Three elderly Kenyans who are suing the government for damages were told it did not dispute that "terrible things" had happened to them.

Their lawyers say it is the first ever official acknowledgement by the UK.

The revolt against British rule in Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s was marked by atrocities, with thousands killed.

The British government argues that too much time has passed for a fair hearing to be conducted.

Before starting cross-examination of witnesses, the QC for the British government, Guy Mansfield, said he did not want to dispute that civilians had suffered "torture and ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration".

He spoke directly to each of the witnesses, saying he did "not want to dispute the fact that terrible things happened to you".

Security has been stepped up around French president Francois Hollande after a gun-wielding man tried to break into the Elysée Palace. The would-be intruder, who has not been named, was arrested at the gates of the head of state's official Paris home on Sunday afternoon.

It led to fears that the 30-year-old was trying to mimic an attempt on the life of former French president Jacques Chirac a decade ago.

Referring to the latest incident, in which no-one was hurt, a police source in the French capital said: 'The man was carrying a gun, which turned out to be a replica 7.65mm pistol.

'He was carrying false papers, and provided no motive for what he did. He remains in custody, and the Paris prosecutors' office has recommended that he receives psychiatric care.

'In the meantime, security has certainly been tightened around the President.'

The U.S. military will not allow Iran to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Wednesday, adding that if Iran tries to disrupt the vital waterway, they will be defeated.

Iran's leaders have threatened to close down the Strait unless sanctions against their critical oil shipments are lifted. The Pentagon chief said the U.S. will not allow either Iran or any of its allies to stop shipping through the Strait.

"Iranians need to understand that the United States and the international community are going to hold them directly responsible for any disruption of shipping in that region by Iran or, for that matter, by its surrogates," Panetta said, adding, "and the United States is fully prepared for all contingencies."

Panetta's comments came on the heels of the Pentagon's announcement that the U.S. Navy would accelerate the deployment of the USS John Stennis carrier group to the Gulf region. The more than 5,000 sailors will deploy about four months earlier than originally scheduled so the U.S. can maintain a two-carrier presence in the area through the end of the year.

Syria's defense minister and President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law were killed in a Damascus bomb attack on Wednesday, state television reported, the most serious blow to Assad's high command in the country's 16-month-old rebellion.

The bomber -- said by a Reuters security source to be a bodyguard assigned to Assad's inner circle -- struck during a meeting attended by ministers and senior security officials in the Syrian capital as battles raged within sight of the presidential palace.

Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general, was the country's most senior Christian government official. Assad appointed him to the post last year.

Within hours, Syrian State TV announced that Brig. Gen. Fahed Jassim el Friej would replace Rajha.

Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat -- widely seen as a member of the president's inner circle -- was also reportedly killed in the attack.

Authorities in Belarus have arrested a student as a suspected accomplice in violating the country's borders after he published photos of a mysterious mass landing of teddy bears brandishing protest slogans.

Anton Suryapin, a journalism student in Minsk, was detained on July 13 after the security services - still known as the KGB - searched his home and confiscated his computer, said Belarussian Journalism Association head Andrei Bastunets.

The 20-year-old was placed under arrest as part of a probe into illegal border crossing, and named as an accomplice "based on his publishing of exclusive photos of the 'Swedish teddy-bears'," Bastunets told AFP.

Authorities in the isolated country have denied reports in Swedish media claiming in early July that a small plane crossed the border from Lithuania into Belarus where it air-dropped hundreds of teddy bears on little parachutes holding signs demanding human rights and political freedoms.

Little evidence of the drop surfaced besides one viral video showing a plane pass over what seems to be a provincial town releasing tiny objects and a photo of a bear holding a tiny placard.

At least 20 injured after attack on Israeli tour bus at the Burgas Airport on 18th anniversary of Iran-sponsored bombing of Jewish center in Argentina; Bulgarian FM in touch with Liberman, headed to site.

