United Kingdom

Passengers to be fingerprinted at UK airport departure lounges

London, July 28 : All passengers flying to and from British airports will be fingerprinted from next year.

According to The Telegraph, the Home Office''s Border and Immigration Agency has confirmed that it is considering forcing airport operators to introduce this measure to increase security.

It is concerned that so-called ''common departure lounges'' could allow an incoming international passenger - possibly a terrorist or a criminal - to switch tickets with an accomplice booked on a domestic flight.

The international passenger would then be able to fly elsewhere in Britain and enter the country without being checked by immigration authorities.

Dungeon dad’s wife makes last visit to horror house

Dungeon dad’s wife makes last visit to horror houseLondon, July 28 : Dungeon dad Josef Fritzl’s devastated wife Rosemarie made her last visit to the horror house to pack her bags and never return.

In April, news broke that Rosemarie’s husband Josef had kept their daughter Elisabeth as a sex slave in a cellar beneath their ancestral home for 24 long years and fathered six children with her.

And now, 69-year-old Rosemarie, who was unaware of her daughter’s plight, is without any money and is struggling to survive on 300 pounds-a-month benefits.

`Show me where the Queen lives, Obama asks Brown

London, July 28 : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had to take on a new job recently – that of being a V. I. P. tour guide to presumptive US Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama.

As soon as he arrived in London and met Brown, Obama asked every tourist’s favourite question: “Can you show me where the Queen lives?”

The request prompted Brown to act as a VIP tour guide for the U. S. senator, reports The Mirror.

However, alarmed American and British secret service officials curtailed their walkabout after astonished tourists came to close to dignitaries outside Buckingham Palace.

Luiz Felipe Scolari confident of Chelsea winning quadruple

London, July 28 : New Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari has been impressed by his Chelsea squad, and signalled the start of hostilities for the coming season as he claimed that his squad is capable of winning the quadruple -- the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup and the League Cup.

Brazilian Scolari has been quiet about his hopes for his new team so far, but three weeks of working with them has convinced him he has a squad capable of winning it all.

And Scolari has laid down a challenge to his men by saying that, if they can get to three-cup finals, he knows how to win them.

Colliding continents may have triggered off oxygenation on Earth

London, July 28 : A controversial new theory has proposed that the clashing of supercontinents billions of years ago may have been responsible for the oxygen-rich atmosphere that sustains much of the life on Earth today.

According to a report in Nature News, the theory has been put forward by geochemists at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.

They have suggested that as tectonic plates smashed into each other, reshaping supercontinents such as Pangaea, it set off a chain of events leading to increased oxygen in the atmosphere.

The Earth had almost negligible oxygen levels until the ''great oxidation event'' roughly 2.5 billion years ago. Today, oxygen makes up about 21% of the atmosphere.

200,000 yr old flaked flint hints at existence of Paleolithic man in Ireland

London, July 28 : A flaked flint dating to about 200,000 years ago, found in Co Down in Ireland, hints at existence of Paleolithic man in the country.

According to a report in The Times, the discovery was at Ballycullen, ten miles east of Belfast in Ireland.

The flake is 68mm long and wide and 31mm thick, and though it seems like that it is certainly of human workmanship, its ultimate origin remains uncertain.

Its originally dark surface is heavily patinated to a yellowish shade, and the lack of sharpness in its edges suggests that it has been rolled around by water or ice, Jon Stirland reports in Archaeology Ireland.

Pages