News Daily: Brexit talks and tension in Kirkuk

Brexit deal efforts 'should accelerate'

Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker had a "constructive and friendly" dinner in Brussels on Monday night- where the main thing on the menu was Brexit, with a side order of how to get the UK's divorce negotiations back on track.

Both politicians reviewed the process and agreed to "accelerate" discussions in the coming months, according to a joint statement.

However, the BBC's Europe correspondent Kevin Connolly said the communique was a "a masterpiece of uncommunicative communication" and that it "recorded formally that Brexit negotiations are taking place between the EU 27 and the UK - a statement of the obvious that may hint at Brussels' displeasure with British attempts to talk directly to individual member states as well."

Thousands flee Kirkuk as Iraqis enter

Thousands of people have fled Kirkuk, after Iraqi government forces took over key buildings, amid tensions over a controversial independence referendum by the region's Kurds.

Voters in Kurdish-controlled areas, including Kirkuk, overwhelmingly backed breaking away from Iraq when they went to the polls on 25 September.

While Kirkuk is outside Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish voters in the city were allowed to take part. Iraq's prime minister has rejected the result of the referendum, which he says was unconstitutional, and insisted Monday's operation was to "protect the unity of the country".

However, the government of Iraqi Kurdistan says the vote was legitimate. The US has appealed for clam amid the escalating tensions

While local authorities say they do this to reunite rough sleepers with family members in different parts of the country - one man told the programme he was sent to a city he had never been to before.

Twenty councils with the highest number of rough sleepers in England were asked - some by Freedom of Information request - how many homeless people had been offered the "reconnection" policy of a one-way train ticket between 2012 and 2017.

Of the 11 that responded, 10 said they had bought such tickets, with Manchester City Council saying it had spent £9,928 on reconnecting homeless people in six years. It said it did not keep a record of how many people this involved.