Mr Abbas said he had not given up on reconciliation but could not "wait forever".

BBC: Egypt's president discusses Gaza blockade with Hamas PM

England coach Fabio Capello said on Saturday that he had not given up hope that Bridge might change his mind and feature in his second World Cup.

BBC: John Terry hits back at Craig Bellamy over comments

Mr Sants insisted however that he had not given up altogether on the importance of competition and market discipline in preventing banks from taking crazy risks - even though market discipline singularly failed in the run up to the financial crisis of 2007-8.

BBC: Sants: We wanted banks to hold more capital

It was true that Dad had given him five dollars, but he had not brought it up before.

NEWYORKER: Mr. Bones

Tawheedi could not say exactly how many Taliban troops had surrendered with Wahid but he believed "all of them" had given themselves up and were handing over their weapons to government forces.

CNN: Taliban commander questioned on Omar's whereabouts

The prime minister was asked how he could defend the shambles over the new child tax credit to which he said there were always problems when you set up anything new but that did not minimise the apology the government had already given.

BBC: At-a-glance: Blair news conference