wikimaze

For decades the Ministry of Defence kept what it knew about UFOs locked away in its archives. Now, the contents of what have been called Britain's X-Files are finally being revealed. One of the UK's leading UFO experts told Radio 4's Today programme about his hunt.

The first eight of 160 MoD UFO files have been opened at the National Archives, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.

They contain details of thousands of sightings of strange lights and objects in the sky from 1981 to the present day.

Most of the sightings were made by ordinary people, including police officers, pilots and schoolchildren.

But, now the X-files have been opened, what do they actually tell us? The answer is disappointing for those who believe the British government has been concealing evidence of visits by aliens.

Planes, flames and hallucinations

As I leafed through hundreds of official UFO report forms it became obvious the vast majority of sightings could easily be explained.

For example, staff and customers at a pub in Tunbridge Wells reported seeing a UFO with "red and green flashing lights" moving across the sky. When asked to describe the direction of movement their answer was "Gatwick".

Aircraft, bright stars and planets, satellites and space debris all stand out as the most common explanation for UFO reports.

A small number have been revealed as hoaxes or hallucinations.

But a hard-core of 5-10% continues to defy explanation.

Despite the mystery that continues to surround those that remain "unidentified", the papers reveal how little time and effort was spent by the MoD to investigate them.

Even those reported by RAF pilots and civil aircrew were rarely investigated further.

This lack of interest was justified by officials on the grounds that the MoD was only allowed to determine whether UFO sightings were a threat to defence.

During the Cold War the major threat came from behind the Iron Curtain, not from outer space.

Meanwhile, public fascination for UFOs has continued to grow. In 1999, a survey for the Daily Mail found that 49% of the UK population believe that life exists on other planets and 29% believe that aliens had already visited Earth in flying saucers.

Equally popular is the idea that governments of the world are conspiring to conceal evidence of alien visits from the general public.

Secrecy provides a breeding ground for conspiracy theories and the MoD's policy of playing down the subject encouraged some people to believe that proof of UFO reality was being deliberately covered up to prevent panic.

The truth is out there

I was determined to discover if there was any truth behind these claims by using investigative techniques to uncover the facts.

From 1994, it was possible to obtain copies of government papers from the previous 30 years, and I began using this power to request copies of MoD files on famous UFO incidents.

In 2001 the MoD agreed to send me papers they held on the Rendlesham Forest incident - known as Britain's Roswell. This was the first breakthrough in what became a 10-year campaign for full disclosure of British government papers on UFOs.

When the Freedom of Information Act arrived in 2005, the MoD was overwhelmed with requests for information. It soon emerged that UFOs were among the top three most popular topics.

Working with a small group of colleagues, I embarked on a targeted strategy using FOI requests to cajole, persuade and - when necessary - force the MoD and other government departments to reveal what they knew.

This ultimately led to the decision, last year, to transfer the entire collection of UFO files held by Whitehall to the National Archives at Kew.

The files will be released in chronological order over a four year period and made available to the public to download free of charge for the first month. The papers contain details of 8,000 sightings from 1981 to present.

The names and addresses of those who reported sightings to the MoD have been removed to protect their identities.

In a statement released to us, the MoD conceded that "by opening our files in this way, we may help to counter the maze of rumour and frequently ill-informed speculation that surrounds the role of the MoD in the UFO phenomena".

Conspiracy theories are very difficult to disprove. I doubt the disclosure of these files will convince those who believe there is an official cover-up.

Inevitably, some have already dismissed this release as a whitewash. For them the 'truth' still remains out there, hidden no doubt in more top secret files hidden somewhere else.

The keynote is scheduled at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, June 9, 2008 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. The event runs from June 9 to June 13.
Apple plans to showcase its OS X Leopard and OS X iPhone during over 150 sessions and labs. Mobile developers are to get a taste of the the first iPhone track, allowing them to work with Apple's staff on applications for the Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, rich set of APIs, programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies. And so on.

