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Women who change their names after marriage could face fines of up to £1,000 if they fail to tell the Government, it was revealed.

Anyone holding a biometric passport or ID card will be required to notify the National Identity Register of changes to the personal data it holds.

Draft legislation sets out the fines payable by anyone who fails to comply.

The Home Office also revealed the £30 fixed fee for the cost of the card is set only until 2010. Most people are likely to pay more when large scale issuing of cards begins in 2011 or 2012, it emerged.

The personal details which must be kept up to date include name, address, nationality and even gender.

Special provisions have been made for people undergoing sex changes.

Transgendered people will have two cards at the same time, one for their old identity and a new one for when they have completed their sex change.

Fines will also apply if cardholders fail to report their cards lost or stolen, and will be enforceable by the civil courts.

The consultation document states fines are "not intended to be punitive or revenue raising". Officials stress card holders will usually have the fines waived if they agree to have their data updated when the errors emerge.

They say the penalties are necessary to ensure the information on the database remains current.

-Nova

[JohnCenaFan28]

A wealthy businessman who cut pages from rare and priceless books at two historic libraries to boost his own collection must wait to learn if he will be jailed for his crimes.

Iranian Farhad Hakimzadeh defaced works at the British and Bodleian libraries to improve his copies of the same books. He replaced pages that were missing or damaged with leaves cut from library copies, many of which were publicly owned.

The 60-year-old was due to be sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court after pleading guilty to 14 counts of theft in May. But sentencing on Hakimzadeh, who is a director of the Iranian Heritage Foundation and a published author, was put off until January 16.

Head of collections at the British Library Dr Kristian Jensen believes he smuggled in a scalpel and positioned himself out of the view of CCTV cameras while stealing the pages.

Dr Jensen said: "He has a profound knowledge of the field. So in a sense from my point of view that makes it worse because he actually knew the importance of what he was damaging.

"Obviously I'm angry because this is somebody extremely rich who has damaged something which belongs to everybody, completely selfishly destroyed something for his own personal benefit which this nation has invested in over generations, so this is something that people have paid for for a very long time. Some of the objects which we believe are damaged have been cared for by the nation for centuries."

The 10 British Library works which he admitted damaging were worth £71,000 alone.

He initially told police he had bought the suspect books, found in the large library in his Knightsbridge home, second hand.

British Library staff said around 150 books were defaced in total, and many of the stolen pages will never be recovered.

The works dated from as early as the 16th century and all concerned European interaction with the Middle East. A map worth £30,000 was cut out of one of the books.

-Nova

[JohnCenaFan28]

Dozens of members of the Congolese community in Britain marched on Downing Street calling for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "act boldly and act decisively" to protect people at risk from escalating violence in the country.

Around 100 people gathered in London dressed in black to symbolise mourning for the 5.4 million people estimated to have died as a result of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998.

The protestors, who met on social networking site Facebook, were led by an 11-year-old Congolese girl - born in the UK - carrying a wreath of funeral flowers.

They marched from Marylebone to the Rwandan embassy where they laid the wreath before continuing on to present a petition.

The protest was organised by student group Save The Congo. Chairman Vava Tampa said: "The petition calls upon the prime minister to take certain steps in order to restore peace, security, justice and human dignity in Congo."

The petition, which was signed by more than 3,000 people, calls for "Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his government not to turn a blind eye to the ongoing military escalation in eastern Congo, mass displacement, humanitarian crisis, famine and the use of gang rape and other forms of sexual violence against women and young girls because of their ethnicity, political allegiance or simply to gain control of rich mining areas."

Mr Tampa added: "We cannot wait for another month or two months until the UN deploys the 3,000 peacekeeping force which they approved yesterday.

"The Prime Minister needs to take serious actions. He needs to act now, act boldly and act decisively.

"We need to start naming and shaming those responsible."

He added: "The UN and Congolese forces are unable to protect civilians so if the Prime Minister doesn't show leadership on this issue, then the Congo soon will witness the same violence and evil that swamped Rwanda."

-Nova

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A high-flying NHS doctor denied conspiring to kill hundreds of people in a terrorist car bombing campaign.

Mohammed Asha, 28, said he loved England, the health service and was totally committed to his medical training.

Speaking in his defence for the first time at Woolwich Crown Court, Asha said nothing would make him jeopardise his wife and young son. The court heard the neurologist describe his background in Jordan, family life, his love of poetry and his top flight education.

As he took the witness stand, Asha's barrister Stephen Kamlish QC asked him: "Are you one of the conspirators in this plot?" Asha, who has sat in the dock throughout the six week trial silently taking notes, replied loudly: "No."

Later, Mr Kamlish added: "The Crown would have us believe you are a terrorist who would throw it all away."

Asha replied: "I would never jeopardise my family or my wife for anything in the world."

Before he spoke out, Mr Kamlish warned the jury his client would "fight for his life" in the witness box.

He said: "This is the man you are trying, he is a pacifist, he is a decent man and he is a man dedicated in an extreme way. There is the irony, Bilal Abdulla, an extremist, describes Mohammed Asha's dedication to medicine as extreme, and that is why he is not guilty."

Asha and Abdulla are on trial accused of conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions. They deny the offences.

The men were behind car bomb attacks on London's West End and a suicide attack on Glasgow Airport, the court has heard.

-Nova

[JohnCenaFan28]

Boris Johnson's advisers are to study the potential benefits of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, the Mayor of London has revealed.

He moved to reopen the debate over how to deal with hundreds of thousands of people working illegally in the UK, insisting that simply deporting them was "just not going to happen".

