Gordon Brown stands accused today of misleading the public over his much-vaunted plans to help young people through the recession. Leaked documents show the government is planning drastic cuts for its flagship plan to train a new generation of apprentices.

Confidential papers obtained by The Observer show that, while Brown and his ministers have suggested they are raising investment in training, skills and apprenticeships, behind the scenes they are preparing some £350m of cuts for 2010-11 that will slash the number of training places on offer by hundreds of thousands.

Last night business groups, unions and opposition parties accused the government of duping young people - and businesses that train them in return for state help with funding - into believing it is investing more during the downturn, when the reverse is the case.

The cuts represent part of the £5bn in immediate spending reductions across all departments promised by Alistair Darling at his April budget, which the Treasury insisted would not compromise front-line services. The leaked documents show, however, that these cuts will severely limit help for young people seeking training and qualifications - and will raise fears that other core services such as schools and hospitals will also suffer

Two Tory frontbenchers in the European Parliament have announced their resignation from EU positions after Conservative leader David Cameron announced he would drop plans to hold a referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty should he come to power next year. B

Daniel Hannan, a prominent Conservative MEP, resigned on Wednesday as Conservative spokesman on constitutional affairs, hours after Cameron's EU speech. 

In a blog post , Hannan suggested he had felt betrayed by Cameron's U-turn. "It's not chiefly about Europe - it's about democracy. Out of 646 MPs in Westminster, 638 were elected on the promise of a referendum," Hannan wrote.

Hannan was soon joined by Roger Helmer MEP, who resigned as Tory employment spokesman in Brussels. "Like all Conservative MPs and MEPs, I was elected on an explicit Manifesto Commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty," Helmer wrote on his website. "Yesterday, David Cameron ejected that commitment and repudiated that policy."

Germany's defense minister has called for clarification of Germany's status in Afghanistan, after a contoversial airstrike ordered by a German commander raised the question of whether the country is at war. 

German defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that legal security must be established for all German Bundeswehr soldiers - in particular those taking part in complicated missions like Germany's participation in the NATO ISAF mission in Afghanistan.

"We can't have our soldiers hampered by legal doubts, especially when they are forced to make decisions under extreme time pressure," Guttenberg said.

Guttenberg's comments came after he voiced his support of a controversial airstrike ordered by a German commander in Afghanistan in September.

Guttenberg backed the decision of Colonel Georg Klein to launch an air attack on two fuel tankers that had been hijacked by Taliban militants near a German military base in northern Afghanistan.

taly is hailing the capture of an influential mafia boss who was on the list of the country's 30 most wanted men.

Italian police arrested Luigi Esposito on Saturday in a luxury villa in Posillipo, a northern city of Naples.

Esposito, on the run since 2003, was using a wig and false name when captured.

Police declined to comment on Sunday.

He is believed to be one of the heads of the Nuvoletta clan of the Camorra, which operates in the Naples region.

In 2006, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for drug-trafficking and for criminal association with the mafia.

The questions before the judges in Courtroom No. 1 of Britain's Supreme Court were as ancient and as complex as Judaism itself.

Who is a Jew? And who gets to decide?

On the surface, the court was considering a straightforward challenge to the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London. But the case, in which arguments concluded Oct. 30, has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain. And in addressing issues at the heart of Jewish identity, it has exposed bitter divisions in Britain's community of 300,000 or so Jews, pitting members of various Jewish denominations against one another.

"This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community's modern history," said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. "It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates."

The case began when a 12-year-old boy, an observant Jew whose father is Jewish and whose mother is a Jewish convert, applied to the school, JFS.

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It is unclear what effect the ruling, if it is upheld, will have on other religious schools. Some Catholic schools, accustomed to using baptism as a baseline admissions criterion, are worried that they will have to adopt similar practice tests.

The case has stirred up long-simmering resentments among the leaders of different Jewish denominations, who, for starters, disagree vehemently on the definition of Jewishness. They also disagree on the issue of whether an Orthodox leader is entitled to speak for the entire community. ...