Social care under-funded and rationed, say MPs

By Nick Triggle Health reporter, BBC News

Care funding is currently means-tested

Adult social care in England is "chronically under-funded" and "severely rationed", MPs say.

The Health Committee warned urgent action was needed and told the political parties to stop their point-scoring and seek solutions instead.

The cross-party group said if politicians failed they would "betray current and future generations".

Ministers are expected to set out their plans for reform of the £16bn system in the coming weeks.

ANALYSIS The challenge facing social care is the perennial problem of supply and demand. While the NHS budget doubled in real terms over the last decade, social care funding rose by little more than 50%. It has created a situation where councils have responded to more and more requests for help by restricting access to services, leaving vulnerable people to decide between struggling along on their own or selling their homes to pay for residential care. In truth, the social care system was only ever created as a safety net. The expectation was that a large proportion of caring would be done by relatives and friends, but with community and family life now very different from the 1940s that has become less likely. Politicians have responded by calling for a "partnership" between the state and individuals. That, of course, requires people to dip into their own pockets, creating an explosive issue in the run up to the election.

Social care, which includes support provided by councils to people in their own homes for things such as washing, eating and dressing as well as residential home placements, is now at the top of the political agenda.

Last summer the government put forward three options for change - one of which involved charging people a compulsory levy of up to £20,000, which has been dubbed a death tax by the Tories.

In recent weeks, the row has escalated with the parties launching attacks on each others' policies.

Two summits have been held in the last month alone, but still no consensus has been reached.

But the committee said it was essential agreement was brokered early in the next parliament so as not to "betray current and future generations".

The report said reform was long-overdue, pointing out it is 13 years since Tony Blair announced changes would be made.

In that time, councils have been placing more and more restrictions on who can get access to care.

Three quarters of the 152 local authorities with responsibility for care now only provide services to those with the highest needs.

Costs

What is more, the means-tested threshold, which stipulates that anyone with assets of more than £23,000 has to pay for their care, was unrealistic, the MPs suggested.

They point out that the actual cost of care on average, certainly of care homes, was much higher.

And without reform, the situation is only going to get worse because of the ageing population, the MPs said.

WHERE THE PARTIES STAND Labour - Put forward three proposals - all of which involve the state providing a basic level of care which would be topped up by either personal contributions, a voluntary insurance scheme or compulsory levy. The third option - dubbed a death tax - is said to be favoured by ministers Tories - Proposed an £8,000 voluntary insurance model to cover residential care costs. Now drawing up plans for a voluntary scheme to cover domestic care, such as help washing, eating and dressing in the home Lib Dems - Initially supportive of free personal care - like Scotland has introduced - but now want a "partnership" whereby state pays some and individual tops this up. Open to compulsory levy Q&A: Social care

However, they pointed out that the baby-boomer generation will not hit their mid 80s until the early 2030s, creating what they claimed was a "window of opportunity" to improve the system.

Committee chairman Kevin Barron added: "We don't want this issue to be turned into an election football for it to be kicked back into the long grass again in a few weeks."

And as an interim measure, while the system is being reformed, he said the £23,000 threshold should be raised so that more people could get access to care.

Mr Barron also said general taxation should not be ruled out as a way of funding social care - all the options being considered at the moment involve some state funding, coupled with individual contributions.

Stephen Burke, of Counsel and Care, a charity for older people, said: "This sets out in clear terms why we need reform. The three parties now need to meet the challenge."

Care services minister Phil Hope said a white paper setting out how the system should be changed and funded in the future would be published soon.

He added: "Fixing our system of care for people who are older and disabled is our very highest public service priority."

Its chief, Rajendra Pachauri, was talking about the need for an internal review before the UN announced this external one

There's little doubt, I think, that the forthcoming review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can make quite a lot of difference to the organisation itself.

(This is the review that was demanded last month by ministers, and whose terms of reference and operating agency the UN has just announced, entrusting the running of it to the Inter-Academy Council, an umbrella body for science academies independent of the UN.)

Many scientists who have served in the IPCC believe its 22-year-old shape is no longer fit for purpose, and have said so publically.

