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At a G20 summit in Mexico in two days the EU will plead for increased IMF contributions by non-euro countries to help shore up a eurozone "financial firewall" seen as vital to protecting Spain and Italy from Greek debt contagion. The IMF will refuse to make extra cash available to the EU and will threaten to pull the plug on its contribution to Tuesday's €130bn bailout of Greece unless the eurozone creates a €750bn fund, a move opposed by Germany. In the wake of this week's deal to prevent a Greek default, Olli Rehn, the EU's economic and monetary affairs...

Euro zone finance ministers inched towards approving a second bailout for debt-laden Greece on Monday that would resolve Athens' immediate repayment needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation's shattered economy. Agreement on a 130-billion-euro rescue package on strict conditions would draw a line under months of uncertainty that has shaken the currency bloc, and avert an imminent bankruptcy. As the ministers met, officials were struggling to make the numbers add up. EU sources said they had to find a further 6 billion euros, via various options, to make the financing work, and private investors might have to take bigger...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers inched towards approving a second bailout for debt-laden Greece on Monday that would resolve Athens' immediate repayment needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation's shattered economy. Agreement on a 130-billion-euro rescue package on strict conditions would draw a line under months of uncertainty that has shaken the currency bloc, and avert imminent bankrupcty. As the ministers met, officials were struggling to make the numbers add up. EU sources said they had to cut a further 6 billion euros, via various means, to make the financing work, and private investors might have to...

European powers struggled to agree a Greek rescue deal on Monday night as politicians doggedly refused to either lower Athens' debt targets or boost the €130bn (£108bn) bail-out fund. Members of the eurogroup promised a deal would be done but the talks ran into the night in a tug-of-war battle over the yawning gap in Greece's finances. There were violent protests in Athens as Greek democracy and sovereignty appeared to be being carved up by demands from individual European countries. Northern European "hardliners" - including Holland, Germany, Austria and Finland - demanded a "permanent representation" of the troika in Athens...

China accused Western countries of stirring civil war in Syria and two Iranian warships docked at a Syrian naval base, underscoring rising international tensions over the near year-long crisis. -excerpt- "Hama is cut off from the outside world. There are no landlines, no mobile phone network and no internet. House to house arrests take place daily and sometimes repeatedly in the same neighborhoods," an opposition statement said.

Europe’s key powers are on the brink of a €130bn (£108bn) debt deal to rescue Greece and avert the first sovereign default in Western Europe in over half a century. Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble toned down threats to force Greece out of the euro, bowing to intense pressure from France, Italy, and the US-led bloc of global leaders. Mr Schäuble said the country is "on the right path" and signalled that pension cuts agreed by the Greek cabinet over the weekend would be enough to secure approval for the loan package from EU ministers on Monday. "If Greece can...

Iran has halted oil sales to British and French companies, the nation's oil ministry has said. A spokesman was reported as saying on the ministry's website that Iran would "sell our oil to new customers". European Union member states had earlier agreed to stop importing Iranian crude from 1 July. -excerpt- The EU oil embargo, which was agreed last month, was phased so member states that were relatively dependent on Iranian crude - notably Greece, Spain and Italy - had enough time to find alternative sources.

Police consider Muslim link to cemetery attack By Colin Randall in Paris (Filed: 03/08/2005) The headstones of 42 British soldiers who fell in combat in the First World War have been desecrated in what police in northern France believe may have been the work of Islamist attackers. Police and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission initially believed that the damage to the Albuera cemetery last Saturday in Bailleul-sir-Berthoult, near Arras, was caused by local vandals after a drunken night out. No slogans admitting responsibility or proclaiming any cause were found. The desecrated graveyard ‘Shocking scene’: the cost of repair is put...

These photographs are part of a chilling collection of WWII photographs taken by a German soldier in the aftermath of Dunkirk. Today on Remembrance Day, they are a fitting reminder of the fields which played host to some of the bloodiest battles of World War One in which 10 million soldiers died. The pictures show the lifeless beaches of northern France littered with thousands of allied vehicles left behind following the infamous evacuation.One disturbing snap shows the rotting corpse of a British soldier lapping at the shore. Others show the devastation inflicted on the town of Dunkirk following days of...

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Police turned tear gas and stun grenades on protesters outside Greece's parliament Sunday as lawmakers inside debated another round of austerity measures. Riot police dispersed many of the demonstrators, who were protesting plans for new cuts in government spending, wages and pensions in return for a new eurozone bailout of the debt-stricken country. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has urged approval of the deal, warning in a speech to the Cabinet Saturday evening of "social explosion, chaos" if it fails. "The state will not be able to pay salaries and pensions or import basic goods" such as...

