Climate change may spark conflict with Russia, EU told says the former
European governments have been told to plan for an era of conflict over energy resources, with global warming likely to trigger a dangerous contest between Russia and the west for the vast mineral riches of the Arctic.
A report from the EU's top two foreign policy officials to the 27 heads of government gathering in Brussels for a summit this week warns that "significant potential conflicts" are likely in the decades ahead as a result of "intensified competition over access to, and control over, energy resources".
Back to black: return to coal power says the Independent
The Government will today anger environmentalists by signalling its support for a controversial new generation of coal-fired power stations and warning that Britain needs to burn more fossil fuels to prevent power cuts.
John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, will say that "clean coal" has a crucial role to play in filling Britain's energy gap for the future. He will accuse the green lobby of "gesture politics" by opposing any coal-fired plants, putting energy supplies at risk and presenting a false "black and white" choice to the public over coal.
Petrol price rises and penalties as Darling goes green reports the Times
Alistair Darling will increase petrol duty and impose swingeing penalties on high-emission cars this week in what ministers will call “the green Budget”.
He will give tax incentives to companies that opt for greener vehicle fleets. And in a further move to show his green credentials Mr Darling will announce that Britain’s first five-year carbon budget, setting out the way independent experts believe that the country should meet the target of reducing emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, will be published next year alongside the main Budget.
The Mirror says
Darling to ban rip-off energy meters
Energy firms will be banned from ripping off millions of hard-up customers.
In a victory for the Mirror's Fair Deal on Fuel campaign Chancellor Alistair Darling will pledge to outlaw high rates which can add £330 to bills for those with pre-pay meters.
Although the paper leads with Sharron Matthews
stepdad denies claims he hit her says its front page
Fishmonger Craig Meehan, 22, insisted: "I've never laid a finger on her. We play about as you do - but we have a brilliant relationship."
Craig hit back after Shannon's uncle, Martin, said the nine-year-old had shown him bruises. He said: "She told me Craig lashed out at her."
Mum Karen, 32, branded the accusations "rubbish". Shannon, of Dewsbury, West Yorks, vanished 20 days ago after returning from a school swimming trip
Briton ‘witnessed sex attack on Scarlett Keeling’ is the lead in the Times
A British man has told The Times that he saw an Indian barman apparently sexually assaulting Scarlett Keeling less than two hours before the 15-year-old British girl’s half-naked body was found on a beach in Goa.
The witness, who asked not to be identified, said that the attack took place after Scarlett left Lui’s bar on Anjuna Beach high on a cocktail of LSD, Ecstasy and cocaine at 5am on February 18.
The Independent reports from the Lib Denm spring conference
No power-sharing deals unless constitution is reformed, warns Clegg
Mr Clegg used his first major conference speech as party leader to insist that electoral reform would have to be accompanied by a raft of other changes if the Liberal Democrats were to talk to their mainstream rivals in the event of a hung parliament. He broke the long-standing taboo on discussion of post-election tactics to make it clear that he would negotiate with either the Conservatives or Labour, but insisted that he would not join the Cabinet as a mere "annex" to either.
Nick Clegg calls for disgraced MPs to be sacked says the Telegraph
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, has told his party that MPs caught misusing public money should face by-elections where constituents would have the chance to sack them.
Mr Clegg made the call for new sleaze rules as he tried to shore up his position among party activists following a damaging rebellion over Europe last week.
'Teachers are surrogate parents now' claims the same paper
The demise of the traditional family is breeding a generation of children who are increasingly relying on teachers to become surrogate parents, a prominent education leader warned yesterday.Thousands of children lacked basic social skills, said John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
The Mail reports on
The 'terrible legacy' of the children growing up in families who haven't worked for generations
Thousands of children are growing up in families where their parents and grandparents have never worked.
A senior Government adviser warned yesterday how this was creating a "terrible legacy" of youngsters who had no expectation they would ever get a job
The paper leads with the news that
Convicted drink driver who killed seven was reported for dangerous driving a week ago
Jason Brain, 35, died with his three passengers, including his 15-year-old daughter, when he ploughed into an oncoming car as he overtook another vehicle.
Three of those in the car he hit died.
Relatives of the dead said Brain was a notorious "boy racer".
