Lai received five years and nine months term as well as a 2 million Hong Kong dollars (£209,535) fine.
The 75-year-old recently served time for taking part in a banned vigil last year for victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
A separate trial involving Lai on national security charges had been due to begin on 1 December but was postponed at the request of Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-Chiu. If convicted, he faces up to life imprisonment.
China has enforced its wide-ranging national security law on the city of Hong Kong, making it easier to prosecute protesters.
The law has led to the arrests of many prominent democracy activists.
As freezing fog, sleet, and snow hamper travel across the UK, passengers have been encouraged to contact their airline for the most recent flight information.
Due to the amount of snowfall, Manchester Airport has closed both runways.
A tweet read as follows: “We’ve blocked both runways temporarily due to the significant snowfall. Health and safety will always come first, and business will pick back up as soon as possible.”
Numerous flights are impacted, therefore passengers are urged to contact their airline for the latest recent travel information.
It comes as the Met Office warned freezing fog, sleet and snow could bring travel disruption to parts of the UK during the coming days.
Southeast England has been covered by a yellow weather warning for snow and ice on Sunday and Monday.
The western coast of England, Wales, and the north of Northern Ireland have warnings for ice on Saturday and Sunday.
Scotland, apart from the southwest, has a yellow warning for snowand ice covering Saturday and Sunday.
A postal workerwho is taking part in the strike action today discusses the complaints that front-line Royal Mail employees have and asserts that the firm will comply with their demands after the main Christmas season.
He said that the 115,000 frontline employees were fighting for the company’s very survival.
Workers are on strike today, and more walkouts are expected on December 11, 14, 15, 23, and 24.
In exchange for a greater salary raise, the firm is pursuing a modernization program that includes voluntary Sunday work. According to their union, the CWU, this would transform Royal Mail into a “gig economy-style parcel courier, dependent on casual labor.”
Royal Mail has argued it is crucial to help it better compete as it places a greater focus on the lucrative parcel delivery sphere at a time when the company is losing £1m a day.
Derek, who is a union member but not a rep, explained that while part of the fight was for better pay, he and his colleagues were walking out to protect the company’s values from a future that would mean a worse deal for the public and staff alike.
He said Royal Mail was attempting to weaken its commitments to letter delivery and make its contracted workers go further, through increased flexibility, to line the pockets of shareholders.
Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, told Sky News that even if they were offered a 50% pay rise they would not accept it if the same terms and conditions were attached.
Image: The company has accused CWU leader Dave Ward of spreading unfounded claims about Royal Mail’s modernization plans
The main gripes, Derek said, covered Sunday working and later start times for deliveries.
“The pay deal is something we wanted but 2% (with more in return for accepting new working practices) was a joke,” he said.
“The vision is to start deliveries later and finish later but if you don’t complete by your time allocated, we don’t know where we stand as the goalposts keep changing. It becomes a conduct issue.
“They’ve got us by the b****.
“We are cutting off (finishing rounds before completion) on a regular basis because we’re not getting paid any extra to clear backlogs.”
CWU’s Dave Ward on what postal union will accept over pay deal
Derek blamed staff shortages, saying agency workers had been brought in to help.
“We’re on £12 an hour. Agency is getting £15-20,” he said.
“The night shifts for Christmas are another issue. The backlog is phenomenal. Packages are being prioritized when the company insists that is not the case.
Royal Mail boss: Union leaders are ‘trying to destroy Xmas’
“It’s the terms and conditions that are the paramount issue in this dispute. They’re trying to fix something that doesn’t need it.
“Once Christmas is over, they’ll do whatever they want and impose these changes.
“Compulsory working Sundays – I didn’t sign up for that. They say it’s voluntary but I’m having to do that now.
“Sickness is going through the roof.”
He added that Royal Mail was deducting wages by £117 per day for strike days.
“I only earn £75 per day but they’ve taken off allowances including for the loss of leaflet drops,” he claimed.
“Royal Mail said: “We are not docking extra days’ pay – if people work, are on annual leave, off sick or on a rest day, then they are paid as normal; if people take part in strike action, then they are not paid for the period that they are on strike.”
Royal Mail reacted to the growing cost of the strikes in October by launching a consultation on job cuts that could see around 10,000 roles cut by the end of August 2023. It later revealed half-year financial losses of £219m.
The company made, what it called, a “best and final” offer to end the dispute in late November.
However, its “extensive improvements” were rejected by the CWU.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said of Derek’s comments: “Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, has made several false statements about job losses designed to mislead and create fear and uncertainty amongst our employees.
“As recently 28 November, we wrote Mr Ward to correct his false allegations that Royal Mail is planning to ‘sack’ thousands of workers and wants to become ‘another courier company.
“This is simply not true. We have already announced that reductions in 10,000 full-time equivalent roles – which have become necessary as a result of industrial action, the need for better productivity, and lower parcel volumes following the pandemic – will be achieved through natural attrition, reducing temporary workers and a generous voluntary redundancy scheme which has been oversubscribed.
The local press reports that a celebrity chef is one of the individuals detained in connection with an alleged plot by a far-right terrorist organization to topple the German government.
According to reports, 62-year-old Frank Heppner, the father of Real Madrid star David Alaba’s girlfriend, was detained in Kitzbuhel, an Austrian ski resort where he owns a restaurant.
The largest-ever nationwide police operation against right-wing extremism was sparked by the unsuccessful Reichsburger coup attempt, also known as the Reich Citizens movement.
Image: German celebrity chef Frank Heppner. Pic: YouTube
The raids took place in 11 of the country’s 16 states last week, with 3,000 armed police storming up to 100 properties across Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony, and Thuringia, as well as in Kitzbuhel and the Italian city of Perugia.
The plotters allegedly wanted to install Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, a 71-year-old businessman, as the head of a new government. He was among those arrested.
Heppner’s role, should the alleged coup have been successful, would have been to “take over the canteens of the new German Reich” and supply their troops, according to Austria’s Die Presse.
A specialist in Euro-Asian cuisine, Heppner has previously worked in five-star hotels all over the world.
Image:David Alaba and Shalimar Heppner at FC Bayern Munich Christmas party in 2018
His daughter, Shalimar Heppner, 28, has a son with Real Madrid’s Alaba. Sky News has contacted him for comment.
Twenty-three suspected members and supporters of the group have been arrested according to German authorities.
Prosecutors said 22 German citizens, and one Russian woman were detained during the raids. They said the extradition of two other people detained in Italy and Austria.
The Reichsburger movement brings together several far-right groups whose aim is to get rid of the current government and replace it with their own.
According to the authorities, members of the Reichsburger group have been preparing to “carry out actions based on their ideology” since November 2021.
Following the raids, German interior minister Nancy Faese said the raids showed the country “fighting back against the enemies of democracy”.
The case has put a spotlight once more on the far-right Alternative for Germany party. A female judge – identified by prosecutors as Birgit M-W – who is understood to have links with the party was also detained during the raids.
Known by its German acronym AfD, the party has increasingly come under scrutiny by German security services due to its ties with extremists.
An oath of fealty to the monarch is no longer required of legislators in the Canadian province of Quebec, thanks to a new law.
Three parliamentarians refused to take the oath of allegiance after King Charles III’s coronation, which led to the introduction of the measure.
The federal parliament of Canada overwhelmingly rejected cutting ties with the Crown in October.
In Canada, Quebec is the province that favors constitutional monarchy abolition the most.
The bill was introduced on Tuesday by Premier Francois Legault.
In October, after the province had an election,14 politicians refused to swear the oath. After being told they could not sit in the legislature without doing so, 11 of them backed down.
But three hold-outs did not, and have been barred from the National Assembly since late November, waiting for Mr Legault to bring forward the bill. It was fast-tracked once all parties in the legislature agreed to waive consultation.
In Quebec, members of the legislature had to swear two oaths, to both the people of Quebec and the Crown, and the latter has long been controversial.
The new provincial law amends the Canadian Constitution Act of 1867, to add a section exempting Quebec from the Oath of Allegiance to the King. That allegiance has been a requirement for all members of provincial legislatures across Canada.
“It is, I think, a relic from the past,” Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a co-spokesperson for the Quebec solidaire party, said in early December about the oath to King Charles.
“I think there is strong support in Quebec to modernize our institutions, to make sure that the representatives of the people are not forced in 2022 to swear an oath to a foreign king.”
Constitutional scholar Philippe Lagasse told the BBC in an email that Quebec did not have the authority to amend the constitution by an act of legislation alone.
He said a change like this would either need the support of seven provinces that had, on aggregate, more than 50% of the population of Canada, or the federal parliament would have to agree with Quebec to allow the change in Quebec alone.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could challenge this new law in court, or a private citizen could be given standing by the court to bring forth a challenge.
In Canada, the monarch – now King Charles – is the head of state. The monarchy serves a mainly symbolic role, with the power to govern entrusted to the Canadian government.
Opinion polls suggest Canada as a whole remains divided on the monarchy. In an Ipsos survey conducted following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, half of the Canadian respondents – around 54% – said their country should sever its ties with the Crown.
That sentiment is strongest in Quebec, where 79% agreed.
While covering the World Cup in Qatar, a well-known football journalist from the United States passed away.
As extra time in the Friday night match between Argentina and the Netherlands began, Grant Wahl, 48, passed out.
Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed, initial reports indicate he may have suffered a heart attack.
When Mr. Wahl attempted to enter a stadium last month while wearing a rainbow-colored shirt in support of LGBT rights, Qatari authorities temporarily held him.
In a statement, the US Soccer Federation said it was “heartbroken” by the news.
“Fans of soccer and journalism of the highest quality knew we could always count on Grant to deliver insightful and entertaining stories about our game, and its major protagonists,” it said.
In a tweet, Mr Wahl’s wife, Céline Gounder, said she was in “complete shock”, adding that she was “so thankful” for the support she had received from friends.
Mr Wahl celebrated his 48th birthday on Thursday with friends in Qatar, a day before he collapsed. He wrote on his website on Monday that he had been unwell in the last 10 days and was on a course of antibiotics for suspected bronchitis.
“My body finally broke down on me,” he wrote. “What had been a cold over the last 10 days turned into something more severe on the night of the USA-Netherlands game, and I could feel my upper chest take on a new level of pressure and discomfort.
“I didn’t have Covid (I test regularly here), but I went into the medical clinic and the main media center today, and they said I probably have bronchitis.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said Mr Wahl’s love for football was “immense”, adding that his reporting would be “missed by all who follow the global game”.
Tributes have poured in from several UK journalists. Piers Morgan described Mr Wahl as a “brilliant journalist”, while the Times’ Henry Winter said he was a “fine man” and “giant of the press box”.
BBC Sport’s Dan Roan tweeted: “Grant Wahl was a renowned and hugely respected journalist and the flood of tributes is a testament to the esteem in which he was held.”
Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber tweeted:“We are shocked, saddened, and heartbroken over the tragic passing of Grant Wahl. He was a kind and caring person whose passion for soccer and dedication to journalism were immeasurable.”
US tennis icon Billie Jean King also paid tribute to Mr Wahl, describing him as an “advocate for the LGBTQ community and a prominent voice for women’s soccer”.
A spokesperson for the Qatari body responsible for planning the World Cup, the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, said: “We are deeply saddened by the death of the US journalist Grant Wahl.
“Grant was known for his enormous love of football and was in Qatar to cover his eighth Fifa World Cup.
“He fell ill in the Lusail Stadium media tribune, during last night’s quarter-final match between Argentina v Netherlands. He received immediate emergency medical treatment on site, which continued as he was transferred by ambulance to Hamad General Hospital.
“We are in touch with the US Embassy and relevant local authorities to ensure the process of repatriating the body is in accordance with the family’s wishes.”
Earlier this week, Mr Wahl was presented with an award by Brazilian football legend Ronaldo for reporting on eight consecutive World Cups – his first was in the US in 1994.
In order to make up for his involvement in George Floyd’s murder, a formerMinneapolis police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s back received a three-and-a-half year prison term.
In October, J Alexander Kueng entered a guilty plea to a state charge of second-degree manslaughter aiding and abetting.
In the 46-year-arrest, old’s which was seen on camera by onlookers, he was one of four officers involved.
Mr Floyd was killed by police in May 2020 while lying prone and handcuffed.
His death sparked global outrage and a wave of demonstrations against racial injustice and police use of force.
Kueng will serve his new sentence for state charges concurrently with a previous federal sentence for violating Mr Floyd’s civil rights.
In April 2021, former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on state murder and manslaughter charges for kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes and sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in jail. He is serving that sentence concurrently with a 20-year sentence on federal civil rights charges, for which he pleaded guilty in December 2021.
In February, Kueng, along with two other responding officers, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, were also found guilty on federal civil rights charges. The officers were charged with showing “deliberate indifference to [Mr Floyd’s] serious medical needs” during the attempted arrest.
