British troops are not protected by human rights laws on the battlefield, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, after the government argued that such protection could hamper military decision-making.Six of the nine justices in London overturned rulings by the High Court and Court of Appeal in the case of a British soldier who died in Iraq in 2003 of a cardiac arrest after suffering the effects of ex
A well-known Nazi hunter criticized a Latvian court Tuesday for allowing a procession to commemorate the day in 1941 when Nazi troops entered the country's capital after ejecting the Soviet Union's Red Army.Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, criticized a Riga district court decision to allow an event to be held at the central Freedom Monument on July 1. To celebrate the anni
Britain's tough deficit-busting budget will lead to 1.3 million job losses over five years, the Guardian reported on its website on Tuesday, citing unpublished Treasury estimates.British Finance Minister George Osborne unveiled a fiscal tightening package last week, slashing spending and raising taxes to wipe out a record budget deficit to almost nothing within five years.The paper quoted a slide
Thousands of mourners lined the streets of a Wootton Bassett Tuesday to pay their final respects to seven servicemen killed in Afghanistan, as their bodies were brought home.Families of the men wept as hearses draped with the Union Jack flag passed through Wootton Bassett, after being repatriated to a nearby airbase, RAF Lyneham.The sight of dead servicemen passing through the small town has beco
A veteran Russian newspaper editor said Tuesday the authorities were trying harder than ever to control what appears in the press.Kommersant Publishing House editor Andrei Vasilyev is stepping down soon after more than two decades in top positions. It seems to me that the authorities are moving ever closer to direct management of the press, Vasilyev said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio.He
Heavy rains caused floods that killed 21 people in Romania and thousands of others were evacuated from their homes on Tuesday as rivers threatened to burst their banks.People climbed trees to escape the rising water and many houses, roads and railway lines were destroyed or damaged by the floods, officials said.Hundreds of police and emergency workers were deployed to the rescue operation while s
Prime Minister David Cameron will announce soon he is setting up an inquiry into allegations British security services were complicit in torture of terrorism suspects overseas, the BBC reported on Tuesday.The broadcaster said Cameron would make an announcement as early as Wednesday on the inquiry, which it said would be led by a judge.The inquiry could recommend compensation to people found to ha
A Europe-wide publicity campaign being launched in 23 languages aims to provide passengers easier access to information about their rights when they travel by rail or air.This comes in the wake of widespread upset in April caused by the Icelandic volcano eruption, when no one could fly into or out of Europe.The top EU transport official, Siim Kallas, helped get this campaign into airports and tra