British economy claims new victim - Prince Charles' veg shop

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's weak economy has taken its toll on the nation's poshest greengrocer with Prince Charles forced to close his organic vegetable store, citing falling trade and rising prices.

Prince Charles, the heir to the throne and a champion of the environment, opened a store near to his country home Highgrove in Gloucestershire, south-west England, about eight years ago after converting his estate to organic farming in 1986.

The store, The Veg Shed, sold organic vegetables and fruit freshly grown on the estate's Duchy Home Farm and became known for selling edible but oddly shaped organic produce that would normally be rejected by supermarkets.

But a spokeswoman for the prince said the store had closed after it failed to make a profit as it was no longer financially viable. The produce was invariably more expensive than at local supermarkets.

"The Veg Shed has closed, basically in response to consumer trends, a preference for shopping remotely," a spokeswoman from Clarence House, the prince's official London residence, told Reuters on Tuesday.

She said consumers wanting a taste of the royal organic produce can still order boxes online.

(Reporting by Limei Hoang, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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Police examine 600 new hacking claims at Murdoch paper - report

LONDON (Reuters) - Police are investigating an estimated 600 new allegations of phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World newspaper, Guardian newspaper said on Friday.

The news comes at a sensitive time for the media, with a divisive parliamentary vote on how to regulate Britain's famously aggressive newspapers due to be held on Monday.

Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing for a form of self-regulation, while the opposition and his Liberal Democrat coalition partners want any new regulatory framework to be backed by new legislation.

Citing unnamed sources, the Guardian said new hacking information had been obtained from the phone records of an "insider" who is now being lined up as a prosecution witness, and that more details would emerge in court on Monday.

News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch's News Corp media empire, was not immediately available for comment.

Scores of celebrities, politicians, crime victims and others have sued or demanded compensation from News International since hacking revelations emerged two years ago.

Britons were shocked to learn that News of the World journalists had hacked the phone of a murdered school girl, but the practice is now known to have been more extensive.

Allegations of phone hacking have since spread to another newspaper, the Sunday Mirror, and police arrested four former editors from the tabloid on Thursday, sending shares in parent company Trinity Mirror tumbling.

The Guardian said the same insider behind new allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World also led to the arrests at the Sunday Mirror.

On Friday, British media reported that Richard Wallace, a former editor of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror's sister paper, was questioned by police but was not arrested.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Ex-BBC DJ arrested again over sex offence claims

LONDON (Reuters) - Former BBC radio presenter Dave Lee Travis, praised by Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi for entertaining her with his weekly show during her years in captivity, has been re-arrested over further allegations of sex offences, London police said on Wednesday.

Travis, 67, was first arrested last November by detectives working on Operation Yewtree, an inquiry centred on claims against the late BBC TV host Jimmy Savile. Travis has denied any impropriety.

Savile was one of Britain's biggest stars in the 1970s and 1980s but since his 2011 death, police discovered he had carried out sex crimes on an unprecedented scale.

Police said "Yewtree 4" - their arrest identification for Travis - was quizzed over new allegations when he answered bail on Monday. He was later released on bail until April.

"On his return on March 11, the man in his 60s was further arrested on suspicion of sexual offences in connection with further allegations made to Operation Yewtree," a police spokesman said.

A number of high-profile figures, including Jim Davidson, a comedian who hosted prime-time shows on the BBC in the 1990s and Max Clifford, Britain's most high-profile celebrity publicist, have also been arrested by Operation Yewtree detectives.

Police have been examining three categories of alleged offences: those involving only Savile, which make up the majority of cases; those involving Savile and others; and those which had no direct link to Savile.

The arrest of Travis falls into the last category.

Well-known in Britain for his years as a DJ on BBC Radio 1, Travis, nicknamed the "Hairy Cornflake" for his bushy beard, admitted he was astonished to learn that Suu Kyi had been a big fan of his show on the BBC World Service during her 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.

She singled out his music request programme "A Jolly Good Show" for making her "world much more complete".

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Tim Castle)

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Afghans hold anti-U.S. rally following abuse claims

Maiden Shar, AFGHANISTAN (Reuters) - More than five hundred men marched through the capital of Afghanistan's restive Wardak province on Tuesday in an outburst of anger against U.S. special forces accused of overseeing torture and killings in the area.

