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LONDON (AFP) – Britons are so lazy that one in six cannot be bothered to change television channel if the remote control is not working, according to a study published on Monday. More than half said they would take the lift rather than climb two flights of stairs to their workplace, while three quarters had too little energy for sex at the end of a long day. An entire generation risks being blighted by idleness, warned Nuffield Health, a non-profit organisation which commissioned the poll. "Ready-meals, remote controls and even Internet shopping are all contributing to a dangerously lazy and...

BRITAIN'S row with Iran deepened last night after the Tehran government threatened to put British Embassy staff on trial. The Muslim clerics who call the shots in Iran accuse local workers at the embassy of fanning the anti-government protests which followed last month's disputed election. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was urgently trying to speak to his counterpart in Tehran over the legal threat to the staff. Earlier, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, claimed embassy workers had confessed to involvement in the protests. Jannati said: "In these events, their embassy had a presence. "Some people...

TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday it has freed five of the local British embassy staff it arrested on accusations of stoking post-election unrest, a move that further threatened tense ties with London. "Eight people were arrested. Five were freed and three are still being interrogated," ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said at a press conference in Tehran. Earlier English-language state television Press TV had spoken of a total of nine arrests. Ghashghavi also said that Iran, which has accused Western nations particularly Britain and the United States of "meddling," has no current plans to close embassies or downgrade diplomatic ties with...

"David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has issued a sharp rebuke to Iran after the arrests, which are part of a campaign by the clerical regime in Iran against what it has portrayed as foreign interference in its politics. The employees were arrested on suspicion of playing a role in the demonstrations that followed Iran's disputed presidential election. Those demonstrations, which saw calls for a re-run amid allegations of widespread vote rigging, have now largely fizzled out after a crackdown by regime." "Fars, a semi-official Iranian news agency, first announced the arrests and said the staff had helped foment protests against...

Iran has arrested eight local British embassy staff, triggering London's fury and further exacerbating tensions with the West over the post-election turmoil in the Islamic republic. The latest backlash against what Iranian leaders have branded as foreign "meddling" came as opposition leaders continued to defy the regime, rejecting a panel set up to hold a partial recount in the hotly-disputed presidential vote.

The European Union’s 27 nations on Sunday joined forces to condemn Iran’s detention of British embassy staff in Tehran,as tensions escalated between Iran and the west in the wake of the disputed elections. After Iran arrested nine local employees working at the UK embassy in Tehran, EU foreign ministers meeting in Corfu said they would respond firmly to any further “harassment or intimidation [by Iran] of foreign or Iranian staff working in embassies”. David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he was “deeply concerned” by the arrests and warned their continued detention was “quite unacceptable’’.The seriousness of the diplomatic stand-off was...

Iran 'must free UK embassy staff' David Miliband: "Harassment and intimidation" The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain's embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest. EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that "harassment or intimidation" of embassy staff would be met with a "strong and collective" response. Iranian media reported the detention of eight local staff at the UK mission over their alleged role in the unrest. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless. Relations between the countries are strained since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the UK of stoking...

CORFU, Greece (Reuters) - The European Union on Sunday condemned Iran's crackdown on post-election protesters and said the EU would meet any Iranian intimidation of European diplomatic staff with a "strong and collective response". Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency from Wednesday, said the Iranian government had been weakened at home and abroad. "Obviously the regime is trying to preserve its position by very harsh repression. But that cannot hide the fact that this is a weakened regime. It has lost legitimacy both internally and externally," Bildt said. EU foreign ministers were meeting on...

Iran has detained several local British embassy staff, sparking a new row with Britain on Sunday that underscored the hardline leadership's effort to blame post-election unrest on foreign powers, not popular anger. EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. Iranian police stand guard during an anti-Britain protest in front of the British embassy in Tehran June 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Fars News/Files) British Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded the release of all the staff still held and said his European Union colleagues had agreed to a...

Iran arrested nine local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran Saturday, drawing a terse response from the U.K. government and signaling an escalation of tensions between two countries with a history of difficult relations. AFP/Getty Images Iranian riot policemen stood guard outside the British embassy in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Iranian media reported the arrests on Sunday, saying the employees had been detained for allegedly playing a role in post-election demonstrations in Tehran. Speaking Sunday during a visit to Greece, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said some of the nine who were arrested have been released, though he...

