Clashes In Brazil As One Million March

The Brazilian government will hold an emergency meeting later amid spiralling protests over alleged corruption and high prices which have seen one million people take to the streets.

The demonstrations, which have spread to more than 80 cities across the country, look set to continue into a second week, prompting President Dilma Rousseff to assemble her top cabinet members and forcing her to cancel an overseas trip.

In Sao Paulo state, a protester was killed when a driver - apparently enraged about being unable to drive along a street - rammed his car into a crowd of demonstrators.

Riot police in Rio were faced with the largest demonstrations

In Rio de Janeiro, 300,000 people staged a demonstration near City Hall, while in the capital Brasilia, hundreds of protesters tried to storm the foreign ministry building, leaving authorities "frightened", according to local newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo.

Clashes have also taken place in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, in Porto Alegre in the south, in the university town of Campinas north of Sao Paulo and in the northeastern city of Salvador.

Sky correspondent Jason Farrell, in Rio de Janeiro, said protests there began with a "carnival atmosphere", as demonstrators arrived "draped in flags or with stripes of Brazil's national green, yellow and blue painted onto their faces".

More than 300,000 people joined protests in Rio de Janeiro

However, peaceful protesters were caught up in clashes between rioters and police, who fired tear gas and pepper spray into the crowds.

Law student Wallace Tarenta told Sky News: "I have come here because we need more money for hospitals and teachers and security - not more stadiums for the World Cup."

Protester Jorge Vieira added: "Brazil is a strong country, we have good natural resources and a strong government - but nothing goes to the people."

Riot police in Belem were confronted by stone-throwing demonstrators

The protests in Brazil were sparked by public anger about the rising cost of public transport.

Several city leaders have already revoked planned increases to bus and subway fares.

However, Sky's Jason Farrell said anger has now turned to a perceived lack of investment in public services, as well as the $15 billion cost of hosting next year's football World Cup.

Celebrations in Sao Paulo, where planned fare hikes have been dropped

"On the face of it, Brazil has it all: a growing economy, a World Cup and the 2016 Olympics to look forward to," he said.

"But protesters say a corrupt government is damaging the lives of working people while squandering money on showcase stadiums.

"With riots breaking out in cities across the country, the world is now watching Brazil and wondering how it will cope with the pressures of hosting two of the world's biggest sporting events."

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Afghan Negotiators Boycott Talks With Taliban

Afghan peace negotiators have told Sky News they have no intention of attending talks with the Taliban in Qatar.

A spokesman said: "Taliban are not interested in peace, (their) only intention is in becoming the government again."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai had already cancelled a peace delegation to Doha, where security talks between the US and the Taliban were due to take place.

He was angry about a move by the Taliban to cast their new office in the Gulf nation of Qatar as a rival embassy.

The Qatari government insisted that a sign suggesting it was an embassy was removed, a move welcomed by the Americans.

But the negotiators say that Taliban officials removing the flag and sign is not enough to undo the damage done when they opened the office.

Sky Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lisa Holland said: "It's something the Afghan government are furious about.

"They feel they've been sidelined. The situation's been made even worse by the fact the Taliban were allowed to open an office here (in Doha).

"The Afghan government say the Taliban have been allowed to look like a government in exile."

The Taliban has said it does not recognise the government of Mr Karzai.

It's representatives held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday at which they hoisted their flag and a banner with the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."

The security talks are an ongoing discussion about the shape of a small international "back-up" force to stay in Afghanistan once combat troops have left at the end of next year.

The US has dropped its pre-condition for talks that the Taliban must ends its links to al Qaeda. That is likely to be part of an initial declaration of agendas between the two sides.

US officials say the first meeting will be about laying out each others' positions then they will go away and meet again in a few weeks.

More follows...

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Poor Children Are Being 'Failed By Schools'

Disadvantaged children are being failed by the education system, according to the chief inspector of schools.

In a speech later - which will be broadcast live on Sky News - Sir Michael Wilshaw will warn there is an "invisible minority" of disadvantaged children living in "leafy suburbs, market towns or seaside resorts" who are being let down by their schools.

