Army chiefs fear that a fatal attack on two British soldiers in Iraq last week was a dry run for an attempt on Prince Harry’s life, The Times has learnt.
The attack was made on a type of vehicle that the Prince will use, and took place in a part of the country where he is due to be deployed as early as next month. The two died when their Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb – the first time that British soldiers had been killed in a Scimitar as a result of enemy action.
The Army fears that extremists deliberately chose the vehicle knowing that the Prince is a troop leader for a Scimitar-equipped unit.
AL Qaeda terrorist chiefs have put a £250,000 price on Prince Harry’s head in Iraq.
Insurgents affiliated to Osama Bin Laden’s network are circulating the offer for the “Crusader Prince” among Iraqi troops and police supposedly loyal to the Baghdad government.The bounty is offered in return for information from a traitor revealing the location of the third in line to the throne.Sources at the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence in London have confirmed the threat.
The Sun itself reports
Harry: I fight ... or I'll quit!
PRINCE Harry has told pals he will quit the Army “as soon as I can” if top brass ban him from the frontline in Iraq.
Comrades said the junior cavalry officer believes a likely order to keep him off the battlefield will make his career pointless.
The threat came after The Sun yesterday revealed that Army chiefs have launched an 11th-hour review on whether Harry, 22, should serve beside his men.
A source close to the prince said: “Harry feels stronger about this today than ever — fighting on the frontline has been his childhood ambition.
Harry: I'm not afraid to die in Iraq is the Mail's lead
Prince Harry will fly to Iraq within days after telling friends: "I'm not afraid to die."
Despite mounting fears for his safety, the third in line to the throne will be sent to the war zone with his regiment, the Blues and Royals. However, commanders will be ready to send him home if his arrival unleashes the threatened wave of attacks on British troops.
The Guardian also claims
Prince Harry will be sent to Iraq despite misgivings over security
Prince Harry will be deployed with his regiment, the Blues and Royals of the Household Cavalry, on the frontline in south-eastern Iraq next month despite concerns among military commanders that he might attract fire from insurgents and rogue elements within Shia militias.
That was the message last night from the Ministry of Defence, but officials did not rule out a late decision to leave the prince at home when his regiment begins its tour, whatever the consequences for his army career. Clarence House said it would not seek to influence the military on the matter. Friends of the prince have denied reports that he would leave the army if he was not allowed to accompany his men to Iraq but they told the BBC he would be "very disappointed" if he were kept away from the battlefield.
It leads with an update on the Cumbria rail crash earlier in the year.
Rail inquiry exposes new safety failings
Police investigating the fatal west coast train crash have uncovered a catalogue of failings which casts doubt on the safety standards on Britain's railways.
An official investigation into the crash that derailed a Virgin train, killing one person and injuring dozens, has found a culture of shortcuts and deficiencies in the track maintenance regime.
Despite repeated warnings after a series of rail disasters in the past decade, campaigners say the evidence renews fears that lessons have not been learned.
'Prosecute parents who let children drink' reports the Telegraph
Parents who give alcohol to children under the age of 15 - even with a meal at home - should face prosecution, a charity says today.
Alcohol Concern makes the call as it publishes research revealing that girls aged 11 to 13 are drinking 83 per cent more alcohol than six years ago.A charity spokesman said: "It is legal to provide children as young as five with alcohol in a private home. Raising the age limit to 15 would send a stronger message to parents of the risks associated with letting very young people consume alcohol." It is illegal to buy a drink in a pub under 18, but a 16- or 17-year-old can drink wine or beer if having a meal with parents.
The girls of 11 who drink 'a bottle of wine a week' reports the Mail
Young girls are drinking nearly twice as much alcohol as they were seven years ago, a report has found.
The study shows that female drinkers aged 11 to 13 consume an average of eight units a week, equivalent to four large glasses of wine - more than a bottle.
This is 83 per cent more than they were drinking in 2000.
As if to show how bad the problem is the Mirror runs
ASBOY - BOOZY YOB AGED 10 on its front page
YOUNG Anthony Bird looks as innocent as any other cheeky, football-loving 10-year-old.
But behind the impish face lurks a boozed-up mini-yob who has terrorised residents and shopkeepers since he was just three.
In 10 months Anthony has been ticked off by police 60 TIMES for brawling, drinking in public, swearing, criminal damage, climbing on roofs and throwing bricks and stones.
And yesterday, after countless complaints, he became one of the youngest people in the country to be given an Asbo.
It includes a 9pm-7am curfew and bans on harassment, intimidation, drinking and entering local shops. It was agreed he should be identified "in the public interest".
