Anna Tomforde | London | Jan 8

DPA - For many Londoners, queuing for a tardy red double- decker bus may on occasions have prompted the utterance of a swear word or raised doubts about the existence of a deity altogether.

From this week, those with lingering doubts will have their views confirmed in an atheist advertising campaign rolled out on 200 of London's iconic buses, the Underground (tube) network and transport systems in other major cities.

'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,' is the principal slogan of the campaign.

It is the brainchild of a television comedy writer and is backed by the British Humanist Association (BHA), as well as prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion.

Jan 7

BBC - The UK has been named as one of the worst countries in Europe for measles, with case levels dashing global hopes of eradicating the disease by 2010.

The Lancet study says that in 2006-7 most of the 12,000 cases in Europe were found in the UK and four other nations.

In a Lancet comment article, experts said the UK was only recovering slowly from the unsubstantiated scare that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism.

Vaccination levels remain at around 85% of British children, well below target.

That means there are "serious doubts" whether a World Health Organisation target to eradicate measles by 2010 will be reached, the researchers said.

Jan 6

The Guardian - Blair to accept top US medal in Bush's last week in office

Tony Blair is to receive the United States's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from his friend George Bush next Tuesday, at a White House ceremony during the latter's last week in office.

The medal, a five-pointed white star, was first introduced by President Harry Truman just after the second world war and later revived to reward eminent citizens for distinguished service in peacetime by president John F Kennedy.

Although among its previous 400 recipients there are American figures such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye and Arnold Palmer, it has also been presented to every post-war president and to senior politicians and military men.

The medal is awarded "for especially meritorious contributions to security or the national interests of the United States, world peace or cultural or other significant public or private endeavours".

Jonathan Brown | Jan 1

The Independent - Gambian judge makes an example of Christians who criticised Muslim state

Two British missionaries broke down and wept as they were sentenced to a year's hard labour in jail after pleading guilty to charges of sedition. Relatives and friends of David and Fiona Fulton, who have three children – including a two-year-old adopted daughter – expressed their dismay and horror at the severity of the punishment handed down to the couple from Torquay by a court in Gambia.

The judge quoted from an email sent in September, entitled "Hell In The Gambia," in which the country, which is 97 per cent Muslim, is described as "sinking fast into a morass of Islam". The couple face imprisonment at the country's high-security Mile Two jail. It houses some of the state's toughest inmates – including some women. Malaria and beriberi are reported to be prevalent there.

London | Dec 31

DPA - Britain's armed forces were by the end of the 1970s too low in numbers and ill-equipped to deal with a possible Cold War attack by the then Soviet Union, secret papers have shown.

Documents released Tuesday by Britain's National Archives at Kew, near London, under the 30-year rule, showed that Britain would have been completely overwhelmed in the event of an assault - which never happened.

They showed that Royal Air Force Phantom jets had enough ammunition for just two days' fighting, that air defence missile batteries could only be fired twice, and that the Navy could not match the Soviet submarine threat.

The Army, meanwhile, would have been so stretched that, even when fully mobilized, it would have been unable to cope with the expected widescale campaign of sabotage and subversion by Soviet special forces.

James Callaghan, Labour prime minister at the time, was so appalled at the 'scandal' that he called for heads to roll, the papers showed.

'Heaven help us if there is a war!' he scrawled in one hand-written note.

Aislinn Simpson | Dec 31

The Telegraph - Plans for a private company to run a super database containing the identities and location of every person in Britain are being considered by the Government.

The Home Office claims the new database, which can track phone calls and emails, is necessary in an advancing digital world to allow it to tackle terrorism and serious crime.

But Sir Ken MacDonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, said the multibillion pound behemoth would prove a "hellhouse" of personal private information that would inevitably leak into the public domain regardless of the stringent safeguards promised by Government.

His warning follows a series of major leaks of personal information in the past year, including the loss of 25 million child benefit records by the HM Revenue and Customs.

Richard Garner | UK | Dec 30

The Independent - Parents are to be given guidance in the new year for the first time as to how much alcohol their children can drink safely from the ages of five to 18.

The Government is also reviewing whether the current age at which it is legal to drink should remain at five.

The Independent has learnt that Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, has been charged with drawing up the new guidelines, which are expected to be ready for publication in the spring. Up until now, ministers have fought shy of issuing recommendations on children's alcohol consumption, believing it could smack too much of "nanny state" interference. However, a worrying increase in the amount of "binge drinking" among young children has led to a change of heart.