He believes an army of top teachers employed by the Government is necessary, used to target schools that are failing.

"The quality of education is the most important issue facing Britain today," he will say.

Sir Michael Wilshaw says some schools are "coasting"

"In the long term, our success as a nation - our prosperity, our security, our society - depends on how well we raise and educate our young people across the social spectrum."

Sir Michael was once head of Mossbourne Academy, Hackney, a failing school which under his direction has become one where places are sought after.

He said: "Nothing is predictable or predestined about poverty leading to failure - I've always believed that. Poor children can do well."

The head now is Peter Hughes. He said: "Mossbourne has shown the rest of Hackney what can be achieved. People now believe it is possible. People come and see how we've done it and that's having a ripple effect."

In the last 20 to 30 years, standards in schools in major cities such as London, Birmingham, Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Leicester have been transformed, and problems of under-achievement have shifted to deprived coastal towns and rural areas of the country, especially in the East and South East of England, Sir Michael will argue.

There are also a significant number of poorer children in reasonably rich areas such as Kettering, Wokingham, Norwich and Newbury, who are being failed by their schools.

"Today, many of the disadvantaged children performing least well in school can be found in leafy suburbs, market towns or seaside resorts," he is expected to say.

"Often they are spread thinly, as an 'invisible minority' across areas that are relatively affluent.

"These poor, unseen children can be found in mediocre schools the length and breadth of our country. They are labelled, buried in lower sets, consigned as often as not to indifferent teaching. They coast through education until - at the earliest opportunity - they sever their ties with it."

Sir Michael will urge the consideration of a "National Teaching Service", with teachers employed directly by the government who can be sent to struggling schools.

:: Watch Sir Michael Wilshaw's speech live at 10am on Sky News - satellite channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602 and freeview Channel 82.

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Sopranos Star James Gandolfini Dies Aged 51

James Gandolfini has died of a suspected heart attack while on holiday in Italy at the age of 51.

The star was best known for his Emmy-winning portrayal of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano in television series The Sopranos.

He died on Wednesday in Rome, and had been due to appear at a film festival in Sicily at the weekend.

No cause of death has been given, but unconfirmed reports suggested a heart attack or stroke.

Sopranos creator David Chase said Gandolfini was one of the greatest actors of all time.

A photograph of Gandolfini is displayed in a restaurant window in New York

"He was a genius. Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that.

"He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of genius resided in those sad eyes."

Gandolfini married former model Deborah Lin in 2008, and their daughter was born last year. He also has a son from a previous relationship.

Many fans have flocked to the diner featured in the final scene of The Sopranos to pay their respects.

TV network HBO, which was behind the hit series, described him as a "special man" and a "great talent".

The Sopranos cast accept an Emmy at the 2007 awards

"We're all in shock and feeling immeasurable sadness at the loss of a beloved member of our family," a statement said.

"He was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone - no matter their title or position - with equal respect."

Since The Sopranos ended in 2007, Gandolfini has appeared in a number of big-screen roles, including thriller Zero Dark Thirty and the comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

Gandolfini also shared a Broadway stage in 2009 with Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden in a celebrated production of God Of Carnage, where he earned a Tony Award nomination for best actor. He also was in On The Waterfront with David Morse.

At the time of his death, he had been working on a new HBO series titled Criminal Justice.

"It is with immense sorrow that we report our client James Gandolfini passed away today while on holiday in Rome, Italy," his managers said in a statement.

"Our hearts are shattered and we will miss him deeply. He and his family were part of our family for many years and we are all grieving."

In a December 2012 interview, Gandolfini said he gravitated to acting as a release to get rid of anger.

"I don't know what exactly I was angry about," he said. "I try to avoid certain things and certain kinds of violence at this point.

"I'm getting older, too. I don't want to be beating people up as much. I don't want to be beating women up and those kinds of things that much any more."

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Bankers Should Face Jail Terms, Report Says

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

A new criminal offence punishing bankers for "reckless misconduct" while running their institutions is the centrepiece of proposals unveiled by a group of MPs and peers aimed at reforming the industry.