After hearing the conditions of the two-year order, he whimpered to magistrates: "Sorry."
According to the Times
End to ‘free’ banking looms as watchdog investigates charges
Free current accounts came under renewed threat yesterday after the Office of Fair Trading announced the largest investigation into personal banking.
The OFT said that it intended to conduct a wideranging study of overdraft charges and the transparency and value of the service customers receive.
A combination of consumer pressure and increasing awareness of the complexity and cost of banking charges prompted the inquiry, which is due to report at the end of the year.
Consumer groups and MPs welcomed the investigation and urged the OFT to recommend that banks be prevented from penalising customers who go into the red with high fees. But the groups said that banks might try to levy monthly or annual charges on current account customers to recoup any lost revenue.
The Express leads on the latest crime figures
290 MUGGINGS EVERY DAY IN BRITAIN
And the government insists that we are safer than ever.
STREET crime is soaring, with 290 people in Britain being mugged every day.The number of robberies has risen by eight per cent and the rate is now at its highest for more than three years.Despite the official figures, the Government insists that our communities are safer than ever. Yet fatal shootings, vandalism and drug offences are all up and the public now stand a one-in-four chance of being a victim of crime.
Perhaps feeling usurped by the Mail yesterday,the Independent leads with a reminder
MPs sign up to the campaign against excess packaging
More than 100 MPs have backed The Independent's campaign against excessive packaging as political support grows for action to reduce the millions of tonnes of wrappers and cartons dumped in the nation's bins.
A Commons motion condemning the sheer waste of such large quantities of plastic and paper, and urging manufacturers to cut their use of packaging has been signed by 112 MPs from all parties and parts of the United Kingdom.
Now The Independent is calling for people to have their voice heard on the issue by lobbying their MP to join the protest.
A groundswell of parliamentary support for Early Day Motion 814 will show the Government the force of public opinion on the issue and increase the chances of legislation reaching the statute book.
Tabled a few days after we began our Campaign Against Waste on 22 January, EDM 814 commends the campaign against excessive packaging run by The Independent and calls on shops to tackle the problem and to encourage suppliers to do likewise.
The Mail claims that
Bin collection issue will be a big test at the ballot box
The revolt over fortnightly rubbish collections will be a key issue for half of councils in next week's local elections, a Daily Mail survey has found.
Councillors from all parties face losing their seats as voters register their anger at the removal of the weekly bin round.
Fortnightly collections have already been introduced in more than 140 local authorities - often without warning.
Even in those councils which still have the weekly bin round, parties are battling it out with pledges to keep the status quo.
Perhaps though of more concern,the Telegraph publishes as its lead the latest polls
Brown dragging Labour to defeat in polls
The poll points to Labour's worst local election performance in two decades, with the party poised to lose hundreds of seats in England and Wales. Labour is also facing a catastrophic loss of power to the nationalists in Scotland, opening up the prospect of a referendum on the end of the Union within four years.
The Tory leader has surged into a 10-point lead after voters were asked if they would prefer a Cameron-led Conservative government to a Brown administration.
The rapidly growing gap has triggered the first signs of panic within the Labour Party leadership that the local elections will give a powerful boost to Mr Cameron's aim to be regarded as a potential prime minister.
The FT leads with
US protested at axing of BAE probe
The US issued a formal diplomatic protest to the British government over its decision to drop a fraud investigation into alleged bribery of Saudi officials by arms manufacturer BAE Systems.
The verbal protest was delivered in January by a US embassy official in London to the UK Foreign Office within days of the contentious decision being taken in December. Several governments, including the US, had raised the issue at a meeting of the anti-bribery working group of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
The Independent meanwhile reports
Marking 10 years of New Labour in power, Blair stakes his claim for lasting legacy
In an attempt to shape his legacy before he stands down, Tony Blair has claimed that his 10 years in power have transformed the British political landscape, drawing other parties on to Labour's ground.
Writing to all Labour MPs, the Prime Minister admitted he would leave office this summer without completing unfinished business on climate change, pensions and skills and conceded that public opposition to the Iraq war had not cooled four years after the invasion.
Yesterday, he sent his MPs a 22-page dossier about his record, to mark the 10th anniversary next Tuesday of the victory that brought Labour to power. In his covering letter, he argued that New Labour's central theme - offering both economic prosperity and social justice - had "stood the test of time". It was now "the governing idea of British politics" and every contender for power had to "profess to believe in it."
The Guardian reports on the escalting conflict in the horn of Africa
Thousands flee as shelling by Ethiopian tanks kills hundreds of civilians in Somali capital
The Somali capital Mogadishu suffered some of the heaviest bombardment in nine days of fighting yesterday, as Ethiopian tanks supporting the interim government shelled new areas of the city despite a claim by the Somali prime minister to have routed Islamist insurgents.