Video footage of the arrest shows Kueng and Lane assisting Chauvin by helping to hold Mr Floyd down. Thao, meanwhile, kept concerned bystanders away. Chauvin was a field training officer to both Lane and Kueng.
As well as Chauvin, the other officers involved were given sentences of varying lengths for the federal charges:
J Alexander Kueng was given a 36-month sentence for failing to intervene
Tou Thao was sentenced to 42-months in prison. The state case against him is still pending.
Thomas Lane is serving a two-and-a-half year sentence concurrently with a three-year state sentence for second-degree manslaughter.
Speaking in court ahead of the sentencing, prosecutor Matthew Frank said that Kueng “was not simply a bystander in what happened that day”, but instead played an “active part”.
While Kueng declined to address the court directly, his defence attorney, Thomas Plunkett, argued that city and police officials had “failed” Mr Floyd, Kueng and the community alike.
Attorneys representing George Floyd’s family said that the sentencing represented “yet another piece of justice for the Floyd family”.
“While the family faces yet another holiday season without George, we hope that moments like these continue to bring them a measure of peace, knowing thatGeorge’s death was not in vain,” they added.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinpingwith a glamorous reception in Riyadh on Thursday, as the two countries make preparations for a series of summits that will mark an “epoch-making milestone” in Chinese-Arab relations.
Saudi state television broadcast a grand ceremony in which bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler known as MBS, received the Chinese leader at Al-Yamamah Palace. The premises were adorned with Chinese and Saudi Arabian flags, and members of the Saudi Royal Guard lined up with swords and played music.
In contrast to US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this year, the two leaders smiled warmly and posed for photos.
Shortly afterwards, China and Saudi Arabia signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement that includes a number of deals and memoranda of understanding, including on hydrogen energy, on coordination between the kingdom’s Vision 2030 and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and with regards to direct investment, reported the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA), without providing details.
Xi landed in the capital Riyadh on Wednesday, where he was received by Saudi Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, Governor of Riyadh Region, and Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Saudi military jets accompanied the Chinese president’s aircraft, a purple carpet was rolled out upon his arrival and canons were fired.
US President Joe Biden’s welcome is widely perceived to have been less glamorous. The American president was received in July by the governor of Mecca and the Saudi ambassador to the US in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. Biden met MBS in Jeddah, where they exchanged a fist-bump that made global headlines and defined what ultimately became a frigid visit.
The official welcoming ceremony for the Chinese president at the Palace of Yamamah in Riyadh on Thursday. Royal Court of Saudi Arabia/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Bin Salman welcomes the Chinese leader to Riyadh. Saudi Press Agency/Reuters
Saudi and Chinese state media have this week been keen to promote the close ties shared by their governments. Saudi state TV replayed clips of past meetings between Chinese and Saudi officials, narrating the two countries’ warm relationship, which they say spans more than eight decades.
In a signed article published Thursday in the Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh, Xi said that his visit to the kingdom this week “will usher in a new era in China’s relations with the Arab world, with Arab states of the Gulf and with Saudi Arabia.”
“The Arab world is an important member of the developing world and a key force for upholding international fairness and justice,” Xi wrote, adding that “the Arab people value independence, oppose external interference, stand up to power politics and high-handedness, and always seek to make progress.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman fist bumps US President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Al Salman Palace, in Jeddah in July. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout/Reuters
In the article titled “Carrying Forward Our Millenia-old Friendship and Jointly Creating a Better Future,” Xi said that China and Arab states will “continue to hold high the banner of non-interference in internal affairs, firmly support each other in safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, and jointly uphold international fairness and justice,” in a nod to US diplomacy, whose ties with the Saudis have crumbled over OPEC’s decision to slash crude oil supply.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister also stressed that Saudi-Chinese relations are “witnessing a qualitative leap” and that the kingdom “will remain China’s credible and reliable partner” with regards to oil, SPA reported.
The Chinese foreign ministry said Wednesday that the China-Arab States Summit “will be an epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations,” and that “President Xi’s state visit to Saudi Arabia will elevate the China-Saudi Arabia comprehensive strategic partnership to a new height.”
On Wednesday, Saudi and Chinese companies signed 34 investment deals covering several sectors, reported SPA, including in the fields of green energy, information technology, cloud services, transportation, logistics, medical industries, housing and construction.
No monetary value was announced for the deals, but SPA previously reported that the two countries are expected to sign deals worth more than $29 billion during this week’s visit.
Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia comes amid frayed ties between the two countries and Washington, which harbors a number of grievances towards the two states over oil production, human rights and other issues.
While China and Saudi Arabia’s friendship has blossomed over the decades, they seem to have become closer as both find themselves in precarious positions in regard to the US.
The White House said it was “not a surprise” that Xi is traveling around the world and to the Middle East. “We’re mindful of the influence that China is trying to grow around the world,” said John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator at the US National Security Council.
After hosting seven matches in two weeks at Qatar 2022, Stadium 974 – the World Cup’s first temporary stadium and the country’s “beacon of sustainability” is set to be pulled down.
Named after Qatar’s international dialling code and the number of shipping containers used in its construction, Stadium 974 was one of seven grounds built for the tournament, while an eighth was extensively redeveloped.
The infrastructure of Stadium 974 can be repurposed for another World Cup or major sporting tournament with similar size or several smaller facilities.
The 44,089-capacity Stadium 974 which sits on Doha’s stunning waterfront presents an array of multicoloured shipping containers and linked steel frames that can be seen from outside the stadium. It contains toilet facilities, tea kiosks and food stands.
Qatar’s intent derives from its pledge to deliver the first carbon-neutral World Cup. Apart from the seven new stadiums, Qatar has a new airport, metro system, roads and about 100 new hotels. Many have thrown flacks at the government over concerns about the mistreatment of thousands of migrant workers who built the infrastructure.
Because it was the only stadium built for the World Cup without air conditioning, it hosted only evening matches, culminating in Brazil’s last-16 victory over South Korea on December 5.
Deploying shipping containers and recycled steel helped reduce waste generated and construction time compared to the other new venues.
The designers Fenwick Iribarren Architects and the Qatari government said they aimed to avoid building a “white elephant”. It wasn’t meant to be a facility rarely used after a tournament, as has proven the case following the three previous World Cups in Russia, Brazil and South Africa.
A report into Stadium 974 commissioned by FIFA and delivered by emission reduction experts pointed out that reusing existing dismountable structures could be widely replicated. It allows stadiums to be assembled in more central and “easily accessible” locations, thereby reducing “intra-city fan travel” during competitions.
There are indications that the dismantled Qatar stadium will be shipped to Uruguay, where it could host the 2030 World Cup.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has urged people to reconsider travelling during the Christmas seasonas Border Force employees join a number of other groups in discussing industrial action over pay and conditions.
The home secretary has advised people to “think carefully” before booking a trip over the Christmas holiday after Border Force employees became the latest to announce they would go on strike.
Suella Braverman warned of “undeniable, serious disruption for the many thousands who have holiday plans” and urged people to reconsider travelling during the holiday season.
“I really want to urge people who have got plans to travel abroad to think carefully about their plans because they may well be impacted,” she said.
“Ultimately, I’m not willing to compromise on security at the border – that’s the number one priority.
“So that may well have an adverse impact on convenience for people, frankly, whether it’s the time that they may have to wait for flights or departures.
“They may well be delayed on arrivals and various travel plans.
“Ultimately, security at the border is my number one non-negotiable priority.”
Border Force strikes will take place between 23-26 December, and from 28 to 31 December, impacting Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow and Manchester airports, as well as the Port of Newhaven.
Manchester Airport has warned some cancellations are likely, while long queues at immigration are expected.
Downing Street has said anyone due to fly over the Christmas period should check with their airline for the latest information “because sadly there will be disruption”.
A spokesperson added that they were “not aware of any plans” to reduce border checks, saying: “Public safety is paramount.”
The Border Force walkouts join a raft of strikes that are set to hit festive travel, with industrial action organised by train, bus and road workers in the run up to Christmas and throughout the holiday season.
Ministers ‘have torpedoed’ strike talks
The warning from the home secretary comes as the boss of the rail union accused the government of “sabotaging” negotiations aimed at stopping the disruption.
Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, told Sky News that ministers have “torpedoed” talks between train operating companies and workers taking industrial action over pay and conditions.
Image: RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch
Mr Lynch said that after months of negotiations, rail companies had put together a document and a set of pay scales they wanted the RMT to consider “and we would have done that”.
“But at the last moment, including last night around about six o’clock, the government decided that they would not allow the railway companies to make that offer and instead instructed them to prepare for the strike,” he said.
“In fact, they sabotaged and sunk the negotiations just as they were reaching the point of conclusion,” he said.
He accused Transport Secretary Mark Harper of “obstructing talks” and also pointed the finger at Business Secretary Grant Shapps, as well as the Treasury.
“I meet with the most senior people on the railway and I’m on the phone to them constantly. They are telling me they’ve got a document ready to go.
“They’ve shown it to me and they’ve shown it to my negotiators and the government has stopped them putting that document forward.”
Mr Lynch said “somebody” in government has put driver-only operation back on the table and into the documents when “they know we can never accept that as a principle”.
Mr Harper was asked about this during an appearance in front of the Transport Select Committee on Wednesday and did not explicitly deny that this is what happened.
It means a series of rail strikes are set to go ahead on the 13, 14, 16 and 17 December, and from 6pm on Christmas Eve to 6am on 27 December, as well as on 3, 4, 6 and 7 January
Christmas strikes ‘really disappointing’
The picket lines are not limited to transport, with teachers, nurses and ambulance workers among others from the public sector taking action over pay and conditions.
The government has been criticised for failing to stop the strikes, with union bosses accusing ministers of stonewalling requests for meaningful pay talks.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, told Sky News that the strikes were “disappointing” but giving in to the union’s demands would cost the taxpayer £28bn and “you can’t spend your way out of inflation”.
She said “we do expect there will be disruption and delays” but 2,000 soldiers would be drafted in to help with Border Force roles and “we should be extremely grateful to them”.
With only one day left in December when there are no strikes – the 12th – it was put to the cabinet minister that general strikes bring down governments, as seen in the 1970s.
Ms Keegan said: “Well, I mean, that has happened in history for sure.”
However, she insisted the government was taking a “sensible and balanced” approach by not interfering in the pay negotiations, saying the disputes were between “unions and the paymasters”.
Government ‘failing to get a grip’
Unions are demanding pay rises above or in line with inflation as the UK is gripped by a recession and the cost of living rises.
Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Pat McFadden told Sky News the government is “failing to get a grip” on the strikes, adding: “Even when we don’t have strikes, public services are not working properly, I can scarcely think of a public service in this country that works better after 12 years of Conservative government than what before they came into office.
“That is a damning indictment of their period of stewardship.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised “tough” new laws to limit the impact of strike action, and has not ruled out banning strikes in the emergency services.
Government ‘working at speed’ on strike legislation
Downing Street said the government is “working at speed” to bring in new legislation, though a spokesman on Thursday stressed that nothing has been confirmed.
Any new measures will put them on a collision course with unions, who say the mooted proposals are anti-worker.
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, told the PM on Wednesday “we are ready industrially and financially” to challenge any new measures.
In a joint letter to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, union heads accused ministers of “ignoring the main issue on the table” that is causing the strikes – public sector pay.
Highlighting “huge” pay cuts public sector workers have suffered, the union leaders warned: “With CPI inflation over 11% and RPI inflation above 14%, frontline workers are facing another massive real-terms hit to their wages.
“Nurses, ambulance staff, teachers and millions of other key workers have already seen their living standards decimated with over a decade of pay cuts and wage freezes.
“Nurses today are earning £5,000 a year less in real terms than they were in 2010 and hospitals and schools are having to set up food banks for staff. This cannot go on.”
The Second Niger Bridge will only be accessible to drivers from December15, 2022, to January 15, 2023, according to the Nigerian government.
This information was provided by Babatunde Fashola (SAN), minister of works and housing, during a Thursday press conference in Abuja.
The minister believes that the move is being made by the Nigerian government to relieve pressure on the bridge, which is currently being used for Christmas celebrations.
He asserted that although the bridge’s building was complete, there was still work to be done to connect it to the main road.
Fashola said, “We have completed work on the bridge, so if you go there now you can walk from one end of the bridge to the other or drive from one end of the bridge to the other but the connecting road that links that bridge to the main highway, is what we want to finish.
“What delayed us is rain and the stop work orders on Mondays in that part of the country.
“The President approved that since the bridge is finished that we should create a access road so that during Christmas you can begin to experience what it would feel like plying the bridge.
“It would be open for traffic going from the West to the East from the 15th December, 2022 to 15th January 2023.
“Let me be clear again: we haven’t finished construction work but we would open it for people to use to relive the pressure from the one bridge, it wouldn’t be available for heavy duty trucks, it would only be small vehicles for now until we finish our work.