Still, there's no word on the 3G iPhone, the gadget that everyone's been looking for for some time now. Apple is known to be the company that simply loves the idea of “secret”. On the other hand, Apple Store is all out of iPhones, so betting on the 3G iPhone being unveiled at the WWDC (if not sooner) could be a safe bet.

It's either that or the fruit company is thinking about axing the project altogether. And that's simply not a valid possibility.

Research In Motion is to launch a new model of its BlackBerry handheld email device which is intended to compete directly with Apple's iPhone and other popular smartphones.

The new handset, the BlackBerry Bold, is aimed not only at RIM's core business user base but also at the ever-growing retail market for such multi-function phones.

The Bold is the first BlackBerry to run on high-speed 3G mobile networks that allow it to offer a host of multi-media features.

Features include a two megapixel camera which can also be used to record videos, a video player to watch films and manage music collections, and also the most vivid display ever seen on a BlackBerry screen.

In addition, its design pays a certain homage to the iPhone, with a sleek black design set off by a silver rim around the edge of the handset.

In the US, RIM appreciates that the iPhone is probably its biggest threat when it comes to corporate users.

The Canadian-based company hopes the new handset will encourage business users to upgrade the handsets they currently have, rather than jump ship to the iPhone.

However, in Europe and Asia, the Bold should help RIM increase its subscriber base because 3G networks are more common than in the US.

Two-thirds of BlackBerry sales still come from the US and Canada, something which RIM is hoping will change with the launch of the Bold.

In a separate development, RIM, in tandem with Thomson Reuters and the Royal Bank of Canada, launched a $150m venture capital fund to invest in third-party applications and services for the BlackBerry to speed the development of additional services.

One of two chimpanzees - mother and daughter - that escaped from the Oasis zoo in La Orotava, Tenerife yesterday lunchtime went on to wreak havoc in the Los Rechazos bar nearby until it was recaptured after more than two hours by Guardia Civil officers.

Around twenty lunchtime customers were shocked when the chimp entered the bar at around 2pm - immediately running off into the kitchen where it suffered a small burn and cut to its leg.

Resisting all attempts to restrain it, the startled creature went on a path of destruction, destroying a stainless steel shelving unit and breaking a TV set.
Both Chimps were finally detained and led back to their cells by the Guardia Civil.

When questioned by a reporter from Tenerife Marketing the officer said that no charges would be pressed against the two Chimps.

More than 50% of young people in Liverpool admit to having taken cocaine, a new report claims.

The finding is part of research that shows an "epidemic" of drug use, with respondents saying they take drugs and drinking to enhance their sex lives.

Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University surveyed youngsters from nine European cities in their study.

Drug and alcohol charity Addaction said the city had been unfairly pinpointed but the findings were not shocking.

The poll was carried out among 1,341 youngsters and was led by Professor Mark Bellis, from the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).

It showed a third of men and a quarter of women, aged 16 to 35, drank to increase their chances of having sex.

An "epidemic" of recreational drug use and binge drinking is exposing millions of youngsters to drugs, which increases their chance of unsafe sex and increased sexual partners, experts warned.

The authors said these substances altered their sexual decisions and increased their chances of unsafe and regretted sex.

"For many, substance use has become an integral part of their strategic approach to sex, locking them into continued use," they said.

'Unfairly' targeted

The cities included were Liverpool, Vienna, Brno in the Czech Republic, Berlin, Athens, Venice, Lisbon, Ljubljana in Slovenia, and Palma, Spain.

But Elliot Elam, spokesperson for Addaction, the UK's largest drugs and alcohol charity, said: "I think this report does pinpoint Liverpool a little unfairly.

"Liverpool was the only British city surveyed and it's like saying Palma is representative of the whole of Spain - it's not.

"Although I'm not totally shocked by the statistics, we know we have a problem as compared to the rest of Europe in some areas.

"Drugs, particularly cocaine, are very prevalent and readily available."

He accepted that people "experiment", but often do not have access to enough information to make proper decisions about what they take.

