The growing threat of a stealth tax on the rubbish we throw away was exposed by startling figures yesterday.

More than 2.5million homes now have wheelie bins fitted with microchips to weigh their contents.

This is an increase of nearly two-thirds in just a year. The bins, which can be electronically identified and weighed, are designed for ‘pay-as-you-throw’ rubbish tax schemes.

Under such schemes – which are likely to be hugely unpopular – families who put out more waste will pay higher taxes to their local council.

Disclosure of the rapid spread of chipped bins followed the announcement this week of the first council to bring in a bin tax. Bristol City is presenting its scheme as a reward for recyclers, with cash payments to homes that leave out less rubbish.

The spread of chipped bins marks the revival of a tax idea that the Government appeared to have abandoned last year.

Gordon Brown promised to ditch bin taxes in the spring of 2008, at a point when the unpopularity among voters of fortnightly collections, strict bin rules, and the threat of pay-as-you-throw was at its height.

In January last year, ministers acknowledged that not one council had applied to test pay-as-you-throw schemes.

But yesterday, research by the Big Brother Watch campaign group showed that the use of chipped bins has quietly spread over the past year.

Source/Full Story: Mail Online

Britain last night fired the first shot in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country’s ambassador to explain the use of faked British passports by a hit squad who targeted a Hamas official in Dubai.

The Israeli ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office to “share information” about the assassins’ use of identities stolen from six British citizens living in Israel, as part of the meticulously orchestrated assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Britain has stopped short of accusing Israel of involvement, but to signal its displeasure, the Foreign Office ignored an Israeli plea to keep the summons secret. “Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now,” an official told the Guardian.

Gordon Brown yesterday launched an investigation into the use of the fake passports, which will be led by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). The British embassy in Tel Aviv is also contacting the British nationals affected in the plot, “and stands ready to provide them with the support that they need”, the Foreign Office said in a statement last night.

“The British passport is an important part of being British and we have to make sure everything is done to protect it,” Brown told LBC Radio yesterday.

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, insisted there was no proof that the Mossad was involved in Mabhouh’s killing in a Dubai hotel last month, but added that Israel had a “policy of ambiguity” on intelligence matters.

Source/Full Story: The Guardian

The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to “virtual strip-searching” and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the “child porn” problem was among the “legal and operational issues” now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown’s announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their “gradual” introduction at British airports.

A 12-month trial at Manchester airport of scanners which reveal naked images of passengers including their genitalia and breast enlargements, only went ahead last month after under-18s were exempted.

The decision followed a warning from Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, that the scanners could breach the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a “pseudo-image” of a child.

Source/Full Story: The Guardian

Coincidentally, we also have Bill Clinton in the news this morning whining about a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”  Bill Clinton: ‘Vast right-wing conspiracy’ as ‘virulent’ as ever

Lord Mandelson today criticised “extreme rightwing figures” for circulating rumours on the internet which led to Gordon Brown being asked on the BBC whether he had been prescribed medication to help him cope with the pressures of his job.

The question has sparked fury among delegates at Labour’s conference in Brighton, with former minister Caroline Flint this morning branding it “despicable”.

Mandelson said it was “absolutely ridiculous” to suggest the PM had a problem with pill use, and blamed politically motivated bloggers for raising the possibility.

“We have seen out there on the internet, the blogosphere, all these extreme rightwing people trying to put these smears and rumours about, all completely groundless,” he said in an interview on GMTV.

Source/Full Story:  guardian.co.uk

The Government is to launch a national cyber security centre to help protect the UK from online attacks.

The centre will advise Whitehall departments and companies on defending against hacking by foreign powers, organised criminals and terror groups, the Guardian has reported.

It will form the centrepiece of the new national security strategy to be launched by Prime Minister Gordon Brown later this month, sources confirmed.

The changes will see the Cabinet Office co-ordinating anti-cybercrime efforts across Government.

Successful cyber attacks could bring down essential computer systems, or allow foreign governments to access them.

Source/Full Story: The Press Association

An affiliate of Al Qaeda in North Africa said Wednesday that it had killed a Briton it abducted in January because its demand of freedom for a jailed cleric had not been met.

Prime Minister  Gordon Brown said there was “strong reason to believe” that the captive had been executed. He called the killing “barbaric.”

The Briton, identified as Edwin Dyer, was taken hostage on Jan. 22 along with a Swiss citizen and two other tourists in Niger, close to the border with Mali, but was held in Mali.

The group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had demanded the release of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-born Palestinian cleric held in Britain whom a Spanish judge has called the leading Qaeda lieutenant in Europe. While Britain has said he is a “significant international terrorist,” the cleric has denied belonging to Al Qaeda.

On Wednesday, the group announced on an Islamist Web site that it killed the Briton on May 31, one day after the expiration of its second deadline for its demand to be met.

The password-protected Web site, called Al Falojah, carried a two-page message in Arabic saying the British authorities had been given time to negotiate Mr. Dyer’s release but had shown indifference to his fate.

Source/Full Story: NYTimes.com

President Barack Obama admits that al-Qaeda network is planning fresh raids on the United States from the militants’ safe havens in Pakistan.

Obama said Wednesday the US would chase and defeat the terrorist organization wherever it is present in the world.

Pakistan and Afghanistan would not be allowed to become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and its allied groups, the US president said while addressing a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.

Obama’s remarks followed a threat by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Baitullah Mehsud, who said his group was planning a terrorist attack on the US to ‘amaze’ the world.

“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Baitullah Mehsud said Tuesday, giving no further details.

US intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Mehsud could eclipse even Osama bin Laden as a threat to America.

Obama further urged Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al-Qaeda and Taliban along its troubled border with Afghanistan.

The US president had earlier unveiled a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying the top goal was to destroy al-Qaeda. “Al Qaeda and its allies are cancer that risks killing Pakistan From within,” said Obama on Friday

The warnings come after multiple intelligence estimates warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe-haven in the violence-hit Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda’s top leaders are believed to be hiding in tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where their Taliban allies have strongholds.

The insurgents have regrouped in the tribal areas after a US-led invasion in late 2001 toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and sent militants to border areas with Pakistan.

American officials say the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border threaten the US and its western allies’ security in the western countries.

On September 11, 2001 a series of attacks were launched on New York and the pentagon by suspected al-Qaeda insurgents, killing 2,973 people.

Source: presstv.ir

Source:  Times Online

JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.

Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.

The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.

Porritt said: “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.

“Each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries so cutting our population is one way to reduce that impact.”

Population growth is one of the most politically sensitive environmental problems. The issues it raises, including religion, culture and immigration policy, have proved too toxic for most green groups.

However, Porritt is winning scientific backing. Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, will use the OPT conference, to be held at the Royal Statistical Society, to warn that population growth could help derail attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Britain has launched a clandestine alliance that recruits citizens and trains them to act as undercover agents against terror suspects.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the initiative is vital for safety in the UK. According to him, tens of thousands of civilians have already been trained for the purpose.

Brown said Sunday that the individuals range “from security guards to store managers” who know how to “deal with an incident and know what to watch for as people go about their daily business in crowded places such as stations, airports, shopping centers and sports grounds.”

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the strategy, called Contest Two, would be more open than past counter-terrorism efforts. In the last two years, the UK has imprisoned over 80 suspected terrorists.

Brown went on to claim that more than two-thirds of the plots threatening the UK are linked to Pakistan, saying al-Qaeda members in northern Pakistan and in alleged UK networks are attempting to organize attacks in Britain.

The British prime minister concluded by saying that by 2011, Britain will be spending £3.5 billion a year on counter-terrorism activities.

Source: Press TV

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said the recent killings of two British soldiers and a police officer in Northern Ireland were carried out by "a few fools" and "psychopaths" whose actions do not threaten peace in the province.

"People have made it very clear there is no support for this," Cowen said in an interview Friday. "This is a small number of very misguided, criminal people who obviously think it’s a good idea to shoot people."

Speaking ahead of a trip, starting today, to the United States, where he will meet with President Obama at the White House, Cowen said Northern Ireland is a "totally transformed" province where violence is no longer tolerated.

"This has nothing to do with politics," he said. "The reforms that we’ve seen bedded down in Northern Ireland, the political developments we’ve seen there over the last 11 or 12 years, have proven resilient against all attacks."

Cowen, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Protestant and Catholic leaders in the province have condemned the killings — the first such slayings in a decade.

Police in Northern Ireland said Saturday that they have arrested three men in connection with the killings of the soldiers, who were gunned down as they collected a pizza delivery at an army base north of Belfast.

The suspects, ages 41, 32 and 21, were arrested in raids on two locations early Saturday, according to police, who did not identify the men. But the BBC and other British media outlets reported that one of the men is Colin Duffy, 41, an Irish Republican Army dissident who has been critical of the group’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and its support for the province’s police.

Duffy’s arrest in the town of Lurgan triggered rioting among youths, who threw gasoline bombs at police. No injuries were reported.

Source:  washingtonpost.com

From his harbormaster’s office, Neil Clarke can see every boat sailing into Penzance Harbor on Britain’s southwestern tip.

“We’ve got a long coastline with a small amount of people trying to keep an eye on it,” Clarke said. “Attacks like Mumbai do give us cause for concern.”

More than three months after India’s Mumbai terror killings, overlapping government jurisdictions and a focus on airports and public transport have left weaknesses in Britain’s maritime security. With twice as much coastline as France, the U.K. is vulnerable to arms smuggling, say terrorism experts and the government’s own reports.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has yet to propose a strategy to oversee unofficial points of entry. He and predecessor Tony Blair gave precedence to tightening safety at main airports and transit networks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. and the 2005 bombings of London’s buses and Underground.

In the Nov. 26 attack on India, 10 terrorists sailed into Mumbai on a dinghy and killed 163 people in a coordinated assault. In the U.K., the concern is more that arms will be smuggled in through unprotected landing places.

“It is something we have to watch out for,” said Franz Lehr, professor at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland. “All copycats need are weapons. Getting hold of an assault rifle and learning to handle it with ease, that’s the hard part.”

Source: Bloomberg.com

Gordon Brown

Source: guardian.co.uk

Gordon Brown today called for a “new global order” to deal with the economic crisis as he warned against the protectionist policies of the 1930s.In a wide-ranging speech on the global economy, the prime minister said that a radical step-up in global cooperation was necessary to prevent the emergence of “financial mercantilism”.

“We face a choice. We could allow this crisis to start a retreat from globalisation. As some want, we could close our markets – for capital, financial services, trade and for labour – and therefore reduce the risks of globalisation. But that would reduce global growth, deny us the benefits of global trade and confine millions to global poverty.

“Or we could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order – and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global society – not muddling through as pessimists but making the necessary adjustment to a better future and setting the new rules for this new global order,” the prime minister said.

This is the start of a 10-day period when Brown, who talked to Barack Obama, the new US president, on Friday, will meet a number of world leaders to discuss preparations for the G20 meeting in London in April.

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