“On the 15th January we would reverse that movement for those coming from the east to the west. We have told all the contractors that they shouldn’t open anymore sections for construction i.e. there shouldn’t be any barrier on the roads this season.”
In anticipation of the February 25, 2023 presidential elections, Chatham House, a significant policy institute and think-tank forum, has invited Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) to speak about his ideas for Nigerians.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, is anticipated to attend the event in London, United Kingdom, on January 16, 2023. This gathering and its associated products are just one of many that focus on the 2023 elections in Nigeria.
On December 5, 2022, Bola Tinubu, an All Progressives Congress (APC) rival of Obi’s, gave a speech at Chatham House in London where he discussed some of his ideas for crucial areas like technology, education, the military, and the economy.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
As part of the event, which drew harsh criticism, Tinubu also assigned some of his loyalists, including governors and MPs now in office, to respond to questions from attendees.
Obi, Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are the leading candidates in the 2023 presidential race.
One woman is running for president of Nigeria out of the 18 candidates, but experts says she has no chance of winning, and neither do the other 13 contestants.
According to the majority of analysts, only four candidates; Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), have a chance of winning or influencing the outcome of the presidential election in February 2019.
Peter Obi is the youngest of the four at 61 years old, despite the call for leaders from a younger age. They are all familiar with one another and with Nigerian politics.
The Independent Corrupt Practicesand Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has released well-known Nigerian musician Daniel Oladapo, also known as D’Banj.
D’banj’s lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi announced the development on Friday, adding that the musician was released on self-recognition. The ICPC released Dbanj on grounds that he may be summoned later for further investigations.
Olajengbesi said the ICPC didn’t trace any evidence of fraudulent activity to D’banj. That claim could however not be independently verified at this time.
“Nothing incriminating was found on him. He was released on self-recognition. Right now, we expect the ICPC to give a letter of clearance to Dbanj because, as we have always said, he is innocent of the charges brought against him,” the lawyer explained.
Investigations show that two Nigerian banks have submitted detailed financial statements to the anti-graft agency in relation to the matter.
In an operation off the coast of Sierra Leone, a Brazilian vesselcarrying more than 4.6 tonnes of cocaine worth over $157.4 million was seized.
According to Europol, the ship was seized by a French Navy helicopter carrier on November 30, 2022, about 400 miles off the coast of Sierra Leone.
The NCA, US Drug Enforcement Agency, and Brazilian Federal Police collaborated to uncover and battle criminal networks involved in cocaine trafficking between Brazil, Africa, and Europe. This collaboration resulted in the operation.
According to EUROPOL, the 21-metre-long Brazilian ship where the drugs were found was sailing toward Europe when it was intercepted.
“An investigation is underway to identify the criminal groups involved on either side of the Atlantic Ocean,” Europol said in a statement.
The National Crime Agency reported that the crew, who were all citizens of Brazil, were detained and the cocaine was destroyed. Drug smugglers and sellers have recently traveled often along Sierra Leone’s coast.
At Freetown’s Queen Elizabeth II Port in July of this year, the Sierra Leone Police allegedly found a 40-foot container with cocaine inside. According to reports, the container was sent from the UK to Sierra Leone.
When a ship using the flag of Sierra Leonewas stopped in Guinean waters carrying almost three tons of cocaine, authorities there held the ship. Recently, many ships were stopped in the waters off Sierra Leone for engaging in unlawful activities.
In a statement, Vodacom of South Africareported that DRC authorities had closed the offices and seized the local branch’s accounts as a result of a tax dispute.
In a statement dated Dec. 8, Vodacom stated: “On December 6 and 7, 2022, agents of the General Directorate of Taxes (DGI) presented themselves at our technical, commercial, and administrative offices and proceeded with the installation of seals.”
According to the statement, the disagreement relates to a tax audit that the DGI conducted for the years 2016 through 2019 that resulted in a $243 million adjustment in July 2021. The amount was subsequently reduced.
Vodacom claimed last month that it had challenged the ruling and appealed it, but the DGI had already begun taking action to forcibly
CEO of VodacomShameel Joosub
It was impossible to immediately reach Congolese authorities for comment. All of Congo’s phone providers have been at odds with the country’s attempts to collect additional taxes without enabling them to raise consumer pricing.
In March, the government enacted a new levy that assesses fees for each megabyte of data, text message, and phone call.
The tax took the place of another levy that had been eliminated a month earlier following protests from the public and a legislative inquiry into the use of the money.
According to Vodacom, steps had been taken to assure the community of it’s services , and every available legal option was being used.
As James Cleverly approved the most sanctions the UKhas ever combined in one package, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly stated that the UK has a responsibility to “promote free and open societies.”
New sanctions have been imposed by the UK on 30 people and organisations that it deemed to be “corrupt political figures, human rights violators, and perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence.”
People involved in the mobilisation of troops to rape civilians and the torturing of prisoners are included in the sanctions.
The number of individuals sanctioned from 11 nations—including Russia, Iran, Myanmar, and South Sudan—is the highest number the UK has ever gathered in a single package.
In order to commemorate International Anti-Corruption Day and Global Human Rights Day, the government claimed that the sanctions were planned with international partners.
approved the most sanctions the UK has ever combined in one package, James Cleverly stated that the UK has a responsibility to “promote free and open societies.”
New sanctions have been imposed by the UK on 30 people and organisations that it deemed to be “corrupt political figures, human rights violators, and perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence.”
People involved in the mobilisation of troops to rape civilians and the torturing of prisoners are included in the sanctions.
The number of individuals sanctioned from 11 nations—including Russia, Iran, Myanmar, and South Sudan—is the highest number the UK has ever gathered in a single package.
In order to commemorate International Anti-Corruption Day and Global Human Rights Day, the government claimed that the sanctions were planned with international partners.
“It is our duty to promote free and open societies around the world,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.
As part of the package, eight individuals involved in serious human rights abuses and violations have been designated under the Global Human Rights regime, which allows the UK to stop them from entering the country, channelling money through UK banks or profiting from the British economy.
Geographical sanctions have been placed on Iran and Russia, while five “corrupt actors” from Serbia, Moldova and Kosovo have been placed on the list.
The UK has now sanctioned more than 1,200 individuals in Russia, including members of the military. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov were sanctioned in February when Russia invaded Ukraine.
All sanctioned individuals will have their assets frozen and a travel ban imposed, while entities are subject to asset freeze.
Image:More than 1,200 Russians have now been sanctioned by the UK, including Vladimir Putin
Those included in the latest wave of sanctions are:
• Ten Iranian officials connected to Iran’s judicial and prison systems, including former directors of Evin Prison where Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was held, and those responsible for handing out death penalties to protesters
• Russian Colonel Ibatullin, commander of the 90th Tank Division, who has been on the front line of the Ukraine invasion
• Two county commissioners in South Sudan who mobilised troops to rape civilians during conflicts earlier this year
• Mali’s Katiba Macina group, also known as the Macina Liberation Front, who are known for sexual violence, including forced marriages
• Divisions of the Myanmar armed forces for sexual violence and Myanmar’s office of the chief of military and security affairs following reports of torture, rape and sexual violence
• Muslim cleric Mian Abdul Haq for forced conversions and marriages of girls and women from religious minorities in Pakistan
• Uganda’s former inspector general of police, general Kale Kayihura, for overseeing human rights violations, including torture
• The mayor and deputy mayor of Matagalpa in Nicaragua for promoting and supporting grievous human rights violations
• Russian federal security service member in Crimea, Andrey Tishenin, and Artur Shambazov, a senior detective in Crimea, for torturing Ukrainian activist Oleksandr Kostenko in 2015
• Russian Federation major of justice Valentin Oparin and Oleg Tkachenko, head of public prosecutions in Rostov forobstructing complaints of torture and using torture to extract testimony.
Haiti’s UN humanitarian coordinator has revealed that , cholera has already claimed the lives of 283 people in the Caribbean country and more than 14,000 suspected cases have been reported. Due to the insecurity, about 155,000 people have been internally displaced.
As nearly 20,000 people in Port-au-Prince experience “catastrophic famine-like conditions” due to a cholera outbreak, gangs who control nearly 60% of the city’s population are tearing apart society, a senior UN official has warned.
Ulrika Richardson, the nation’s UN humanitarian coordinator, said at a news conference that the gangs are using “terrifying levels” of sexual violence “as a weapon” to control populations, instil fear, and punish them.
The fight for territory has “a human cost” and what people are facing on an everyday basis is “enormous”, she added, warning that if the issue is not addressed now, it will be “very difficult in terms of social cohesion and reconciliation”.
She said all but 1,000 of the 20,000 Haitians facing starvation are in the capital, Port-au-Prince, mainly in the Cite Soleil slum controlled by the gangs.
Image: A woman with her daughter who is stricken with cholera at a clinic in Port-au-Prince. Pic: AP
This comes as the cholera outbreak in the Caribbean nation “continues to be a worry”.
The illness has caused at least 283 deaths so far and close to 12,000 people have been treated in hospital since 2 October.
There are more than 14,000 suspected cases throughout the country, and infections have been confirmed in eight of Haiti’s 10 regions.
An emergency appeal aimed at raising more than $145m (£118m) to contain the spread of cholera in the nation was launched in November. Around $23.5m (£19.2m) has been donated so far, said Ms Richardson.
Image:Rose Delpe cries as people are displaced by gang war violence in Haiti
‘Massive displacement’
Political instability has simmered since the unsolved assassination last year of President Jovenal Moise, who had faced protests calling for his resignation over corruption charges.
Insecurity in the country has led to the “massive” internal displacement of 155,000 people fleeing their homes – a 77% increase since August.
Many are the “most vulnerable”, such as women and families, who are in temporary sites or being hosted in communities.
Image: Ulrika Richardson
Ms Richardson said they are working with institutions to figure out how to address the issue since those hosting the displaced have “meagre” resources.
School closures have affected around four million children, many of whom have not received proper education since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the humanitarian chief.
In a more positive development, more than half of schools have now opened, said Ms Richardson. Although, there is “disparity” in that most of them are in the south.
“We have logistical challenges, you can imagine, and the security challenge, but we are able to be present and we are able to help people,” she said.
“We are obviously focusing on the most vulnerable, but we also try not to lose focus on the real structural root causes.
“So, we have corruption, we have impunity, we have governance, and all of that needs to really be at the centre also of our thinking as we go forward.”
Liz Truss resigned after just 44 days as a result of the Tory MP’s mini-budget statement,which caused one of the most turbulent economic periods in modern history.
Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has accepted that he and Liz Truss “blew it” by instituting extensive economic reforms and “got carried away.”
The Conservative MP called their low-tax, small-state plans “very exciting” and said he fully supported them, but he also acknowledged that the way they were carried out was their downfall.
The markets crashed after Mr. Kwarteng announced his “mini” budget just 17 days after Ms. Truss appointed him chancellor, forcing him to resign before Ms. Truss was also forced to resign.
“It was very exciting, you felt you were part of a project,” he told the FT Weekend Magazine.
As soon as she became PM, Ms Truss said she did not want any opinion polling as she felt politicians were obsessed with “optics”.
Despite advisers warning her and Mr Kwarteng that their plans would be seen as a “budget for the rich”, they were ignored.
Mr Kwarteng added: “People got carried away, myself included. There was no tactical subtlety whatsoever.”
He still believes the goal was correct but admitted: “Where we fell woefully short was to have a tactical plan.”
As the economic turmoil continued, despite the government U-turning on some of the recently announced policies, Mr Kwarteng went to IMF meetings in Washington as he did not want to cause more panic by not attending.
But he was called back early after, he and his allies believe, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case managed to persuade Ms Truss she had to reverse some of the measures to avoid economic ruin.
When Ms Truss told him he could no longer be chancellor on 14 October, he says he told her: “I know, I’ve seen it on Twitter.”
Mr Kwarteng said he warned her he was a “firebreak” and getting rid of him would “make her weaker, not stronger”.
“She said she was doing this to save her premiership,” he told the FT.
Last month, Mr Kwarteng said he and Ms Truss are still “friends”.
The massive fire in Khimki, which is close to the Russian capital of Moscow, destroyed the entire shopping centre.
One of the biggest shopping malls in Moscow was completely destroyed by a massive fire that claimed at least one life.
According to authorities, the fire broke out in the Mega shopping centre in Khimki, northwest of the Russian capital, and covered an area of about 7,000 square metres.
Firefighters’ attempts to put out the flames were hampered because the fire caused part of the building to collapse.
It broke out before the centre opened to customers.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it was looking into the cause of the fire.
Officials initially said arson may have been involved.
But, authorities later said the blaze appeared to have been sparked by welding that apparently violated safety regulations, with a probe launched.
The shopping centre used to house a number of Western shops, including IKEA, before the chains pulled out of Russia in the wake of the Ukraine conflict.
