BBC 4 Radio News, 8.8.2002, 6.30 a.m.

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The detectives investigating the disappearance of the two 10-year old girls in Cambridgeshire have spent the night studying close circuit television pictures of the area where they were last seen. Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing near their homes in the village of Soham on Sunday night. There have been no confirmed sightings of them since and no significant developments in the enquiry.

Concerns have been expressed about the quality of radiology services at hospitals in England and Wales. The public service watchdog, the Audit Commission, says outdated equipment, staff shortages and restricted working hours are affecting standards of care.

The Foreign Office has welcomed Libya’s announcement that it’s prepared in principle to pay compensation to the families of those killed in the Lockerby bombing. The offer came during discussions between the Libyan leader Colonel Ghaddaffi and the Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien. But Mr. O’Brien said Libya would now have to demonstrate it meant what it said.

At least 13 people have been killed in a series of bomb explosions in the Colombian capital Bogotá. Dozens more were wounded. The blasts happened as the new president Oraro Oribe was being sworn in. He has promised a tough line against the country’s left-wing guerillas who are thought to have carried out the attacks.

In Zimbabwe a deadline set by the government for white farmers to leave their land expires at midnight tonight. Under a law passed by the parliament in Harare thousands of farmers are required to hand over holdings to so-called war veterans or face police action.

The annual report of the Prison Service in England and Wales has shown that it failed to meet six of its performance targets last year. They included a plan to treat more convicted sex offenders but figures show only one in six completed the program.

Police in the Irish Republic have recovered a stolen painting by the 17^th century Flemish artist Rubens. The picture, the portrait of a man, was one of 18 works of art which were stolen from a stately home near Dublin in 1986.