Met to probe MI5 over torture claims new

Scandal of Britain's fruit-farm workers

Jerome Taylor: Bulgarians are flown to Britain, live in packed caravan compounds and pocket just £45 a week to pick fruit for our biggest retailers, an investigation by The Independent has found.

Obama plans nuclear talks to lift threat of proliferation

Britain insists £25bn Trident programme 'not on the table' in March meeting

Australia take Ashes lead  new

Australia were today setting their sights on a major first-innings lead in the opening Ashes Test after overcoming the loss of three quick wickets to frustrate England's efforts.

Chris Boardman: 'I just didn't have enough testosterone for the Tour'

The Brian Viner Interview: He won Olympic gold, set world records, and wore the famous yellow jersey three times, but the eminence grise of British cycling knows the current generation can achieve even greater highs.

Aidan Gillen - A slippery player you can bank on

From 'Queer as Folk' to 'The Wire', Aidan Gillen is an actor who refuses to be typecast. Next up, he plays a high-flying City boy in 'Freefall', the BBC's new credit crisis drama.

Breast cancer screening blamed for 'false alarms'

Thousands of women undergoing unnecessary treatment, researchers say

Secret to a longer life lies on Easter Island

Scientists have found an anti-ageing drug that works on mice – and could do the same for humans

Yard rules out inquiry as hacking row simmers on

Recriminations fly after allegations that News of the World phone-hacking targeted thousands.

The Big Question: Will it really be possible to meet the G8's climate change targets?

Google OS will be 'game changer,' says Schmidt

Eric Schmidt spent his first six years as Google's CEO resisting a push by the company's co-founders to develop their own operating system for personal computers.

Steven Wells: Journalist celebrated for his 'ranting poetry' and iconoclastic pop writing

Few cancer memoirs have happy endings. Nine days before his death from enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma, the British journalist and pop, sport and political polemicist Steven Wells wrote his last column for the Philadelphia Weekly.