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Prince Harry has been deployed to Afghanistan for four months, the Ministry of Defence says. The prince, an Apache helicopter pilot, arrived on Thursday night at the main British base, Camp Bastion in Helmand. The 27-year-old, who is third in line to the throne, will take part in combat missions against the Taliban. It is his second Afghanistan deployment - he spent 10 weeks in Helmand province in 2007-08 but was pulled out after media reported his secret deployment. Captain Wales, as he is known in the military, arrived as part of the 100-strong 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment, Army Air...

BRITAIN'S Ministry of Defence says Prince Harry has returned to Afghanistan to fly Apache attack helicopters during a four-month tour of combat duty. The 27-year-old who is third in line to the British throne looked relaxed, if slightly tired on Friday, and gave a thumbs-up after a long journey on a standard troop flight from England. Capt Harry Wales, as he is known, wore his combat uniform upon arrival and joined his 100-strong unit - the 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.

The couple arrested for opening fire on intruders who targeted their isolated cottage will not face charges, the Crown Prosecution Service announced last night. Andy and Tracey Ferrie had been held on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after dialling 999 to report that they had discharged a shotgun when a four-man gang broke in to their home in the middle of the night. The couple spent almost three days and nights in custody until they were released on bail late on Tuesday night. Yesterday, hours after two men appeared in court charged with burglary in connection with the raid on...

Scotland will introduce a bill within nine months on holding a referendum on independence, First Minister Alex Salmond said on Tuesday, paving the way for a vote that could result in the eventual breakup of Britain. Salmond, aiming to end the 305-year-old union with England, wants a vote on independence in the second half of 2014... Salmond, who is viewed with cautious respect in London, has angered the Catholic Church with a plan to make Scotland the first country in the United Kingdom to approve same-sex marriages. "Our Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill will enable same sex couples to get...

AN unfaithful millionaire Muslim does not believe his estranged wife deserves a divorce because polygamy is allowed under Islamic law, he told a court today.Houshang Jafari, 60, was unfaithful to his wife, Aghdas Bidaki, 53, with a younger woman by whom he has two children. He moved out of the family home and moved his mistress, Katrina, 20 years his junior, into his £1.2 million apartment. She has taken his name despite not being legally married. In a tense divorce hearing today, the property developer, who styles himself 'Lord’ and was once jailed for attacking a helicopter, told Bristol county...

Spain has issued a veiled warning that it will not accept a full bail-out from Europe if the terms are too harsh, a move that would paralyse the European Central Bank and call the euro’s survival into question. In an escalating game of brinkmanship, Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos said his country is not yet willing to sign a Memorandum giving up fiscal sovereignty to EU inspectors. “First of all, one must clarify the conditions,” he told German newspaper Handelsblatt. Mr de Guindos said the crisis engulfing the region is larger than any one country and warned north Europe...

The man is believed to have grabbed a legally owned gun after they were disturbed by the break-in early yesterday. He is understood to have fired at the intruders who then fled the isolated house at Melton Mowbray, Leics, before calling the police. Minutes later, an ambulance was called to treat a man with gunshot injuries nearby. It is understood that call was made by one of the suspected burglars. A second man was later treated for gunshot injuries after arriving at Leicester Royal Infirmary, 10 miles from the scene of the shooting. Neither of the men is said to...

Historian Tom Holland has claimed that Koran makes little or no reference to religious city of Mecca. London : A British channel has come under fire over a programme it broadcast on the history of Islam. The programme, ‘Islam: The Untold Story’, broadcast on Channel 4, triggered nearly 550 complaints to both the television regulator Ofcom and the channel’s presenter Tom Holland. According to the Daily Mail, Holland has been accused of distorting the history of Islam by claiming the Koran makes little or no reference to the religious city of Mecca. He has also been subjected to a number...

Even as Greece desperately tries to avoid defaulting on its debt, American companies are preparing for what was once unthinkable: that Greece could soon be forced to leave the euro zone. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has looked into filling trucks with cash and sending them over the Greek border so clients can continue to pay local employees and suppliers in the event money is unavailable. Ford has configured its computer systems so they will be able to immediately handle a new Greek currency. No one knows just how broad the shock waves from a Greek exit would be, but...

A former soldier has been jailed for four months after he tied a pig's head to the gates of a mosque before uploading pictures of what he did on Facebook. Simon Parkes, 45, tied the animal's head to the front of Cheltenham Mosque, Gloucestershire, after seeing a group of Muslims burning poppies on Remembrance Sunday 2010. He also wrote 'Allah' on the pig's snout in what was seen as an 'act of revenge' against the Muslim religion. ... Sentencing him Judge Jamie Tabor QC, said: 'Not only soldiers but the majority of citizens of this country were offended by seeing...

