TIMELINE: Iraq kidnappings

Four guards and an IT consultant were seized in May 2007. Three are dead, one presumed dead and the fifth is free

British missionary released in Gambia

Fiona Fulton is freed after serving a year's hard labour for criticising the Government but her husband remains in jail

US agents failed to act on bomber internet chatter

Al-Qaeda members referred to possible attack by 'the Nigerian' in run up to failed bombing of aircraft over Detroit

Sting in tail of 'best job in the world'

Ben Southall stung by potentially lethal Irukandji jellyfish near end of job promoting Great Barrier Reef tourist island

Abdulmutallab's father 'warned CIA'

Airline bomb plot suspect's father met a CIA agent to discuss his son's extremist views but report was not circulated

Britain hauls in ambassador after execution

Diplomatic row between London and Beijing after China rebuffs last minute clemency pleas over execution of Akmal Shaikh

UK thought Reagan would be a lazy president

Archive papers reveal British diplomats’ verdict on Republican candidate in the early days of US election campaign

Al-Qaeda ‘groomed bomber in London’

Security sources concerned British Universities, especially in London, are hotbed of Islamist radicalisation

Reality of civilian casualties and Nato's role

President Karzai may point fingers but deaths linked to Nato forces drop from 38 per cent last year to 22 per cent this year

Afghans turn to Taleban for justice

Nato warns Taleban are running shadow governments in 33 out of 34 provinces and time is running out for President Karzai

Pictures of first immigrant to Ellis Island found

A family has discovered photographs of Annie Moore, who arrived in New York from Ireland in 1892, aged 15

Bruni helps free French women held for cocaine

The women were pardoned by the President of the Dominican Republic after serving 18 months of an eight-year sentence

Britain rethinks strategy on China

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office appears to have considerably overestimated its leverage with the emerging superpower

Expect more scans and more restrictions

Airlines ban blankets in laps, trips to the lavatory and use of seatback maps for the last hour of every flight

Iranian protest is 'unstoppable'

The Tehran leadership and its Revolutionary Guards are facing a massive campaign of civil disobedience

Berlusconi drives hard bargain for Russian car

The Italian Prime Minister has bagged himself 10 per cent off a new, Russian-built SUV, Vladimir Putin reveals

I want answers now, says angry Obama

President condemns failure of $40 billion airline security system that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on to a flight