The crash, on the A429 in Gloucestershire, was just a few miles from the spot where he fled a similar collision eight years ago. On that occasion Brain was banned from driving for five years after admitting drink-driving and other motoring offences
Heroes betrayed says the front page of the Sun
HERO SAS captain Dan Wright and other troops might be alive today — if only they had been given the right KIT.
They are among a total of THIRTY-FIVE brave soldiers whose deaths are blamed on not being given proper equipment.
Last night military chiefs joined outraged MPs in blasting Whitehall over memos obtained by The Sun that reveal Cpt Wright is the latest victim of shocking penny-pinching.
According to the Guardian
MoD plans raid on landmine removal fund to keep Tornados flying in Iraq
Money set aside to clear landmines and remove arms from conflict zones is to be raided to pay a private defence contractor to keep Tornado jets flying in Iraq, according to a confidential memo seen by the Guardian. The Ministry of Defence plans to pay BAE Systems from the multimillion-pound Conflict Prevention Fund - which covers projects such as destroying weapons in Bosnia and landmines in Mozambique - to subsidise the £5m-£10m cost of servicing each of the six planes.
The move follows a cost-cutting plan which has backfired for the MoD because of increased military action in Iraq.
Most of the papers are predicting a battering for Britain today,the Express leads with
The £1b killer storm
STORMS forecast to sweep the country today will leave Britain with a £1billion clean-up bill, experts warned last night.
Businesses and home owners will be left counting the cost as winds gusting in excess of 80mph blast in from the Atlantic.
Ferry services have been cancelled, bridges and roads closed and motorists told to avoid unnecessary journeys as the worst weather front since the great storm of 1987 hit Britain.
News from overseas and the Telegraph reports that
Barack Obama 'won't be Hillary Clinton's vice-president on dream ticket' reports the Telegraph
After bouncing back from defeats last week to claim an easy victory in Wyoming at the weekend, Mr Obama said: "You won't see me as a vice presidential candidate. I'm running for president. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count."
President Pervez Musharraf under threat as parties seal pact on joint government says the Times
Pakistan's two largest political parties — which won last month's national elections — sealed a power-sharing deal yesterday, raising doubts about President Musharraf's political future.
The accord between Asif Ali Zardari, the de facto leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and widower of the murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister, cleared the way for the formation of an anti-Musharraf government
The Guardian reports that
Bush vetoes move to ban water torture
The president threw out a bill initiated by the Democrats that would have limited the CIA to a range of methods set out by the army.
The legislation would have outlawed coercive techniques including waterboarding, the process of simulating drowning that has been a source of prolonged hostility between the White House and Congress over the past year.
Bush said that any attempt to restrict CIA interrogators would weaken them in the fight against al-Qaida. He claimed the CIA had used its own secret methods to foil several attacks, including plans to attack Heathrow, to fly a plane into the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles and to hit the US consulate in Karachi.
According to the Independent
Mugabe seeks control of foreign firms
Foreign firms operating in Zimbabwe will be required to give majority control to black Zimbabweans under a nationalisation law signed by President Robert Mugabe yesterday.
More than 70 British firms that have invested in Zimbabwe, including Lever Brothers, Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, BP, Rio Tinto, Merchant Bank of Central Africa and several enterprises owned by Anglo American Corporation, are among those likely to be hit by the new law unless they can persuade the government to halt its implementation.
The Times reports that
Brits are glad to be grumpy
The British sense of humour, supposedly one of our defining national characteristics, is once again lost on the Americans.
It is particularly lost in Slough, the town so derided by John Betjeman. According to a book by an American observer, it has become the capital of the emerging British disease - misery.
Eric Weiner, a former New York Times journalist, spent a year travelling the world in search of the planet’s happy places. But after visiting Britain he felt only pity for a population unable to experience happiness. In The Geography of Bliss, he writes: “I feel sorry for the Brits; they don’t merely enjoy misery, they get off on it.”
Finally The Telegraph reports that
Recycle or go to Hell, warns Vatican
Failing to recycle plastic bags could find you spending eternity in Hell, the Vatican said after drawing up a list of seven deadly sins for our times.The seven, which include polluting the environment, were announced by Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, a close ally of the Pope and the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the Roman Curia's main courtadding
The "sins of yesteryear" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride - have a "rather individualistic dimension", he told the Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.
The new seven deadly, or mortal, sins are designed to make worshippers realise that their vices have an effect on others as well.
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