Channel 4 has become embroiled in controversy after viewers claimed that a programme distorted the history of Islam. The broadcaster and regulator Ofcom and received nearly 550 complaints after Islam: The Untold Story was screened last week. The show’s presenter, Tom Holland, was subjected to a wave of criticism for his investigation into the origins of the religion and its early texts. He said there was little written contemporary evidence about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and claimed that the Koran makes little or no reference to Islam’s holy city of Mecca. Holland, an award-winning writer and historian, received...

Mitt Romney's people are pondering today who let the crazy uncle out of the attic so he could upstage Romney on his big-night speech accepting the Republican nomination for the Presidency. I am assured by reliable sources that when Romney wins – ‘there’s no “if” about it’ – there really is no plan to nominate Clint Eastwood to succeed Hillary Clinton as the next Secretary of State. What is certain is that Obama is one lucky guy. First, Isaac – that’s the hurricane – all but extinguished the media spotlight for the opening of the Republican National Convention and drenched...

American pollsters will tell you that the presidential candidate who is in the lead going into the party conventions usually wins. Four polls last week showed a tiny lead for Barack Obama, two for Mitt Romney and one was level; all seven were well within the margin of error. Another rule is that the Gallup poll taken 100 days before the poll foretells the winner. Only once in the past 60 years – the Bush-Dukakis race of 1988 – did that predictor fail. So, what did Gallup show on the date in question? A dead heat, with both candidates on...

If you live in America and believe in free markets and small government, it’s easy to get depressed. We suffered through eight years of wasteful spending and misguided intervention under Bush, and now we’re enduring four years of additional spending and red tape under Obama. Moreover, it’s not clear things will get any better in the next four years, regardless of what happens on November 6.But whenever I begin to feel sorry for myself, I remind myself of how bad things could be if I lived in the United Kingdom.The burden of government spending in the U.K. rose from 36.5...

Gangs are one of the most basic, and most potent, building blocks of stateless Fourth Generation war. We commonly think of gangs in connection with crime. But through most of history, the line between crime and war was blurred, often to the point of vanishing. (See Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century.) It was the state that drew the line clearly, but today in much of the Middle East and elsewhere states and the state system are collapsing. What is succeeding the state looks much like the 14th century Europe Tuchman describes: people and regions are at...

BEiRUT – Syrian fighters said they destroyed five helicopters in a raid on a military airport between the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib Wednesday, while state television said the attack was repelled. Abu Mossab, a rebel who said he took part in the attack, said via Skype that rebels shelled Taftanaz military airport with two tanks captured from the army and destroyed five helicopters. “We destroyed five helicopters as well as buildings in the airport,” Abu Mossab said, although the facility remained in army hands after the raid in which the rebels lost two men before pulling back. “The...

Family doctors are being told to try to talk women out of having Caesareans and very strong painkillers during birth to save the NHS money. New guidelines drawn up for GPs urge them to encourage women to have natural labours with as little medical help as possible. But for many women the prospect of giving birth without the painkillers is unthinkable. And critics have said the move has been made without any thought for the women themselves. The guidelines also remind doctors to tell women to consider having their babies outside hospital in midwife-run units or in their own homes....

Family doctors are being told to try to talk women out of having Caesareans and very strong painkillers during birth to save the NHS money. New guidelines drawn up for GPs urge them to encourage women to have natural labours with as little medical help as possible. But for many women the prospect of giving birth without the painkillers is unthinkable. And critics have said the move has been made without any thought for the women themselves. The guidelines also remind doctors to tell women to consider having their babies outside hospital in midwife-run units or in their own homes.

In all the debate about Obama returning Winston Churchill's bust to the British Embassy, nobody mentioned the one important fact about Churchill. Churchill was a dual citizen of both Britain and the United States. This may shock the American admirers of Churchill, who do not like to read history books. Churchill's mother, Jeanette Jerome, was an American woman who was born in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn in 1854. Her father, Leonard Jerome, was born in the town of Pompey near Syracuse, New York. Here is the Wiki entry on Churchill's Mother: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Randolph_Churchill In addition, President Kennedy honored Churchill...

Millions of people would be forced to disclose the value of their homes, investments and assets under Liberal Democrat plans for an emergency tax on wealth. The Deputy Prime Minister believes that the proposed tax, which would see an annual levy of about half a per cent on the value of a person’s total wealth, could raise billions of pounds to prevent deeper public spending cuts. Experts warned that it would prove “impossible to administer” and other countries were abandoning similar taxes because of the complexities involved. George Osborne said it might also “drive away wealth creators”. The Chancellor said:...