"There is still an acceptability and cachet to taking cocaine," he said.

"[But] most young won't take drugs in isolation they won't just take cocaine, ecstasy or cannabis, they will take whatever is available."

News and rumors about the iPhone’s global expansion keep rolling in.

Citing a source at Swisscom, Lausanne-based Le Matin Online reported on Thursday that Apple had concluded an agreement to bring the 3G iPhone to Switzerland this summer. Swisscom, with 5.1 million subscribers, is the country’s largest mobile carrier.

Meanwhile, France Telecom CFO Gervais Pellissier said on Wednesday that his company was in talks with Apple to extend their partnership beyond France and into “more than just two countries.” He was responding to a journalist’s question about whether the company was hoping to secure rights to sell the iPhone in Spain and Poland, the largest countries in Europe still without an iPhone carrier.

Also on Wednesday, America Movil confirmed that it had signed a deal to bring the iPhone to 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. America Movil, based in Mexico City and controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim, has 159.2 million subscribers.

Earlier this week, Vodafone announced that it had signed an agreement to carry the iPhone in 10 countries, Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. The same day, Telecom Italia announced that it had also secured the rights to sell the phone in Italy, leading to speculation that Apple had abandoned its original iPhone business model and was no longer demanding revenue sharing in return for exclusivity.

But France Telecom’s Pellissier said that his company was sticking to the terms of its original agreement, which gives it the exclusive right to sell the iPhone in France for another two and a half years. France Telecom is resisting pressure to lower the price of the original iPhone — as O2 and T-Mobile did in the U.K. and Germany, respectively — at least until the 3G iPhone arrives. “We’ll see with the next model,” said Pellissier, according to Macworld, adding that the arrival of a new iPhone “will boost sales.” Pellissier declined to give exact sales figures, but said his company had sold more than 100,000 since November, 2007.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, exclusivity agreements may soon be the exception, not the rule. He notes that the Vodafone announcement, unlike press releases issued by the first wave of carriers, “did not reference any exclusive terms.” He expects Apple will start to feel the impact of the loss of revenue sharing from these nonexclusive deals in 2009, but still views them as a net positive for the company.

“While we expected an international rollout in CY08 (with the exception of China), this announcement is both sooner and more expansive that we were expecting. … The iPhone’s international rollout is about 6 months ahead of our original expectations.”
On Tuesday, April 29, Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest cellular carrier, announced that it too had signed a deal to carry the iPhone “later this year.”

Meanwhile, stocks of first-generation iPhones are running low. Spot shortages continue in the U.S., and Engadget reports that O2 on Thursday posted a notice on its website that iPhones — both the 8G and 16G models — are no longer available in its stores.

The 8G model was on sale in the U.K., but the 16G model sold at full price until the shelves ran dry.

O2 has confirmed reports that the iPhone is not currently available anywhere in the UK, and customers may have to wait for the putative 3G Apple iPhone.

Last month the price of the 8GB Apple iPhone was slashed to £169 in preparation for the release of a 3G iPhone, which Apple is expected to launch in the US at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 9.

Stock of both the 8GB and the 16GB Apple iPhone models, have flown off UK shelves, forcing service provider O2 to admit that no stock remains and the original iPhone will not re-appear. However, with no definite UK release date for the 3G iPhone, Brits could be waiting some time before they can get their hands on any model of Apple's hybrid mobile phone, media player and web browser.

The Carphone Warehouse has not yet officially confirmed it has no iPhones available, but its website highlights that they have no stock.

Both O2 and The Carphone Warehouse have said that the 16GB iPhone may yet appear later this month, but the word is not to expect a lot of stock to arrive.

A new documentary has claimed that Sir Cliff Richard lost out in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest because of a fix.

Producer Montse Fernandez Vila alleged that Spanish dictator Francisco Franco bought votes to ensure the Spanish entrant Massiel won the competition with the track 'La La La'.

Richard's song 'Congratulations', the favourite to win the music contest, came second.