Mr Johnson's comments risk opening a rift between himself and Tory leader David Cameron, with whom he openly clashed on the issue of an amnesty earlier this year.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, the Conservative mayor said that allowing long-term illegal immigrants to earn the right to stay in Britain would see "hugely increased" tax revenues.

Of the 700,000 thought to be working illegally in the UK, about 400,000 are in London.

"What I want to do is to commission a study by my own economics team here at the Greater London Authority into the possibility," he said.

"We want to look in detail at what the economic impact of such an earned amnesty system would be."

He acknowledged that illegal immigrants had broken the law and should "in principle" be deported. But he added: "Unfortunately it is just not going to happen."

Mr Johnson insisted that he did not want to incentivise illegal immigration but said there were significant legal and financial obstacles to mass deportations.

He suggested that those allowed to stay would have to be at least five years resident and able to demonstrate their commitment "to this society and to this economy."

-Nova

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The number of landlords falling behind on their mortgage repayments has soared by 50% as the buy-to-let boom turns to bust.

According to Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) data, the arrears rate in the buy-to-let sector was 1.58%, exceeding the whole market rate for the first time since CML records began in 1998.

The CML figures also showed home repossessions in the third quarter were up 12% compared to the previous three months, to 11,300, and the number of borrowers who were more than three months in arrears also rose, by 8% to 168,000.

The number of buy-to-let borrowers falling into arrears was up to 18,000 in the three months to the end of September, from 12,000 in the previous quarter.

Landlords were finding it increasingly difficult to pay their loans because of falling rents and over-supply in some areas, according to the CML.

The CML said the traditional "exit strategy" of selling up if they get into difficulties has been curtailed as buyers dry up.

CML figures showed 900 properties owned by buy-to-let investors were repossessed in the third quarter, the same as in the first and second quarters of the year. But this resilience was "unlikely to be maintained" in the future, the CML said.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said the increased rate of buy-to-let borrowers going into arrears on their mortgages was "ominous".

Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist, said: "The latest RICS survey of the residential lettings market shows rents are now declining which, if persistent, could exacerbate the pain in this sector."

As unemployment rises and low-interest rates come to an end, more people have struggled to meet their mortgage repayments. The rise in the number of households falling behind on their mortgages was larger-than-expected, prompting the CML to warn that "in a worsening economy, the number of households in arrears by the end of the year is likely to exceed the previous forecast of 170,000".

-Nova

[JohnCenaFan28]

Prime Minister Gordon Brown tried to put a lid on speculation about a spring general election, insisting that reports he was considering going to the polls in June could be discounted.

Without actually ruling out any particular date for a poll, Mr Brown insisted that his full attention was focused on guiding the country through economic turmoil and said he was "not thinking about anything else".

Mr Brown was widely criticised last year for allowing rumours about a snap election to build up unchecked, and many at Westminster blamed Labour's subsequent slump in the polls on the PM's "dithering" over whether to go to the country.

In an apparent attempt to avoid a repeat of last summer's frenzied speculation, Mr Brown was firm in rejecting reports that he was considering an election on June 4 next year to capitalise on public approval for his handling of the financial crisis.

Following a set of increasingly strong showings in the opinion polls - most recently cutting the Conservative lead to three points - Labour MPs have openly urged the PM to call a snap election before the economy gets worse.

The Evening Standard quoted unnamed "insiders" as saying that Mr Brown was "seriously considering" a June 4 poll to coincide with the local and European elections.

But challenged on the report by Jeremy Vine in an interview on BBC Radio 2 today, the Prime Minister said: "My undivided attention is on the economy. I am not thinking about anything else.

"It is 100% of my attention, and you can just discount all of these stories."

Labour's election supremo Douglas Alexander said on Sunday that he had not held any discussions with the Prime Minister about the poll date, telling the BBC: "As election co-ordinator, I have not spoken to Gordon Brown about the possibility of an election. We are getting on with the job."

-Nova

[JohnCenaFan28]

Ministers have agreed to release a detailed report into the mistakes made by authorities in the Baby P case to a select group of MPs.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls told the Commons on Thursday that Government lawyers had advised him not to make the full serious case review available. He cited a 2006 ruling by the Information Commissioner in a separate case and voiced concerns that identifying the professionals involved in the case could jeopardise future investigations.

But the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) said five MPs would be allowed to study the full report.

Baby P died in a blood-splattered cot in Haringey, north London, in August last year. He had suffered more than 50 injuries at the hands of his abusive mother, her boyfriend and a lodger despite repeated visits by the authorities.

A 15-page summary of the serious case review was published at the end of an Old Bailey trial last week.

Now the full report will be made available to Conservative and Lib-Dem children's spokesmen Michael Gove and David Laws, Children, Schools and Families select committee chairman Barry Sheerman and local MPs Lynne Featherstone and David Lammy.

The MPs will be allowed to read the document on "privy council terms", meaning they must keep its contents secret.

A DCSF spokeswoman said: "As Ed Balls said in the House of Commons yesterday and in his letter to the opposition children, schools and families spokesmen, he has been keen to find a way to enable them to study the serious case review report but remaining consistent with the principle that these documents remain unpublished and confidential."

She added: "In order to ensure that future serious case reviews are not undermined and achieve their purpose, it remains vital to keep the serious case review confidential.

"As we have already said, we will publish the full report from the joint inspectors' review into Haringey together with the Government's response. Ed Balls has already confirmed that opposition spokesmen and local MPs will be invited in for a briefing before it is published."

-Nova