Ken Clarke, the shadow business secretary, has warned his party that the Conservatives are on course to inherit a worse economic outlook than any incoming Tory government since the war, the Daily Telegraph reports.
In a hard-hitting speech to delegates in Manchester, he described the economy as a “mess”, with the public finances in a “far worse” state than those left by any previous Labour government, including that which gave way to Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
“It …

Approximately 100 Arabs rioted in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem today evening, injuring one officer and trying to blockade the main artery in the area, the police officers dispersed rioters in the Maaleh Har HaZeitim neighborhood, Arutz 7 reports.
In a separate incident, Arab terrorists attempted to cause fatal traffic crashes by throwing rocks and damaged a bus on the highway near Kalkilya, adjacent to Kfar Saba. Fortunately, no one was injured.
Tension in Jerusalem has …

Film director Roman Polanski has been denied bail from a Swiss prison where he is being held for possible extradition to the United States on an underage sex charge, the Guardian reports.
The Swiss justice ministry refused Polanksi’s request because of the risk he would flee the country, Folco Galli, a spokesman for the ministry, said.
The appeal was separate from another legal challenge against his arrest submitted by Polanski’s lawyers last week. Polanski is expected to …

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said today that after 12 years of Labour’s feckless irresponsibility a Conservative government would introduce a public sector pay freeze and cut the cost of Whitehall by a third over five years, The Times reports.
Osborne said that “we are all in this together” as he outlined a raft of savings that would affect Westminster and families from all income brackets.
He said the Conservatives would scrap the bulk of Baby Bonds – …

General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, has received radiation treatment after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Pentagon said that the 56-year-old general was diagnosed in February and has since undergone two months of treatment.
His spokesman, Colonel Erik Gunhus, said Petraeus was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer, which was not publicly disclosed at the time because he and his family regarded his illness as “a personal matter” that “did …

British Airways have announced that they are to cut 1,700 jobs and introduce a two-year pay freeze for cabin crew as they looks to cut costs during the downturn, the BBC reports.
They also announced that they would press ahead with plans to recruit new staff on different terms and conditions to current employees.
The airline are losing money and expects to make a big loss for the second consecutive year. ”Revenues are down, so we must reduce …

A Daily Telegraph reader sent a letter to the newspaper saying that she consistently receives “Sorry, you were out” cards from her postman, even though she works from home. It appears to me that it’s common practice for postmen to leave those cards without even checking if anyone is home – because it has happened to me, too, on many occasions.
“One morning, I cornered him and politely asked why he never knocks to see if …

Hong Kong has overtaken New York and London as the world’s most important wine market, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Sotheby’s, the auctioneer, sold $7.9 million ($4.9 million) of vintage wines in October. They said they had sold $14.3 million of wine so far this year in Hong Kong, far outstripping its sales of $10.5 million in New York and $8 million in London.
In the October sale, one unnamed wine buff from mainland China paid a record …

This year’s Nobel Prize in physics went to one Chinese-British and two American scientists – Charles K. Kao of Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and of Chinese University of Hong Kong is awarded the prize for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication; and William S. Boyle and George E. Smith of Bell Laboratories, USA, for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor.
The press release of the Nobel …

The scale of a phishing attack originally thought to be directed at Hotmail may be larger than previously thought, the BBC reports.
BBC News have seen a list of more than 20,000 more names and passwords that have been posted online. The list contains e-mail addresses and passwords from Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other service providers. It was published on the same website as the original list of 10,000 Hotmail login details.
Some of the accounts appear to …

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne will announce today that the state retirement age would rise to 66 within seven years under a Conservative government, ten years earlier than planned, The Times reports.
The change, saving £13billion a year from 2016, will be portrayed by Osborne as a tough measure showing how serious he is about reducing the soaring budget deficit, expected to rise this year to £175billion.
The Conservatives will set up a review to determine how the …

Sweden is bracing for a full-blown economic and political “breakdown” in Latvia, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Sweden’s finance minister Anders Borg had told banks secretly that Latvia’s political order was unravelling, advising them to prepare for the collapse of Latvia’s rescue talks.
Latvia has failed to deliver draconian spending cuts agreed to secure the next tranche of its €7.5bn (£6.85bn) bail-out from the EU, the International Monetary Fund, and Sweden, balking at 20pc cuts in pensions and …

A charter flight paid for by British and French taxpayers is set to fly to Afghanistan today carrying around 250 illegal migrants arrested near Calais; as well as a seat on the plane, at an estimated cost of £500 each, many of those on board will receive £1,900 in cash and a guarantee of retraining in their homeland, the Daily Mail reports.
However, there will be nothing to prevent any of them travelling back the moment …

North Korea has said it will resume the six-party negotiations on its nuclear programme, after it has first held talks with the United States, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The rogue state abandoned the talks in April, after being heavily criticised by the United Nations for testing a long-range missile. It said it would “never again take part in such talks”, restarted its uranium-enrichment plant and tested a nuclear bomb the following month in an underground bunker.
However, a …

A year after the global financial crisis started and after the private sector salaries have already been frozen or even reduced for more than half a year, Chancellor Alistair Darlin has ordered a pay freeze for 750,000 public sector workers.
Judges, GPs and senior civil servants are among those who will have their salaries frozen next year, the Daily Mail reports. Prison officers, hospital doctors and dentists will receive increases of less than one per cent. But to …

US President Barack Obama bowed to Chinese pressure and snubbed the Dalai Lama as he prepares for a Sino-US summit in Beijing next month, The Times reports.
Tibet’s spiritual leader arrived in Washington yesterday on his first visit since Obama’s inauguration. For the first time since 1991 he will not be received at the White House. The Dalai Lama will eventually meet Obama, but not until the President returns from the Beijing meeting.
American officials have insisted …