TIG Post

Author: Abigail Ampofo

  • Alisher Usmanov: Yacht of Russian oligarch raided by German police

    A yacht associated with a Russian oligarch has been searched by investigators as part of a money laundering investigation. The yacht is the largest recreational boat in the world in terms of tonnage.

    More than 60 police officers raided a luxury yacht in northern Germany tied to a Russian businessman accused of breaching sanctions and money laundering, Frankfurt prosecutors said Tuesday.

    Authorities identified the suspect only as a 69-year-old Russian businessman but did say he was the target of the same investigation last week.

    At that time, police raided a lakeside villa registered to Alisher Usmanov — a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s. They also searched 24 other properties connected to him in the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, and Schleswig-Holstein.

    Prosecutors say they are investigating the funneling of several million euros acquired in illegal activities, including tax evasion. In a statement, they said this involved an “extensive and complex network of companies and corporations.”

    They said the yacht raid was also carried out to comply with a request for help from the US Justice Department, which has launched a probe of its own.

    In a statement on Monday, representatives of Usmanov called the charges “baseless and defamatory.”

    Who is Alisher Usmanov?

    The UK’s Sunday Times newspaper ranked Usmanov at No. 6 in a list of the world’s richest people in 2021. He was one of the dozens of Russian billionaires to be hit by Western sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine.

    He is possibly best known for his metals and mining interests, for owning the Kommersant publishing house in Russia, and for owning Russia’s second-largest mobile phone operator, Megafon. He also was formerly a major stakeholder in Premier League football giants Arsenal.

    Usmanov is said to be worth an estimated net of $16.2 billion (€16.9 billion). He has 49% economic interest and 100% voting rights in the global conglomerate and holding company USM.

    While the United States has blocked his personal assets, it has kept companies controlled by him off its list of sanctions in a bid not to drive up commodity prices. He is thought to presently be living in his native Uzbekistan.

    The Official Journal of the European Union described Usmanov in March as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.”

    But Usmanov disputes this. Along with former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, he is one of the oligarchs appealing his inclusion on the EU sanctions lists, at the bloc’s General Court.

    The yacht that was searched — the “Dilbar” — is the world’s largest yacht by tonnage and is officially owned by Usmanov’s sister.

    The 155-meter (500-foot) vessel was named after Usmanov’s mother. It is valued at some $600 million and was previously docked in a Hamburg shipyard since October 2021 for repairs. The vessel is now moored in the northern port city of Bremen.

  • Deaths from the tragic pilgrim boat incident in Bangladesh are rising

    At least 67 people have died following a boat tragedy on Sunday in northern Bangladesh… A few of the passengers aboard the boat were going to a historic temple to observe a significant Hindu festival.

    The death toll from a boat accident that occurred in Bangladesh rose to 67 on Tuesday, after rescue teams retrieved more than a dozen bodies.

    More people are still missing, and rescue operations will continue Wednesday, police officials said.

    Bangladeshi Railway Minister Nurul Islam Sujan also visited the accident area on Tuesday.

    A committee to probe the incident has been set up.

    Dozens people on banks of a river, close to the town of Boda, in northern Bangladesh
    Dozens have gathered on the banks of the river, close to the northern town of Boda

    Relatives mourn deaths of loved ones, await news

    An overcrowded boat carrying around 90 people overturned on Sunday in a river close to the town of Boda, about 330 kilometers (210 miles) northwest of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.

    About 50 people on the boat were pilgrims headed to a centuries-old temple to mark the beginning of a big Hindu festival, police officials said.

    Relatives of the people who were on the boat have been crowding the banks of the river, hoping for news about their family members.

    Rescue teams on Monday retrieved bodies miles away from where the accident happened. Sujay Kumar Roy, Boda’s police chief, said firefighters, navy divers, and villagers were all searching for miles downstream of the Karotoa river, where the accident happened.

    A police official said the boat was carrying three times as many people as permitted. Deadly accidents like the one that happened Sunday occur every so often in the South Asian country, which experts blame on a lack of safety regulations.

     

  • Liz Truss had to be convinced to issue statement amid market turmoil after mini-budget

    The prime minister’s initial instinct had been to stand firm and say little or nothing while faced with market turmoil, spiking borrowing costs, and the drop in the value of the pound in foreign exchange markets.

    However, after a meeting with Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday, Ms Truss agreed the Treasury would issue a statement promising further details on 23 November on how the government would ensure borrowing would not spiral out of control.

    In effect, this gives the government eight weeks to come up with a plan to stabilise the markets – likely to involve spending cuts in Whitehall, public services, investment, and probably welfare.

    The government will reject claims circulating in Whitehall that the meeting between Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng was “argumentative” and descended into a “shouting match”.

    This comes as the chancellor plans to hold further emergency meetings with global bankers this week to discourage them from speculating on the pound.

    There is deep concern in the City that Treasury ministers are still gunning for Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, and his two most senior lieutenants, with some believing that removing this team from office would dent Britain’s global reputation for stability.

    Sky News can confirm that Monday’s meeting between the chancellor and prime minister concentrated on whether to issue a statement and what to say, with the two sides initially taking different positions.

    One source said that the chancellor was more sympathetic to the Bank’s concerns than the PM.

    The prime minister’s team was aware that the Bank of England was going to issue a statement after the close of markets on Monday.

    In the end, the Treasury issued an almost simultaneous statement promising to release economic forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility and a plan on debt on 23 November.

    Source: Skynews

  • Ireland’s finance minister announces tax “giveaways” in budget

    One of the greatest giveaway budgets in Irish history has been unveiled by the finance minister of the nation.

    Ireland’s significant budget surplus, according to Paschal Donohoe, put him in a position to do so when he addressed the Dáil (Irish parliament).

    Most of that comes from a huge increased tax-take from corporations, particularly a small number of American tech companies.

    Some of that income is to go towards a “rainy day” national reserve fund.

    Mr Donohoe announced an income tax package to the value of more than €1.1bn (£963m).

    Unlike the UK, Ireland is not borrowing to fund tax cuts.

    Euros
    IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA Image caption, People will now start paying the higher 40% rate of tax on income over €40,000

    The minister said his budget was focused on helping families and businesses facing the cost-of-living crisis arising from the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    “As one of the most open economies in the world, we benefit when things are going well internationally, but when they reverse, we are also one of the most exposed,” he said.

    Mr Donohoe also said that headline inflation in Ireland is now running at “highs not seen in many decades”, adding that the Department of Finance has updated its forecasts to headline inflation of 8.5% for 2022, and just over 7% for 2023.

    People will now start paying the higher 40% rate of tax on income over €40,000 (£35,731).

    Tax credits will be given to homeowners for fuel, and tax on petrol and diesel at the pump will remain unchanged.

    Other announcements include:

    • Electricity credits for all households totaling €600 (£536) will be paid in three installments of €200 (£179)
    • An additional payment of €500 (£447) to those in receipt of the Working Family Payment will be paid in November
    • There will be €12 (£11) a week increase for those in receipt of social welfare
    • A packet of 20 cigarettes will go up by 50 cents (45p)
    • VAT on newspapers will be reduced from 9% to 0%

    Mr Donohoe said there were many risks to the country’s finances but he concluded: “We can and should be confident about our future.”

  • Photos: Poverty pushes Afghan children to work at brick kilns

    A recent Save the Children survey says half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table.

    Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labour of packing mud into moulds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks. At 12 years old, she has been working in brick factories for half her life now, and she is probably the oldest of all her co-workers.

    Already high, the number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fuelled by the collapse of the economy after the Taliban took over the country and the world cut off financial aid just more than a year ago.

    A recent survey by Save the Children estimated that half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table as livelihoods crumbled.

    Nowhere is it clearer than in the many brick factories on the highway north of the capital, Kabul. Conditions in the furnaces are tough even for adults. But in almost all of them, children as young as four or five labour alongside their families from early morning until dark.

    Children do every step of the brickmaking process. They haul canisters of water and carry the wooden brick moulds full of mud to put in the sun to dry. They load and push wheelbarrows full of dried bricks to the kiln for firing, then push back wheelbarrows full of fired bricks.

    Afghanistan Child Labor
    Afghan children working at a brick factory [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    Only a few have been to school. Nabila, the 12-year-old, has been working in brick factories since she was five or six. Like many other brick workers, her family works part of the year at a kiln near Kabul, the other part at one outside Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border.

    “We can’t think about anything else but work,” she said.

    Mohabbat, a nine-year-old boy, stopped for a moment with a pained expression as he carried a load of charcoal. “My back hurts,” he said.

    Asked what he wished for, he first asked: “What is a wish?”

    Once it was explained, he was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I wish to go to school and eat good food,” he said, then added: “I wish to work well so that we can have a house.”

    The landscape around the factories is bleak and barren, with the kilns’ smokestacks pumping out black, sooty smoke. Families live in dilapidated mud houses next to furnaces, each with a corner where they make their bricks. For most, a day’s meal is bread soaked in tea.

    Rahim has three children working with him at a brick kiln, ranging from five to 12 years. He said he had no choice. “There’s no other way,” he said. “How can they study when we don’t have bread to eat? Survival is more important.”

    Afghanistan Child Labor
    Afghan children who work at a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. One adult working alone cannot do that amount in a day, but if the children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, workers said.

    According to surveys by Save the Children, the percentage of families saying they had a child working outside the home grew from 18 percent to 22 percent from December to June. That would suggest more than one million children nationwide were working. Another 22 percent of the children said they were asked to work on the family business or farm.