The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain's embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest. EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that "harassment or intimidation" of embassy staff would be met with a "strong and collective" response. Iranian media reported that eight local staff at the UK mission had been held for their role in the recent riots. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless. Relations between the countries are strained after President Ahmadinejad accused the UK of stoking post-election protests, which London denies. Iran has repeatedly accused foreign powers...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. (snip) Iranian authorities have detained several local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran, a move that Britain's foreign secretary Sunday called "harassment and intimidation" and reflected a hardening of the regime's stance toward the West. Iranian media said eight local embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests, but gave no further details. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "about nine" employees were detained Saturday and that four had been released. The...

Britain today condemned the arrest of nine employees of the British embassy in Tehran and demanded their immediate release. An Iranian news agency reported this morning that the Iranian workers had been detained for involvement in the post-election unrest in the Islamic Republic. The arrests follow a week of escalating rhetoric against Britain, which was accused by the Iranian foreign minister of flying in jet-loads of spies to disrupt Iran's presidential elections on July 12. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, denied that the mission had been involved in any post-election unrest and called for the release of the embassy staff....

A number of Britons have been arrested in Tehran following clashes between protesters and police, Iran state television has reported. The Iranian intelligence minister was quoted on IRINN as saying British passport-holders involved in the unrest have been detained. Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei also blamed England for issuing propaganda against Iran. IRINN quoted Mr Ejei as referring to the "meddling of some alien countries" and saying that one which "strongly propagated in its media against the Islamic Republic of Iran and some of its agents have been involved in Iran's tension is England". A spokesman for the British Foreign Office...

Members of the Iranian embassy in London have been ordered to return home in response to the expulsion of members of the diplomatic service in Tehran on Monday. Britain has been subjected to an increasingly lurid series of allegations from Iran since riots broke out in the wake of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline president, earlier this month.

Britain today ordered the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats in a retaliatory move that followed the expulsion of two British diplomats from Tehran yesterday. Announcing the expulsions to parliament, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the Iranian action had been "unjustified".

The government of Iran is turning up the heat on the British government, with a 'protest' led by Basij militia being planned for Tuesday afternoon at the British embassy in Tehran.A 'student leader' has been quoted by name threatening a repeat of the 1979 takeover and hostage-taking at the American embassy that lasted 444 days.The British government has started to evacuate family members of its diplomatic staff and the Iranian foreign minister has hinted at expelling the British ambassador.From WashingtonTV (translated from Persian):the news network of the Islamic Republic’s Voice and Vision Organization [state-owned radio and television] reports that some...

Britain has begun evacuating the families of diplomats based in Tehran after pro-regime student leaders made plans to march on the embassy on Tuesday. Previous demonstrations outside the British embassy have led to violent attacks on the mission in which grenades have been thrown. The order to withdraw, which does not yet apply to embassy staff, also came as Iranian officials threatened to sever ties with the UK. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The ongoing violence has also had a significant impact on the families of our staff who have been unable to carry on their lives as normal. "As...

Britain's Foreign Office said Monday it was evacuating the families of staff based in Iran amid continued violence in the wake of the country's disputed election. The decision came after repeated criticism of Britain by Iranian leaders, and an increasingly tense atmosphere following angry clashes between demonstrators and security officials. Staff will remain in Iran for now, and the Foreign Office confirmed that it was not advising other British nationals to leave. However, it said officials are monitoring the situation with the utmost vigilance. "The families of our staff have been unable to carry out their lives as usual. As...

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's North African wing said on Wednesday it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara. The announcement of the killing came as U.S. President Barack Obama headed to the Middle East hoping to start mending U.S. ties with the Islamic world in a speech that will tackle issues including extremist violence. The British Foreign Office said Dyer was kidnapped on the border between Niger and Mali in late January, but declined to give any more details about him.

From The Sunday Times April 5, 2009 Bankrupt Britain: 340 people go bust every day Jenny Davey and David Smith BRITAIN is facing a bankruptcy timebomb with a record number of individuals and companies predicted to go bust this year. Begbies Traynor, the insolvency and restructuring group, reckons more than 35,000 firms could go under this year – equivalent to more than 95 a day. The figure would be 18% higher than during the previous peak in the 1990s crash. Nick Hood at Begbies said he would not be surprised if the number rose to 40,000 by the end of...

