General news

• Sony axes 'kill Kim' film release

  17-12-2014 23:53
  
  Sony Pictures has cancelled the Christmas Day release of The Interview after hackers threatened terrorists attacks and North America's biggest cinema chains pulled the film from its screens.
  
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• VIDEO: Car smoke ban proposed for 2015

  17-12-2014 23:37 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Smoking in a car while travelling with children could be a criminal offence in England and Wales from October 2015.
  
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• Jennifer Saunders and Kate Moss join David Walliams on set for TV adaptation of The Boy in the Dress

  17-12-2014 23:30
  It must be a first for a football match. The crowd is actually cheering the referee.
  
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• Sony Pictures cancels Christmas release of North Korea comedy 'The Interview' as intelligence officials link recent cyber-attacks to the communist state

  17-12-2014 23:13
  
  US intelligence officials have reportedly concluded that North Korea is behind the recent cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. The wide-ranging hack of Sony’s computer systems is believed to have been a response to the Hollywood studio’s comedy film The Interview, which depicts the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. An unnamed US government official told NBC News, “We have found linkage to the North Korean government.”
  
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• Sony Pictures cancels Christmas release of North Korea comedy 'The Interview'

  17-12-2014 23:13
  
  Sony Pictures has cancelled the Christmas Day release of its North Korea-themed comedy The Interview, after several major cinema chains declined to screen the film following threats from a hacker group. In a statement, the studio said, “we respect and understand our partners’ decision” and “completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theatregoers.”
  
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• Bournemouth 1-3 Liverpool

  17-12-2014 23:12 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Liverpool secure a much-needed victory as Raheem Sterling scores twice in a League Cup quarter-final win at Bournemouth.
  
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• Armitage banned for abusing fans

  17-12-2014 23:11 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Toulon's Delon Armitage is banned for 12 weeks for using foul and abusive language towards Leicester Tigers fans.
  
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• Air traffic boss 'not proud' of chaos

  17-12-2014 23:10 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The boss of National Air Traffic Services says he is not "complacent" over the chaos which hit 10,000 passengers on Friday.
  
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• Two charged over NI dissident terror

  17-12-2014 23:01 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Another two men are charged with terror offences as part of an undercover police investigation into dissident republican terrorism in Newry, County Down.
  
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• The Apprentice 2014 firing: Solomon Akhtar vows to try Made In Chelsea next as trio get the boot

  17-12-2014 23:00
  
  A trio of Lord Alan Sugar’s wannabe Apprentices were fired in one go last night, leading the youngest candidate ever to compete in the show to think he should have tried Made In Chelsea instead.
  
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• Tottenham Hotspur vs Newcastle United match report: Mauricio Pochettino has Spurs fans dreaming of Wembley final

  17-12-2014 22:45
  Anyone looking for signs of progress at Tottenham Hotspur will be grateful to have a marker this glaringly clear. Eight weeks ago, they hosted Newcastle in the league, went 1-0 up but folded and lost 2-1. Tonight they stormed to a 4-0 win, sending them into the Capital One Cup semi-finals and giving the impression of a team who are finally starting to believe in themselves – and their manager – again.
  
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• Tottenham Hotspur vs Newcastle United match report: Harry Kane scores again as Spurs run riot at White Hart Lane

  17-12-2014 22:45
  
  Tottenham obliterated Newcastle as they stylishly secured their place in Capital One Cup semi-finals.
  
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• Did Japanese workers really get their symbols mixed up and display Santa on a crucifix?

  17-12-2014 22:45
  
  If you type "crucified Santa" into Google Images, you'll see that various idiots have mocked up pictures of the jolly old soul nailed to a cross; or gone one better, donning Father Christmas outfits and posing like the dying Christ on crosses of their own; all in tribute to one of the world's great cultural confusions.
  
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• Russell Brand responds to hilarious letter from disgruntled RBS worker who complained anti-capitalist publicity stunt left him hungry

  17-12-2014 22:31
  Russell Brand has responded to an open letter from a disgruntled RBS worker, who complained a protest staged by the comedian left him hungry.
  
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• La Famille Bélier is being touted as this year's Amelie - so why are many in the deaf community outraged by it?

  17-12-2014 22:20
  If any country is in desperate need of a feel-good film this Christmas, it is an angry, struggling France. If any cinema industry is in need of a box-office office triumph after a flat 2013-14, it is the French cinema industry.
  
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• Sir Ian McKellen joins the Cookie Monster on Sesame Street

  17-12-2014 22:03
  
  Having treaded the boards in Shakespeare and captivated viewers in The Lord of the Rings, Sir Ian McKellen has scored perhaps his most bizarre part yet – teaching the Cookie Monster about temptation in Sesame Street.
  
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• Britain Losing Courage, Military Chief Warns

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  The head of the British military has warned the UK is becoming too timid precisely at a time when the world is becoming more dangerous.
  
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• Pilots face higher radiation risk

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  Airline pilots flying for an hour at 30,000 feet are exposed to as much harmful ultraviolet radiation as they would receive in a tanning salon, research has shown.
  
