The British extremist responsible for the on-screen beheading of hostages has reportedly been identified, as MPs prepare to vote on whether the UK should join air strikes against Islamic State (IS).

Germany took the dramatic step yesterday of asking the top US intelligence official in Berlin to leave the country, following two suspected cases of American spying and the year-long spat over eavesdropping by the National Security Agency.

Germany has taken the dramatic step of asking the top US intelligence official in Berlin to leave the country after two reported cases of suspected US spying and a spat over the National Security Agency.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is to be asked to examine the law governing data protection following a student’s legal challenge over the rejection of his complaint about interference with personal privacy by the mass transfer of data by Facebook to the US intelligence services.

ON Jul 20, in a basement of the London offices of Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a senior editor and an IT expert used angle grinders and sledgehammers to destroy computer hard drives containing copies of secret files leaked by Edward Snowden, the computer whiz who disclosed details of top-secret US and British government surveillance programmes to the press.

Iran is prepared to launch attacks inside the US, a top American intelligence official has claimed.

An Iranian nuclear scientist claimed today that he suffered extreme mental and physical torture at the hands of US interrogators after disappearing last year, adding to Tehran's allegations he was abducted by American agents.

Uruguay’s last dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for 37 homicides during the nation’s 1973-1985 military regime, when dissidents disappeared in a region-wide crackdown on leftists called Operation Condor.

I MUST respond to the letters from Edward Horgan and Miriam Cotton (Irish Examiner, June 20).

Extremist terrorists in Ireland may be plotting atrocities across Europe, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said today.

Colombia’s main Marxist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, denied it had a plan to kill US President George Bush during a recent state visit.

A MAN describing himself as an American member of al-Qaida warned on a video broadcast yesterday that the US will be attacked “at any moment” and “the streets will run red with blood.”

Hours after being freed by kidnappers who threatened to kill him, US journalist Micah Garen said he hoped to stay in Iraq to continue working on a documentary project he had started about the looting of archaeological sites.

The US must have been “extremely concerned” about a possible Christmas terror attack to ask for the suspension of flights from France, a terrorism expert said today.

IRAQ’S US-led government awarded licenses yesterday for firms to set up mobile phone networks, rebuffing calls by some American lawmakers to use US-backed technology to restore shattered communications.

A FORMER US diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war yesterday described US President George W Bush as a “very weak” man led by the hand into battle by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

THE world is holding its breath to hear whether Saddam Hussein and his two sons are dead or alive following an allied “decapitation” strike.