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'No PM-Obama meeting scheduled'

White House denies Fox News report; George Mitchell due back Sunday.

U.S. Calls Nigerian News Report of Possible American Troop Intervention Complete Fabrication

State Department rejects Nigerian Compass story that says U.S. would intervene in event of Nigeria’s break-up

Even With Green Light, Foreign Universities May Not Rush to Build in India

US Ambassador Timothy Roemer says global economic downturn may give American colleges pause about further overseas expansion

Barclays boss receives £60m pay

Bob Diamond, president of Barclays and head of its investment banking division, has been rewarded with cash and shares worth £60m

Bob Diamond, president of Barclays, has been rewarded with cash and share awards worth a potential £60m, while two of his closest lieutenants have shared almost £40m for their efforts in recent years.

The 58-year-old American runs Barclays's investment banking arm and has received awards through a series of arrangements, based on past performance and dependent on his performance over three years.

The total could have been higher if Diamond had not decided to waive the bonus he was due to be awarded for 2009 in an attempt to deflect criticism of bankers' pay.

The numbers – published in the bank's annual report today and a stock exchange announcement – comes amid a furore over City bonuses and efforts by banks to show pay restraint. John Varley, the Barclays' chief executive who has a £17m pension pot, waived his bonus for 2009 as well as a possible award of shares that would have amounted to millions of pounds under a long-term performance plan.

Some £27m of the total received by Diamond was in cash, as he topped up his basic salary of £250,000 by selling specially created shares in the bank's asset management arm, Barclays Global Investors, which were valued at £26.8m.

The rest is made up of share awards, some of which have been released to him after performance targets set out over the last five years were reached, while some will only pay out if he meets certain performance targets over the next three years.

Some £8m shares were released to him earlier this week, according to a stock exchange announcement, although he sold about half of them to pay his tax bill. He could also be awarded a maximum of 5.5m shares – worth £18m at today's share price – in three years time through a performance share plan.

Some £7.6m shares have been paid out from a bonus that dates back as far as 2005.

Jill Treanor

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Baby food giant targets adult market

German firm Hipp says one in four consumers now grown-ups who find baby food easier to swallow and digest

Can't be bothered to chew your food? Too tired to cook and looking for a quick meal? You might consider opening a jar of baby food.

The world's largest baby food manufacturer has said an increasing number of adults are turning to its pureed meals because they find them easier to swallow and digest.

About one in four consumers of the more than 100 varieties of pulped food – from apple and cranberry breakfast, to vegetable and beef hotpot – made by the Bavarian-based firm Hipp are adults, according to its owner.

Claus Hipp said that, in recent years, the products had grown in popularity, particularly among elderly people, with stewed apple said to be their favourite dish.

He said the company – established by his father, Georg, 50 years ago and now producing 1.5m jars a day – was increasingly turning its attention to the adult market rather than babies as Europe's population ages.

"Not so long ago, we had twice as many births than now, and that, of course, has a knock-on effect. As our society gets ever older, baby food is showing that it has a future in the adult market," Hipp said at a company birthday celebration.

Despite the fact that birth rates have dropped in most European countries, most notably Germany, the company's profits rose by €90m last year to €500m (£450m).

Hipp said calorie-conscious new mothers who saw the meals – which are low in fat, sugar and salt – as a good way to help them lose weight after giving birth were also among the new customers it had won in recent years.

Sportsmen and women in need of nutritious meals that do not sit heavily on the stomach were also among its customers.

The company, which recommends its organic meals to babies "at the start of weaning to three years of age", and makes no mention on its packaging of anyone above that age, said it had no intention of relaunching the products for a separate market.

"Older people can often cope with the mashed baby food better than regular meals, but we're not planning to change our advertising to target them ... we want to keep our baby image," Hipp said.

Eileen Steinbock, of the British Dietetic Association, said pureed food could benefit people whose ability to swallow had been greatly reduced through old age, dementia or a stroke, and was already in widespread use in care homes.

But people who could still chew and swallow should continue to do so for as long as possible, she added.

"I wouldn't like to see people being given pureed food just because it's easier for a carer to give it to them that way. It should only be given when it's appropriate or essential," she said.

Kate Connolly

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Episode Ten - EduPunks

We may be the last generation to attend traditional schools. Classrooms are becoming more reliant on technology and ordinary people are starting to take education into their own hands.

At least 200 killed in Sierra Leone mine cave-in

FREETOWN (Reuters) - At least 200 people were killed in a cave-in at an unofficial gold mine in Sierra Leone, the West African country's Ministry of Mineral Resources said on Friday.

Heavy rains swamp camps holding Haiti's homeless

One of the heaviest rainfalls since Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake swamped homeless camps Friday, sweeping screaming residents into ...

UKIP offers Tory rivals free run

The UK Independence Party will not stand against hardline Eurosceptic rivals in other parties at the general election, its leader has said.

