World News

David Cameron will not accept "a deal at any price" on future EU spending, Europe minister David Lidington has warned.

Three days before a second EU summit attempts to break the deadlock, Mr Lidington insisted it would be a mistake for fellow EU leaders to believe the Prime Minister was bluffing when he demanded "at worst a freeze, at best a cut" in the euro-budget proposed for 2014-20.

Talks between EU leaders broke down in November with a frustrated Mr Cameron calling on the EU to start living "in the real world" by recognising the need for financial belt-tightening in line with national cutbacks.

He particularly targeted eurocrats' pay and perks, irritating the European Commission by highlighting the number of its civil servants earning more than the British Prime Minister himself and suggesting their numbers should be cut.

Britain is not alone in warning that the public will not understand if the EU budget - funded by taxpayers - grows for the next seven years. The European Commission's opening bid was an overall budget ceiling of one thousand billion euros (£860 billion), but that was pegged back to £756 billion before the last effort at a deal collapsed.

On Monday afternoon, after pre-summit talks between EU ministers in Brussels, EU administration commissioner Maros Sefcovic said a deal at the summit on Thursday and Friday would send a "positive signal" about the European economy and help restore confidence. But he also made clear that any accord had to be "balanced" - in other words giving the commission a big enough kitty to finance the policies the member states have signed up to.

"I urge member states not to get carried away and break the European engine," said the commissioner.

Published: 04 February 2013

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Prime Minister David Cameron has said the country should be "prepared for the possibility of further bad news" in the hostage crisis in Algeria.

With a confused picture of what is happening on the ground following an Algerian military operation, Mr Cameron has postponed his speech on Europe in the Netherlands that was due on Friday to stay in Downing Street.

One British citizen is known to have died in the crisis and several others have been caught up in it.

Mr Cameron said: "It's a fluid situation, it's ongoing, it's very uncertain. We should be prepared for the possibility of further bad news, very difficult news, in this extremely difficult situation."

The Government has confirmed that there are "several" British nationals among the foreign hostages held by Islamist militants at the gas plant at In Amenas, deep in the Algerian desert.

Mr Cameron said: "We face a very bad situation at this BP gas compound in Algeria. A number of British citizens have been taken hostage. Already we know of one who has died. The Algerian armed forces have now attacked the compound."

He said officials in the Government's Cobra emergency committee, which he chaired twice on Thursday, were "working around the clock to do everything we can to keep in contact with the families, to build the fullest possible picture of the information and the intelligence we have".

Published: 17 January 2013

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David Cameron has vowed to fight to keep the Falklands in the face of mounting Argentinian rhetoric over the future of the islands.

The Prime Minister insisted British resolve was "extremely strong" and pointed out fast jets and troops are stationed on the Falklands.

It comes after Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner accused Britain of colonialism and demanded the islands were handed over.

In an open letter published as an advert in the Guardian she said Argentina was forcibly stripped of the Malvinas - the Argentinian name for the islands - in "a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism".

Mr Cameron insisted he was "absolutely clear" that Britain would defend the islands and said the UK was still one of the top five defence budgets in the world despite the raft of recent cuts to the armed forces.

Published: 06 January 2013

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Students at the elementary school where a gunman massacred 26 children and teachers last month were returning to class for the first time Thursday in a new building adapted to look exactly like their old one.

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has been closed since the December 14 tragedy in which a 20-year-old local man shot 20 small children and six staff members before committing suicide.

On Wednesday, families were invited to inspect the new school in the nearby town of Monroe, where a disused facility has been prepared to resemble the old one, right down to the pictures on the walls and crayons on desks, ABC television reported.

In a message to parents on the school website, acting principal Donna Page, who replaces the slain school head Dawn Hochsprung, insisted "the facility is safe, secure and fully operational."

Page said parents would be allowed to stay in the school when it opens for classes Thursday, to provide reassurance to their children, many of whom witnessed to the bloodbath.

"We understand many parents may need to be near their children on their first day(s) of school and you will be welcome. That being said, we encourage students to take the bus to school in order to help them return to familiar routines as soon as possible," she wrote.

Published: 02 January 2013

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