UK news archive

25.01.2006 The Palestine Society of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London has invited all Palestinians in the Diaspora to participate in symbolic elections on the actual date of elections to be held in the Occupied Palestinian Territories on 25 January.

24.01.2006 A new international development Bill - which aims to ensure that the government is kept to promises made in 2005 to deliver more aid to poor countries - has passed through its beginning stage unopposed after receiving the support of both the Conservative and Lib Dem frontbenches.
* International Development Bill moves forward to next stage

23.01.2006 Bereket Yohannes from Eritrea has become the seventh asylum-seeker to die at his own hands whilst incarcerated in a UK detention centre.

20.01.2006 Thomson Financial’s IFR magazine raised £2 million for Save the Children at its 11th annual awards dinner this week.

20.01.2006 Women surpass men in almost every measure of charitable behaviour, according to new research by Oxfam.

20.01.2006 Incinerators are inefficient and are not a solution to Britain's waste problem, said a leading environmental group in response to suggestions that the government is planning to force through a big increase in incineration capacity in the UK.

19.01.2006 MPs have been urged to support moves to introduce a legal obligation on the British government to prove its commitment to lifting millions of people out of poverty.

17.01.2006 A motion to make Fairtrade tea and coffee the compulsory default option in National Union of Students unions is due to be voted on at the NUS conference in March.

16.01.2006 An international medical humanitarian organisation today launches its first healthcare project in London, aimed at providing services for the homeless, sexworkers and other vulnerable people.

13.01.2006 Newly qualified teachers will no longer be recruited for classroom vacancies in developing countries - the culmination of a growing trend towards senior volunteering, VSO announced as it launched a major recruitment drive.

12.01.2006 MPs debate debate the enforced removal of families with young children - in the absence of the Minister for Immigration, Tony McNulty.

09.01.2006 Following a call by a retired General for the impeachment of Tony Blair over the Iraq war this morning, a democracy group has renewed its pressure for a Bill that would require parliamentary approval for the use of the armed forces.

09.01.2006 Cutting food miles with the help of "prohibitively high" charges for polluting lorries and reduicing London's greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 were among the aims listed by London Mayor Ken Livingstone in an address to the Soil Association.

09.01.2006 Government has been urged to reconsider proposals to close four leading wildlife research labs in the UK - including a centre responsible for pioneering work on climate change impact.

06.01.2006 Supermarket giant ASDA has "taken a positive step forward in corporate social and environmental responsibility" by signing up to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil that it is hoped will halt destruction of orangutans.

06.01.2006 The announcement of a public consultation on the government's national action plan against human trafficking was welcomed yesterday, but Downing Street was urged to sign the Council of Europe's European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings.

05.01.2006 The UK’s top ten renewable energy projects that began generating electricity in 2005 have been commended by the Government for raising awareness of the issue and contributing to renewable targets.

04.01.2006 The projected cost of cleaning up the sites of Britain's old nuclear power stations is likely to leap to more than £70bn when new figures are published early this year.