A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110. Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough. She died in her sleep on Saturday night at Briar House care home, King's Lynn. Mrs Green had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February. The world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Briton Claude Choules, died in Australia aged 110 in May 2011. The last three World War I veterans living in the UK - Bill...

The half-century habits of Franco-German condominium die hard. It is a painful process for French elites to admit that monetary union is asphyxiating their economy and must inevitably trap France in mercantilist subordination to Germany. The Carolingian union is all that anybody in French public life can really remember. It worked marvellously for two generations, levering French power on the global stage, and the euro was of course their own creation, intended to tie down a reunited Germany with “silken cords”. How can they now face the awful truth that this elegant strategy has blown up in their faces, enthroning...

London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will ‘help’ older people move from their homes into ‘more suitable accommodation’. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a so-called ‘housing crisis’ as well as creating a system that will ‘permit access to various sources of wealth’ that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

India's Finance Minister referred to the financial aid given by Britain to his country as nothing more than 'peanuts', it is claimed. It is also claimed that Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian ministers tried to reject the money - around £280million a year - from the UK in 2011, but the British Government 'begged' them to take the money. The Sunday Telegraph claims that the Indian government were disposed to reject the money in April last year, because of the 'negative publicity of Indian poverty' highlighted by the aid. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096628/British-foreign-aid-India-tells-Britain-dont-need-peanuts-offer-us.html#ixzz1lWkmhZjq

Farmers in the UK are being encouraged to plough up some of the most quintessential English landscapes so that they can continue to claim European subsidies, experts have warned. Wildlife-rich pastures—which have made famous the New Forest clearings, the South Downs, the Cotswolds and the Chilterns—are under threat after the EU proposed rule changes to the Common Agricultural Policy. Experts have warned that to escape the penalties, farmers are already mowing down the grassland ahead of the 2014 deadline for registering their permanent pasture—in case they want to plant them later. Many such fields will be "improved" grasslands—actually monocultures with...

In a move that was decried by the U.S., France, and Arab countries, Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a U.S.-backed proposal at the UN Security Council to condemn Syrian leader Bashar al-Assed for violence against Syrian citizens. The resolution that had demanded that Assad resign was backed by the Arab League, and the League on Saturday night called on Arab countries to shut down their embassies and consulates in Syria, and remove Syrian ambassadors from their countries. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said that Washington was "disgusted" by the vetoes. The vetoes followed a particularly bloody night...

In Athens, the war of nerves over the debt haircut is nearing a finale. The negotiations between private creditors and the government, however, are taking some dangerous stumbles. Before Greece gets €130 billion in aid, it must show some success with its reforms. And that, with all the good will in the world, cannot be achieved. Every day we see the same images. Men and women in suits and with serious expressions step briskly up to a revolving door, wind their way into an unfamiliar building and disappear into the darkness. The scenes are playing out in Athens, and they...

Is WikiLeaks biased against the West and the US in particular? This news item would tend to indicate so. According to Christian Science monitor Moscow correspondent Fred Weir, Kremlin funded media outlet Russia Today, is to hire WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This despite the fact that Assange remains under house arrest in Britain, awaiting a Supreme Court decision on his extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has signalled that Greece will have to give up autonomy over its budget if it is to receive the full backing of the international community for its second €130bn (£109bn) bail-out. With the country on the brink of a default, Christine Lagarde, the director general of the IMF, said that a new "fiscal compact" was set to be signed by European Union members at the vital leaders' summit on Monday that would centralise budgetary powers. Greece is under increasing pressure to give up control of its budget. A document released over the weekend revealed German...

Dozens of decapitated skeletons have been unearthed in southern England believed to be those of 1,000-year-old Vikings, scientists said Friday. > "To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development," he added. >

Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young men—their heads stacked neatly to the side—have been found in a thousand-year-old pit in southern England, according to carbon-dating results released earlier this month. The mass burial took place at a time when the English were battling Viking invaders, say archaeologists who are now trying to verify the identity of the slain. The dead are thought to have been war captives, possibly Vikings, whose heads were hacked off with swords or axes, according to excavation leader David Score of Oxford Archaeology, an archaeological-services company. Announced in June, the pit discovery took...

Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young men -- their heads stacked neatly to the side -- have been found in a thousand-year-old pit in southern England, according to carbon-dating results released earlier this month. The mass burial took place at a time when the English were battling Viking invaders, say archaeologists who are now trying to verify the identity of the slain. The dead are thought to have been war captives, possibly Vikings, whose heads were hacked off with swords or axes... Many of the skeletons have deep cut marks to the skull and jaw as well...

(CBS News) A gruesome mass grave found in southern England may be the final resting place of some of the most feared marauders of the 11th century. Archeologists say the remains may belong to Viking mercenaries, who were buried in a burial pit in what now is the English town of Dorset. Isotope testing on the men's teeth links their origin to Scandinavia. That's where the easy clues end.

A mysterious cache of dozens of humans skulls discovered earlier this year in Dorset, England belonged to Viking raiders. Anthropologists figured this out when they examined the teeth, and found that elaborate patterns had been filed into them. That's right — the Vikings filed their teeth, and probably put pigment into the designs to make them look even more badass. No other European groups were known to file their teeth at the time these Vikings were beheaded about a millennium ago, though it was a common practice in Africa and Paleoamerica. Were the filed teeth these Norsemen's attempt to make...

Archaeologists have discovered one of the victims of a suspected mass Viking burial pit found in Dorset had grooves filed into his two front teeth. Experts believe a collection of bones and decapitated heads, unearthed during the creation of the Weymouth Relief Road, belong to young Viking warriors. During analysis, a pair of front teeth was found to have distinct incisions. Archaeologists think it may have been designed to frighten opponents or show status as a great fighter....

London, England (CNN) -- They were 51 young men who met a grisly death far from home, their heads chopped off and their bodies thrown into a mass grave. Their resting place was unknown until last year, when workers excavating for a road near the London 2012 Olympic sailing venue in Weymouth, England, unearthed the grave. But questions remained about who the men were, how long they had been there and why they had been decapitated. On Friday, officials revealed that analysis of the men's teeth shows they were Vikings, executed with sharp blows to the head around a thousand...

The captives, all well built young men in their late teens and early 20s, were herded to the place of execution. Fifty-four in total, their heads were hacked off and stacked neatly in a pile. The bodies were tossed into a pit where they remained a tangle of limbs and headless torsos until archaeologists following the route of a new road stumbled across the remains last year. Not the killing fields of Iraq or the Balkans but the Ridgeway, near Weymouth, an ancient track across the now tranquil Dorset countryside, where one thousand years ago a long forgotten massacre took...

If Canada’s “green” media — especially in the Parliamentary Press Gallery — demanded the same standards of accountability of themselves as they do of politicians, they would be killing entire forests right now apologizing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Why? Because in sidestepping the economically suicidal stampede onto the green energy bandwagon which they relentlessly shilled for, Harper was right and they — along with the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens — were wrong. Today, so-called “green” energy is in retreat all over the developed world, as taxpayers and consumers in countries that blindly raced into it are in open...

BRUSSELS—A six-point plan drafted by France and Germany has suggested corporate tax "coordination," an EU financial transactions tax and the redeployment of EU funds in troubled countries as ways to spur growth and jobs. Following Standard & Poor's recent downgrade of nine euro-countries, including France, in which the ratings agency warned that austerity and budget cuts are not the way out of recession, Paris and Berlin have teamed up once more and drafted a six-page paper called "Ways out of the crisis—strengthen growth now!" The paper—seen by EUobserver—is supposed to be discussed at the EU summits on 30 January and...

EXCLUSIVE Fury at wreaths for £1million armed robber Sick 'cashpoint' tribute   Fake ... but Thomas Curtis's gang took real ATMs   SICK graveside tributes have been left by family and pals for an armed robber and ram-raider found hanged in jail. Victims of the £1million crimes carried out by Thomas Curtis, 29, and his gang last night voiced fury at the display in Elm, Cambs, which includes a replica ATM and a Post Office sign. Friends and relatives "honoured" the robber by leaving rose-edged tributes at the grave that recall his trail of violent crime. Dad-of-two Curtis was...