Its chief, Rajendra Pachauri, was talking about the need for an internal review before the UN announced this external one; and it is surely impossible that there is nothing that can be improved in the working practices of an organisation that was conceived before instantaneous electronic distribution of information became the norm and before climate science became the political battleground it is now.

A bigger question is whether the review can have much impact outside the organisation. Will governments be any keener to act on the recommendations of a reformed IPCC? Will the public find its currently rather impenetrable phraseology easier to decipher? Will it be more widely trusted?

It's possible to divide published opinions on the issue into three broad categories: those who are only concerned with getting the message across that man-made climate change is an over-riding threat requiring urgent action, those who are concerned about the issue but are more concerned by what they see as lack of rigour and transparency within the IPCC, and those who are convinced that global warming is a fraud anyway and the IPCC one of the lead swindlers.

Those in the first group are unlikely to be influenced by the review, even if it eventually contains damning passages.

Those in the third group are unlikely to be swayed by anything praiseworthy; in fact I have e-mails coming in right now that are already assuring me that the review will be a whitewash, which is I suppose a logical conclusion if your frame of reference is that everything about climate change is just a conspiracy.

It's the second group that intrigues me, including as it does some pretty smart and independent-minded people.

Most are yet to comment. One who has, Roger Pielke Jr, describes what we know about the review so far as a "good start", but has some words of caution as well. I'll be watching the blogosphere and the op-ed-o-sphere with interest over the next couple of days to see what other thoughts come up.

One issue that was raised at the UN news conference - who raised it I cannot tell, as I listened to the conference remotely in London - was how independent the scientists on the Inter-Academy Council's review panel will be from the scientists who contributed work to the IPCC in the first place.

It's a natural question to ask. There's clearly a chance that the first people you would think of to take part in such a panel would be the most eminent climate scientists of the day, and they're wholly likely to have been intimately involved with the IPCC at some juncture.

There's also the wider point that some of the institutions involved with the Inter-Academy Council, such as the UK's Royal Society, have taken a very public stance on climate change.

But to assume this will automatically cause problems for the review is, I think, to misunderstand its nature and purpose.

It is not a review of climate science - some would say it ought to be, but it isn't, it's a review of IPCC practice - and it will surely draw more interesting and meaningful conclusions through involving scientists working in completely different fields, with experiences of completely different collating organisations.

They do exist; medicine alone has many. One that provides an interesting comparison is the Cochrane Review process, which aims to provide something analogous to IPCC reports - regular assessments of the evidence base on its chosen subject - but works very differently.

Will the Inter-Academy Council choose to make use of expertise from fields apparently unrelated to climate science? We shall see - and that, perhaps, will be one of the factors that determines how meaningful and visionary the review turns out to be, and how it is eventually perceived.

Big business leaves big forest footprints

VIEWPOINT Andrew Mitchell

Consumers around the globe are not aware that they are "eating" rainforests, says Andrew Mitchell. In this week's Green Room, he explains how many every-day purchases are driving the destruction of the vital tropical ecosystems.

Burning tropical forests drives global warming faster than the world's entire transport sector; there will be no solution to climate change without stopping deforestation

When was the last time you had a "rainforest picnic"? Or even, perhaps, an "all-day Amazon breakfast"?

Next time you are in a supermarket picking up a chicken sandwich for lunch, or fancy tucking in to a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and bacon before setting off for work, spare a thought for the Amazon.

A new report by Forest Footprint Disclosure reveals for the first time how global business is driving rainforests to destruction in order to provide things for you and me to eat.

But it does also reveal what companies are doing to try to lighten their forest footprint. Sadly, however, the answer is: not much, at least not yet.

Consumers "eat" rainforests each day - in the form of beef-burgers, bacon and beauty products - but without knowing it.

The delivery mechanism is a global supply chain with its feet in the forests and its hands in the till.

Because of growing demand for beef, soy and palm oil, which are in much of what we consume, as well as timber and biofuels, rainforests are worth more cut down than standing up.

Supermarket sweep

Governments, which claim to own 70% of them, create prosperity for their nations through this process, but poor forest communities need their forests for energy and food.

The report shows that the EU is the largest importer of soy in the world, much of it coming from Brazil.