Britons flee French island of Guadeloupe as rioters turn on white families ...Trouble broke out on the island earlier last month after protesters began rioting over high prices and low wages. ...the situation escalated this week after protesters began turning on...white families.... Guadeloupe descends into full-scale urban warfare... ... protesters turn... attention to...white families...they blame for...poor standard of living ...France describing the situation as virtual civil war'... ...hundreds of protesters are roaming the streets of the capital Point-a-Pitre, looting shops and restaurants, burning cars and vandalising.... Protesters ransacked shops and torched cars... .... the neighbouring...island of Martinique...where protests are also...

GUNMEN who killed more than 80 people in Mumbai last night ordered hotel guests: “Put your hand up if you’re British or American.” Frightened hostages were marched off — and their fate was unclear. Local reports said they could include up to 40 British and other foreigners. Late last night police were said to be storming two luxury hotels, one of which was ablaze. The Oberoi and Taj Mahal Palace hotels were among at least SEVEN locations attacked simultaneously as maniacs with machine guns and bombs staged massacres that rocked the teeming Indian city. At least 900 were wounded as...

Families borrowed more than they saved in the early months of this year as the credit crisis and soaring food and oil prices squeezed their incomes, official figures have showed. The saving ratio, a measure of how much households put in their bank accounts, dropped into negative territory for the first time since 1958 - when Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister and the Soviets welcomed Sputnik back from orbit. The ratio was -1.1 per cent in the first three months of the year - the lowest level since comparable records began in 1955, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Excerpt - The kidnappers of five British hostages seized in Baghdad last year have claimed in a video-taped statement that one of the men has killed himself. According to the statement, the hostage – named only as Jason – died on May 25, four days before the first anniversary of the abduction. ~ snip ~

Britons can trace Australian ancestors online Last Updated: 11:18AM BST 04/06/2008 Sixteen million Britons related to free settlers who colonised Australia will be able to trace their ancestors online from today.AP Records list the Irish ancestors of Nicole Kidman Although often portrayed as a nation of convicts, Australia's early population was largely based on immigrants who voluntarily sailed from Britain in search of a better life. The details of 9 million people who arrived in New South Wales between 1826 and 1922 are to be made available. More than 2 million of them were free settlers from Britain leaving behind...

Two million Britons emigrate in 10 years By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent Last Updated: 12:59AM BST 20/05/2008 Two million British citizens have left the UK in a decade, the greatest exodus from this country in almost a century, new figures will show. Some historians say the departure of two million Britons in a decade is almost unparalleled in the country's history The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will release figures showing that more than 200,000 Britons emigrated during 2006. That will take the total number who left the country between 1997 and 2006 to 1.97 million. Another 1.58 million foreign...

Five British hostages who were kidnapped in Iraq almost a year ago are being held inside Iran by Revolutionary Guards, according to two separate sources in the Middle East and London. The hostages were handed over to the Revolutionary Guards by their Iraqi kidnappers last November, the sources believe. One of the sources said they were being held in the western Iranian city of Hamadan. If confirmed, the involvement of Revolutionary Guards would be seen as evidence that senior figures in the Iranian government had backed the decision to hold them in the country. However, British officials said that while...

Germanic invaders may not have ruled by apartheid 00:01 23 April 2008 NewScientist.com news service Emma Young When a strong Germanic signal was discovered in the Y-chromosome of British men, geneticists at University College London suggested that enslavement and apartheid imposed by Saxon invaders was responsible. It was an idea that, given 20th-century European history, had a particular resonance. The argument is, that from AD 430 to 730, the Germanic conquerors of Britain formed an elite, with a servant underclass of native Britons. Inter-marriage was restricted, and the invaders and their genes flourished. "But it is just not necessary to...

One in four Britons don't believe wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill existed, according to a recent survey. Churchill is compared to Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh, seen by many survey respondents as a mythical person, the London Daily Mail reported Monday. The survey, conducted with 3,000 respondents to test their general knowledge, reported other historical figures such as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington were made up for books and films, the Mail reported. The survey, by UKTV Gold, also found that Sherlock Holmes was a real person.

Al-Qaeda's white army of terror         Two and a half years on from the 7/7 attack on London, MI5 has identified a worrying new trend in Al-Qaeda recruits Picture: Phil Wilkinson     HUNDREDS of British non-Muslims have been recruited by al-Qaeda to wage war against the West, senior security sources warned last night. As many as 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam for the purpose of funding, planning and carrying out surprise terror attacks inside the UK, according to one MI5 source. Lord Carlile, the Government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation,...

