Fire Minister Brandon Lewis probably had a fair idea what Sir Ken Knight would deliver when he asked him to conduct an "independent" report into fire and rescue services in England.
As LGBT activists worldwide celebrate anti-homophobia day we are reminded of prevailing prejudice
Bradford has seen the launch of a new campaign to battle the sources of child sex exploitation - and combat far-right bids to make it a racial issue
ETHIOPIA'S ruling party claimed yesterday to have won just over half the seats in the country's parliamentary election, but opposition leaders declared that it was still too early to tell who would form the next government.
THREE polls published yesterday showed the No camp nudging back into the lead before France's closely watched May 29 referendum on the European Union constitution.
OVER a quarter of Gaza Strip settler families have agreed to relocate to southern Israel, a settler leader said yesterday - the biggest crack so far in the formidable wall of opposition to the Gaza pullout this summer.
PAKISTAN President Pervez Musharraf will stay on as leader after 2007, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said yesterday.
Brief news from around the world.
SPORADIC shooting continued yesterday in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, where an uprising sparked a crackdown by security forces that left up to 500 people dead.
NEPALESE soldiers continued to search for hundreds of missing students yesterday after they were apparently taken hostage by Maoist rebels in a mountainous western area of the country.
THE reading of the verdict in the politically charged trial of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky adjourned yesterday until today, but lawyers and supporters said that they'd heard enough to be certain that he would be found guilty.
TEACHERS, transport staff and millions of other French workers stayed away from work yesterday in protest at the government's abolition of a public holiday.
THE White House attacked US magazine Newsweek yesterday over a report that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, despite the publication having earlier apologised for "errors" in the article.