Foreign secretary James Cleverly names new leader of UK intelligence agencyAnne Keast-Butler has been announced as the new director of GCHQ, becoming the first woman to lead the UK’s intelligence, cyber and security agency.Currently serving as the deputy director of MI5, she succeeds Sir Jeremy Fleming in a scheduled change at a time when the intelligence services are heavily focused on the security threat from Russia and China. Continue reading...
Accused becomes one of youngest children to be prosecuted for murder in Britain in about 30 yearsA 12-year-old boy will stand trial for murder, accused of killing the Sheffield social worker Marcia Grant by running over her with her own car.He becomes one of the youngest children to be prosecuted for murder in Britain in about 30 years and will stand trial in August or October. Continue reading...
Review launched into operations in Afghanistan as men and women told not to go to work at least until MayThe United Nations has launched a review of its operations in Afghanistan and asked all Afghan staff not to come to work at least until May after the Taliban barred its female staff from working.The UN said last week that the Taliban, who swept to power in 2021, had communicated that Afghan women would not be able to work for the global organisation. Taliban officials have not commented on the order. Continue reading...
by Helen Davidson, Verna Yu and agencies on (#6ANZD)
UN rights chief voices concern over sentencing of Ding Jiaxi and Xu ZhiyongThe UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he is “very concerned” after China sentenced two prominent human rights lawyers to more than a decade each in jail.Xu Zhiyong and fellow campaigner Ding Jiaxi were convicted of subversion of state power after closed-door trials and sentenced to 14 and 12 years respectively. Continue reading...
Figures suggest fewer misconduct allegations are being referred than under previously discredited regimePolice officers in England and Wales accused of violent and sexual misconduct are less likely to face disciplinary action under the revamped complaints system than the previous discredited regime, figures suggest.An investigation by the Guardian and BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme found that only 8% of the 22,000 allegations scrutinised by local forces under the new system were referred for possible disciplinary proceedings in 2020-21, whereas 10% of the 21,000 allegations investigated under the old regulations were referred in the same year. Continue reading...
‘Swap to stop’ scheme comes despite increasing alarm about rise in young people vapingMinisters are to urge 1 million smokers to swap cigarettes for vapes, despite increasing alarm about the rise in young people vaping.Under the new “swap to stop” scheme, vape starter kits will be offered to almost one in five of all smokers in England as part of the government’s “smoke free” drive. Continue reading...
More than 17,000 troops are involved in the Balikatan drills, which follow days of military exercises around Taiwan by ChinaThe United States and the Philippines have launched their largest combat exercises in decades in waters across the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, a move that is likely to inflame Beijing.The annual drills by the longtime treaty allies called Balikatan – Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder – will run up to 28 April and involve more than 17,600 military personnel. The drills will include live-fire exercises and a boat-sinking rocket assault. Continue reading...
China’s president, Xi Jinping, is often the subject of internet memes that compare him to the children’s characterTaiwanese are rushing to buy patches, popularised by air force pilots, that depict a Formosan black bear punching Winnie-the-Pooh – representing China’s president Xi Jinping – as a defiant symbol of the island’s resistance to Chinese war games.China began three days of military drills around Taiwan on Saturday, a day after the island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, returned from a brief visit to the United States, where she met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy despite Beijing’s warnings. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#6ANEE)
Warning comes on eve of England’s 61,000 junior doctors beginning four-day actionJunior doctors may keep striking for another year in their bitter pay dispute with the government, despite NHS leaders’ growing alarm about how the industrial action is disrupting patient care.Trainee medics in England could even hold a week-long stoppage to escalate their campaign of industrial action to secure a 35% pay rise from the health secretary, Steve Barclay. Continue reading...
Party will continue to single out PM, after campaign ad last week that led to accusations of ‘dog-whistle’ politicsKeir Starmer will shift his aim this week on to Rishi Sunak’s role in presiding over the cost of living crisis after days of anger over Labour’s crime campaign.The party will continue to single out the prime minister in the minds of voters, claiming “his fingerprints are all over their struggling household budgets”, as part of an attempt to hold Sunak – still seen by some as a change of the Tory old guard – personally accountable for 13 years of Conservative failures. Continue reading...
Callers wait so long that nearly one in five hang up, finds Liberal Democrat commissioned analysisPatients contacting NHS 111 in England are having to wait so long for medical help that they are abandoning millions of calls, with 3.6m ditched in the past 12 months, official figures reveal.The national helpline service is supposed to make it quicker and easier for patients to get the right advice or treatment they need, either for their physical or mental health. It is billed as being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Continue reading...
Russian opposition figure facing up to 25 years in jail tells Moscow court he stands by all of his political statementsRussian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who faces up to a quarter of a century in jail on treason charges, has told a Moscow court that he stood by all of his political statements and said his prosecution resembled one of Joseph Stalin’s show trials.Kara-Murza, 41, who holds Russian and British passports, has denied several charges including treason and spreading false information about the Russian army. Prosecutors have requested a 25-year prison sentence. Continue reading...