The boundaries will cover all youngsters from the age of five – the age at which drinking alcohol in the home is at present legal – right through until the age of 18. Health department officials point out that current guidance on safe drinking levels exists only for those over 18. They argue that this is a gap which is a cause for concern, given that it is legal for someone aged over five to consume alcohol, and given the risks of drinking to health and development children are greater for children than for adults.

The drinking age is 5?

Ian Johnston | Dec 20

The Guardian - British control of the plant where the UK's nuclear warheads are produced has been relinquished, with the sale of a third stake in the Aldermaston facility to an American company.

Opposition politicians voiced concern that the manufacture of warheads for the Trident weapons system and its planned replacement would now be out of British hands after California-based Jacobs Engineering bought British Nuclear Fuels' stake in AWE Management, which runs the Berkshire site, for an undisclosed fee. The other two shares in AWE are owned by US defence giant Lockheed Martin and the British firm Serco

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "The whole argument used for Britain having a ­separate weapons establishment is that this is required by the non-proliferation treaty, as technology sharing is not allowed. We must therefore query the rationale of a US company having a majority shareholding in AWE. How does this all square?"

Julie Sell | Vanves, France | Dec 17

McClatchy Newspapers - Despite the fact that fascism and repressive state security services dominated Europe — East and West — at different points in the 20th century, a new culture of surveillance is spreading, slowly, across the region again, using tools that the Nazis and the KGB never had.

The U.S. and Britain stepped up their internal surveillance networks after suffering some of the West's deadliest terrorist attacks in the past decade, but now other European governments are embracing some of the same tools and techniques. The pace of adoption is slower on the Continent than it's been in Britain because of public concerns about liberty and personal privacy.

It must be '1984': 'Big Brother' snoops and Britons don't mind

In an era when security is the top concern for officials in many countries — reinforced by November's deadly attacks in Mumbai — it takes a lot to be labeled "the most surveilled democracy in the world." In the case of Britain, the label is not necessarily meant as a compliment. Some — including the European Court of Human Rights — fear that the snooping has run amok.

Ian Traynor/ Brussels & Julian Borger | Dec 12

The Guardian - Miliband rejects calls for EU troops to avert humanitarian catastrophe

Britain is refusing to take part in a proposed European armed intervention in eastern Congo despite a growing clamour for an EU force to help avoid a bigger humanitarian disaster.

At a summit of European leaders in Brussels last night, foreign ministers from the 27 countries discussed proposals to dispatch a force of up to 1,500 to North Kivu in eastern Congo.

While Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, several ministers and human rights groups pushed for a robust intervention under European command, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, argued any action should be taken through the UN and its 17,000-strong Monuc (UN organisation mission) peacekeeping contingent.

Solana tabled a menu of four military options for the EU, the first of which would entail the deployment of a British or German battle group of around 1,500 troops to Goma and North Kivu.

The British view such an option as being out of the question, and despite Miliband having spearheaded a peace mission to Congo last month, the government has strong reservations about giving a green light to any European mission.

Dec 11

BBC - The Irish Republic is willing to hold a second referendum on the EU's reform treaty if given certain guarantees by the EU, a spokesman has told the BBC.

Those legally binding guarantees are to be discussed by EU leaders at a summit getting under way in Brussels.

The Lisbon Treaty has been on ice since being rejected by Irish voters in June.

The summit is also due to take crucial decisions on EU measures to tackle climate change, and to consider an EU-wide economic stimulus plan.

An Irish government spokesman told the BBC that it was "seeking legally binding instruments to address the concerns of the Irish people", and that once it got those assurances, it would present "a roadmap for ratification", that would include another referendum.

The EU is set to offer guarantees that the treaty will not affect three main areas of concern to Irish "No" voters - abortion, Irish neutrality and taxation, says the BBC's Europe editor Mark Mardell.

Ben Quinn | London | Dec 11

CSM - They're one of Britain's best known icons: helmeted bobbies, or policemen, who make their rounds on a bicycle or on foot, armed only with pepper spray and a nightstick.

But more bobbies may soon carry something more threatening. As police face greater dangers on the job, the government is extending the use of Taser stun guns beyond specialist units to tens of thousands of front-line officers. It's a move that faces resistance from lawmakers, advocacy groups, and even some bobbies – and could change forever the face of one of the world's only largely unarmed police forces.

The debate over the 50,000-volt stun guns – designed to shoot wired darts that temporarily disable suspects – has intensified this week amid two high-profile cases alleging excessive use of force.

Spectacular view of Planet Earth: Teddy Bears at 20 miles.

Yep, the Brits have rejoined the space race!

Watch the advert at link

The Guardian - A £1m TV and online anti-cocaine advertising campaign featuring "Pablo the drug mule dog" is to be launched by the government today.