It sounds like the lead-in to some tasteless gag. What do the Libyan, the Jordanian and the Algerian have in common? There's nothing funny about the answer. They have all spent the past four-and-a-half years in Guantánamo Bay as terrorist suspects and they were all outside this country when they were arrested - yet they all have status as British residents, so it is to this country they come on their release. In truth, the stay may be brief for two of them. The Spanish authorities are interested in talking to Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes about terrorist-related matters and...

A video of five British citizens kidnapped in Iraq and held since May has been aired on Al Arabiya television today. The video calls for British forces to withdraw from the country or the kidnappers would kill one of their five hostages. The video showed a statement in which the group threatened that "this hostage will be killed as a first warning, which would be followed with details that you would not wish to know". One of the hostages was shown on the video as he sat in front of a banner of the Shi'ite Islamic Resistance in Iraq. "Today...

Emigration soars as Britons desert the UK By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 6:56pm GMT 15/11/2007 Britain is experiencing the greatest exodus of its own nationals in recent history while immigration is at unprecedented levels, new figures show. Last year, 207,000 British citizens - one every three minutes - left the country while 510,000 foreigners arrived to stay for a year or more. The majority of people leaving the UK go to New Zealand, France, Spain or Australia The British made up more than half of the 400,000 moving abroad - yet only 14 per cent of immigrants...

Peoples of Britain By Dr Simon James Did the Celts exist? Simon James asks just who were the Britons - and did the Celts ever really exist? Uncover the fascinating ethnic and cultural history of the peoples of Briton, and assess the impact of the many invaders of Britain's shores. Introduction The story of early Britain has traditionally been told in terms of waves of invaders displacing or annihilating their predecessors. Archaeology suggests that this picture is fundamentally wrong. For over 10,000 years people have been moving into - and out of - Britain, sometimes in substantial numbers, yet there...

Britons quit country in record numbers Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/08/2007More people are leaving Britain than at any time for a generation - and possibly for a century. The number of Britons emigrating in the 12 months to July 2006 reached 385,000, the highest since present counting methods were introduced in 1991, new figures show. Why are so many people emigrating from the UK? One in four UK babies born to a foreign parent This is almost certainly the greatest emigration since the 1960s, when thousands left to start new lives in Australia. It could even be the highest since...

UK Citizens Abandoning the UK in Greater Numbers July 25, 2007 - Press Dispensary - Increasing numbers of people are taking the decision to move overseas as a result of the UK’s current immigration policy, according to www.globalvisas.com, a specialist immigration consultancy that provides immigration advice and visa services. As numbers of immigrants to the UK from the new European Union Accession states continue to grow, more and more people in the UK are choosing to take their experience and skills overseas. The consultancy caters for immigrants to the UK as well as British people who wish to emigrate to...

LONDON - Gordon Brown doesn't do charisma. In contrast to Tony Blair, the new British leader has offered no emotive sound bites, no promises of tough new laws and no talk of a "war on terror" since the failed attacks in London and Glasgow. The stern Scot's few public statements have been somber, measured and brief. Many Britons welcome the change, saying the lower-key approach may better reassure a rattled nation and prevent racial tensions from exploding. "We need to be calm about it," said Duncan Walls, 64, a retired lawyer walking through a London on "critical" terror alert after...

SAS on alert to rescue Baghdad Britons By Harry de Quetteville Damien McElroy and Nick Britten Last Updated: 2:21am BST 30/05/2007 The SAS was on standby to mount a rescue mission in Baghdad last night after five Britons were kidnapped in Baghdad in a raid by suspected Shia militants. Iraqi police security check motorists close to the finance ministry's information section in Baghdad Dozens of gunmen and vehicles apparently belonging to a paramilitary unit of the Iraqi interior ministry took part in an operation to snatch hostages from a government building in the heart of the Iraqi capital. The exact...

LONDON (AFP) - Politicians are the least trusted people in Britain, with more faith placed in car salesmen, a survey released on Tuesday revealed. The poll of 1,900 readers of Reader's Digest magazine showed that firefighters inspired trust in 97 percent of respondents, the highest rate of any profession, followed by pharmacists, pilots, nurses and doctors. Faith in politicians, however, dropped from an already-low 15 percent in 2002 to seven percent in the latest poll. Eight percent of respondents said they trusted car salesmen. It marks the first time in the survey's history that politicians have been the least-trusted profession....