Messaging on law and order has racist undertones, say critics, and could scupper the party’s efforts to appear to offer a ‘fresh start’The controversy surrounding Labour’s attack advert suggesting Rishi Sunak does not support jailing child abusers dominated the headlines over the Easter break, drawing furious criticism from both the left of the party and the Conservatives.Labour officials have insisted that the shock tactic was helping their message to cut through, putting the Tories’ poor record on crime under the spotlight. But that was not the experience of candidates doing canvassing ahead of the local elections. Continue reading...
Force rebuffs claim home secretary said they should focus on ‘catching criminals’ after items taken from White Hart Inn in GraysEssex police have denied being rebuked by Suella Braverman for seizing a collection of golliwog dolls that were on display in a pub.Officers from the force took several dolls from the White Hart Inn in Grays, Essex, last week as part of an investigation into an alleged hate crime reported in February. Continue reading...
David Crouch to raise daughter of murdered Caroline Crouch in the Philippines, where her grandmother has relocatedAlmost two years after the 19-year-old British student, Caroline Crouch, was murdered by her husband as she lay asleep in the couple’s Athens maisonette, her father says he will concentrate on raising his granddaughter, “who is now without” either parent.Speaking publicly for what he said would be the last time, David Crouch, 79, told the Guardian he would leave Greece to look after Caroline’s daughter, Lydia, who is almost three, in the Philippines, “far away” from her mother’s self-confessed killer. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#6ANBH)
‘Two large bags of dry paint’ were seized from the campaigners, who jumped over a barrier around the famous dinosaur castTwo Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested after jumping over a barrier surrounding the Dippy the Diplodocus exhibit in Coventry.Video footage captured the campaigners, named by the environmental group as Daniel Knorr, 21, and Victoria Lindsell, 67, jumping over the fencing before being grabbed by staff at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum at around 10am on Monday. Continue reading...
Rishi Sunak had earlier urge return to power-sharing government in Northern Ireland; US president Joe Biden arrives on TuesdayOn the tone of the Labour adverts, the former Labour minister and must-read political diarist Chris Mullin has shared his thoughts and a summary of Labour members and activists who have urged the party to take the “higher ground”.Labour is to launch more adverts attacking Rishi Sunak by blaming him for “crashing the economy”, despite criticism from within the party. Continue reading...
After Labour’s targeting of Rishi Sunak, we look back on past ads, some of which have swung electionsThe tradition of the modern political attack ad is often traced back to Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 US presidential campaign, which sought to portray his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, as an ill-disciplined warmonger likely to plunge the world into a nuclear apocalypse.The so-called “Daisy” advert, in which a little girl counted as she plucked petals from a flower before a massive nuclear blast filled the screen, delivered a visceral message two months before Johnson won. Continue reading...
Teenager killed and two others wounded during Israeli arrest operation amid escalating tensionsIsraeli troops have fatally shot a 15-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded two other people during an arrest operation in a West Bank refugee camp, as tensions continued to escalate in the occupied territories.Mohammed Balhan was shot in the head, chest and abdomen in the Aqabat Jabr camp near Jericho, according to local Palestinian official Hani Obeidat, who called it an “unjustifiable crime”. A video showed him lying dead on a stretcher in the hospital, his head bandaged and his mother wailing as she leaned over his body. Continue reading...
Telecoms company apologises after complaints and says problem was the result of an ‘isolated incident’Vodafone has said it has fixed a problem that left thousands of its customers unable to connect to the internet.The mobile operator, which has more than 1 million broadband customers, had been inundated with queries on its Twitter account from users complaining about their broadband connection on Monday morning. Continue reading...
Band hail ‘brilliance’ of session musician who has died aged 70 after being diagnosed with cancerAbba have paid tribute to the “musical brilliance” of their longstanding guitarist, Lasse Wellander, who has died aged 70 after being diagnosed with cancer.The musician, who played on the band’s biggest albums and toured with them between 1975 and 1980, died early on Friday “surrounded by his loved ones”, his family said. Continue reading...
Parents helped save boy by scooping sand away from his mouth and nose at Anderby Creek in LincolnshireRescuers have said a teenage boy was lucky not to have been buried alive when a hole he was digging on a Lincolnshire beach collapsed.The 14-year-old was reportedly digging at the beach at Anderby Creek on Saturday when the sand beneath him collapsed, leaving him trapped up to his neck. Continue reading...
Majed Khalil took network to court after Lou Dobbs accused him of ‘orchestrating non-existent scheme to fix the election’Fox News has said the network reached a settlement with a Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, ending a defamation case in which Khalil said he was falsely accused on air of helping to rig the 2020 US presidential election against Donald Trump.It comes with jury selection set to begin on Thursday ahead of a separate trial in Dominion Voting Systems Corp’s $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp, over their coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.This piece was amended on 10 April 2023. An earlier version said Fox News announced the settlement, but a network spokesperson said it confirmed the agreement when contacted by Reuters. Continue reading...
