Any Labour MP found to have made improper expenses claims will be ­automatically deselected and barred from standing at the next general election as the party desperately tries to overcome the constitutional crisis facing parliament.

The Guardian has learned that the ­radical proposal is expected to be agreed next week by Labour's national executive, a move that acknowledges the deep anger among voters to the escalating scandal over MPs' claims.

Gordon Brown has also given ministers a Monday night deadline to ensure their expenses claims for the past five years are lodged with the parliamentary authorities and ready for publication.

Any deselection would happen after the parliamentary commissioner for standards had ruled that an MP had been found clearly guilty of improperly claiming.

Senior police and press officers are under investigation after complaints they deliberately misled the public over the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests.

In a move that escalated the controversy around police involvement in Tomlinson's death last month, the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced today it had launched a new inquiry into "media handling" by the Metropolitan police and City of London police.

The announcement followed a complaint by Tomlinson's family last week about information released by police about his death. The investigation could result in disciplinary action for misconduct or criminal charges.

For the first time in 30 years, wooden protective boards and a glass panel have been taken away to fully reveal a rare medieval artwork.

The paintings in the ruined church of St Nicolas in the Spanish town of Soria tell the story of the murder of the English Archbishop Thomas Becket.

The story of Becket is told in most British classrooms as part of medieval history lessons. He is remembered as the Archbishop of Canterbury who stood up to a king and for his trouble was murdered by the king's knights while he was praying.

The murder was to turn Becket into a saint. It was also one of the first big showdowns between the Roman Catholic Church and a European monarchy.

The European Commission has said there's been some progress towards saving Poland's Gdansk shipyard. Brussels has demanded the yards repay more than 2-billion euros in illegal state aid, raising the prospect of closure.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) -- The European Union's budget chief is strongly favored to win Lithuania's presidential election on Sunday, as crisis-weary voters seek relief from the Baltic nation's deepening economic gloom.

Lithuania -- along with neighbors Estonia and Latvia -- ranks among Europe's most depressed economies in the global downturn, and many voters hope EU Budget Commissioner and karate black-belt Dalia Grybauskaite can help the country rebound.

Even though economic polices are set by government, Grybauskaite's budgetary experience is seen as a big plus.

"They respect her as a professional in Europe, but we need Dalia more than Brussels now," said Janina Zukiene, a retiree in Vilnius, after casting an early ballot Thursday.

Lakhdar Boumediene, the Algerian man who lent his name to the landmark Boumediene v. Bush US Supreme Court case, arrived in France Friday following his release from Guantanamo Bay, the French foreign ministry announced.

France agreed to accept Boumediene following his clearance for release in November by a US judge, who ruled that the Algerian man has been illegally detained.

Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, is poised to become a key figure in the creation of a new far-right group in the European Parliament.

Fears are growing he will be at the centre of a wave of victories in next month's elections that would give nationalist parties a firm foothold in Europe.

Searchlight, the international anti-fascist magazine, has suggested they could pass the threshold of 25 MEPs from seven countries necessary to form a European Parliament grouping entitled to public funding worth up to £1 million per year.

The SNP has launched its European election campaign with a pledge to protect Scottish jobs and boost economic recovery.

Party leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond set out his stall at a renewable energy company in Edinburgh's Leith area.

He said his was the only party offering a strong voice for Scotland in Europe.

The Green Party offers voters an alternative to parties which are "mired in sleaze", it has said at the launch of its Euro election campaign.

The party is promising to create a million new jobs in green industries...[as well as]...an £44bn investment programme to boost employment in sustainable industries.

A US regulator on Friday predicted that chief executives and directors of some of the banks that underwent the stress tests could lose their jobs, in another sign of the government's desire to have a say in the running of bailed-out companies.

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said the authorities could replace management and boards at some of the 10 banks that were ordered to add fresh capital after the tests.

Thousands of workers from across the UK are set to take part in a protest march in Birmingham to call on the government to "halt the jobs crisis".

The demonstration, organised by the Unite union, is part of a campaign to press ministers to do more to help manufacturers weather the recession.

Unite chose to hold the rally in Birmingham as almost one-in-10 people in the West Midlands is now unemployed.

Former head of employers' group the CBI, Lord Jones, will be taking part.

He will be joined by workers from firms hit by the recession, including steel giant Corus and car companies Vauxhall and Jaguar Land Rover, which has plants in Gaydon in Warwickshire, Castle Bromwich, Coventry and Solihull in the West Midlands and Halewood in Merseyside.

Police in Guatemala have arrested a Twitter user and confiscated his computer for "inciting financial panic" after he urged people to remove funds from a state-owned bank.

