British police arrested Prime Minister David Cameron's former media chief Friday over phone hacking at the News of the World as the scandal at the doomed tabloid threatened to engulf Downing Street.

The arrest of Andy Coulson came shortly after Cameron told a press conference that he took "full responsibility" for hiring the former editor of the Sunday newspaper who quit as Cameron's communications director in January, citing pressure over the phone hacking allegations.

It's all innocent stuff: square-jawed boy meets doe-eyed girl, they fall in love, encounter a few rocky moments but ultimately seal their union with a kiss or a vague hint of sex.

Wholesome yarns like this form the heartbeat of romantic fiction, a genre that has been in existence since the mid-18th century and today sells by the bucket load.

Armed officers have arrested a suspected Basque separatist in Britain on Thursday in connection with an attempt to assassinate Spain's King Juan Carlos in 1997, police said.

Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui, 44, was detained by armed police in the university city of Cambridge, eastern England.

Britain will withdraw a further 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, but will keep soldiers in the country in a training role until at least 2023, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.

His confirmation that the second largest foreign contingent in Afghanistan will be reduced to 9,000 came a fortnight after President Barack Obama announced a big drawdown of U.S. forces.

A British soldier reported missing in Afghanistan on Monday has been found dead with gunshot wounds, the defence ministry in London said.

The soldier's body was found following an extensive search of the Nahr-e Saraj district in Afghanistan's troubled southern Helmand Province after he was reported missing from an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) checkpoint.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is to announce the withdrawal of at least 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012 following a similar drawdown by the United States, reports said Sunday.

The move would take the number of British troops in Afghanistan below the key figure of 9,000 and mark a major step towards Cameron's stated aim of having all British combat forces out of the country by 2015.

Iran has carried out secret tests of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of U.N. resolutions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday.

Hague's comments came a day after Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 14 missiles in an exercise, one of them a medium-range weapon capable of striking Israel or U.S. targets in the Gulf.

Controversial Arab-Israeli Islamist leader Sheikh Raed Saleh has been arrested in London after entering Britain in defiance of a government ban, Home Secretary Theresa May said Wednesday.

The British authorities have begun arrangements to deport Saleh, who is the head of the radical northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and have launched an investigation into how he managed to enter the country, she said.

Britain on Tuesday summoned the Syrian ambassador to express concerns about reports that a diplomat at the embassy had been intimidating Syrians in Britain, the foreign ministry said.

"Syrian Ambassador Dr. Sami Khiyami was invited in to see the (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Middle East Director Christian Turner," said a foreign ministry statement.

Britain's Andy Murray has found the perfect way to unwind after another stressful Wimbledon day - by watching the whole series of hit U.S. slasher film series Scream.

Murray, bidding to become Britain's first men's champion since Fred Perry in 1936, has reached the third round with little difficulty, buoyed by his evening TV viewing habits.