    In June, 77 percent of the surveyed families reported they had lost half their income or more compared with a year ago, up from 61 percent in December.

    At one of the kilns, it begins to rain. At first, the children were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing drizzle in the heat. Then the wind kicked up. A blast of dust hit them, coating their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children could not open their eyes, but they kept working. The rain opened up into a downpour.

    The children were soaked. One boy had water and mud pouring off of him, but like the others, he said he could not take shelter without finishing his work.

    “We are used to it,” he said. Then he told another boy, “Hurry up, let’s finish it.”

    Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. One adult working alone cannot do that amount in a day, but if the children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, workers said.

    According to surveys by Save the Children, the percentage of families saying they had a child working outside the home grew from 18 percent to 22 percent from December to June. That would suggest more than one million children nationwide were working. Another 22 percent of the children said they were asked to work on the family business or farm.

    In June, 77 percent of the surveyed families reported they had lost half their income or more compared with a year ago, up from 61 percent in December.

    At one of the kilns, it begins to rain. At first, the children were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing drizzle in the heat. Then the wind kicked up. A blast of dust hit them, coating their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children could not open their eyes, but they kept working. The rain opened up into a downpour.

    The children were soaked. One boy had water and mud pouring off of him, but like the others, he said he could not take shelter without finishing his work.

    “We are used to it,” he said. Then he told another boy, “Hurry up, let’s finish it.”

    A 12-year-old Afghan girl works in a brick factory. The number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fuelled by the collapse of the economy. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    A recent survey by Save the Children estimated that half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table as livelihoods crumbled. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    Children as young as four or five years old labour alongside their families in the many brick factories on the highway north out of the capital. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    A 13-year-old Afghan boy in a brick factory. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    A four-year-old Afghan girl sleeps after work at a brick factory. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    Afghan children fill a wooden brick mould at a brick factory. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana 
    Source: Aljazeera.com

  • Keir Starmer: Tories have lost control of the economy

    As he unveiled a range of Labour plans to address the rising cost of living, Sir Keir Starmer accused the government of losing control of the economy.

    As he delivered the Labour conference speech, the party’s leader said the Conservatives gave acted irresponsibly in a “spectacular fashion”.

    “We’re determined to reduce debt as a share of our economy,” he said.

    “Every policy we announce will be fully costed, and we will set up an Office for Value for Money to make sure public spending targets the national interest.”

    During his speech, Starmer pledged to set up a publicly-owned “Great British Energy” company within the first year of a Labour government.

    He also said Labour help first-time buyers with a new mortgage guarantee scheme and will reform planning, so speculators can’t stop communities from “getting shovels in the ground”.

    “Labour is the party of homeownership in Britain today, ” he said.

    Starmer added that Conservatives have made a mess of public services.

    He said it will take investment to fix the problem, and he will recruit, train and motivate doctors, nurses, teachers, and police officers

     

  • European far-right AfD anticipates a boost during crisis

    The nationalist Alternative for Germany party hopes to capitalise on economic unease to achieve similar electoral success as far-right groups do so across the EU. The results of the polls imply that the plan is effective.

    Earlier this month, during a Bundestag debate on the potentially devastating situation for businesses and families amid soaring inflation and an energy crunch, AfD lawmaker Harald Weyel was caught on a hot mic saying he hoped that the situation would continue to deteriorate.

    This harks back to 2015 when the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) utilized fears of a massive refugee influx to stage protests, especially in the east of the country. It went on to become the most successful far-right party in the country since World War II.

    Since then, however, the AfD has struggled to find a rallying cry that connected with as many voters. They took to the streets in protest against COVID-19 restrictions but failed to stop a decline in support, especially in the West of the country.

    The AfD was founded in 2013 as a euroskeptic party. And still, their position is that Germany should leave the EU, even as other nationalist parties, like the Sweden Democrats and the Brothers of Italy, have quietly abandoned such stances.

    “Now, they are focusing on the government’s sanctions against Russia,” Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at the University of Kassel, told DW. “They are saying that corrupt lawmakers are ignoring the needs of the people. They’re arguing that elites in Moscow aren’t the victims of these sanctions policies, but the German people are.”

    The message that the AfD is trying to send to the governing coalition of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) is clear: “You are not in charge of Russia — you’re in charge of this country.”

    Indeed, AfD co-chair Tino Chrupalla has repeatedly accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government of fighting an “economic war” against Germans as inflation has risen to over 10%. The sanctions “are not in Germany’s interest,” Chrupalla has insisted, predicting that “throughout the fall, support for the government’s policies will continue to sink.”

    Chrupalla’s projections are echoed in opinion polls. According to figures published by research firm INSA, national support for Scholz’s party has fallen from 25.7% in last year’s federal election to 18% on Monday, the FDP has been reduced by half to 7% and even the Green Party is now experiencing a backlash against their plans to mitigate the gas shortage.

    The AfD, in the same time frame, has risen in the national polls from 10% to 15%, one of its highest levels ever.

    As households across Germany are shocked to receive their heating bills, the right-wing populists see golden opportunities ahead. The situation calls to mind another hot mic moment. In 2020, former spokesman Christian Lüth was caught by a documentary team saying “the worse things are for Germany, the better things are for the AfD.”

    AfD co-chair Tino Chrupalla wears a German-flag lapel pin
    Chrupalla has accused the government of being responsible for soaring energy costs

    Scholz’s communication problem

    Schroeder said the biggest mistake Scholz’s coalition had made was its lack of coherent communication.

    “They have not offered clear answers about what people are actually gaining from domestic relief packages,” Schroeder said, nor exactly how sanctions affect Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war machine. “The government has left communication gaps for right-wing populists like the AfD to jump into.”

    Schroeder feels that the SPD, Green Party, and FDP should put some of the principles aside that were enshrined in the 2021 coalition agreement.

    Last year’s plans have “become outdated since February 24, 2022,” the day Russia invaded Ukraine, the political analyst said. “The invasion has changed everything: It is now what is steering our policy” — and the parties need to recognize that priorities have shifted significantly.

    Police stand blocking people taking part in a right-wing protest against increasing energy prices and rising living expenses in Leipzig, Germany, September 5, 2022.
    Thousands have taken to the streets over the past few weeks, protesting against price hikes

     

    Deep divisions likely to stymie success

    Schroeder does not expect the AfD’s popularity to soar. He does not see the current situation panning out like the xenophobic sentiment in 2015, “when opposing a refugee influx was something that spoke to people across the entire country.”

    “The AfD is deeply divided between those who are pro-Russia and those who aren’t,” Schroeder said, “and this is creating a rift between their supporters in the west of Germany and the east, where they are more friendly to Moscow.”

    The party has indeed been hemorrhaging membership since 2020.

    For now, however, AfD leaders have seized the opportunity offered by Germany’s edging closer to a recession to foment discontent by encouraging protests throughout the fall.

    Under the slogan “a hot autumn against cold feet,” the AfD has announced plans to hold weekly anti-government marches in the coming months, alluding to mass protests that helped bring down the communist regime in East Germany at the end of the Cold War. Across eastern Germany, tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest government policy.

    The AfD leader announced a concerted protest movement against the government’s energy and Russian policies. From October, the AfD wants to take to the streets with the rallying cry “Our country first!” Chrupalla declined to confirm that this was modeled on Donald Trump’s “America first” campaign.

    “Demonstrations are already taking place in many places. In this respect, Monday is a good time to stretch your legs after the weekend,” he said.

     

  • The Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates, but that is not the “million-dollar question”

    Madeline Ratcliffe, a journalist for Sky News, reports that the trading floor is calmer and traders are more at ease today, however one dealer says the market is still bumpy.

    I spoke to the senior trader at Monex Europe, Michael Quinn, who told me the quieter markets today were because traders were digesting after initially being spooked by the mini-budget.

    That said, the weak pound was a sign investors were losing faith in the UK economy.

    “Foreign currency markets are far more driven by sentiment, than by economic reality,” he said.

    He added that the Bank of England was “very conscious” of being seen to do a “bad interest rate hike”, or a panicked hike.

    “There’s a very real risk that that would be seen as a panic move from the Bank of England, and that’s why they’re having to tread very carefully.

    “Fundamentally, more than anything, the Bank of England needs the UK economy to start recovering and there’s only a limited amount that monetary policy can do to address that,” Mr Quinn continued.

    “So as things stand at the moment, the situation from a markets perspective looks fairly grim because the general expectation is that the Bank of England is going to have to hike interest rates fairly sharply in a bid to combat inflation.

    “In reality, how it actually plays out, though, will depend far more importantly on government policy.

    “Whether the government does announce any policies to reassure markets, however, is the million-dollar question.”

  • How samovar tea is warming hearts in Qatar

    Fresh, milky samovar tea is giving its more established brother, the evaporated-milk karak, a run for its money.

    Mohammed Ali, a restaurateur in Qatar’s capital Doha, tells a story about a female customer who would come to his shop every day with a flask to have it filled with karak tea.

    One day, her driver brought the flask and said the woman was in a hospital ready to give birth. But she needed her karak.

    The next day, she herself showed up with her flask.

    Ali’s restaurant is not an upmarket cafe, it’s a nondescript 65-year-old eatery on Doha’s Old Airport Road, so what inspires this loyalty? It’s the karak.

    Karak is a sweet, milky tea made by boiling water, thick canned milk, tea leaves, sugar, and cardamom (in some places add saffron) together until it reaches just the right consistency, which varies according to the karak maker.