The frigid weather will last until the following week. While this is going on, weather experts are predicting that snow could fall in the South East of Englandon Sunday night and into Monday morning.
Parts of southern England could experience snowfall in the coming days as forecasters warn that the Arctic blast will last into next week and cause temperatures to drop as low as -15C.
A yellow snow and ice warning has been issued by the Met Office for London and the South East from 9 a.m. on Sunday to 9 a.m. on Monday, stating that two to five centimetres of snow, and even up to 10 cm in some areas, may fall during that time.
“Snow may push in across parts of east and southeast England, leading to a risk of travel disruption especially on Monday morning,” it said.
Image:Met Office warnings for Sunday
Spokesman Grahame Madge said: “The outlook for the UK remains cold at least for the next seven days, with the potential for this to continue even longer.”
Temperatures dropped as low as -9C (15F) in Benson, South Oxfordshire, overnight, and Sky News weather producer Joanna Robinson said -15C could possibly be reached in Scotland where there is snowfall and clear skies over the coming week.
The Met Office had already issued several yellow weather warnings for snow and ice which are in place for parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and South West England.
In addition, the UK Health Security Agency has issued a level three cold weather alert covering England until Monday – and says vulnerable people should heat their homes to at least 18C, wear extra layers of clothing, and eat hot food to protect themselves.
As parts of the UK are hit by freezing conditions, those on the lowest incomes in England and Wales will receive a £25 cold weather payment.
The winter payments are triggered for eligible households where the average temperature has been or is forecast to be 0C or below over a period of seven consecutive days.
Robinson said further wintry showers into next week will bring icy stretches, with conditions reaching well below freezing.
Image:Consett, County Durham, on Friday
She said: “The Arctic air is across us now, bringing wintry hazards that could last for most of next week, but there will be plenty of sunshine.
“Like recently, temperatures will widely drop below freezing at night, reaching -4C to -8C under clear skies, and -10C is likely in some prone cold spots.
“And it’s staying cold in the day, with temperatures generally 2C to 4C, but freezing in some places.
“Disruptive freezing fog is looking increasingly likely over the weekend, especially in the south.”
Image:Castleside Viaduct in Durham on Friday
Image:A van in the snow in Castleside, Durham
The Met Office has extended a yellow weather warning for snow and ice in northern Scotland until 12pm on Sunday.
It warned some disruption is likely due to icy surfaces in coastal and northern England and parts of Wales and Northern Ireland where yellow warnings for ice have been issued for Friday.
The icy conditions in coastal England and parts of Northern Ireland and Wales are expected to continue into Saturday.
The forecaster’s meteorologist Alex Deakin said earlier this week there was a potential for “significant” snow in parts of England and Wales in a predicted weather model for next week, which shows a low pressure system heading towards the UK.
He added: “The weather patterns don’t shift too much by the time we get to Monday, we’ve still got the cold air in place, cold weather fronts around, some freezing fog and some ice as well.”
The government is considering tough new laws amid the winter’s strikes, according to Rishi Sunak.
The legislation, which unions claim is anti-worker, is anticipated to include a ban on strikes from all blue light services and minimum service levels for public services.
Mr Sunak said: “I’m not going to get into details now, we’re looking at all options.
“But what I can say is my priority is to always be reasonable – and that’s what we’re going to continue to do – but also to make sure we protect lives and minimise the disruption to people’s lives.”
He added: “We’re looking at everything right now at pace but my priority is going to be to protect lives and to minimise the disruption on people’s lives.
“So the government is trying its best to act reasonably, that’s why we’ve accepted in full the recommendations of independent bodies who make recommendations to the Government about pay settlements in the public sector, and often those pay settlements have been higher than what many people in the private sector are receiving, but the government accepted them in full to be reasonable, to be fair.
“But it’s right now that we also look to minimise the disruption on people’s lives and that’s why we’re looking at tough new laws.”
Although the bond market has recently experienced a modest uptick, distressed debt in emerging markets continues to be a serious weakness in the world economy that is gearing up for a downturn.
$215 billion in debt due in the next two years must be refinanced by governments of developing nations.
But many are no longer able to borrow.
Asset managers like Allianz SE, BlackRock Inc. ,and Fidelity Investments are amongthose with the greatest exposure to distressed debt.
“We expect the borrowing conditions for emerging markets to stay difficult and rates to remain high,” said Guillermo Osses, head of emerging-market debt strategies at hedge fund manager Man GLG, which has run the best performing EM fund this year.
“Around 15 countries have sovereign bonds trading at distressed levels, and there is no option for them to refinance the current level of debts at these rates. They will have to either go to the IMF, devalue their currencies or restructure the debt.”
Along with dozens of other developing countries,Ghana benefited from a debt-relief initiative run by the IMF and World Bank in the early 2000s, which wiped about $4 billion off its debt stock by 2006. That shift from mostly concessional funding before 2007 to largely commercial borrowing afterwards was transformational for Ghana, says Bright Simons, an analyst at the Accra-based think tank Imani Centre for Policy and Education.
“This new source of funding was completely different from what we’d experienced in the past — this money was going directly to the budget like a steroid injection straight into
the bloodstream,” said Simons.
The cathedral “is the perfect example of the spending spree: Ghana behaving like a fabulously
rich sultanate in the Gulf rather than a developing country just attaining frontier market status.” Erasing the ‘stigma of default’ Ghana spent years pitching itself as a business-friendly country that offered political stability, and a place for foreign investors to make outsized returns that they would easily be able to repatriate.
Foreign Direct Investment soared to nearly $4 billion in 2019, regularly outstripping neighboring
Nigeria, which has an economy over five times larger.
But, as Simons notes, Ghana’s FDI-stock-to-GDP ratio of nearly 80% — compared with a continental average of around 25% — makes it “highly vulnerable to global shifts in sentiment.”
Those shifts have caused domestic problems for President Nana Akufo-Addo. Store closures and street protests over the cost-of-living crisis have sprung up around the country.
And the majority of his own ruling party has called for the resignation of Ken Ofori-Atta, the finance minister, who faces a censure motion from parliament over his management of the economy, including spending on the cathedral.
The beginning of commercial oil production in 2010 helped shape Ghana’s economic ascent, but stresses in the system have become more apparent. Crude production figures have never matched government projections — it sits at under 200,000 barrels per day, less than half of earlier predictions — and investment in the sector has slowed in recent years.
Along with the impact of the pandemic and the Ukraine war on the economy the government and opposition largely blame each other’s overspending for the crisis that the country finds itself in. Some current ministers point to a slew of lucrative take- or-pay power contracts awarded by the previous government between 2013 and 2015.
Designed to solve a short-term electricity crisis, the deals resulted in private producers setting up plants that can supply 4,600 megawatts, nearly double national peak demand of 2,700 megawatts — leaving the country paying $500 million a year for power it does not use and cannot store.
Debt owed to fuel suppliers and the power companies could reach $12.5 billion by 2023.
From January next year, young people in France will have free access to condoms in an effort to stop the spread of STDs (STIs).
At a Thursday event for young people’s health, the French president made the new health initiative official.
Young people would be able to pick them up from pharmacies, according to Emmanuel Macron,who called the initiative a “small revolution in contraception.”
The national STI rate in France increased by 30% in 2020 and 2021.
The new measure comes alongside other health initiatives targeting the spread of STIs and improving access to contraception.
In 2018 the French government started reimbursing the costs of condoms to individuals, if purchased in a pharmacy with a prescription from a doctor or midwife.
Earlier this year the government made contraception free for all women up to 26 years old – a move that affected three million women. Contraception had previously been free for women and girls 18 or younger.
Mr Macron added in a tweet that Thursday’s announcement comes alongside other health measures. They include free emergency contraception for all women in pharmacies, and free STI screenings without a prescription, except HIV, to those under the age of 26.
Over the holiday season, Border Force employees who check passports at the UK’s borderswill be on strike in support of their demand for higher pay.
Prior to the Christmas holiday, when Border Force employees will be on strike, troops have been training at Heathrow and Gatwick airports to perform passport checks.
Armed forces personnel arrived at London’s two main airports earlier this week, the Ministry of Defence confirmed to Sky News.
After rejecting a 2% pay increase offer from the government, Border Force officers will strike at airports from December 23–26 and 28–31, according to a statement released by the PCS union on Wednesday.
Additionally, they will walk out at the ports of Newhaven, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, and Manchester.
About 75% of passport control staff are PCS members, meaning the majority of staff checking passports will be going on strike.
The Cabinet Officer this week said up to 600 military personnel and 700 civil servants were being trained to support a range of services – including Border Force at airports and ports – in the event of strike action.
The Home Office has warned the strikes are likely to lead to longer queues at passport control at one of the busiest times of the year for airports.
Airports have advised travellers to check the status of their flights before travelling.
“We all owe them an enormous debt of gratitude,” he said.
He added that his priority is to “protect lives and to minimise the disruption on people’s lives” but insisted the government will always “try and act fairly and reasonably” with public sector pay.
“What I’m not going to do is ask ordinary families up and down the country to pay an extra £1,000 a year to meet the pay demands of the union bosses. That wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be fair,” he said.
The use of troops to cover striking workers has proved contentious, with senior military figures saying they should not be made to give up Christmas.
Armed forces personnel are banned by law from striking themselves and most soldiers are already paid less than those going on strike, while their pay scales have not kept up with inflation.
A senior defence source told the Telegraph the government is now reaching for the Armed Forces “every time there is any difficulty, whether it’s floods, strikes…as opposed to it being the last resort”.
Ex-Army captain and Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Defence Committee, said it would place a “huge burden” on the military.
How will strikes affect businesses?
Earlier this week, the government confirmed military personnel, civil servants and volunteers are being trained to support a range of services as several industries will be hit by strike action this December.
On Sunday, Conservative Party Chairman Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News the government had yet to decide on whether to deploy armed forces personnel but said it was considering having them work on UK borders.
Industries also going on strike during the Christmas period are: rail workers, bus staff, roads staff, baggage handlers, Royal Mail employees, nurses, driving examiners, civil servants, ambulance staff and teachers.
Scotland Yard describes the situation as “deeply worrying” and acknowledges the fret it will bring to the public and other members of the UK’s largest force. It also notes that the officer was suspended right away.
Two counts of rape have been brought against an officer with the Metropolitan Police.
After being detained on suspicion of rape on September 5th, PC Rupert Edwards was released on bail and placed on administrative leave.
On Thursday, he was taken into custody once more on rape suspicion.
The 29-year-old has since been accused of two counts of rape and will make his court appearance later today while still being held in custody.
The 29-year-old has since been charged with two counts of rape and is due to appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later today.
Commander Jon Savell, in charge of the Met’s professionalism command, said: “This news is deeply worrying and I recognise the concern it will cause the public and other police officers.
“We took immediate action to suspend PC Edwards from duty when he was first arrested in September.
“Legal proceedings are now active and it is important that I do not comment while that process takes place.”
The charges relate to two women aged in their 20s and 30s, who are being supported by specially trained officers.
The offences are alleged to have occurred in Lambeth, south London, on 26 August, and in Surrey on 5 September, while the officer was off-duty.
The WNBA star, who was serving nine years, in Russia for was transported by air to San Antonio, Texas.
After being released in a prisoner swap with convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death,” US basketball star Brittney Griner has returned to the United States.
The WNBA star, 32, was transported by air to San Antonio, Texas.
Roger D. Carstens, a special presidential envoy for the US, exclaimed: “So happy to have Brittney back on American soil. Welcome home, BG!”
Ms Griner was detained in February when customs agents said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
She had pleaded guilty at her trial saying she used the cartridges to relieve pain from sports injuries and had made an “honest mistake”.
Ms Griner “represents the best of America”, he added.
President Biden insisted the US has not forgotten about Paul Whelan, a former US marine who remains in Russian custody.
A senior US official said the administration tried everything they could to get Mr Whelan out, but “they are treating him differently. They say he is an espionage case. They said the choice was either one [Griner] or none”.
He did not refer to the price the US paid for Ms Griner’s liberty – the release of convicted arms dealer Bout.
The current Korean agesystem in South Korea states that a person is one at birth and gains a year on January 1 of every year. Additionally, there is a different approach for determining conscription eligibility or the legal smoking and drinking age.
Many South Koreans will soon become a year or two younger as a result of laws that have been passed to replace the country’s outdated age-counting practises with the global norm.
The current Korean age system in South Korea states that a person is one at birth and gains a year on January 1 of every year. Therefore, a child born on December 31 would be considered two the following day.
A separate method also exists for conscription purposes or calculating the legal age to drink alcohol and smoke. Under this system, a person’s age is calculated from zero at birth and a year is added on 1 January.
However, South Korea also uses the international method of calculating age by starting at zero at birth and adding a year on every birthday.
To end any confusion, from 23 June, the country will officially adopt the international system – at least on official documents.
The move aims to standardise how age is calculated in the country.