Vila quotes Spanish TV presenter Jose Maria Inigo as saying: "It was a fix. Massiel won Eurovision with bought votes."

He claimed that Franco bribed judging panels to help boost Spain's international image. Eurovision no longer uses national juries and allows the public to vote.

Eurovision TV director Bjorn Erichsen said he couldn't "exclude" the possibility of a fix, but said there would be no investigation.

He told Reuters: "Just to make Cliff Richard a little happier and the Spanish winner a bit more unhappy?

"I don't think you should dig up old bodies to prove he was or wasn't the father. It's history."

En concreto, el acuerdo de Vodafone permitirá a los clientes de la operadora en Australia, República Checa, Egipto, Grecia, Italia, India, Portugal, Nueva Zelanda, Sudáfrica y Turquía usar el iPhone con la red del grupo británico, informó hoy Vodafone, que eludió dar detalles sobre si tendría acuerdos de exclusividad para la comercialización del dispositivo en algunos de estos países.

De esta forma, Vodafone sella su primer acuerdo para ofrecer el dispositivo de Apple, después de que el año pasado la filial europea de Telefónica, O2, se impusiera en el mercado británico, donde distribuye el iPhone en exclusiva.

Prueba del cambio de modelo que mantenía Apple de acuerdos de distribución en exclusiva es que Telecom Italia, participada por Telefónica, ha alcanzado también un acuerdo con la firma que preside Steve Jobs para ofrecer en Italia el iPhone, país donde también lo comercializará Vodafone.

En Europa, otros incumbentes como Deutsche Telekom y France Telecom son distribuidores del iPhone. En España está previsto que Telefónica anuncie en los próximos días el lanzamiento, en este caso en exclusiva, de este dispositivo antes del verano, aunque se desconoce si ofrecerá la versión 3G.

Italy has become the first country to sell the iPhone on a non-exclusive basis, suggesting that Apple's strategy of tying its device to one network in each territory may be unravelling.

This morning Vodafone and Telecom Italia announced that they had both won contracts to bring the iPhone to Italy later in the year - ending a year-long stretch in which only one operator had the right to the iPhone in each country.

Vodafone also said it had won the right to distribute the device in nine other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and India - a mobile market which is growing rapidly, but where the majority of customers are pre-pay rather than contract - a situation that does not suit Apple's revenue model.

Apple now faces the prospect that operators in other countries may revolt against its onerous terms, which are understood to involve the network sharing 10 per cent of revenues in return for the right distribute the iPhone exclusively for a two-year period.

"This is definitely a sign Apple is capitulating," Will Draper, an analyst at Execution, said. "The initial model was that Apple would give the iPhone to a network on an exclusive basis, but in Europe, where you have the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson selling sophisticated 3G devices, the iPhone simply isn't seen as such a premium product."

Apple is expected to announce a faster, 3G version of the iPhone next month.

Apple is understood to have shipped 600,000 iPhones to the three European operators which have won contracts to distribute the device - O2 in the UK, Orange in France, and T-Mobile in Germany - but so far demand has been disappointing, analysts said.

Last month, O2 was forced to cut the price of the device by more than a third - from £269 to £169 and T-Mobile made an even more drastic from €399 (£319) to €99 to get rid of unsold inventory.

The disappointing demand for the iPhone in Europe could be due to the device lacking the faster capabilities of 3G devices, analysts said. In the US, where 3G networks were less developed and where the device has sold well, the lack of 3G had been less of an issue.

"Apple is realising that it should be making the iPhone as widespread as possible - Vodafone having taken the view in Italy that it is not willing to share revenues for what will likely be a mediocre product," Mr Draper said.

The deal - which involves Vodafone distributing the iPhone in several other European countries, including the Czech Republic, Portugal, Egypt, Greece and Turkey - was not as sigificant for Vodafone as gaining the contract in one of the larger European markets such as Germany or the UK, he said.

