11/08/2015

0650

Turkish military officials in the south-eastern province of Sirnak have blamed Kurdish militants for a roadside bomb that killed four police officers yesterday. Andrew Finkel, an Istanbul-based journalist, joins us.

0655

The Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin is today outlining how £13bn of government money will be spent trying to improve transport links in the North and boost the so-called Northern Powerhouse. But is the government doing enough to help the North? Ross Smith, director of policy at North East Chamber of Commerce is in the studio.

0710

BBC News has learned that the government is considering banning young British people from receiving tax credits and housing benefit for 4 years.  Stephen Timms, the Shadow Work and Pensions Minister, speaks to us.

0715
Japan is planing to restart a its first nuclear reactor in two years. This is the first permanent restart under new safety conditions that were put in place after the Fukushima power plant disaster which followed an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Malcolm Grimston is a nuclear specialist and senior research fellow at Imperial College London's Centre for Environmental Policy.

0720

Sixth form colleges in England say they are being driven to to drop science and language A-level courses as a result of financial pressures.  James Kewin is the deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association.

0725

The annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak in the coming days, and if skies are clear, will provide stargazers with some stunning sights. Dr. Daniel Mortlock is an astrophysicist at Imperial College London.

0730

British farmers warned on Monday they were facing financial ruin with falls in the price of milk. Today managers of supermarket chain Morrisons, will meet farming industry leaders to discuss milk prices. Sima Kotecha reports from a dairy farm in Essex and Ash Amirahmadi is head of milk and member services at Arla Foods UK – a co-operative supplied by 3,000 British dairy farmers who are also owners of the business.

0740 

Keith Waterhouse's Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell was a celebration of old Soho, a life populated by colourful and sometimes grotesque characters, and punctuated by lost afternoons, sometimes days. Now it's coming to Radio 4 - next Saturday - with Sir John Hurt playing his old friend 'Jeff' Bernard. James Naughtie spoke to Hurt.

0750

Amnesty International's governing council will hold a vote in Dublin later today to decide whether to endorse the decriminalisation of prostitution across the world. Tachel Moran is from SPACE (‘Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Enlightenment’) and Niki Adaams is from the English Prostitutes Collective.

0810

An eleven-year sentence has been passed on a 14 year-old in Bradford, for stabbing a teacher, in a racially-motivated attack. Nearly 4000 children were given fixed-term suspensions form schools last year for various forms of racist abuse, according to the Department for Education. Sagheer Afzal is a supply teacher who says he's often been the target of racial abuse and Laura Pidcock is education manager at Show Racism the Red Card.

0820

Peace in our time, the lamps are going out - history is littered with political phrases and slogans that echo down the years.  And their power has now inspired a new choral work. David Sillito has heard an early rehearsal.

0830

Last night, after the New York Stock Exchange closed, Google's founders shocked market and tech watchers with a blog that announced the company was rebranding and would change its name from Google to Alphabet. Jeff Jarvis is author of ‘What Would Google Do’, and Richard Waters is the west coast editor for the Financial Times.

0840

The BBC has uncovered evidence of organ trafficking in China. Following international condemnation, Beijing ended the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners this year and now says it will only rely upon donations.

0845

The English artist John Piper is well known for the diversity of his work. But few people know that he was also a prolific photographer. Now 6,000 of his photos are being digitised and released online by the Tate Archive. Frances Spalding is a professor of art history at Newcastle University and John Piper's biographer, and Adrian Glew is the head of Tate Archive.

0850

Kate Breslin’s ‘For Such a Time’ came under attack by fellow romantic novelists who thought the subject matter – a Jewish prisoner in the Theresienstadt concentration camp falling for her Nazi commander whilst finding solace in Jesus – deeply offensive. Should the author not have the freedom to publish this? Sarah Wendall runs a romance literature blog site and Richard Ferrer is the editor of The Jewish News. 

All subject to change.