David Cameron has promised the UK “we are on the brink of something special” as he returned to Downing Street as a Prime Minister with a Tory Commons majority for the first time.

NAMIBIA: A linguistic storm is brewing in Luderitz, where some residents of the remote Namibian town are protesting plans to change its name to !Nami#nus.

The number of people in work in the UK has reached a record 30.7 million following another fall in the jobless total there.

Talks with student leaders of a democracy protest that has blocked main roads in Hong Kong for nearly two weeks are off because they are unlikely to be constructive, a senior Hong Kong government official said.

Pro-democracy protesters have been defiant in the face of attacks by opponents and warnings by the Hong Kong government to clear the streets, staging a massive rally in the downtown business district they have occupied for a week.

Pop star Gary Barlow has finally broken his silence to “apologise” on Twitter following damaging tax-dodging allegations.

Take That star Gary Barlow is facing calls to hand back his OBE over claims he invested in a tax avoidance scheme.

Scotland will be given the power to issue its own bonds starting next year, British prime minister David Cameron’s government said as it steps up its campaign to keep the country in the UK.

Lloyds Banking Group investors are betting that UK house prices will continue to rise across the country as the economy recovers.

UK Chancellor George Osborne will warn there are no "miracle cures" for Britain's problems today as he admits more drastic action is needed to balance his government's books.

BRITISH unions are pressing ahead with plans for the biggest strike in a generation despite a new government offer on public sector pensions described as the “chance of a lifetime”.

A strong earthquake shook north-eastern India and Nepal tonight, killing at least 16 people, damaging buildings and sending MPs in Nepal’s capital running into the streets.

Irresponsible bankers who take unacceptable risks or mis-sell products to customers should be barred from the profession, UK opposition leader Ed Miliband said today.

The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition suffered a major blow tonight as David Laws was forced to resign over expenses abuse allegations.

The new coalition government in the UK was engulfed in its first crisis today after Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws was forced to apologise over parliamentary expenses running into tens of thousands of pounds.

New UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne unveiled plans for an immediate £6.25bn (€7.27bn) cut in “wasteful” public spending today – insisting the Government was “getting on with the job” of tackling the deficit.

British Chancellor George Osborne today announced that he will deliver his first emergency Budget on June 22, exactly six weeks after the new coalition Government took office.

DAVID Cameron hailed “a historic and seismic shift” in Britain’s political landscape yesterday as he launched the country’s first coalition government since the Second World War.

Gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded station in co-ordinated attacks across India’s financial capital today, killing at least 78 people and taking Westerners hostage.

A STRING of British Government ministers yesterday followed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in admitting they used cannabis in their youth.

The drawn-out sale of British state-owned horseracing bookmaker the Tote looked to have suffered a further delay today after a crucial Government meeting on the £400m (€588.75m) deal was cancelled.

MORE than a million Hindu pilgrims have plunged into the chilly Ganges River in northern India, hoping to wash away their sins and achieve immortality at the start of a huge religious festival.

Wearing protective gloves and masks, health officials and farm workers slaughtered thousands of chickens in western India today, a day after the country reported its first outbreak of bird flu among poultry.

Angry villagers briefly blocked roads today in earthquake-ravaged regions of Indian-controlled Kashmir, protesting at the slow pace of rescue and aid efforts in reaching their destroyed homes.

The search for those feared killed in landslides or floods continued in and around Mumbai (formerly Bombay) today as the death toll from the disaster reached 987.

Hundreds of angry residents took to the streets of Mumbai today demanding the government clear rotting animal carcasses from the streets and restore water and electricity, as rescuers found more than 100 bodies in the debris of homes destroyed in western India’s devastating floods.

The UK economy grew by an estimated 3.1% in 2004 after the pace of expansion accelerated over the final three months of the year, it emerged today.

RESCUE workers pulled corpses from canals and water-logged fields in India yesterday as the government warned the death toll of almost 9,400 from a tsunami that lashed the country’s south would rise further.

Torrential monsoon rains submerged several villages and triggered mudslides in remote hilly areas in northern India today, killing at least 43 people, government officials said.

Flames leaped from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem early today during heavy exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen.

Twenty-six people are feared dead in landslides in India.