While Germany appeared to offer Britain alternative proposals to the controversial Europe-wide levy on financial transactions today, a draft Franco-German paper, seen by The Daily Telegraph, reveals that the financial transaction tax is seen in Berlin and Paris as the first step to giving the EU a new power to "coordinate" taxation. The text also links existing European Commission proposals on energy taxation and a common method for calculating corporate tax to the push for new EU powers, heralding a major battle over sovereignty this spring. "European institutions and member states should accelerate the process of tax co-ordination," the Franco-German...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.number10.gov.uk/news/prime-minister-statement-on-alan-mcmenemy/ Prime Minister's statement on Alan McMenemy Friday 20 January 2012 Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed the British Embassy in Baghdad have received the body of hostage Alan McMenemy. The Prime Minister said: “It is with great sadness that I can confirm that the British Embassy in Baghdad received a body today that has been identified as Alan McMenemy, who was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2007, along with four other men. The bodies of Jason Swindlehurst, Jason Creswell and Alec MacLachlan were returned in 2009. Peter Moore was the only hostage released alive...

Report: Undercover police had kids with activistsBy: The Associated Press | 01/20/12 6:22 PM Britain's Guardian newspaper said Friday that two undercover police officers have fathered children with the activists they were spying on. Key details were hazy but the revelations are the latest in a series of reports which has cast doubt on whether undercover police in the U.K. go too far in seeking to infiltrate environmental, animal rights and extremist groups. British authorities are already preparing a report into the use of undercover officers after one of them caused a trial to collapse when his cover was blown.

Who is to blame for the eurozone crisis? The governments that ran up the debts? The officials who fudged the criteria so that Italy and Greece could join? The dolts who dreamed up the single currency in the first place? Nope: it's those wicked Anglo-Saxons again. In Die Welt, the EPP's Elmar Brok claims that the US has launched an economic war against Europe. For those who can't read German, here is a rough summary of his argument. The US ratings agencies, he says, had no conceivable reason to downgrade nine eurozone states last week. What this is really about...

UKIP: 'UK must build naval Typhoon' 19 January 2012 The UK should cancel the purchase of the F-35C and invest in developing a naval variant of the Eurofighter Typhoon, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has said. Lord Alexander Hesketh, UKIP's defence spokesman and former executive deputy chairman of Babcock International Group, said that adopting a naval Typhoon would allow the UK to restore carrier strike capability on its Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers before 2020 while saving money and protecting UK jobs. UKIP estimates suggest it would cost £1.4bn to develop a naval typhoon, with unit costs of around £80m....

Catholic midwives in abortion conscientious objection case The staff claim their conscientious objections were not recognised Scotland's largest health board has been taken to court by Catholic staff who claim conscientious objections over abortion procedures were disregarded. Midwifery sisters Mary Doogan, 57, and Concepta Wood, 51, say being forced to supervise staff taking part in abortions violates their human rights....

APFARS photo claiming to show Roshan and his son on January 11There was no doubt that Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was assasinated last week in Iran as he made his way to work at an uranium enrichment facility — the only question that remained was who did it. The Sunday Times reports they have a Mossad source who says it was his group that pulled off the bombing, and it was a "precursor to a military strike" (via Ha'aretz).The idea being that should Iran's nuclear facilities be bombed, it will be all the more difficult for them to rebuild without scientists to...

UK Foreign policy loons: David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and Tony Blair.Nick Clegg, the UK's second string dhimmi Prime Minister, belched out the UK's ignorance and foreign policy dhimmitude with the following vitriolic charge of 'vandalism' against Israel:["Once you've placed physical facts on the ground that makes it impossible to deliver something that everyone has for years agreed is the ultimate destination... it is an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise on which negotiations have taken place for years and years and years," Clegg said, referring to settlement construction. Clegg was speaking alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was also holding talks in London...

Falklands’ conflict gunner meets Skyhawk pilot he shot down, at his home in Argentina A Royal Navy veteran from the Falklands War has completed an extraordinary journey to meet the Argentine pilot he thought he had shot down and killed during the 1982 conflict. Neil Wilkinson met his former enemy Mariano Velasco at his home in Argentina - and was welcomed inside with open arms. The emotional meeting - just weeks before the 30th anniversary of the moment they clashed in battle - was filmed for a BBC Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire documentary to be screened this week. Mr...

Made from bronze and smaller than a ten pence piece, the coin depicts a man and a woman engaged in an intimate act. Historians believe it is the first example of a Roman brothel token to be found in this country. It lay hidden in mud for almost 2,000 years until it was unearthed by an amateur archaeologist with a metal detector. On the reverse of the token is the numeral XIIII, which experts say could indicate the holder handed over 14 small Roman coins called asses to buy it. This would have been the equivalent of seven loaves of...

