Glamour model Sophie Reade, who changed her name to Dogface to compete in the reality show, has won Big Brother 10.

The 20-year-old from Nantwich, Cheshire, saw off competition from “slave to fashion” Siavash Sabbaghpour, 23, to win the prize fund of £71,320.

Earlier, the public voted David Ramsden third, Charlie Drummond fourth and Rodrigo Lopes fifth.

Sophie, who won 74.4% of the final vote, said: “I never thought I would win…I can’t believe it.”

She said winning made her feel “really accepted”.

Early figures suggest 3.1m viewers saw Sophie crowned the winner

“Because I get my boobs out for a living people think I’m tacky, an airhead and I’ll have no personality. I think people can see past that,” she said.

She added she planned to spend her prize money on clothes and give some away to charity.

The remainder of the £100,000 prize fund, which had been taken away after the housemates tried to break out, will go to charity Channel 4 said.

‘I’m sorry’

During her 13 weeks in the show, Sophie became known for her relationship with fellow housemate Kris Donnelly, her amusing antics while drunk, her constant eating and subsequent fears over her growing weight and her shaky grasp of geography.

After telling fellow housemates that she thought Africa was a country rather than a continent, Big Brother set her a task in which she had to correctly place 10 countries on a map.

She managed just two, after placing Germany and Japan in Africa.

Siavash left the house in the clothes provided by Big Brother

She initially earned her status as a housemate when she agreed to Big Brother’s request to legally change her name to Dogface by deed poll, although the show agreed to let her change it back again several weeks later.

Second-placed Siavash left the house wearing a leotard and high heels as part of a task he had been set to earn £20,000 towards the prize fund.

He was reluctant to discuss his short-lived romance with housemate Noirin Kelly, which the Irishwoman ended when her on-off boyfriend joined them in the house.

But Siavash offered a public apology to his ex-girlfriend for kissing Noirin saying: “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Things are really weird in the house.”

Earlier David, a recycled clothing sorter from Dewsbury, told McCall he was feeling “bloody brilliant” after finishing third.

He said he was thrilled to have made it to the final after joining the show halfway through, as one of five new housemates added in July.

“I have watched every series from day one,” he said.

‘Natural end’

Newcastle customer service advisor Charlie said he was not disappointed to have not won, adding: “I have already won. I have got on the show.”

Brazilian student Rodrigo, the first housemate to be evicted from the live final, told McCall he felt his success on the show made him feel accepted by people in Britain.

All the housemates from the series attended the final show

“Everyone knows how much I love this country - I feel that I am British,” he said.

Last week, Channel 4 announced that next year’s series of Big Brother would be the last on the channel.

Director of television Kevin Lygo said the show “had reached a natural end point” and that it was “time to move on”.

The decision follows a sharp decline in the number of viewers watching the show.

The latest series attracted about two million viewers per show - compared with an audience high of eight million in 2002.

Early figures suggest 3.1m people saw Sophie announced the winner during the live final on Friday.

. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (second from left) arrives in Tripoli, Libya, on August 21.

An oil deal and trade concerns with Libya were at one point considered as factors in the Lockerbie bomber’s release, British Justice Secretary Jack Straw said in an interview published Saturday.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (second from left) arrives in Tripoli, Libya, on August 21.

And Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s son, who was involved in negotiating accords between the two nations, told CNN that Libya pressured the British government to include the convicted terrorist in a 2007 prisoner release agreement that was tied to trade deals.

Ultimately, convicted bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer, a decision that Scottish, British and Libyan officials have said was not linked to oil or trade.

In an interview published Saturday in The Daily Telegraph, Straw said trade and the interests of oil giant British Petroleum were factors in the prisoner transfer agreement.

“Yes, (it was) a very big part of that,” Straw told the paper. “I’m unapologetic about that. … Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold. And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal.”

Straw’s adviser said Saturday that Straw’s quotes were accurate, but he emphasized that al Megrahi was not released under the terms of that deal.

“Jack’s position has been on the record for some days,” said the adviser, who declined to be named in line with policy. “He has never denied that seeking an agreement with Libya over a prisoner transfer agreement was connected to a wider process of normalizing relations with Libya, including on trade, which is in the interests of us all.”