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• Airline pilots exposed to as much UV radiation as regular sunbed users

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  Airline pilots can be exposed to the same levels of radiation as people on sunbeds, a new study has claimed.
  
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• Jeb Bush vs Hillary Clinton: The power dynamics of the two first families

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  Considering that the country got its start by shaking off a monarch, America has had a peculiarly strong attraction to political dynasties.
  
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• Peshawar school attack: Arcs of extremism

  17-12-2014 21:58
  
  The massacre of the innocents at Peshawar’s Army Public School proves one thing above all; that Pakistan’s Taliban is, if anything, even more driven, ruthless and cruel than its counterpart and predecessor in Afghanistan. The Peshawar tragedy also demonstrates, in the most graphic manner possible, that the Pakistani authorities, and in particular the army, are as vulnerable as ever to Taliban attack, in this case in an appalling act of revenge for the army’s attempts to contain the group.
  
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• Romantic fiction: A review of libraries that fails to address the real problem

  17-12-2014 21:54
  
  On 3 September 2013, Malala Yousafzai opened one of the most beautiful and inspirational new public buildings in Europe: the Library of Birmingham. The Pakistani teenager who survived the Taliban said then that “pens and books are the weapons that defeat terrorism”.
  
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• Cuba-US relations: How the Caribbean island stood up to Uncle Sam and became the home of radical chic

  17-12-2014 21:51
  
  It’s been 50 years and three months since Bob Dylan released his album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, which included the track “Motorpsycho Nightmare” and the lyric:
  
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• Cuba-US relations: A missile crisis, a botched invasion, exploding cigars - a feud rich in iconic moments

  17-12-2014 21:46
  
  It may seem hard to believe, after so many decades of diplomatic rancour, but when Fidel Castro first came to power, he did so with the assistance of the US government. In March 1958, the Eisenhower administration suspended arms shipments to the Havana regime led by General Batista. Within a year, Castro’s rebels had seized control of Cuba.
  
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• Stockholm is rivalling Silicon Valley with a hotbed of technology start-ups

  17-12-2014 21:45
  
  All the clichés you might expect about Sweden's capital are true. In the summer, ships glide around Stockholm's archipelago, which makes up just a handful of its 30,000 islands. At this time of year, it's the perfect winter wonderland. The people are beautiful, everything is perfectly designed, and pickled herring is everywhere. But these aren't the only things that define the city. In the last few years, Stockholm has become one of the most talked-about places in the world thanks to its apps,
  
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• The great British library betrayal: Closures have brought national network to brink of ‘absolute disaster’, reveals official inquiry

  17-12-2014 21:43
  Library services are on the brink of disaster and can only be saved if they become more like coffee shops with wi-fi, sofas and hot drinks, a report will recommend on Thursday.
  
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• Cuba-US relations: Who are the Cuban Five?

  17-12-2014 21:35
  
  In Cuba, their case is nothing short of a cause célèbre. The faces of the Cuban Five fill murals and their struggle has become embedded within popular culture. To the United States, however, they have always been dangerous spies.
  
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• Ziad Abu Ein: The first Palestinian to be extradited from the US to Israel, the cause of whose death has been disputed

  17-12-2014 21:00
  Ziad Abu Ein was a senior Palestinian official who in September was appointed head of the Commission Against the Separation Wall and Settlements, which monitors Israeli activities near the security barrier and the building of settlements in the West Bank, as well as organising "popular resistance".
  
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• Rex Firkin: Producer and executive for commercial TV who made 'Upstairs, Downstairs' and 'Bouquet of Barbed Wire'

  17-12-2014 21:00
  
  The producer and director Rex Firkin described himself as being "in the engine room of commercial television" at its inception in Britain. Starting in 1955, when Lew Grade's ATV opened, he spent more than 30 years at ITV, made some of its biggest popular and critical successes and brought others to the screen himself after becoming head of drama at LWT.
  
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• Jorge Zorreguieta: Farmer whose role in Argentina's 'Dirty War' led to uproar when his daughter became Queen of the Netherlands

  17-12-2014 21:00
  Jorge Zorreguieta won fame in his native Argentina as a wealthy landowning farmer but would later invoke shame as part of the country's "Dirty War" military junta.
  
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• Donald Macintyre's Sketch: Parting shots leave no room for seasonal goodwill

  17-12-2014 20:43
  
  Is Douglas Carswell having a full-on identity crisis? In an all too rare Commons appearance – two months after being carried shoulder-high from his Clacton by-election triumph as Ukips’s first MP – he asked David Cameron today about the rapidly rising “cost added to energy bills and taxes by green targets”, concluding: “Does My Honourable Friend think that is fair?”
  
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• Peshawar school attack: As the Taliban release pictures of the gunmen responsible, Pakistan takes a new approach to terrorism

  17-12-2014 20:40
  With the death toll in the Peshawar Army Public School massacre rising to 148 overnight, Pakistan turned over a new leaf in its approach to terrorism today.
  
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• Cuba-US relations: Obama ends half a century of hostility and restores ties with Havana

  17-12-2014 20:40
  
  President Barack Obama turned a page in history last night, promising to restore diplomatic ties with Communist-led Cuba, open a US embassy in Havana and set in train measures to mend the enmity that has existed between the countries for half a century.
  