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS), which was set up after last summer's Libor-manipulation scandal led to Barclays being fined £290m, said in its final report that all areas of British banking required urgent change.

Citing "a profound loss of trust born of profound lapses in banking standards", the commission said a string of measures were needed to repair the industry's reputation.

In its 553-page report called Changing Banking For Good, the PCBS argued that individual accountability among senior bankers was lamentable, that industry pay schemes required a radical overhaul, and that executives should face a new sanctions regime that would dish out appropriate penalties, replacing a system that "looked good but achieved little".

It also said, as expected, that the Treasury's strategy for managing its 82% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was not working adequately and that options, including analysis of a break-up of the bank, should be conducted in the coming months.

The commission's hard-hitting recommendations underline the scale of public anger that so few British bank executives have faced punishment over the crisis that led to hundreds of billions of pounds of public money being put at risk to rescue them.

Only a small handful of senior bankers have been sanctioned by regulators for their roles prior to the bailouts of 2007 and 2008, while relatively few have been hit in the pocket despite mis-selling scandals such as the one involving payment protection insurance.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chaired the commission, said that senior bankers had hidden "behind an accountability firewall" but warned that governments and regulators had also been culpable for the decline in standards.

Among the concrete measures recommended by the PCBS are:

:: The introduction of a new criminal offence for reckless misconduct that would carry a custodial sentence.

:: Bankers' pay should be deferred for up to 10 years and should be more closely aligned to the safety and soundness of a firm.

:: Regulators should gain powers to cancel the pay and pensions of executives at banks which require taxpayer support.

:: UK Financial Investments, the body responsible for managing taxpayers' stakes in Lloyds and RBS, should be scrapped.

:: New senior persons and licensing regimes to ensure that regulators can take tougher action against bankers whose actions damage their employer's reputation or finances.

:: Reforms aimed at bolstering competition in retail banking, including, as Sky News revealed this month, a review of the costs and benefits of full current account portability.

Parts of the banking industry, whose main lobbying group the British Bankers' Association refused to respond on camera to the report, are expected to argue that some of the proposed reforms would undermine the City's international competitiveness.

Measures to defer pay for up to a decade would go further than any other major banking centre, but the PCBS argued that it was essential to do so if the industry's culture was to be genuinely reformed.

"The scale of remuneration in banking, the way it has been set and the form in which it has been paid have all incentivised misconduct and excessive risk-taking. The rewards for fleeting, often illusory, success have been huge, while the penalties for failure have been much smaller, or non-existent," it said.

"Many bankers were on to a one-way bet. Unlike unlimited liability partnerships, they had little or no skin in the game."

The Government is expected to consult on the PCBS recommendations that would require legislative change.

In a statement, the Treasury welcomed the commission's report, saying there were "many recommendations in it which will help the government's plan to create a stronger and safer banking system".

"The Government publicly welcomes the commission's recommendations on increased personal responsibility especially at a senior level, increased professional judgement by regulators and better functioning markets.

"We will now get on with a swift response and will report before the summer recess."

In his annual Mansion House speech on Wednesday night, George Osborne is likely to back the commission's call for a review of the options for the Government's stake in RBS, according to Treasury aides.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, also welcomed the report, backing calls for banks to relinquish ownership of the payments system and for a new approvals regime for bank staff.

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NHS Watchdog In 'Hospital Scandal Cover-Up'

Senior officials at an NHS watchdog have been accused of a cover-up after destroying their own report into a hospital maternity unit at the centre of a care scandal.

An independent investigation has found the Care Quality Commission failed to properly inspect University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, where the deaths of up to 16 babies are being investigated by the police.

Concerns were first raised in 2008, but in 2010 the CQC gave the trust, which serves 365,000 people in South Cumbria and North Lancashire, a clean bill of health.

Wednesday's report suggests that CQC bosses were so concerned about protecting the watchdog's reputation that they ordered an internal review to be deleted because it showed that their original inspection was flawed.

The new report details one official saying that he was told by a senior manager in March last year to destroy his review because it would expose the regulator to public criticism.