It also shows that after China, the EU is the biggest importer of palm oil in the world.

Soy provides cheap food to fatten our pigs and chickens, while palm oil is in everything from cakes and cookies, to that fine moisturiser you gently rubbed into your cheeks this morning.

I have become a bit of a bore in supermarkets, challenging my kids to hunt for soy lecithin or palm oil (often disguised as vegetable oil) on product labels. You should try it! The stuff is everywhere.

The gargantuan farms of Brazil's Mato Grosso State can boast 50 combines abreast at harvest time, marching across monoculture prairies where once the most diverse ecosystem on Earth stood, albeit in some cases many years ago.

Further north, thousands of square miles of rainforest natural capital is going up in smoke each year, often illegally, to provide pastureland for just one cow per hectare to supply beef hungry Brazilians or more prosperous mouths in China and India.

Many of the hides from these cattle then go into the designer trainers, handbags or luxury car upholstery that wealthy markets have such an appetite for.

Few Europeans know that their fine steak au poivre or choice after dinner mints might have an added expense on the other side of the world that unknown to them, is altering life on Earth.

None of this would matter but for three things. Firstly, evolution is being changed forever. Most of us, sadly, can live with that.

Secondly, burning tropical forests drives global warming faster than the world's entire transport sector; there will be no solution to climate change without stopping deforestation.

Finally, losing forests may undermine food, energy and climate security. Yet saving them could, according to UN special adviser Pavan Sukhdev's forthcoming review on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), reduce environmental costs by $3-5 trillion per year.

Oh yes, let us not forget the 1.4bn people, many of them the world's poorest, who depend on these forests for their survival and who cannot afford to lose them, even if we can.

Full disclosure?

So what can be done? The first thing is to encourage business to mind its "forest footprint".

The impact global business has on deforestation will be a key factor in halting deforestation in the future. No amount of hand-wringing in the UN climate talks will alter action on the ground unless the drivers of global deforestation are also tackled.

Whilst poverty is possibly the largest of these drivers, so is the way in which business drives the conversion of cheap forest land to feed their global commodity supply chains - all the way to you and me.

This is why we launched the Forest Footprint Disclosure project last year: to invite companies to first recognise their impact on forests and then disclose what they were doing about it.

Such a request might be ignored by giant businesses if it were not for the fact that investment managers, with at least $3.5 trillion of assets, also wanted to know and backed our disclosure request with their names.

Why? Because it is their money that may be at risk if the companies do not clean up their act.

In 2009, Amigos da Terra's report Time to Pay the Bill, and Greenpeace's Slaughtering the Amazon highlighted the cattle industry as a driver of climate change responsible for the bulk of Brazil's greenhouse gases through deforestation and methane emissions from 180 million cows.

This resulted in the withdrawal of a $60m loan from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation to Bertin, Brazil's largest exporter of beef.

In June 2009, Brazil's major supermarkets - Pao de Acucar, Wal-mart, and Carrefour - all announced they would no longer accept beef from ranches involved in deforestation.

In July, sportswear manufacturer Nike said it would not accept leather in its products from Brazil if it came from deforested areas.

And in October, JBS Friboi, Bertin, Mafrig and Minerva - the largest players in Brazil's cattle industry - all agreed to similar action.

Daniel Azeredo, a Federal Public Prosecutor in Para State, has recently filed legal actions totalling $1bn against 22 ranches and 13 meat-packing plants for non-compliance with federal laws governing deforestation.

'Extraordinary time'

The effects are rippling all the way up the supply chain - well, to you and me again.

Consumers and businesses can play their part by demanding that their suppliers know where their "Forest Risk Commodities" come from. But will they?

Evidence from certification schemes shows that consumers care but not enough to get their wallets out.

If business cannot secure a premium for the extra costs of producing the good stuff, why should they bother?

I believe, however, that we are at an extraordinary time in human history when all that could be about to change.

What all this is evidence of is a quickening step in a remarkable journey that will result in nothing less than the transformation of the 21st Century economy.

Curbing emissions from deforestation, which was the outsider in the UN negotiations just two years ago, has moved to become the front-runner. It is now widely recognised that forests offer the quickest, most cost-effective and largest means of curbing global emissions between now and 2030.

