Friday's papers

Fields of poppies on the front of many of the papers as a bad week in Afghanistan coincides with Rememberance Sunday

The Prime Minister is to make a speech today on Afghanistan and the Telegraph says that Gordon Brown will warn in a speech following the death of seven soldiers in six days.

Describing the Afghan mission as a “conflict of necessity not choice,” Mr Brown will insist despite growing doubts over the continued deployment of British troops, “we cannot, must not and will not walk away”.

The Sun meanwhile reports that the wife of massacred soldier Darren Chant yesterday revealed he was due to be a father again.Muslim Nausheen, 30, is six months pregnant.

It adds though that

Gordon Brown was blasted as a "ditherer" for failing to act on his vow to send 500 more troops.

Another death and a homecoming on the front of the Mail which describes how

With staggering courage and the utmost dignity, Christina Schmid pays an instinctive tribute to the fallen bomb disposal expert - with a solitary round of applause.
Wearing Staff Sergeant Olaf 'Oz' Schmid's medals proudly on her lapel, she smiles in a humbling display of personal fortitude

The Express reports that

BRITISH troops in Afghanistan were warned by their commander yesterday that the massacre of five of their comrades by a rogue policeman “probably won’t be the last”.

Meanwhile the Independent reports that

Barack Obama is coming under mounting international pressure to make an early decision on his strategy in Afghanistan amid fears of a dangerous drift as he agonises over his next moves.

And the Times reports that

The head of the United Nations in Afghanistan threatened a complete pullout yesterday after half of his staff were evacuated following last week’s terrorist attack, in which five UN personnel died.

The Guardian leads with the news that

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design,

The paper adds that

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design

According to the Independent,British Government officials believe there is no hope of signing a legally binding climate change treaty in Copenhagen next month.

The positions of major world powers are so far apart that another year or even more may be needed to negotiate a world climate treaty, senior British sources said at talks in Barcelona, which end today.

The Times leads with the news that sex education is to be made compulsory for all pupils,

prompting fury from faith groups which said that the move would contravene the right for children to be educated in accordance with their parents’ beliefs.

All 15-year-olds must receive at least one year of sex and relationship lessons, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday. Those whose religious or moral values prevent them from attending will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school. Until now parents could opt out of lessons about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality until their children were 19.

MP's expenses continue to fill the papers.The Telegraph reporting that Alan Duncan, the shadow prisons minister, has been cleared of breaking the rules on expenses by a committee of MPs, despite failing to produce mortgage documents.

According to the Mail,

Women will be put off standing for Parliament unless they can hire a cleaner on their expenses, a female minister claimed yesterday.The warning by Work and Pensions Minister Helen Goodman follows a call this week to ban cleaning expenses by Parliamentary sleaze watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly.

Finally the Sun reports that a shock survey has revealed that

ONE in 20 British The same number thought the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of the war.
One in six youngsters believed the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp was a theme park - and one in 12 thought the Blitz was a European clean-up operation following World War II.