    Everyone in Qatar knows what it is, and the country’s kaftheeriyas (cafes) serve thousands of cups of it daily, most costing just 1 riyal ($0.27).

    The next day, she herself showed up with her flask.

    Ali’s restaurant is not an upmarket cafe, it’s a nondescript 65-year-old eatery on Doha’s Old Airport Road, so what inspires this loyalty? It’s the karak.

    Karak is a sweet, milky tea made by boiling water, thick canned milk, tea leaves, sugar, and cardamom (in some places add saffron) together until it reaches just the right consistency, which varies according to the karak maker.

    Everyone in Qatar knows what it is, and the country’s kaftheeriyas (cafes) serve thousands of cups of it daily, most costing just 1 riyal ($0.27).

    Today, a lot of Qatar’s karak is made by people from the Moplah Muslim community of India’s North Malabar region, who were a land-owning, agrarian community.

    “When agriculture went bust, youngsters from feudal families found the Gulf region as a haven where they could cash in doing any type of work away from home,” Rafeeq Thiruvalloor, a Malayalam writer from North Malabar, told Al Jazeera.

    The same Malabaris brought samovar tea to Qatar.

    Teamaker Salman beats samovar tea to make a foam in the top layer
    Tea-maker Salman beats samovar tea to froth it at Kismath Restaurant [Photo courtesy of Shiraz Sithara]

    Samovar tea, the more recent arrival which is gaining popularity now, and karak look the same but there are some major differences.

    A karak, by default, is a strong tea, even the name sounds strong. Samovar tea is not strong by default, you have to request that, and it uses fresh milk whereas karak relies on thicker, canned milk.

    With a standard karak, you don’t get many options when it comes to sugar levels. Many find karak oversweet and have to specify if they want a milder option.

    In contrast, if you want your samovar tea sugary, you have to specify that in your order. Most samovar shops let you pick how you want your tea: strong, medium, light, waterless, well-beaten or unbeaten.

    Before samovar, some karak tea shops served “fresh-milk tea” upon request – at double the price. There was also a “Sri Lankan tea”, simply a beaten version of karak.

    Sajeer bin Abbas, a software engineer, said he stopped having tea at shops in Oman, where he worked for seven years because the teabag-infused karak served there disgusted him.

    “Now, samovar tea is one of the pleasures of working in Qatar,” he said.

    Teamaker Salman adds a final droplet of decoction into samovar tea
    Tea-maker Salman adds more of the decoction to samovar tea to concentrate the flavour [Photo courtesy of Shiraz Sithara]

    No one remembers seeing a samovar tea shop in Qatar before 2014. Now, while the number is still shy of 100, you often see long lines forming outside.

    By most accounts, Lordz Restaurant, tucked away in Al-Thumama’s Furjan Market 36, is Qatar’s first samovar tea shop. The shop is known as Sayyidinte Chayakada (Sayyid’s teashop) and its owner, 39-year-old Sayid Komban Chalil, said he launched the business in 2014.

    He came to Qatar 20 years ago and worked at his father’s cafeteria in the southern city of Al-Wakra. Eight years ago, he brought a samovar, from Kozhikode’s Copper Bazaar in the Indian state of Kerala.

    Until recently, Chalil says, his stencilled image with a “Sayyidinte Chayakada” logo was on the glass door but authorities asked him to remove it. The name exists on the shop’s website, on one of the inside walls, and on the jerseys of three cricket clubs he sponsors.

    Chalil, who comes to the shop now only in the evenings, said he was very active when he was setting up but owning a stable business helped him slow down.

    On weekends, street cricketers flood his shop. He used to play for the Thumama Boys club and a shelf laden with trophies adorns one of the walls in the shop.

    Until a recent repaint, Sayyidinte Chayakada was decorated with old Indian movie posters, giving it the look of old teashops in Malabar towns.

    Samovar shops love their nostalgia. In Fereej Bin Mahmoud’s Chaya Kada, there are bicycles on the wall, old radios on display and a three-wheeled tuk-tuk rickshaw. New Plaza has a mural on the wall of a teashop in Kerala. In Asian Town’s Metro Restaurant, black and white photographs of a colonial Indian fort town adorn the wall.

    Those suffering from homesickness can get a quick fix.

    Samovar tea making stages Making decoction Courtesy Dosa Street
    A samovar tea-making stage [Photo courtesy: Dosa Street]

    The samovar

    Chalil’s samovar is a barrel-shaped copper utensil that keeps 40 litres (10.5 gallons) of water boiling on a gas stove below a faucet. This is what is used to make the “decoction”, a potent sugarless black tea, and to keep milk simmering in an upper chamber.

    Water is added through a hole on the top and milk heats up separately. The tea goes in the boiling water contained in a small fabric pouch, to keep the leaves from floating around in the finished tea.

    If you want a cup of sugarless black tea, all it takes is about two tablespoons – 30ml (1 ounce) – of decoction added to 90-120ml (3-4 ounces) of boiling water.

    Most samovar tea patrons, however, prefer milk tea. So the tea maker will add a ladle of simmering milk from a nearby stove and a spoon of sugar then he will “beat” the tea.

    “The milk boiling on … top is a reserve. The tea-maker can’t always raise his hand to take it from there,” explained a tea-maker.

    To beat the tea, the tea-maker pours it back and forth between a mug and a cup, raising and lowering his hand in a rapid, up-and-down movement to create froth. The consistency, foaminess and taste reach a new level with the beating, nearly impossible to replicate at home.

    People watch the tea-beating pretty carefully. If the tea maker gets his hands really far apart, people call it “metre tea”, referring to the distance between the hands.

    Beyond beating, the ratio of the ingredients, the heat dynamics of the stove,t the flavour of the decoction and milk, contribute to whether or not a tea maker is called a tea ustad (tea master).

    Drinking tea at Lodz was Harshad Kuttipran, a samovar fan who likes exploring new places for tea and hopes to have a shop of his own.

    His late father had teashops in India’s Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka states. Growing up in Kerala, he remembered that teashops as institutions for socialising, where patrons could read newspapers and listen to the radio. “The news would lead to heated political debates,” Kuttipran said.

    Can samovar challenge karak?

    While people like Chalil are optimistic about the prospects of samovar tea in Qatar, many reckon karak tea will remain on top.

    In Madinat Khalifa’s Kismath, a restaurant that serves samovar, tea-maker Salman has no time to talk. The one thing he said is that he makes 700 cups of tea during his shift.

    The top lid of Samovar Dosa Street
    The top lid of the samovar [Photo courtesy: Dosa Street]

    But karak has a steady and established fan base, Muhammed Shibli, general manager at Tea Time, a chain with more than 50 branches across Qatar, said.

    “People have more than 10 cups a day. We will remain serving karaks and only karaks for the time being,” Shibli said.

    A partner in the Zanjabeel karak chain said his branches would serve only karak. However, Dosa Street, his south Indian cuisine venture in the Ain Khaled area of Doha, serves samovar tea.

    Personally, he prefers karak because he finds the samovar tea makers’ habit of putting another layer of decoction over the foam sometimes leaves a sour taste.

    In neighbourhoods like Matar Qadeem (Old Airport), where the population is younger and where gyms and barbershops are open round the clock, samovar tea shops provide a sense of community, or “vibes”, as the residents put it.

    Many branches of House of Tea, another chain, have recently drifted towards samovar tea, said Kuttipran, the tea fan.

    “Still, I don’t think Qataris and other Arabs will like the samovar, which is also generally less sugary than karaks.”

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source: Aljazeera.com

     

  • Who is responsible for the deaths of children at EU borders?

    Thousands of children die or are harmed when fleeing for safety to and within Europe due to violent border control policies

    On August 10, the world found out about the tragic death of five-year-old Maria on the Greek-Turkish border. The little Syrian girl was part of a group of 39 refugees, who had crossed from Turkey into Greece to seek asylum, but who were instead pushed back by the Greek and Turkish authorities onto an uninhabitable islet in the middle of the Evros river, which runs along the border.

    Maria died after being stung by a scorpion, two days after the group was stranded there.

    Although activists contacted the Greek police, Frontex and the UNHCR in Greece to rescue the group, their calls were presented as “fake news” and ignored. Another girl, a nine-year-old, was also stung by a scorpion and was in critical condition.

    A few weeks later, a four-year-old girl died on a refugee boat that had tried to reach Italy but had broken down and drifted towards Malta. Despite alerts about a vessel in distress, European authorities did not respond for six days.

    These are not just isolated cases of child refugees dying at a European border, while fleeing war, authoritarianism, climate change-related natural disasters, poverty or a combination of these factors. In 2015, the world was shocked by photos of three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after a boat carrying him and dozens of other refugees sank. In 2017, international media reported on the story of six-year-old Afghan girl Madina Husein, who was hit by a train after she and her family were pushed back by Croatian authorities into Serbia.

    Alongside these few publicly known cases, the Missing Migrants Project, launched by the International Organization for Migration, reports that more than 1,000 children died or went missing during their journeys to Europe between 2014 and 2022. These children died or got lost at European borders – stretching from the English Channel to the Balkans, and the Mediterranean – and borders of Europe’s key partners in migration controls, Turkey and Libya. Children who do survive their journeys to European Union countries often get injured or traumatised while crossing borders.

    While researching border-related violence, I have met many families who saw their children being harmed or dying. Their stories are similar to Maria’s. They all took place at borders where illegal pushbacks by local authorities and Frontex are a common practice, which denies people the right to seek asylum.

    Nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles) east of where Maria died lies the border between Iran and Turkey, which refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Iran try to cross on their way to Europe. Even asylum seekers from Turkey’s neighbours, Iraq and Syria, opt for this dangerous route, as the Syrian-Turkish and Iraqi-Turkish borders have become more difficult to pass through.

    To prevent movement towards its borders, the EU has provided 110 million euros ($110m) to Turkey to construct a concrete wall and install additional surveillance equipment at the Iran-Turkey border. In parallel, pushbacks by Turkish border authorities have become the main form of migration deterrence.

    During my research at this border in 2021, I met several people who said they were pushed back by Turkish security forces into Iranian territory. Four men from Afghanistan told me that after a pushback, they got lost in the mountainous area near the border; while walking through the rough terrain, they came across members of an Afghan family, including a baby who was about a year old, lying dead in the snow: “They had to die of freezing,” one of the men told me.

    In other cases, refugees, including children, were injured or died while being transported by smugglers across Turkish territory. “I was here when 70 people drowned in Van Lake, including a six-month-old baby from Afghanistan,” an Afghan refugee I met in the Turkish city of Van, told me. “We were all crying and buried the little body in the local cemetery.” I also heard stories of children dying when police opened fire on the vehicles they were travelling in or when they crashed.

    About 1,300 kilometres (808 miles) to the northeast of the Evros River, where Maria died, lies the Croatian-Bosnian border. I volunteered there with the Border Violence Monitoring Network in 2018 and 2019. Among the hundreds of people I met reporting pushbacks was an Iranian family, which included a three-year-old girl. Her father rolled up her T-shirt to show her bruised back and said: “[During the push-back from Croatia to Bosnia, Croatian] police kept shouting at us to go fast across the river. I was holding in my arms my daughter and they kept beating me while I was holding her. I slipped and fell, and my baby got her back injured.”

    The deaths and injuries of refugee children are commonly labeled by state officials as accidents that happen as a result of the harsh terrain refugees cross and attacks by wild animals, or because of their dealings with smugglers. State authorities also like to blame and prosecute parents for their children’s deaths – a practice that has been backed even by international aid agency officials.

    “The same mothers [grieving for the loss of their children] had no problem encouraging or funding their children on dangerous journeys to Europe. Like in Senegal, symbolically prosecuting parents for putting at risk their children could trigger serious attitudinal change on death journeys,” Vincent Cochetel, a special UNHCR envoy, recently argued in a tweet.

    By adopting this narrative, EU governments and officials seek to absolve themselves of responsibility for refugee children’s deaths. But the blame very much lies with them.

    Children are placed in these dangerous situations because of the EU’s migration policies and border controls which aim to reduce refugee arrivals to the Union. Families with small children would not have to embark on risky journeys, alone or with smugglers if they were not denied legal and safe border passage and immediate access to asylum procedures. Children would not be stranded on islands and in the mountains or fall into the rivers or seas if EU state authorities and their non-EU partners were not pushing them back or refusing rescue missions.

    In other words, children die at borders because of violent policies, including surveillance and pushbacks, deliberately deployed to prevent them from exercising their right to asylum.

    This means that children’s deaths are not accidents but the result of EU “strategies of non-arrival” which aim to stop refugees from exercising their rights granted by international law. At the same time, closed border passage underpins racial violence as border walls and pushbacks target mainly non-white refugee groups fleeing former European colonies.

    The humanitarian corridors the EU opened earlier this year for Ukrainian refugees – who are considered white and European and therefore, “desirable” – demonstrate that it is possible for children (and adult) refugees to cross borders in safe and legal ways in order to apply for asylum in the EU.

    Children are without doubt the most vulnerable refugee population. Any refugee child, no matter their race, faith or social background, should be allowed to cross borders safely to access protection. European officials should abandon violent closed-border policies and develop safe and legal routes in collaboration with their key partners.

    Instead of prosecuting parents who have lost their children on dangerous migration journeys, governments ought to hold accountable members of their security forces who commit illegal pushbacks and use violence against refugees. Equally, Europe should move away from the racist logic of border control shaped by its colonial past. Unless these changes are made, we will continue reading media reports about the tragic deaths of children at borders.

     

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source: Aljazeera.com

  • Jeremy Corbyn along with backbench Labour MPs joins the picketing dock workers

    Several Labour backbenchers, including former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, have joined the picket line in Liverpool with the dockworkers.

    Sir Keir Starmer and his shadow cabinet claim they want to help workers by gaining power, thus they will not be joining the protesters.

    Mr Corbyn has been suspended from the party.

    The MPs pictured with him include Richard Burgon, Zarah Sultana, Nadia Whittome, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle.

    RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch is also in the picture.

  • German leaders express concern over a far-right victory in the Italian election

    Politicians in Germany from all political perspectives have voiced alarm over Giorgia Meloni’s electoral victory. The far-right AfD, who appears to be Italy’s next leader, however, expressed support for Meloni.

    German politicians of differing political hues reacted with concern on Monday, with Georgia Meloni likely to become Italy’s first far-right leader since World War II.

    Meloni’s Brothers of Italy — a successor parties to the MSI movement founded by former officials loyal to fascist leader Benito Mussolini — scooped a larger share of the vote that any other party in Sunday’s election.

    Katharina Barley, a vice president of the European Parliament and a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD), was concerned that Meloni would align herself with Hungary and Poland. Leaders of both countries have clashed with Brussels over the issue of rule of law, with Hungary keen to dilute sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

    Barley said she was not fully reassured by an apparent softening of Meloni’s euroskeptic stance.

    “I’m not convinced yet. Of course, if she becomes prime minister, she will have the benefit of the doubt,” Barley said.

    The vote provided the bloc lead by Giorgia Meloni with a clear majority

    “The EU can only work if you try to apply common solutions that fit everyone,” she added. “That means compromise. Our experiences with this sort of government is that they do not engage in compromises at all.”

    Junior coalition members fearful

    Members of the SPD’s two junior coalition partners also said they were anxious about the likelihood of Meloni coming to power.

    Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, of the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), echoed the sentiment that decision-making processes at the EU level could be made more difficult.

    “It is becoming more and more laborious,” Lambsdorff told the German public broadcaster ARD on Monday, referring to the issues of migration, financial reform, and the internal market.

    Omid Nouripour, the co-leader of the environmentalist Greens, Germany’s other junior coalition partner, described the election results as “worrying.”

    Far-right heading for power after Italy vote

    He said it was well known that there are “very close ties with the Kremlin” within the right-wing alliance.

    The leaders of the other two parties within the alliance, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi have previously sought a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Salvini’s League has called for a weakening of Western sanctions against Russia, and Berlusconi has long been friends with the Kremlin leader.

    Meloni has said she is steadfast in her support for Ukraine and strongly supports the European Union’s sanctions.

    ‘Openly post-fascist statements’

    On the opposition seats in parliament, the Christian Democrat lawmaker and foreign policy expert Jürgen Hardt said he was troubled by Meloni’s “openly post-fascist statements.”

    “Racism and the exclusion of minorities can no longer have a place in Europe,” Hardt told the German news agency dpa.

    “In Germany and Brussels, the new Italian government will be judged on its contribution to the future of Europe, compliance with the sanctions against Russia, and progress in rebuilding the Italian economy,” Hardt said.

    Members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) were jubilant at Meloni’s election success.

    “We celebrate with Italy!” AfD lawmaker Beatrix von Storch tweeted. “Sweden in the north, Italy in the south: left-wing governments are yesterday’s news,” she wrote, referring to the success of right-wing populist Sweden Democrats in elections earlier this month.

  • The Kazakh president on Russians evading mobilization: ‘We must look after them’

    Tens of thousands of people are trying to find shelter in Kazakhstan as many leave Russia in response to the announcement of a partial troop enlistment order, according to officials.

    However, there are no intentions to close the border by the Almaty government.

    The sudden influx of Russians, almost 100,000, have crossed the border since the mobilisation announcement, the government said, has left hotels and hostels full and rent skyrocketing.

    Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whose administration has refused to support what Russia calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, urged patience and tolerance.

    “A lot of people from Russia have come here over the last few days,” he said in a speech on Tuesday.

    “Most of them were forced to leave by the desperate situation.”

    “We must take care of them and ensure their safety. This is a political and humanitarian matter,” Tokayev said.

    Kazakhstan, home to a significant ethnic Russian minority and where the Russian language is spoken widely, does not require Russians to have a visa or a passport to enter the country.

  • Is Germany’s economic reliance on China excessive?

    The government in Berlin wants to reduce dependence on the country’s most important trading partner. But German businesses are not convinced.

    The Port of Hamburg, Germany’s biggest seaport, is considered the country’s gateway to the world. But above all, it is a gateway to China, which is the port’s largest customer. In the first half of 2022 alone, more than 1.3 million containers from China arrived here.

    Now, Chinese shipping giant COSCO wants to take a 35% stake in the harbor, and its operators would like that, too. They say this would make the container terminal a prime transshipment hub in Europe for the world’s largest shipping company. But the Economy Ministry in Berlin has reservations and may not approve COSCO’s investment in the Hamburg Port. The dispute over COSCO’s involvement illustrates how rethinking ties with China impacts the German economy.

    Germany’s dependence on Russian gas has proved to be a weak point following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This realization has led the government to revisit the country’s relationship with China as well. Some 5,000 German companies operate in China today.

