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| Yemen raids al-Qaida hide-outs, kills at least 34 SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- Yemeni security forces struck several al-Qaida hide-outs and training sites Thursday, killing at least 34 suspected militants, including four would-be suicide bombers who planned attacks at home and abroad, officials said. At least 17 suspected militants were arrested.... hosted.ap.org |
Bomb suspect's teacher, family dismayed, shocked LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.... hosted.ap.org |
Hugh Muir's diary What is it that we should know about Baroness Sally? Won't somebody please tell?• In the current climate, with abuse routine and the finger of suspicion pointing everywhere, it's as well that our parliamentarians have thick skins. A lesser breed would be hiding under the floorboards. Yet stoically they carry on. And here we should pay tribute to our friend Baroness Hamwee (pictured), who has not only been targeted for stop and search by the anti-terrorist police (who clearly see the amiable peer as something more than she seems), but has also been denied admission to the corner of hell that is the immigration centre at Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire. What we have learned is that just before Christmas, Chris Huhne visited Yarl's Wood, fulfilling his remit as Lib Dem home affairs spokesman. Officials were fine with that, and dutifully waved him through. But what of the baroness, who was to have accompanied him. Sorry, they said. Asked again. "Mr Huhne is still asked to attend the Yarl's Wood visit alone." They said something about proximity to the election. There was just no shifting them. So was it the anti-terrorist thing? Intelligence about a skeleton key inside a chocolate cake? Or just officials playing silly buggers? Not for us to know. Too much knowledge, old boy! Hot stuff. Dangerous.• So much beyond our purview. Still, it is good to see that despite all sorts of pressure – from the "dark forces" et al – No 10 has heeded the Queen's plea for less press intrusion. It is withholding all the royal files due to be released with prime minister's papers from 30 years ago at the national archives. So Her Majesty is spared the discomfort of disclosure about her tour of eastern Arabia, her finances, and 1979 plans to find a useful career for her eldest son. But shame on the Foreign Office, which has let the side down by releasing a file on Prince Philip's visit to Gothenburg as president of the Council for Physical Recreation. Thus we learn that his opposite number, Prince Bertil, regarded sport as organised discomfort and detested horses. Philip's response is lost: 36 of the file's 50 pages were removed as too sensitive for public consumption. But knowing the Duke of Ed, one can fill in the blanks.• We wait for evidence that like Jonathan Aitken, Lord Black of Crossharbour becomes a kinder, more reflective figure while paying his debt in prison; but thus far the signs are elusive. His writings reveal the same self-important, bombastic figure who stole so that he could live high on the hog in the first place. The lectures, emailed from jail and circulated in friendly publications, come regularly. The latest concerns Quebec. "Quebec is a bore," he says in Canada's National Post. "Haitians and North Africans, who haven't the remotest interest in Quebec nationalism, are being imported to replace the unborn, in an effort to maintain francophone numbers." But, says Conrad: "Quebec is superannuated, both as bully and as cry-baby." Don't you just know the type?• Day four of the race to Downing Street, and with public discontent so high, might now be the moment for the Beard Liberation Front to make its pitch to the public? It doesn't lack distinctive polices. Some we expect, such as the call for more hirsute MPs and the demand that beardies who greatly transgress should be forced to shave. But it is the demand that the BBC should feature the "first bearded TV newsreader" that seems most likely to catch the public imagination. Has there ever been such an oddity? Should there be?• Finally, who is he that would wield the knife? Geoff Hoon, he is. What do we know of him? Well, for starters, he is the man who as secretary of state for transport encountered a fellow MP and an assistant in one of the many unseen corridors of the houses of parliament. "Hi Geoff," they said cheerily. "Where am I?" he replied, anxiously. "I am due at a select committee. But I don't know where I am." He had by then spent at least 16 years in that place, but they were kind, and pointed the befuddled one in the right direction. He would wield the knife. If he could find it.Hugh Muirguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Fundraising Initial Focus of Overseas Haitian Aid Efforts Former presidents say main challenge is to overcome devastated infrastructure to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of Haitians www1.voanews.com |
Call for farming subsidies reform Conservationists and landowners unite, in a rare show of solidarity, to campaign for changes in the way UK farming subsidies are distributed. news.bbc.co.uk |