NEARLY 1,000 new members of staff will join the ranks of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service by 2020 against a backdrop of increased threats to peace from radical terror groups.

MI6 will grow from 2,500 people to close to 3,500 because of the increased strain placed on its operations by the internet and technological developments, according to BBC Newsnight.

The 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review set out plans to employ 1,900 additional staff in the UK's security and intelligence agencies.

No public announcement has been made as to how many of those extra employees would be allocated to MI6.

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Ministers must honour commitments to make housing and childcare more affordable to prevent household budgets being squeezed by Brexit, a report has warned.

The estimated minimum cost of raising a child over 18 years is £151,561 for a couple and £182,589 for a lone parent, according to research for the Child Poverty Action Group.

It adds this has increased from the 2015 figures of £149,800 for a couple and £167,300 for a single parent.

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A penguin enclosure has closed after a fatal outbreak of malaria left many of the seabirds dead.

Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire has been rocked by the mosquito-borne disease which has killed several Humboldt penguins, leaving staff "devastated" and "heartbroken".

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Oxford has been ranked the best university in the world - the first time an institution from the UK has taken the accolade.

It topped the Times Higher Education (THE) world university rankings for the first time, knocking the California Institute of Technology, the five-times best, into second place.

Cambridge and Imperial College London join Oxford in the top 10 for 2016/17, named fourth and eighth respectively, vying for positions in the rankings with the likes of Stanford, Harvard and Princeton universities and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in the US.

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