A former US attorney general can be sued by an American citizen held as a witness suspected of having information in a terrorism case, a court has ruled.

Abdullah al-Kidd accuses John Ashcroft, attorney general from 2001 to 2005, of violating his constitutional rights in 2003, when he was held for 16 days.

The court said detention of witnesses without charge after the 9/11 attacks was “repugnant to the constitution”.

The US Department of Justice said it was reviewing the court’s order.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals also said the government’s policy was “a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

Mr al-Kidd was detained in 2003 because the government thought he had information in a computer terrorism case against fellow University of Idaho student Sami Omar al-Hussayen.

He was never charged with a crime, and Mr al-Hussayen was acquitted after a trial.

Mr al-Kidd filed the lawsuit against Mr Ashcroft and other officials in 2005.

He said his detention was part of an illegal government policy to arrest and detain people - particularly Muslim men and those of Arab descent - as material witnesses if the government suspected them of a crime but had no evidence to charge them.

Mr Ashcroft had asked the judge to dismiss the matter, saying that he had absolute immunity in his position.

However, the judges said even qualified immunity does not allow the attorney general to carry out national security functions completely free from any personal liability concerns.

Mr al-Kidd’s attorney, Lee Gelernt, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “Our hope is that we can now begin the process of uncovering the full contours of this illegal national policy.”

The judges’ ruling said that Mr Ashcroft had said the use of the material witness statute and other tactics “form one part of the department’s concentrated strategy to prevent terrorist attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street”.

But the judges also noted that Mr al-Kidd will have a significant burden to show that Mr Ashcroft was p

A Communist Party leader and police chief in the troubled western Chinese region of Xinjiang have been sacked, the official Xinhua news agency says.

The moves follow days of ethnic unrest in the regional capital Urumqi in which at least five people have died.

No official reason has been given for the sackings.

Mass protests have followed a spate of stabbings with syringes blamed on Uighur Muslim separatists. Unrest in Urumqi in July left nearly 200 dead.

Xinhua first announced that Urumqi Communist Party chief Li Zhi was to be replaced by Zhu Hailun, the head of Xinjiang region’s law-and-order committee.

A later statement added that Liu Yaohua, director of the Xinjiang Autonomous Regional Public Security Department, had also been dismissed.

Correspondents say that protesters who have marched in their thousands through Urumqi in recent days have demanded Mr Li’s dismissal for failing to provide public safety.

The BBC’s Michael Bristow in Urumqi says the sacking is unusual as it shows the Chinese authorities believe they may have made mistakes in the handling of the unrest.

Tight security

Security in Urumqi has been tight this week, after thousands of Han Chinese demonstrated over the alleged hypodermic syringe stabbings.

In fresh unrest on Saturday, angry Han Chinese rushed to the city’s main square following reports that three Uighur men had attacked a child with needles.

Video of the incident showed police driving the boy away and the crowd being dispersed.

China’s top security official, Meng Jianzhu, arrived in the city on Friday to try to restore order.

He was quoted by Xinhua as saying the syringe attacks were a continuation of the July unrest in which 200 people - mostly Han Chinese - were killed in ethnic riots.

Xinjiang’s population is evenly split between Uighurs and Han Chinese - the country’s majority ethnic group. But Hans make up three-quarters of Urumqi’s population.

Tension between the Uighur and Han communities has been simmering for many years, but July’s ethnic unrest was the worst for decades.

It began when crowds of Uighurs took the streets to protest about mistreatment - but their rally spiralled out of control and days of violent clashes followed.

Finance ministers from the world’s most powerful economies have agreed a series of measures to try to regulate the global banking system.

They want a system that rewards long-term performance rather than short-term risk-taking.

However the G20 meeting in London did not agree on specific limits on the amounts individual bankers get paid.

Britain, the US and Canada opposed the idea, agreeing to ask the Financial Stability Board to examine the issue.

It will report back to the summit of G20 leaders in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania later this month.

Critically now the job is to make sure that you translate those principals into practical propositions that actually bite and actually work Alistair Darling

The G20 countries agreed on measures requiring banks to disclose the pay and bonuses of their highest-paid employees and to allow bonuses to be “clawed back” if decisions which seemed successful later go wrong.

