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0709 An Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane with 89 people on board has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut airport. Wreckage from the plane has been seen off the Lebanese coast. Eyewitnesses say they saw a ball of fire in the sky before the jet crashed into the sea. Correspondent Natalia Antelava reports that the
plane crash
may have been caused by adverse weather conditions.
0712 There is not enough
home-grown children's television,
a House of Lords committee has said. Chairman of the House of Lords Communications Committee Lord Fowler discusses how he believes children are growing up with too much imported television.
0715 Hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting for food and water from the
international relief operation in Haiti
that started after the earthquake 12 days ago. Correspondent Adam Mynott reports from Leogane, the epicentre of the quake, where people are still in desperate need for basic humanitarian aid.
0720 Business news with Adam Shaw.
0723 A conference entitled Is There Anybody Out There, being organised by the Royal Society, is to debate
how we handle "first contact" with alien races.
The discovery in recent years of hundreds of planets orbiting far off stars has brought the prospect of finding life elsewhere in the universe tantalisingly close. Science correspondent Tom Feilden reports on the progress in the search for extra terrestrial life and Professor Albert Harrison explains how we should react if alien life is found.
0727 Sports news with Rob Bonnet.
0732 Finance ministry officials from the world's richest economies are meeting in London to discuss how to
avoid a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008.
The meeting, which is to be chaired by the City Minister Lord Myners, has received added urgency in light of President Obama's comments last week urging that banks' activities be radically curbed. Business editor Robert Peston discusses whether the meeting can make a difference.
0736 The paper review.
0738 How do you make a comedy about suicide bombers? Tom Brooks reports on satirist
Chris Morris' long awaited film Four Lions
which is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.
0741 An Ethiopian Airlines plane has crashed in the Mediterranean with some 89 people on board. Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates discusses
Ethiopian Airlines' safety record.
0745 Thought for the day with Clifford Longley, a religious commentator.
0750 Sinn Fein is meeting the DUP for what it says will be "critical and defining" talks on the
devolution of policing and justice to Northern Ireland.
Member of Sinn Fein National Executive Gerry Kelly discusses how the process can be moved forward.
0810
The Equality and Human Rights Commission says
compulsory retirement ages
should be abolished. The commission has called for "fundamental changes" to employment policies to open up more work opportunities for older people and tackle the challenges of an ageing workforce. It says research has shown that extending working lives by 18 months would inject £15bn into the British economy. Andrea Murray from the commission and David Yeandle from the manufacturers' organisation EEF, discuss whether there is a need change the retirement age.
0817 Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness is to meet Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson at Stormont at noon for what Sinn Fein calls "defining talks". Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson outlines his hopes for the
Northen Ireland political process,
saying "it was in no-one's interest" to allow the talks to fail.
0823 The film the Great Escape, which was based on a true story, still embodies the fighting spirit of Allied Prisoners of War. Seventy-six men did escape from Stalag Luft 3 prison camp in 1944, but most were recaptured. The Nazis murdered 50 in cold blood but less is known about what happened afterwards, particularly the evacuation of the camp 10 months later that resulted in 200 more deaths. Correspondent Andrew Hosken reports on how a group, including relatives of the survivors and young RAF recruits, retrace the so called
Long March
from western Poland into Germany.
A Haitian government minister has confirmed the death toll from the country's devastating earthquake has risen above 150,000 in the Port-au-Prince area alone. But with the aid operation entering a new phase after the Haitian government stopped its rescue efforts, how do you rebuild a country that has been so devastated?
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander
discusses the need to co-ordinate reconstruction efforts in the country.
0837 Iris Murdoch
was a hugely successful writer whose early life was one of great idealism and political activism as a member of the Communist Party in 1930s Oxford. A new collection of letters and diaries edited by her biographer Peter Conradi gives new insight into what she though of her contemporaries, many of whom went on to great things. James Naughtie meets the former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, who is one of the few people living who knew her well at the time.
0848 The emerging economies of China and India are kept apart by the remote, inaccessible Himalayas. But in Nepal the Chinese are now building a
road across the roof of the world.
It's part of their efforts to open up and develop the Tibet region, but there is a political price for tiny Nepal. Nepal correspondent, Joanna Jolly, reports on how Nepal's peace road map is looking increasingly tattered.
0852 Has the media's coverage of the Haiti earthquake been too graphic
and violated the dignity of the disaster's victims? The chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, Brendan Gormley, has warned against using material that "connives in the sort of disaster pornography that does exist" after newspapers published images of dead bodies being emptied out of trucks. Save the Children aid worker Ishbel Matheson and former Guardian picture editor Eamonn McCabe discuss whether you can tell the story properly without showing graphic images.
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