An Afghan security force which has faced corruption allegations is to be doubled in size as the West embarks on its exit path from the war.

Pakistani acid attack victims who were featured in an Oscar-winning documentary are taking legal action to stop the film from being shown in their country, amid fears they may be shunned by their communities.

Two of David Cameron’s most senior and trusted advisors were having back door text chats with News Corp’s chief lobbyist at the height of the Milly Dowler scandal, it emerged tonight.

This is no place for an England manager trying to make his way. At the Ullevaal Stadium, to which the national side return tonight, Ron Greenwood hit the bottom in a defeat to Norway remembered less for the 2-1 scoreline, 31 years ago, than Norwegian broadcaster Bjorge Lillelien's ecstatic audit of the spirits who had been vanquished: Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper and Lady Diana. "Maggie Thatcher, your boys took one helluva beating."

You have to hand it to the London 2012 Festival team. When they call it "a once in a lifetime experience", I rather think they mean it. In an "age of austerity", this almighty splurge is not to be sniffed at. More than 25,000 performers and 12,000 events are involved, with every corner of the country, more or less, becoming part of it. Heaps of it is free at the point of use. And if the full programme is... well, a little confusing, perhaps it could scarcely be otherwise, given the sheer scale of the bonanza.

Just as dealers yesterday were preparing to head off to the pub, up popped an announcement from Tullow Oil. If there was any annoyance on trading desks at the lateness of the statement, then they could console themselves with the fact that the blue-chip explorer's day wasn't exactly going to plan.

Could the seeds of the ruthless social Darwinism espoused in Adrian Beecroft's controversial report into reforming Britain's employment laws have been sown in the chilly corridors of the Boston Consulting Group?

It was all Angela Merkel's fault. That is, the photo of a jubilant David Cameron holding his arms high during a G8 summit at Camp David as Chelsea beat Bayern Munich on penalties.

Dixons Retail, owner of the Currys and PC World chains, has agreed a new £300m working capital facility withits syndicate of banks.

Tony Blair will give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on Monday, three days before the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt provides testimony that is likely to decide his Cabinet future.

Jeremy Hunt made his business fortune by founding a publishing venture, Hotcourses, offering specialist further education to help students new and old to enhance or change their careers.

Alex Salmond launched the campaign for Scottish independence yesterday, telling nationalists to collect the signatures of one million Scots to ensure victory in the 2014 referendum.

David Adams, former chairman of the embattled camera retailer Jessops, has again demonstrated his penchant for a challenge by joining the board of the troubled entertainment group HMV. He will join HMV, which made a loss of £16m for the year to 28 April, in June and chair its audit committee, replacing Christopher Rogers who is retiring from the board after six years. Shares in HMV were flat at 3.6p.

The fight for Egypt's future looks likely to boil down to a showdown between the Muslim Brotherhood and a former fighter pilot with ties to the old regime, as the last votes were tallied in a presidential election that one leading activist said would lead to a "second revolution".

The developer Helical Bar was back in the black yesterday and is set to fire the starting gun on a £1.5bn housing scheme at White City in west London. The company is ready to submit a planning application for 1,200 flats on the site of a former Dairy Crest plant next to the local Underground station, which will also include offices and retail.

South Africa and Australia will be partners in the development of the biggest radio telescope ever built, astronomers meeting in The Netherlands announced yesterday.

My best and worst restaurant meals of last year were both eaten in France – within 10km of each other in the Seine-Maritime département of Normandy where I share a holiday home. The menu of the worst meal was like being frog-marched back to the 1970s, to a time when croquette potatoes, tinned Russian salad and garish crab sticks could be served without irony.

Teams of volunteers were heading to an uninhabited island in Prince William Sound near Anchorage yesterday to clean up debris washed out to sea by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami last year and sent by Pacific currents to Alaska.

The prospect of breaking Russia's stranglehold on gas supplies to the West receded yesterday as the new Nabucco pipeline was thrown into doubt.

Warda al Djazairia, the Rose of Algeria, was perhaps the last great Arab diva of the pre-pop era, a name to rank along with 20th century stars of the languorous, Egyptian-dominated ballad such as Oum Kalsoum and Asmahan. But she was also an emblem and product of the country she was most closely identified with, Algeria, and her death came months from the 50th anniversary of the national independence she so energetically supported. She was given a state funeral in Algiers, and was still massively popular. But although her songs resounded through the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt last year, it is notable that the letters pages of the Algerian press featured dissonant voices among the many eulogies, criticisms that she was a crony of the despots who had ruled the region for too long.

Henry Macrory, the former tabloid hack and much-liked spinner for the Tory Party, told a tale of classic misunderstanding at his farewell party in Downing Street.

Spain's economic crisis intensified yesterday as Madrid prepared to pump at least €15bn (£12bn) into the country's fourth-biggest bank, sending the euro plunging on a fresh day of turmoil for the eurozone.

It all began with an abbreviated birth certificate that carried only the barest details. I had known since childhood that I was born 'out of wedlock', and that my father had deserted my mother as soon as he discovered she was pregnant in November 1950. But it wasn't until I looked up my full birth certificate after my mother's death in 2001 that I discovered I'd been born in a hostel for unmarried mothers.

A crime reporter has been charged with robbing a liquor store and shooting at police.