London  - A lorry-load of beer destined for football fans at the Windsor Castle pub in Britain was mistakenly delivered to the Castle of Queen Elizabeth II after which the pub is named, it was reported Thursday.

A lorry carrying 12 barrels of lager turned up at the gates of Windsor Castle, near London, but royal staff had no record of the order.

They called the pub with the same name in nearby Maidenhead where the delivery was keenly awaited to quench the thirst of fans watching the England versus Croatia World Cup qualifier Wednesday.

London - A British soldier has died in a roadside explosion in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, raising to 118 the number of British servicemen killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

The Ministry of Defence in London said Thursday that the soldier, from the Royal Logistics Corps, was on routine patrol in the town of Musa Qala.

London  - A high-ranking British policeman who dressed up as Osama bin Laden during a village carnival has apologized for his action which he said was due to an "an error of judgement."

Chief Superintendent Colin Terry took part in a village carnival in Grampound, in the south-western contry of Cornwall, last Saturday, and has since been reprimanded by his superiors.

However, the force said it could not start immediate disciplinary action because Terry was currently on secondment to the British Foreign Office, working on a European Union (EU) mission to train police officers in Afghanistan.

London, Sept. 11 : Indian-born billionaire businessman Lakshmi Mittal is sitting on a big paper loss.

With a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine to be 45 billion dollars, the 48 per cent slump in the RAB Special Sits fund this year and the 66 per cent fall in the RAB share price, will not make much of a dent in his finances, but will trouble him nonetheless.

The most valuable asset in Mittal’s investment portfolio is his 43 per cent stake in ArcelorMittal. Although the stock has fallen more than 36 per cent from its June high, the shares are still worth some €26.5bn (£21bn).

London - The British government Thursday unveiled an industry-backed aid programme of 910 million pounds (1,6 billion dollars) to help households cope with soaring energy prices and to combat what has become known as "fuel poverty."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said low income earners and pensioners would receive free loft and cavity insulation, while everybody else would be given financial incentives to install energy saving measures over the next 3 years.

More immediately, winter fuel payments for this year would be increased.

The government would legislate to ensure that energy suppliers and electricity producers would provide the funding of the measures and not pass on the costs to consumers.

London, Sep 11 : EU governments and policy-makers are eroding civil liberties and privacy at a "breathtaking" rate in the name of security policy, a damning report has claimed.

Civil liberties watchdog Statewatch slammed the EU''s post-9/11 security strategy as a "frightening" grab for every aspect of individual information.