So, are we at a tipping point in history where this could actually happen?

Conservation will never out-compete commerce with a global population rising toward nine billion.

Feeding and fuelling our growing world is one of the greatest opportunities of the 21st century, but sending natural capital up in smoke and squandering ecosystems that support wealth creation in the process will, ultimately, be counterproductive.

Businesses that understand this will be the rising stars of the future. Our report provides some of the first insights into who the potential winners and losers may be, and which business are setting the pace today.

Investors will want to spot them

DNA of extinct birds extracted from ancient eggshell

Eggs have long been studied but only now is their DNA being isolated

Researchers have found that eggshells of extinct bird species are a rich source of preserved DNA.

An international team isolated the delicate DNA molecules of species including the massive "elephant birds" of the genus Aepyorni.

The Proceedings of the Royal Society B research demonstrated the approach also on emu, ducks and the extinct moa.

The team says that the technique will enable researchers to learn more about ancient birds and why they died out.

"Researchers have tried unsuccessfully to isolate DNA from a fossil eggshell for years," said Charlotte Oskam at Murdoch University in Western Australia, who authored the research.

"It just turned out that they were using a method designed for bone that was not suitable for a fossil eggshell."

The team has obtained DNA from the shells of a variety of species, most notably the elephant bird Aepyornis , which at half a tonne was heaviest bird to have ever existed.

The elephant bird's eggs could make 30 omelettes

Aepyornis looked like an outsized ostrich, standing three metres tall; most of them died out 1,000 years ago.

Archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson at the University of Sheffield hopes that an analysis of the bird's DNA will shed more light on why the bird became extinct.

The extinction coincided with humans arriving at Aepyornis's natural habitat in Madagascar.

The mystery, according to Professor Parker Pearson, is that there's no evidence that the bird was hunted by humans.

"There's not even evidence that they ate the eggs - even though each one could make omelettes for 30 people," he told BBC News.

The elephant bird may be at the root of legends about giant birds. Marco Polo claimed erroneously that these giant birds could fly. There are also tales of birds that could pick up elephants in 1001 Arabian Nights.

There are complete skeletons of the elephant bird, but by analysing its DNA researchers hope to build up a more detailed picture of the creature and discover why it went extinct.

Views sought on knotweed predator

The psyllid only has an appetite for knotweed

The public's views are being sought on the introduction of a plant-eating predator from Asia into Britain to help control Japanese knotweed.

Scientists have identified an insect that keeps the superweed under control in its native home of Japan and think it could do the same in Britain.

The consultation is being carried out by Defra and the Welsh Assembly before a final decision is made.

If the plan gets the go-ahead, the insect could be released next summer

Carer respite funding 'spent elsewhere'

Carer respite funding 'spent elsewhere' say charities

Millions of pounds was allocated to offer respite to carers

Millions of pounds intended to fund respite breaks for voluntary carers in England has been spent on other areas of the NHS, according to two charities.

The government announced in 2008 that it was doubling money set aside to allow long-term carers some time off - £50m this year and £100m next year.

The Crossroads Care and Princess Royal Trust for Carers say only 23% of this year's cash is being spent on carers.

NHS Trust representatives say money was moved to best meet local needs.

The two charities say the problem is that the money was never ring-fenced by the government and simply added to existing health budgets.

Some trusts have no idea how much money they received towards respite breaks, the charities claim.

'Different priorities'

Gordon Conochie, of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, accused primary care trusts of failing to respond to local needs because of a lack of "transparency and accountability".

"Primary care trusts aren't telling local people what they're using the money for, they're not actually consulting with carers' organisations or carers locally," he said.

"And in our report we found a quarter of them hadn't even spoken to a local authority about actually publishing a joint plan with them."

The charities based their analysis on responses to Freedom of Information requests from 100 primary care trusts.

David Stout, director of the Primary Care Trust Network, said trusts had planned to meet carers' needs but were also faced with "many, many different priorities".

"So inevitably there's a need to meet needs as best you can in your local area."