BRITISH AND AMERICAN TROOPS could soon be getting a boost from an army of robotic creepy crawlies as British defence firm BAE Systems says it’s creating electronic spiders, dragonflies and snakes, which it hopes will save soldiers’ lives.

The little electronic creatures would be equipped to see and sense various dangers, including the presence of biochemical weaponry, and then beam back critical information to troops before they entered an area.

The soldiers would carry their robot insects with them, and send them as a swarm into buildings, caves, and enemy hideouts, both scaring the bejesus out of anyone lying in hiding and also purportedly preventing soldiers from falling into an ambush or boobytrap.

BAE Systems says that it has just signed a lucrative contract worth £19million with the US military to develop the sci-fi like critters, which can crawl, slither or even fly and that the first workable models should be joining soldiers on the battlefield by the end of 2008. They’re not terribly expensive to produce either. BAE reckons that once the R+D stage is over and the bugs go into production, each one should only cost about £100 to manufacture.

Steve Scalera, Programme manager at BAE told the Daily Wail "what we are doing is providing an enhanced awareness for soldiers, basically an extension to their eyes and ears". By Sylvie Barak

KYLIE Minogue last night lured her seldom-seen parents into the spotlight as she received one of France's highest cultural honours.

Melburnians Ron and Carol Minogue joined their daughter as French Culture Minister Christine Albanel lavished praised on their daughter over her fight against breast cancer.

At a ceremony in Paris, Ms Albanel bestowed on the 39-year-old the title of Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) and told her she was a "Midas of the international music scene who turns everything she touches into gold".

"I want to publicly salute the courage you showed by revealing publicly that you had breast cancer," the minister said. "Doctors now even go as far as saying there is a 'Kylie effect' that encourages young women to have regular checks."

Minogue kicks off a European concert tour in Paris today.

Past recipients of the French award include singers Bob Dylan and David Bowie and Hollywood stars George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.

Minogue in December was decorated in the Queen's New Year honours list with an OBE.

She said she was "deeply honoured" to be given the French award.

"French culture has influenced me greatly and I have always had colossal respect for the arts and people of France."

Traditionally on May Day the fool plays at pratfalls and buffoonery around local morris dancers, brandishing his fool's bauble, an inflated pig's bladder on a stick, with which he bewitches and controls the crowds. To the uninitiated it looks like chaos, but for his own safety the fool must know the dances as well as anyone, so that his weaving tomfoolery meshes perfectly with the intricate pattern of kicks, handkerchief waving, and stickbashing.

In the newspapers on May Day, meanwhile, journalists were earnestly reporting the news that pig's bladder extract had been used by scientists in a major breakthrough allowing one man to magically regrow a finger. "'Pixie dust' helps man grow new finger," squealed the Telegraph's headline. "'Pixie dust' makes man's severed finger regrow," said the Times. "Made from dried pig's bladder," they explained, this magic powder "kick-starts the body's healing process".

Now firstly, if you look at the pictures accompanying this column, you will see from the "before" image that there is no missing finger, so we might naively intuit that there is no "missing finger grows back" story to be written. In fact, from the grainy images and scant descriptions available - despite blanket news media coverage, including television interviews - it seems this bloke lost about 3/8 of an inch of skin and flesh from the tip of his finger, and the nail bed is intact.

Make no mistake: I'd be whingeing a lot if it happened to me, but injured fingers do heal, sometimes badly, often nicely, just like gouges and scrapes on the rest of your body. "Nerves, tissue, blood vessel, skin" regrew, said the BBC. Yes. Up and down the country as we speak. The body is an amazing thing. If your experience of rollerskating injuries is not enough, Simon Kay, professor of hand surgery at the University of Leeds, saw the before-and-after pictures, and says: "It looked to have been an ordinary fingertip injury with quite unremarkable healing. This is junk science."

