London for this year’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize.

Fellow nominees Laura Marling, Wild Beasts, and folk-rock quartet Mumford and Sons are also due at the ceremony.

They are joined by Corinne Bailey Rae, Biffy Clyro, Foals, Villagers, I Am Kloot and the Kit Downes Trio.

The winner of the £20,000 prize for album of the year will be announced live on BBC Two.

Bookmakers William Hill slashed its odds on Weller winning the prize after an “unprecedented” rush of bets over the weekend.

The former Jam star – who has been nominated for the award once before – is now 4/6 to take the title with his album Wake Up The Nation.

It is 16 years since his second solo release, Wild Wood, was shortlisted. On the night, he lost out to M People’s Elegant Slumming.

The 52-year-old, who was the first star to turn up, told the press he did not resent missing out in 1994.

“No not at all, I’m not one to hold grudges,” he said.

‘Grin like mad’

London trio The XX had previously been the favourites.

“We make very non-main-stream, intricate, complex music”

Kit Downes (centre)

Laura Marling is another second-time nominee for her latest album, I Speak Because I Can.

Her boyfriend – Marcus Mumford – is frontman of Mumford And Sons who are nominated for their debut release, Sigh No More.

Speaking before the ceremony, Kit Downes from the acoustic jazz outfit The Kit Downes Trio, said: “Winning isn’t that big a deal really.

“You’e got to understand where we come from – we come from under a rock. We make very non-main-stream, intricate, complex music. When you go into jazz, you don’t think you’re going to be on the front cover of NME.”

Dizzee Rascal is the only nominee to have won the prize before, with his debut release Boy In Da Corner in 2003.

This latest nomination, for Tongue N’ Cheek, marks his third shot at the title after only four albums, as he was also listed in 2007 for Maths + English.

I Am Kloot, are nominated for their fifth album Sky At Night. It was produced by Guy Garvey from Elbow, who won the Mercury prize in 2008.

John Bramwell from I Am Kloot said Garvey had given them advice, telling them to “grin like mad, and clap when you lose”.

The Mercury prize is open to UK and Irish acts who have released albums over the past year.

Twelve months ago, the award went to hip-hop star Speech Debelle for her debut release, Speech Therapy.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.