British Embassy

A senior Iranian cleric said Friday that the British Embassy employees arrested in Tehran in recent days would be put on trial on unspecified charges of acting against Iran's national security, a move immediately denounced by members of the European Union. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the conservative Guardian Council, said in a Friday prayer sermon that the employees, all of them Iranian nationals, would "definitely be tried."

The poet was a familiar figure, striding through Little Saigon, sipping tea, sharing wisdom, his head covered with his trademark fedora. He liked to read through the night, not too tired to dissect a bit of homeland politics. He lived simply, renting rooms in other people's homes, wearing the same suits for appearances, offering thanks for gifts of fruit and books. Early Tuesday, he died just as quietly in a Santa Ana hospital after suffering chest pain. Nguyen Chi Thien, 73, the acclaimed author of "Flowers From Hell," was revered for his modesty and creativity, thriving through 27 years of imprisonment, much of it in isolation.

A car bomb exploded during the morning rush hour today about 50 yards from the British Embassy in Christian East Beirut, and police reported that 12 people were killed and 75 wounded. A radio station said that the embassy may have been the intended target of the attack and that officials there had received threats from people offended by Salman Rushdie's book, "The Satanic Verses." The blast came during a lull in several days of fierce fighting between Christian and Muslim forces.

The European Union slapped new sanctions on Iranian individuals, companies and organizations Thursday in response to a report alleging that Tehran had pressed ahead with ambitions to build a nuclear weapon. European governments also kept up their condemnation of the ransacking of the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday by an angry mob of protesters. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have temporarily recalled their ambassadors from Tehran in solidarity with Britain, which shut down its embassy Wednesday and gave Iranian diplomats in London 48 hours to leave the country.

Six South African black anti-apartheid activists ended their sit-in at the British Embassy today after just over 24 hours, complaining bitterly that diplomats had urged them to leave. The five men and a woman had entered the embassy Wednesday to protest restrictions placed by Pretoria on former detainees like themselves. "It is deplorable and regrettable that the British Embassy did not give us proper sanctuary," one of the six told reporters outside the mission.

Whipping up popular anger over a U.S. missile strike, President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir said Saturday that Sudanese are prepared to die in a holy war. "America is attacking us because we are guardians of Islam," Bashir told a crowd of at least 5,000 people who rallied in a square outside his offices in central Khartoum. "We have tasted the sweet flavor of jihad [holy war] and martyrdom, and what we seek now is to die for the sake of God," Bashir said. "Go! Go!

More than 150 students pelted the British Embassy here Sunday with firecrackers and a smoke grenade, demanding an apology and the closure of the mission following Iran's detention of 15 British sailors and marines in the northern Persian Gulf. Shouting slogans such as "Death to Britain" and carrying banners with a call to "finally wipe Israel from the face of the Earth," hard-line Islamist students attempted to scale the embassy walls and pull down the flag but were rebuffed by riot police.

Every morning during the five weeks that he and three other diplomats were the last holdouts at the British Embassy in Kuwait, Donald MacAulay would check the Union Jack on the compound's flagstaff. "One wanted to see which way he breeze was coming from to determine where to set up for the day," the bearded commercial attache explained Monday in Baghdad, detailing life under a blistering sun and Iraqi occupation. Since Aug.

One British paratrooper was killed and three other soldiers were injured by an accidental explosion during winter maneuvers in western Norway, a British Embassy spokesman said Friday.

A telephoned bomb threat forced the evacuation of 50 people from the British Embassy on Monday, but no bomb was found. The caller did not identify himself or any group.

In scenes that evoked the seizing of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, hundreds of demonstrators stormed two British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, hurling gasoline bombs, ransacking offices and tearing down the British flag. The hours-long attacks, which followed a move by the Iranian parliament to expel Britain's ambassador over new sanctions, marked a sharp escalation in the tension between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Britain promised "serious consequences" and summoned Iran's charge d'affaires in London to the Foreign Office.

The British government says it is expelling the Libyan Ambassador after the British embassy in Tripoli was attacked. Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement Sunday that he condemns the attacks on the embassy premises in Tripoli, as well attacks on the diplomatic missions of other countries. He said the attacks have prompted him to expel the ambassador, who now has 24 hours to leave the country. The attacks on the diplomatic missions breach the Vienna Convention, Hague added.

Azer Farag Azer is here. So are the caricaturist and the writers, lots of writers, and that tall dentist, the son of the movie star. All here for lunch, herring and boiled egg. Where is Felfel? Praying. He'll be back. They're protesting again in the square. The revolution is over, but they march past with banners and rage. Maybe it's not over. There have been others. 1919. 1952. This one seems different, though. Who would have ever dreamed of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak?

In 1961, the Berlin Wall went up, the Cold War arms race was on and Dagmar Wilson, a storybook illustrator and mother of three, steamed into the national spotlight. A self-described "non-joiner," Wilson sparked a movement that on Nov. 1, 1961, drew an estimated 50,000 women across the country out of their homes and offices and into the streets to demonstrate for disarmament. Women Strike for Peace, the loose network of activists she founded, mounted the largest national women's peace protest of the 20th century and helped push the United States and the Soviet Union into signing a nuclear test-ban treaty two years later.

The attempted assassination of the British ambassador to Yemen on Monday indicated that Al Qaeda remains capable of striking Western targets despite the arrests of some of its leaders and raids against its mountainous strongholds in the Arabian Peninsula. A lone suicide bomber exploded alongside the armored car carrying Ambassador Timothy Torlot on his morning drive to the British Embassy in the capital, Sana. The ambassador and other British officials were unharmed. Police initially said the bomber, whose name was not released, was the only casualty.

The attempted assassination of the British ambassador to Yemen on Monday indicated that an Al Qaeda branch remains capable of striking Western targets despite the arrests of some of its leaders and raids against its mountainous strongholds in the Arabian Peninsula. A lone suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt alongside the armored car carrying Ambassador Timothy Torlot on his morning drive to the British Embassy in the capital, Sana. The ambassador and other British staff were unharmed.

A British cultural organization reopened offices in two cities in defiance of an order to close, drawing an angry response from Russia, which promised punitive measures. Britain's ambassador said any action against the British Council in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg would violate international law. The council, which acts as the cultural arm of the British Embassy, reopened its offices after the holidays. Ties between Britain and Russia are badly frayed by the 2006 poisoning death in London of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Two British sisters appeared before Egypt's prosecutor-general Wednesday and denied any knowledge of heroin found in their luggage, British Embassy officials said. Marion Arnold, 42, and Maureen Carol Paleschi, 49, from Hampshire, were arrested on Sunday after they arrived from Bucharest and 13 pounds of heroin was discovered inside a wooden elephant in their luggage.

Washington reopened its embassy in Yemen on Tuesday after Yemeni security forces killed two alleged militants a day earlier north of the capital, said a statement posted on the website of the U.S. mission. The United States, Japan and several European nations shut their embassies this week amid worries about rising Al Qaeda activity on the troubled Arabian peninsula. The U.S. Embassy statement cited "credible information that pointed to imminent terrorist attacks." U.S. officials said they reopened the embassy in Sana, the capital, because of the Yemeni operation against Al Qaeda operatives, which also left two suspects wounded.