Jean Anleu Fernandez, 37, was handcuffed, fingerprinted and jailed for posting the 96-character message on the micro-blogging site earlier this week. It is thought to be the first such case in central America.

German economic policy is "bankrupt", economists have said.

The declaration was made as it emerged that Europe's biggest economy has now suffered a worse "lost decade" than Japan and is deeper in recession than any other major economy.

On a day of dismal news for the European economy, official figures also showed that Italy, Austria, Spain and the Netherlands are facing their biggest combined slump in post-war history, sparking warnings about the potential for social unrest throughout Europe.

[Torygraph Alert]

Mats Melbin had already let 25 employees go from Örnalp Unozon in January when he learned that an additional 35 employees would likely have to lose their jobs in order to cut costs.

The combined cuts would have cut the total number of employees at Örnalp Unozon in half.

But Melbin had had enough after the first round of job cuts, and opted instead to tender his own resignation, reports the Örnsköldsviks Allehanda newspaper.

"He advocated for a reduction in employees' working hours instead of giving them notice. He refused to fire any more people and carry out the decision of the parent company Vinovo," said the union steward to the newspaper

India's ruling Congress party looked set to take an unexpectedly decisive general election victory as the 400 million-plus votes cast during the month-long election were counted this morning.

The party defied exit polls and analysts' predictions, which had indicated a much closer result. With more than 70% of the vote counted the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was set to take more than 250 seats and the opposition alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) forecast to take 160.

Sri Lankan forces said today they had taken control of the island's entire coastline, cutting off any sea escape for the Tamil Tigers amid growing international anger over attacks that have killed thousands.

The latest military advance appears to give the government full control of the coast for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, leaving the rebels trapped along with tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in a tiny pocket of territory in the north-east.

The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has vowed to defeat the remaining rebel fighters and end the 25-year-old civil war by the end of today.

Hotels in Mexico's coastal resort of Cancún, one of the world's most popular getaways, are adopting extreme measures as holidaymakers scramble to cancel bookings in the wake of the swine flu scare.

Visitors to one hotel, The Royal, are being offered a "flu-free guarantee": anyone who contracts the flu virus within 14 days of checking out gets three free annual holidays.

The hundreds of thousands of refugees now pouring out of the mountainous Swat are used to cooler climes and clean air - but they are running straight into the perilous embrace of Pakistan's sweltering summer. Aid officials warn that the soaring temperatures are already taking a merciless toll on the refugees. Children in particular are falling victim to heat stroke and dehydration. And in such cramped conditions and with poor sanitation and little water, the heat makes it more likely that diseases will spread.

Already overstretched by the 900,000 people estimated by the UN to have fled from Swat and the surrounding areas of Buner and Lower Dir in the past three weeks, officials are bracing themselves for more. Yesterday thousands of refugees streamed from Swat after the military temporarily lifted a curfew, allowing residents to escape so that it can engage the militants in "street-to-street fighting".

Washington -- In an effort to stem the flow of money from mineral mines fueling the brutal civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.S. Senate is pushing ahead with new bipartisan legislation that would force U.S. companies to track and disclose the country of origin of minerals used in common electronic products.

Durbin, along with Senators Sam Brownback, Republican from Kansas, Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, and Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, are sponsoring the Congo Conflict Minerals Act that would require U.S. companies selling products using tin, tantalum or tungsten, to disclose the country of origin of the materials to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Finance ministers and other executives busy discussing the future of Eastern European transition economies at a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development meeting were reminded of a country far from Europe which needs aid to transform its economy.

"I strongly recommend North Korea as a next candidate to become a recipient country, once it decides to transform itself into a market economy," Young Geol Lee, vice minister of strategy and finance, said in a speech. "Please bear in mind that North Korea has great potentials as a future client of the EBRD."

For decades, environmental arguments against eating meat have been largely the preserve of vegetarian websites and magazines. Just two years ago it seemed inconceivable that significant numbers of western Europeans would be ready to down their steak knives and graze on vegetation for the sake of the planet. The rapidity with which this situation has changed is astonishing.

The breakthrough came in 2006 when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a study, Livestock's Long Shadow, showing that the livestock industry is responsible for a staggering 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is only the beginning of the story. In 2008, Brazil announced that in the 12 months to July it had lost 12,000 sq km (3m acres) of the Amazon rainforest, mainly to cattle ranchers and soy producers supplying European markets with animal feed. There is water scarcity in large parts of the world, yet livestock-rearing can use up to 200 times more water a kilogram (2.2lbs) of meat produced than is used in growing wheat. Given the volatile global food prices, it seems foolhardy to divert 1.2bn tonnes of fodder - including cereals - to fuel global meat consumption, which has increased by more than two and half times since 1970

Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has reached deals with Italian, Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian energy companies to push its South Stream pipeline forward and double its capacity. The Kremlin-backed project is intended to deliver Russian natural gas to Europe, but the European Union isn't sure it's interested.

However, Russia has often been accused of using its gas reserves as a political weapon. European customers rely on Russia for one quarter of their natural gas. Tired of this dependence, the EU is looking to diversify its gas suppliers by backing the Nabucco pipeline, which would move gas westward from Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Ukraine.

VICTORIA'S stressed water storages and rivers -- both at record lows -- could face a nightmarish year of severe drought as the odds firm of an El Nino weather event hitting Australia within months.

Such an event could force Melbourne onto stage 4 restrictions, with the Yarra River unable to bear further reductions in flows to support storages upstream.

Scores of healthy foetuses die every year because most hospitals do not give ­pregnant women what the NHS says is the best test for Down's syndrome.

In an interview with the Guardian, Dr Anne Mackie, the head of NHS screening programmes, estimated 146 babies a year in England who do not have any abnormality are lost as a result of efforts to detect children with the genetic condition.

The death rate is higher than it should be because only one in three hospitals offer mothers-to-be the so-called combined test for Down's syndrome, Mackie said. It is the most accurate of the four methods the NHS uses to calculate a woman's chances of having a child with Down's. If every hospital provided the combined test, the total of what she called "normal babies lost" would be around 90.

Anti-poverty campaigners have accused Tesco of breaking a pledge to improve the pay and working conditions of South African fruit pickers who have helped the retail giant to record annual profits of more than £3bn.

Three years ago the company agreed to look at the plight of the workers - predominantly women - who are at the bottom of Tesco's lengthy but highly profitable fruit supply chain, after embarrassing scrutiny of its overseas labour practices.

But interviews by the Guardian with female workers on Tesco supplier farms near Cape Town reveal they are still only being paid South Africa's "minimum" rather than a "living" wage - which they complain leaves them barely enough to feed and clothe their children. Those interviewed are receiving just 1,231 rand, equivalent to £97.90, per month.

Everyone - the father, the son, the army - agrees that three tours of Iraq drove ­Sergeant John Russell to the edge.

But what pushed him over, into shooting dead five of his comrades in an army that was his life for 16 years, is a matter of bitter dispute.

The military has suggested that ­Russell's work cannibalising and rebuilding robots used to set off roadside bombs brought him into regular contact with gruesome casualties, and that took a toll that exploded at Camp Liberty in ­Baghdad this week.

The army says it recognised signs of trauma in the 44-year-old sergeant, who was just a few weeks from leaving Iraq, and dispatched him for psychological assessment at a military stress centre in Baghdad. Russell got into a fight there, grabbed a gun and shot two doctors and three other soldiers dead.

Police in Russia have broken up a march by gay rights activists in Moscow, staged to coincide with the final of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Several dozen campaigners had gathered near a university in defiance of a ban and some were dragged away by police when they tried to shout slogans.

British gay rights activist, Peter Tatchell, was among those detained.

Earlier, a counter-demonstration by nationalist and religious groups was allowed to go ahead.

The gay rights group had been waving flags and chanting slogans demanding equal rights and condemning the treatment of gays and lesbians in Russia.

As he was being taken away by police, Mr Tatchell shouted: "This shows the Russian people are not free."

Have you ever marvelled at how a stalwart little bee clings on to a flower during a howling gale?

Researchers have now found the answer, and discovered that flowers have evolved to help it.

The grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Moscow later, with 25 countries aiming for glory.

The UK will be represented by Jade Ewen, who is singing Andrew Lloyd Webber's song It's My Time.

Norway's singer and violinist Alexander Rybak is the bookmakers' favourite to win, closely followed by Greece, Turkey, Azerbaijan and the UK.

Graham Norton will make his debut as commentator for the BBC, replacing Sir Terry Wogan, who bowed out last year.

The bells of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral will ring out to the sounds of John Lennon's anti-religious anthem Imagine later.

A spokesman for the Anglican Cathedral said: "The cathedral feels this performance has inspired many to think about their relationship with God in their lives."

The bells are the highest and heaviest ringing peal bells in the world.

China is building its first sexually explicit theme park, and the giant genitalia sculptures and suggestive exhibits are getting many people hot and bothered in a country where talking about sex is still taboo.

Love Land is set to open in October in the south-western metropolis of Chongqing and will feature exhibitions about sexual history and how to use condoms properly. It will also host sex technique workshops, the China Daily newspaper said.

The park's manager, Lu Xiaoqing, said Love Land would help people "enjoy a harmonious sex life".

"We are building the park for the good of the public," Mr Lu said. "Sex is a taboo subject in China but people really need to have more access to information about it."