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/ 22 November 2007
Senior officials knew about a decision to include financial details of millions of Britons on computer discs that then went missing in the mail, British opposition politicians said on Thursday. Citing an internal email, members of the Conservative Party said blame for the scandal went higher than just the junior civil servant so far blamed by the government.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown ruled out an early election on Saturday in what the opposition Conservatives called a humiliating retreat after polls showed his lead over them had evaporated. Brown, who took over from Tony Blair three months ago, had allowed his Labour Party to fan speculation in recent weeks that he would hold an early election.
Constantine Rodriguez had just fetched chilli peppers and was going out to get some onions when he heard the siren for an incoming rocket. All he remembers was a door blasting open and a loud explosion. He is lucky to be alive, said Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Martin, the surgeon who treated him earlier this month at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad.
Tens of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrims made their way on foot to a shrine in the north of Baghdad on Thursday, hoping for safety at an annual ritual marred by violence in the past two years. Two years ago, nearly 1 000 pilgrims were killed in a stampede on a bridge near the shrine, sparked by rumours of a suicide bomber.
Police arrested two more suspects in a widening hunt for members of a suspected al-Qaeda cell that rammed a fuel-packed jeep into a Scottish airport and left two car bombs in London, police said on Monday. A total of seven people are now in custody in connection with the attacks. Two of those arrested were confirmed to be doctors.
British police arrested a fifth person on Sunday after a fuel-filled jeep was rammed into Scotland’s busiest airport in what police said was a terrorist attack linked to failed car bombings in London. Also on Sunday, police carried out a controlled detonation of a suspicious vehicle left in the car park of a hospital near Glasgow.
British prosecutors accused a former KGB agent on Tuesday of murdering dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium and sought his extradition, throwing London and Moscow on to a diplomatic collision course. The Crown Prosecution Service said it wanted to bring suspect Andrei Lugovoy before a British court.
British prosecutors will charge former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy with the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London last year after being poisoned with radioactive polonium. The Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday there was enough evidence to charge Lugovoy and seek his extradition from Russia.
Britain’s military denied newspaper reports on Thursday that it was banning Prince Harry from serving in combat in Iraq, but acknowledged his deployment was under review. Harry, third in line to the throne, is due to head to Iraq with his ”A” Squadron of the Blues and Royals regiment in the coming weeks.
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/ 31 January 2007
Police in central England arrested nine people in a major security swoop on Wednesday, which a defence source said involved a plot to kidnap and possibly kill a Muslim British soldier. Detectives said eight suspected conspirators were arrested in dawn raids across the city of Birmingham on ”suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”.