Yoo Sang-bum, of the ruling People Power Party,told parliament: “The revision is aimed at reducing unnecessary socio-economic costs, because legal and social disputes as well as confusion persist due to the different ways of calculating age.”
“I remember foreigners looking at me with puzzlement because it took me so long to come back with an answer on how old I was.”
She added: “Who wouldn’t welcome getting a year or two younger?”
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The Privy Council might be given the authority to downgrade the couple’s royal status if MPs approve a resolution in the bill.
According to a Conservative MP, legislation that could result in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex losing their royal titles is something he plans to introduce .
Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely said the brief private members’ bill would allow MPs to vote on a resolution that could allow the Privy Council to downgrade the couple’s royal status. The bill could be brought forward to the new year.
It comes a day after the release of the couple’s “tell-all” documentary on Netflix, which has prompted anger from some royal fans.
Mr Seely said he had been thinking about the bill even before the documentary, saying there is a “political issue” with Harry’s comments, as he quit working as a senior royal more than two years ago.
He asked why Harry continued to use his title while “at the same time trash(ing) the institution of monarchy and his family”.
He told the PA news agency: “As well as trashing his family and monetising his misery for public consumption, he is also attacking some important institutions in this country.”
Meanwhile employment minister Guy Opperman told the BBC that the couple are “utterly irrelevant” to the progress of the UK and the Royal Family.
Royal correspondent Laura Bundock looks at the Netflix documentary
“That having been said, I agree that they are utterly irrelevant to this country and the progress of this country and the Royal Family that we all, I believe, support.”
Meghan says ‘when family and family business are in direct conflict’
In the documentary, Harry alleges the Royal Family has “unconscious bias”.
King Charles avoids questions on Harry and Meghan’s Netflix docuseries
He says: “In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias.
The Duke of Sussex says members of the Royal Family asked why the Duchess of Sussex should be ‘protected’
“The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one’s fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself, you then need to make it right.”
The series also uses footage from Princess Diana’s BBC Panorama interview, which Prince William has said should never be broadcast again.
The Duke of Sussex appears to criticise the parenting he received from King Charles, saying he tried to cope with the loss of his mother, who died in a car crash in 1997, “without much support or help or guidance”.
He added that he was “literally brought up” by a “second family” of friends in Africa.
The Duke and Duchess signed lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify – thought to be worth more than £100m– after deciding to quit the monarchy in early 2020.
The Scottish Parliamentis about to pass a new law that will make it easier for anyone in Scotland who wants to change their gender to do so legally.
The likelihood that the UK government will reject it, however, raises serious concerns for those who would like to relocate elsewhere in the country.
Since 1998, MPs in Westminster have made some laws that are applicable in Scotland, while MSPs in Edinburgh have made others.
The timeline for obtaining a gender recognition certificate, a document that enables someone to change their gender on their birth certificate, will be shortened by legislation currently before the Scottish Parliament.
Gender recognition certificates allow people to change certain legal documents, and can affect areas such as entitlement to benefits and pensions.
The legislation is currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament and is likely to pass later this month.
UK government ministers are responsible for the law in this area in England and Wales, and have no plans to move in the same direction as the Scottish government.
A UK government source close to the process told the BBC this was “absolutely” possible.
The Westminster government is also not ruling out the prospect of a legal challenge once the legislation is passed by MSPs – it believes the new law may have an impact on areas where policy is decided in London.
Asked if there could be a legal challenge to the Scottish legislation, the source told the BBC “nothing can be ruled out”.
Scottish government ministers have said they are happy to meet their UK counterparts to discuss their concerns – and officials in Edinburgh said they had tried to set up talks in October, without any response.
The SNP-led government believes the bill involves powers held solely in Edinburgh, so the UK government would not have grounds to mount a legal challenge.
Equalities Secretary Kemi Badenoch has written to the Scottish government expressing concerns about the Scottish legislation, and has offered to meet Scottish ministers to discuss it.
‘Nasty Westminster’
A UK government source told the BBC that they had concerns people from elsewhere in the UK may relocate to Scotland to change gender.
And they claimed Scottish ministers wanted to paint Scotland as a “haven of inclusivity” in comparison to a “nasty Westminster”.
The source described the Scottish legislation as a “test case scenario” of how a bill passed by the Scottish Parliament could “undermine Westminster competencies” – in other words, handing Holyrood powers outside Scotland.
A separate UK government official told the BBC there was “genuine concern” about the impact the legislation could have across the rest of the UK. They added that they hoped a legal battle could be avoided.
Scottish Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison has said she would be “happy to meet with Ms Badenoch” to discuss the issue.
The most recent UK Health Security Agency statistics indicate that ,fifteen children have died in the UK as a result of invasive strep A infections since September.
One child died in Wales, and another died in Northern Ireland. There have been no confirmed deaths in Scotland.
There have also been 47 adult deaths from strep A in England.
Most strep A infections are mild, but the number of more severe invasive cases, while still uncommon, is increasing.
Experts advise anyone who is experiencing symptoms to seek immediate medical attention.
Strep A infections typically peak in the spring, but data show that cases are increasing earlier than usual this year.
The UKHSA says the last time there was a significant number of cases was in the 2017/18 season when there were 27 deaths in children under 18 in England and 328 adult deaths.
Seasons with high cases can occur every three to four years. But social distancing measures during the pandemic may have interrupted the cycle and that could help explain the recent increase, UKHSA experts say.
So far, since September, there have been 85 cases of invasive strep A inchildren aged one to four in England and 60 in children aged five to nine.
The majority of cases are in people over 45.
Dr Colin Brown, deputy director of the UKHSA, said: “We know that this is concerning for parents, but I want to stress that while we are seeing an increase in cases in children, this remains very uncommon.
“There a lots of winter bugs circulating that can make your child feel unwell, that mostly aren’t cause for alarm.
“However, make sure you talk to a health professional if your child is getting worse after a bout of scarlet fever, a sore throat or respiratory infection – look out for signs such as a fever that won’t go down, dehydration, extreme tiredness and difficulty breathing.”
Infections caused by strep A are usually mild, with symptoms like a sore throat or skin infections.
The bug can also cause scarlet fever – with a sore throat, skin rash that feels like sandpaper, a high temperature and a so-called “strawberry tongue”.
It is treated with antibiotics which may also help reduce the risk of complications and spread of the bug.
However, in a very small number of cases, strep A can get deeper into the body – for example, into the lungs and bloodstream – causing invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS), which needs immediate medical attention.
UKHSA experts say there is currently no evidence of a new strain of strep Acirculating.
What should parents do?
Trust your judgement if your child seems seriously unwell.
Contact NHS 111 or your local surgery if they:
are getting worse
are eating much less than normal
show signs of dehydration, such as a dry nappy for 12 hours
have a temperature of 39C or higher, or 38C if under three months old
are a baby and feel hotter than usual when you touch their back or chest or sweaty
are very tired or irritable
Call 999 or go to an accident-and-emergency unit if:
they are having difficulty breathing – you may notice grunting noises or their stomach sucking under their ribs
they are pausing when they breathe
their skin, tongue or lips are blue
they are floppy and will not wake up or stay awake
The presidentof Colombia has reported that at least 27 people have died as a result of a landslide on a road in the western province of Risaralda.
Heavy rains caused a hillside to collapse, burying several vehicles under mud and rocks, including a bus carrying passengers.
Before he was buried and killed, one of the other passengers assisted his wife and two children in leaving the bus.
According to President Gustavo Petro, among those killed are at least three children.
On the road leading to the northern province of Chocó, a landslide occurred early on Sunday morning local time.
Witnesses said an intercity bus, a jeep, and a motorbike had stopped on the road because of a car accident further ahead when part of the hillside collapsed on top of them.
The bus is thought to have had two drivers and 25 passengers on board when it set off, but more passengers could have boarded along the way.
IMAGE SOURCE,COLOMBIAN DISASTER MANAGEMENT AGENCY Image caption, Rescuers are proceeding carefully to avoid the bus tumbling down the hillside
One of those who died inside the bus was identified as Guillermo Ibargüen. His son Andrés told Caracol News that “Dad helped me get out of the bus through a little hole”.
“I had to throw myself down the ravine. When I jumped, the mud had covered everything,” he said.
Ibargüen also helped his wife and his daughter escape the bus in time.
At least nine people have survived the landslide, including one girl who rescuers saw clinging to the body of her dead mother.
Despite the fact that millions of people in Ukraine are still without water or electricity, Vladimir Putin has vowed to keep attacking its energy infrastructure.
“Yes we do that.B who started it? “At a Kremlin awards ceremony, the Russian president said.
Criticizing Russian strikes, he declared, “would not interfere with our combat missions.”
Since 10 October, after a string of significant military setbacks, Moscow has been hammering Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure.
Some Western leaders have called the strategy a war crime, because of the huge amount of damage caused to civilian infrastructure.
But President Putin said that growing global criticism would not stop the strikes.
“There’s a lot of noise about our strikes on the energy infrastructure of a neighbouring country. Yes, we do that. But who started it?” he said to recipients of state awards, including the “Hero of Russia” medal.
He said the strikes were in response to a blast on the Russian bridge to annexed Crimea on 8 October. He also accused Ukraine blowing up power lines from the Kursk nuclear power plant and of cutting water supply to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
“Not supplying water to a city of more than a million people is an act of genocide,” Mr Putin said, accusing the West of “complete silence” on these claims and of bias against Russia.
Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin said last month that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure amount to genocide.
The Russian president said that when Moscow responds to Ukrainian aggression “there is uproar and clamour spreading through the whole universe”.
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS Image caption, Ukraine is now seeing snow and sub-zero temperatures in many regions, including Kyiv
Ukraine is now seeing snow and sub-zero temperatures in many regions, and millions are without electricity and running water, raising fears people may die of hypothermia.
The country switched to emergency shutdowns to stabilise its power grid after a fresh wave of Russian missile attacks on Monday.
Experts have told the BBC that Russia’s tactic of hitting energy infrastructure is most likely designed to demoralise and terrorise the population, rather than gain any concrete military advantage – a move that would violate international law.
A US citizen who killed teen motorcyclist Harry Dunn has been given an eight-month prison term with a 12-month suspension.
Around a US military base in Northamptonshire in August 2019, Anne Sacoolas, 45, struck Mr. Dunn, 19, while driving on the wrong side of the road.
Sacoolas participated in the hearing at the London Old Bailey via video link.
Charlotte Charles, the mother of Mr. Dunn, claimed that her “promise” to obtain justice for her son “is well and truly complete.”
At a hearing in the same court in October, she had previously acknowledged that her reckless driving was what led to his death.
Additionally, Sacoolas was banned from driving for a year.
Following the crash, Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf by the US administration and left the UK 19 days later, leading to a transatlantic row.
The sentencing brings a legal resolution to Mr Dunn’s family after a three-year wait for justice.
Mrs Charles said: “Anne Sacoolas has a criminal record for the rest of her life.
“That was something she never thought she’d see, something the US government never thought they’d see.
“Harry we done it. We’re good, we’re good.”
The teenager’s father, Tim Dunn, added: “It’s been such a relentless time, we as a family fought off everything we can to get to this point.”
The defendant appeared via video-link from the US after her employer, the US government,advised her not to attend the sentencing hearing.
Mrs Charles said her failure to attend the sentencing in person was “despicable”, adding she was “absolutely disgusted” by the decision.
Sacoolas was originally charged with causing death by dangerous driving, but the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) accepted her guilty plea to the lesser charge.
In her sentencing remarks to Sacoolas, Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: “There is no doubt that the calm and dignified persistence of these parents and the family of that young man has led, through three years of heartbreak and effort, to your appearance before the court and the opportunity for you to acknowledge your guilt of a crime.”
IMAGE SOURCE,JULIA QUENZLER/BBC Image caption, Anne Sacoolas (right) appeared via video-link at the Old Bailey with her lawyer Amy Jefferies
Mrs Charles said she was “grateful” for the judge’s words during the sentencing.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC told the court that on 27 August 2019, Sacoolas turned out of RAF Croughton and drove 350 metres (1,148ft) on the wrong side of the road for 26 seconds.
He said she failed to recognise road markings which should have alerted her to this error.
She then hit Mr Dunn, who was riding his motorbike on the correct side of the road.
The couple criticises the paparazzi’s persistentharassment throughout the first three episodes of Netflix’s “Harry & Meghan” docuseries, with the Duke of Sussex claiming that being swarmed by cameras makes up most of his early memories.
Harry recalled how the “Paparazzi used to harass us to the point where we had to be forced into smiling and answering questions to their travelling press pack,” and that made me feel really uncomfortable from the get-go.” Harry said.
He continued by saying that he had always been told not to respond to cameras and to never “feed into it.”
