PM aides deny 'shambles' memo linkDowning Street has denied any connection with an internal memo that apparently admits the Government is seen as a "shambles".
The Mail on Sunday reports that the document was prepared for Tony Blair by senior aides, and gives a bleak assessment of Labour's situation.
It expresses concern that the party is viewed as riven by "internal conflicts" and lacking "grip and competence on vital issues".
The memo also apparently warns that the position of Mr Bl... (more)
|
|
Army chief accused of lying about Britain's readiness for Iraq war An inquest into the death of a British tank commander killed in Iraq has heard a tape he recorded three days before his death, in which he accuses the Army of telling "a blatant lie" by saying that British troops were ready for war, and tells his wife, "I just want to come home."
Sergeant Steve Roberts, 33, died in a "friendly fire" incident after he was attacked by a stone-wielding Iraqi man while manning a checkpoint outside the southern city of Az Zuba... (more)
|
|
Spy was killed 'on orders of Kremlin Stalin' A feared Kremlin boss, who has been likened to Stalin, has emerged as the key suspect in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, according to the murdered spy's former business partner.
Yuri Shvets, a fellow ex-agent, has told British detectives that he believes Mr Litvinenko was killed after compiling a dossier on the official for a British firm considering a deal in Russia.
The file led to the firm cancelling the deal, worth tens of millions of pounds, with a comp... (more)
|
|
Cornered Military Takes to Desperate TacticsFALLUJAH, Dec 9 (IPS) - People living in areas where resistance to U.S.-led occupation is mounting are facing increased levels of collective punishment from the occupation forces, residents say.
Siniyah town 200 km north of Baghdad with a population of 25,000 has been under siege by the U.S. military for two weeks.
IPS had earlier reported unrest in Siniyah Jan. 20 when the U.S. military constructed a six-mile sand wall in a failed attempt to check resistance attack... (more)
|
|
Academic to be Tried for Attending Holocaust Conference
Robert Faurisson, a French academic who attended an Iranian conference questioning the Jewish Holocaust, could face legal punishment.
Robert Faurisson might be brought to court as a result of the comments he made at the "unacceptable" Tehran gathering, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
The foreign minister said the French academic was previously taken to court and banned from teaching at universities for his attitude toward the holocaust.... (more)
|
|
Putin reported 'furious' over US payment for Lebanon war, CIA Egypt terror ringReports from the Kremlin today are portraying President Putin as being 'furious' with the American War Leader Bush over his breaking of a promise to the Russian President to not provide US funding to the Israelis for their Lebanese War. Less than 3 weeks after making this promise the United States used a little known provision in their security agreements with Israel to fully pay for the war, and as we can read as reported by Israel's Ynet News Service in their article titled "US to double emerg... (more)
|
|
Survey indicates Iraqis in despair More than 90 per cent of Iraqis believe the country is worse off now than before the war in 2003, according to new research obtained by Al Jazeera.
A survey of 2,000 people by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies found that 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of US forces.
The findings follow a poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal that found that less than one in four Americans approves... (more)
|
|
Gaza border shots 'targeted PM'Hamas says the shooting on the convoy of the Palestinian prime minister at a Gaza border post was an assassination attempt by a rival faction.
Ismail Haniya's convoy came under fire when it was allowed to cross, after being held there for several hours.
A bodyguard was killed and Mr Haniya's son was shot in the face as the fire fight erupted at the Rafah checkpoint.
Border guards allied to President Abbas' Fatah faction, exchanged fire with Mr Haniya... (more)
|
|
Iran: Israel 'will end like USSR' Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told a conference in Tehran questioning the Holocaust that Israel's days are numbered.
"Just as the USSR disappeared, soon the Zionist regime will disappear," he said to the applause of the participants.
The two-day conference provoked widespread international outrage.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the forum and British Prime Minister Tony Blair called it "shocking beyond b... (more)
|
|
Three Children Of Palestinian Intelligence Official SlainJERUSALEM, Dec. 11 -- Gunmen in Gaza City opened fire Monday on the car of a senior Palestinian intelligence official, killing his three children, ages 6 to 9, as they were being dropped off at school.
The intelligence officer, Baha Balousha, was not in the car during the morning attack. He is closely identified with the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and participated in a crackdown in the 1990s against members of the rival Hamas movement in Gaza.