The campaign advertisements, voiced by comedian David Mitchell, are targeted at 15- to 18-year-olds to make them more aware of the risks and harms of cocaine use.

Pablo, a dead dog, wakes up to find he's been used as a drug mule to smuggle cocaine into the country. In an attempt to find out what led to his demise Pablo interviews key players from the world of the drug - the dealer, the user, a bag of cocaine, a heart, a nostril and a bank note.

They highlight the addiction, heart attacks, personality changes, fear and violence involved in the process.

Gardiner Harris | Ruislip, England | Dec 3

IHT - When Bruce Hardy's kidney cancer spread to his lung, his doctor recommended an expensive new pill from Pfizer. But Hardy is British, and the British health authorities refused to buy the medicine. His wife has been distraught.

"Everybody should be allowed to have as much life as they can," Joy Hardy said in the couple's modest home outside London.

If the Hardys lived in the United States or just about any European country other than Britain, Bruce Hardy would most likely get the drug, although he might have to pay part of the cost. A clinical trial showed that the pill, called Sutent, delays cancer progression for six months at an estimated treatment cost of $54,000.

But at that price, Hardy's life is not worth prolonging, according to a British government agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The institute, known as NICE, has decided that Britain, except in rare cases, can afford only £15,000, or about $22,750, to save six months of a citizen's life.

Patrick Wintour | Dec 3

The Guardian - Benefit claimants will face lie detector tests and will lose benefits for a month if found guilty of fiddling the system under proposals unveiled by Gordon Brown on the eve of today's Queen's speech.

The "one strike and you're out" proposal is contained in a tough summary of the speech released yesterday by the Cabinet Office. The government is also proposing to give the public clearer information, mainly via the internet, on how criminals are sentenced in local courts. Communities are to be given a bigger role in deciding what form of community punishment local criminals should be forced to undertake.

The proposals mark a break by the prime minister from his focus on the economic crisis for the past five months and suggest he knows he needs to broaden his political agenda if he is to claw back lost votes.

The introduction of a lie detector test for benefit claimants is the most striking shift to a more populist programme, similar to Tony Blair's respect agenda.

So far, 25 local councils administering housing benefit to 500,000 claimants are using "voice risk analysis technology" to test whether a claimant is providing false information.

The government introduced the technology in Harrow, north-west London, last year, but says it plans to make the technology available nationwide. In the first three months of using the technology Harrow saved £300,000, suggesting that levels of benefit fraud may be higher than government estimates. Ministers are cracking down on benefit fraud even though it is officially at its lowest recorded level, down 66% since 2001.

Riazat Butt | Dec 1

The Guardian - Near the end of his life Saint Benedict had an experience in which he saw the whole of reality caught up in a vision of light. For the Benedictine nuns of the Conventus of Our Lady of Consolation, this vision will be powered by the solar panels of their new home, an environmentally sensitive monastery being built in the North York Moors national park.

Next year the nuns will bid farewell to the Victorian splendour of Stanbrook Abbey in rural Worcestershire to live in a monastery with rainwater harvesting, reedbed sewage systems, sedum roofs, recycled material, a woodchip boiler and responsibly-sourced timber.

Upheaval is not new to the community, which has had five homes in its 385-year history, including an 18-month stretch behind bars during the French revolution. Prompting this latest move is the 21st-century phenomenon of downsizing. An overall decline in Catholic vocations has left the community with just 22 professed nuns and two novices, who between them are responsible for the maintenance and overheads of a 20- acre site.

According to Dame Andrea Savage, the abbess at Stanbrook, manual labour was overtaking monasticism.

Flip-flops to help drunk women stagger home

Independent - Flip-flops are to be given to drunk women in Devon to prevent them injuring themselves when wearing high heels.

Police in Torquay said female revellers sometimes wear "inappropriate" footwear and can either fall or take their shoes off and risk cutting their feet.

The flip-flops will have messages about safe alcohol limits printed on them and will be paid for by Government funding.

Torbay Partnerships Inspector Adrian Leisk said: "Sometimes people get drunk and you see them carrying footwear which is inappropriate.

"The emphasis is on providing replacement footwear for people to get home in, should they find their footwear uncomfortable, inappropriate or soiled.

"We have consulted with people who work week-in, week-out on our night-time economy areas and this is just one of a number of measures designed to keep people safe." Pic from timesonline

Nov 28

BBC - Maths enthusiasts are being challenged to answer a sample question from Chinese university entrance tests. (shown after the jump)

The tests are set for prospective science undergraduates.

The UK's Royal Society of Chemistry is offering a £500 prize to one lucky but bright person who answers the question below correctly.

