UNITED KINGDOM

Following Sunday's Carling Cup triumph, Liverpool are set to invest heavily in continuing what director of football Damien Comolli has called a very interesting project.

Photographer Paul Conroy, 47 -- the first foreign journalist to escape Syria -- was being carried by stretcher from Baba Amr to the Lebanese border when the party was shelled by government forces, according to the opposition group Local Coordination Committees (LCC).

Barclays Plc said any retrospective change to UK tax laws would not have a material impact on its profits and said it alerted the UK government to a tax efficient scheme it used, sparking a government clampdown on the tax schemes.

Price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com Group PLC said its full-year profit more than doubled as more consumers used its online services, boosting performance particularly in the company's insurance and money segments.

Barclays Plc said it was the bank at the centre of a clampdown by Britain on two tax avoidance schemes that the government said would close loopholes and raise more than 500 million pounds ($792 million) in tax.

It was celebrity attorney Gloria Allred's intention to notify the press about attending an Oscar party at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunday with Ginger White, the woman who alleges she had a 13-year affair with Herman Cain. However, she accidentally copied her 380-people press list instead of blind copying them, making each recipient visible to all others. See the lengthy press list here.

British anti-capitalist protestors are being evicted from the Occupy encampment outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in the early hours of Tuesday by police and bailiffs.

Is it too soon?

A decades-old dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the remote Falkland Islands, which the Argentines call the Malvinas, heated up Monday when two Carnival Corp. cruise ships were refused entry at the port of Ushuaia.

Mobile operator Vodafone has offered to join forces with rival firms to share the 30 billion euro ($40 billion) bill to build out new superfast fiber networks in Europe, in a sign of the increasing demands being placed on operators.

The announcement came as the European Union imposed further sanctions on Syria, including freezing assets and banning travel by Syrians closely linked to Assad.

Meryl Streep won her third Oscar Sunday for Best Actress for her role as controversial British MP Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Celebrate the legendary actress's third Academy Award and record seventeenth nomination by reliving her ten most iconic roles, from Sen. Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate to Sophie in Sophie's Choice.

BP, Britain's No. 1 oil company is said to be negotiating a $14 billion settlement for the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and fouled the Gulf of Mexico for months in 2010.

Rumors have been swirling about Macaulay Culkin, who was seen in a photo earlier this month looking more than just skinny or thin, but terrifyingly gaunt.

The annual military exercise, known as Key Resolve, will involve around 200,000 South Korean and 2,100 U.S. troops in what officials from both countries have stressed is a routine training exercise.

As Syrians head to the polls, the European Union imposed a new set of sanctions on Monday in an attempt to get President Bashar al-Assad to call off his assault on the city of Homs and on opposition protestors.

Leading economies told Europe it must put up extra money to fight its debt crisis if it wants more help from the rest of the world, piling pressure on Germany to drop its opposition to a bigger European bailout fund.

HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, said paying rising wages in Brazil, China and other emerging market is the price of avoiding the slowdown being felt by most of its rivals as it posted the largest 2011 profit by a western bank.

HSBC Holdings Plc , Europe's biggest bank, predicted growth in Asia and other emerging markets would outweigh sluggish European economies this year as it posted a $21.9 billion profit for 2011, the best outturn by a western bank so far.

HSBC Holdings , Europe's biggest bank, made a $21.9 billion profit last year, the largest among western banks, as its strength in Asia helped it cope with a euro zone debt crisis that has plunged many rivals into huge losses.

British oil giant BP Plc and plaintiffs suing over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill are discussing a $14 billion settlement that is nearing completion, Bloomberg said, citing three people familiar with the talks.