Britons could lose the privilege of visiting the U.S. without a visa because of fears over the terrorist threat from within the British Pakistani community. U.S. security officials are deeply concerned at the ease with which young Britons who have trained in Pakistani terror camps can enter America under the visa-waiver programme. Their concerns were heightened this week when five men, most of whom were Britons of Pakistani descent, were jailed for life for terrorism offences. Omar Khyam, jailed for his part in the fertiliser bomb plot, could easily have entered America after training in Pakistan

US pushes for visa control on Pakistani Britons By Alex Spillius in Washington and Philip Johnston Last Updated: 2:05am BST 03/05/2007 Travel restrictions could be imposed by America on 800,000 British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, it emerged yesterday. The move has been prompted by fears that British Muslim men were behind several major bomb plots. On Monday, five men - four with Pakistani backgrounds - were convicted of plotting to attack a shopping centre, a nightclub and other targets with home-made fertiliser bombs. Last summer, MI5 foiled an alleged plot for suicide attacks on transatlantic...

ROYAL MARINE BASE CHIVENOR, England (AP) -- British sailors and marines freed by Iran said Friday they were blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked into fearing execution while being coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters. They said there was no doubt the 15 crew members were in Iraq's territorial waters when they were seized by heavily armed boats of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. They also said their jailers had singled out the only woman among the captives for use in propaganda. Iran, which has been celebrating the incident as a victory, quickly rejected the charges, dismissing...

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the fifteen British sailors would be put before a court and indicted. Referring to them as "insurgents", the site concluded: "If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences." The penalty for espionage in Iran is death...

Many Brits make it in the US - not all keep their accents By Megan Lane BBC News Magazine A cut glass English accent can fool unsuspecting Americans into detecting a "brilliance that isn't there", says Stephen Fry. So is a British accent - of any variety - the route to success in the United States? "Gee, I just love your accent." Any Brit crossing the Atlantic will have heard that line many times. Like the rest of us, Americans are rarely immune to the charms of an accent different from their own. Go on, say "shagadelic"... There's the...

<p>An SAS team has been sent to Africa to rescue five Britons kidnapped in Ethiopia should diplomatic efforts fail to secure their release, according to reports.</p> <p>Sixty soldiers have already arrived in neighbouring Dijibouti, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported this morning. The Ministry of Defence has refused to comment.</p>

Britons detained after return from Somalia Staff and agencies Tuesday February 13, 2007 Guardian Unlimited (UK) Four Britons held in Kenya on suspicion of fighting alongside Islamist militias in Somalia have been detained by police under anti-terror laws following their return to the UK today. The men, all in their 20s and from the London area, arrived at RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at 6.50am, a Metropolitan police spokeswoman said. They were taken to a police station in west London, where they were being detained, the spokeswoman said. She added that the men had not...

Britons seized while trying to flee Somalia By Bonnie Malkin and agencies Last Updated: 2:30pm GMT 02/02/2007 Four Britons are being held by the authorities in Kenya after being arrested apparently fleeing from war-torn Somalia, the Foreign Office has said. Police officials in Kenya said they were among several foreigners detained on the country's border with the east African state. Somalia is in the grip of a violent power struggle between Islamic extremists and government forces, who are backed by Ethiopian troops. Last month, there were reports that Britons had been fighting alongside the Islamic forces with some killed, injured...

Britons freed from chains in mullah's 'drug cure' prison By Isambard Wilkinson in Haripur (Filed: 06/10/2006) A Pakistani cleric has been arrested for running a private jail to which he lured dozens of drug addicts from Britain by offering a spiritual cure in return for money. Treatment: Maulana Ilyas Qadri In a raid this week, police found 113 people, aged between 12 and 50, bound in chains and shackled together at a madrassa, or religious school, in a remote village in northern Pakistan. At least seven were British nationals of Pakistani origin. Many prisoners, whose relatives consigned them to the...

LONDON (AP) - Relatives of the 67 Britons killed in the Sept. 11 attacks five years ago tearfully remembered their dead Monday at a memorial garden near the U.S. Embassy. "It doesn't get any easier, but our minds are much calmer, and we can think through all the events without being flooded by tears and sadness." said Adrian Bennett, 65, whose 29-year-old son Oliver was among the victims. Bharat Parmar, 44, who cousin Hashmukh Parmar died at the World Trade Center, said the terrorist strike that killed 52 bus and subway passengers in London last year had increased his outrage....