MPs braced for expenses demands

MPs have had their expenses scrutinised still further

MPs are returning to the Commons after the summer break to face demands they repay thousands of pounds in expenses or do more to justify them.

Former senior civil servant Sir Thomas Legg was asked to scrutinise their claims when the expenses scandal emerged earlier this year.

The BBC understands he has set retrospective limits for some items.

But this move has angered many MPs and some are saying they will not repay the money.

The BBC also understands Sir Thomas has set his own annual limits of what he believes they should have claimed.

These are £1,000 a year for gardening, and £2,000 a year for cleaning.

Whitehall sources have indicated "the majority" of MPs will have to justify their claims or pay money back.

The BBC's political correspondent Iain Watson said it is "highly likely" Prime Minister Gordon Brown will have to pay back cash.

Cleaning expenses

After details of claims since 2004 were published earlier this year, MPs - including all three party leaders - have agreed to repay claims totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mr Brown is among possibly hundreds of MPs due to receive letters this week from the auditor appointed to investigate expense claims over the past five years, although there is no suggestion of impropriety on his part.

Sir Thomas is understood to be writing to the MPs asking them to either give more details on their expense claims or to pay the money back into the public purse.

Last May it emerged Mr Brown had paid his brother Andrew £6,577 for arranging cleaning services for his Westminster flat for 26 months.

At the time Downing Street said the brothers had shared a cleaner who worked in both their flats. Andrew Brown had paid her wages and had then been reimbursed by the prime minister, who then claimed cleaning expenses.

It was also revealed the prime minister had claimed twice for the same plumbing work within six months of each other. The House of Commons Fees Office said this had been an "inadvertent mistake".

Expense accusations

It apologised for having not spotted it and Mr Brown is understood to have repaid the sum involved - believed to be £150.

It was also reported Mr Brown may have billed taxpayers for his Sky Sports subscription.

After the claims were made public in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year, many MPs were accused of extravagance, over-claiming and avoiding tax on home sales.

Several were found to have repeatedly "switched" their designated second homes, meaning they were able to refurbish both their homes at public expense.

The BBC understands Sir Thomas - who was appointed by Downing Street - has been looking at whether MPs were using money to improve their properties, rather than just maintain them as the rules allow.

He is also thought to have examined instances where MPs used public money to pay off the capital on their mortgages, rather than mortgage interest.

It is understood Sir Thomas will allow MPs three weeks to respond to questions over their claims but once that process is complete, his full report will be made public, probably in December.

Trio of blasts strikes Iraqi city

The attacks shattered a relative lull in violence

Three blasts have rocked the Iraqi city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding 61, police have told the BBC.

A car packed with explosives ploughed into a concrete wall at the police headquarters. A motorcycle bomb then went off among the crowd that gathered.

The third blast, an apparent car bomb, went off outside the main hospital.

A curfew has been imposed in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, which was once a centre of the Sunni insurgency.

Eyewitness Musaab Ali Mohammed said he was buying cigarettes near the police headquarters when he heard a big explosion.

"I saw police cars and firefighters, and they started to carry out the wounded and dead. Minutes later, a second explosion took place," he told the Associated Press news agency.

"After that, policemen started to fire in the air and called upon civilians to leave, fearing a third blast," the eyewitness added.

Anbar has been relatively stable since Sunni fighters turned against al-Qaeda and joined forces with the US and Iraqi security forces.

But recent weeks have seen a series of attacks on police and Iraqi army checkpoints in Anbar.

On Tuesday, a car bomb killed at least nine people in a market in Falluja. A day earlier, a suicide bomber killed six mourners at a funeral in Haditha.

The dead and injured in the latest attacks include both police and civilians.

New Jackson song is given airing

Jackson died two weeks before he was due to return to the stage in London

A new Michael Jackson song, the first track to emerge since the star's death, has been given its public premiere.

Few details of the track, called This Is It, were released beforehand.

It features backing vocals by Jackson's brothers, but it is not known whether they were recorded before or after the star's death in June.

The song has been released on the singer's website and to radio stations. It will be the only original song on a double CD due to be released soon.

At the time of its airing there was also no information about when the song was written and recorded, and who else worked on it.

Jackson's record label and estate declined requests for details.

It was aired on his website, michaeljackson.com, at 0400GMT on Monday and sent to radio stations and other media outlets.

Fans will be able to buy it as part of an album of the same name on 26 October.

It is likely to be the first of many new songs to see the light of day as his family and estate sift through music he left behind.

The star was working with artists like Akon and Will.i.am before his death in June.

It had been widely expected that the song would be made available to buy from digital retailers such as iTunes from Monday.

Jackson's official website described it as a "brand new single", which would be "released" on 12 October.

But a spokesperson said the term "released" referred to its distribution to radio stations and other media outlets.

The song takes its name from the ill-fated series of comeback shows that were to have taken place at London's O2 arena.

It will also feature in the closing credits of a film, also called This Is It, which has been made using footage of rehearsals for the O2 concerts, due to be released in cinemas on 28 October.

The BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles says it was widely known that Michael Jackson had huge debts and those debts have not gone away.

But, he says, what he is hearing is the money that will be made from this single, from the movie and lots more merchandising that will take place will easily pay for all those debts and there will eventually be money left over that will go to Michael Jackson's mother and his three children.

Asylum for boat-explosion Afghans

Many refugees attempt to reach Australia by sea

The Australian government is to grant refugee status to 42 Afghan men who survived a boat explosion that killed five other asylum seekers in April.

This month, the police announced that passengers had deliberately set fire to the boat after it had been intercepted by the Australian navy.

But they said there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.

The government said the men could lose the visas if new evidence emerges that they were involved in the explosion.

The boat was carrying 47 Afghan asylum seekers and two Indonesian crew members when it exploded, after being intercepted by the Australian navy some 600km (370 miles) off the north-west coast of the country.

Five passengers were killed and dozens more were injured.

But even though the police determined that at least one asylum seeker set fire to the boat deliberately, they were unable to pinpoint who precisely was involved.

The only charges brought in relation to the incident were against the Indonesian sailors, who have been accused of people smuggling but are not suspects in the fatal fire.

Now, the surviving Afghan asylum seekers, many of whom sustained bad burns in the explosion, are to be granted refugee status in Australia.

The country's immigration minister said they had been found to be genuine refugees because of the situation in Afghanistan and the potential threat to their lives if they returned to their homeland.

A coroner's inquest into the incident opens in Darwin in January.