Furness General Hospital in Cumbria

It says: "He informed us that he was instructed by a member of senior management at CQC to 'delete' the report of his findings.

"We think that the information contained in the report was sufficiently important that the deliberate failure to provide it could properly be characterised as a 'cover-up'."

James Titcombe, whose baby son Joshua died aged just nine days old in Furness General Hospital in 2008 after staff failed to spot and treat an infection, described the report as "shocking".

"It embodies everything that is wrong with the culture in the NHS. It's something that's been rotten really about the system," he said.

Westmorland General Hospital, where Morecambe Bay NHS Trust is based

"We need it to change. We need that culture to change. Patient safety should be the number one priority, and organisations that work within regulation need to be aligned with that principle."

Responding to the report's findings, the regulator said: "We let people down, and we apologise for that.

"This report reveals just how poor the Care Quality Commission's (CQC) oversight of University Hospitals Morecambe Bay (UHMB) was in 2010.

"This is not the way things should have happened. It is not the way things will happen in the future. We will use the report to inform the changes we are making to improve the way we work and the way we are run."

It insisted there was "no evidence of a systematic cover-up" and promised "more thorough inspections".

CQC chairman David Prior said: "The publication draws a line in the sand for us. What happened in the past was wholly unacceptable.

"The report confirms our view that at a senior level the organisation was dysfunctional. The board and the senior executive team have been radically changed."

Shadow health minister Jamie Reed said: "First, we need to know who took the decision to delete this report, who else was party to the decision and what the justification was for so doing.

"Second, urgent clarity is needed on whether the CQC had any contact with the Department of Health about this matter and if so, what was the nature of that contact."

The CQC, which faces at least 30 civil negligence claims, is to be subject to a public inquiry.

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Ohio Kidnap: Ariel Castro Charged By Police

Ariel Castro has been charged in Ohio with kidnap and rape after police revealed his three alleged victims had only been let out of the house twice in 10 years.

Castro, 52, was held after Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, and Ms Berry's six-year-old daughter were freed from the house in Cleveland.

He has been charged with four counts of kidnapping and three of rape. The rape charges do not relate to the child.

The women are believed to have only been allowed to leave the home briefly on two occasions, both times to go "into the garage in disguise", deputy police chief Ed Tomba told a news conference.

"They were in that home. They don't believe they've been outside of the home for the last 10 years.

Watch Ariel Castro's court appearance live on Sky News

"They were not in one room, but they did know each other and they did know each other was there."

He refused to comment on reports that the women had become pregnant on several occasions and had lost the babies.

Police also released recordings of the moment stunned medics arrived at the scene after the women escaped.

Castro's two brothers - Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50 - were also detained on Monday but are not expected to be charged in connection with the kidnapping.

A police officer outside Ariel Castro's home in Cleveland

"There is nothing that leads us to believe that they were involved or had any knowledge of this," Mr Tomba said. "We found no facts to link them to the crime."

Tomba refused to discuss specifics of evidence discovered in the home, but earlier, city police chief Michael McGrath had said the women were "bound and there were chains and ropes in the hall".

Ms Berry, Ms DeJesus, and Ms Knight were aged 16, 14 and 20 respectively when they went missing around a decade ago.

All three were rescued when Ms Berry, now 27, alerted a neighbour who helped them escape.

People embrace outside Gina DeJesus' home after she was freed

Ms Berry and Ms DeJesus, 23, have been welcomed back at their homes with balloons and banners, while crowds cheered as they were reunited with their families.

Sandra Ruiz, an aunt of Ms DeJesus, said there were "not enough words to express the joy we feel at the return of our family member, Gina".

Ms Berry's sister, Beth Serrano, thanked the public for their "support and courage over the years".

Ms Knight is yet to appear in public. The 32-year-old is understood to be in a good condition at a local hospital.

Following criticism of the police handling of the case, Mr McGrath said he was "absolutely" sure officers did everything they could to find the women and disputed claims from neighbours that officials had been called to the property previously when suspicions were raised.

Ariel Castro is expected to appear in court later.

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