It has also published a test used in a "well known and respected" English university - the society is not naming it - to assess the strength of incoming science undergraduates' maths skills.

A glance at the two questions reveals how much more advanced is the maths teaching in China, where children learn the subject up to the age of 18, the society says.

Science undergraduates in England are likely not to have studied maths beyond GCSE level at the age of 16, it says.

It has sounded a warning about Britain's future economic prospects which it claims are threatened by competition from scientists in China.

Alan Travis | Nov 19

The Guardian - New prostitution laws to be set out today will mean a plea of ignorance is no defence for men facing prosecution for buying sex from a woman who has been trafficked or is being exploited by a pimp.

Under proposals to be published today by the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, a man who "knowingly" pays for sex with a woman who has been trafficked or is under the control of a pimp could face a charge of rape, which carries a potential life sentence.

The new offence of paying for sex with somebody who is "controlled for another person's gain" is to carry a hefty fine and a criminal record.

The home secretary has made clear that under the new offence it will not be enough for a man to say "I didn't know". The new offence will include a "strict liability" test so that police will only have to prove that the man paid for sex, and that the woman had been trafficked. There will be no need to prove he knew it at the time.

Nov 15

BBC - A senior Chinese official has welcomed the UK's decision to recognise Beijing's direct rule over Tibet.

Zhu Weiqun, who is leading talks with Tibetan exiles, told the BBC the move had brought the UK "in line with the universal position in today's world".

But Mr Zhu would not say whether it might be linked with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's efforts to bring China into a new world economic order.

Beijing says Tibet has been part of the Chinese nation since the 13th Century.

Many Tibetans disagree, pointing out that the Himalayan region was an independent kingdom for many centuries, and that Chinese rule over Tibet has not been constant.

Reykjavik, Iceland | Nov 15

LA Times - A planned Royal Air Force mission to police Iceland's airspace has been called off amid a diplomatic feud triggered by the global financial crisis, Britain and Iceland said Friday.

British aircraft were due to be sent to a base near Reykjavik next month, as part of a plan that sees NATO members take it in turns to defend Iceland's airspace. The tiny island nation has no military force of its own.

Iceland's foreign minister, Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, said NATO had decided the mission would not take place.

Britain's Defense Ministry confirmed in a statement that "following consultations in NATO, and in agreement with Iceland, the deployment will not now take place in December."

It was not immediately clear whether another NATO member would undertake the largely symbolic mission.

Richard Norton-Taylor & Tom Parfitt | Moscow | Nov 13

The Guardian - • Suspects on Yemeni dhow shot dead after firing first
• Clash followed earlier attack on Danish ship

British commandos killed two suspected pirates who tried to seize a Danish ship in the Gulf of Aden during an unprecedented operation involving a Royal Navy and a Russian warship, it was revealed yesterday.

The suspected pirates were shot after the Royal Marine commandos, in rigid inflatable boats launched from the frigate HMS Cumberland, were fired at from a Yemeni flagged dhow, the Ministry of Defence said.

The Cumberland had been conducting routine Nato security operations in the Gulf of Aden, the MoD said, when a number of its crew boarded the dhow, which was towing a skiff.

The British crew "had reason to believe" the dhow had been involved in an armed attack on the Danish-registered vessel, the MV Powerful, earlier on Tuesday, the day of the gunfight. "Various non-forcible methods had been used in an attempt to stop the dhow but they were unsuccessful," the MoD said.

The inflatables were launched to circle the dhow in an attempt to encourage it to stop. People on the dhow fired at the British commandos, who returned fire in self-defence, the MoD added.

I hope the Brits were real sure, otherwise this could blow up in their faces

Fiona Smith | Dublin | Nov 11

DPA - As Ireland marks the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, in which 30,000 Irishmen died, the commemoration is a symbol of reconciliation between those from opposing religious and political traditions who fought and fell side by side.

'If you fought for the British you kept a low profile here up to very recently,' says Dubliner Peter Mulvaney, a former British serviceman, who has campaigned tirelessly to ensure that justice was done for those Irishmen who joined up to fight for the British in 1914.

Mulvaney spearheaded the Irish Shot at Dawn campaign, which highlighted the tragic stories of Irish and British soldiers executed in the field for alleged crimes such as cowardice, desertion and disobedience.

'I was very reluctant to get involved because of the northern Irish question. Then when I saw copies of the court martial I realised that these men had been judicially murdered,' Mulvaney says.

Martin Hickman | UK | Nov 11

The Independent -

Banks have increased interest rates on credit and debit cards held by tens of millions of shoppers despite the cost of borrowing falling to its lowest level for more than 50 years, research for The Independent reveals today.