IDS vows to tackle child poverty

IAIN Duncan Smith will today seek to reassure critics that he is committed to ending child poverty but insist that “meaningful and accurate” measures must replace “arbitrary” household income targets.

The Work and Pensions Secretary will launch a consultation on controversial plans to move away from the poverty indicator introduced by Labour, which defines it as those children living in households with less than 60% of the median income.

Campaigners are concerned that the Government is trying to duck commitments to ending child poverty by 2020, but Mr Duncan Smith will say new measures are needed to take into account issues like worklessness, debt and family breakdown which underlie child poverty.

New drug found ‘every week’ in EU

A NEW drug is reported in Europe at a rate of about one every week, according to a report.

Some 50 new substances have already been detected this year, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said, with new drugs reported in the EU at the rate of around one per week.

A total of 49 new “psychoactive” substances were officially notified for the first time last year, the EMCDDA said  – the largest number reported in a single year, up from 41 in 2010, and 24 in 2009.

Defence chief warns of cuts impact

THE head of the armed forces has warned he cannot do everything ministers would like in the wake of the Government’s defence cuts.

Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards said ministers’ demands had not been revised to correspond with the reduced size of the armed forces.

“We have a whole load of tasks expected of us,” he said in an Oxford University lecture quoted by the Daily Telegraph.

Xi takes reins in China transition

XI JINPING became China’s new leader today, assuming the top posts in the Communist Party and the powerful military in a political transition unbowed by scandals, a slower economy and public demands for reforms.

Mr Xi was introduced as the new party general secretary at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People a day after the close of a week-long party congress that underlined the communists’ determination to remain firmly in power.

He and the six other men who will form China’s new collective leadership, all dressed in dark suits, walked in line on to the red-carpeted stage.