Politics

Britain will join the US-led bombing campaign against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria after a decisive parliamentary vote, with fighter jets launching their first air strike as early as Thursday.

Prime Minister David Cameron's government was backed by 397 lawmakers compared to 223 who opposed the bombing, giving him at 174 the strong mandate he said was essential for military action.

Royal Air Force planes based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus are already helping to bomb targets in Iraq and government sources indicated that they could start flying missions over Syria imminently.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the first strikes could come as early as Thursday night.

Cameron welcomed the result of the House of Commons vote, writing on Twitter: "I believe the house has taken the right decision to keep the UK safe -- military action in Syria as one part of a broader strategy."

It was also immediately hailed by US President Barack Obama, who said the US would "look forward to having British forces flying with the coalition over Syria".

But during the debate, a wide range of MPs from all parties including main opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke out against air strikes.

Some 2,000 anti-war protesters also held a "die-in" outside parliament ahead of the vote during their second consecutive night of protest.

Corbyn condemned Cameron's "ill thought-out rush to war" and said his proposals "simply do not stack up".

However, Labour was also deeply split on the issue. Some 67 of its 231 MPs reportedly voted in favour of bombing, including 11 members of Corbyn's frontbench team.

Chelsea have submitted a planning application to build a new 60,000-seat stadium on the site of their Stamford Bridge ground, the Premier League champions announced on Tuesday.

"A planning application for a new stadium at Stamford Bridge with an expanded seating capacity has been submitted," the club said in a statement.

"This follows a successful consultation process during which we received very helpful feedback."

The plans involve the demolition of the current stadium at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea have played since 1905, and the construction of a new arena featuring a club shop and museum, plus restaurants and cafes.

Stamford Bridge, in west London, last underwent major renovation in the late 1990s when the stadium's West Stand was rebuilt.

The ground's current 41,798 capacity restricts Chelsea's ability to maximise match-day revenues.

According to the most recent figures compiled by financial analysts Deloitte, Chelsea generated 85 million euros ($90.1 million) in match-day revenue in the 2013-14 season.

Britain's government came under pressure Wednesday to let 16 and 17 year-olds have the vote in a referendum on European Union membership after suffering a defeat in parliament.

The House of Lords voted in favour of the amendment to a law currently being debated which governs how the referendum, to be held by the end of 2017, will be conducted.

The government must now decide whether to try and get the decision reversed in the House of Commons, or whether to agree to let 16 and 17 year olds have the vote as well as over 18s.

Some senior Conservatives currently expect the referendum will take place in September next year but a lengthy parliamentary battle over voting age could delay that.

The scale of the defeat in the unelected upper chamber -- by 293 votes to 211 -- was larger than expected.

Prince William and his wife Kate, as well as British Prime Minister David Cameron, signed a book of condolences at the French embassy and ambassador's residence on Tuesday after the Paris attacks.

"To all those who have died and were injured in the heartless attacks in Paris, and to all the people in France: Nos plus sincères condoléances (Our sincerest condolences)," William wrote at the embassy.

Cameron in his message expressed "shock, sadness and grief", signing the book at the west London mansion flanked by French ambassador Sylvie Bermann.

British security services have foiled around seven terror plots since June with fighters returning from Syria posing a growing threat, Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday.

"Our security and intelligence services have stopped something like seven attacks in the last six months, albeit attacks planned on a smaller scale" than Friday's attacks in Paris, he told BBC Radio 4 from Turkey.

"We have been aware of these cells operating in Syria that are radicalising people in our own countries, potentially sending people back to carry out attacks," he added.

Security services have spent a "long time" working out how to deal with multiple coordinated attacks on the street, but will have to go "right back to the drawing board" after the Paris attacks, which killed at least 129 people.

"It was the sort of thing we were warned about," said the prime minister.

Cameron added there were "hopeful signs" from Saturday's talks in Vienna on Syria that progress was being made on how to deal with the Islamic State (IS) group.

"You can't deal with so-called Islamic State unless you get a political settlement in Syria that enables you then to permanently degrade and destroy that organisation," he said.

However, he repeated that any settlement must include the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a sticking point between the West and Russia.

- 'Generational struggle' -

Britain announced Monday it was to recruit an extra 1,900 security and intelligence staff to counter the threat of terrorist violence following the Paris attacks as part of the government's five year defence and security review to be unveiled next week.

A treasure trove of 17th century letters in the Netherlands is giving researchers a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary people, many of them French refugees fleeing turmoil and persecution.

Today's wave of migrants escaping conflict to reach European shores are able to keep in touch with loved ones back home by mobile phone.

But in the mid-1600s the only means of long-distance communication was through the written word.

