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'A Labour Muslim minister has warned that Islamic law is too unsophisticated for Britain. Sadiq Khan said women could be ' abused' by sharia courts, which may give unequal bargaining power to the sexes. He said: 'The burden is on those who want to open up these courts to persuade us why they should.' Mr Khan, who was made a community cohesion minister in this month's Government reshuffle, rejected the argument that the courts could operate in the same way as the Jewish Beth Din courts. He said Muslim life in Britain was not advanced enough to run a similar...

A medical ethics expert has said hallucinogenic drugs could be used to enhance the experience of dying. The controversial suggestions include using ecstasy and 'magic mushrooms' to encourage closer bonding with family members and reduce anxiety in the final hours of life. Robin Mackenzie, director of medical law and ethics at the University of Kent, will speak out at a workshop in London today to call for people to be given more choice over how they die. Dr Mackenzie told the Independent newspaper: 'We have the technology to enhance the experience of dying. 'With neuroimaging [brain scans] we can measure...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union told music lovers Monday to turn down the volume of MP3 players, saying they risk permanent hearing loss from listening too long at maximum levels. EU scientists reported that between 2.5 million and 10 million Europeans could suffer hearing loss from listening to MP3 players at unsafe volumes - over 89 decibels - for more an hour daily for at least five years. EU spokeswoman Helen Kearns said the EU executive was asking people, especially children and young people, "to turn it down" now because they may be damaging their hearing without noticing...

'THE country’s major banks are turning to an unlikely source for a hand during the cash crisis. Airdrie Savings Bank, Britain’s last independent bank with just 60,000 customers, seven branches and 106 staff, isn’t just surviving during these turbulent times, it’s thriving. And a succession of bigger names, like HBOS, are turning to the ASB for assistance. The 173-year-old Lanarkshire institution has had a succession of banks coming cap in hand recently.'

The Chancellor will move to take control of the Royal Bank of Scotland today by injecting £20 billion of taxpayers’ money. The Government is also expected to take over HBOS in the most dramatic extension of state ownership in the British economy since the war. The bank’s rescue takeover by Lloyds TSB appeared to be on the brink of collapse last night. As governments around the world scramble to prevent the collapse of the global financial system, Alistair Darling will unveil plans for a £40 billion “recapitalisation” of the banking sector. Related Links

Tuesday December 18, 6:18 AM British soldier dies after being shot in Kosovo A British soldier with the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, died after being shot in the Yugoslav province's main city of Pristina, a KFOR spokesman said. The spokesman, Captain Ollie Major, said: "A British soldier was injured as a result of a gunshot wound. The soldier later died." Major said the soldier had been on duty in front of a partially built Christian Orthodox church when he was shot. He did not give further details and did not name the soldier. Unrest between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian ...

British combat forces are no longer needed to maintain security in southern Iraq and should leave the country, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, has told The Times of London. In an exclusive interview in Baghdad, al-Maliki also criticised a secret deal made last year by Britain with the al-Mahdi Army, Iraq’s largest Shia militia. He said that Basra had been left at the mercy of militiamen who “cut the throats of women and children” after the British withdrawal from the city. The Iraqi leader emphasized, however, that the “page had been turned” and he looked forward to a friendly,...

European and Asian markets have rallied in response to efforts by world leaders to stem the recent financial turmoil. London's FTSE 100 index and France's Cac 40 index both jumped more than 5% - tracking earlier gains on Asian markets. Bank shares led the advance. Major central banks also made extra funds available and said they would take "whatever measures necessary" to end the crisis. EU leaders said on Sunday no big bank would be be allowed to fail. Banking shares were among the biggest gainers on London's FTSE 100 index, with Royal Bank of Scotland climbing 4.8%, Barclays up...

European leaders meeting in Paris have agreed a plan to tackle the banking crisis, saying no big institution will be allowed to fail. They pledged to guarantee loans between banks until the end of 2009, and said they would put money into them by buying preference shares. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they were taking unprecedented steps. World governments have been racing to throw banks a lifeline before the major markets re-open on Monday. News of the rescue plan came from Mr Sarkozy - whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU - after talks between leaders of...

