United Kingdom

London’s Westminster Council has thrown out a proposal to erect a statue of Nelson Mandela on Trafalgar Square, saying the 3m would be more appropriately placed outside the nearby South Africa House. So many e-mails were sent to the committee in support of the proposal that the council’s computer system crashed.

A fire that destroyed more than 100 art works worth millions in a London warehouse last week could have been started to cover up a burglary, British media reported on Friday. The burglars had broken into a unit at the warehouse in an industrial estate at Leyton before the fire broke out.

A computer failure at a British air-traffic control centre grounded many of the country’s flights on Thursday morning, delaying thousands of travellers. The system was running again two hours later, but airports said the backlog of flights would cause serious delays throughout the day.

Paul McCartney says he got no thrill from heroin, but found cocaine more to his liking for a time. ”I tried heroin just the once,” McCartney said in interview published on Wednesday in the Daily Mirror newspaper. Despite enjoying cocaine for a time, he said he eventually turned against the drug.

Archaeologists said on Monday they have unearthed parts of a World War II fighter plane that crashed after downing a German bomber near Buckingham Palace. The plane’s engine and control panel were located late on Sunday during excavations in Buckingham Palace Road in the centre of the capital.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s discreet chief media strategist David Hill was in the spotlight of bad publicity on Wednesday for allegedly suggesting that the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport disaster might be an opportunity to boost London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

Two fathers protesting at lack of rights over their children disrupted the British Parliament on Wednesday by throwing two missiles containing purple powder, one of which hit Tony Blair as he was responding to questions. The protest by members of Fathers 4 Justice led Speaker Michael Martin to suspend the sitting immediately.

The editor of the British tabloid Daily Mirror was sacked on Friday after being caught up in a scandal involving fake pictures that purportedly showed British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, the newspaper said. ”The Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax,” the paper said.

Two people were feared dead and dozens injured after a powerful explosion destroyed a plastics factory in Scotland’s largest city of Glasgow on Tuesday, emergency services said. Up to 20 people were also thought to be trapped in the rubble and another 60 injured when the building collapsed after the explosion.

The family of Britain’s Princess Diana said on Thursday they were ”shocked and sickened” by the United States broadcast of paparazzi images of her dying in a Paris car crash. The fuzzy pictures, aired on Wednesday by CBS, came from a French investigation into the August 1997 crash in Paris.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday he will call a British referendum on the European Union’s Constitution, confirming an abrupt reversal of his previous adamant opposition to such a vote. Blair’s U-turn is the most significant since he came to power in 1997.

There is ”little doubt” that significant numbers of big cats such as pumas and lynxes are roaming the British countryside, with more than four sightings of such beasts reported per day, a campaign group said on Tuesday. The British Big Cats Society was set up to compile evidence that such beasts live wild in the country.

A decorative biscuit tin picturing a couple having sex in bushes during a formal tea party, which a mischievous artist tried to sneak on to British supermarket shelves, is to be sold at auction, it was announced on Friday. The 1970s design was created for British biscuit manufacturers Huntley and Palmer.

The squirrel on which author Beatrix Potter based her Squirrel Nutkin a century ago is facing extinction in its home in the English Lake District, scientists studying the red squirrel said on Wednesday. Peter Lurz of Newcastle University said fewer than 1 000 of the rare Cumbrian red still survive.

British and United States intelligence agents on Tuesday claimed to have foiled a chemical terrorist attack in Britain, news reports said on Tuesday. According to the BBC, the agents believe that the people behind the plot are sympathisers of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The BBC announced on Monday that it will phase out ties between its popular children’s television characters and fatty or sugary snack foods. Teletubbies chocolate bars, Tweenies chocolate krispies and Fimbles shortcake are to be shunned in favour of more healthy themed products.

British music group EMI announced on Wednesday plans to outsource manufacturing of music and movie discs in Europe and the United States and remove artists from its global roster, resulting in the loss of 1 500 jobs. The world’s third-biggest music group said it would cut its artist roster by about 20%.

Eight people were arrested under Britain’s anti-terrorist laws on Tuesday in police raids in and around London. The raids also netted half a tonne of a fertiliser that could be used to make a bomb. London has been on guard against a potential attack since the Madrid train bombings.

Alistair Cooke, a broadcasting legend in his native Britain and adopted United States, has died, less than a month after he recorded his final Letter from America, BBC radio said on Tuesday. Cooke passed away at about midnight local time on Monday at his home in New York.

British intelligence agents spied on United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war, a former member of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Cabinet said on Thursday. Blair refused to say whether the allegation was true, but said the former minister had been ”deeply irresponsible”.

British defence manufacturers are using a ”dangerous loophole” to peddle weapons to developing countries that are subject to arms embargos, the development charity Oxfam said on Wednesday. Components made in Britain are reaching countries such as Zimbabwe, Israel, Indonesia, Uganda, Colombia, Nepal and the Philippines.

United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair ought to have the guts to say sorry for waging ”an immoral war” against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, according to excerpts of a speech Archbishop Desmond Tutu was to deliver on Monday.

A British police chief has revealed the type of weapon he would most like to see officers carry in the future, it was reported on Saturday — a disabling ”phaser gun” of the sort used in television show Star Trek. The gun would be able to turn ”someone’s brain off”, he was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

At least 18 shellfish hunters died when they were trapped by fast-rising tides in treacherous Morecambe Bay in northern England, police said on Friday. Police reported seven others were rescued and the search was continuing. The dead — 16 men and two women — were among a group of people all believed to be Chinese nationals.