NATO’s new chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on alliance’s European members to find more troops for Afghanistan to stop the country becoming “a Grand Central Station of international terrorism”, The Times reports.
Rasmussen said that he wanted a proper balance between NATO forces from North America and those from Europe to avoid the perception that the mission in Afghanistan was predominantly an American operation.
His remarks, on his first day in the job, came as NATO’s top …

Creeping Sharia posted a video excerpt of Jewish-French filmmaker Pierre Rehov’s documentary “Suicide Killers”, where wannabe suicide bombers express their beliefs on if they’d be really getting 72 virgins, in paradise, if they blew themselves up among “infidels”.
These are actually astonishing interviews with failed would-be terrorists – and thank God they had failed in their attempts. They actually believe that they would be given, in addition to the 72 virgins, money in paradise – whatever …

Senior Tory figures are looking at changes to BBC finance, such as the licence fee being collected through council tax bills, the Daily Mail reports.
A Tory advisory group, led by former BBC director general Greg Dyke has suggested that the license fee should in future be collected by a third party. This could mean the fee would become part of council tax bills, alongside funding for the police and fire service.
I think that the TV licence …

A PCSO gave a nine-year-old child a warning for climbing a tree in a park, also accusing the boy of “anti-social behaviour”.
Kade-Liam Read, who lives in Germany, was visiting his cousings in Churchdown, Gloucester, and was playing in a park and climing a tree, when a PCSO came and gave him a warning, the Daily Mail reports.
“They were just playing on the park and climbing the tree when the community police came and gave them a …

Apple have released a software patch to protect iPhone users from a vulnerability that could have let hackers take control of their device, the Telegraph reports.
The security flaw, which was exposed last week by two computer experts at a conference in Las Vegas, allowed hackers and cybercriminals to potentially take control of an iPhone simply by sending the device a string of text messages.
Apple’s security update became available at the weekend, and users need to …

Georgia accused Russia on Monday of trying to take more territory outside the breakaway province of South Ossetia as tensions rose before the first anniversary of the Russian-Georgian war last summer, the AP reports.
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said Russian troops entered the village of Kveshi near South Ossetia on Sunday and erected posts marking a new border.
“It’s very alarming that as the first anniversary of the Russian aggression against Georgia comes close, Russia and its puppets …

Two people have died of plague in north-western China, where a town of 10,000 has been sealed off to contain the outbreak of the disease, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The second victim, identified as 37-year-old Danzin, was a neighbour of the first person to die from the plague in Ziketan, a town in Qinghai Province.
Pneumonic plague is the most virulent but least common form of plague and is passed from human to human through the air. …

Hundreds of passengers were stranded at Stansted Airport after Ryanair failed to check them on to flights in time, the Daily Mail reports.
The budget airline opened just 11 check-in “bag drops” to deal with 255 flights on Saturday, one of the busiest departure days of the year. By contrast, on the previous weekend it had 23 desks open.
The stranded travellers, many with young children, had to find alternative flights or cancel their holidays. Some spent …

Interestingly, Russian cinema has always had good films to offer. That was true in Soviet times and that is, apparently, true also today.
And it also seems that as in Soviet times, also today the artists in Russia are above politics and, fortunately, don’t have to obey the political guidelines that much. Yes, there is probably still censorship in Russian arts, although obviously not at same levels as there was about 20 years ago, but the …

Explosives en route to the Hizbullah terrorist group caused a Russian-made plane to crash in Iran two weeks ago, claiming the lives of 168 people, Arutz 7 reports.
Middle East sources said the plane, which took off from Tehran and was headed for Armenia, was carrying in its luggage compartment several metal cases with two kilograms of explosives and detonators destined for the Lebanese terrorist group. The shipment was meant to have continued by land from …

The Israel Police recommended Sunday that the state indict Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, saying that evidence exists to back up suspicions that he had taken bribes, fraudulently received goods, violated his public office, obstructed justice, harassed witnesses, and laundered millions of shekels using a host of shell companies and bank accounts, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The recommendation, which carries a surprisingly large number of charges, came after a special unit of the National Fraud Unit and …

According to The Times, Iran could make a nuclear bomb within a year and is only awaiting the confirming word from its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times. The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and …

Another 17 Conservative MPs are likely to step down at the next general election amid plunging morale at Westminster, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Thirteen Tory MPs announced their intention to quit in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, but party chairman Eric Pickles said that “in total we might be looking at 30-ish Conservative-held seats” becoming available.
A spate of resignations among long-serving members would leave the party still needing to select candidates in about 100 constituencies …

July was an excellent month for The Empire Chronicles as we got, on average, 936 unique visitors a day – up more than 200 compared to June (735).
Altogether, 29,032 people visited The Empire Chronicles during July (19,848 in June) and they generated 646,347 pageviews (356,868 in June). As mentioned, the site got 936 unique users a day on average, the best day was 1st July with 1,192 unique users. 2nd July got the most pageviews: …

Rising numbers of children are starting primary school still wearing nappies, the Daily Mail reports.
Appalled teachers are increasingly having to clear up after “accidents” because busy parents have failed to toilet-train their children. Some schools and nurseries have been refusing to take pupils who are still in nappies because of the extra work it causes staff.
But councils are now advising them that by doing so they could be contravening the Disability Discrimination Act. As a result, the …

More than 1,500 people have been wrongly branded as criminals or mistakenly given a clean record by the government agency set up to vet those working with children, The Daily Telegraph discloses.
The number of errors by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has more than doubled in the past 12 months, despite intense pressure for it to improve its performance.
Many of the victims of mistakes would have been intending to take up jobs as teachers, nurses …