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SUPPORTERS OF Barack Obama gathered in Dublin yesterday to attend the first fundraising event held in Ireland for the Democratic presidential candidate. More than 100 US citizens attended the fundraiser which was hosted by Massachusetts native Moira Shipsey at her Dalkey home yesterday afternoon. Ms Shipsey is a refugee lawyer who is married to senior counsel Bill Shipsey. Among the guests was novelist and filmmaker Rebecca Miller, who lives in Co Wicklow with her husband, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, and their two sons. Ms Miller said she had made her fourth donation to the Obama campaign yesterday but declined to say...

A British publisher said it would delay the publication of the novel “The Jewel of Medina,” by Sherry Jones, according to the British Web site TheBookseller.com. The British release of the novel had been in doubt after a firebombing attack on the London home of Martin Rynja, whose imprint, Gibson Square, was preparing to release it. In addition, Ms. Jones has canceled a trip to Frankfurt to promote the novel, about A’isha, a wife of the prophet Muhammad. “We respect Sherry Jones’s decision,” Gibson Square said in a statement reported by TheBookseller.com. “In her view the best thing to do...

Thieves have planted new sophisticated bugs in supermarket card readers so customer details can be cloned Detectives are investigating a sophisticated credit card fraud against customers of some of Britain’s biggest supermarkets that may be linked to extremists in Pakistan. Fraudsters have targeted more than 40 stores in Britain, including those of Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, in an elaborate scam that police say involves tiny devices inserted into the stores’ “chip and Pin” credit card readers. Specialists say the technology is the most advanced they have seen and is being used in supermarket chains across Europe. The devices, which are...

SECRET talks are under way to bring Islamic sharia law courts to Scotland, The Scotsman has learned. Qamar Bhatti, director of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT), which runs the courts, admitted discussions were taking place with lawyers and Muslim community groups in Scotland. The group is believed to be aiming to set up courts in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

British officials covered up evidence that a Taliban commander killed by special forces in Helmand last year was in fact a Pakistani military officer, according to highly placed Afghan officials. The commander, targeted in a compound in the Sangin valley, was one of six killed in the past year by SAS and SBS forces. When the British soldiers entered the compound they discovered a Pakistani military ID on the body. It was the first physical evidence of covert Pakistani military operations against British forces in Afghanistan even though Islamabad insists it is a close ally in the war against terror.

Forces to repay town's tributes Members of the armed forces are to parade through the streets of a town in Wiltshire to thank locals for honouring dead British service personnel. Over the past 18 months residents of Wootton Bassett have lined the streets more than 100 times as coffins have been brought through the town. The town is near RAF Lyneham, the airbase to which bodies are repatriated after deaths in Afghanistan or Iraq. Sunday afternoon's tribute will also see a flypast from a Hercules aircraft. In a letter to the town thanking the residents for the gesture, the head...

Navy to tackle Gulf pirates: Another tanker hijacked as Britain takes lead role in EU mission to keep shipping lanes open for trade... John Hutton, the new Defence Secretary, has agreed to deploy the frigate Northumberland... ...another tanker had been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia. The Greek chemical tanker, Commodore Keith Winstanley,...argued that security companies working in Iraq or Afghanistan could have a role to play.

  Infertility fear: Emma Smith, 37, with her son Oliver   Baby boy for woman in double transplantSophie Goodchild and Anna Davis 10.10.08 A woman who had a double organ transplant has defied the odds to become a mother, the Standard can reveal today.Emma Smith, 37, feared she may be infertile because of the side-effects of her anti-rejection drugs.But last week, the former secretary from Hitchin in Hertfordshire gave birth without complications to her first child 6lb baby Oliver.She is the first woman in Britain to deliver a child by Caesarean section after receiving donor kidneys and a pancreas.Her...

Club bomb plotters hailed rickshaws to make their getaway’Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent 10.10.08 Two alleged Islamist terrorists left car bombs packed with nails and petrol in London's West End and then escaped from the scene by hailing rickshaws, a court heard today.Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Kafeel Ahmed, 28, parked one of the cars outside the packed Tiger Tiger club in Haymarket and the other in front of a busy bus stop. The two Mercedes were left in the early hours of 29 June last year but failed to explode because the detonators did not work properly, Woolwich crown court...

