Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 12 Oct 2011

published 12 October 2011

UNDERPANTS BOMBER PLEADS GUILTYThe 'underpants bomber', Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (above), accused of trying to bring down a US-bound passenger flight on Christmas Day 2009 has changed his plea to guilty on the first day of his trial in Detroit. The Nigerian has admitted all eight charges against him, including terrorism and attempted murder. His attempts to set off a bomb in his underwear during the flight failed. US FOILS 'IRANIAN TERROR PLOT'The US claims to have foiled an Iranian-backed terror plot in Washington, arresting two Iranians alleged to have been planning to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador and bomb the Israeli embassy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran had "crossed a line" while Downing Street said it would "support measures" against Iran. Tensions behind Iran’s plot to kill Saudi’s US envoy FOX 'appalled' by his portrayalBeleaguered defence secretary Liam Fox says he is "appalled at being portrayed as having something to hide" after The Sun claimed there was a cover up over a burglary at his flat. At Prime Minister's Questions David Cameron said he would investigate whether Fox's friend Adam Werritty ever met officials at No 10 and insisted it was up to him whether Fox kept his job. Fox’s friend Werritty gets free office from Tory donor UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 17-year highUnemployment in the UK has risen to a 17-year high according to new figures from the Office of National Statistics. Between June and August the number of people out of work rose by 114,000 to 2.57 million, that is an unemployment rate of 8.1%. The number of jobless 16- to 24-year-olds was at a record high of 991,000, or 21.3%. Jobless rise exposes coalition’s lack of strategy BLACKBERRY PROBLEMS HIT AMERICAProblems with BlackBerry services have entered their third day as engineers work "day and night" to try and fix the problems that have affected the mobile devices since the problem surfaced at a data centre in Slough on Monday. The outages have now spread to North and South America as users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India still face problems. Millions of Blackberry users hit by server crash ISRAEL SWAPS PRISONERS TO FREE GILAD SHALITIsrael has agreed to swap more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captured in 2006 by Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted yesterday that Shalit "will be coming home in the next few days". The first Palestinians will be released this week, the remainder in two months. Palestinians drive hard bargain for Shalit release Why Gilad Shalit’s release is so important to Israelis ABRAMOVICH A 'GANGSTER', COURT TOLDChelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich is a "gangster", the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky told the High Court in London yesterday. Berezovsky, suing for £3bn damages on claims that he was forced to sell shares for a fraction of their value, said Abramovich had been a "messenger" for Putin, but later "formed himself as a gangster." Abramovich v Berezovsky: what’s it all about? TABAK jury visits flatsThe jury in the trial of Vincent Tabak, accused of murdering landscape architect Joanna Yeates, has visited the flat where she was allegedly killed last December, and retraced her steps through Bristol on the night she died. The jury were also shown the site where her body was found. The night Jo Yeates died - five extraordinary claims SECRET OF JOBS' BLACK TURTLENECKS REVEALEDSteve Jobs, the late Apple boss, adopted his trademark black turtleneck shirts only after failing to persuade his staff to adopt company uniforms inspired by workers at the Sony factory in Japan, Jobs's biographer Walter Isaacson revealed yesterday. Jobs asked Issey Miyake to make him "like a hundred" of the turtlenecks. MICHAEL DOUGLAS TO STAR AS LIBERACEFilm stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon have signed on to play respectively the sequined entertainer Liberace and his younger gay lover in an HBO movie, Behind the Candelabra, to be directed by Steven Soderbergh. Liberace, who died nearly 25 years ago, was once the highest paid entertainer in the world.