Four Labour Lords offered to help amend laws for cash
Four members of the House of Lords offered to help undercover reporters posing as lobbyists to change laws in return for cash. The four peers, all Labour, were prepared to take fees of up to £120,000 a year to put down amendments in the interests of their 'clients'. Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn were secretly recorded telling reporters they had previously secured changes to laws to help clients. The other two peers were lords Moonie and Snape. (Sunday Times)
BBC attacked over Gaza charity ad refusal
Government ministers, religious leaders and senior members of BBC staff have condemned the broadcaster's decision not to show a charity appeal to help the people of Gaza rebuild their homes after the recent Israeli attacks. While ITV and Channel 4 have agreed to put out the appeal, made jointly by 13 UK charities, the BBC decided it might be seen as evidence of bias. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, accused the BBC of "taking sides" through inaction. (Observer)
In pictures: The devastation left behind as Israel leaves Gaza 
The Gaza file: Latest news and comment
In pictures: Israel pounds Gaza
Three dead in Highlands avalanche
Three climbers were killed by an avalanche in the Highlands of Scotland yesterday. The three were part of a group of nine who attempted to climb the 3,000ft Buachaille Etive Mor in Glencoe despite official warnings that the risk of an avalanche was "considerable". Four climbers were airlifted to Belford hospital in Fort William and three were pronounced dead. The fourth is being treated for a serious shoulder injury, while medics attended to others on the mountain side. (Sunday Telegraph)
Employers to be paid to cut hours
The Government is considering paying employers to cut working hours to prevent job losses, in what has been hailed as a return to the three-day week of the 1970s. Firms including JCB and Bentley have already cut the working week to four days, and 40,000 employers across the country are expected to follow suit to some extent. Compensation could also be offered to employees who have had their working hours reduced during the recession. (Independent on Sunday)
Green shoots are nothing but a mirage - for now
Bankrupt Britain becomes likelier by the day
Obama gets hi-tech ‘BlackBerry’
Barack Obama is to use a high-tech personal digital assistant (PDA) while he is president of the US. Obama was a keen user of his BlackBerry PDA, but White House security advisers were concerned it would not be safe for him to keep the device as president because it could be used to pinpoint his location. Now he has been given a Sectera Edge - a high-tech PDA developed for the National Security Agency, which can be used in a special "classified mode". (Sunday Times)
Alexander Cockburn: Ghost of Richard Nixon dogs Obama's big moment
In pictures: Inauguration Day
In pictures: Obama's ten balls
A group of senior women ministers have warned Gordon Brown that many more women than men are losing their jobs as the recession bites - recent figures suggest twice as many. There are fears women may be out of the workforce "for a generation". (Sunday Times)
The latest City figures show that every taxpayer in the country has lost almost £40,000 since the onset of the credit crunch as falling house and share prices have wiped out £1.2 trillion of Britain's national wealth - the equivalent of a full year's GDP. (Observer)
Bankrupt Britain gets likelier by the day
Soros business partner predicts end of Sterling
The £35bn local government pensions gap is being filled by householders, who are paying up to £140 a year in council tax to bail out pensions schemes for workers. The final-salary pensions they receive have been criticised as being too generous. (Sunday Telegraph)
The head of the British Library has warned that the practice of deleting old web pages means future historians will face a "black hole" of lost material. Lynne Brindley warned that the removal of outdated websites threatens the "memory of the nation". (Observer)
A mysterious computer virus has infested 15m PCs around the world, including MoD and NHS computers in the UK. The purpose of the Downadup, Conficker or Kido worm is still not known, but it is the worst such viral outbreak since 2003. (Independent on Sunday)
Comedian Griff Rhys Jones has told how he jumped into shark-infested waters with his wife and 13 friends to escape from a burning yacht. The 55-year-old TV presenter and actor was in the water for just five minutes, during which time his yacht sank. (Sunday Telegraph)
Barack Obama's administration is looking to the EU bank for inspiration, and plans to construct a $60bn infrastructure bank for the US based on its model. The Obama team met with at least one UK City figure close to the EIB to discuss the plans. (Independent on Sunday)
J Sainsbury is already searching for a new chairman, and expects to have a successor for Sir Philip Hampton this year. Sir Philip was appointed chairman of RBS earlier this month, but it is thought the decision to replace him predates his appointment. (Sunday Telegraph)
BT could launch a mobile phone operation as part of a joint venture with T-Mobile and 3 in a bid to boost profits by cashing in on the migration of broadband and internet services to mobile devices. City sources say informal talks between the companies have already taken place. (Observer)
