BBC News - Sunday November 19th

The McCanns headlined the late afterrnoon news on the BBC yesterday. It seems that there are two stories, the first being that a special "The Mystery of Madeleine McCann" documentary has been produced for the BBC Panorama programme and will be shown tonight (McCannorama). We were treated to some clips of the show; Kate hanging out washing whilst Gerry produced and distributed Find Maddie posters, telling how he"felt sick to the core" given his belief that Maddie had been targeted by a "predator" who had probably had the family under surveillance for a number of days prior to the abduction. Kate told how there was no self help style of book available for child snatching victims - please, surely not a book.

The second part of the saga was that the private detectives hired by the McCann's appear to believe that Madeleine will be found imminantly. We saw Fransisco Marco, the boss of the agency, who sat with a banana yellow file on his desk; marked with her name. It seemed remarkably thin and crisp looking, but Mr Marco, who spoke very similarly to Antonio Montana in Scarface, assured the reporter that he had concrete evidence and was "very close". We shall see, he seemed remarkably confident. For more on cockroaches, please see here (from yesterday)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7090000/newsid_7097900?redirect=7097950.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&asb=1

Next up was the ongoing story pf the two girls bodies found in the house in Margate, once occupied by Peter Tobin. There was not much to say as nothing else has been discovered , instead we heard from the people who originally swapped the council property with this creature. They told how he seemed a normal guy, "maybe a bit of a charmer".

Rumpus between the two candidates for the post of Liberal Democras leader followed. We saw them being interviewed together on a BBC television show where they began bickering. What was amusing was the body language employed.

Mining disaster in the Ukraine, 63 dead, 37 unaccounted for.

The Conservative party have stated that they wish every six year old child be able to read. We saw children practicing and heard of a phonetic method of education, learning sounds before attempting to read.

Next up - a strange story of terrorists in Lebanon who are attending a Red Cross run night school class in which the "rules of war" are taught, the example given was "humanitarian law". Images of a classroom with hooded and masked individuals were shown, some were wrapping bandages round each other. This was first aid we were advised, "learning to save lives" and was also on the syllabus. We then went "outside the classroom" to "private homes and busy streets", the terrorists "battleground". Here we saw rockets being fired into Israel, a daily occurence we were assured, and furthermore sometimes they use "schools as launchsites". We saw an unhappy Israeli to close. A link is provided to the video report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7090000/newsid_7098900/7098915.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&nol_storyid=7098915&news=1#

Last up was football - or was it. We heard of the European Championships and how England are still in with a chance. This is due to Israel beating Russia and coincidentally David Milliband, the foreign secretary was visiting. We saw him briefly, he told how "Israel was every Englishman's friend", then corrected himself, "even more of a friend". Faux pas?

cheers

Rules of War ?