Ex-BT man tapped village phones

An-ex BT employee who tapped into villagers' private phone lines to call adult chat services is given a community order.

Zuma defends minister, demands spats end

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's President Jacob Zuma on Friday defended his finance minister from attacks from the ruling party's youth wing and called for action to be taken against ANC members who continue to argue publicly.

Ukraine's Yanukovich to repeal Bandera hero decree

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich will scrap in early May a decree by his pro-Western predecessor that conferred national hero status on a World War Two nationalist leader, a source in his camp said on Friday.

DVD review: Beware the mall, watch out for that cow, carry a big gun, zombies are everywhere

Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffs Hillary Clinton demands

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has refused to buckle to US pressure to scrap a Jewish building project in East Jerusalem in a crucial telephone conversation with America's top diplomat.

Pub crawl organiser hit man, 61

An organiser of Carnage UK student pub crawls is found guilty of hitting a 61-year-old man who complained about noise.

Scarlett Keeling's mother faces jail as Goa murder trial begins

The mother of murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling is facing jail after admitting benefit fraud - on the day two men went on trial in India for her daughter's manslaughter.

Abbas ordered to rest after falling

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that doctors ordered him to rest after a fall left him with a bruised back.

Katrina, Sarah fight over Ranbir

Conflict with rebels over, says Yemeni president

Ali Abdullah Saleh says end to government's long-running battle with fighters in north of country has been agreed

The Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, today declared an end to a long-running war with Shia rebels in the north of the country.

Saleh said a ceasefire with Houthi separatists had begun yesterday. "The war is over, not stopped or in a truce," he told the Arabic al-Arabiya TV station.

Rebels have been fighting the central government since 2004 in a conflict that has seen more than 175,000 people displaced into refugee camps. It has resulted in several thousand deaths and spilled over into neighbouring Saudi Arabia last year.

It is believed that part of the deal to end the conflict will include landmines and roadblocks being removed by rebels. "These are considered positive indications to prove good intention not to return to a new war," Saleh said.

News of the peace deal came a day after the Yemeni government said it would free Houthi rebel prisoners as part of the truce.

The Houthis, part of a powerful clan believed to have between 5,000 and 10,000 fighters, have used roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to protest against perceived religious, political and economic discrimination by the government.

The path to a settlement has not been easy, with the government recently accusing the rebels of returning to vacated positions and holding on to cleared landmines.

Some have questioned how long a ceasefire between the two groups will last, but a statement released by the rebel leader, Abdel-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi, said fighters would "cease combat on all fronts".

"Once the ceasefire is consolidated, we will proceed to reopening roads and dismantling checkpoints and barricades," he said.

The rebels are reported to have released around 170 pro-government fighters.

The end of hostilities with the Houthis closes one of three fronts on which Yemeni government forces have been battling. The government still faces pressure from western countries and neighbouring Arab nations to deal with al-Qaida militants who have taken advantage of instability to establish militant training camps.

It is still also involved in fighting separatists in the south, who have staged demonstrations calling for independence amid reports of escalating violence.

Jo Adetunji

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British Airways Prepares for Weekend Strike

The strike of the airline’s cabin crew is set to begin on Saturday.

Pope archdiocese faces 'tsunami' of abuse claims

The head of new taskforce set up to deal with sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the Pope's former archdiocese in Germany said the group had been overwhelmed by a "tsunami" of claims.

Mosquito could deliver malaria vaccine

They are normally transmitters of the disease, but mosquitoes could one day be used to tackle malaria after scientists developed a genetically engineered version of the species that can deliver a vaccine.

Books podcast: Sci-fi, sci-fact

Two dispatches from the far frontiers of science send our panellists into orbit around such issues as "how many years will it be before we all carry our personal genomes around with us, alongside our mobiles and our wallets?" and "why hasn't ET phoned earth yet?"

We hear astrophysicist Paul Davies's views on what the discovery of extra-terrestrial life would do to the religions of the world. And we consult a new book by Barack Obama's medical supremo, Francis Collins, to discover whether genomic medicine will be the saving of us, or our damnation.

We also interview the poet and memoirist John Burnside about the problems that plagued his early adulthood, from alcoholism to the neurological condition of apophenia – the experience of perceiving patterns and connections in random objects.

Reading list:

The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalised Medicine, by Francis Collins (Profile)
The Eerie Silence: Are we alone in the Universe? By Paul Davies (Allen Lane)
Take Off Your Party Dress: When Life's Too Busy for Breast Cancer, by Dina Rabinovitch (Pocket Books)
Waking Up In Toytown, by John Burnside (Jonathan Cape)

Elsewhere: Tim Radford's latest science book club choice is Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, by Ian Stewart.

'Lawyer' for US missionaries in Haiti is arrested

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Dominican police have arrested a fugitive who acted as the lawyer for U.S.

Brothers guilty of terror crimes

Two brothers from Lancashire who filmed al-Qaida-style propaganda are convicted of terrorist offences.