And while the press were allegedly supposed to give him and his brother Prince William privacy while attending school, it never worked and there was always photographers.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took aim at the UK press in their new docuseries. Netflix
Harry said most of his earliest memories were of being swarmed by the media.
“I remember thinking how am I ever going to find someone who is willing and capable to be able to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me?” he said.
Harry, whose ex-girlfriends include Chelsey Davy and Cressida Bonas, claimed that women would second-guess their relationship with him due to the press surrounding the relationship.
“Every relationship that I had within a matter of weeks or months were splattered all over the newspapers and that person’s family harassed and their lives turned upside down,” he said.
“When I got to meet M, I was terrified of her being driven away by the media. The same media that had driven so many other people away from me.”
Markle, meanwhile, claimed in the second episode of the documentary that paparazzi paid her neighbors in Toronto — where she filmed her show “Suits” in the early days of her relationship with Harry — to live-stream her backyard.
Harry has previously slammed the UK press as “toxic.” Netflix
Harry and Markle have been vocal about their disdain for the UK press since they quit the royal family in March 2020, even claiming it was the “toxic” media that led them to leave.
“We all know what the British press can be like and it was destroying my mental health,” he told James Corden in 2021. “So I did what any husband and what any father would do — I need to get my family out of here.”
A U.S. official confirmed to CBS News that representatives of former President Donald Trump notified the FBI after discovering additional potentially sensitive documents in a West Palm Beach, Florida, storage facility.
More than 300 documents with classified markings have been discovered at Trump properties so far this year, and two more were found inside a sealed box. The FBI has been given access to the documents.
The information is the first to suggest that Trump properties may have housed or may have held classified materials.
The searches by Trump representatives were conducted around Thanksgiving at three other locations — the former president’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump Tower in New York and in a storage facility at Mar-a-Lago in Florida — according to The Washington Post, which first reported the story.
It comes at a time of growing legal peril for the former president.
The FBI seized 33 boxes of records on Aug. 8 during the execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, including records that were supposed to be in the hands of the National Archives.
Last month, the Justice Department appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee the growing probe into those documents.
Trump has downplayed the importance of the seizures, but critics say his alleged mishandling of the records could have allowed highly sensitive material to fall into the wrong hands.
“The disregard and disdain for legal norms and rules simply cannot be accepted from anyone,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. “No one is above the law.”
UN investigation has revealed that ,at least 131 civilians were killed in a November attack by the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to the UN report, the massacre occurred in two villages, Kishishe and Bambo, in the Rutsuhuru district of the eastern North Kivu province.
According to investigators, the attack appeared to be retaliation for the government’s current offensive against the insurgents.
M23 denied the massacre, blaming only eight deaths on “stray bullets.”
But the UN’s Monusco peacekeeping mission in the country said 102 men, 17 women and 12 children were “arbitrarily executed” by the rebel group “as part of reprisals against the civilian population”.
At least 22 women and five girls were also raped, the report said
“This violence was carried out as part of a campaign of murders, rapes, kidnappings and looting against two villages in the Rutshuru territory as reprisals for the clashes between the M23” and other armed groups, including the FDLR, the statement said, adding that the true number of killed could be even higher.
It also said that M23 fighters then buried the bodies of the victims in “what may be an attempt to destroy evidence”.
The government had initially said that over 300 civilians were killed in the attack, which took place between 29-30 November. But its spokesman Patrick Muyaya accepted on Monday that it was difficult to arrive at a firm figure as the region was under M23 occupation.
Congolese authorities have described the killings as war crimes and called for deeper investigation, while protests have been organised in the capital, Kinshasa and Goma, the main city in North Kivu.
Investigators said they couldn’t access the villages where the massacre occurred, but they interviewed 52 victims and direct witnesses who fled the attack in the town of Rwindi about 20km (12 miles) away.
“MONUSCO condemns in the strongest terms the unspeakable violence against civilians and calls for unrestricted access to the scene and the victims for emergency humanitarian assistance,” the investigators said.
An M23 spokesperson rejected the UN’s findings and insisted that it had “asked that there be investigations together with us in Kishishe but the UN never came”.
“The UN is under pressure from the government to come up with a figure, even if it is false,” spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said.
The M23 group was formed a decade ago. It says it is defending the interests of ethnic Tutsis living in DR Congo against Hutu militias and has been involved in a long-running conflict against the central government.
After lying dormant for several years, it took up arms again last year and has been leading an offensive in eastern DRC against the Congolese army.
The massacres in Kishishe and Bambo followed clashes with the FDLR militia, which includes some of the ethnic Hutu leaders of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda who fled across the border into what is now DR Congo.
The M23 has meanwhile accused pro-government forces of “genocide and targeted killings” against the Tutsi community. It said its positions in Bwiza were attacked on Tuesday, despite the current ceasefire agreement.
The M23 has said it is ready to withdraw from the some of the territory it controls. It made the announcement on Tuesday following peace talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, even though it did not attend the talks.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi has accused neighbouring Rwanda of seeking to destabilase the country by providing weapons to the rebels, an allegation recently endorsed by UN experts. However, this has been denied by the Rwandan government.
More than 100 different armed groups operate in the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, which has been ravaged by conflict for about three decades.
Several countries have sent troops to DR Congo this year as part of an East African Community (EAC) taskforce to try and disarm the groups and bring peace to the area.
Prince Harry has described wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party in 2005 as “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”
In the third episode of the Netflix limited series “Harry and Meghan,” released Thursday morning, the royal expressed regret for his clothing selection, saying he “felt so ashamed afterwards.”
“It was probably one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made in my life.” “I felt so ashamed afterwards,” the prince admitted.
Prince Harry, who was 20 at the time, arrived at a party in London dressed as a nazi soldier with a red armband inscribed with a large swastika.
Discussing the fallout after the world caught wind of the then 20-year-old’s costume, Prince Harry said, “All I wanted to do was make it right.”
The royal teen was ordered by his father Prince Charles to do a multitude of things to help mitigate his actions, including visiting Poland’s infamous Nazi death camp Auschwitz and watching ‘Schindler’s List,’ The Post reported in 2005.
Prince Harry also shared that he spoke with the Chief Rabbi in London, saying that his visit had “a profound impact on me.”
The Sun released an image of the teenage royal donning the swastika at the 2005 London party.
Prince Harry has expressed remorse for his choices as a 20-year-old, calling the Nazi costume “one of the biggest mistakes in my life.”
Additionally, the royal said in the episode that he went to Berlin to speak with a Holocaust survivor.
“I could’ve just ignored it and probably made the same mistakes over and over again in my life, but I learned from that,” the prince said.
Iran has revealed the first public execution of a person convicted of a crime related to the country’s ongoing protests.
The man executed was identified as Mohsen Shekari by the Iranian judiciary’s official news website on Thursday.
He was found guilty of “waging war against God” after allegedly stabbing a security guard with a knife and closing down a street in Tehran.
The judiciary said there was just over a month between the man’s first court session and his execution, demonstrating the speed with which Iranian authorities have vowed to prosecute cases linked with “riots,” as they frequently describe incidents related to the protests.
The 23-year-old Shekari was arrested on September 25, just over a week after protests erupted across Iran following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to Iran’s mandatory dress code for women.
Shekari received his preliminary death sentence on November 20, and it was carried out on Thursday morning shortly after being upheld by the country’s Supreme Court.
According to alleged confessions released by the judiciary, Shekari was accompanied – and given a long knife – by an associate referred to as “Ali” who offered him “good money to participate in the riots”.
Shekari allegedly helped closed off a street in the busy neighbourhood of Sattarkhan in central Tehran, before injuring a security officer by striking him in the shoulder blade.
“Creating terror and fear and depriving people of their freedom and security” were also among his charges.
Amnesty International had warned earlier this month that at least 28 people could face execution in Iran in connection with the protests, saying “authorities use the death penalty as a tool of political repression to end the popular uprising”.
Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei had said earlier this week that “some” of the previous death sentences for “corruption on Earth” and “waging war against God” in relation to the protests had been upheld by the Supreme Court and “will be carried out soon”.
The first publicly announced death sentence related to the protests was issued on November 14, with the latest coming on Tuesday when five people were sentenced to death for allegedly killing a member of the Basij paramilitary force.
Another 11, including three minors, received lengthy prison terms in that case.
Iran executed four people and handed prison terms to three others accused of working with Israeli intelligence earlier this week in a case that appeared to be unrelated to the protests.
United Nations human rights experts have called on Iran to stop executing prisoners in relation to the protests, but Iranian authorities have persisted, stating that they need to defend the country against plots by foreign powers, especially the United States, which they accuse of being behind the unrest.
The UN Human Rights Council last month voted to establish a fact-finding mission to investigate Iran’s handling of the protests, but Tehran said it would not cooperate with the mission due to its “political” nature.
Tehran has also condemned an upcoming December 14 vote to expel Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which UN Watch has predicted will pass overwhelmingly.
Thursday’s execution came on the heels of three days of protests and strikes that ended on Wednesday after being called for anonymously online.
Videos posted online showed protests in Tehran and a number of other cities on Wednesday night. Images of shops closed during strikes have been countered by videos released by state-affiliated media that showed other shops open.
The very first three episodes of a new Netflix documentary series directed by and starring Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were released on Thursday morning. The six-part series has been billed as an in-depth look at the royal couple’s early relationship and their version of the events that eventually led to them stepping down as full-time working members of Britain’s royal family.
From the first episodes of the series, Harry made it clear that one of the main sources of the couple’s frustration has been Britain’s media, which he accused of connivance in “exploitation and bribery.”
“I’m not going to say that it’s comfortable,” Meghan said about why the couple decided to make the documentary. “But when you feel like people haven’t gotten any sense of who you are for so long, it’s really nice to just be able to have the opportunity to let people have a bit more of a glimpse into what’s happened and also who we are.”
“It’s about duty and service, and I feel as though, being part of this family, it is my duty to uncover this exploitation and bribery that happens within our media,” Harry says. “This isn’t just about our story. This has always been so much bigger than us. Who knows the full truth. We know the full truth. The institution knows the full truth, and the media knows the full truth, because they’ve been in on it.”
“I think for so many people in the family, especially single men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mold, as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with. The difference between making decisions with your head or your heart” Harry said in the first episode of the series. “My mum certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart. And I am my mother’s son.”
The couple got engaged the next year and were married on May 19, 2018. They had their son, Archie, on May 6, 2019.
“The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, I remember thinking: ‘How can I ever find someone who is willing and capable to be able to withstand all the baggage that comes with being with me?” Harry said in the documentary, outlining the way many of his prior relationships had become media spectacles.
The series features interviews with friends and family of the couple, including Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.
Since moving to the United States, Harry and Meghan have spoken out about the racism Meghan experienced while living as part of the royal family in the United Kingdom and the toll it took on her mental health. During her time in Britain, she was faced with an onslaught of negative, racist stories in the tabloid press, and last month, a senior British law enforcement officer said there had been multiple, credible threats to her life from the far right.
“I said to her: ‘This is about race,’” Ragland said in the Netflix series. “Meg said: ‘Mommy, I don’t want to hear that.’ I said: ‘You may not want to hear it, but this is what’s coming down the pike.’”
Harry said that the guidance from the rest of the royal family and their support staffwas to not respond to negative stories about Meghan in the British press.
“The direction of the palace was: ‘Don’t say anything,’” Harry said. “But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well. So it was almost like a right of passage. And some of the members of the family, it was like: ‘Right, but my wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’ And I said: ‘The difference here is the race element.’”
The couple ultimately decided to move to the U.S. and step back from their royal duties. Last year, Harry told Oprah Winfrey that they “did what they had to do,” given what they were facing.
Millions of 50p coins bearing the image of King Charles III will enter circulation on Thursday through post offices across the country.
They are the first bulk produced coins bearing the image of the new King, and they will be distributed as change to customers.
An estimated 4.9 million of the new coins are being distributed to post offices, accounting for roughly half of the total number intended for circulation.
Coins bearing the image of the late Queen will continue to be accepted in stores.
“Today marks a new era for UK coinage, with the effigy of King Charles III appearing on 50ps in circulation,” said Rebecca Morgan, director of collector services at The Royal Mint.
“We anticipate a new generation of coin collectors emerging, with people keeping a close eye on their change to try and spot a new 50p that bears the portrait of our new King.”
IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA Image caption, The new 50p coin celebrates the King and commemorates his mother
The coin has been struck at The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, Wales, using an image of the King produced over the course of months by sculptor Martin Jennings.
He used pictures of King Charles on his 70th birthday to create a likeness of the monarch, in what is the smallest work he has ever had to produce. He described its production and distribution as a “quite remarkable experience”.
The first batch of coins will be given in change to customers buying something in post offices – something its chief executive Nick Read describes as a “tremendous honour”.
“December is our busiest time of the year so the coin will be entering our network in a phased manner,” he said. “If you don’t receive the new 50p in your change on your first visit to a post office you may well get it in your change in a subsequent visit, so keep a look out for it.”