While it will hardly come as a surprise to many that after making it abundantly clear that Germany is in total disagreement with ECB monetary policies, culminating in the departure of Jurgen Stark from the European central printing authority, Germany will not permit irresponsible, Bernanke-esque monetary policies, it probably should be noted that even following the most recent escalation of adverse developments in Europe, which are now on the verge of unwinding the entire Eurozone and with it the affiliated fake currency, that the German central bank just said that any European QE could only come over its dead body....

As Greece and its lenders prepare for another week of tense negotiations, European officials now say that the task is less to help the country through its troubles than to avoid the sort of uncontrolled default that many experts fear could threaten the global financial system. Officials from the so-called troika of foreign lenders to Greece — the European Central Bank, European Union and International Monetary Fund — have come to believe that the country has neither the ability nor the will to carry out the broad economic reforms it has promised in exchange for aid, people familiar with the...

(BERLIN) - Germany's government Monday categorically ruled out any hike in bailout fund guarantees following the ratings downgrade of nine countries by Standard and Poor's. "The guarantees for the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) are largely enough for what it has to do in the coming months," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Deutschlandfunk public radio. He said the EFSF had already had to pay higher rates to borrow on the markets in the past, meaning "that it does not therefore only depend on the rating". Germany, Europe's top economy, is already the EFSF's main guarantor, which began with 440...

Global markets are set for a rocky day of trading after German leader Angela Merkel warned that it could take many months to rebuild confidence in the eurozone and schisms over financing the bloc's bail-out fund re-emerged. The German chancellor warned that Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade nine eurozone countries on Friday evening demonstrated that politicians needed to step up their efforts to resolve the crisis, warning that it was a "longer process" that would take more than a few months. "The decision confirms my conviction that we have a long way ahead of us before investor confidence returns,"...

EXCLUSIVE  Sex swap teenager to enter Miss England contest   BY JENNA SLOAN Published: 14 Jan 2012   A TEENAGE transsexual has become the first sex swap patient to enter the Miss England beauty pageant. Jackie Green became the UK's youngest transsexual after an op in Thailand on her 16th birthday. The 18-year-old — who was born Jack but lived as a girl since age ten — was asked to enter by modelling scouts who had no idea of her history. The aspiring model, from Leeds, hopes to use the opportunity to speak out about bullying and transgender issues....

They were intimate pictures she never wanted the public to see. So when Queen Victoria’s family portraits – sketched by herself – were leaked to a journalist, she sought an injunction. In one of the first cases of its kind, the furious monarch applied to the courts to stop publication of the drawings in the 1840s. Now, more than 150 years later, the public will be offered the rare chance to see them when copies of six of the pictures go to auction.

Every school child used to learn how the British defended their land during the Roman Conquest. But the discovery of a 2,000-year-old Roman helmet beneath a Leicestershire hillside suggests a different story. Rather than repel the invaders, some Britons fought in the Roman ranks. The ornate helmet was awarded to high-ranking cavalry officers and was found at the burial site of a British tribal leader. According to experts, it transforms our understanding of the Roman Conquest... The treasure, known as the Hallaton Helmet after the area where it was found, dates to around the time of the Roman invasion in...

LABOUR was engulfed in a race row yesterday after frontbencher Diane Abbott made a sneering quip about white people.The veteran Left-winger, who was Britain’s first black woman MP, wrote on the internet chat website Twitter: “White people love playing ‘divide & rule’. We should not play their game.” She made a grovelling public apology after receiving a furious dressing down from Ed Miliband.

As the Government prepares to give the go-ahead to its hugely controversial high-speed train project, its closest equivalent in Europe has had to be saved from bankruptcy with a £250 million government bailout. The new “Fyra” high-speed service in the Netherlands — opened just two years ago — is close to financial collapse with passengers shunning its premium fares and trains running up to 85 per cent empty. The line, between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda, cost taxpayers more than £7 billion to build but is losing £320,000 a day amid disastrous levels of patronage. A Dutch passenger pressure group, Voor...

Ancient Britons were not averse to using human skulls as drinking cups, skeletal remains unearthed in southwest England suggest. The braincases from three individuals were fashioned in such a meticulous way that their use as bowls to hold liquid seems the only reasonable explanation. The 14,700-year-old objects were discovered in Gough's Cave, Somerset. Scientists from London's Natural History Museum say the skull-cups were probably used in some kind of ritual. "If you look around the world there are examples of skull-cups in more recent times - in Tibetan culture, in Fiji in Oceania, and in India," said Dr Silvia Bello,...