Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Monday 26 Jul 2010

published 26 July 2010

Another weekend gone by without the Sunday papers getting read? Didn't realise there's been one of the biggest leaks of military secrets in the history of warfare? The First Post's catch-up service, posted at 8.0 am every Monday, is designed to help... MASSIVE LEAK OF US AFGHAN DOCUMENTS More than 90,000 classified US military records, which offer a bleak portrait of the failing war against the Taliban in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December 2009, have been revealed by the website Wikileaks and published today by the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. The documents expose the special forces "black ops" designed to kill Taliban commanders without trial, and reveal a huge rise in the civilian death toll as the Taliban seek to kill Afghan police and Allied troops. US national security adviser Gen James Jones claims the leak "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security". More... BP SET TO AXE TONY HAYWARD BP is widely expected to announce the departure of its chief executive Tony Hayward this week, possibly tomorrow when its second quarter figures are due. Barclays Capital estimates the oil giant will report a loss of $13bn - the worst single-quarter loss in British corporate history. Hayward is expected to be replaced by American Robert Dudley. More... POL POT'S EXECUTIONER GETS 19 YEARSFormer Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, has been sentenced to 35 years in jail after being found guilty of crimes against humanity for overseeing the deaths of up to 15,000 people at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison during the Pol Pot years. However, the sentence was reduced to 19 years after the UN-backed war crimes court subtracted 11 years already spent behind bars and a further five years for Duch's cooperation. Many Cambodians were disappointed that Duch, who presented the 'Nazi defence' - that he was only following orders - did not receive a full life sentence. 19 DIE IN LOVE PARADE 'STAMPEDE'The annual Love Parade festival in Germany turned to chaos on Saturday when at least 19 techno music fans were trampled to death in underpasses leading to the concert area in Duisberg. Reports described a "stampede" as a crowd of up to 1m tried to get into the concert. "I have never seen anything like it," one witness told reporters. "I saw 25 people piled on top of one another, a huge heap." Pictures... 'BROKEBACK COALITION' JIBE AT CLEGG, CAMERON David Davis, the former Tory shadow home secretary, was overhead in a London wine bar last week describing the alliance between David Cameron and Nick Clegg as a 'Brokeback Coalition', in reference to the gay cowboy film, Brokeback Mountain. Clegg sought to dismiss the taunt by saying: "Most people's basic human instinct is to mock the coalition because it's new. Are we going to try something new or give in to the cynics?" The Mole... MEGRAHI RELEASE 'PREFERED BY US' A leaked letter sent from the US embassy in London to Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond last August, just a week before convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was freed from jail, suggests US authorities were not strongly opposed to his release on compassionate grounds. The letter from Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy, was obtained by the Sunday Times. It includes the sentence: "The US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose." The letter appears to undermine President Obama's claim that all Americans were "surprised and angry "at Megrahi's release. However, LeBaron appeared to be under the impression that the Libyan would live in Scotland on his release, rather than being returned to Tripoli. ED BALLS 'WON'T GIVE UP' Ed Balls, considered 'the third man' in the Labour leadership contest, has refused to quit the race after learning that Unite has endorsed Ed Miliband - despite the union's close ties with the Brownite wing of the Labour party. Balls, the shadow education secretary, told BBC Radio 4 he was "fighting to the end and I'm fighting to win". Ed's elder brother, David Miliband, remains the frontrunner. The Mole... TRIBUTES TO HURRICANE HIGGINS Tributes have poured in from fellow snooker players to Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, who has died from throat cancer at the age of 61. He won the snooker world championship twice, in 1972 and 1982, and was thought to have earned about £3m from the game. But he died virtually penniless. Steve Davis said: "He brought a genius quality that possibly hadn't been seen before." Fellow northern Irishman Dennis Taylor said: "He was one-off." More... DR DAVID KELLY 'EXTERMINATED' CLAIM The mystery over the supposed suicide in 2003 of the government scientist Dr David Kelly has taken a further twist with a former KGB agent, Boris Karpichkov, claiming that an MI5 agent called Peter Everett told him that Kelly had been "exterminated". Kelly was found dead near his Oxfordshire home after being revealed as the source of a BBC radio report which claimed the case for war in Iraq had been "sexed up". Karpichkov has sent a dossier about his meetings with Everett to Home Secretary Dominic Grieve. More... FERRARI FINED AS ALSONSO WINS GERMAN GP Fernando Alonso won yesterday's German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, but only after his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa had been given coded orders to let him past. Such team orders are banned in F1 - and got Ferrari a $100,000 fine. British driver Lewis Hamilton finished fourth, which means that he still leads the drivers table. More...