Daily View 2×2: 16 August 2009 – UK death toll in Afghanistan reaches 200

The rest of The Voice’s Daily View team may have decided to have a lie in each morning during August, but we’re made of sterner stuff here on the Sunday slot (for the moment). And as it’s a Sunday, it’s also time for another bonus musical extra.

Big Stories

UK death toll in Afghanistan reaches 200

A British soldier has died from wounds suffered in Afghanistan, taking the number of UK troops killed since operations began in 2001 to 200.

The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, died in hospital in Birmingham. Family have been informed. [BBC]

Britain imposes direct rule of Turks and Caicos isles

Britain says it has suspended the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands and imposed direct rule after allegations of systemic corruption and “serious dishonesty”.

British Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant said he instructed the British governor of the island territory to suspend the ministerial government and the House of Assembly for as long as two years. [CNN]

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

• Nader Fekri marks Indian independence with an extract from Nehru’s speech. [Link now defunct] I find the speech both uplifting – it’s a fantastic piece of rhetoric – and also depressing – for the fine words jar so badly with the bloodshed running up to independence.
• There have been at time quite acerbic exchanges in the last few days about the NHS on Lib Dem blogs. Charlotte Gore’s latest post, The Common Ground?, sets out some of the substantive policy issues.

(Both of these posts have been selected from those which appeared on Lib Dem Blogs on Saturday. To read more from other Liberal Democrat blogs, take a look at the Lib Dem Blogs website and to see what Lib Dems have been saying on Twitter, take a look at Liberal Tweets.)

Sunday Bonus

As is now very nearly traditional, here’s another song about computing. Get your keyboard and coffee cup ready to play along. [Or not, as the video is no longer on YouTube.]