Mad as a March hare

A long-held view is that the hare will behave strangely and excitedly throughout its breeding season, which in Europe is the month of March (but which in fact extends over several months beyond March). This odd behaviour includes: boxing at other hares, jumping vertically for seemingly no reason and generally displaying abnormal behaviour.^[3] An early verbal record of this animal's strange behaviour occurred in about 1500, in the poem Blowbol's Test^[4] where the original poet said:

Thanne [th]ey begyn to swere and to stare, And be as braynles as a Marshe hare

(Then they begin to swerve and to stare, And be as brainless as a March hare)

One use of the phrase itself appears to have occurred in 1529 when Sir Thomas More wrote in his text, The supplycacyon of soulys made by syr Thomas More knyght councellour to our souerayn lorde the Kynge and chauncellour of hys Duchy of Lancaster. Agaynst the

Do degrees mean nurses will not 'dirty' their hands?

VIEWPOINT Dr Helen Allen and Pam Smith Centre for Research in Nursing and Midwifery Education, University of Surrey

Researchers say students feel technical care is valued over bedside care

The training changes that have given students the opportunity of getting a degree in nursing at university have provoked fears that the basic care of patients will suffer.

Two University of Surrey researchers conducted a study that showed the modern student nurse does not always see it as their role to do the 'dirty' things like cleaning up blood and faeces.

Dr Helen Allen, director, and Pam Smith, professor of nursing, say it was not an attack on nurses but on a health system that devalues care.

Our study 'How student nurses' supernumerary status affects the way they think about nursing: a qualitative study' was headlined on some websites as 'clearing up poo will not help me learn - student nurses reject basic care'.

Our fieldwork took place in acute wards where trained nurses told us they faced increased pressures to meet NHS targets Your comments

It illustrated the dilemma faced by students and nurses to provide vital bedside care to patients while remaining at the heart of nursing.

The response to our article, resulted in over 90 comments from students, nurses, health care assistants (HCAs), teachers and mentors demonstrating just how acutely and passionately that dilemma is felt.

'Too posh'

The background to our study arose as a response to the 'too posh to wash' debate following the changes in nurse education that removed student apprentices from the formal workforce, replacing them with HCAs.

Given the current pressures, trained nurses are unable to deliver bedside care

We also wanted to find out who provided the leadership for care in a changing NHS and a system that has uncoupled formal education from practice.

Our fieldwork took place in acute wards where trained nurses told us they faced increased pressures to meet NHS targets.

Although they maintained that bedside nursing is still central to what they do, we found that the pressure from targets led to the work becoming routine and a hierarchy of tasks.

Bedside personal care primarily performed by HCAs has been divided from the technical work performed by trained nurses who administer drugs, dressings and undertake organisational work.

'Routine care'

Making bedside care routine is not new.

It existed in the 1980s when the new nursing challenged routine and hierarchy and sought to personalise care through the nursing process and primary nursing in a spirited attempt to give holistic patient-centred care.

We make very clear that it is the system not the student that is at the heart of the problem - both the way education is de-linked from practice and the hierarchy of technical nursing over personal care

Given the current pressures, trained nurses are unable to deliver bedside care.

This situation reinforces the perception that technical care is valued over and above bedside care as a source of learning for students' future roles leaving them feeling unprepared to be trained nurses.

Our research showed that students conceptualise nursing differently to qualified staff because of an intensification of the division of labour between registered and non-registered staff.

Consequently students often observe HCAs performing bedside care and trained nurses undertaking technical tasks.

The absence of clear role models leads students to sometimes question bedside care as part of their learning to become a qualified nurse and to put greater value on learning technical skills.

'Difficult positions'

Our research does not suggest that students are the problem.

Rather it analyses the system that puts them into difficult positions.

We make very clear that it is the system not the student that is at the heart of the problem - both the way education is de-linked from practice and the hierarchy of technical nursing over personal care.

As one respondent said, 'mentors don't know what to do with students, so they use them as a spare HCA'.

Many of the respondents agree with our findings that trained staff in placements don't always know what to do with students and that students can end their placements in a rush to achieve their learning objectives having spent their time beforehand fitting in and 'not alienating their colleagues'.

Furthermore mentors must organise patient care at the same time as supervising students and receive neither recognition nor rewards for their efforts.

