Ex-Tabloid Boss Brooks Faces Phone Hacking Charges
FORMER UK tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks, her husband and four close aides were charged Tuesday over alleged attempts to conceal evidence in Britain’s phone hacking scandal – the first prosecutions since police reopened inquiries 18 months ago into wrongdoing by the country’s scandal-hungry press. Brooks was one of Rupert Murdoch’s most trusted lieutenants for years [...]
PM Cameron: UK Must Stand By Spending Cuts
BRITAIN MUST stick to its tough austerity measures despite doubts elsewhere in Europe over the best remedy to fix the continent’s stalled economies, Prime Minister David Cameron insisted Tuesday. After the election in France of Socialist Francois Hollande, who has vowed to buck Europe’s austerity trend, and a Greek race in which voters punished mainstream [...]
Britain-Doping Ban – Source: UK Olympic Doping Ban Declared Illegal
SPRINTER Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar will be eligible to compete for Britain at the London Games after the country’s lifetime Olympic ban for doping offenders was found to be unlawful by sport’s top court. A Court of Arbitration for Sport panel has decided that the British Olympic Association’s 20-year-old bylaw now violates the [...]
Praise, Skepticism For Murdoch In UK Newspapers
CAGEY. CUDDLY. Witty. Master of the intimidating pause. The reviews in Thursday’s newspapers of Rupert Murdoch’s performance on the stand at Britain’s media ethics admired the performance, despite doubts about the accuracy of the story the News Corp. executive chairman spun. “Mr Murdoch was a picture of elderly innocence,” Matthew Deacon wrote in The Daily [...]
Ken v Boris In Race To Be London’s Olympic Mayor
ONE SPORTS an unruly blond mop, spouts Latin aphorisms and loves to ride his bicycle. The other is a neat, newt-loving socialist who prefers to travel by subway. Their contest is an Olympic-size grudge match. Meet Boris and Ken – hometown celebrities known universally by their first names. When the 2012 London Games open on [...]
England Bans Big Stores From Displaying Cigarettes
MINISTERS say a ban on displaying packs of cigarettes inside supermarkets and other large stores will send a message that smoking is no longer acceptable. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said last month – as the restrictions came into force – that the ban would show that Britons “no longer see smoking as a part of [...]
Budget Hits Pensioners And ‘Cornish Pasty’
IN HIS ANNUAL budget statement last month, George Osborne said he was cutting the top rate from 50 percent to 45 percent by April next year on incomes over £150,000 a year. He argued that the original higher rate did not yield as much as expected, partly because the rich were able to avoid the [...]
Queen Elizabeth II Vows Continued Service In Diamond Jubilee Speech To Parliament
THE QUEEN praised the British virtues of “resilience, ingenuity and tolerance” and vowed to rededicate herself to the service of her country Tuesday in a speech before Parliament marking her 60-year reign. In a ceremony filled with pomp and circumstance and redolent with symbolism, the monarch was driven to London’s Westminster Palace to address members [...]
Prime Minister Cameron And President Obama Committed To Common Goals
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the United States, Britain and their NATO allies are committed to shifting to a support role in Afghanistan in 2013. Mr Cameron said the mission in Afghanistan was moving into its “final phases”. Obama says that next phase in the transition will be an important step in turning security [...]
Former NoW Editor Rebekah Brooks Arrested In Hacking Probe
THE BBC reports that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has been arrested as part of the police inquiry into allegations of phone hacking. Five men and one woman were arrested, including Mrs Brooks’ husband, the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks at addresses in London, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Hertfordshire between 5am and 7am on Tuesday [...]
British Pound Exchange Rate