Where did this miraculous story come from? Dr Badylak is the scientist quoted in all of these stories. He told me: "This story came to the media not through us, but rather through the patient. I would just as soon it had not gone out until we complete our pilot study." That is unfortunate. I asked how this patient was recruited, what consent was obtained, how safety was assessed, whether this work has been published, and whether it will be published. He did not answer. Fair enough. He agrees that scepticism is understandable. I'm grateful.

The patient is Lee Spievack. He was given the powder by Acell, a large and longstanding biotech firm founded by Alan Spievack. He is Lee Spievack's big brother. Dr Badylak is Acell's chief scientific adviser, and he can be seen bravely making the best of all this unwelcome media attention by showing TV cameras around his labs and giving lengthy interviews, both now and in February 2008, when this story made the US news, and also, interestingly, in February of 2007, when it made the news for the first time, in exactly the same form, with exactly the same characters, and many identical quotes, verbatim, in the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and more. The injury itself, meanwhile, apparently happened (and healed) way back in 2005.

Reconstructing the media frenzy, it all seems to have kicked off - this time around - with BBC New York correspondent Matthew Price doing a very credulous set of interviews that went live on the BBC site on Wednesday at 3pm.

He nods endlessly and says "that's astonishing" when the company founder's little brother tells him that the tip of his finger healed. In the computer animation used by the BBC, a finger miraculously grows back more than half its length, at least two joints worth. At 11:30pm that same day the Press Association put out a story, but the newspapers must have had it sooner for the next day's papers, so I guess they lifted it from the BBC, too. By May Day 3:30pm the story was on Fox news (their morning), and by 11:30pm it hit ABC Australia. All used the same quotes in different permutations. And that's how news works.

Meanwhile, Dr Badylak now tells me that the entire nail bed was missing. This contradicts various previous news reports and apparently the pictures. He also says half the distal bone was missing. Confused? You should be. I've asked him for more pictures. I guess that just goes to show that the media is a confusing and inappropriate place to communicate new and unpublished epoch-making scientific breakthroughs (from 2005).

But we can console ourselves with the thought that one lucky company has had plenty of international media exposure. On three separate occasions. Over two years.

Tenerife has proved to be a top holiday choice with families, according to one industry expert.

Overseas property specialist David Stanley Redfern said that the Canary Island had attracted as many as 1.5 million tourists during 2007.

Head of international research for the firm, Liam Bailey, said: "The Canary Islands are the happy medium we are all looking for.

"Tenerife's popularity over the year, and the economy's reliance on its tourism sector, means the infrastructure is well developed and a wide range of activities are on offer."

While on the island, holidaymakers can enjoy a range of sporting activities, including surfing, snorkelling, diving, and abseiling, to name a few.

Travel website Tenerife-Marketing.Com says that the diverse range of wildlife on the island makes it a "nature lover's utopia" and a "sun-seeker's dream".

Centuries ago, the island, which is located just 100 kilometres north of Africa, was described by ancient Greek poet Homer as a "garden of astounding beauty".

BORIS JOHNSON praised Ken Livingstone as a "very considerable public servant" and appeared to offer him a role in his new administration after being elected Mayor of London.

The Conservative candidate seized City Hall from the two-term Labour incumbent, with Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick in third place, in a catastrophic day for Labour in local elections.

Mr Johnson polled 1,168,738 votes to Mr Livingstone's 1,028,96ADVERTISEMENT6. After second preferences were allocated, Mr Johnson achieved around 53 per cent to Mr Livingstone's 47 per cent.

Mr Johnson told Mr Livingstone

: "I hope we can discover a way in which the mayoralty can continue to benefit from your transparent love of London."

He finished his speech with the words: "Let's get cracking tomorrow – let's have a drink tonight."

The result heaped further pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown after his party plunged to its worst council election results in four decades. Mr Johnson is the first Conservative mayor since the post was created and comes in on a wave of record voting.

At 45 per cent of those registered, turnout was a fifth up on 2004. It was the first time two million people have voted in the mayoral contest.

Mr Johnson's win was delivered in part by London's outer boroughs, where the Tory share was up in some areas by as much as 12 per cent.

