Britain's Labour says welfare should be linked to contributions

By Natalie Huet

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's opposition Labour Party is set to overhaul its welfare policies to link state help to individual contributions, countering charges by the governing Conservatives that it is soft on benefit scroungers.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said people in work should go to the top of social housing waiting lists and the unemployed should take up job offers or lose benefits after two years.

Labour's proposals, which mark a break from the principle that certain social benefits are universal, came days after the government started overhauling a welfare system that costs 200 billion pounds ($300 billion) a year.

A YouGov poll for The Sun on Sunday showed 67 percent of voters think the welfare system does not work and needs urgent reform. The issue is set to play a major part in the next election due in 2015.

Labour's welfare policies would be fairer and founded on ensuring a supply of well-paying jobs for all, providing stronger incentives to seek employment, Harman said.

"Work should pay. Secondly, there should be an obligation to take work," she said. "There should be support through a contributory principle, for people putting in to the system as well as taking out."

Under welfare caps and cuts coming into effect this month, households will not be able to claim more than 26,000 pounds each year in welfare. This comes as the government tries to eliminate its underlying budget deficit by the 2016-17 fiscal year, from 6.8 percent of gross domestic product in the current financial year.

Labour's move came after Chancellor George Osborne on Thursday upped the temperature of the debate on welfare by saying a man jailed for life for killing six of his children in a fire was the "vile product" of the benefits system.

In a letter to The Sun, Prime Minister David Cameron said the welfare system had "lost its way" and had become a "lifestyle choice for some".

"We are putting fairness back at the heart of Britain. We are building a country for those who work hard and want to get on. And we are saying to each and every hardworking person in our country: we are on your side," Cameron wrote.

Labour led the Conservatives in a YouGov poll of voter intention in the Sunday Times, by 40 percent to 30 percent. ($1 = 0.6514 British pounds)

(Editing by Jason Webb)

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Head found in '89 IDed, linked to serial killer

Almost 25 years after her severed head was found on a golf course, the woman New Jersey police believe was the first victim of a notorious serial killer has finally been identified.

State police said Wednesday Heidi Balch is believed to be the first of 17 women killed by Joel Rifkin during a four-year spree that ended in 1993 when he was pulled over for a missing license plate with a dead women's body in the back of his pickup.

Authorities have long believed the woman whose severed head was found in March 1989 on a golf course in Hopewell Township, near Trenton, was the first woman Rifkin killed. He all but admitted it after his arrest, providing details on where he disposed of her head and legs.

Rifkin was eventually sentenced to more than 200 years in prison for the killings. But Balch's identity remained a mystery for more than two decades.

State Police Det. Sgt. Stephen Urbanski said Balch's parents didn't initially list her as a missing person and Balch, who worked as a prostitute in New York City, used numerous aliases and Social Security numbers.

"It's very rare that you have a story like this," Urbanski said. "The first thing is to ID the body, and then you move on with the investigation, you look at acquaintances and things like that. In this one, the answers were there all along, we just had to put them together."

Rifkin had told police he killed a prostitute he'd known as "Susie," Urbanski said. The search led to New York where investigators focused on a prostitute who'd gone by the name Susan Spencer — and about 15 other names. Some of the bogus Social Security numbers she'd used were traced to Ohio and Florida, so Urbanski went to those states to check missing persons reports.

Finally, investigators learned the woman had once used the name Heidi Balch, who had been listed as a missing person in New York by her aunt in 2001. Even that discovery was complicated by the revelation that the last sighting of Balch was in 1995, six years after the remains were found on the golf course. Urbanski said it was later revealed Balch's aunt hadn't actually seen her niece but that someone had mistakenly told her they had seen Heidi.

The big break came earlier this month when Balch's aunt identified her niece from an arrest photo of Susan Spencer. Subsequent DNA tests of Balch's mother and father, who live in Maryland and Florida, respectively, confirmed the identification.

Balch's parents "expressed shock," Urbanski said. "They knew in their hearts something bad had happened to her, but not to this extent. I don't think they ever imagined she was the first victim of Joel Rifkin."

Urbanski said state police are in the process of reviewing cases of unidentified bodies found in New Jersey from the time Balch's remains were found up until Rifkin's arrest.

John Byrne, a spokesman for the Nassau County district attorney's office, which prosecuted Rifkin, said it was too early to make a determination about whether it would seek to prosecute Rifkin in this case.

"We are still very much in the fact-finding stage," Byrne said.

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African linked to extremist group sentenced in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — An East African man has been sentenced in New York to just over nine years in prison for conspiring to support terrorism by associating with a violent extremist group in Somalia.

Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to nine years and three months in prison. He had pleaded guilty in June.

Ahmed was detained in Nigeria in 2009 before being turned over to U.S. authorities. Prosecutors in New York had accused the Eritrean (ehr-ih-TREE'-uhn) man of receiving explosives training, buying an assault rifle and raising money for al-Shabaab.

Al-Shabaab was designated by the United States as a terrorist group in 2008. Manhattan's top federal prosecutor said in a release that Ahmed traveled thousands of miles to align himself with al-Shabaab and aid their campaign of terror.

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Suspect Arrested, Linked to Daniel Pearl Slaying

Pakistani officials said today they have arrested a suspect in connection with the brutal 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Officials told ABC News the suspect, Qari Abdul Hayee, who often used the alias Asadullah, was captured Sunday in a targeted operation by the Pakistani Rangers, a paramilitary unit, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and a sprawling metropolis home to an estimated 18 million people.

Pearl was kidnapped in January 2002 while en route to interview a Pakistani militant and was later beheaded in a gruesome video eventually posted online.

In 2007, self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly confessed to having killed Pearl, but it's unclear whether he personally carried out the beheading. Mohammed, currently in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, has never been charged with the crime.

Pakistani officials said they do not believe Hayee carried out the murder, but said he was "privy to the whole situation" and that he was part of the terror group that carried out the crime.

In 2011 a man named Abdul Hayee was identified as one of 27 people allegedly involved in Pearl's kidnapping in a special investigation by Georgetown University called The Pearl Project.

READ: Report Says Justice Not Served in Murder of Daniel Pearl, Wall Street Journal Reporter

Hayee is currently being interrogated and is expected to be handed over to police, who will formally initiate legal proceedings, officials said.

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