United Kingdom

Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.

Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency analyst who revealed US surveillance of phone and Internet communications, was elected rector of Glasgow University in Scotland.

A new body has been appointed to administer Libor - the London Interbank Offered Rate. A subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE), a global network of exchanges and clearing houses, has been appointed to ensure Libor cannot be rigged by banks again.

Furious British politicians have demanded Prime Minister David Cameron explain why chemical export licences were granted to firms last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began. Britain allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas, according a damning report that exposes U.S. lies and propaganda on Assad government.

Britain will supply intelligence to America for their planned strikes against Syria from a base in Cyprus.

Don't do it - that's the clear advice to British prime minister David Cameron this morning from national newspapers of every political hue in the face of his call to take military action against Syria.

A British parliamentarian says Israel has been giving out chemical arms to the anti-Syria militants.

Guardian editors destroyed computer hard drives containing copies of some of the secret files leaked by Edward Snowden. The decision was taken after a threat of legal action by the government that could have stopped reporting on the extent of American and British government surveillance revealed by the documents.

David Miranda, Brazilian life partner of Glenn Greenwald, was detained and questioned under Terrorism Act, though he presents no threat to the UK government. Greenwald, a frequent The Santos Republic contributor, is the key journalist who has written a series of stories revealing the NSA's electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Almost half a million pounds of British taxpayer-funded aid and equipment has fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda, the Department for International Development has admitted.

Diplomats in London have been given shock and awe, the financial kind: HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA), Europe’s biggest bank, has told more than 40 different embassies, consulates, High Commissions and the Vatican that it will close their bank accounts and gave them 60 days to move their business somewhere else. Diplomats are thrown into chaos: They scramble to find a new place to put their money, but it gets worse. Other banks have been refusing to take them as customers.

The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes.