Madeleine kidnapper arrest ‘soon’

A private investigator hunting Madeleine McCann has claimed in an American TV documentary that the four-year-old is alive. Francisco Marco, who is paid by Gerry and Kate McCann’s wealthy backer, Brian Kennedy, said: “We are 100% sure that she is alive. We are sure she was abducted. We are very, very close to finding the kidnapper.” On BBC’s Panorama tomorrow Gerry McCann says: “I’ve no doubt Madeleine was targeted and that makes us sick to the core. I think the true word is predator.”

Bird flu virus contained, says farm

A cull of 28,000 poultry on five farms linked to a bird flu outbreak in East Anglia will be completed today. The owners of Redgrave Poultry in Diss, Norfolk, the farm at the centre of the outbreak, are optimistic that the virus has been contained. Government advisers are baffled, however, about the outbreak’s source.

Halt to cloning

The man who created Dolly the sheep is abandoning cloning in favour of a new technique that produces stem cells without an embryo. Ian Wilmut, a professor at Edinburgh University, will switch to a revolutionary and less controversial technique pioneered in Japan, in which cells have been developed from fragments of skin.

Help for Heroes passes £1m

The Help for Heroes campaign, raising money for a new swimming pool and gymnasium at Headley Court, the armed forces rehabilitation centre, has raised more than £1m. Sunday Times readers have donated more than £105,000 for the home in Surrey, where soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan recuperate.

£20m raised for Children in Need

BBC’s Children in Need raised almost £20m to support disadvantaged children, beating all previous records. Audience figures were the highest for four years, reaching a peak just before 9pm at 11.3m.

Clarification

In an article on page 7 of News Review we refer to the planned period of detention for terrorist suspects being 58 days. In fact the government has previously indicated that it wants to double the existing period to 56 days. The reference to 58 concerns a reported option to extend the existing 28 days by 30 days under civil contingency laws.

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