... (more)
|
|
$20bn gas project seized by RussiaShell is being forced by the Russian government to hand over its controlling stake in the world's biggest liquefied gas project, provoking fresh fears about the Kremlin's willingness to use the country's growing strength in natural resources as a political weapon.
After months of relentless pressure from Moscow, the Anglo-Dutch company has to cut its stake in the $20bn Sakhalin-2 scheme in the far east of Russia in favour of the state-owned energy group Gazprom.
The... (more)
|
|
Olmert appears to admit Israel possesses nuclear weapons Jerusalem- In an unprecedented move at odds with 40 years of deliberate ambiguity, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to admit Monday that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, when he included the country in a list of nuclear states.
In an interview with Germany's Sat 1 television, an excerpt of which was broadcast in Israel, the prime minister was asked whether Israel's nuclear arsenal - which until now it has never publicly admitted to having - undermined the West's objec... (more)
|
|
Fatherless babies in fertility revolutionA child's need for a father will no longer be a consideration when a woman seeks fertility treatment, ministers will say this week.
The move – which comes despite widespread public opposition and which will give single women and lesbians the right to treatment – forms part of a shake-up of Britain's embryology laws. One of the key proposals would allow research on test-tube embryos that were part-human, part-animal — referred to as "chimeras".
Caro... (more)
|
|
'You must leave in 24 hours or your heads will be cut, your houses burnt'The three Azzawi brothers, Hussein, Qadam and Ali, loved their home. Their late father had picked the two-storey villa because it was big enough for his sons to marry and raise children in. He hoped that they would always live there.
That dream ended with a letter, dumped after dark on the Azzawis’ doorstep. The death threat was organised like a business memorandum, with the helpful heading “Subject: displacementâ€.
... (more)
|
|
Rwanda accuses France of hiding late Habyarimana`s plane black boxThe row between France and Rwanda went a notch higher after Rwandese foreign minister, Charles Murigande, challenged Paris to disclose the whereabouts of the black box of the ill-fated plane that killed President Juvenal Habyarimana.
Rwanda`s President Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed on 6 April 1994 after their plane was shot down, sparking off the infamous Rwanda genocide.
France is currently investigating the cause of the pla... (more)
|
|
CIA is undermining British war effort, say military chiefs British intelligence officers and military commanders have accused the US of undermining British policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, after the sacking of a key British ally in the Afghan province of Helmand. British sources have blamed pressure from the CIA for President Hamid Karzai's decision to dismiss Mohammed Daud as governor of Helmand, the southern province where Britain deployed some 4,000 troops this year. Governor Daud was appointed in mid-year to replace a man the... (more)
|
|
Spy widow points finger at RussiaThe widow of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has said she believes the Russian authorities could have been behind his murder.
Marina Litvinenko, 44, told the Mail on Sunday: "Obviously it was not Putin himself, of course not."
But she said what President Putin "does around him in Russia makes it possible to kill a British person" in Britain.
Two Metropolitan Police officers have tested positive for traces of radioactive substance polonium-210.... (more)
|
|
Kremlin wants to quiz oligarch in exile in London RUSSIAN prosecutors investigating the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy, want to travel to London to question a billionaire Russian exile and a Chechen associate.
The move is likely to further strain relations between Russia and Britain, which have been undermined by allegations that the FSB, the former KGB, might be involved in the killing. Russian authorities are also suspected of disrupting the BBC Russian service’s coverage of the murder.
... (more)
|
|
FSB colonel named in Litvinenko poison plot An imprisoned Russian dissident has given The Sunday Telegraph revealing testimony in which he names a serving state security colonel as a key figure in the poisoning of the former spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Mikhail Trepashkin, a lawyer being held in a penal camp in the Urals, gave his information via an intermediary after the Kremlin refused to let him be questioned by Scotland Yard detectives who have travelled to Moscow. In testimony that he fears could put his own life at risk... (more)
|
|
Pinochet death 'saddens' ThatcherFormer Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher is "greatly saddened" by the death of Augusto Pinochet, said a spokesman.
Chile's former military leader, who has died aged 91 in hospital, backed the UK during the Falklands conflict.
Baroness Thatcher also pressed for his release after his arrest in London in 1998 over alleged human rights abuses.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett used the death to pay tribute to Chile's "remarkable progress" since General Pi... (more)
|
|
| 