Our research neither attacks students nor devalues care but analyses a system that does.

BBC sold on climate change

The health risks of a big carbon footprint

VIEWPOINT Dr Tony Waterston Consultant paediatrician and chair of the Advocacy Committee, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

It is difficult to open a newspaper or watch a news report without hearing the words 'climate change'.

Doctors have united under the Climate and Health Council

But while the iconic images might be of the polar ice caps melting, paediatrician Dr Tony Waterston warns there will also be a devastating human health cost unless we reduce our carbon footprint.

Have we heard too much about climate change? Are people switching off the subject, particularly as we in the UK go through the coldest, snowiest winter for many years, and the media is full of stories about the climate sceptics?

The Lancet medical journal has had two special editions on the subject during the last year, which show that children, the most vulnerable in any community, are already dying in large numbers in poor countries as a result of a warming world.

To a paediatrician, this would be a devastating response, coming just as health professionals are accepting not only that lives are being lost by global warming, but that the potential health benefits of a low carbon lifestyle would be very, very big.

Little has been said in the media about climate change and health - usually what we hear about is polar bears, loss of the ice cap, dying species and flood risks.

But much hard data has come out in recent months to show that health is being hit now.

The Lancet medical journal has had two special editions on the subject during the past year, which show that children, the most vulnerable in any community, are already dying in large numbers in poor countries as a result of a warming world.

Women involved in agricultural work are also severely affected.

Disease increase

What will happen?

There will be increases in malnutrition and malaria, with flooding and diarrhoeal disease up next.

Malnutrition is already linked with most deaths in the developing world, and is increasing as a result of the effect of climate change on food crops.

The countries most concerned are those where children are already dying in substantial numbers

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), climate change is projected to increase the percentage of the population of Mali at risk of hunger from 34% to 64-72% by the 2050s.

Both droughts and flooding will become more common and both interfere with growing seasons especially in countries already prone to such disasters.

And malaria will be more common as the mosquito which carries it moves into countries which were formerly too cold. Dengue, another severe tropical infectious disease also spread by mosquitoes, will similarly increase.

Health benefits

Mothers will also be affected by the same conditions, and if they become ill or die then there will be a knock-on effect on their children.

The countries most concerned are those where children are already dying in substantial numbers: Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, in particular Bangladesh, and low-lying island states in the Pacific.

A WHO assessment of the burden of disease caused by climate change suggested that the modest warming that has occurred since the 1970s was already causing over 140,000 excess deaths annually by the year 2004.

Just one meat-free day a week could make a difference to health as well as to the climate

So doctors are increasingly determined to do something to prevent global warming, particularly as the health benefits of low carbon living are huge.

Reduced dependence on motor traffic will mean less pollution and reduced road accidents; more walking will lead to less obesity and reduced heart attacks; and less meat eating (since growing animals to eat is a huge contributor to global warming) will mean lower cholesterol and perhaps fewer cancers.

Doctors united

This doesn't mean everyone giving up meat! But just one meat-free day a week could make a difference to health as well as to the climate.

What can doctors do to help their patients and the government understand that low carbon living offers a great future?

Over the years, doctors have taken a lead in setting health priorities, on topics from sewers and drains to immunisation, smoking and alcohol and road traffic accidents.

Now doctors both locally and globally have united under the Climate and Health Council (CHC). Top doctors in the UK are calling on the NHS to reduce its carbon footprint and the government to set higher targets for reduction of carbon emissions to avoid a worsening health crisis worldwide.

And crucially, doctors are curbing their well-known love of travelling by holding video conferences instead, and bringing together medics from India, Africa and Europe for educational meetings without leaving a carbon footprint.

The power of a good example?

He has 19 children according to his office

Jacob Zuma 'deeply regrets pain' over love-child

Jacob Zuma is proud of his Zulu culture

South African President Jacob Zuma has apologised for fathering a child with a woman who was not his wife.

"I deeply regret the pain that I have caused to my family, the ANC (African National Congress), the alliance and South Africans in general," he said.

The daughter of a World Cup chief gave birth to a baby girl last year believed to have been fathered by Mr Zuma.