Shouting "Death to America", "Death to Obama" and "Death to special forces", the protesters called for the immediate withdrawal of the American soldiers and threatened to join the Taliban if their demand was not met.

A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced on Sunday that all U.S. special forces must leave Wardak province within two weeks following the accusations that Afghans working for them had tortured and killed innocent people.

Karzai's demand could further complicate talks between the United States and Afghanistan over the presence of American troops once most NATO forces leave the country by the end of 2014.

Reuters interviewed dozens of residents of Wardak and Afghan government officials who alleged that Afghan men working with a small unit of U.S. special forces had illegally detained, tortured and killed suspected insurgents.

A U.S. defense official in Washington said a review in recent months in cooperation with Afghanistan's Defense Ministry and National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agency found no involvement of Western forces in any abuse.

The peaceful two-hour protest began on Tuesday at the offices of the Wardak provincial council shortly after it held a meeting.

"If the situation remains like this, this province will collapse very soon," said protester Haji Abdul Qadim. "People will join the insurgency very soon because of the abuses of these forces."

In another incident that could feed local hostility to the American forces in Wardak, a Swedish organization which runs health clinics across Afghanistan accused the U.S. military on Tuesday of occupying and damaging one of its facilities.

The incident occurred before dawn on February 11, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) said in a statement.

"Foreign soldiers entered the ... health facility by force, tied up and blindfolded the guard on duty, and occupied the facility," the statement said.

Doors and windows were broken and medical equipment was destroyed, SCA director Andreas Stefansson said.

It was the second time one of SCA's clinics had been occupied by foreign forces since October, when soldiers spent three days in another Wardak clinic.

After the October incident, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had told them it would ensure it did not happen again, Stefansson said.

"What we are seeking is that they actually live up to what they say," Stefansson said.

A spokesman for ISAF said the latest operation was carried out in conjunction with Afghan forces and aimed at detaining an insurgent leader who had taken refuge inside the clinic.

ISAF said the building was not marked as a medical facility and they had compensated residents for the damage.

Stefansson also said a group of Afghan special forces had bullied and threatened the lives of health workers at the Maidan Shar hospital several days earlier.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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Clegg on defensive as sexual harassment claims batter party

LONDON (Reuters) - Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Sunday denied covering up allegations of sexual misconduct by a former senior member of his Liberal Democrat party, already floundering in opinion polls.

Allegations of sexual impropriety by former party chief executive Chris Rennard threaten to engulf Clegg and further undermine the Lib Dems, the junior member of Britain's coalition government.

The latest furore comes at a bad time for the party, after the resignation of cabinet minister Chris Huhne this month who admitted he had asked his then wife to accept a penalty for a 2003 speeding offence he had committed.

A local election to replace Huhne is to be held on February 28.

Rennard, the mastermind behind the party's election strategy before quitting in 2009, was accused in a report by Britain's Channel 4 television channel on Thursday of inappropriately touching female party members and activists several years ago.

The report has since triggered a flurry of similar allegations in the British media.

Lawyers for Rennard, a member of parliament's upper house, said after the Channel 4 report that he was "deeply shocked by and strongly disputes" the allegations made against him.

Media reports have since then accused Clegg of knowing of the allegations long ago but not investigating them.

"I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not have acted if these allegations had been put to me," Clegg said late on Sunday, rejecting suggestions of a "cover up".

He said was made aware of "indirect and non-specific concerns" about Rennard in 2008, and had acted on them, but there was a limit to how far the party could take the matter given sources of the concerns were indirect and anonymous.

The Lib Dems have announced two internal inquiries since more detail has come to light, one into how the party handled the allegations, and another into the allegations themselves. Clegg said they would reveal the truth of what happened.

"But in the meantime, I will not stand by and allow my party to be subject to a show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs," Clegg said.

Britain's opposition Labour party demanded an independent investigation.

"This series of allegations are too serious to allow the Lib Dems to investigate themselves," said Labour lawmaker Bridget Phillipson.

"Nick Clegg and other senior Liberal Democrat lawmakers and officials must come clean about what they knew and what action was taken about these serious allegations," she added.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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