Del Toro quits as director of The Hobbit

The long-awaited film version of J.R.R Tolkien?s The Hobbit ran into more trouble today when director Guillermo Del Toro quit the project over production delays.

Anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune gives evidence

Peter Bethune, the anti-whaling activist on trial in Tokyo, today took the witness stand to defend himself against charges of injuring a Japanese sailor with an acidic stink bomb.

Deadly clashes at sea as Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid ships

Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of civilian aid ships bringing supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens.

Arrests made over Pakistan mosque attacks

Police have arrested seven men over alleged links to the Taleban militants who attacked two mosques in eastern Pakistan on Friday, killing 93 people, including a British businessman.

British father and son die during practice flight Menorca air competition

A British man and his son were killed when their light aircraft crashed as they practised for a race in Spain. Bruce Hook, 63, and his son Ian, 26, had just taken off when their plane crashed and exploded.

?Difference of opinion? on BP?s oil rig hours before explosion

It was shortly before noon on April 20, only ten hours before a torrent of crude oil ripped through the Deepwater Horizon rig, that the quarrel broke out.

Graham Norton is unsung hero of another Eurovision disaster for Britain

It was a dreadful night, even for a nation so well accustomed to crushing defeats on the international stage.

This scares everybody ? that we can?t make it stop, says BP chief

With the failure of its latest attempt to stem the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, BP was running out of time, money and friends yesterday as it prepared another, even riskier, plan of attack.

Failings on Deepwater Horizon oil rig put thousands of jobs at risk

President Obama?s six-month moratorium on new exploratory deepwater drilling ? ordered after revelations of flawed safety procedures on the Deepwater Horizon ? will remove thousands more jobs from the local economy, local officials fear.

British man died in attack on mosques in Pakistan

A British man died during attacks by a suicide squad on two mosques in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

How Dudus stayed ahead of police

The fugitive whose supporters have reduced the Jamaican capital to a war zone used improvised bombs, closed-circuit TV and cross-dressing mercenaries to defend his stronghold, police said yesterday.

Henry II?s mistress returned to righful resting place

With her porcelain skin, blonde hair and dark blue eyes she was once hailed as the most beautiful woman in Europe. Yet for more than 200 years the bones of Diane de Poitiers were left in a common grave after her tomb was destroyed in the French Revolution.