    How to deal with an autocracy that has been Germany’s largest trading partner for years? How to deal with the country that EU documents refer to as a “partner,” a “competitor” and “strategic rival” — with the balance shifting toward the latter?

    ‘End of naivety’

    German Economy Minister and Vice-Chancellor, Robert Habeck from the Green Party, has already announced a “more robust trade policy” toward China. “The time of naivety toward China is over,” Habeck declared in mid-September after a meeting of G7 economy ministers.

    Back in May, Habeck denied the VW Group guarantees for investments in China. That came as a shock: For decades, German companies’ business in China had been backed by guarantees on both investments and exports.

    “In the near future, if German companies want to invest, if they trade with China, they are likely to do so at their own risk and will no longer be able to rely on government guarantees and safeguards,” says China expert Tim Rühlig of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). He sees a change of course: the German government “no longer wants to provide incentives for German companies to expand business in China,” Rühling tells DW in an interview.

    But that does not stop them from doing so anyway. According to a study by Jürgen Matthes, an economist with the German Economic Institute (IW), the German industry invested around €10 billion in China in the first half of this year alone — a record figure.

    Car manufacturers and chemical companies in particular are continuing to seek a foothold in the Chinese market. According to a study published by the Rhodium Group in mid-September, the four German industrial giants — carmakers VW, BMW, Mercedes and chemical company BASF — alone account for a third of European direct investment in China.

    Volkswagen advertisement in Shanghai

    Volkswagen is one of the major German investors in China

    Or is the dependence overestimated?

    80% of European investments are made by just 10 large European companies, according to Jörg Wuttke, president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China. “The others are not leaving China, but are currently interested in other countries for new investments and are also thinking about diversification,” Wuttke observes.

    Europe’s top ten companies, however, are heavily reliant on China, he warns, pointing to dependence on China for imports of rare-earth elements, preliminary products for the pharmaceutical industry, and photovoltaic systems. But dependence on China is fundamentally different from reliance on Russian energy, he says: “We have a pipeline with oil and gas from Russia. But from China, we have a ‘pipeline’ with toys, furniture, sports equipment, clothing, and shoes. Most of those products — I would say 90% of them — are easily replicable elsewhere.”

    Around 3% of German jobs depend on exports to China, economist Matthes points out. “That’s over 1 million jobs. That is a considerable number, but over 45 million people are employed in Germany today,” he says, and concludes: “On a macroeconomic level, the dependence on China as an export market is relevant, but it’s not as huge as media reports often make it out to be.”

    Chinese worker examining photovoltaic cells of solar panels at the plant of Eoplly New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. in Nantong city, east Chinas Jiangsu province

    Important for the energy transition: Solar cells from China

    Pressure from the Green Party

    Nevertheless, within Germany’s new center-left coalition government of Social Democrats (SPD), neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), and environmentalist Greens, the latter in particular are putting pressure on companies to rethink their ties with China.

    At the beginning of September, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told business leaders: “We can’t afford to just hope that things won’t be so bad after all with these autocratic regimes.” The Green Party politician, who stands for “a values-based and feminist foreign policy,” announced the development of a new China strategy as part of a new National Security Strategy. “It is important to the German government and to me personally that we transfer what we have learned from our dependence on Russia to our new China strategy,” she says.

    The Economy Ministry is considering ways to encourage companies to turn to other Asian countries, instead of China. Government investment and export guarantees are being reappraised. The government-owned KfW Bank is to examine whether it could scale back its China program and instead offer more loans for business in countries including Indonesia.

    Last year, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) was already debating rules for foreign trade policy cooperation with autocracies. It suggested a “concept of responsible coexistence in foreign economic policy and clear boundaries for any cooperation.”

    For many managers, however, the change of course in the Economy Ministry goes too far.

    “Government support and protection of German companies’ business in China must remain, in principle,” Friedolin Strack, chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA), told the news agency Reuters.

    Chinese investments should be welcome in Germany and Europe, he insisted. Whether this should also apply to the specific case of COSCO’s entry into the Hamburg Port, however, Strack did not want to say.

  • After 7 years Colombia and Venezuela reopen border crossing

    Colombia’s newly elected president, Gustavo Petro,  made the reopening a centrepiece of his campaign. Seven years had passed since the Simon Bolivar international bridge was closed.

    Colombia and Venezuela on Monday reopened their border after years of impasse.

    The reopening was a key campaign promise of left-wing Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who assumed office last month. The two countries subsequently re-established diplomatic relations.

    “This is a historic day for the country, for the region, and for the Americas in general,” Petro said.

    On foot, Petro crossed the Simon Bolivar international bridge, dividing the Venezuelan town of San Antonio from Colombia’s Cucuta and Villa del Rosario. Having crossed the border, he met with a Venezuelan delegation including Transport Minister Ramon Velasquez and Industry Minister Hipolito Abreu.

    Petro and the Venezuelan delegation accompanied the first cargo truck to cross the border after the reopening.

    “I want the first people who benefit to be those who live on either side of the border, those who risked (illegal crossings),” Petro said in later comments.

    “The result should be a qualitative jump in human rights all along the Colombian-Venezuelan border,” he said.

    Petro said that a second road bridge near Cucuta would open within weeks.

    The Simon Bolivar bridge had officially been closed to trade for nearly seven years. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered border crossings closed in 2015 during what he described as a crackdown on smuggling.

    Cargo transport had previously only been allowed through one northern crossing.

    In 2019, tensions between the two countries rose after the Colombian government attempted to deliver truckloads of aid to the Venezuelan opposition.

    The border was then shut down for a year. It was then reopened to traffic by foot.

  • The current crisis presents Starmer with an open goal

    Sir Keir Starmer’s challenge today can be best summed up by the following tortured football analogy.

    The other team have not only left the goal wide open, but the goalkeeper has also wandered off the pitch.

    The strikers are repeatedly kicking themselves in the face.

    The other players have either turned on each other, collapsed, or abandoned the game entirely.

    Parts of the pitch are on fire.

    All Sir Keir has to do is calmly take the ball and walk it over the line.

    It should be an easy win, even for a leader whose party has often questioned his ability to make an impact on the electorate, fearing his cautious approach just doesn’t cut through.

    In normal times this might have held him back, but these are far from normal times.

    The Conservatives have done a lot of the work for him.

    Under Boris Johnson, they forfeited much of their moral authority – and in a matter of days under Liz Truss, the party’s economic credibility hangs in the balance.

    In his conference address, there doesn’t need to be sparkling oratory or groundbreaking policy ideas.

    He simply needs to present a credible alternative to a government in crisis.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the authors’ and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source:Skynews

  • UK borrowing costs surpass those of Italy and Greece

    For arrangements lasting two and five years, the UK’s borrowing costs have increased.

    As a result, borrowing costs for the government will be higher than for Italy and Greece.

    The UK does still have a cheaper rate for 10-year borrowing.

    Professor Sir Charlie Bean, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England for monetary policy told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It now costs the UK government more to borrow than Italy or Greece, who we have traditionally thought of as being not quite basket cases, but certainly weaker-performing sovereign entities.”

    Sir Charlie added the Bank was “rightly reluctant to have emergency meetings”, but added: “I think on this occasion if I had still been at the Bank in my role as deputy governor, I certainly would have been counseling the governor that I think this is one of the occasions where it might have made sense.”

    Asked about the economic turmoil this could cause, he said: “The key thing is, if you call it, you have to take significant action.”

    “The lesson is you go big, and you go fast,” he added.

  • New poll: Labour is in the lead by 13 points

    A new poll from Deltapoll has given Labour a 13-point lead over the Conservatives.

    It comes after a YouGov survey gave Sir Keir Starmer’s party a 17-point lead over the Tories.

    The Deltapoll poll was carried out between Thursday last week and Sunday and asked 2,129 adults across the UK who they would vote for.

    Some 44% said Labour – an increase of two points when compared to the week before.

    A total of 31% said Conservative – a fall of one point.

    The Lib Dems were up two points to 12%, while 13% of people didn’t know – a drop of three points.

  • What can we expect from Starmer’s conference speech?

    The mood at Labour conference turned from cautiously confident to gleeful as shadow ministers toured the drinks receptions last night. 

    A YouGov poll dropped at around 10 pm giving the party a thumping 17-point lead – the biggest for 20 years.

    Of course, it is only one poll, and Sir Keir Starmer’s top team insists they are not complacent about the need to win back people’s trust.

    But some could not resist letting the excitement show, one former minister saying “it feels like the mid-90s” when Tony Blair was two years away from a landslide.

    Many other Labour figures are keenly aware that a lot could happen before the next election in two years’ time, but there is a palpable sense that Labour scent power.

    Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told the conference that a Labour government “is on its way”.

    Today, Wes Streeting told Sky News that his message to mortgage lenders and worried homeowners is that “the cavalry is coming” – in the shape of a Labour government – at the next election.

    There are big questions about how Labour will finance its plans, given they have pledged to keep the income tax cut announced by Kwasi Kwarteng despite a bleak economic outlook.

    Today’s speech cannot promise huge investments in public services. The message is that Labour is the party of “sound money”, while the Conservatives have squandered that reputation – as the turmoil in the financial markets has demonstrated.

    Also buoying the party is the number of businesses attending and sponsoring events.

    Shadow ministers say they have been inundated with requests for meeting with corporations keen to hear about Labour’s plans.

    After months of hammering Boris Johnson on his personal integrity, Labour insiders say Sir Keir “relishes” the fight on the economy.

