Category: news

The police are likely to discuss new phone-hacking allegations with Number 10 communications chief Andy Coulson.

Met Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates said he would “imagine they will be seeing” the ex-editor of the News of the World.

He told the Home Affairs Select Committee there were between 91 to 120 people affected but they could only prove 10 to 12 cases.

Mr Coulson, who denies the claims, says he would be happy to talk to police.

The row comes after former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare alleged former editor Mr Coulson asked him to hack phones.

Mr Yates told the Commons committee the police would be speaking to Mr Hoare “in the near future”.

And when asked about Mr Coulson, he replied: “I imagine we will be seeing Mr Coulson in some capacity.”

On Monday, Labour MPs demanded the police reopen the investigation.

Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons it was for police to take the decision, while the Metropolitan Police said new material would be considered.

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Behind this tree in Plymouth is a semi-detached house – but the man who lives in it has refused to cut it back.

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Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters are in US Open quarter-final action, while Rafael Nadal is also plays on day nine at Flushing Meadows.

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A police officer who was caught on CCTV injuring a woman by throwing her into a cell is jailed for six months.

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A number of properties have been flooded in County Fermanagh after the Colebrooke River burst its banks near Lisnaskea.

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World number one Tiger Woods is named in the United States Ryder Cup team to play Europe at Celtic Manor.

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The top US commander in Afghanistan has warned that troops’ lives will be in danger if an American church sticks to its plan to burn copies of the Koran.

Gen David Petraeus said the action could cause problems “not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world”.

Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Centre, has said he will make a bonfire this week on the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Hundreds of Afghans have protested against the plan in the capital, Kabul.

The US embassy in Kabul issued a statement condemning the plans by the non-denominational Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida.

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort,” Gen Petraeus said in a statement. “It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems.

“Not just here, but everywhere in the world, we are engaged with the Islamic community,” he added.

Lt Gen William Caldwell, the commander of the Nato training mission in Afghanistan, told CNN: “It’s their holy book, so when somebody says that they’re going to destroy that and cause a desecration to something that’s very sacred to them, it’s already stirred up a lot of discussion and concern amongst the people.

“We very much feel that this could jeopardise the safety of our men and women that are serving over here.”

In Kabul on Monday, about 500 protesters chanted “long live Islam” and “death to America” as they denounced the planned Koran-burning and set fire to an effigy of Mr Jones.

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Pilots, firefighters, nurses and ambulance workers who battled through the bombing raids of the Blitz came together at St Paul’s Cathedral to commemorate the ordeal.

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A massive expansion is to take place at Europe’s largest onshore wind farm, which is situated in East Renfrewshire.

ScottishPower Renewables is to add another 75 turbines to Whitelee wind farm on Eaglesham Moor by 2012.

This will bring the number of turbines on site to 215 – raising electricity generating capacity by two thirds.

The 140 turbines currently at the wind farm, to the south of Glasgow, can produce enough electricity to power 180,000 homes.

The expansion project will use 69 Alstom ECO 100 wind turbines each with a 3MW capacity.

Six ECO 74 turbines with 1.67 MW capacity each will also be added.

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France faces serious disruption on Tuesday in a nationwide strike to fight proposals to raise the retirement age.

The 24-hour-strike is set to hit public transport, banks, air traffic and the postal service.

Unions said they expected hundreds of thousands of private and public sector workers to take to the streets to protest about the plans.

The strike date coincides with the presentation of the pension reform bill to parliament.

Some secondary school teachers went on strike on Monday, protesting against plans to cut 7,000 jobs in education.

They are expected to be joined by rail workers on Monday evening.

Only up to half of all inter-city and local train services are expected to run on Tuesday, state railway company SNCF said. But Eurostar trains between France and London should operate normally.

France’s civil aviation authority said it had asked all airlines to cut Paris flights by a quarter.

Air France said it would cut short- and medium-haul flights into and out of Paris by up to 90%, with long-haul flights remaining largely unaffected.

France’s largest union, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), said it expected the turnout for the protest marches across the country to be stronger than during the strikes in June, when more than 800,000 people took part in demonstrations.

“We may have an exceptional day and, if it is exceptional, we will perhaps be at a turning point,” CGT leader Bernard Thibault said.

However, President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will not back down from his plan to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62. Under the proposed law, the age for full pension payments would be lifted from 65 to 67.

The bill is one of the key reforms the president hopes to push through during the last two years of his mandate.

