The UK asylum crackdown has prompted the government to change visa regulations for a further 16 countries.
All travellers from the countries involved were already required to get visas to visit Britain but now they will have to be in possession of the documents just to pass through an airport on their way to another destination. [...]

[Read more →]

Russian media are reporting that members of Turkmenistan’s ethnic Russian minority are leaving in panic as a deadline forcing them to decide on one citizenship looms on Sunday.
Many reportedly fear being trapped in a state which has been widely criticised for human rights abuses and has imposed severe restrictions on foreign travel for its citizens. [...]

[Read more →]

Tests have found traces of radioactive waste in Scottish farmed salmon sold in supermarkets, it emerged today.
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace, which commissioned the study, says the contamination was caused by discharges from the Sellafield nuclear plant into the Irish Sea.
The announcement comes as the UK faces fierce criticism at a ministerial summit in [...]

[Read more →]

Travellers from a further 16 countries will require visas to enter Britain from midnight tonight under a further crackdown on asylum announced today.
The Home Office said travellers from the countries already require visas to visit the UK but will now have to hold the documents to pass through Britain on their way to another [...]

[Read more →]

I have spent the last week reading the latest draft of our proposed European Constitution. All 250 pages of it. Twice. And contrary to popular opinion I can report that the experience is something of a pleasure. This is because - to a novelist like me, at least - the English prose style of the [...]

[Read more →]

Scotland’s biggest event in the farming calendar has got under way with livestock at the centre of attention.
An estimated 140,000 people are expected to visit Ingliston Showground, near Edinburgh, over the next four days for the Royal Highland Show.
The event gives the farming community the chance to discuss the state of the industry. [...]

[Read more →]

So Solid Crew member Jason Phillips has been jailed for four years after being found guilty of possessing a loaded handgun.
Phillips, who is known as G-Man and wrote the hit 21 Seconds, dumped the gun as police chased him from the scene of a suspected drugs deal in London’s West End.
Sentencing Phillips, the [...]

[Read more →]

The far right British National Party has failed in its bid to win a ninth council seat in Burnley.
Its narrow defeat, by just 11 votes to the Liberal Democrats, also means the BNP has lost its position as the official opposition on Burnley Borough Council.
The by-election was being closely watched, after the BNP won [...]

[Read more →]

The United States has said Europe must do more to tackle a resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world.
The plea was made by former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, representing the US at a conference in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
“Words do not suffice to turn the tide of anti-Semitism that is once again growing in [...]

[Read more →]

The decline and fall of a man who once seemed poised to
become the next great émigré writer.

Limonov: It’s just him—EddieLast week, in the provincial
Russian city of Saratov, a judge heard final arguments in the
case of writer Edward Limonov. Though Limonov stands
accused of plotting to invade a large central Asian country,
Kazakhstan, [...]

[Read more →]

The British National Party could win its ninth seat in Burnley on Thursday when voters go to the polls.The by-election is being held in the Hapton with Park ward, after the resignation of a Labour councillor.
Kevin Birchall stepped down from his seat on the day the BNP became the second largest group on the [...]

[Read more →]

SCOTTISH opposition to the single currency has hardened significantly, according to a poll timed to coincide with today’s historic announcement on whether the five economic tests have been passed.
Gordon Brown will declare this afternoon that Britain is not yet ready to join the euro, but will use the statement to kickstart an intensive campaign [...]

[Read more →]

A FIERCE debate is raging over the future of a monument to the long and turbulent history of the Armstrong clan.
Leading members of the Clan Armstrong Trust say the revered Minholm Cross, in the Borders, has become so eroded it should be moved for safe-keeping to the clan museum in Langholm. The trust, which [...]

[Read more →]

THE head of MI5 issued a chilling warning yesterday that the war against terror would not be won quickly, and cautioned that it was “only a matter of time” before a “crude” nuclear, biological or chemical attack.
Eliza Manningham-Buller, making her first public comments on the terrorist threat, spelled out a grim reality that there [...]

[Read more →]

A member of the British National Party who put up a poster bearing an anti-Islamic slogan has asked the High Court to overturn the conviction he received as a result.
Mark Anthony Norwood was found guilty of a “religiously aggravated” offence after displaying the message “Islam out of Britain” in the wake of the September 11 [...]

[Read more →]

Scots are being encouraged to reach out to refugees and welcome those who have survived persecution into their communities.
The call was made by the organisers of Refugee Week in Scotland, which runs from Monday to Friday.
The event is part of a UK-wide programme that celebrates the contributions refugees make to society.
Organisers hope [...]

[Read more →]

Excuse me, but what happened to the great War Against Terror?
All we have to show for it so far are great hillocks of confiscated nail-scissors at every airport in the world, plastic cutlery on planes and a lot of nasty new laws which make us much less free.
We have also had two needless [...]

[Read more →]

Protesters against genetically modified crops could find themselves left out of a national debate on the issue.
All of the 150 tickets available for a public meeting in Glasgow on Wednesday night have been snapped up but many more people are expected to turn up hoping to take part.
Organisers of the event, an independent steering [...]

[Read more →]

The long-running firefighters’ dispute ended on Thursday with agreement on a 16% pay increase.Firefighters voted three to one in favour of the deal at a special union conference in Glasgow.
It had been agreed by the union executive in May.
Firefighters would receive 4% more in their next pay packets, followed by 7% in November [...]

[Read more →]

Poor facilities in maternity units mean women are less likely to have a natural birth, campaigners have suggested.
The National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which surveyed new mothers, found women who felt they did not have the space, privacy and control that they needed were more likely to have emergency Caesareans than those who felt they did. [...]

[Read more →]