October 12, 2008 Losing my religion in the aisles of the new cathedral of consumerism Europe’s biggest city-centre mall is about to open in London – just as India Knight begins to break faith with shopping A shopper in London's Bond Street taking advantage of the sales I am standing on a ledge gazing down at the innards of the new Westfield shopping centre in west London. Outside, in the real world, Iceland is suddenly poorer than Africa. Inside, they are preparing for the ultimate shopping experience. Below the undulating glass roof the site is almost unimaginably enormous – the...

I went to a fashionable London nightclub on Saturday. Not the sort of sentence I get to write very often, because I enjoy nightclubs less than I enjoy eating wool. But a glamorous friend of mine was there to "do a PA", and she'd invited me and some curious friends along because we wanted to see precisely what "doing a PA" consists of. Turns out doing a public appearance largely entails sitting around drinking free champagne and generally just "being there".

Somehow, I doubt that Russia’s latest diplomatic project will gain much traction with its closest European neighbors, but it does at least expose the Russians as something other than allies to the US. Dmitry Medvedev has called on France and other European nations to form an anti-American front. Nicolas Sarkozy declined direct comment: THE President of Russia has called on Europe’s leaders to create a new world order that would minimise the role of the United States. Confident that a row with Europe prompted by Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August was over, Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the French spa...

"A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt. Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend 'Believe'. The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting 'I f***ing hate n*****s' and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him."

The Toyota Prius, the car favoured by celebrities wanting to flaunt a green conscience, is to become bigger and more sporty, with a larger engine, quicker acceleration and a top speed of well above 100mph. The changes – coming at the expense of fuel economy and carbon emissions – will be incorporated in a new version to be introduced at the Detroit motor show in January. The decision risks denting the image of the Prius as one of the greenest cars on the road and will be seized upon by critics, who accuse the car’s owners of being smug and...

All pupils at a primary school face being served halal meat at lunchtime whether they are Muslim or not, it emerged today. Dale Primary, which has a large proportion of Asians among its 550 pupils, is consulting parents about the controversial move. Under the plans pupils would only be offered Islamic-approved meals on days when meat is on the menu to 'avoid cross-contamination'. For meat to be classified halal, a Muslim must have slaughtered the animal from which it came by a single cut to the throat and without stunning it first. A prayer, including the words 'Allah is great',...

Two alleged terrorists threw petrol bombs and shouted "Allahu Akbar" - meaning God is great - as they drove a flaming Jeep into Glasgow airport, a court heard. The vehicle, driven by Kafeel Ahmed, a PhD student from India, smashed into the airport at 3.13pm on June 30 last year. Ahmed, 28, who died a month after the attack, had prepared a will addressed to Osama bin Laden and the leaders of jihad [holy war] in Iraq, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

Fowzi Badavi Nejad, who was 22 at the time of the siege, was captured after SAS troopers stormed the building 28 years ago. He has reportedly been assured he will not be deported back to his native Iran because of human rights laws, and will instead stay in Britain at taxpayers' expense. The move risks a diplomatic row with Iran, which has demanded his return for the murder of two hostages during the siege, which would almost certainly see him put to death. Nejad was one of six terrorists who seized 26 hostages and took over the Iranian Embassy in...

< Go To Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor Main Page The world is at severe risk of a global systemic financial meltdown and a severe global depression PrintShare Delicious Digg Facebook reddit Technorati Nouriel Roubini | Oct 9, 2008 The US and advanced economies’ financial system is now headed towards a near-term systemic financial meltdown as day after day stock markets are in free fall, money markets have shut down while their spreads are skyrocketing, and credit spreads are surging through the roof. There is now the beginning of a generalized run on the banking system of these economies; a collapse...

London shares dropped more than 400 points in early trading this morning after a seventh day of devastating falls on Wall Street triggered panic selling across Europe and Asia. Within minutes of opening, the FTSE 100 index fell almost 10 per cent to its worst level since 2002, but within 30 minutes shares staged a mild rally which left the index of Britain's leading companies off 253 points at 4050. Bank shares took the brunt of the pain as markets gyrated with Barclays off 15.6 per cent, and HSBC down 4.3 per cent. BP fell 8 per cent and Royal...

