Kamis, 19 Agustus 2010

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Thursday 19 August 2010 at 10.30pm on BBC Two
Presented by Laura Kuenssberg



The cleverest appear to be getting cleverer, if today's A Level results are anything to go by. And more students than expected attained the new A star qualification that was intended to separate the brilliant from the merely excellent. Cue the annual bluster about whether the exams themselves are getting any easier?

But today's results also suggest that students whose parents pay for their education were proportionately three times more likely to receive that new top grade than those educated at comprehensives, and more than twice as likely to get an A grade.

So why, after Labour poured billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash into schools over the last 13 years does such a divide persist? And are the coalition's plans for free schools and many more academies in England any more likely to close the gap?

Also tonight, should freedom of worship allow you to build your house of prayer wherever you like?

It probably hasn't escaped your notice that President Barack Obama is under the cosh from the Republicans and some even in his own party, after wandering into the controversy over building a mosque near Ground Zero. He defended the right to worship, seeming to support the building plan, but then 'clarified' his position - political speak for rowing back - saying he was not commenting on the wisdom of the location of the mosque after all.

With buses plastered with posters opposing the plan driving up and down the streets of Manhattan we'll ask what should matter more - the feelings of New Yorkers caught up in the horror of 9/11, or the long held principle of religious freedom.

Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of Winston Churchill's tribute to 'the few' - the British pilots who valiantly kept the Luftwaffe at bay when Britain and the Commonwealth stood alone against Germany in the summer of 1940. The Battle of Britain was one of the first ever major military campaigns to be fought in the air.

But seven decades on, the nature of warfare has changed dramatically - airpower is required for different reasons. The MoD is undertaking a major review of its size and shape, and like every government department it is under enormous financial pressure. So despite the RAF's proud history, we?ll be discussing if it is time for it to give up its independent status.

And we'll be revealing the curious misfortune of one region of Venezuela, and one woman's extraordinary scientific journey to explain it. The area around Lake Maracaibo has the highest prevalence of Huntington's disease in the world. We'll report on American researcher, Nancy Wexler's, determination to find a cure. Read more about that story here.

Do join me at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

Laura





 LAST NIGHT'S HIGHLIGHT

For almost 30 years, the Virgin Mary has been said to appear daily in Medjugorje - a small village in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Six children first reported the apparition in June 1981, and although the Vatican has not yet recognised the miracle, it has not discouraged the faithful. The village is the fastest-growing Catholic pilgrimage site in the world.

But this religious fervour is taking place in a country where faith equals ethnic identity, and where battles over that identity were at the heart of a long and bloody war.

Allan Little reports on the Medjugorje phenomenon


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