The FSB has also been asked to look at the desirability of new rules which would allow regulators to rule on whether the total pool of cash set aside by a bank for bonuses is excessive, given its long-term financial stability and strength.

Ministers also pledged to continue financial support for the global economy until recovery from recession is secured.

They said they would develop co-ordinated “exit strategies” to deal with ballooning public deficits once the recession is over.

The finance ministers agreed to continue with economic stimulus plans

UK Chancellor Alistair Darling said all bankers were obliged “to make sure that their pay practices are responsible”.

He said: “Above all we are determined to take action to stop banks or other financial institutions getting themselves into a situation where their pay-and-reward practices actually encourage people to take risks which bring their institutions into a situation where they could be brought down with catastrophic results.”

Concrete proposals

Discussing possible regulation of bonuses, he said: “If you have got an institution that is struggling or it’s in the process of rebuilding itself the regulator could say that pool set aside for bonuses is really too big.”

Mr Darling added: “Critically now the job is to make sure that you translate those principals into practical propositions that actually bite and actually work.

“We need to have standards that are observed right across the world.”

The US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, said there was broad agreement on the need for change.

He said: “Changing compensation practices fundamentally will be fundamental to future reform, and we’re going to move forward and do that.”

International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that governments now had to act.

“The problem is we need to go beyond agreement. We need to have concrete measures.”

Ministers have agreed to raise “significantly” the say of emerging nations’ on the world stage.

Libraries are trying to imagine their futures with or without books.

The stereotypical library is dying — and it’s taking its shushing ladies, dank smell and endless shelves of books with it.

Libraries are trying to imagine their futures with or without books.

Books are being pushed aside for digital learning centers and gaming areas. “Loud rooms” that promote public discourse and group projects are taking over the bookish quiet. Hipster staffers who blog, chat on Twitter and care little about the Dewey Decimal System are edging out old-school librarians.

And that’s just the surface. By some accounts, the library system is undergoing a complete transformation that goes far beyond these image changes.

Authors, publishing houses, librarians and Web sites continue to fight Google’s efforts to digitize the world’s books and create the world’s largest library online. Meanwhile, many real-world libraries are moving forward with the assumption that physical books will play a much-diminished or potentially nonexistent role in their efforts to educate the public.

Some books will still be around, they say, although many of those will be digital. But the goal of the library remains the same: To be a free place where people can access and share information.

“The library building isn’t a warehouse for books,” said Helene Blowers, digital strategy director at the Columbus [Ohio] Metropolitan Library. “It’s a community gathering center.”

Think of the change as a Library 2.0 revolution — a mirror of what’s happened on the Web.

Library 2.0

People used to go online for the same information they could get from newspapers. Now they go to Facebook, Digg and Twitter to discuss their lives and the news of the day. Forward-looking librarians are trying to create that same conversational loop in public libraries. The one-way flow of information from book to patron isn’t good enough anymore.

“We can pick up on all of these trends that are going on,” said Toby Greenwalt, virtual services coordinator at the Skokie Public Library in suburban Chicago.

Greenwalt, for example, set up a Twitter feed and text-messaging services for his library. He monitors local conversations on online social networks and uses that information as inspiration for group discussions or programs at the real-world library.

Other libraries are trying new things, too.

The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, in North Carolina, has a multimedia space where kids shoot videos and record music. It also runs a blog dedicated to gaming and hosts video game tournaments regularly.

Kelly Czarnecki, a technology education librarian at ImaginOn, a kids’ branch of that library, said kids learn by telling their own stories.

“Our motto here is to bring stories to life, so by having the movie and music studio we can really tap into a different angle of what stories are,” she said. “They’re not just in books. They’re something kids can create themselves.”

Czarnecki believes that doesn’t have to come at the expense of book-based learning.

The Aarhus Public Library in Aarhus, Denmark, takes things a step further.

The library features an “info column,” where people share digital news stories; an “info galleria” where patrons explore digital maps layered with factoids; a digital floor that lets people immerse themselves in information; and RFID-tagged book phones that kids point at specific books to hear a story.

“The library has never been just about books,” said Rolf Hapel, director of the city’s public libraries.