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US won't tell Britons why they're banned from travelling to America
British holidaymakers and businessmen banned from travelling to America under anti-terror laws will no longer have any right to know why they have been turned away. The US Department of Homeland Security, set up following the September 11 attacks, last week applied for a blanket ban on disclosing the information it holds on Britons and other EU citizens. Last month, Britain agreed to send the secretive US department all details of UK passengers before they fly to America.
The agency was given full access to huge amounts of information on individual passengers, including details of their credit cards, home addresses, e-mail addresses, frequent-flier records and even requests for special meals. And, despite a huge privacy row in the European Parliament, it was also given permission to keep the airlines' lists of passengers' names for at least eight years.

Georgians shootdown 'Russian' plane
A plane of uncertain origin went down over Abkhazia, an official of the separatist region said yesterday, a day after Georgian forces claim they fired on a plane believed to be Russian that had violated the country's airspace. The Georgian claim further escalated tensions with Russia, which had soared earlier in the month when Georgia said a Russian bomber dropped a missile on a Georgian village. The missile did not explode. In both cases Russia vehemently denied that its planes had violated Georgian airspace. In the latest claim, Georgia said it fired on Wednesday at a plane over Upper Abkhazia, a remote mountainous area adjacent to separatist-controlled Abkhazia. Russia accused Georgia of wanting to ratchet up tensions over the status of South Ossetia, another region that is seeking independence or incorporation into Russia.

Pharmageddon: the prescription pill epidemic
Our increasing reliance on pills has resulted in a 27 per cent rise in prescriptions written by doctors in just five years. It's costing the NHS £10bn a year, £200m of which is wasted on drugs that are never used. Nina Lakhani reports on a dangerous addiction. Britain is in the grip of a prescription drug-taking epidemic, with unprecedented numbers of medicines being handed out by GPs, costing billions of pounds and stretching already tight NHS resources to breaking point.
Prescription drug use has increased by 27 per cent in the past the five years and the NHS drug bill topped £10bn in 2006. GPs prescribed 918 million medicines last year compared with 721 million five years ago.

School spies: Parents to view their child's lessons via webcam
Gordon Brown is to abolish the annual school report and allow parents to spy on lessons through the internet. Currently, families are entitled to receive only very basic information about their children's academic performance. But from next year, secondary schools will be told to post timetables, test results, attendance records and detailed comments on each individual child via new computer networks accessible to parents. It means parents will no longer have to wait until the end of the school year to see how their children are coping. A senior Whitehall source said: 'At the moment, particularly with older children, parents have limited information about what they get up to.

America divided over Iraq surge
Top Democrats have thrown American politics into turmoil just weeks ahead of a make-or-break report into the Iraq war by praising the military 'surge' in Baghdad as producing concrete results. The move is a sign of the deep faultlines springing up in the party in the face of some military advances in Iraq. Though the Democratic party has grown more stridently anti-war since winning mid-term elections last November a raft of top figures, including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have now said the surge is showing signs of working. Though Democrats are still pushing for a faster withdrawal, Clinton told veterans in Kansas City: 'We've begun to change tactics in Iraq and in some areas ... it's working.'

Hand-cart curfew ordered in Baghdad
The Iraqi government has imposed a curfew on hand-carts and two-wheel vehicles in Baghdad and its surrounding areas as Shia pilgrims head to Karbala for a major festival. The announcement came on Saturday, hours after a car bomb in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district killed seven and wounded 30 people, according to security officials. Brigadier General Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman, said: 'An indefinite curfew has been imposed on two-wheelers and hand-carts, but not on ... vehicles such as cars.' Baghdad has been under a daily curfew between 10pm and 6am since February. The latest ban is aimed at averting attacks on Shia pilgrims heading to Karbala - 110km south of Baghdad - to celebrate Tuesday's anniversary of the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th Imam of Shia Islam.

Burma protest leader is arrested
One of the leaders of fuel price protests in Burma has been arrested by the military junta following a manhunt across the country's Yangon region. Htin Kyaw, 44, who has been detained three times this year for protesting over living standards, was beaten as he was seized on Saturday, witnesses said. Mr Kyaw had apparently been planning another protest before his arrest. Two rare protests were held in Burma's capital Rangoon last week. Sunday's rally was the biggest in a decade. The authorities in Burma have been rigorously checking cars, buses and transport terminals to find those they held responsible for the demonstrations. Another man was arrested with Mr Kyaw and both shouted anti-government slogans as they were arrested.

Sikh outrage at US airport security
New US airport security measures have outraged a Sikh civil rights group who they will allow arbitrary searches of turbans, their religious headdress. The Sikh Coalition, America's largest Sikh civil rights organisation said on Saturday it had been informed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the new policy. The groups said that under the new guidelines turbans could be subject to manual 'pat-downs' even if their wearers had passed a metal detector test. Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, said that the policy allowed people to be singled out 'on the basis of their religion'.

Those who blow whistle on contractor fraud in Iraq face penalties
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted. Or worse. For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods. There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

Chemicals in non-stick pans may retard babies' growth
Chemicals used in non-stick pans, fast-food containers, carpets, furniture and a host of other everyday household products are retarding babies' growth and brain development, two startling new studies suggest. The studies - from the United States and Denmark, both published in the past month - found that babies with increased levels of the chemical in their umbilical cords were born smaller and with reduced head sizes. Though the changes were small, reductions in weight and brain development at birth have been associated with health problems throughout life. The chemical - perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) - has been used so widely and is so persistent in the environment that it has been found all over the world - even in the Arctic and in remote Pacific atolls - in rain and water supplies, food, wildlife and human blood.

Region must be wary of Venezuela: U.S. official
Venezuela's regional neighbors should be ready to respond to a potential threat from President Hugo Chavez's arms build-up, which could be used to intimidate rather than for self-defense, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday. Chavez, a self-styled socialist staunchly opposed to Washington, has irked the White House by spending billions of dollars on Russian fighter jets, attack helicopters and Kalashnikov rifles to refurbish the military. The Bush administration has banned U.S. arms sales to Venezuela, criticized Chavez's purchase of jets from Moscow and said his plans to build rifle factories raise concerns about weapons reaching guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.

'Castro dead' rumours send Miami wild
According to the official line from Cuba, Fidel Castro is very much alive - but that has not stopped fevered speculation in Miami. Rumours of the Cuban leader's premature death have been a staple in this city of exiles since it was announced that he would turn over power to his brother Raul because of an intestinal illness. Castro, who has ruled Cuba for nearly 48 years, has not been seen in public since. The rumour mill intensified after his 81st birthday came and went on 13 August with no photographs, letters or recordings to mark the occasion. This weekend the airwaves and online blogs pitched into overdrive and the rumours began to feed off themselves.

'Facebook scares me'
One man explains how his use of a social-networking website spun out of control. I woke up one morning with fear in my bones, because the first thing I wanted to do wasn't to have a cup of tea – but check my Facebook,' recalls one recovering social-networking enthusiast, Sam Devito-French. Rather like heroin use, the first heady days of Facebook membership can be lost in a hazy love affair with inboxes full of 'friend' requests and flirtatious messages ('pokes'). But like many addictions, it can leave you slumped on a mattress with nothing but your laptop, a few mouldy coffee cups and a sense of exhaustion, fear, and self-loathing. 'I gave up when I realised that I didn't need a social network to have a fulfilling life – I'd much rather meet up with someone over a pint,' says 27-year-old Sam.