内容摘要：A spokesperson for the Labour-run local authority said the bin collection service needed to be transformed "to one that citizens of Birmingham deserve".

A spokesperson for the Labour-run local authority said the bin collection service needed to be transformed "to one that citizens of Birmingham deserve".

The Portuguese fire brigade helped on the first day, pumping out an old well so it could be safely searched. The officers were looking for traces of Madeleine McCann, or some of her clothing.Every time I travel to Portugal for a new search it always begins optimistically. Could police find something this time? But on every occasion it quickly becomes apparent the searches are not tightly targeted. The police work always clearly based on quite vague intelligence - or just an investigator's hunch.

Luis Neves, the National Director of the Polícia Judiciária, the Portuguese equivalent of the FBI, said at the end of the week that, "nothing is in vain, not least because doors are being closed".As we watched the German detectives packing away it felt like the spring of hope of a resolution that had bubbled up in June 2020 was evaporating in the thankless heat.The government is struggling to cut the amount of foreign aid it spends on hotel bills for asylum seekers in the UK, the BBC has learnt.

New figures released quietly by ministers in recent days show the Home Office plans to spend £2.2bn of overseas development assistance (ODA) this financial year - that is only marginally less than the £2.3bn it spent in 2024/25.The money is largely used to cover the accommodation costs of thousands of asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK.

The Home Office said it was committed to ending asylum hotels and was speeding up asylum decisions to save taxpayers' money.

The figures were published on the Home Office website with no accompanying notification to media.IPCO said the first two falsehoods were included due to "assurances provided by MI5" and that it is now "clear that this information was incorrect and that the findings in our draft report reflected the true position".

Regarding the false information about my witness statement, IPCO said: "We accept that this line in the report reflects our interpretation of your statement based on the information available to us at the time."The BBC challenged MI5 on its false evidence late last year, leading to

. MI5 promised to transparently investigate what happened, and produced new witness statements from the senior officer in charge of the MI5 team who handled X and MI5's director general of strategy - who is in effect third-in-command of the Security Service.But neither of them told the court about the IPCO reports, even in the closed, secret part of the case intended to allow MI5 to disclose sensitive evidence.