Iranian state TV shows metro staff stopping women at ticket barriers, in effect barring many from workHijab enforcement groups are to be set up on the Tehran metro and women not wearing the hijab will be refused entry, in effect banning some women from work, Iranian state TV has reported.The move appears to be part of a pattern of government efforts to force Iranian public bodies to take greater responsibility for enforcing the hijab. Many Iranian women, especially in urban centres, have refused to comply with the hijab rules, in a sign that the “women, life, freedom” protests that began in September continue in a more individualised form. Continue reading...
Met Office issues yellow warnings for wind and Environment Agency issues seven flood alerts in southGales of up to 60mph and heavy downpours are due to hit western parts of the UK from Tuesday, forecasters have said.The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for wind covering the west coast and Northern Ireland for 12 hours from 3pm on Tuesday. An identical warning is in place for south-west England and south Wales throughout Wednesday. Continue reading...
Clubs understood to be close to agreeing plan to ditch betting sponsors from shirts voluntarilyProposals by Premier League football clubs to give up gambling sponsors on team shirts have been criticised by campaigners as “incoherent” because they ignore more visible forms of advertising such as pitchside hoardings.Clubs in the English top flight are understood to be close to agreeing a plan to ditch betting sponsors from shirts voluntarily, with the issue expected to go to a vote before June. Continue reading...
Hippersons boatyard says drunk tourists have damaged vessels, urinated off the side, and abused staffA Norfolk Broads boating company has banned tourists from consuming alcohol on its vessels after incidents of antisocial behaviour, including people urinating off the side of the boats.Mary Sparrow, the director of Hippersons boatyard, said a minority of guests would visit the Broads just to drink on the water all day, leading to staff facing abuse and boats being damaged by intoxicated customers. Continue reading...
Conservative body in Church of England encourages dioceses to protest, and says opposition is growingConservative clergy and parishioners have launched a small but vocal revolt against the Church of England’s plan to offer to bless the civil marriages of same-sex couples, a move that some Christians believe is contrary to biblical teaching.In Buckinghamshire, a large group parish plans to refuse to offer blessings to same-sex couples in its seven churches and is taking steps to withhold its annual contribution of £235,000 to the diocese of Oxford in protest. Continue reading...
NHS chief says up to 350,000 appointments and operations likely to be cancelled during four-day strikeThe four-day strike by junior doctors in England will have a “catastrophic impact” on NHS waiting lists, with up to 350,000 appointments and operations likely to be cancelled, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation has said.Matthew Taylor said the industrial action this week posed risks to patient safety and called on the public to avoid “risky behaviour”. Continue reading...
The six films include the tale of an ogre who preys on women, a sci-fi Nigeria taken over by AI, and a girl on a mission to end droughtTraditional African tales of monsters, genies and malevolent spirits have been reworked for a contemporary audience in a new Netflix series.Film-makers from Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritania and Uganda have turned six traditional stories into dark fantasy dramas that cover topics including domestic violence, suicide and child marriage. Continue reading...
With real pay down 26% since 2008 and demoralised workplaces, medics are striking not out of militancy but from deep-rooted frustrationA four-day strike this week by junior doctors in England will pit angry medics keen to secure a 35% pay rise against government ministers who scorn their demands.The walkout from Tuesday morning to Saturday morning will be the most disruptive in the 75-year history of the NHS. Continue reading...
Removal of bodies ‘will take time’, says fire department, as blaze under rubble hampers rescue efforts in French cityTwo bodies were found in the rubble of a building that collapsed in Marseille following a major explosion, French authorities said early on Monday, as rescue workers scrambled to find at least six people still unaccounted for.The discovery of the bodies came about 24 hours after the blast brought down the four-storey building in the Mediterranean port city in southern France. Continue reading...
Residents of New Zealand’s largest city say people are ‘heartbroken’ at fresh damage wreaked by stormAuckland, New Zealand’s largest city, has been hit by a tornado, two months after the wider region was devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle and three months after the city was struck by deadly flooding.Auckland Emergency Management said it began receiving reports of “localised havoc” around 9pm on Sunday, according to the NZ Herald. Authorities received more than 30 calls, with roofs lifted off homes and trees toppled. Continue reading...
by Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor on (#6AMSW)
PM says ‘work to be done’ to restore government at Stormont ahead of Biden meeting on TuesdayThe Good Friday agreement was “based on compromise”, which should be the defining message for the next chapter in Northern Ireland, Rishi Sunak has said on the peace deal’s 25th anniversary.The prime minister said there was “work to be done” by a new generation of politicians to restore government at Stormont “as soon as possible”, as he and Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, prepare to intensify work to broker a way out of the deadlock. Continue reading...
Bill is reportedly being dropped – without a credible backup – because of backlash by Tory MPsThe government has been urged to protect vulnerable workers amid suggestions that ministers may backtrack on plans to strengthen workplace sexual harassment laws.The general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Paul Nowak, said it would be “shameful” to drop the worker protection bill due a backlash by Tory politicians, who claim that the new rules will force business owners to run their firms like a “police state”. Continue reading...
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