Mr Griffin accused the protesters of “attacking the rights of millions of people to listen to what I’ve got to say and listen to me being called to account by other politicians”.
But Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism accused the BBC of “rolling out the red carpet” to Mr Griffin and said his appearance on the flagship discussion programme “will lead to the growth of a fascist party” and promote violence against ethnic minorities.
About 25 people managed to get through the gates and run towards the BBC building when security guards opened them to let in a car. A few minutes later they were led, dragged or carried back outside.
There were also protests outside BBC buildings in Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow and Belfast.
Earlier on Thursday, BBC director general Mark Thompson said it was up to the government to ban the BNP from the airwaves if it felt Mr Griffin should not be allowed to take part in Question Time.
Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, who had tried to stop the broadcast, said: “The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history.”
But Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it was a matter for the corporation and he did not want to interfere with it, while Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw said that most of the cabinet did not share Mr Hain’s view.
BBC Deputy Director General Mark Byford said it had been “appropriate” to invite Mr Griffin to appear given the support the BNP received in the last European elections when it gained its first Euro MPs.
He said: “He was scrutinised and challenged along with the other panellists heavily by the audience, that was right in our view.
“It would have been quite wrong for the BBC to have said ‘yes, you are allowed to stand in elections, yes you have a level of support that now meets the threshold but the BBC doesn’t think that you should be on’.
“We have no views on the politics or the political leaders what we do hold absolutely dear is that due impartiality is a value we uphold and that’s why Mr Griffin was on tonight.”
Tag Archives: news
Blog: Barriers breached
Blog: World leaders hail Obama triumph
World leaders have hailed the election of Senator Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Tuesday’s poll historic and said he and Mr Obama “share many values”.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said he looked forward to strengthening dialogue. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy said the poll had raised “enormous hope”.
Outgoing US President George W Bush said Mr Obama could count on “complete co-operation” during the transition.
The president-elect will take over the presidency in January.
Democratic officials quoted by the Associated Press news agency say Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel has been offered the job of Mr Obama’s White House chief-of-staff.
It is not known whether Mr Emanuel – a former aide in President Bill Clinton’s administration – has accepted.
Besides winning the presidency, the Democrats tightened their grip on Congress.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed both Mr Obama’s victory and her party’s gains, saying the American people had spoken out “loudly and clearly” for change.
Blog: Executive privilege
But at the same time, he and his fellow executives profited hugely.
According to the New York Times, Mr Winnick sold shares in Global Crossing worth $734m over the past couple of years, and took annual salary and bonus payments worth close to $2m.
Mr Winnick’s prosperity was mirrored – albeit on a less opulent scale – by generous pay, share and options packages for other top staff, including a $10m joining bonus for Robert Annunziata, a chief executive who joined in 1999 and lasted just a year.
Again, an echo of Enron, where senior executives were paid well and sold huge parcels of shares, while employees were left with shrivelled or vanished pension plans
The company’s fate now seems to lie with Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Technologies Telemedia, which are still in talks over the terms of their $750m rescue package.
The two firms are owed a combined $12.4bn by Global Crossing, and so have an incentive to keep it going in some cash-generating form.
Whether that means leaving it broadly untouched, merging it into their own telecoms holdings, or breaking it up and selling the assets – worth more than $25bn – remains to be seen.
Even less certain is the outcome of the various probes into the firm, which could in theory result in criminal sanctions.
Compared with the abyss facing large parts of Enron, Global Crossing’s prospects seem bright.
But for the firm’s shareholders and staff – many of whom stand to lose their jobs as restructuring proceeds – that is slim compensation.
Blog: Enron fraud charge for British bankers
The US Department of Justice has charged three British bankers with involvement in a fraudulent investment scheme involving failed energy giant Enron. The three men worked for National Westminster Bank and allegedly made secret investments in an Enron front company, diverting proceeds amounting to $7.3m.
Enron filed for bankruptcy last December, after a collapse which has led to a series of investigations and a guilty verdict against Andersen, the company’s auditor, for obstructing justice by shredding evidence relating to Enron’s accounts.
These charges are the first which directly involve Enron, and sources close to the investigation speculate that the government hopes the three bankers might provide vital evidence against senior Enron officials, in return for clemency in their own case.
“As these charges demonstrate, our investigation into the collapse of Enron Corporation is active and ongoing,” said Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.
Greenwich NatWest is now part of Royal Bank of Scotland and a spokesman said: “Naturally, we will monitor the criminal proceedings carefully and will continue to co-operate with the with the appropriate authorities involved in the Enron investigation.”
Blog: Downturn is ‘climate opportunity’
The global recession provides a window of opportunity to curb climate change and build a low-carbon future, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).
It calculates that global greenhouse gas emissions will fall by 3% this year – an increase on previous estimates.
If governments take this opportunity to invest in clean technology, the global temperature rise can be kept below the G8 goal of 2C (3.6F), the agency says.
The findings were released at UN climate talks in Bangkok.
“The message is simple and stark: if the world continues on the basis of today’s energy and climate policies, the consequences of climate change will be severe,” said IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka.
Energy is at the heart of the problem – and so must form the core of the solution.”
The recession is likely to mean emissions being 3% lower this year than last – and it will have a longer term impact, the IEA says, with emissions in 2020 projected to be 5% less than they would have been without an economic dip.
The biggest carbon cuts will come from improving energy efficiency, it says.
Blog: Firm determination’
In an interview with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Mr Eide admitted that there had been difficult days of discussion in Kabul to convince President Karzai to accept a second round vote on 7 November.
