United Kingdom

Britain’s defence minister on Thursday played down a spiralling row over pre-war information on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction after Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted he was in the dark about a key piece of intelligence. Blair on Wednesday said he had not been clear about what sort of weapons Iraq was alleged to possess.

The British government will hold an inquiry into the intelligence used in deciding to go to war with Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday. The announcement comes a day after United States President George Bush announced he would name an independent, bipartisan inquiry into faulty intelligence in Iraq.

Greg Dyke, the head of the BBC, resigned on Thursday after a judicial inquiry harshly criticised the network’s journalistic standards. On Wednesday, Judge Lord Hutton criticised the BBC for an ”unfounded” report it broadcast accusing the government of ”sexing up” a dossier about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction with information it knew was wrong.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday he accepted ”in full” a judicial report that exonerated him of any wrongdoing in the suicide last year of weapons expert David Kelly. ”The report … leaves no room for doubt or interpretation. We accept it in full,” Blair said.

Stephen Hawking, the severely disabled British scientist renowned for his theories on cosmology, has suffered ”a series of mystery assaults”, the Daily Mirror reported on Monday. Police confirmed they were ”investigating an allegation of assault on a 62-year-old man from Cambridge”.

Britain sought on Tuesday to allay fears about putting sky marshals on commercial airliners, saying it is a "responsible and prudent step" in the face of the threat of global terrorism. The British pilots’ union, Balpa, has recoiled at the plan, and the country’s biggest airline, British Airways, is also reported to be cool to the idea.

The British-built space probe Beagle 2 has failed for a third night running to make contact with a giant telescope in west England confirming its safe arrival on Mars, the project’s organisers said on Sunday. On the third night of trying, scientists were hoping the telescope would pick up a radio signal from the probe.

A third attempt to confirm the survival of the European Mars lander <i>Beagle 2</i> failed on Friday when a Nasa spacecraft swept over the planned touchdown site on the red planet without picking up a signal. "We are not in any way giving up yet," said Professor Colin Pillinger, chief <i>Beagle</i> scientist.

Hope began to fade on Friday that the European space probe Beagle 2 had landed safely on Mars after the British-built craft failed for a second time to make contact with Earth and confirm its arrival. In London, experts in the Beagle 2 team have insisted that the silence does not mean the game is over.

Queen Elizabeth II is mourning the death of one of her beloved corgis, mauled by a terrier belonging to her daughter, Princess Anne, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Sun tabloid said Pharos the corgi was injured in an altercation with bull terrier Dotty on Monday.

Pollution is making British Christmas trees bushier, and thus more desirable to the traditional customer, according to a study published in this week’s New Scientist. The traditional layered tree, shaped like a wedding cake, is slowly giving way to one that is squat and bushy, owing to extra nitrogen in the air.

United States President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair stood united on Thursday on the war on terror and condemned Thursday’s bombings in Turkey. As many as 100 000 anti-war protesters were mobilising for a massive march on Parliament as they spoke.

Hundreds of protesters staged their own welcome for United States President George Bush on Wednesday with a noisy and colourful mock royal procession in London that included a pink ”love tank” and demonstrators dressed up as United Nations weapons inspectors and Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Under a slate-grey sky, and within the relatively safe confines of Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday offered United States President George Bush a spectacular state welcome to Britain complete with a brass band, grenadier guards in bearskin hats and a 41-gun salute.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23792">London protesters mock Bush</a>

As a pastime it has thrilled Britons and tourists for more than a century but feeding pigeons in London’s famous Trafalgar Square is now illegal — a move that has angered bird lovers but delighted the capital’s controversial mayor. The moves are part of a £25-million facelift of the central London landmark.

Britain’s Treasury chief, Gordon Brown, on Tuesday warned against tit-for-tat protectionist measures in the dispute between the European Union and the United States over American tariffs on foreign steel. The World Trade Organisation last week ruled that the American duties violated international fair-trade rules

Intensive security measures fell into place in London on Monday prior to a state visit to Britain by United States President George Bush that could flesh out the future of post-war Iraq. Large-scale demonstrations and a heightened terrorist alert risk overshadowing talks that Bush will be having with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Saboteurs working for Nazi Germany plotted a World War II bombing campaign in Britain involving exploding cans of processed French peas, according to secret files made public on Friday. An informer detained with the saboteurs told Irish authorities that their plan possibly included an attempt to ”blow up Buckingham palace”.

Blow-up dolls playing with a vibrator and maggots devouring flesh are among the shock images awaiting visitors to this year’s Turner Prize exhibition, unveiled on Tuesday in London. Another prize contender also features sex acts, genitals and death — depicted by way of ceramic vases.

A former African archbishop has described the potential exclusion of gays in the Anglican Communion as a ”heresy” comparable to apartheid, as a summit of Anglican leaders got under way. The Most Reverend Walter Makhulu, the South African-born former archbishop of Central Africa, preached at a service in London.

Oil prices trickled down on Thursday after a planned general strike by Nigerian workers, which could have affected the country’s oil industry, was called off at the last moment. The price of reference Brent North Sea crude oil for November delivery fell 19 cents to ,54 per barrel in early deals.

Microsoft is shutting down internet chat services in most of its markets around the world and limiting the service in the United States to help reduce criminal solicitations of children through online chat discussions. The changes will take effect on October 14, Microsoft has said in an announcement from Europe.

The inquiry into the suicide of British government weapons expert David Kelly is wrapping up 22 days of oral evidence before the senior jurist who is heading it sits down to write up his findings. Kelly’s death plunged Prime Minister Tony Blair into the worst crisis of his six years in office.