More coins will be released in line with demand, replacing damaged or worn 50p coins carrying the portrait of Queen Elizabeth. There are approximately 27 billion coins circulating in the UK bearing the image of the late Queen and these can still be used to pay for things. Before decimalisation, it was common for people to carry coins featuring different monarchs in their pockets.
However, there is still keen interest from consumers and collectors about the images used on coins and banknotes.
The reverse side of the new 50p coin is a copy of the design used on the 1953 Crown struck to commemorate the Queen’s coronation.
It includes the four quarters of the Royal Arms depicted within a shield. In between each shield is an emblem of the home nations: a rose, a thistle, a shamrock and a leek.
The coins follow centuries of tradition with the monarch now facing left – the opposite way to his predecessor. Profiles are alternated between left and right for successive monarchs. As with previous British kings, and unlike the Queen, he wears no crown.
Other denominations will be manufactured, carrying the King’s image, in line with demand.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholzsays, the risk of nuclear weapons being used in the Ukraine conflict has decreased “for the time being.”
“In response to the international community drawing a line, Russia has stopped threatening to use nuclear weapons,” Mr Scholz said.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that nuclear weapons would only be used in retaliation.
However, the United States condemned the remarks as “loose talk.”
Mr Scholz said in an interview on Thursday that his recent trip to China helped “put a stop” to the threat of nuclear escalation.
He stated that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that “nuclear weapons must not be used,” and that the G20 countries quickly reaffirmed this position.
The German chancellor’s comment came the day after President Putin said that the risk of nuclear war is “growing – it would be wrong to hide it”.
Speaking at a televised meeting of his human rights council, the Russian leader asserted that Russia would “under no circumstances” use the weapons first and would not threaten anyone with its nuclear arsenal.
“We have not gone mad, we are aware of what nuclear weapons are,” he said, adding: “We aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.”
In the interview, Mr Scholz also addressed comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron that it would be necessary to provide “guarantees for its own security to Russia, the day it returns to the table” of negotiations.
“The priority now is for Russia to end the war immediately and withdraw its troops,” he said, adding that “of course we are ready to talk with Russia about arms control in Europe. We offered this before the war, and this position has not changed.”
Despite Mr Scholz’s assessment that the risk has been lowered thanks to Western pressure, the US criticised Mr Putin’s comments, which it said amounted to “loose talk” and “nuclear sabre-rattling”.
“It is dangerous and it goes against the spirit of that statement that has been at the core of the nuclear non-proliferation regime since the Cold War,” said a US state department spokesman.
Mr Scholz – who on Thursday marks one year since being elected chancellor – also touched upon the domestic defence issues that have been in the spotlight since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Shortly after Russia invaded the country, he announced a major defence policy shift by committing to spend €100bn (£86.4bn) on the Germany army and ramping up defence spending to above 2% of Germany’s GDP.
Now Mr Scholz has said he hopes to develop a missile defence shield in the next five years and signalled that the German government is already in talks with manufacturers of various defence systems “to get ready for concrete decisions”.
They started writing to him shortly after officials announced that key components of zero-Covidwould be abandoned.
Thousands rushed to China’s hero doctor’s social media account to inform him of the news. They poured their hearts out to him, as if they were at the graveside of a family elder.
“On the train, I suddenly remembered you and burst into tears. Dr Li, it’s over now, it’s dawn. Thank you,” said one.
Another wrote: “I’ve come to see you and let you know – the dust has settled. We’re reopening.”
Dr Li Wenliang was the 33-year-old ophthalmologist who’d been among the first to warn people about a new novel coronavirus in Wuhan – the central Chinese city where the first case was detected at the end of 2019.
He was punished by Chinese authorities for spreading “false statements” and later died from Covid as he battled to save patients. His death prompted public grief and anger.
What followed was zero-Covid – Xi Jinping’s campaign to completely eradicate the virus in China. Leaders held it up as a triumph as hospitals elsewhere were overwhelmed. But over time it became a nightmare as restrictions dragged on while other countries reopened following successful vaccination drives.
So after Wednesday’s announcement that many of the most coercive parts of China’s policy were being scrapped, Dr Li’s page became a “wailing wall” for exhausted, burnt-out people to reflect.
From Guangdong in the south to Yunnan and Sichuan further west, people expressed relief and hope but also grief and loss.
“My most youthful college years all disappeared in the pandemic. During that time I went from bright to depressed to helpless,” one user wrote.
“It’s a lie to say there was no impact for three years, it’s a lie to say that it doesn’t matter and no one cares.”
China’s zero-Covid policy kept the country’s death rate low. The country has officially reported around 5,200 deaths in the pandemic while the US has recorded over one million.
But zero-Covid exacted a punishing toll in other ways. There were sudden lockdowns that saw some people struggle to get enough food. People with Covid were separated from family and forced into centralised quarantine. Restrictions banned travel and gatherings. Livelihoods suffered.
On Dr Li’s wall, many questioned what their sacrifice and hardship had been for.
“I took the subway this morning and for the first time did not have to look at the health code,” wrote one user from Sichuan.
“Some people say the epidemic has only started now after three years of hard work.So was it a waste of time? What of all those who paid a huge price, and even their lives for it?”
Another wrote that if he had defied Covid orders only last week, he would have been arrested and hauled off to jail.
“If someone had said to loosen restrictions one month earlier, they would have been punished. Dr Li is not the first, nor will he be the last,” one user wrote.
The loosening of restrictions follows the most widespread protests seen in China for decades.
Some on Wednesday referenced those actions on Dr Li’s page. “We shouted and fought, but fortunately everything will end,” one person wrote.
Others expressed trepidation for China’s elderly population, who have relatively low rates of vaccination.
“Dr Li, the real test of the three-year epidemic has begun. The epidemic is not as serious as yours, but I am exhausted,” one person wrote.
Another asked: “Dr Li, here I come to you again. Our city has been released from lockdown. Many people are shouting that the epidemic is finally over after three years.
Julian Knight has been suspended as a Conservative MP following a complaint to the Metropolitan Police, according to a party spokeswoman.
She declined to comment on the nature of the complaint because it is currently being investigated.
Mr Knight, a member of the House of Commons since 2015, chairs the culture committee.
He currently represents the West Midlands constituency of Solihull, but will now sit as an independent.
A spokeswoman for Chief Whip Simon Hart said: “Following a complaint made to the Metropolitan Police this evening, we have removed the whip from Julian Knight MP with immediate effect.”
The chief whip is in charge of discipline within the parliamentary party. He also has the power to remove the whip from an MP, meaning they can no longer sit in Parliament as a Conservative MP.
Mr Knight becomes the fifth MP to currently have the Conservative whip removed.
As chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Mr Knight has previously commented on drafts of the online safety bill.
Its attorney general, Todd Rokita, has accused TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, of violating consumer protection laws in the state.
On Wednesday, two lawsuits were filed. According to the first, the app exposes young users to inappropriate content.
In the other complaint, Mr. Rokita claims TikTok fails to disclose the Chinese government’s ability to access sensitive consumer data.
“TikTok is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” according to court documents.
“As long as TikTok is permitted to deceive and mislead Indiana consumers about the risks to their data, those consumers and their privacy are easy prey.”
The complaint says the app’s algorithm promotes a variety of inappropriate content, “depicting alcohol, tobacco, and drugs; sexual content, nudity, and suggestive themes; and intense profanity.”
Indiana is seeking an injunction against its practices and civil penalties against the company for its “unfair and deceptive conduct.”
Mr Rokita said the lawsuits are the first launched by a US state against ByteDance.
ByteDance and TikTok have not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
The announcement of the lawsuits come after other US states have drafted legislation to ban TikTok. Texas, South Dakota and South Carolina have prohibited the use of TikTok being used on state government devices.
Last month, the head of the FBI has said that TikTok poses a national security concern.
Its director Chris Wray told a the US House Homeland Security Committee said Chinese law essentially requires companies to “do whatever the government wants them to in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government.”
The Biden administration have been in talks with TikTok officials for months as they try to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of its hundreds of millions of users in the US.
TikTok is also facing legal challenges elsewhere. In the UK, the social media company could face a £27m ($29m) fine for failing to protect children‘s privacy when they are using the platform.
Four of the 23 African billionaires tracked by Billionaires Africa are on track to be multimillionaires rather than billionaires by the end of 2022, as macroeconomic volatility, geopolitical tensions, and supply chain disruptions continue to have an impact on the performance and valuation of the companies they own.
With the financial performance of some African companies under pressure, the decline in these companies’ valuations has resulted in a significant decrease in the net worth of many African billionaires.
Strive Masiyiwa, a leading billionaire who has seen his net worth decline from nearly $3 billion at the start of the year to $1.2 billion at the time of writing this report, is one of four billionaires on the verge of losing their billionaire status, despite having an exciting year with his appointment to the board of the Gates Foundation and the roll-out of several data centers across Africa through Africa Data Centers.
While some of these African billionaires are currently worth only a billion dollars, others are worth nearly $1.2 billion; however, the threat remains that if the market value of the companies they own continues to fall, these four billionaires could lose their billion-dollar net worth in the new year or before the year ends.
#1 Strive Masiyiwa
Net worth: $1.2 billion
Nationality: Zimbabwean
Zimbabwe’s richest man Strive Masiyiwa, the world’s 2,257th richest man and one of Africa’s richest businessmen, is one of the African billionaires on the verge of losing their billionaire status.
His net worth has dropped from $2.7 billion at the start of the year to $1.2 billion at the time of writing this report.
The decline in his net worth can be attributed to the performance of his stakes in Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, which he founded in 1998, and EcoCash Holdings, a diverse smart technology group that uses digital and financial technologies to create shared economies, drive financial inclusion and promote economic empowerment.
#2 Othman Benjelloun
Net worth: $1.2 billion
Nationality: Moroccan
Othman Benjelloun is the world’s 2,212th richest man and one of Africa’s richest billionaires, according to Forbes. The Moroccan billionaire is best known for co-founding BMCE Bank of Africa, of which he is currently chairman and CEO.
Benjelloun’s net worth has fallen by $300 million since the beginning of the year, from $1.5 billion at the start of the year to $1.2 billion at the time of writing this report, due to a decline in the market value of his holdings in multinational pan-African banking conglomerates, BMCE Group and O Capital Group, a leading investment group based in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city.
#3 Yasseen Mansour
Net worth: $1.1 billion
Nationality: Egyptian
Yasseen Mansour, Egypt’s sixth-richest man and the world’s 2,334th wealthiest man, is currently worth $1.1 billion at the time of writing this report, down from $2.2 billion at the start of 2020.
The leading billionaire has a stake in the Mansour Group, a family-owned conglomerate. Aside from his business interests in Mansour Group, Mansour is the chairman of Palm Hills Development, a leading Egyptian real estate group.
#4 Samih Sawiris
Net worth: $1 billion
Nationality: Egyptian
Samih Sawiris, the younger brother of Egyptian billionaires Naguib and Nassef Sawiris, derives the majority of his fortune from his family’s investments in OCI N.V., a global producer and distributor of nitrogen and methanol products, and Orascom Development, which builds and operates resorts in Egypt, Montenegro, and Switzerland.
Unlike his brothers, who have both been able to maintain or increase their wealth figures, Samih Sawiris has seen his net worth drop by more than $100 million since the start of 2022, from $1.1 billion at the beginning of January to $1 billion at the time of writing this report.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the M23 rebel group has condemned “genocide and targeted killings” against the Tutsi community by government forces and their allies in the east.
It asserted that the government’s coalition forces “attacked our positions in Bwiza and its surroundings on Tuesday, in total violation of the current ceasefire.”
The M23 claimed that government-allied forces had killed innocent civilians, destroyed their homes, looted and slaughtered their cattle, and that the ongoing attacks had displaced and injured many civilians.
“These targeted killings of Tutsi, and those who have rejected the genocide ideology by the said DR Congo government’s coalition, while the international and national community remained tight-lipped, take us back to the time prior to the genocide of 1994 perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda,” it said in a statement.
The group has said that it will not “stand by and watch” as civilian populations get killed, adding that it’s “ready to intervene and stop these horrific massacres”.
The army has not spoken about the allegations but had last week accused the M23 of killing dozens of civilians in the eastern town of Kishishe, which they denied.
The statement by the M23 comes after the group agreed to withdraw from occupied territory following sustained pressure from the government and international community following resolutions agreed on by heads of states during a recent meeting in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
Over 50 Congolese armed groups that attended peace talks which concluded this week in Nairobi also announced that they had agreed to lay down their weapons.
Uganda’s health minister will receive a shipment of Ebola vaccine candidates on Thursday, which will be used in a clinical trial.
Since announcing an outbreak of the Sudan strain of Ebola in September, the country has confirmed 142 cases, with 56 deaths.
