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The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code has seriously damaged people's faith in the Christian Church, a survey has found.Two thirds of Britons who have read Dan Brown's thriller believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, a claim rejected as baseless by historians and Bible scholars. Those who have read it are also four times as likely to think that the conservative Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, whose members include the Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly, is a murderous sect. Seventeen per cent of readers are convinced that the lay group, whose founder was canonised by the late Pope...

Britons must 'wake up' to terror risk, says Brown (Filed: 12/02/2006) Opponents of tougher anti-terror measures must "wake up" to the scale of the security threat faced by Britain, Gordon Brown has warned. Mr Brown said ID cards were 'vital' The Chancellor is set to unveil a raft of new policies tomorrow, but the Government will this week face a tough task in the Commons to save two plans from embarrassing defeat. Both ID cards and proposals for a new offence of "glorifying terrorism" will be debated this week, measures dubbed "ineffective authoritarianism" by the Tories. David Cameron, the Conservative...

Kate Burton, the British aid worker freed by her Palestinian kidnappers says she regrets endangering her parents, who were abducted with her while on a visit to the Gaza Strip last week. Burton said most Palestinians had few opportunities for education and economic advancement. "They've got no choice, so they (the kidnappers) think that fighting in this way is the only way." The kidnapping had made her "love the Palestinian people even more," she said, adding that the majority were peace-loving and disapproved of violence.

KATE BURTON, the freed British hostage, yesterday vowed to go straight back to her human rights work among the Palestinian people. Burton, 25, who was held captive with her parents for nearly 60 hours before their release late on Friday, dismissed the abduction as “just one incident” in the chaotic Gaza Strip. She said she was sorry her parents had had such a “desperate experience” during a Christmas visit to see her and that they were tired after their ordeal. But she said she “remains committed and passionate about working alongside the Palestinians to improve their external image”. The Palestinian...

GAZA CITY -- A British aid worker and her parents were released from captivity late Friday, two days after gunmen seized the family in the southern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official said. Palestinian mediator Kamal Sharafi gave no further details, including where the family was released or who had kidnapped them. Kate Burton, 25, a worker with the Al-Mezan human rights group in Gaza, was kidnapped with her parents Wednesday by Palestinian gunmen in the southern town of Rafah. There was no claim of responsibility, and officials did not say what demands the kidnappers had made. Jamil Sarhan, Mezan's executive...

A Palestinian police chief has vowed to find three kidnapped Britons and says he will use force if necessary. But police chief Alaa Hosni said there had been no contact with the unknown group responsible for abducting Kate Burton, 24, and her parents in Gaza. Palestinian militant groups have condemned the kidnap of the British human rights worker and her parents. Roadblocks are in place around Rafah where the Britons were taken and house-to-house inquiries continue. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas - both responsible for suicide bombings in Israel - have called for the release of Ms Burton and...

British adults have got fatter in the last 10 years with almost one in four now officially obese, according to new official statistics. In men, obesity rates almost doubled in 10 years, from 13.2 percent in 1993 to 23.6 percent in 2004, a study by the Health and Social Care Information Centre found. For women, the increase was slightly lower, growing from 16.4 percent to 23.8 percent. But findings that children's body mass index -- a measure of weight in relation to height -- continued to grow again raised fears that they will be larger than their parents and put...

Britons murdered in S Africa on farm By David Blair in Johannesburg (Filed: 22/11/2005) An elderly British couple have been beaten to death in a frenzied attack on their farm in South Africa. Harold and Sylvia Hart were assaulted with a golf club and other weapons at Swing Gate farm, 20 miles west of Johannesburg. Mr Hart, 88, and his wife, 84, were attacked on Friday afternoon in a fertile area of rolling hills where they had lived since 1953. Their daughter, Lesley Hay, 53, said that Mr Hart was lured outside the homestead's electrified security fence. Here, an unknown...

THE radical Shi’ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has authorised his militia to kidnap two Britons in Iraq in the hope of swapping them for two of his senior officials who are held in Basra by British forces. A senior official from al-Sadr’s Mahdi army in Baghdad said that al-Sadr had given the order after last month’s dramatic rescue of two SAS men whom he had been hoping to use as bargaining chips. The source said al-Sadr had given British authorities until yesterday to release his men, but they had failed to do so. “In return for our two officials, two Britons...

Around 30 Britons sheltering in a sports stadium after Hurricane Katrina are being re-located to hotels in Texas, the Foreign Office said. The move comes after stories emerged of violent confrontations, bullying and shortages of food and water at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. Overall, the Foreign Office said there were around 100 British people in Louisiana when the hurricane struck. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "There were 20 to 30 British people in the dome, and they are being moved out to hotels in Dallas and Houston and other places in Texas. "There is a lot of confusion...

