British anti-terror police on Friday made an unprecedented appeal to find three girls who they believe are traveling to join militants in Syria as part of what officers said was a "growing trend."

Richard Walton, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said he was "extremely concerned" for the wellbeing of the girls.

The leader of Britain's anti-EU party UKIP on Thursday ruled out joining a coalition government, three months ahead of the country's knife-edge general election.

In his first major speech of the year, Nigel Farage, whose party wants Britain to quit the European Union, also pushed his claim for a quick referendum on leaving the 28-member bloc.

A new law banning "revenge porn" -- sexually explicit images shared online by a former partner without their ex's consent -- was passed in England and Wales Thursday.

The law covers images shared on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as those spread by SMS, email and online.

A Belgian judge is considering issuing international arrest warrants for the directors of the Swiss division of HSBC, an official said Monday, as the bank faced a row over revelations that it helped wealthy clients dodge tax.

The threat came as HSBC faced controversy over a cache of "SwissLeaks" documents published at the weekend that claim the bank handled secret accounts for drug lords, tax evaders and celebrities.

Spanish police said Monday they arrested a British man accused of killing a German for filming his young daughter in a restaurant in a posh seaside resort.

The Briton, aged 40, attacked the 43-year-old German after seeing him filming the minor with a tablet device in the restaurant near the yacht-packed port in Sotogrande on Spain's Costa del Sol on Saturday night.

Thousands of British Muslims protested against cartoons of Mohammed in French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in a demonstration near the office of Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday.

The crowd marched to Downing Street holding signs reading "Charlie and the abuse factory", "We love Prophet Muhammad more than our lives", and "To insult is not freedom".

Gibraltar airport was evacuated on Sunday and the tiny British territory's border with Spain closed for several hours because of a suspicious piece of luggage on a London-bound plane, police said.

The police were called to the airport in early afternoon after a baggage handler thought he saw smoke coming from a piece of luggage that was being put onto an easyJet flight that was getting ready for departure to London's Gatwick airport, a police spokesman said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is behaving like a "mid-20th century tyrant", British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Sunday, urging him to change track and save Russia's economy from further decline.

He told Sky News television that supplying arms from Britain to Ukraine would not be the right thing to do "at the moment", but insisted London's position would be kept under review.

Britain's anti-EU UKIP party, which threatens to split the right ring vote and hand victory to Labor in 2015 elections, has suffered a reverse with the defection of one of its members to the Tories, triggering a war of words Sunday.

Amjad Bashir, a little-known member of the European Parliament,  described his former party in The Sunday Telegraph as one of "ruthless self-interest" with a  "ridiculous" lack of policies, while UKIP said it had already suspended Bashir after becoming "alarmed" by his behavior.

British Prime Minister David Cameron defended the right to speech that gives offense to others' religious beliefs, in a rebuttal to Pope Francis who said there should be limits.

In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation, Cameron said the West must show that its values, like free speech, are stronger than those of Islamist extremists pursuing a "poisonous death cult narrative."