A former postmaster's trunk stuffed with 2,600 undelivered letters is now helping shed light on what was a turbulent period in European history, when the continent was beset by a series of wars.

"You get a sense of loss, of abandonment," said David van der Linden, one of the experts involved in an international project to transcribe, digitise and translate all the letters.

The leather trunk lined with linen belonged to The Hague's postmaster, Simon de Brienne and his wife Maria Germain. And it was where he kept all the letters he was unable to deliver.

Many of the missives are from Protestant French Huguenot families fleeing persecution under the Catholic monarch Louis XIV.

They are mostly in written in French, although some are also in Dutch, Swedish and Danish and a few in English.

Down through the centuries, the trunk and its contents was eventually passed to the Dutch finance ministry, which bequeathed it to the Museum of Communication in The Hague in 1926.

Although it was brought out for occasional exhibitions, until now no team of researchers has been able to devote time to the painstaking work of examining the contents in depth.

- X-ray scans -

Touchingly, many of the missives are badly written, peppered with spelling errors and grammatical mistakes, indicating "that these were people who were barely literate" but took up a pen they were so still desperate for news from home, Van der Linden told AFP.

Prime Minister David Cameron warned Tuesday that Britain could leave the EU if it does not get the reforms it wants before a "once-in-a-generation" referendum to settle its troubled relationship with Europe.

In a major speech outlining Britain's demands for change following pressure from EU leaders, Cameron warned he was ready to "think again" about Britain's membership if he could not strike a deal with Brussels and the bloc's 27 other member states.

But in a sign of the British premier's looming tussle, the European Commission immediately responded, saying it deemed parts of Cameron's EU renegotiation objectives "highly problematic".

Cameron's comments came as he sends a long-awaited letter to EU president Donald Tusk laying out Britain's shopping list for change to avert a "Brexit" in a vote due to be held by 2017 at the latest.

"The referendum... will be a once-in-a-generation choice," Cameron said. "This is a huge decision for our country -- perhaps the biggest we'll make in our lifetime."

Iran on Saturday announced dates for a three-day oil and gas conference in London in February designed to attract foreign investors awaiting new contract terms to be unveiled next month.

Oil majors have expressed interest in returning to Iran as soon as international sanctions linked to its nuclear programme are lifted, but they are currently still barred from signing any deals.

A nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, struck in July, is due to be implemented in December or January and a top official said the timing had influenced the London event.

The "Iran Oil and Gas Summit Post Sanctions" event in Britain's capital is scheduled for February 22-24, said Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, head of the country's oil contracts re-negotiation team.

"It is predicted sanctions relief will start from January 2016, so the London conference date is in February," Hosseini told SHANA, the oil ministry's news service.

British police on Monday said they will no longer stand guard outside London's Ecuadorean embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took refuge in 2012, but will strengthen a "covert plan" to prevent his departure.

Britain's Foreign Office later confirmed that it had summoned the Ecuadorean ambassador to "register once again our deep frustration at the protracted delay" in extraditing Assange to Sweden to face questions over a rape allegation.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said Monday that it had "today... withdrawn the physical presence of officers from outside the embassy.

"The operation to arrest Julian Assange does however continue and should he leave the embassy the MPS will make every effort to arrest him.

"Whilst no tactics guarantee success in the event of Julian Assange leaving the embassy, the MPS will deploy a number of overt and covert tactics to arrest him," police said in a statement.

Swedish prosecutors want to question Assange about a rape claim, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations that expires in 2020.

Assange, who faces arrest if he tries to leave the embassy, denies the allegation and insists the sexual encounter was consensual.

The Foreign Office said Monday that the head of the diplomatic service, Simon McDonald, had summoned Ecuadorean Ambassador Carlos Abad Ortiz to insist on a resolution to the impasse.

"The UK has been absolutely clear since June 2012 that we have a legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden," said the ministry statement.

"That obligation remains today," it added.

A monkey that sneezes when it rains and a "walking" fish are among more than 200 species discovered in the fragile eastern Himalayas in recent years, according to conservation group WWF. WWF has compiled a survey of wildlife discovered by scientists across Bhutan, northeast India, Nepal, north Myanmar and southern Tibet in a bid to raise awareness of the threats facing the ecologically sensitive region. The species include what the WWF

described as a blue-coloured "walking snakehead fish", which can breathe air, survive on land for four days and slither up to 400 metres (a quarter of a mile) on wet ground.

Others include an ornate red, yellow and orange pit viper that could pass for a piece of jewellery, a fresh-water "dracula" fish with fangs and three new types of bananas.

In the forests of northern Myanmar, scientists learned in 2010 of a black and white monkey with an upturned nose that causes it to sneeze when it rains.

On rainy days they often sit with their heads tucked between their knees to avoid getting water in their snub noses.