Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 25 Sep 2012

The Queen asked a Home Secretary in the previous Labour government why Islamist preacher Abu Hamza could not be arrested, according to BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner. The BBC subsequently apologised for breaking the Queen's confidence. The European Court of Human Rights yesterday cleared the way for the extradition of Abu Hamza and four other suspected terrorists to the US from Britain.

London mayor Boris Johnson has said it would have been "wholly common-sensical" for police officers to have arrested Tory Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell over his tirade, alleged to have included the phrase "f***ing plebs", against them at the gates of Downing Street. Earlier, newspapers published the official police log of the incident, with the word "plebs" clearly recorded despite Mitchell's denial that he used the class-based insult.

China's first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Soviet ship bought from Ukraine and renamed Liaoning, has officially entered service as tensions over the fate of a chain of islands in the East China Sea escalate. Earlier this month Japan purchased several of the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, which are also claimed by China and Taiwan.

The situation in Syria is "extremely bad and getting worse", UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said last night after briefing the Security Council following his first visit to the country where 20,000 have died in uprisings against the government. He said there was "no prospect for today or tomorrow to move forward". The government continued to bomb Aleppo.

The Queen has bought for her Royal Collection four prints of pop artist Andy Warhol's portrait of her, made in 1985 as part of his series Reigning Queens, it was revealed last night. They are repeating images in different colours, covered in diamond dust. They go on show for the first time in the Windsor Castle exhibition The Queen: Portraits of a Monarch from 23 November.