Muslim prisoners are being given fresh clothes and bedding after sniffer dogs search their cells – because they view the animals as unclean. The inmates say their bedclothes and prison uniforms must be changed according to Islamic law if they have come anywhere near dog saliva. Government rules mean warders are having to hand out replacement sets after random drug searches to avoid religious discrimination claims. The dogs have also been banned from touching copies of the Islamic holy book the Koran and other religious items. Now some staff and other prisoners are incensed by what they claim is special...

Iran is trying to derail an agreement that would allow US and British troops to stay in Iraq after their mandate expires at the end of this year. In a move that has raised concern among senior Iraqi and US officials, Tehran is using its influence over its smaller neighbour to scupper a Status of Forces Agreement, which must be reached by January 1. After the deadline US and British troops would have no legal basis to remain and, in theory, would have to leave. This week President Ahmadinejad told a senior official from Baghdad that Iraq had a duty...

Crammed together in their unwieldy aircraft and utterly dependent on one another, the bomber crews of the Second World War forged friendships that often only death could break. Which is why Pilot Officer Reg Wilson never forgot the night more than 60 years ago when he lost two friends in the night skies over Germany. As he entered his old age - the memories of his youth perhaps more powerful than ever - Mr Wilson began a quest to find their remains. Yesterday he told how at last he had succeeded in finding one of those friends, flight engineer Sergeant...

LONDON: It may sound untrue, but it's now a fact — Britain's standing as a world-class destination for higher education is under threat. Leading British universities have lost ground to their richer foreign rivals in world rankings — both Cambridge and Oxford universities have slipped down the top 200 list to give way to popular US varsities like Harvard and Yale. In fact, according to the Times Higher Education — QS World University Rankings, Harvard is at the top followed by Yale, Cambridge and Oxford. Both these British varsities came joint second last year. However, four UK universities are in...

Gordon Brown has described the behaviour of the Icelandic government following the bank collapses as "totally unacceptable", adding that the Government was considering legal action The Prime Minister is furious that 300,000 bank customers are blocked from accessing deposits in online bank Icesave. There are also concerns that councils and police authorities might not be able to retrieve nearly £900m of taxpayers' money which is stranded in Icelandic bank accounts. Mr Brown told a press conference: "We are taking legal action against the Icelandic authorities. We are showing by our action that we stand by people who save." Alistair Darling,...

Shouldn't that principle apply to prisons, too?

THE remains of a Viking home have been discovered in York by archaeologists. York Archaeological Trust archaeologists have exposed what they believe to be a timber-lined cellar of a two-storey house, during excavations at the site of the new Hungate development, which is being built near Stonebow. The archaeologists say the home, which was uncovered about three metres below street level, would have been built in the mid to late tenth century. It appears that ships’ timbers used in the building’s construction – the first discovery of its kind in York. Hungate excavations project director Peter Connelly said: “To find...

A British gardener’s local council has ordered him to remove a 3-foot high barbed wire fence around his property in case thieves hurt themselves on it, the Daily Mail reported Thursday. Bill Malcolm, 61, installed the wire at his Worcester property after burglars robbed his tool shed and vegetable plots three times in four months, stealing more than $500 worth of hardware. But Malcolm’s local council told him the wire was a health and safety hazard and warned him they would remove it by force if he did not do it himself, the Mail reported. “The council said they were...

THE only terrorist to survive the Iranian Embassy siege will be freed from jail this month — and is expected to stay in Britain on benefits. Fowzi Nejad, 51 — captured after SAS troopers famously stormed the building in 1980 — will not be sent back to Iran because of fears over his safety. Last night a Whitehall source confirmed Nejad had been granted parole — and admitted: “It is difficult to see how there won’t be a cost to the public purse.” Fury erupted over the decision yesterday. Mark Wallace, campaign director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “It is...