There were still strains, he said, between Afghanistan and its foreign partners, but added that it was now time to look forward.
The UN special envoy said the run-off would be held under extremely complicated circumstances, but that he believed the right plans were being put in place to limit fraud and ensure the vote was credible.
Polling stations where significant fraud had occurred would not reopen, and individuals involved in vote-rigging would not be hired again, he added.
“But let us not be under any illusions, we cannot make any dramatic changes in the course of two weeks,” he said.
Mr Eide said UN officials and the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) had been planning for the possibility of a second round for weeks.
“All the material we need has been brought into Kabul; it will now be flown into the provinces. Then we will discuss the security plans,” he said.
“Remember, we do have some experience to base ourselves on, so I believe that with planning and carrying it out on 7 November, that it’s possible.”
When asked about rumours that Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah were discussing a deal that would replace a run-off, Mr Eide said Afghans had to make up their own minds and move forward, but that as of now the poll would go ahead.
“I believe that those elections will take place, talking to both candidates and their people [on Tuesday], there is a firm determination to go ahead, and to make sure that whoever is elected has the 50% required by the constitution,” he added.
Mr Abdullah told the BBC on Tuesday that a coalition government was unlikely, but added that if elections proved impossible for “practical reasons” the two rivals needed to talk to find an alternative solution.
Blog: Guinea’s erratic military ruler
His popularity grew as he promised genuine democracy in the country, including a safe transition period and then presidential elections in which he would not stand.
He galvanised support from politicians, civil society groups and voters. Although both the West African regional body Ecowas and the African Union initially suspended Guinea, they have been generally supportive of his leadership and efforts to bring democracy.
In the first few months of his leadership, Capt Camara sought to further boost his popularity through a very public crackdown on the Guinean drug-trafficking industry.
Members of a trafficking ring were arrested and then quizzed on live television by the military leader himself.
Among those who admitted to drugs trafficking was the former president’s son, Ousmane Conte.
Capt Camara’s outlandish approach seemed a breath of fresh air after years of failed political promises.
He even made troops from the elite presidential guard beg on their knees for forgiveness on national TV for roughing up a general in July.
But his increasingly erratic leadership style and unpredictable behaviour has come in for criticism.
On several occasions, he has ordered politicians, civil society leaders and members of the public to shut up or even leave meetings, and is reported to have humiliated several foreign ambassadors.
Blog: Logging threat
Orang-utans, like gorillas and chimpanzees, are often described as the closest relatives of humans.
They are in grave danger of extinction, because their habitat is under threat from illegal logging, forest fires and gold mining.
Wild orang-utans exist only on two south-east Asian islands, Borneo and Sumatra.
An estimated 9,000 orang-utans survive in northern Sumatra, mainly near one national park, while some 10,000 to 15,000 orang-utans remain in Borneo.
Primate experts have predicted that the apes will be found only in zoos by the year 2020 unless immediate steps are taken to protect them.
According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), the annual 5% loss of habitat means there will be virtually no intact forest left for them by 2030.
London-based Orang-utan Foundation International says there has been a dramatic decline in wild orang-utan populations throughout the tropical rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.
“The discovery of a large, biologically viable, previously unsurveyed orang-utan population in East Kalimantan is very significant,” said scientist and conservationist Dr Birute Galdikas, the president of the foundation.
“This find extends the orang-utan’s known range and gives us hope that we can save orang-utan populations from extinction in the wild.”
Blog: UN backs Gaza ‘war crimes’ report
The UN Human Rights Council has backed a report into the Israeli offensive in Gaza that accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.
The report by Richard Goldstone calls for credible investigations by Israel and Hamas, and suggests international war crimes prosecutions if they do not.
Twenty-five countries voted for the resolution, while six were against.
Both Israel and the US opposed official endorsement of the report, saying it would set back Middle East peace hopes.
In contrast, the Israeli government had lobbied intensively against the resolution, saying the Goldstone report was biased against Israel and removed the right of nations to defend themselves against terrorists.
It also complained that the vote was not simply on the Goldstone report, but on a Palestinian-backed resolution that criticised Israel and ignored Hamas. The resolution also made references to recent Israeli actions East Jerusalem that were not in the document.
The US deputy representative in Geneva agreed, saying that the resolution’s approach and “sweeping conclusions of law” made the prospect of a meaningful Middle East peace process more difficult.
Asked why it did not vote, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the BBC that the British and French governments had been “in the middle of detailed discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel about three key issues – the establishment of an independent inquiry, humanitarian aid to Gaza and the restart of the peace process”.
“The vote was called in the middle of those discussions and we thought it right to continue with our work on the three fundamental issues so that could really contribute to a reversal of what is a dangerous spiral of trust and mistrust in the Middle East,” he said.
Blog: Planes ’should fly on biofuels’
Biofuel research should focus on planes and not cars, the think tank Policy Exchange has said.
A crop area the size of the USA would be needed to biofuel all the world’s cars and alternatives, such as electricity, exist for them, it added.
Instead, it said the EU should fund research into using plant-based fuel for aviation to help cut emissions.
Sceptics say some biofuels create more carbon than they save and push up the price of food for the poor.
Most biofuels are derived from crops such as corn, sugarcane and rapeseed.
Bioethanol is usually mixed with petrol, while biodiesel is either used on its own or in a mixture.
The UK government, which is funding a £27m research centre to find economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels, says 25% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transport.
In April 2008, it introduced a “Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation”, requiring 2.5% of all fuel sold at petrol stations to be biofuels, having revised its target from 5%.
