Saddam did not pose a significant threat to UK: Ross

September 28th, 2009 LONDON - The United States embassy in Islamabad has legally been allowed to buy 264 houses in the city, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said. Earlier, a petition challenging the massive expansion of the US embassy in Islamabad had been filed in the Pakistan Supreme Court.

September 17th, 2009 Israel says Mideast not ready for nuclear arms banJERUSALEM — Israel's defense minister said in remarks published Thursday that the Middle East is too unruly for a region-wide nuclear arms ban, arguing that the Muslim world must first "behave like Western Europe." Defense Minister Ehud Barak also said Iran's nuclear program is a threat to world peace. His comments come ahead of a U.S.-sponsored world meeting later this month to discourage nuclear proliferation.

September 13th, 2009 LONDON - British intelligence chiefs have targeted war-torn Somalia as the next major challenge to their efforts to repel Islamic terrorism, after receiving reports of scores of youths leaving the UK for "jihad training" in that failed African state. According to The Independent, MI5 bosses have warned ministers that the number of young Britons travelling to Somalia to fight in a "holy war", or train in terror training camps, has soared in recent years as the country has emerged as an alternative base for radical Islamic groups.

September 6th, 2009 LONDON - Television chef Jamie Oliver has condemned the state of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's kitchen. "They've got the worst kitchens in England at Number 10 - terrible.

September 4th, 2009 LONDON - Levi Johnston, the former boyfriend of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, has offered to pose naked for Playgirl. During a behind-the-scenes video for his recent Vanity Fair photoshoot, the 19-year-old self-confessed "redneck" from Wasilla, Alaska, said: "I would do it." However, it seemed that Levi was unaware that Playgirl has a large gay readership, reports The Telegraph.

July 10th, 2009 LONDON - Russian military aircraft violated British airspace without permission 18 times over the last two years, and now Members of Parliament are urging the Gordon Brown Government to take on a "more robust" stance, the Daily Telegraph reports. RAF fighters were scrambled to intercept the Russian Bear bombers.

July 6th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari says targeting the Taliban rather than India does not rankle his army because the two nuclear armed countries no longer pose threats to each others territories. "It rankles the small mind," he told the Daily Telegraph in an interview published Monday.

May 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Al Qaeda's franchise in East Africa, and notably Somalia, has become a greater focus of attention for the international counter-terrorist agencies, as a growing number of young Somali Britons who have received "global jihad" training pose a terrorist risk to the United Kingdom. "Somalia has some of the characteristics of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 - a country of ungoverned space which AQ can exploit," The Times quoted a senior Whitehall official, as saying.

May 7th, 2009 LONDON - Despite having fewer followers, TV host Jonathan Ross has pipped US President Barack Obama and Downing Street to become the most influential 'Twitterer' in the world, says a new research. Ross beat celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and comedian Stephen Fry and US actor Ashton Kutcher to nab the first position.

May 6th, 2009 LONDON - Admitting that the Taliban pose an existential threat to his country, Pakistan High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan has said that the outlawed outfit is a threat to the mankind as well, and there was an immediate need to eliminate it. Speaking in the House of Parliament, Hasan said the Taliban should not be compared with Islam.

April 27th, 2009 LONDON - The latest security threat to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is likely to come from poisoned pens, feels his bodyguards. Not content with plunging into crowds during his frequent public appearances, Ahmadinejad has been known to drive alone and unprotected at night to deprived neighbourhoods to meet families who lost relatives during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq.

April 22nd, 2009 LONDON - Pranksters Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross have teamed up again and now want to conquer the world. The two pranksters had faced much heat after the Andrew Sachs scandal, which led to Brand's resignation from the BBC in October after he boasted about sleeping with the 78-year-old's granddaughter.

March 24th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) appears primarily to exist to fight India and to maintain a constant link between its political and military wings. It spends most of its time monitoring whom to recruit from within and outside Pakistan for intelligence-related activity.

March 18th, 2009 LONDON - American rapper 50 Cent has added fuel to his feud with rap adversary Rick Ross by dressing up as a pimp, and introducing a sex tape which allegedly features the latter's ex-girlfriend. In the movie clip, 50 Cent can be seen wearing a voluminous wig and playing a character named Pimpin' Curly.

March 15th, 2009 LONDON - The FBI has warned that that the United States is facing its most serious instance of domestic terrorism till now. A second generation of Somali immigrants are becoming increasingly radicalised and could pose a growing threat to security, according to US officials.