The consignment will be received from World Health Organization representatives at a warehouse near the capital, Kampala, according to health ministry spokesman Emmanuel Ainebyoona in a tweet.
According to the AFP news agency, the health minister is expected to announce the start date of the trials.
Uganda has not registered any new positive Ebola cases in over three weeks, indicating that the outbreak might be under control.
Since at least 2013, when it conducted a secret, illegal abduction programme for women and girls in the northeast, the Nigerian military has aborted at least 10,000 pregnancies.
According to Reuters, many of the women and girls were abducted and raped by Islamist militants.
Fati recounted her ordeal after being kidnapped by terrorists and later rescued by the military.
During an insurgent attack on Monguno, she lost contact with her family one night. She was later kidnapped by terrorists and thrown into one of two pickup trucks with the other women, she claimed. They drove through the night to the vast Lake Chad’s shores, where fighters loaded the women into canoes.
Captives were hauled out to the lake’s numerous islands as the sun rose.
Fati was four months pregnant when liberated from the insurgents. Soon after, she says, soldiers medically aborted the pregnancy without telling her. And she was warned: “If you share this with anyone, you will be seriously beaten.”
Fati said she was married off three times, forced to take a new husband whenever the previous one didn’t return from the war. The third, who impregnated her, “was the worst out of all of them,” she said. “He would hit me with the butt of his gun … He would beat me until I was sick.”
Now in her 20s, Fati said shortly after being rescued with four months of pregnancy, uniformed men gave her and five other women mysterious injections and pills in a dim room at a military barracks in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
After about four hours, Fati, who said she was about four months pregnant, felt a searing pain in her stomach and black blood seeped out of her. The other women were bleeding as well, and writhing on the floor. “The soldiers want to kill us,” she thought.
According to her, the soldiers aborted the pregnancies without telling them. And she was warned: “If you share this with anyone, you will be seriously beaten.”
The abortions mostly were carried out without the person’s consent – and often without their prior knowledge, according to the witness accounts. The women and girls ranged from a few weeks to eight months pregnant, and some were as young as 12 years old, interviews and records showed.
This investigation is based on interviews with 33 women and girls who say they underwent abortions while in the custody of the Nigerian Army. Just one said she freely gave consent. Reporters also interviewed five civilian healthcare workers and nine security personnel involved in the programme, including soldiers and other government employees such as armed guards engaged in escorting pregnant women to abortion sites. In addition, Reuters reviewed copies of military documents and civilian hospital records describing or tallying thousands of abortion procedures.
Three soldiers and a guard said they commonly assured women, who often were debilitated from captivity in the bush, that the pills and injections given to them were to restore their health and fight diseases such as malaria. In some instances, women who resisted were beaten, caned, held at gunpoint or drugged into compliance. Others were tied or pinned down, as abortion drugs were inserted inside them, said a guard and a health worker.
Bintu Ibrahim, now in her late 20s, recounted how soldiers gave her two injections without her consent after picking her up with a group of other women who fled the insurgents about three years ago. When the blood came, and the terrifying pain, she knew she and the others had undergone abortions. The women protested and demanded to know why, she said, until the soldiers threatened to kill them.
“If they had left me with the baby, I would have wanted it,” said Ibrahim, whose account was confirmed by a fellow former captive, Yagana Bukar.
At military facilities and in the field, some abortions proved fatal. Although Reuters could not determine the full scope of the deaths in nearly 10 years of the programme, four soldiers and two security officers said they witnessed women die from abortions, or saw their corpses afterward.
“That woman was more pregnant than the rest of us, almost six or seven months,” Ibrahim said. “She was crying, yelling, rolling around, and at long last she stopped rolling and shouting. She became so weak and traumatised, and then she stopped breathing.
“They just dug a hole, and they put sand over it and buried her.”
Reuters was unable to establish who created the abortion programme or determine who in the military or government ran it.
Nigerian military leaders denied the programme has ever existed and said Reuters reporting was part of a foreign effort to undermine the country’s fight against the insurgents.
“Not in Nigeria, not in Nigeria,” said Major General Christopher Musa, who heads the military’s counterinsurgency campaign in the northeast, in a November 24 interview with Reuters that addressed the abortion programme.
“Everybody respects life. We respect families. We respect women and children. We respect every living soul.”
General Lucky Irabor, Nigeria’s chief of defence staff, did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters. On December 2, a week after Reuters sought an interview with Irabor and shared detailed findings and questions with his office, the military’s director of defence information released a five-page statement to reporters, and later posted it on Facebook and Twitter. Major General Jimmy Akpor said Reuters was motivated by “wickedness” and a “bullying” mentality, according to the statement.
“The fictitious series of stories actually constitute a body of insults on the Nigerian peoples and culture,” Akpor added. “Nigerian military personnel have been raised, bred and further trained to protect lives, even at their own risk, especially when it concerns the lives of children, women and the elderly.”
Central to the abortion programme is a notion widely held within the military and among some civilians in the northeast: that the children of insurgents are predestined, by the blood in their veins, to one day take up arms against the Nigerian government and society. Four soldiers and one guard said they were told by superiors that the programme was needed to destroy insurgent fighters before they could be born.
“It’s just like sanitising the society,” said a civilian health worker, one of seven people who acknowledged performing abortions under army orders.
Four of the health workers interviewed by Reuters also said that the programme was for the good of the women and any children they might bear, who would face the stigma of being associated with an insurgent father.
The army-run abortion programme has been in place since at least 2013, and procedures were being performed through at least November of last year, according to accounts from soldiers.
The procedures have occurred in at least five military facilities and five civilian hospitals in the region, according to witness accounts and documentation reviewed by Reuters. Many occurred in Maiduguri, the largest city in Nigeria’s northeast and the command centre of the government’s war on Islamist extremists.
The Maiduguri sites include the detention centre at Giwa Barracks, where Fati said she was forced to have an abortion. Other sites include the Maimalari Barracks, which is the city’s main military base, and two civilian hospitals – State Specialist and Umaru Shehu. The two hospitals did not comment on this story.
Forced abortions may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to four legal experts briefed by Reuters on its findings. Although forced abortions are not specifically criminalised under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the experts said, they could be construed as torture or other inhumane treatment and be prosecuted as such.
The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor found in 2020 that grounds existed to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by both Nigerian security forces and insurgents. But the court has not opened a probe.
The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor declined to comment on Reuters’ findings.
SaharaReporters had reported how in April 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Chibok town in Borno, prompting the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. About 98 of the kidnapped girls are still missing.
Two young women, Felerin and Aisha, described undergoing abortions after being taken into custody by the Nigerian military.
Other women interviewed by Reuters offered similar accounts of captivity and rescue – including being raped by insurgents and escaping with the help of soldiers who took them into custody and transported them under armed guard to military facilities or civilian hospitals. Many said they were made to give urine or blood samples before receiving unspecified injections and pills.
Nigerian facilities often used misoprostol, which helps induce labour or contractions, according to the documentation reviewed by Reuters. The drug is also used to treat ulcers and post-partum hemorrhaging, and is widely available in Nigerian cities, including through unofficial abortion-drug distribution networks. Women sometimes were also given the progesterone-blocker called mifepristone, which in many countries is used in conjunction with misoprostol in medication abortions.
Also given was the drug oxytocin, which is widely used during labour to stimulate contractions and safe to use when under medical supervision. Though experts say it is not recommended for abortions, it was sometimes given at military bases to trigger terminations, said two soldiers who performed the procedures.
Using oxytocin to induce abortion is dangerous, several international medical experts told Reuters, particularly if it is injected intramuscularly, as soldiers involved in the Nigerian programme said it was. If the drug is administered too quickly, the results can be fatal, the experts said.
The medications misoprostol and mifepristone are considered safe for abortions when the standard medical protocol is used, according to the World Health Organization and other authorities.
Among those forced to undergo an abortion was a girl named Hafsat.
The soldier said he and other troops injected Hafsat and three others with oxytocin while they lay on the ground outside the army clinic.
Within an hour, the soldier said, he heard cries and turned to see Hafsat bleeding heavily from between her legs. He grabbed her a cloth to stanch the blood.
Hafsat began crying out for a man named Ali, and for her mother. “Half an hour later, maybe, she just went quiet,” he said. “She died.”
The soldier said he and his comrades wrapped her in her turquoise dress and buried her. The memory haunts him.
“I can’t forget her name,” he said.
The details of the soldier’s account were corroborated by a second soldier at the base, who said he also witnessed the girl’s abortion and death.
In all, eight sources, including four soldiers, said they witnessed deaths or saw corpses of women who died from abortions performed at military barracks or administered in the field.
An 18-year-old college student in the state of Arkansas has reportedly become the country’s youngest black mayor.
Jaylen Smith graduated from high school in May. On Tuesday, he was elected mayor of Earle, a rural town 30 miles (48 kilometres) west of Memphis, Tennessee.
His family is celebrating despite the fact that he is not the first 18-year-old mayor in US history.
Mr Smith told the Washington Post on Wednesday, “My mom can’t stop crying.”
He was a Democrat who won in the town of 1,800 people while most US political observers were focused on a Senate race in Georgia.
“It’s Time to Build a Better Chapter of Earle, Arkansas,” Mr Smith wrote on Facebook to celebrate his victory over the city’s street and sanitation superintendent.
“I would like to thank all my supporters for stepping up getting people to the polls. I am truly grateful for you all.”
The vote result was 235 to 185, according to a tally from the Crittenden County Clerk’s office.
The new mayor ran on a platform of improving the police force, repairing the city’s drainage system, addressing abandoned houses and improving community involvement.
As mayor, he also plans to bring a major grocery store to the community – the only one in town closed years ago.
While in high school, he served as president of the school’s student government association, and had leadership roles in school clubs.
“You have to start somewhere – you really do,” he told the Post. “I didn’t want to be 30 or 40 and become a mayor when I could be one right now.”
He received advice during his campaign from the mayor of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, which has a population of over 200,000.
Little Rock’s city leader Frank Scott Jr, who also serves as president of the African American Mayors Association, praised the victory.
“I’m excited for Jaylen and the entire community in Earle as he becomes the youngest-ever African American mayor elected in the country,” he told CNN.
“I’m proud of his willingness to enter into public service at such a young age and his aspirational goals for the City.”
Mr Smith plans to continue his studies at Arkansas State University Mid-South as he juggles his mayoral duties, and hopes someday to become a prosecutor.
In 2005, 18-year-old Michael Sessions won a race to be mayor of the town of Hillsdale, Michigan – before he had even completed high school.
At the time, his school principal was quoted saying: “I told him that if he wins, he’ll still need to finish his homework. I’d hate to have to suspend a city official.”
The BBC has obtained photos of Twitter office spacethat has been converted into bedrooms, which San Francisco authorities are investigating as a possible violation of building codes.
One image shows a room with a double bed, a wardrobe, and slippers.
According to an ex-employee, new Twitter CEO Elon Musk has been staying at the company’s headquarters since he purchased it.
He emailed all Twitter employees last month, saying they “will need to be extremely hardcore” to succeed.
San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection has confirmed it is investigating potential violations following a complaint.
Mr Musk said the city was attacking companies for providing beds to “tired employees”.
In a now-deleted tweet, Mr Musk posted that he would work and sleep in the office “until the org is fixed”.
The BBC has also been given pictures of sofas at Twitter being used as beds.
Image caption, Former staff say wardrobes have been moved into Twitter’s HQ
“It looks like a hotel room,” said one former worker. They went on to say that Mr Musk regularly sleeps at the Twitter HQ in San Francisco.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.
Last month Mr Musk – who completed his Twitter takeover in October – emailed all staff at the company saying they would need to work “long hours at high intensity”.
California state senator Scott Wiener told the BBC on Wednesday: “He’s now making them [workers] sleep at Twitter.
“It’s clear that he doesn’t really care about people. He doesn’t care about the people who work for him.”
A Department of Building Inspection official told the BBC’s US partner CBS News: ‘We need to make sure the building is being used as intended.”
Image caption, Two sofas with bedding on them
In a reply to a journalist on Twitter, Mr Musk posted that the city should prioritise protecting children from the consequences of opioid drug misuse.
‘Office armchairs’
Forbes broke the story of “sad little conference-room sleeping quarters at the company’s recently depopulated headquarters”, noting it was an apparent improvement on the improvised sleeping-bag-on-the-floor arrangement posted on Twitter by one employee.
The bedrooms, Bloomberg reported, are also said to accommodate staff from Tesla and other Musk-owned businesses brought in to work at Twitter, “some of whom travel to Twitter for work meetings”, sources told the publication.
Department of Building Inspection official Patrick Hannan told the San Francisco Chronicle it investigated all complaints and there were different rules for residential buildings, even those used for short-term stays.
In May 2020, before Mr Musk’s takeover, Twitter told employees they could work from home “forever” if they so wished because its remote-working measures during Covid lockdowns had been a success.
