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Tt is often regarded as the British Army’s greatest military victory. Led into battle by the Duke of Wellington, UK troops routed Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, a triumph ushering in almost a century of peace and stability in Europe. But the Government is refusing to mark the battle’s 200th anniversary in 2015 amid suspicions it does not want to offend France. SNIP Brussels is spending at least £20million on commemorative events, including restoring the battlefield. SNIP James Morrow, secretary of Waterloo 200, ...said he was ‘disappointed’. SNIP ‘The Belgian government has spent millions on events to commemorate the...

Chamonix – In this pretty ski resort that hugs the foot of Mont Blanc, an ugly Anglo-French conflict is brewing. Aggrieved with what they call l'invasion Anglaise — a growing influx of Britons buying apartments, setting up businesses and acting as if they own the place — local residents are fighting back. Until a few days days ago, the insult CENSORED Les Anglais (CENSORED the English) could be read in black aerosol on a wall of the Passage de L'Outa. Elsewhere, the sentiment is repeated: "English go home" is sprayed on car bonnets and the walls of British-owned businesses. Tyres...

President Chirac has threatened to cancel a Franco-British summit following a slanging match with Tony Blair over the future of Europe's £30 billion-a-year Common Agricultural Policy.Suits me, Jacques. I haven't had anything worth repeating in polite company to say to you lot in years - Ivan The row is one of the most serious between a British Prime Minister and a fellow EU leader since Margaret Thatcher attacked Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand over their plans for a single currency in the late 1980s. As details emerged yesterday of the confrontation at last Friday's EU summit in Brussels, neither Downing...

The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, predicted to an eminent associate earlier this year that once the issue of Iraq was remitted to the UN, there could be no war.Judging by the glacial pace at which it has moved since George W Bush addressed the General Assembly on September 12, his prediction about that body is turning out to be uncomfortably, if unsurprisingly, accurate. The UN Security Council is busily seeking to tie America down in a thousand strands of legal tinsel - and, in the case of France, for the most ignoble of reasons.But are President Bush's convictions...

The US and Britain returned to the brink of war today as Saddam Hussein's dramatic promise to allow unfettered weapons inspections turned out to have strings attached. Iraq made a surprise offer late last night to provide "unconditional access" to United Nations inspectors, raising hopes of a peaceful outcome to the Gulf crisis. But today it emerged that the offer only applied to military bases - which could let Saddam hide chemical and biological arms stockpiles elsewhere. That was not good enough for Downing Street, which insisted: "Inspectors must be allowed to go anywhere, anytime." Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged...

America yesterday hailed the first success in its campaign to persuade the world to confront Saddam Hussein when France said that Iraq should be given a three-week ultimatum to admit weapons inspectors. President Jacques Chirac shifted noticeably closer to the American position by proposing a two-step process by the United Nations Security Council that could lead to a formal authorisation for military force against Iraq. As President George W Bush prepared a keynote speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, the White House said: "It appears that a movement is budding to put some force into previous UN resolutions."...