Tagging scheme 'written off'

Does electronic tagging work?

The government home detention curfew scheme - HDC - which allows the early release of electronically-tagged prisoners is not being implemented by prison governors because they don't believe it works.

It was introduced 2 years ago, with the underlying intention of reducing overcrowding in jails - the total is expected to rise to 73,000 this summer.

Prisoners with sentences between four months and three years are eligible to take part in the scheme during the last three months of their sentence - a period recently extended by the Home Secretary by a month. So what's gone wrong?

Despite criticism from the National Association of Probation Officers, the Director General of the Prison Service, Martin Narey, told the World at One that the scheme had been a fantastic success.

Monitoring Zimbabwe
The situation in Zimbabwe is expected to dominate a two-day EU Foreign Ministers meeting which started this morning.

The council will consider a report from Pierre Schori, Head of the EU Observer mission, on how the EU should now proceed.

There is anxiety that withdrawing the remaining EU observers entirely could trigger the cancellation of next month's presidential election by Robert Mugabe.

There are other election monitors in Zimbabwe, including a team from SADC - the Southern African Development community and an observer mission from South Africa.

Dr Samuel Motswaynarnay is the head of the South African mission.

He told the World at One he thought elections would go ahead in Zimbabwe, even with the threat of sanctions.

ISAF inquiry
Downing Street has confirmed that an inquiry is underway by Afghan police and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) into the shooting incident in Kabul over the weekend.

An Afghan man was killed after British paratroopers opened fire claiming they had come under attack from gunmen, following allegations that troops fired on a car taking a pregnant woman to hospital during the night-time curfew.

Lieutenant Colonel Neil Peckham of ISAF told the programme that paratroopers were entitled to defend themselves if they came under fire.

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