Scotland Yard is trying to track down thousands of suspects who bought fake identities over the internet. European finance ministers are expected to hold a conference call today as expectations grow that Spain will seek a bail-out. Plus what's stopping Britain from attracting its fair share of wealthy Chinese tourists? And...just in time for Euro 2012... WAG, The Musical.
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0709 Four members of a gang specialising in fake identities and documents were jailed yesterday. They ran their multi-million pound operation from Spain. James Kelly has been following the story.
0711 The Syrian National Council is the main opposition movement to the rule of President Assad in Syria and it is now electing a new leader of its own. The BBC's Jonathan Head, in Istanbul, examines the significance of the vote.
0714 "The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever," that's what the photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson said. But are there moments that should be lost? That s the subject of Photographs Not Taken, a book of testimonies and essays by photographers about moments they wished they hadn't captured on camera. The Today programme's Tom Feilden spoke to one of the contributors, Erika Larsen, and the book's editor, Will Steacy, who explained why sometimes a photograph cannot do a moment justice.
0719 An ambush in Ivory Coast as resulted in the deaths of at least seven UN peacekeepers. The BBC's John James examines the effect the killings may have on this already unstable state.
0722 Britain's ambassador to Beijing Sebastian Wood wrote to the prime minister this week accusing the government of allowing a "fortress UK" image to damage the UK's chances of attracting Chinese tourists. He warned that what he called a "completely self-defeating" view of the country had been allowed to take hold and that encouraged Chinese tourists to travel elsewhere instead. How much of the problem is down to visas or is our PR putting them off? Sandie Dawe is chief executive of Visit Britain and analyses the challenge.
0727 Sports news with Rob Bonnet.
0733 Everybody is expecting Spain to make a request for aid this weekend, to get some help in its challenge of bailing out its banking sector. It will be country number four in the Eurozone to do so. Interestingly, the Spanish have wanted to wait but have been under pressure to get moving on asking for aid. The BBC's Madrid correspondent, Tom Burridge examines the timing and importance of the request.
0737 Write a bounced cheque here and you get fined by your bank. Do it in Dubai and you could end up going to jail for a very long time. A group of foreign businessmen who are in prison in Dubai for writing post-dated cheques without the funds to cover them have gone on hunger strike. They claim their sentences are out of proportion, but the laws remain in place, and are seen in Dubai as an important part of the system to protect investors. From Dubai, Katy Watson reports.
Liam Gallagher, of Oasis fame, was in the audience last night and he spoke to the BBC's Colin Paterson and music journalist Ben Cardew explains why this comeback is being seen as so important.
0748 Thought for the Day with Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet.
0751
Ukraine has been in the news this week, with both football and alleged racism making the headlines. But can we get a fuller picture of the nation, which does have a population of 46 million people. Ukranian tv presenter Andrit Kulykov and Kataryna Wolczuk, senior lecturer in Ukranian studies at Birmingham University,
explain why their country still remains a mystery for many.
Yesterday, members of the gang which ran the site were sentenced for their roles in the multi-million pound enterprise. The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector Tim Dowdeswell, explains that that some clients of the site, called Confidential Access, went on to commit major frauds of their own.
0816
Euro 2012 is underway with no-one giving England's footballers much of a chance of success. The England coach Gary Neville has said there'll be no repeat of previous tournaments when the WAGs' glamorous presence overshadowed the action on the pitch. But that hasn't deterred theatre producers from bringing a new show WAG -- The Musical to the London stage;
it opens this week in a small theatre in north London, with a real life WAG among the cast, as Vincent Dowd reports.
0820 Spain is now expected to seek help with its financial crisis this weekend. But help only for its its banks. The government does not want to be associated with the stigma of bail-out itself if it can possibly avoid it. Hugh Pym, the BBC's chief economics correspondent and Europe editor Gavin Hewitt outline Spain's shrinking options.
0827 Sports news with Rob Bonnet.
0835
On Wednesday Mazraat al-Qubair, a small village in the central Hama province of Syria was the site of a massacre. About 80 people were killed. Both sides in the Syrian struggle blame each other for the killings. At first, when the UN tried to get there its representatives were shot at. But yesterday they made it - and
with them was Paul Danaher,- the head of the BBC's Middle East bureau, who gives his account of his journey to the village.This package contains descriptions which may distress some people.
0843 Review of the papers.
0846 There has been a very private and rather sad story emerging on twitter through the week, that of the break up of the marriage of Ben Goldsmith - son of the late tycoon Sir James Goldsmith - and his wife, Kate, from another rich and renowned family, the Rothschilds. Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt examines if it is right to break up online, and the consequences of such an act.
0850 What will the health service in England look like in 10 or even 20 years' time? One big idea for saving money and improving quality of care is to reconfigure the delivery of care away from traditional district hospitals. In Manchester for example, there are some radical proposals for re-shaping healthcare. Our health correspondent Dominic Hughes has been looking at what they would mean.
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