Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that Allied troops must stay in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban filling any “vacuum”, and that Britain would be ready to send more troops as part of an agreed strategy, ITN reports.
“I, as much as anyone else, want to bring our troops back home to safety, but we cannot leave a vacuum which the Taliban will quickly fill, and under their umbrella, al-Qaeda quickly follow,” Miliband said. “Counter-terrorism may deal …

Israel displayed for the first time Wednesday a collection of rare coins charred and burned from the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple nearly 2,000 years ago, NPR.org reports.
About 70 coins were found in an excavation at the foot of a key Jerusalem holy site. They give a rare glimpse into the period of the Jewish revolt that eventually led to the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in AD 70.
The Jews rebelled against the …

Catholic bishops warn that an “Equality Bill” proposed by Labour deputy leader and “equalities” minister Harriet Harman could result in bans on Christmas celebration, the Daily Mail reports.
The Bill is thought to be so complex that the bishops fear some organisations, including town halls, could halt festivities entirely. Campaign groups could also take legal action in attempts to have the Bill enforced to fit their own agendas, the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales …

Motorists are being warned they can expect to pay more than £1.10 a litre for petrol in the run-up to Christmas, ITN reports.
That’s the highest price since September 2008.
Petrol prices have risen by 26 per cent already this year, despite the cost of oil actually falling.
The misery is set to continue into the New Year, with the Government putting VAT back up to 17.5 per cent from 15 per cent.

New Zealand is the least corrupt country in the world, according to International Transparency Organisation’s this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index, the United Kingdom is 17th least corrupt.
The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. The CPI is a “survey of surveys”, based on 13 different expert and business surveys.
Denmark is 2nd least corrupt country in the world, and Singapore and …

I am amazed. I am really astonished how people responsible for London’s transport, who are supposed to make prompt and quick decisions – and especially obvious ones! – lack every possible bit of common sense. It seems like TfL are deliberately employing only imbeciles to make Londoners’ lives as difficult as possible.
What made me angry today was an incident at Tulse Hill, south east London. At about 10:30am, when I rode past the place by …

Swindon will become Britain’s first “WiFi town” with free internet access available to all its 186,000 residents, The Times reports.
A £1 million network of 1,400 access points will be sited at strategic locations around the Wiltshire town. The network is being named the Swindon mesh.
The project was launched today as a partnership between the borough council and two private companies which will recoup their investment by offering upgrades and faster access at a yet to …

US President Barack Obama continues to “reach out to Muslims” by appointing them to key security posts amid charges he wrongly ignored internal Muslim terror, Arutz 7 reports.
Last week he swore in a Muslim rights advocate to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), shortly after the Fort Hood massacre, where a Muslim major murdered 13 US servicemen. HSAC members are involved in expertise on national security.
The new member is Syrian-born Kareem Shora, whose was the …

Smokers could soon have access to an injectable vaccine to help them break the habit following a deal between the company that developed the drug and manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The NicVAX vaccine works by preventing nicotine in tobacco entering the brain, where it creates an addictive sensation of pleasure.
Trials have shown it can halve the number of people who return to smoking after trying to give up.
Figures from the American Lung Association suggest …

This year’s Formula One champion Jenson Button has agreed terms to join McLaren on a £6m-a-year deal and could sign his formal three-year contract to partner Lewis Hamilton in an all-British line-up within the next few days, the Guardian reports.
In switching to McLaren Button will be going against advice from Formula One grandees including Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda and Martin Brundle, all of whom feel he might be biting off more …

US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao met today for 2 1/2 hours of private conversation and emphasised afterwards co-operation between the two countries and a relationship that “goes far beyond any single issue”.
Obama and Hu showed divisions over economic, security and human rights issues that have long bedeviled the two powers, Fox News reports. However, Obama said that “The relationship between our two nations goes far beyond any single issue”.
Both leaders …

United Nations and Iranian officials have been secretly negotiating a deal to persuade world powers to lift sanctions and allow Tehran to retain the bulk of its nuclear programme in return for co-operation with UN inspectors, The Times reports.
The 13-point agreement was drawn up in September by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an effort to break the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear programme before he stands down at …

The new Manor Grand Prix team have signed the German Timo Glock as their lead driver for their debut season in Formula 1 in 2010, the BBC reports.
Glock, 27, has raced for Toyota for the last two seasons but was on the market after the Japanese company pulled out of F1 at the end of the season.
Glock has agreed to a two-year deal, with the option of another season.
Manor technical director Nick Wirth said he …

Ministers announced that ID cards will be on sale in Manchester in two weeks’ time — as official figures revealed the high cost of their development, The Times reports.
The Home Office have spent nearly £230,000 a day on developing ID cards and biometric passports so far this year, a total of £216million since April 2006.
Registering for an ID card in Manchester today, Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister, said he believed everyone would have one within a …

Budget airline easyJet have reported a big fall in full-year profits to the end of September, after the rising price of oil pushed up fuel costs, the BBC reports.
Pre-tax profits were £54.7m, half of the £110.2m the airline made a year earlier. This came despite a 13% rise in sales from £2.36bn a year ago to £2.67bn.
easyJet said that the results were “extremely resilient”, adding that they were one of the “very few” European airlines …

A senior Kurdish official confirmed that Iran has started building of a wall separating the Islamic Republic with Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, meant to prevent separatists from crossing the mountainous border, AK News reports.
“The Iranian Government has already built more than 5 km of the wall, near the Iraqi-Kurdish border town of Haji Omaran, in Erbil Province,” Brigadier General Jabbar Yawar, the Spokesman for the Kurdistan Guards (Peshmarga) Command, said.
Earlier this week, the Arabic al-Arabiya website …