Mr Livingstone's vote was also up in many Labour areas, but not by enough.

The record voting tally put back the announcement of the result from 8.30pm to nearly midnight as the electronic vote-counting machines struggled to cope with the numbers of ballots cast.

Many commentators dismissed Mr Johnson as a joke when the idea of his candidacy was first mooted.

But his pledges – among them to tackle crime on public transport, not to introduce a £25 congestion charge on higher-emission vehicles and to bring back the Routemaster proved popular.

Mr Livingstone proved unable to buck the national trend and suffered from a string of negative headlines and allegations of sleaze.

Mr Johnson's team confirmed he would stand down as MP for Henley as soon as possible. Mr Livingstone accepted defeat in the contest and said it was his own fault that he hadn't won a third election: "I accept that responsibility and I regret that I couldn't take you to victory," he said.

Tory leader David Cameron and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg were among the first to congratulate Mr Johnson.

Mr Cameron hailed a "serious and energetic" campaign and "remarkable" victory.

Aside from choosing a new mayor, London voters had also been choosing the 25-member London Assembly, with 14 members elected directly from constituencies, each made up of two London boroughs, and the remaining 11 divided between the parties in proportion to London-wide votes.

The British National Party (BNP) gained its first seat on the London Assembly after passing the five per cent voter threshold. By Paul Wilson

The mobile operator will offer unlimited internet access to cater for customers accessing Facebook and Bebo via their handsets

Vodafone is offering unlimited internet access as a standard feature of its new monthly mobile price plans, driven by an increasing amount of people accessing social networking sites and email from their phones.

The Newbury-based group is the first mobile phone operator in the UK to offer the unlimited deal with all its monthly tariffs, although O2 currently offers an unlimited deal for its iPhone customers.

Vodafone hopes the new flat rate policy will fuel use of the internet on mobiles, as operators search for additional ways to generate revenue in a saturated market.

Earlier this year the group announced it was cutting 450 middle management jobs and hiring nearly 500 sales and retail staff as it attempts to increase its share of the competitive mobile internet and broadband market.

Take up of internet on mobiles has been hampered by complicated pricing structures which limit the amount of data you can download. Because few people know what a megabyte actually means in terms of internet usage, customers have been nervous about wracking up hefty bills through browsing.

Cases such as the businessman who was sent an £11,000 phone bill for unwittingly downloading an episode of Friends while on a trip to Germany have fuelled people’s fears.

The launch of the iPhone towards the end of last year saw a surge in mobile data traffic, with Google confirming in February it had received 50 times more searches from the iPhone than from any other mobile handset. Apple’s new 3G version of the iPhone, which could be launched as soon as next month, is expected to boost mobile internet use further as it will provide access to the faster 3G network.

However, Vodafone wants people to know there are hundreds of other handsets that can access the internet.

Al Russell, head of mobile internet and content services at Vodafone, said: “Many people already have phones that can browse the internet so they don’t need to buy new ones. A lot of people are worried about how to use the internet on their phones. Our staff will put the phones in their hands and show them how to do it in two minutes. And they don’t have to worry about the cost.”

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue, said internet access would be automatically bundled in with all its new pay plans for no extra charge, with prices starting from £25 per month. Until now customers had to buy an additional internet bundle for £7.50, with a cap of 120 megabytes per month.

However, Vodafone’s “unlimited” package does in fact have a limit: it is subject to a “fair usage policy” of 500 megabytes per month. Users will not be penalised if they overstep the limit but the company said excessive abusers would be contacted.

The top three internet sites on Vodafone Mobile Internet are Facebook, Google and the BBC, while the top three searches by customers are Facebook, Bebo and eBay.

Paolo Pescatore, director of operator strategy at CCS insight, said: “It will be interesting to see how this is marketed as the 500 megabyte cap means it is not a truly unlimited service. But it is a step in the right direction in terms of the integration of data into existing tariffs and a greater level of simplicity.” By Lilly Peel