The announcement came hours after a political opponent criticised him for arming unofficial groups of Palestinians in Gaza.

Representatives of the South Antrim GAA handed a letter for Hilary Benn in at Erskine House in Belfast city centre on Thursday.

Peers have asked ministers to tweak a 105-year-old law to let young people work on heritage railways, before there is “no-one” with a memory of steam trains on main lines.

The Princess Royal has brought her charities together at a special Buckingham Palace forum after deciding it was the only way she wished to mark her forthcoming 75th birthday.

The Prime Minister hailed Abdullah’s ‘leadership in the region’ and described his work on the conflict as ‘really, really important’.

Search teams wound down the operation in Atalaia, near Lagos, Portugal, on Thursday, after three days of scouring scrubland and abandoned structures.