The Ethiopian assault has killed several hundred people, many of them civilians harmed by indiscriminate shelling that has destroyed homes and shops, and forced tens of thousands to flee the city as it spread to previously relatively peaceful parts of Mogadishu. Corpses lie scattered on the streets because it is too dangerous to collect them.
The Times also reporting form Mogadishu interviewing the Somali Prime Minister
We don’t have civil servants. We have guns’
The US helped government forces into power, but now it is protesting that the regime is blocking aid to thousands of suffering people
He launched into a tirade against international aid organisations. He accused them of corruption; of using private airstrips to ship in contraband, weapons and insurgents; of striking cosy deals with warlords and the ousted Islamic Courts regime and pocketing the proceeds.
He said the United Nations’ World Food Programme and other agencies were upset because they had lost power after effectively governing Somalia during its 15 years of civil war and anarchy.
“They want to operate in this country without any control,” he declared. “They know they can’t do that any more . . . Now there’s a Prime Minister who knows them too well.”
The papers all report on Stephen Hawkin's zero gravity flight
Stephen Hawking's zero gravity flight marks era of commercial space travel says the Independent
There can be few more persuasive salesman for the world's fledgling space tourism industry than the man who has peeled back the mysteries of the cosmos for a mass audience.
This was the calculation of the Zero Gravity Corporation yesterday as it took Stephen Hawking on a $3,750 (£1,875) flight in a modified jet to experience weightlessness.
The astrophysicist, who has had motor neurone disease for four decades, floated free for 25 seconds at a time as the aircraft flew a series of plunging dives over the Florida coast. Unrestricted by his wheelchair, the Cambridge University professor found himself freed from the laws of gravity in the company of a medical team monitoring his condition.
Hawking spreads his wings says the Telegraph
It was a brief history of weightlessness for the theoretical physicist as a specially modified jet simulated the experience of space travel during 25-second plunge over the Atlantic. The parabolic flights, similar to those used to train astronauts, are commonly referred to as "vomit comets".Two doctors and three nurses accompanied 65-year-old Prof Hawking. Once the 35-seat Boeing 727 reached 24,000ft, they left their seats and took the professor to lie in a padded open area. As the plane flew its roller-coaster trajectory up to 34,000ft and then back down to 24,000ft, all on board experienced weightlessness at the peak of the arc, increasing to almost twice usual gravity in the trough of the parabola.
Spector actress 'shot herself' says the Sun as the trial of Phil Spector continues
THE actress alleged to have been murdered by former Beatles producer Phil Spector shot herself while under the influence of alcohol and painkillers, his defence team said yesterday.
One of his lawyers, Linda Baden, said Lana Clarkson was depressed and put the barrel of the gun in her mouth.
She said: “We know she was drinking, we know she was taking pills.” Forensic evidence would back the defence’s claims, she added.
It leads with
ANDRE BRAIN SCAN TERROR
WORRIED Jordan was at husband Peter Andre’s hospital bedside last night after doctors gave him a BRAIN SCAN.
Peter, 34, underwent the test — and a barrage of others — as he battles to overcome a mystery illness.
Heavily pregnant Jordan, 28, has been with him during his five-day hospital stay.Pop star Peter has been fighting a mystery illness for two weeks.
He was rushed into hospital last weekend after busty Jordan dialled 999 and has been there.
every night since then.
Last night doctors were still working around the clock in a bid to discover the cause.
Another star makes the papers
FILM STAR HUGH IS HELD OVER 'ASSAULT' reports the Express
ACTOR Hugh Grant was arrested yesterday for allegedly kicking a photographer and hurling a tub of baked beans at him.
Grant, 46, star of Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, is also said to have verbally abused cameraman Ian Whittaker.Oxford-educated Grant is accused of kicking Mr Whittaker three times and kneeing him near the groin before throwing a tub of beans.
The Mirror reminds us that celeb is fickle
THE TEMPLE OF GLOOM
EXCLUSIVE 12 months ago she was the diary secretary at the heart of power.. mixing in glamorous circles and sleeping with the Deputy PM. But a year is a long time in politics..
PUFFING listlessly on a ciggie, Tracey Temple looks a picture of misery as she shuffles aimlessly along during her lunch break.Gone are the fancy hair-dos and eye-catching low-cut frocks - replaced by a shapeless raincoat and sensible shoes. No wonder she looks depressed.
In contrast, Prezza has come out of it all rather well. He's kept his massive salary and his post as Deputy PM.
No comments:
Post a Comment