News in Brief

A powerful Cabinet sub-committee to represent issues affecting women has meet for the first time. Led by the Social Security Secretary, Harriet Harman, the group of 14 senior and influential names from the upper ranks of the Labour Government fulfils the party's manifesto pledge to stand up for women's needs. The powerful sub-committee will discuss a whole range of isues that cut across government departments including childcare, domestic violence and employment issues.

Downing Street has flatly rejected suggestions that the Prime Minister and his close confidante, Peter Mandelson, have been involved in discussions about a marriage between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles. Reports this weekend suggested that Mr Mandelson, the Minister without Portfolio, was acting as an intermediary between the Prince and Tony Blair. "The Prime Minister has never expressed a view privately or publicly," said a Downing Street source. "These stories are completely and utterly untrue."

The Government is facing demands to put pressure on international football's ruling body FIFA to expel Iraq after reports that the country's World Cup soccer squad were tortured when they lost a crucial match. Seven Tory MPs have called on the Government to "ensure that Iraq is immediately expelled from international competition until these human rights abuses are brought to an end and those responsible punished". They expressed concerns about reports that Saddam Hussein's son, Udai, ordered the team, knocked out of the World Cup finals after losing 3-1 to Kazakhstan, to Radwaniyah military base. The players were "caned on the soles of their feet, beaten on their backs and threatened with indefinite imprisonment", the MPs repeated in a Commons Early Day Motion.