Islamist militants have offered to free a British-South African hostage if London allows radical cleric Abu Qatada to choose a country for his extradition, U.S. monitoring service SITE said.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) also threatened that Britain would "open the door of evil" unto its country and people should it send the imam back to his native Jordan where he faces jail, the report said.

Britain's economy sank back into recession in the first quarter, when it contracted by 0.2 percent amid ongoing state austerity and the eurozone debt crisis, official data showed on Wednesday.

The British economy has now returned to a technical recession, defined as two successive quarters of contraction, after shrinking by 0.3 percent in the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed.

The restored Cutty Sark will be re-opened by Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday, five years after the 19th century British tea clipper was ravaged by fire.

The three-masted ship, one of Britain's maritime treasures, has been restored to its former glory at a cost of £50 million (61 million euros, $81 million).

Britain is giving "increased emphasis" to its relationship with Asia and is expanding its diplomatic presence in the region, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday in Vietnam.

Hague, the first British foreign secretary to visit Hanoi in 17 years, said the two-day visit was part of a new drive to bolster the "very important" relationship between the two countries, particularly improving business ties.

Britain's Prince Harry was on Monday awarded a humanitarian prize for his work supporting charities which help injured British and U.S. servicemen and women.

The 27-year-old prince will accept the award from the Atlantic Council at a ceremony in Washington on May 7.

Queues of French expatriates voting in the first round of presidential elections formed outside polling stations in London on Sunday.

With around 300,000 French residents, London is often described as France's sixth biggest city, and the vast majority of Britain's 72,000 registered French voters are casting their ballots in the capital.

British police said Friday they had arrested three men at London's Heathrow airport as they flew in from Oman on suspicion of possessing documents intended for "terrorist purposes" overseas.

West Midlands Police said the men arrested late Thursday, two of them aged 33 and one aged 39, were from the central English city of Birmingham but would not say whether they were British or foreign nationals.

British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Alistair Burt hailed on Friday the efforts exerted by Prime Minister Najib Miqati to maintain stability in Lebanon.

“The meeting with the premier was excellent,” Burt told reporters at the Grand Serail.

A pair of British plastic surgeons said Tuesday the rupture rate of PIP breast implants behind a global health scare may be as high as one in three, significantly more than previously thought.

A study of 453 of their patients who had received PIP implants between seven and 12 years ago showed a rupture rate of between 15.9 percent and 33.8 percent.

The amount of salt on the menus of the six biggest fast food companies varies greatly from nation to nation, according to a study Monday that calls for regulations to curb sodium intake.

"We saw marked variability in the reported salt content of products provided by major transnational fast food companies," said Norman Campbell, lead author of the study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.