    They say he needs to do three things – show the party has changed, interrogate the government’s record, and lay out the country he wants to build.

    If his speech is to hit the mark today, voters will need to believe there is progress on all those fronts in the months ahead.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the authors’ and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source: Sky news 

  • After the decline of the pound, the bank will “not hesitate” to boost interest rates

    The pound hit a record low versus the US dollar, prompting the Bank of England to declare that it will “not hesitate” to raise interest rates in order to combat inflation.

    The Bank stated that it was “closely monitoring developments” and will decide on any course of action in November.

    Its statement came after the Treasury said it would publish a plan to tackle debt in a bid to reassure investors.

    In Asia currency market trade on Tuesday, the pound rose by more than 1% to top $1.08.

    On Monday, some UK lenders said that they were halting new mortgage deals.

    Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage lender, said it would temporarily withdraw all mortgage products that come with a fee due to the market volatility.

    Virgin Money and Skipton Building Society have also stopped offering mortgage products to new customers.

    Experts said a rise in the cost of long-term borrowing due to the market turmoil meant the cost to lenders of offering new mortgage deals was too expensive.

    Sterling fell to an all-time low earlier against the US dollar after Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng pledged further tax cuts at the weekend on top of Friday’s mini-budget where he announced the biggest tax cuts in 50 years.

    The pound had been sliding as global markets reacted to the sharp increase in government borrowing required to fund the cuts.

    A weak pound makes it more expensive to buy imported goods and risks pushing up the rising cost of living even further. Imports of commodities priced in dollars, including oil and gas, are also more expensive.

    UK inflation, the rate at which prices rise, is already rising at its fastest rate for 40 years.

    Some economists had predicted the Bank of England would call an emergency meeting in the coming days to raise interest rates in a bid to stem the fall, as well as calm rising prices.

    But the Bank of England instead said it was “monitoring developments in financial markets very closely” and would make a full assessment at its next meeting on 3 November.

    Investors are now predicting that interest rates could more than double by next spring to 5.8% from their current 2.25%, to curb high inflation, which is expected to be fuelled by the huge tax cuts announced in Friday’s mini-budget.

    ‘Not affordable’

    Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said if interest rates rise as predicted, the average household refinancing a two-year fixed rate mortgage in the first half of next year would see monthly payments jump to £1,490 from £863.

    “Many simply won’t be able to afford this,” he said.

    A late afternoon double dose of attempted reassurance – firstly from the Treasury, and then from the Bank of England.

    What’s new from the Treasury is a timeline with dates attached. There will be a series of statements from various cabinet ministers about ideas we heard about on Friday.

    And then in just under two months, a parliamentary moment. What’s being described as the “Medium Term Fiscal Plan” – and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s number crunching.

    In short, what the Treasury is attempting to say is this: don’t panic, we know what we’re doing.

    Well, let’s see what the markets do next.

    The market volatility following Mr Kwarteng’s mini-budget has also been linked in part to the government’s decision not to publish a forecast of expected UK growth and government borrowing from independent forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility.

    Martin Weale, Professor of Economics at King’s College London and former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which votes on interest rates, told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme that people “are concerned that the government has no plan for bringing the national debt under control.”

    “Sterling has fallen because market traders have been frightened by the government’s policies, and I think they got further frightened by the sense over the weekend that this was only the first installment of some tax cuts.”

    But Lord David Frost, Conservative peer and former chief Brexit negotiator, said the reaction on global markets was “an overreaction”.

    “I don’t think anything has gone wrong, actually, Liz Truss promised change, a different economic approach to get us back to growth and away from stagnation.”

    He said as part of this change in approach, interest rates would rise and the government would need to provide additional support via tax cuts, and whilst it would need to reduce spending medium term, the details of that would come in November.

    The government said its financial plan set for 23 November would include full growth and borrowing forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

    It also pledged to set out further details on the government’s spending rules, including how it will try to decrease debt.

    Paul Dales, the chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said given the pound had fallen back since the statements from the Bank and the Treasury the markets “may well need more reassurance and some actual action”, saying a change in policy from the government or an interest rate hike from the Bank at an emergency meeting before 3 November may be necessary.

  • Russia allegedly “blindfolded and restrained” Japan’s consulate in Vladivostok

    In the eastern city of Vladivostok, Japan has accused Russian security forces of blindfolding and restraining one of its officials.

    Motoki Tatsunori, its consul in the city, was freed from custody on Tuesday after being accused of espionage – and given 48 hours to leave Russia.

    Moscow alleges he received secret information about its cooperation with an unnamed Asian country.

    Japan denies the allegation and is demanding a formal apology.

    Russia’s FSB security service said it had detained Mr Tatsunori on Monday for soliciting information about “the impact of Western sanctions” on Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine in February.

    “A Japanese diplomat was detained red-handed while receiving classified information, in exchange for money, about Russia’s co-operation with another country in the Asia-Pacific region,” the agency said in a statement.

    But Japan said the detention of its consul for political affairs violated the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and had been carried out in “an intimidating manner”.

    “The official was blindfolded, with pressure applied to both his hands and head so he was unable to move while being detained, and then he was questioned in an overbearing way,” chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters.

    He said Japan “strongly protests these unbelievable acts” and confirmed that the diplomat would leave Russia by Wednesday after being declared persona non grata.

    Japan opposes the Russian invasion and is considered a hostile country by Russia – along with the US, UK, and other countries which support Ukraine.

    Russia and Japan also have long-standing disagreements over territory dating back to World War Two.

  • Yvette Cooper: A £360 million increase in police and PCSOs, as well as the cancellation of the Rwanda policy 

    Veteran Labour frontbencher Yvette Cooper has announced some new policies to tackle crime.

    The shadow home secretary, who has been an MP since 1997, brought back the Labour slogan “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” – to much applause.

    Focusing on neighborhood policing, she said Labour would implement a £360 million program to put 13,000 additional police and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) into community teams.

    Ms Cooper said the programme is fully-funded but did not elaborate on how.

    She also said Labour would strengthen police standards by overhauling training, vetting, and misconduct procedures.

    New mandatory rules and safeguards would also be brought in on the strip-searching of children.

    Labour would also place domestic abuse experts into 999 control rooms and rape investigation units in every police force, she said.

    On Channel migrant crossings, she said Labour would introduce a new cross-border police unit, working with France to crack down on the criminal gangs running the crossings.

    And to a standing ovation, she said Labour would cancel the “deeply, damaging, extortionately expensive, unworkable and unethical Rwanda plan”.

    To much applause, she finished her speech with: “I am sick and tired of watching the Tories run our country down.

    “And that’s why I’m back standing here.

    “It’s the same reason why every one of us are here.

    “Because we love our country. We know the amazing things Labour can do.

    “And we are ready to fight for that better, fairer future with a Labour government again.”

  • Final day of flawed voting in Ukraine under Russian control during the war

    Tuesday marks the penultimate day of a vote for regions of Ukraine controlled by Russia, which the government in Kyiv and its Western allies call a fraud.

    Nearly four million people from the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, are being asked to attend polling stations and vote in so-called referendums on joining Russia.

    This follows four days of early voting during which allegations of intimidation multiplied as election officials went house to house accompanied by armed guards.

    The votes, called with just a few days’ notice, serve a deadly serious purpose as they will be used by the Kremlin to legitimise its invasion aims.

    If Russia absorbs these regions, making up about 15% of Ukraine’s territory, it could take the war to a new and more dangerous level, with Moscow portraying any attempt by Ukraine to regain them as an attack on its sovereign territory.

    There is now speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin may announce the four regions’ annexation in a speech to a joint session of Russia’s parliament on Friday.

    In March 2014 he announced that Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula had been annexed just a few days after a likewise unrecognised referendum was held.

    ‘At gunpoint’

    Were the guns there to protect you as you voted, or to cow you into voting? That was a question passing through people’s minds in recent days as election officials escorted by soldiers come to knock on their doors.

    Serhiy Haidai, the governor-in-exile of the Luhansk region, accused the separatist authorities there of taking down the names of people who voted against joining Russia or who refused to vote at all.

    “Representatives of the occupation forces are going from apartment to apartment with ballot boxes,” he said, quoted by Reuters news agency. “This is a secret ballot, right?”

    Talking separately to the Associated Press news agency, he suggested the Russians were using the process as a pretext to search homes for men they could mobilise as soldiers as well as checking for “anything suspicious and pro-Ukrainian”.

    One woman described for BBC News how her parents had voted in the city of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region.

    Two local “collaborators” had arrived with two Russian soldiers at their flat to give them a ballot paper to sign, she said.

    Voting in Donetsk, 23 September
    IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Soldiers are escorting electoral workers going door to door in Donetsk

    “My dad put ‘no’ [to joining Russia],” the woman said. “My mum stood nearby and asked what would happen for putting ‘no’. They said, ‘Nothing’. Mum is now worried that the Russians will persecute them.”

    Another woman in the embattled town of Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station is located, told the BBC: “You have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it.”

    Ukrainian journalist Maxim Eristavi tweeted to say that his family had been “forced to vote at gunpoint” in southern Ukraine.

    “They come to your house,” he wrote. “You have to openly tick the box for being annexed by Russia (or for staying with Ukraine if you feel suicidal). All while armed gunmen watch you.”

    Petro Kobernik, who left Kherson just before the voting began, told AP in an interview by phone: “The situation is changing rapidly, and people fear that they will be hurt either by the Russian military, or Ukrainian guerrillas and the advancing Ukrainian troops.”

