TV News LIES

Israel's prime minister and defence minister ordered the country's military to prepare for a strike against Iran's nuclear installations two years ago, according to a television documentary.

But the order was not carried out after it met with strong opposition from two key security figures, the military chief of staff and head of the Mossad, claimed Uvda (Fact), broadcast yesterday.

Israeli soldiers have shot and killed a Palestinian man who approached a fence near the border with Israel, medics said on Monday.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the shooting took place after darkness fell on Sunday, saying troops opened warning shots when a man walking west of the border in a riverbed failed to heed orders to leave the buffer area Israel maintains to try and prevent cross-border attacks.

Lifting a nearly 25-year veil of secrecy, Israel acknowledged Thursday that it killed the deputy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a 1988 seaborne raid in Tunisia.

Two of those involved in the operation now hold high political office - Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon. At the time, Barak was deputy military chief, and Yaalon was head of the Sayeret Matkal unit. Their precise roles in the operation were not divulged, and both men's offices declined comment.

A Polish teenager who became pregnant after rape should have had unhindered access to an abortion, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

The girl, who was then 14, was forced to have a clandestine abortion after harassment from pro-life groups led to her being turned away from hospitals. The court ordered the Polish state to pay the teenager and her mother 61,000 euros (£49,000) in compensation.

Poland's abortion law is among the strictest in Europe.

Imran Khan is, according to numerous polls, the most popular politician in Pakistan and may very well be that country's next Prime Minister. He is also a vehement critic of US drone attacks on his country, vowing to order them shot down if he is Prime Minister and leading an anti-drone protest march last month.

On Saturday, Khan boarded a flight from Canada to New York in order to appear at a fundraising lunch and other events. But before the flight could take off, US immigration officials removed him from the plane and detained him for two hours, causing him to miss the flight.

Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.