Mr Zuma, aged 67, is a Zulu, a group which practises polygamy. He has three actual wives and at least 19 children.

Pressure

"I have over the past week taken time to consider and reflect on the issues relating to a relationship I had outside of wedlock," Mr Zuma said in a statement, admitting that it "has been a subject of much public discussion and debate".

ZUMA'S WIVES Thobeka Madiba-Zuma - married, January 2010 Nompumelelo Ntuli - married, January 2008 Sizakele Khumalo - married, 1973 Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - divorced, 1998 Kate Mantsho Zuma - died, 2000

"It has put a lot of pressure on my family and my organisation, the African National Congress," the statement said.

Earlier this week, the president confirmed that he was having a relationship with Sonono Khoza - the 39-year-old daughter of World Cup official Irvin Khoza.

He said the matter was "intensely personal" and dismissed as "mischievous" criticism from activists who said his actions had undermined official HIV/Aids campaigns.

Mr Zuma was praised last year when he announced major changes to the country's Aids policy, which included increasing the roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs.

But opposition parties now say his behaviour contradicts the government's stance on HIV prevention - preaching regular condom use and faithfulness to one partner.

South Africa has the highest number of HIV infections in the world - more than five million people.

This is not the first time that the president's sex life has been under the spotlight.

In 2006, while being acquitted of rape, Mr Zuma admitted that he had made a mistake by having unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV-positive.

Like Ms Khoza, the woman was also the daughter of a family friend.

Mr Zuma has been married five times in all, most recently in January, and is also engaged to another woman.

He has 19 children according to his office, but it is not clear if that includes the baby born last October.

Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels,

March 1, 2010

Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report

Ben Webster, Environment Editor

The expansion of plantations has pushed the orang-utan to the brink of extinction in Sumatra, where it takes 840 years for a palm oil plantation to soak up the carbon emitted when rainforest is burnt

Using fossil fuel in vehicles is better for the environment than so-called green fuels made from crops, according to a government study seen by The Times.

The findings show that the Department for Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations. The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly-used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission.

Under the standard, each litre of biofuel should reduce emissions by at least 35 per cent compared with burning a litre of fossil fuel. Yet the study shows that palm oil increases emissions by 31 per cent because of the carbon released when forest and grassland is turned into plantations. Rape seed and soy also fail to meet the standard.

The Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation this year requires 3¼ per cent of all fuel sold to come from crops. The proportion is due to increase each year and by 2020 is required to be 13 per cent. The DfT commissioned E4tech, a consultancy, to investigate the overall impact of its biofuel target on forests and other undeveloped land.

The EC has conducted its own research, but is refusing to publish the results. A leaked internal memo from the EC’s agriculture directorate reveals its concern that Europe’s entire biofuels industry, which receives almost £3 billion a year in subsidies, would be jeopardised if indirect changes in land use were included in sustainability standards. A senior official added to the memo in handwriting: “An unguided use of ILUC [indirect land use change] would kill biofuels in the EU.”

The EC hopes to protect its biofuel target by issuing revised standards that would give palm plantations the same status as natural forests. Officials appear to have accepted arguments put forward by the palm oil industry that palms are just another type of tree.

A draft of the new rules, obtained by The Times, states that palm oil should be declared sustainable if it comes from a “continuously forested area”, which it defines as areas where trees can reach at least heights of 5m, making up crown cover of more than 30 per cent. “This means, for example, that a change from forest to oil palm plantation would not per se constitute a breach of the criterion,” it adds.

Clearing rainforest for biofuel plantations releases carbon stored in trees and soil. It takes up to 840 years for a palm oil plantation to soak up the carbon emitted when the rainforest it replaced was burnt. The expansion of the palm oil industry in Indonesia has turned it into the third-largest CO2 emitter, after China and the US. Indonesia loses an area of forest the size of Wales every year and the orang-utan is on the brink of extinction in Sumatra.

Last year, 127 million litres of palm oil was added to diesel sold to motorists in Britain, including 64 million litres from Malaysia and 27 million litres from Indonesia. Kenneth Richter, biofuels campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: “The billions of subsidy for biofuels would be better spent on greener cars and improved public transport.”