Snowmail: Gangs, Gore (Vidal) and Fat Pigs

Last Modified: 22 May 2008
By: Jon Snow

In tonight's programme...

Tonight on Channel 4 News...

SAVING THE KIDS FROM THE GANGS? Hardly a week goes by without a couple of fatal stabbings or a splash of gun crime. Scratch the surface of many of these incidents and there are gang feuds. The government has today launched an initiative to try to combat the growth in gangs, offering anonymity to anyone who will come forward and inform on gangs and their members.

We look at the proposals and talk to people who've worked with gangs, to find out if anonymity has any chance of working.

Watch our midday report from News at Noon: http://tinyurl.com/vxers

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PAINTING MANCHESTER RED We're in Manchester tonight for the triumphant return of the Manchester United football team, fresh from an historic encounter that has not involved serious crowd violence. The Russians seem to have got the whole process of control down to a fine art, outwitting a combination of Chelsea and Manchester fans who are not normally easy to outwit. John Sparks will be live from Manchester.

OIL HITS $135 A BARREL A barrel of oil now costs $135, and in America we're now talking serious pain among the gaz guzzlers. A country in which there are so many communities that cannot go about their day without the use of a car. Sarah Smith has an intriguing report.

Watch Bridgid Nzekwu explain more on News at Noon: http://tinyurl.com/67nvun

GORE VIDAL: READY TO KILL I've just come back from Claridges. An ornate hotel in the west end whose most famous guest today is the grand old man of American letters, Gore Vidal. I have never met such an angry 82-year-old. He is absolutely on fire in our interview. And if I give you the final line, you'll get a sense of how it is. "I'm ready to kill!"

Actually he talks very interestingly about the election and the outgoing Bush administration.

STAGGERINGLY FAT PIG Lastly, Stephanie West has been pursuing, and eventually interviewing, the Fat Pig. This is an intriguing figure in a major London production. It's all about a play in which a man chooses an extraordinarily fat woman - my informant tells me she is "staggeringly fat" - and the issue is whether his friends and colleagues will object to her. It sounds dangerously fattist but is, in fact, awfully interesting.

Jon Snow

AND FROM MORE4 NEWS WITH KYLIE MORRIS We'll be asking the chief executive of Shell about the price of oil. How much higher can it go? And is it fair that consumers are paying more and more while oil company profits soar?

And after a week of violence against mainly Zimbabwean foreigners in South Africa, the Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai paid a visit today to some of those displaced by the attacks.

He'd quite like it if some of the three million of his countrymen in South Africa - his potential supporters - went home. Our reporter Cleopatra Mukula was in Alexandra township when he dropped in, and she's been talking to some of the besieged foreign nationals and to South African township dwellers about the roots of the violence. She'll be joining us live from Johannesburg.

Kylie Morris

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BUSINESS The FTSE-100 index at the close was down 16.5 at 6181.6. The US Dollar to Sterling was: 1.980 The Euro to Sterling was: 1.260

WEATHER Sponsored by Worcester, Bosch Group - www.worcester-bosch.co.uk

Thursday 22 May 2008 Rain in the far west today. Brighter with showers elsewhere.

Today Many areas will be dry this morning with bright or sunny spells. However, western areas of England, and Wales and Northern Ireland will see some occasionally heavy rain at times. Scattered showers will develop elsewhere during the day.

Tonight Outbreaks of rain in west will spread erratically eastwards and northwards overnight, although the far north and east will remain largely dry. Generally cloudy with mist forming in places.

Friday Rather cloudy in the north with some rain in Northern Ireland, southwest Scotland and northern England. Scattered heavy showers will break out in England and Wales.

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