The international community is locked in a bitter struggle with Hamas over who will rebuild Gaza after the recent Israeli incursion. The West is reluctant to allow the Islamist group to distribute its aid, and wants the more moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas involved. (Observer)
Gaza file: Hamas admits to hunting down collaborators
Two US airstrikes, authorised under a covert programme approved by new US president Barack Obama, have killed 22 in Pakistan. The remote-controlled airstrikes on suspected terrorists in Waziristan come ahead of an expected surge of 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan. (Sunday Times)
'Good luck,' says Iranian ayatollah to Obama
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai cannot decide if he should sign a deal to enter government with president Robert Mugabe, while his advisers are telling him to stall on making a decision in the hope that economic collapse will end Mugabe's regime. (Sunday Telegraph)
Zimbabwe Today: Sinister plans that could put Tsvangirai in jail
Booksellers in Hay-on-Wye, which for 30 years has been a 'book town', are angry and fearful at collapsing sales which they blame on the internationally renowned Hay literary festival. The booksellers say visitors to the festival no longer visit their bookshops. (Independent on Sunday)
The Arts Council is expected to pull the plug on the Public (pictured), a high-tech art gallery in the West Midlands designed by controversial architect Will Alsop, which opened four years late and at double its original estimated cost, because no-one is visiting. (Sunday Times)
The culture minister has placed a temporary bar on the export of 11 vintage French designer dresses in the hope that a British museum can find the £450,000 needed to keep them in the UK. The gowns are by the 1920s designer Madeleine Vionnet. (Independent on Sunday)
Former MP Tony Benn led protests outside Broadcasting House yesterday after the BBC decided not to show a Gaza relief appeal. (Independent on Sunday) A bottle of whisky signed by Alistair Darling was the top raffle prize at the Treasury's Burns Night supper on Friday. (Sunday Times) Art patron Charles Saatchi is to take part in an X-Factor-style search for a British artist run by BBC2. (Sunday Times) Oligarch Roman Abramovich has been pictured wearing fashionable floral-print swimming trunks in the Caribbean. But commentators were surprised to see his were cheap knock-offs, not the £100 originals. (Observer) Actress Hayley Atwell was allegedly asked to lose weight by the producers of Brideshead Revisited. Now she is being courted to play Emma Hamilton on film precisely because of her voluptuous figure. (Sunday Telegraph) Gordon Brown is upset that cartoons make him look fat, according to political cartoonist Dave Brown. (Sunday Times) The Speaker, Michael Martin, has taken to disappearing from his chair for two hours on a Thursday afternoon. It's not known why. (Observer) "What a damned silly waste of time" - MP Anne Widdecombe, proprietor of website The Widdy Web, on blog craze Twitter. (Sunday Times) Actor Jasper Britton, lauded for his performance in Nicholas De Jongh's Plague Over England, is not appearing in the West End transfer, it's rumoured, because the pair had a spectacular row. (Independent on Sunday) Not content with his Faith Foundation and his Sports Foundation, ex-PM Tony Blair is to set up the Tony Blair Governance Initiative - thought to be a back-up plan should Barack Obama not endorse him as the Quartet's Middle East envoy. (Observer) The Conservatives have bought a top listing on Google for the name 'Gordon Brown', which links to their online campaign. (Observer) Forty-one MPs have called for February 12, the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth, to be made a bank holiday. (Sunday Times) Supporting a review by Tory Graham Shapps, property expert Kirstie Allsopp said last year she would walk naked through central London "if everybody says they like HIPs". Now Shapps has dropped his review of Home Information Packs, Allsopp remains silent. (Independent on Sunday) Labour MP Chris Ruane is to look into the backgrounds of the UK's ambassadors, after he found there was not a single member from an ethnic minority on the committees which appoint them. (Observer) Just minutes into his first radio show since returning from suspension, Jonathan Ross made a joke about having sex with an Alzheimer's sufferer in her late seventies. (News of the World) Prince Harry and girlfriend Chelsy Davy have split. Davy decided to end the relationship because she felt "betrayed" by Harry's flirting with other girls. (News of the World) Sir Paul McCartney is planning to marry 49-year-old heiress Nancy Shevell and has sought the blessing of his daughter Stella, who advised against his last marriage. (Sunday Mirror) Ex-EastEnders actor Gillian Taylforth's partner has been arrested for attacking Taylforth's daughter's ex-boyfriend, who had assaulted Taylforth's daughter. (Sunday Mirror) Three-year-old Gramos Hoxha Jnr, who lives with his Jamaican-born mother in Peterborough, is the world's youngest Barack Obama lookalike - and a big fan. (People)
In pictures: Gaza devastation after Israeli withdrawal 
Sports Pages: Abramovich shares sale fuels liquidity rumours 
Posts
