Iran failed to accept a United Nations-drafted plan that would ship most of the country’s uranium abroad for enrichment, Ha’aretz reports.
While Iran did not reject the plan outright, state TV reported that Tehran was waiting for a response to its own proposal to buy nuclear fuel rather than ship low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment.
Iran has often used counterproposals as a way to draw out nuclear negotiations with the West.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog …

Two American pilots who overshot their destination by 150 miles and claimed that they had been having a heated discussion on airline policy may in fact have been asleep, The Times reports.
The pair were flying a Northwest Airlines Airbus A320 from San Diego to Minneapolis on Wednesday evening when they lost contact with air traffic controllers about an hour before their scheduled arrival time.
The aircraft, with 144 passengers and a crew of five, passed over …

Yesterday’s Question Time on BBC, which drew a record of eight million people to their TVs, was certainly anything but dull. For the first time, much-hated BNP got their appearance in the programme and MEP Nick Griffin, who’s incidentally also the leader of the BNP, took the stand.
I actually stayed up longer than usual yesterday to watch the show. And in spite of feeling quite sleepy today, I don’t regret – the show was worth …

The postal workers strikes have led to 30 million letters being delayed, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Royal Mail said the figure was equivalent to around 40 per cent of an average daily post.
In a statement, the Royal Mail branded the strikes as unnecessary and irresponsible, as a second day of action crippled deliveries.
Meanwhile the CWU confirmed there will be a three-day strike from next Thursday involving over 120,000 workers.

A British submarine that Winston Churchill authorised on a mission at the outbreak of the First World War, has been found in the Baltic Sea over 90 years after it disappeared.
Part of an extraordinary naval operation at the outbreak of the First World War, submarine HMS E18 never returned from a routine patrol in May 1916. As no one witnessed her sinking, no trace of her was ever found – until now, Swedish marine survey …

This year’s Formula One world champion Jenson Button has emerged as a contender to join Lewis Hamilton in what would be a mouth-watering line-up at McLaren in 2010, the BBC reports.
The Englishman has yet to sign a new contract for Brawn GP and McLaren are interested, having so far failed to secure first choice Kimi Raikkonen.
“We’ve talked to a number of drivers,” team boss Martin Whitmarsh said. ”It wouldn’t be appropriate to say more than that. …

Vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Ottawa on Wednesday night, police have launched an investigation.
Nazi swastikas and anti-Semitic epithets were sprayed on the walls that mark the entrance to the Jewish Memorial Gardens cemetery, eight headstones were also defaced, thejidf.org reports.
A neighbour alerted police to the vandalism this morning.
Jewish Memorial Gardens, located just south of Greely, is one of two designated cemeteries for the Ottawa Jewish community. The oldest one, on Bank Street, has a limited …

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, has secretly invited South Korea’s President to a summit meeting in Pyongyang, in a further sign of his regime’s new drive to engage with the outside world, The Times reports.
The invitation appears to be part of an effort launch by the North over the summer to reach out to the international community after months of confrontation and provocation in the first few months of the year.
Western diplomats in Seoul …

Jean Todt was today elected President of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), the former Ferrari team principal team will succeed Max Mosley as head of world motorsport’s governing body, the Guardian reports.
Todt’s election was confirmed at FIA headquarters in Paris this morning following a vote of the 221 national motoring organisations that make up the body. He beat Finland’s former world rally champion Ari Vatanen to the post.
Todt joined Ferrari in 1993 and was in …

American authorities yesterday formally demanded the extradition of the convicted rapist Roman Polanski.
The American Embassy in Bern submitted the request o the Federal Office of Justice in Switzerland, where Polanski has been imprisoned since his arrest on 26th September at Zurich airport.
With that paperwork filed, Swiss authorities will now forward the demand to the Canton of Zurich to hold a hearing on the issue, according to a statement from the Swiss federal office, the New …

The European Parliament have given the green light for member states to cut persistent file-sharers off from the net, the BBC reports.
The French Government have just approved plans which could see pirates removed from the net for up to a year. The UK’s file-sharing policy is also likely to include a clause about disconnecting persistent offenders.
The European Parliament were originally opposed to such legislation, claiming internet access was a basic human right.
There has been much debate …

Israel is planning a major archaeological dig under the Western Wall (Kotel) plaza, which will create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel, Arutz 7 reports.
The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.
The dig may be met with harsh reactions from Muslim …

Czech President Vaclav Klaus is satisfied with an EU proposal that meets demands he made for an opt-out on the bloc’s Lisbon Treaty, the BBC reports.
Klaus wanted an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights which covers EU citizens’ rights. He was concerned the charter could allow property claims by Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II to circumvent courts.
“The president… received the Swedish presidency’s proposal which is a response to his request related to …

Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city gripped by a drug cartel war, has laid new claim to the title murder capital of the world as the number of killings so far this year passed 2,000, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The city of 1.5 million people just across the border from El Paso, Texas, had 1,600 murders last year but in 2009 that total was exceeded by late summer. Latest figures from the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office showed …

Police attending a routine 999 call accidentally stumbled across Britain’s biggest cocaine factory which earned a gang more than £50 million a year, the Daily Mail reports.
The incredible discovery – which included a huge arsenal of weapons – came after officers responded to the telephone call made by a neighbour who suspected the flat was being burgled. Officers unearthed a cache of rifles, handguns, stun grenades, boxes of ammunition and a 10-tonne hydraulic press used to …

Almost nine million North Koreans are suffering from food shortages and the World Food Programme (WFP) are able to reach less than two million of them due to a shortfall in international aid, as countries cut funding in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile test, the Guardian reports.
“I estimate at least a third of the population are in the hunger situation out of the projected 24 million population,” Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN rapporteur for North …