    The vote on paper

    The questions on the ballot papers (there is no digital voting) differ according to region.

    This is because pro-Russian separatists have been running parts of Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014 when they held unrecognized independence referendums.

    Voters, there are being asked whether they “support their republic’s accession to Russia as a federal subject”.

    In the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia occupied by Russian forces since the invasion in February, people are being asked if they “favour the region’s secession from Ukraine, creation of an independent country and subsequent accession to Russia as a federal subject”.

    The ballot papers there are printed in both Ukrainian and Russian whereas in the eastern regions they are printed in Russian only.

    Voting was spread over five days to allow for ballots to be “organized in communities and in a door-to-door manner for security reasons”, Russian state news agency Tass reports.

    Refugees now scattered across Russia can vote in as many as 200 polling stations there.

    The vote is being heavily guarded by Russian or Russian-backed security forces and with reason.

    Not only have Ukrainian forces been pushing the Russians and their separatist allies back in both the east and south, but attacks on figures associated with the Russian occupation have mounted.

    Voters in Rostov-on-Don, 24 September
    IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS Image caption, People voted at a polling station in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don

    Former Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Zhuravko, who championed the Russian invasion, was killed along with another person in a missile attack on a hotel in Kherson on Sunday.

    Reports say that Russian journalists who were also staying at the hotel escaped uninjured.

    In the city of Berdyansk in the Zaporizhzhia region, the deputy head of the city administration and his wife who headed the city election commission were killed in an attack a week before the referendum.

    Members of a guerrilla group called the Yellow Band have spread leaflets threatening anyone who votes and urging others to send photos and videos of anyone who does in order to track them down later, AP reports.

    The guerrillas have also sent around phone numbers of election commission chiefs in the Kherson region, asking activists to “make their life unbearable”, the agency reports.

    Ukraine has threatened anyone organizing or supporting the so-called referendums with eventual criminal prosecution, saying they face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

    International outcry

    Even Serbia, which has close ties with Moscow and is one of the few European countries not to join sanctions on Russia, has announced it will not recognise the results of the voting.

    Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovic said that to do so would be “completely contrary” to his country’s policy of “preserving territorial integrity and sovereignty and… commitment to the principle of inviolability of borders”.

    But in the face of international opposition, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisted that the votes were “the expression of the will” of the people who lived in the regions.

    He confirmed that if the four regions joined Russia they would have the same protection as any other part of its territory, including protection with nuclear weapons.

    The White House says the US will never recognise “Ukrainian territory as anything other than part of Ukraine”.

    In its view, the referendums are a “sham – a false pretext to try to annex parts of Ukraine by force in flagrant violation of international law”.

    The UK has responded with new sanctions targeting top Russian officials involved in enforcing the votes among others.

  • Distinguished Sunni Muslim cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi passes away at age 96

    A well-known Egyptian Sunni Muslim cleric, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi,  passed away in Qatar at the age of 96, according to his website.

    Qaradawi founded the International Union of Muslim Scholars and was seen as a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement.

    For many years, he had a religious phone-in show on Al Jazeera TV that was watched by tens of millions.

    Qaradawi’s supporters described him as a moderate, but some Western and Gulf states branded him an extremist.

    He condemned the 9/11 attacks in the United States by jihadist militants from al-Qaeda and backed the pro-democracy uprisings against the leaders of Egypt, Libya and Syria during the Arab Spring.

    But he also called on Muslims to fight Americans in Iraq following the 2003 invasion and claimed that Islam justified Palestinian suicide bomb attacks against Israelis during the second Palestinian intifada that began in 2000.

    In an interview with the BBC in 2004, he said: “I consider this type of martyrdom operation as an indication of the justice of Allah Almighty.”

    Qaradawi’s ties with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and his criticism of Egypt’s leaders resulted in him being imprisoned several times in the country before he moved to Qatar in 1961 and began a self-imposed exile.

    He did not return to Egypt until 2011 when a popular uprising ousted long-time President Hosni Mubarak.

    Qaradawi, who had supported the protesters in his TV broadcasts and issued an edict forbidding security personnel from opening fire on them, led Friday prayers for hundreds of thousands of people in Tahrir Square a week after Mubarak’s resignation.

    “Don’t let anyone steal this revolution from you – those hypocrites who will put on a new face that suits them,” he warned the crowd.

    He was forced again into exile in 2013, when the military overthrew Mubarak’s democratically elected successor Mohammed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, following mass protests against his rule.

    Qaradawi denounced what he called a “coup” and urged all groups in Egyptian to “restore [Morsi] to his legitimate post”.

    In 2015, a court in Egypt sentenced Qaradawi and dozens of other people to death in absentia over a mass prison break during the 2011 uprising. He dismissed the verdict as “nonsense”.

    The governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates also accused Qaradawi of terrorism in 2017 as part of their justification for imposing a de facto blockade on Qatar. The cleric said he rejected terrorism and Qatar refused to extradite him.

  • “Computer genius” killed after being mistaken for someone else; family warns killer may strike again

    Alexander Kareem, whose sister works for the Metropolitan Police, was fatally shot in June 2020 in west London after being mistaken for someone else. His brother Kabir has expressed concerns that he could be the target of his brother’s killer, who has never been brought to justice.

    The brother of a man shot dead in an unsolved murder says he is living in fear of an attack by the killer who is still at large.

    Alexander Kareem – whose sister is a serving Metropolitan Police officer – was gunned down near his home in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, in June 2020, in a case of mistaken identity.

    Nine people, including a boy aged 16, were arrested over the 20-year-old’s death but have been released and told they will face no further action.

    Alexander’s older brother Kabir, who lives near to where the murder happened, told Sky News he is “very likely to have crossed paths” with his sibling’s killer, or someone who knows who is responsible and is fearful about what their response might be.

    It comes after Mr Kareem and his sister, PC Khafi Kareem – who has more than 1.4 million Instagram followers after appearing on Nigeria’s Big Brother – publicly appealed for anyone with information about their brother’s murder to come forward.

    Mr Kareem said: “Given the fact the killers will know who I am because we’ve been publicly trying to seek justice, I have to be vigilant.

    “I don’t know how they would react coming across me.

    “I have to be wary every time I leave the house.

    “If a car pulls up, an unknown vehicle, I’m on edge when those sorts of things happen.

    “It’s mentally draining. It’s something I’ve had to live with and learn to cope with.”

    ‘I don’t want to live a life in fear’

    Mr Kareem, 29, said he had thought about moving to a different area but he did not want to be “pushed away”.

    “I don’t want to live a life in fear and think I have to run away from what’s happened,” he added.

    “People who need my support are here. I don’t think it would be right for me to leave.”

    Alexander was on his way to a friend’s house on an e-scooter when he was attacked shortly after 12.30 am on 8 June 2020.

    Police believe a white Range Rover drove past and shot him on Askew Road, Shepherd’s Bush, in a case of mistaken identity. The vehicle was later found burned out.

    Sky News revealed earlier this month that hundreds of killings have gone unsolved in London in the last two decades – including incidents in which victims have been shot, stabbed, strangled, and drowned.

    Mr Kareem said he was still hopeful his brother’s killer would be caught but is concerned “there doesn’t seem that much attention given to this investigation”.

    Kabir Kareem's 20-year-old brother Alexander was shot dead in west London in June 2020
    Image: Kabir Kareem says he is ‘wary’ every time he leaves his house

    “I will never give up hope,” he said.

    “(The police are) saying they’re actively investigating it but honestly it doesn’t feel like that at the moment.”

    ‘Stuck in that place of grief’

    Mr Kareem said his mother is “still in a dark place” more than two years after the murder of her son, who was described by his family as a “computer genius” and planned to go to university.

    “We can’t move on as a family knowing no one has been held responsible for the murder,” he said.

    “It keeps us stuck in that place of grief.

    “It’s still hard to take. You do think about it every day. There’s not a day that goes past where you don’t think about him.

    Alexander Kareem, 20, was shot dead in west London in June 2020
    Image:Alexander was described by his family as a ‘computer genius’

    “If I see someone who may resemble him – like a young boy with glasses – it brings up those memories and triggers certain thoughts.

    “It does get you emotional.”

    Asked whether he believed people know who killed his brother and have not come forward, he replied: “Most definitely.”

    In a direct message to those people, Mr Kareem said: “You can’t protect the same people who are destroying our communities.

    “(Alex) wasn’t involved in gangs… he was just a young person.

    “It could have been anyone’s brother, it could have been anyone’s child.”

    Alexander Kareem's sister Khafi (left) and mother Victoria during his burial in July
    Image: Alexander’s sister Khafi (L) and mother Victoria (R) during his burial

    Victim’s sister ‘angry’ over killer still at large

    On the second anniversary of Alexander’s death in June, his sister Khafi said her brother was “murdered in cold blood on the streets of London” and her grief “felt like a dagger” to her chest.

    “Two years on and still his murderers have not been found. This is not okay,” she said.

    “It hurts me every day and is not getting any easier, I just find better ways to suppress my grief as time goes on, but every time it arises it is like a dagger to my chest afresh.”

    Ms Kareem said news of “young black boys dying needlessly… trigger so much for me” and she was angered that the people responsible for her brother’s murder are “still walking the streets”.

    “It makes me so, so angry,” she added.

    “If you have any information on Alex’s death, it is not too late to speak up.”