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• Cuba-US relations: 'It's a brutal, oppressive regime and we need to continue to fight it’

  17-12-2014 20:38
  
  Jose Azel travelled across the Florida Strait to Miami in 1961. The then 13-year-old Cuban was one of 14,000 Cuban children who left their home country as part of mass refugee movement Operation Pedro Pan.
  
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• Tory chairman Grant Shapps accused of trying to silence left-wing blog with 'spurious' legal threats

  17-12-2014 20:36
  
  The Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps has been accused of attempting to silence a critical left-wing blog in the run-up to the election by sending out spurious legal threats from lawyers.
  
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• Peshawar school attack: ‘Mullah Radio’ grew to be a cult figure and was also behind Malala Yousafzai assault

  17-12-2014 20:28
  
  Once, if you wanted to speak with the man known as “Mullah Radio”, you had to travel to the remote, mountainous lands of Swat province in north-west Pakistan. There, between radio segments, a bearded preacher who would later assume command of a Taliban insurgency that on Tuesday killed more than 100 schoolchildren, would perhaps drop by on his white horse. That’s what happened when the journalist Nicholas Schmidle arrived at the mullah’s compound in 2007.
  
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• RBS analyst’s open letter to Russell Brand goes viral

  17-12-2014 20:19
  
  Russell Brand’s attempted revolution has targeted big business, tax dodging firms and greedy property developers, but the comedian turned campaigner and activist has suffered something of an unexpected setback.
  
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• RBS analyst’s open letter to Russel Brand goes viral

  17-12-2014 20:19
  
  Russell Brand’s attempted revolution has targeted big business, tax dodging firms and greedy property developers, but the comedian turned campaigner and activist has suffered something of an unexpected setback.
  
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• The Missing ending: Did hit BBC1 drama lose the plot?

  17-12-2014 20:09
  
  Was it a brilliant yet bleak conclusion to a mystery which had gripped seven million viewers or a manipulative let-down that failed to deliver? The climax of BBC 1’s abduction drama The Missing divided an audience which had followed every twist and turn over two months.
  
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• Al Sweady inquiry Q&A: What happened on 14 May 2004?

  17-12-2014 20:06
  
  Q: What happened on 14 May 2004?
  
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• Diplomats water down proposals on ending Israel's West Bank occupation in attempt to avoid US veto at UN

  17-12-2014 20:02
  
  Palestinian and Arab diplomats are in last-minute talks on how to achieve the seemingly impossible: finalising a UN Security Council resolution with a timetable for ending Israeli occupation in the West Bank, while avoiding an American veto.
  
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• Sydney siege: Australian PM Tony Abbott orders review of café terror attack

  17-12-2014 19:55
  
  The Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has ordered an investigation into Tuesday’s siege in Sydney after tough new security laws and the courts failed to stop a convicted felon from walking into a café with a concealed shotgun.
  
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• Boy, 16, pleads guilty to murder

  17-12-2014 19:54 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A teenage boy pleads guilty to the murder of a "fantastic father" who had three children.
  
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• Peshawar school attack: An act of barbarity that could prove a turning point in Pakistan's battle against the Taliban

  17-12-2014 19:48
  
  The attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar may come to be seen as a turning point in the long-running conflict between the Taliban and the Pakistan government. However, that the Pakistan Taliban felt compelled to inflict the level of barbarity witnessed in the attack reflects the fact that the turning-point may already have taken place.
  
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• Labour goes after George Osborne for new 'extreme and ideological' budget cut plans

  17-12-2014 19:48
  
  Labour warned that a Conservative Government would make “extreme and ideological” spending cuts after George Osborne admitted he wanted to run a £23bn budget surplus by 2020. 
  
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• Andy McSmith's Diary: Leaked – the site of Ed Balls' tête-à-tête with Nick Clegg

  17-12-2014 19:44
  
  Ed Balls ruffled a few feathers in the Labour Party 11 months ago, when he disclosed that he had had a talk with Nick Clegg, seemingly about the possibility of Labour going into coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
  
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• Syria conflict: 230 bodies 'found in mass grave' in eastern Deir al-Zour province

  17-12-2014 19:43
  
  More the 230 bodies have been found in a mass grave in Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zor province, a group monitoring conflict in the country said on Wednesday.
  
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• Home Office’s £30m immigration contract has led to ‘catalogue of chaos’

  17-12-2014 19:40
  
  The Home Office entered into a botched £30m contract with an outsourcing firm that led to fewer than 1,000 illegal immigrants leaving Britain, an inquiry has concluded.
  
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• Russia takes new measures to shore up sagging rouble

  17-12-2014 19:36
  
  Russia’s currency crisis has descended into farce after the country’s leaders were accused of raiding the back of the couch for “small change” to shore up the rouble’s value.
  
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• NHS services cut in Nottingham after doctors quit rather than work for private firm

  17-12-2014 19:31
  
  An NHS hospital has been forced to scrap highly rated services for patients with severe skin conditions including skin cancer following an “exodus” of senior doctors reluctant to work for a private sector subcontractor.
  
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