UK news archive

28.02.2006 Home Office figures that show 3,300 families have benefited from the "Family amnesty Exercise" in the last quarter of 2005, bringing the total to 20,170, were described as "brilliant news" by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

28.02.2006 UK Energy Minister Malcolm Wick's call for higher rates of tax for urban 4x4s is half-hearted and much tougher measures are needed, the Green Party said yesterday.

27.02.2006 Prime Minister Tony Blair has been urged to step up diplomatic pressure on Japan to halt its drive to overturn the ban on commercial whaling.

24.02.2006 UK Law Lords yesterday completed a hearing in a case involving over 20 people charged with activities arising from non-violent civil disobedience at military sites designed to stop the rush to war in Iraq.

23.02.2006 London's anti-terrorism policies are sending a "green light" to other governments to abuse human rights and are increasing the risk of torture, a new Amnesty report - Human rights: a broken promise - warns today.

21.02.2006 The UK Government is putting out two White Papers on international development for consultation until 7 April.

20.02.2006 The UK's largest mortgage provider has launched a new deal that will reward owners and builders of sustainable homes.

16.02.2006 As violence over the Mohammed cartoons continues at scattered locations around the world, Britain has looked away from them in the interest of good race relations.

15.02.2006 Small retailers could disappear from the high street by 2015 if nothing is done to curb the spread of larger shops and supermarkets, politicians have warned in a new report.

14.02.2006 The Home Office has set up a new website providing information for those working with refugee children.

09.02.2006 A Bangladeshi entrepreneur who has lived in Britain for 25 years and established a media company and Fairtrade café in UK is being forced by the Home Office to return to his mother country.

07.02.2006 Tory Peers yesterday attempted to water down draft legislation that gives company directors a legal duty to consider their impacts on communities and the environment.

07.02.2006 Democracy campaign group Charter88 has welcomed Conservative Leader David Cameron’s call for curbs on the powers of the Prime Minister as exercised through the Royal Prerogative—particularly the ability to go to war or to make treaties without a vote in Parliament.

06.02.2006 Denmark has made an urgent appeal to Arab leaders to help prevent an escalation of Muslim anger over publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.

02.02.2006 A Government climbdown over plans to let companies off the hook of environmental reporting has been hailed as "a major victory for the environment, democracy and those companies who genuinely want to reduce their impacts on people and the planet..."

01.02.2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government suffered an unexpected defeat in parliament over a planned law to outlaw religious hatred – after critics successfully argued that it would erode the right to free speech.

01.02.2006 A new campaign has been launched to end the portrayal of tribal people in the press as "primitive" and "Stone Age".