News Headlines - 26 October 2013

▽BBC News - US bugged Merkel's phone from 2002 until 2013, report claims

The US has been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone since 2002, according to a report in Der Spiegel magazine. The German publication claims to have seen secret documents from the National Security Agency which show Mrs Merkel's number on a list dating from 2002 - before she became chancellor.

▽Phone Tap Row: Merkel To Send Spy Chiefs To US

German spy chiefs will fly to the United States next week following claims that US intelligence has been tapping Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. Ms Merkel is one of 35 world leaders who have been monitored by the US, according to a National Security Agency (NSA) document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

▽Roma girl's identity: Inside her birth parents' village - CNN.com

DNA tests have now solved part of the mystery of Maria, the child called the "blond angel" by Greek media after she was discovered during a police raid on a Roma camp in Farsala, Greece. Her birth parents are Bulgarian -- Saska Ruseva and Atanas Rusev -- and, like the Greek couple who had been raising Maria, they, too, are Roma.

▽Saudi women drive on day of protest

A few women filmed themselves driving in Saudi cities yesterday, defying government warnings of arrest and prosecution to take part in a campaign against men-only road rules, activists said. But some others stayed at home, put off by phone calls from men who said they were from the Interior Ministry, reported organisers of the demonstration against an effective ban on women drivers.

▽BBC News - Warnings over storm due to hit England and Wales

Weather forecasters are warning of stormy conditions in England and Wales on Sunday night and Monday. A Met Office amber alert for high winds in southern Wales, southern England, much of the Midlands, the East, and London and the South East is in place.