It will be presented to the National Assembly by Labour Minister Eric Woerth.

Also on Tuesday, the French Senate is to debate the ban on the full face veil approved by the lower house in July.

Senators are also expected to debate a controversial new security law.

It would see recent immigrants stripped of French citizenship if they committed serious crimes such as killing a police officer.

The law would also allow electronic tagging for foreign criminals facing deportation.

The proposals and the recent deportation of about 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) have lead to protests across the country.

The European Parliament is scheduled to debate the situation of the Roma minority in Europe on Tuesday.

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The long-running club for dedicated fans of Dennis the Menace is to be replaced with a website in a bid to attract more members.

The Beano Club stopped accepting new members in August, though the comic’s Dundee publishers DC Thomson said it would honour existing subscriptions.

The club was launched in 1976 as the Dennis the Menace Fan Club.

It will be replaced in the next few months with a new website and will be known simply as Beano.com.

The old Beano Club cost £12.99 a year, and included a newsletter and birthday card among other benefits.

A spokesman for the DC Thomson said the publisher had not yet decided whether Beano.com would be free or be run as a subscription model with different levels of access.

Mike Stirling said: “It’s not closing down. What we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be running it in a different format which will enable more people to join.”

Mr Stirling said anyone who signed up before the cut-off point at the end of August would still receive their newsletters and a birthday card.

The company will be writing to all subscribers soon to notify them of the changes. DC Thomson is hoping to launch the new website in October.

The Dennis the Menace club started in 1976. It cost only 75p to join and membership peaked at 1.25 million members.

It ran for 22 years before becoming the Beano Club, which currently has about 10,000 members, aged from seven to 70.

Mr Stirling said the intention was to move to a “new type of club”.

“The Beano Club is a lot more expensive to join so maybe it’s a bit exclusive.

“We’re hoping to make it easer to join to get more members – and give them more of a sense of a Beano community.

“What we’re trying to create is a VIP feeling for Beano fans.”

The Beano comic has been published since 1938. Dennis the Menace first appeared in issue 452, in March 1951, and is the longest running strip in the comic.

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The prominent Iraqi television presenter Riad al-Saray has been shot dead by unknown gunmen in Baghdad.

Mr Saray, who presented religious and political programmes on al-Iraqiya TV, was killed as he was leaving his home on Tuesday, the campaign group Reporters without Borders (RSF) said.

He was known for his attempts to narrow sectarian differences in Iraq.

Mr Saray is the 15th al-Iraqiya journalist to be killed since the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime, RSF said.

The 35-year-old lawyer joined the state broadcaster in 2005.

He was also on the local council of the Shia neighbourhood of Shula in north-west Baghdad.

RSF called the attack a “targeted murder” and called for an investigation that would lead to the arrest and punishment of Mr Saray’s killers.

The attack coincided with the launch of an RSF report about the risks for journalists working in Iraq.

The report says 230 journalists and media staff have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.

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Tropical Storm Hermine threatens to bring flash floods as it pushes through Texas into Oklahoma and Kansas, officials say.

Officials warned of heavy rain, even the storm’s move inland saw its top wind speeds decline.

By Tuesday morning Hermine had brought havoc to the US-Mexico border, knocking out power and causing landslides and major flooding.

The storm’s maximum sustained winds declined to 45mph (75km/h).

Hermine, the eighth named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, left most of Raymondville, Texas without power and tore the roofs off houses there.

Officials in Mexico’s northern Tamaulipas state earlier evacuated some 3,500 people ahead of the storm’s arrival.

“We urge the general population to be on alert for possible floods and mudslides,” Salvador Trevino, director of civil defence for Tamaulipas, told the Associated Press news agency.

Hermine dumped between 5 inches to 1ft (12cm to 30cm) of rain onto southern Texas late on Monday.

Schools on both sides of the Mexico-US border were closed on Tuesday.

Authorities predicted they would downgrade the storm to a tropical depression later in the day.

But officials at the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm’s remnants would drench central and eastern Oklahoma, to the north of Texas, before heading into Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.

The NHC said heavy rain could cause “life-threatening” flash floods.

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Burma’s military leader, General Than Shwe, is beginning a five-day visit to its major ally China.

He is expected to have talks with the country’s leaders and seek support for his government’s plans to hold national elections later this year.

Burma’s military government is shunned by many countries because of its human rights record.

But it has strong relations with China, which has invested millions of dollars in projects in Burma.

There are few details about exactly why Gen Than Shwe is coming to China.