Saturday's papers

Sacked for telling the truth about drugs is the lead in the Independent this morning as the paper reports that

The Government's drugs tsar was forced to resign last night for stating his view that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol.

Professor Nutt was told to resign as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse Drugs (ACMD) after a series of controversial outbursts including accusing ministers of ignoring scientific evidence to distort the drugs debate

.adds the Telegraph

Mr Johnson said he had "lost confidence" in him but Prof Nutt hit back claiming the decision was politically motivated and accused ministers of a "Luddite" attitude to science.

According to a Times exclusive,Patients who do not get the treatment that they need from the NHS within 18 weeks are to be given the legal right to free private care.

The Cabinet agreed this week that the legislation, placing maximum waiting times on the statute book for the first time, should be rushed through Parliament before the next election.

The Guardian leads with the story that

Leaders of three of the most powerful states in Europe have strongly criticised David Cameron at the EU summit over a Conservative attempt to scupper the Lisbon treaty.

Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and José Luiz Rodríguez Zapatero are understood to have privately criticised the Tory leader after he sent a handwritten letter to the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, who has been refusing to sign the treaty.

The most senior soldier to be killed in Afghanistan foreshadowed his own death in a damning memo about the shortage of helicopters.reports the Mail

Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe told his superiors that British troops would die because they were being forced to make trips by road.Less than a month later, he was blown up by a roadside bomb.

The age of free banking is coming to an end says the Telegraph as it reports that new figures show that nearly half of all current accounts offered by high street banks now involve customers paying a fee to use them.

A combination of an expected limit on overdraft charges, falling profits and the recession is forcing banks to turn away from traditional free accounts.

Most of the papers report that Somali pirates have demanded a $7 million ransom last night for the kidnapped British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler.

It was the first time that a figure had been mentioned since Mr and Mrs Chandler were captured on board their yacht off the Seychelles a week ago.
A spokesman for the pirates said that the money was only a “little amount” and would compensate for the seizures made by international anti-piracy patrols.

says the Times

THE distraught mum of tragic Ashleigh Hall yesterday blasted Facebook for failing to prevent perverts using the site.reports the Sun

Andrea Hall wept as she urged bosses to take action to stop predatory sex fiends trawling for victims.

The Independent says that John Bercow, the Speaker of the Commons, has been accused of taking his shake-up of the role too far after he unleashed an attack on the British National Party.

Mr Bercow, who was in the Speaker's chair to oversee the first ever UK Youth Parliament session taking place in the Commons, earned cheers and even a standing ovation from the delegates for his outburst. "I'm under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to be impartial as between the forces of democracy on the one hand and the forces of evil on the other," he said.

Parents who cheat to get a place at the best state schools will face fines and court orders under hardline proposals to be set out by a major inquiry on Monday.says the Guardian

The move it continues

follows an unsuccessful attempt by Harrow council this summer to prosecute a parent under the Fraud Act who was accused of lying about her address to get her child a place at a popular primary. The case collapsed, exposing the lack of legal sanctions deterring parents from making deceptive statements in their applications, and prompted the schools secretary, Ed Balls, to request the inquiry.

The Mail has been looking into the affairs of Tony Blair,

At a conservative estimate, he has made £15million from his commercial activities since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, and there is every sign that his earning capacity is increasing.
He remains in demand as a £100,000-a-time international speaker, he has contracts to provide advice with several banking institutions, he is writing his memoirs, and he has established Tony Blair Associates (TBA) to provide advice to foreign governments for money.

A couple of stories from abroad.The Telegraph reports that the teenager who fathered Sarah Palin's 10-month-old grandson has delivered a fresh blow to the former Republican vice presidential candidate by saying he will "definitely" take her to court to gain access to his child.

Meanwhile the Times says that

Jacques Chirac, the former French President, has been ordered to stand trial on corruption charges over claims that he illegally used public money to fund his rise to power in the 1990s.

Finally according to the Independent a Japanese professor claims communist dictator Kim Jong-il has been replaced after dying in 2003.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, who once claimed that the real Mr Kim died in 2003, and that everything since has been make-believe. One Mr Kim, he maintains, even flatly confessed to a Japanese visitor, "I am a double."