An Afghan family living in a £1.2million home paid for by the taxpayer admitted yesterday they felt as if they had won the lottery. Mother-of-seven Toorpakai Saiedi, 35, receives £170,000 a year in benefits. A staggering £150,000 of that is paid to a private landlord for the rent of a seven-bedroom house in West London. more at the link.......

Vincent Howard, 40, who is the operations director of Biocair in Cambridge, said he and his family lived in fear after Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) allegedly started to target the company and its employees in 2004. Mr Howard, a father-of-three, told Winchester Crown Court he and his partner Sandra Martin had paint stripper poured over their cars and tyres punctured at home. He was then informed a letter was circulating in the village falsely accusing him of being a convicted paedophile. He told the court: "I was coaching a kids football team at the time and that was a...

It may look like a grubby bit of rock but this ancient carving has caused a stir among archaeologists and hedgehog lovers. It is a prehistoric toy hedgehog and was unearthed from a three-year-old child's grave at Stonehenge in Wiltshire. Thought to be about 2,500 years old, it is the earliest known depiction of a hedgehog in Britain. 'Amid the aura of gloom that surrounds Stonehenge, it comes as a beam of light to find a child's toy,' said archaeologist Dennis Price. A rock found is believed to be a prehistoric toy hedgehog for a child

Police investigating the 7/7 suicide bomb attacks in London have today erected a wooden frame around a house which they believe may have been used as a second explosives factory. Officers raided the one-bedroom flat in the Harehills area of Leeds after a tip-off. Forensics experts are carrying out tests at the address to establish whether there are traces of explosives which could indicate that bombs were made there. Fifty-two passengers were killed when four suicide bombers detonated home-made devices on three London Underground trains and a bus in July 2005.

Teachers will carry out surveillance operations on 'suspicious' pupils amid concerns about rising extremism in the classroom. In an effort to stem the threat of terrorism in schools, the Government will today publish a set of 'terror code' guidelines aimed at helping teachers identify the early signs of radical influences.

A police weapons specialist who shot himself in the hand is suing the PSNI. Peter Woods, 50, was dismantling a gun at a police facility in February last year when the accident happened. It is understood that he removed the magazine from a pistol, but a bullet in the chamber fired into his hand. He recovered from his injury. Lawyers for Mr Woods claimed in the High Court that proper safety procedures were not in place, and ammunition may have been faulty. -cut- His legal team is arguing that a proper risk assessment was not carried out and a second...

Intelligence chiefs want access to all communications made in the UK, but they face a fight Every call you make, every e-mail you send, every website you visit - I’ll be watching you. That is the hope of Sir David Pepper who, as the director of GCHQ, the government’s secret eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham, is plotting the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain. From his office in the agency’s famous “doughnut” building, Pepper is masterminding an innocent-sounding project called the Interception Modernisation Programme. The scope of the project - classified top secret - is said by officials to be...

Taxpayers will be committed today to providing more than £50 billion to bail out high street banks in an attempt to avert a cataclysmic failure of confidence. Alistair Darling was due to tell the City in an early morning announcement today that the sum will be available for “investment” in banks that have demanded help from the Government. The drastic rescue move is designed to help to reassure savers and to kickstart the paralysed credit markets by encouraging banks to lend to each other again. After meeting Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, Downing Street was forced...

Reverend Peter Mullen posted on his blog that homosexuals should be tattooed with the slogan: "Sodomy can seriously damage your health." The Chaplain to the London Stock Exchange and rector in the City of London also called for gay pride parades and carnivals to be banned. The 66 year old insisted it had all been a joke, but had to remove the comments from his blog - and has since issued a "full and complete apology". He said his remarks were "injudicious" and had caused offence. The Diocese of London said the blog is in no way reflective of their...

PRINCE Harry has won his battle with defence chiefs and will return to Afghanistan's frontline to take up the fight against the Taliban. The third in line to the British throne has already served one tour as a forward air controller directing air strikes against hostile forces less than 500m away. Now the 24-year-old is likely to be more in the thick of it as a lieutenant with the Blues and Royals, an amalgamation of the Royal Horse Guards (Blues) and The Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons) the history of which dates back to the 1600s. After his first deployment, Prince...