Three Israelis were killed and many injured when a suicide bomber blew up an Israeli tourist bus at the airport of the Bulgarian city of Burgas on Wednesday, the 18th anniversary of the Iran-sponsored attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The bus was carrying Israeli tourists who landed in Bulgaria at a 4:45 p.m.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman spoke with his Bulgarian counterpart Nikolay Mladenov in relation to the explosion.

Mladenov is heading to the site of the blast and said that he will bring Liberman up to date when he arrives.

Liberman called for an immediate meeting at the Foreign Ministry's situation room to discuss the issue with the relevant bodies.

The Israeli embassy in Bulgaria is also investigating the explosion.

ZAKA and MDA rescue services in Israel were preparing delegations to fly to Bulgaria.

As if there weren't already enough factions jockeying for position as the backers of the Syrian revolution, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh staked out his own claim today, effectively cutting the Hamas movement's longtime ties with the Assad regime.

"I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," Haniyeh said, during a speech before thousands of worshipers in Cairo. People in the crowd at the Sunni mosque chanted "no Hezbollah and no Iran, the Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution."

The move was not a complete surprise, as Hamas has been trying to realign itself, away from its traditional backing of Iran and into the milieu of Sunni nationalist movements that have flourished in the Arab Spring. It is a more natural fit for Hamas, and one that could confer renewed legitimacy on the movement across the Middle East.

There was a brief flurry of stories in the media at the beginning of what has become a historic summer of hot weather across the U.S. that global warming was to blame. They faded swiftly because the public has concluded that global warming is the mother of all hoaxes, because we are in the midst of a failing economy and the political campaigns that will decide if the nation literally lives or dies.

This has not stopped the Public Broadcast System's News Hour from airing a new series "on how climate change in the Pacific Northwest is affecting the region's Native American Indian tribes - flooding their reservations and threatening the region's salmon fisheries." Climate change is shorthand for global warming.

While the nation's media continues to propagate the hoax, what hope is there for the TRUTH?

Significantly "the NewsHour's year-long Coping with Climate Change series is funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation." The nation's leading foundations have been funding the global warming hoax for decades and continue to do so.

So one more article about the deception and duplicity of global warming may seem superfluous and it would be if the U.S. Air Force wasn't spending $59 per gallon of "green biofuel" and the U.S. Navy wasn't doing the same for its Great Green Fleet. The justification for this is the utterly false assertion that "alternatives" are needed in the event we can't produce or import petroleum.

The U.S. is floating on an ocean of oil, but for now it can only be extracted from lands owned privately because the Obama administration has done everything in its power to restrict access to it on federally owned lands and, of course, the billions of barrels locked up off-shore.

Goldman Sachs Group, the major US bank has created an in-house bank to lend money to wealthy people and companies, aiming to make deposits less vulnerable to the volatile markets.

­The move is in line with a strategy to turn Goldman Sachs into a private bank to serve rich individuals around the world, the Wall Street Journal reports. The new business will also lend more directly to corporations, particularly those, which do business with Goldman. The bank plans to boost its loan portfolio to $100 billion from $12 billion in April.

Israel's high-flying governing coalition crashed to Earth on Tuesday barely two months after getting off the ground, unable to agree on a formula for conscripting the country's ultra-Orthodox into the military. With the resignation of Shaul Mofaz as Deputy Prime Minister and the loss of his Kadima party's 28 parliamentary seats, out went the chances for formative changes in the country and the region.

When Mr. Mofaz, a former defence minister and military chief of staff, took the unexpected step of joining the right-of-centre coalition, giving the government of Benjamin Netanyahu 94 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, the Prime Minister promised three things in return: The wholesale exemptions from conscription given to the Haredim would be abolished; the electoral process would be reformed to make it harder for small parties to be elected; and there would be a new effort to advance a peace agreement with Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza.

With such numerical superiority, the way seemed clear for the government to pass such measures without worrying about opposition from smaller right-wing and religious parties inside the coalition.

The much-heralded unity government was all for naught, it seems.

"Netanyahu has chosen to side with the draft-dodgers," Mr. Mofaz said Tuesday, announcing Kadima's withdrawal from the government.