US president Barack Obama renewed friendships with the Queen and strengthened ties with Britain today on his first state visit to the UK.

The mother of a Belfast teenager killed by two Scots Guards now serving in Iraq was today hoping to confront their former commanding officer about the decision to allow them back into the British army.

Survivors of a shooting of Malaysian villagers by British colonial troops in 1948 are renewing a campaign to pressure the British government to acknowledge the killings were unjustified.