LONDON (Reuters) – Commonwealth foreign ministers will hold talks on the crisis in the Maldives, whose former president says he was forced out of power at gunpoint, Commonwealth officials said on Saturday.

Akbar Khan, leading a Commonwealth fact-finding mission to the Maldives, said Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma had called an extraordinary meeting of nine foreign ministers who form the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the 54-member group’s democracy watchdog.

STOCKHOLM, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Prime Minister David
Cameron hit back at Argentina on Thursday over its plans to
protest to the United Nations against British “militarisation”
of the Falklands, saying islanders would have London’s backing
for as long as they wished to remain British.

Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez accused Britain on
Tuesday of “militarizing the South Atlantic” and said she would
complain to the United Nations, as tension rises before the 30th
anniversary of the Falklands war this year.

STOCKHOLM, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Prime Minister David
Cameron hit back at Argentina on Thursday over its plans to
protest to the United Nations against British “militarisation”
of the Falklands, saying islanders would have London’s backing
for as long as they wished to remain British.

Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez accused Britain on
Tuesday of “militarising the South Atlantic” and said she would
complain to the United Nations, as tension rises before the 30th
anniversary of the Falklands war this year.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Greece may dominate the headlines and France and Germany may be where the power lies, but heads of Nordic and Baltic countries on Thursday touted themselves as possible role models for the rest of crisis-ridden Europe.

Nine prime ministers gathered at a contemporary photography museum in Stockholm to discuss how to promote women into top jobs and keep the elderly working longer – topics that contrast sharply with most other EU summits dominated by the debt crisis.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is recalling its ambassador to Syria for consultations as a diplomatic protest against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on protesters, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Monday.

The Syrian ambassador in London was also summoned to the Foreign Office to hear a British protest over the violence in Syria, Hague told parliament.

LONDON (Reuters) – Ed Miliband will step up his attacks on extravagant bankers’ bonuses on Friday, saying banks face intense public anger and isolation unless they change their ways.

In a speech on “The future for banking” hosted by Thomson Reuters on Friday, the leader of the Labour Party will call for an end to a “culture of excessive bonuses.”

LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) – British opposition leader Ed
Miliband will step up his attacks on extravagant bankers’
bonuses on Friday, saying banks face intense public anger and
isolation unless they change their ways.

In a speech on “The future for banking” hosted by Thomson
Reuters on Friday, the leader of the centre-left Labour Party
will call for an end to a “culture of excessive bonuses”.

LONDON (Reuters) – A British minister will travel to the Falkland Islands in June to take part in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Britain’s recapture of the islands from occupying Argentine troops, a visit that could rile Buenos Aires.

Britain said it would send one of its most advanced warships, the destroyer HMS Dauntless, to the South Atlantic in the coming months to replace another ship on patrol, but that the move was long planned and “entirely routine”.

LONDON (Reuters) – A minister will travel to the Falkland Islands in June to take part in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Britain’s recapture of the islands from occupying Argentine troops, a visit that could rile Buenos Aires.

Britain, meanwhile, said it would send one of its most advanced warships, the destroyer HMS Dauntless, to the South Atlantic in the coming months to replace another ship on patrol but said the move was long planned and “entirely routine.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Foreign troops must carefully phase their withdrawal from Afghanistan ahead of an end-2014 deadline, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday, after France suggested giving Afghan forces full responsibility for security in 2013.

“I don’t want to see some sort of cliff edge in 2014 when all of the remaining troops come out at once,” Cameron said during talks in London with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.