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within, said the American historian Will Durrant about ancient Rome. This self-destruction of values is exactly what is happening in England today. Yes, I still call the country of my birth England, in spite of the peculiar political correctness that insists that it be called 'the UK' and that we, its denizens, must be 'Britons'. Even though the Welsh are proud to call themselves Welsh, as are the Irish and certainly the Scots, woe betide the Briton who calls himself 'English' -- a much-frowned-upon no-no. I...

Two Britons reported dead in resort atrocity as tourists flee Egypt fearing fresh wave of attacks By Hugh Miles in Sharm el-Sheikh and Colin Freeman (Filed: 24/07/2005) Hundreds of British tourists fled Egypt last night, fearing fresh terrorist attacks after three bombs ripped through the popular Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Hospital officials said that two Britons were among 88 dead, though last night the Foreign Office confirmed only that two men were missing. The market place in Sharm el-Sheikh after the blast A further eight Britons were among the 120 wounded, including a 14-year-old girl and a 30-year-old...

When al-Qaeda struck in the United States on September 11, 2001, Le Monde cast aside its traditional disdain for the global hyperpower to declare in an editorial: "We are all Americans now." This time, there was a similar wave of international solidarity with -the British people. The French daily paid -tribute to the "sang-froid and -dignity" of Londoners and noted that even the injured queued calmly to leave blackened Tube stations. -Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, said simply: "We are all Londoners." In Israel, The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick turned this notion on its head, wondering if, "as we...

LONDON - Four British men who spent up to three years in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and then were held by British police for a day were released Wednesday night without charge. The men — Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar — were returned Tuesday to Britain and arrested under the Terrorism Act. Metropolitan police questioned the four most of the day Wednesday but announced in the evening that no charges would be filed. Five other British detainees at Guantanamo Bay who were returned in March were also set free within a day and have...

The four British men who returned home from Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday have been released without charge by police. Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga, Feroz Abbasi and Richard Belmar were due to leave Paddington Green police station on Wednesday night, Scotland Yard said. They had been questioned by anti-terrorist officers in the UK after being held at the camp in Cuba for three years. The men had been accused by the US of having links to al-Qaeda. Family reunion They are now being reunited with their families at a location of their choice, police said. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Shortly...

THE four Britons still held in Guantanamo Bay are due to fly home today as their lawyers prepare to launch a record £30million compensation claim over their 'illegal' detention. The UK's DAILY MAIL is planning to report on Tuesday: At least two of the men allege they have been tortured and all four are understood to claim their human rights were consistently abused during three years in the controversial camp on Cuba. The claims will form the basis of the biggest compensation suit so far against the U.S. authorities over alleged torture and abuse. It will detail a string of...

For most of the last three years, four Britons have been trying to get out of the Guantánamo Bay prison where they were held by the United States as suspected terrorists. After their return to Britain, expected to be next Tuesday, two of the men will decide whether they will try to get into parliament. Supporters who have been fighting to secure the men's release say that Moazzam Begg and Richard Belmar will consider standing at the general election, expected to be in May. They would be candidates for the Peace and Progress party, launched last year by the actors...

AT LEAST two Britons have been detained in Iraq suspected of joining the insurgency against coalition forces, the Foreign Office has confirmed. Consular officials are to visit one of the Britons who is currently detained in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The terrorist suspect, thought to be a 25-year-old British national born in Pakistan, was captured in Ramadi on 7 December by United States marines. US troops exchanged fire with a group of suspected militants caught moving an arsenal of rifles between two houses. Several people were arrested including the unarmed Briton, who is thought to have told...

Adaptability, modesty, a sense of humour and determination. These are the criteria of Britishness set out for the Great Britons Awards '04, which celebrate achievement in various areas of national life. But where did this miscellaneous set of qualities come from — and to whom do they belong? The simple answer to the first question is that these qualities were identified by that curious modern form of camel committee, the focus group, hailing in this case from Chicago, Milan, India and, bizarrely, King's Lynn. Needless to say, the group with the least clear idea of what it means to be...

100 Britons are feared to have lost their lives By Sebastien Berger in Phuket and Richard Alleyne (Filed: 30/12/2004) More than 100 British tourists are now feared dead, officials said last night. Publicly the Foreign and Commonwealth office in London was confirming that the official death total stood at 26 - three in the Maldives, three in Sri Lanka and 20 in Thailand. A woman views pictures of casualties on a noticeboard in Krabi, Thailand But according to officials abroad, the figure was closer to 50 and expected to more than double as bodies were identified. The number of British...