  • Mini-budget: Mortgages withdrawn from sale as market reels

    In the wake of mini-budget market turbulence, which has sparked worries about additional interest rate hikes, UK mortgage providers search for a way out. While Halifax will discontinue fee-paying mortgages, Virgin Money and Skipton Building Society have temporarily pulled their whole product lines.

    The market turmoil caused by Friday’s seismic mini-budget has hit mortgage offerings as providers withdrew partial and entire lending ranges.

    Virgin Money and Skipton Building Society have temporarily withdrawn their entire mortgage product range, while Halifax, the country’s largest mortgage lender, said it is to remove fee-paying mortgages.

    Fee-paying mortgages allow borrowers to pay a fee in exchange for a lower interest rate.

    Halifax’s changes are to take effect on Wednesday, while the Virgin Money and Skipton Building Society decisions have already taken effect.

    Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s announcement of the most extensive programme of tax cuts for 50 years, and the associated market upset, has traders expecting that the Bank of England will raise interest rates to 6%- even higher than it outlined last Thursday.

    On Monday, the Bank fuelled those fears when, in a surprise statement, it said it “will not hesitate to change interest rates as necessary”.

    That uncertainty around the future of rate rises has caused the withdrawal, one broker told Reuters.

    “The uncertainty around the risk of an emergency rate rise is likely to see other lenders withdrawing products or increasing rates dramatically until they know the extent of how this all pans out,” Jamie Lennox, a director at Dimora Mortgages, said.

    Parent company Lloyds said Halifax was making the changes to its mortgage product offering “as a result of significant changes in the cost of funding”.

    Virgin Money made its decision “given market conditions”, a spokesman said in a statement, with already submitted applications to be processed as normal.

    The provider said it hopes to launch new products towards the end of the week.

     

  • Shinzo Abe: A divided Japan sends its dead former prime minister farewell

    Akie, the widow of Shinzo Abe, walked slowly while wearing a black kimono and carrying a silk-covered urn containing her husband’s ashes.

    She set it on a sizable shrine that was decorated with white chrysanthemums.

    Above it hung a huge photo of Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

    Only once before in Japan’s post-war history has a politician been given a state funeral – and Tuesday’s event to honor Abe has stirred huge controversy.

    It drew thousands of guests – local and global leaders, notably from Japan’s closest allies. But it also faced a backlash as protesters marched against the decision to hold the funeral.

    It’s a day and an event that appears to have cut Japanese society down the middle. And it’s a sign of Abe’s complicated and often divisive legacy.

    The 67-year-old politician was assassinated in July – shot twice by a homemade gun. The killing shocked a country unused to gun crimes or political violence, triggering an outpouring of grief for a leader who had never been that popular.

    “Abe-San, thank you so much,” mourners shouted when they gathered to pay their respects in July – with his death, many of his countrymen realized he had given Japan a sense of stability and security.

    That mood changed with the announcement of a state funeral. But it has gone ahead despite growing opposition from the Japanese public with opinion polls showing around 60% opposed it.

    Outside the Budokan – the arena in Tokyo where the funeral was taking place – the queue of mourners carrying flowers stretched for well over 3km (1.8 miles). They wore black and carried flowers to pay their respects for one last time.

    “I love Abe and everything about him, that’s why I am in line,” one 19-year-old said. Another mourner, a woman, said she was there to “show my gratitude for his long service as PM”.

    But a short distance away in front of the Japanese parliament thousands more gathered to noisily and angrily demonstrate their opposition.

    Abe was widely admired abroad, but he was a divisive figure at home. Many of the protesters outside parliament were furious about the $10.7m (1.6bn yen; £10m) cost of the funeral. Others simply said Abe did not deserve the rare honour of a state funeral.

    “I am frustrated and angry that we let the government do whatever they want without consulting the people,” said 25-year-old Iori Fujiwara. “Us younger generation needs to speak out more for our own future, that’s why I am here.”

    “I could not stay at home while they are spending so much money and inviting so many guests while there are Japanese people suffering from the typhoon last week,” said 25-year-old Ayaka Uehira.

    Protesters hold placards reading 'No!! State funeral' during a rally against the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Japan, 27 September 2022.
    IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Noisy protesters were kept away from the arena where the funeral took place

    Many of those who oppose the funeral – and Abe’s political legacy – are older Japanese. In a country traumatized by war, the older generation has long favored a “pacifist” constitution that has kept Japan from heavily investing in its military.

    Abe, however, sought to change that – not by a referendum or parliamentary process, but by reinterpreting the constitution.

    This move was controversial and unpopular but has increasingly been welcomed by Abe’s supporters – many of whom are younger Japanese. Untroubled by memories of war, they are also increasingly reacting to China’s aggressive claims on Japanese territory.

    For them, Abe was an extraordinary politician who put Japan back on the international map as a significant player.

    Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Liberal Democratic Party certainly made the decision to honor Abe without considering how the country might react.

    But there is no denying the fact that Abe was also a man greatly admired by Japan’s allies.

    He pushed for stronger relations among what he called “like-minded democracies”, including India and Australia. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Quad – an alliance between the US, Japan, India, and Australia.

    So it’s no surprise that the US vice-president, and sitting and former Australian prime ministers traveled to Tokyo to pay their respects. Or that India’s PM Narendra Modi made the journey after skipping the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London last week.

    They perhaps recognize that in some ways, Abe was well ahead of his time.

    He had always been wary of a rising threat from China – a concern Japan’s allies now share.

  • Pret death: Family ‘angry’ allergic mum died from dairy contamination

    The daughter of a woman who died after eating a Pret a Manger wrap said she was “always so careful” about her food.

    Celia Marsh, who had an acute dairy allergy, had a fatal reaction to the flatbread, which was labeled as a vegan despite containing traces of milk.

    The coconut yogurt dressing had been cross-contaminated with milk protein during manufacture, the coroner said.

    Her daughter Ashleigh Grice, 27, said learning of the cross-contamination had left her family feeling “angry”.

    On 27 December 2017, Mrs Marsh had been on a post-Christmas shopping trip in Bath with her husband and three of her daughters when she went into Pret to buy something to eat at about 14:00 GMT.

    She was declared dead less than two hours later, having collapsed in the street.

    Maria Voisin, the senior coroner for Avon, reached a narrative conclusion following a two-week inquest into the death.

    Celia and Andy Marsh
    IMAGE SOURCE, LEIGH DAY Image caption, Celia Marsh’s husband Andy said his wife “religiously” avoided dairy

    Ms Grice said as a result she wanted “better testing, better labeling, and better health care” for people with allergies.

    “Labelling is so confusing for someone that has an allergy.

    “You’re never 100% sure, it’s kind of like a gamble,” she added.

    The protein was in an ingredient called Coyo that contained an extra ingredient called HG1 that was cross-contaminated with dairy during manufacture.

    “The manufacturer of the dairy-free yogurt had in its possession documents which flagged this risk, but this risk was not passed on to its customers,” the coroner ruled.

    The coconut yogurt used as dressing came from Australian brand CoYo, and was licensed for manufacture in the UK to British firm Planet Coconut.
    Kayleigh Grice

    “She was always triple-checking,” the food ingredients Mrs Marsh’s daughter Kayleigh Grice said

    “You’re so used to not knowing (what happened) it’s sometimes easier not to know,” Ms Grice said.

    “We’re hoping that anything that definitely says ‘free from’ or ‘dairy-free’ is exactly what it says, and is vigorously tested and verified so the person purchasing that product can definitely be reassured that it is safe for them and they are getting what they think they’re getting,” she added.

    “Unfortunately, with Mum, that wasn’t the case.”

    She and her younger sister Kayleigh Grice, 20, paid tribute to their “crazy” mum who had many hobbies.

    “She had a wide variety of music she liked.

    “She took us to many concerts. She liked to drive cars, she was very into fitness. Towards the end, she really became interested in ghost hunting,” Ms Grice said.

    “She was very adventurous. She was fun. She was brilliant.”

    Celia Marsh pictured with a man
    IMAGE SOURCE, CELIA MARSH FAMILY / SWNS Image caption,
    Celia Marsh was a dental nurse known for her ability to raise a smile

    Mrs Marsh’s husband Andy said he had lost his “best friend” as he too called for more rigorous testing of food for allergy sufferers.

    The inquest was told Mrs Marsh, 42, from Melksham in Wiltshire “religiously avoided” dairy after near-fatal experience months prior.

    In her verdict, Ms Voisin said: “Celia Marsh was not aware the wrap contained milk protein.”

    The CEO of Pret a Manger, Pano Christou, said the company “fully supported” the coroner’s findings and expressed his deepest sympathies to the family.

    “As the coroner made clear, Planet Coconut had information which should have alerted them that their Coyo yogurt may have contained milk and this information was not passed on to Pret.”

    Since Mrs Marsh’s death he said Pret had taken “significant steps” involving its suppliers and labelling policies to ensure all customers were fully informed about the food they were buying.

    Bethany Eaton, managing director of Planet Coconut, told the inquest she was unaware of the risk the starch posed.

    She said she had been assured the yogurt was made in “an allergen-free environment” and she too extended her thoughts to the family of Mrs Marsh.

    Source: bbc.com

  • ‘Bodies everywhere’: Survivors recount Lebanon boat disaster

    Ninety-seven people have died – including 24 children – after a boat full of asylum seekers heading from Lebanon to Europe capsized in the Mediterranean.

    Speaking from a hospital bed, still in shock, Ibrahim Mansour, one of 20 people who survived one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Eastern Mediterranean, says he can’t forgive himself for not saving others.

    More than 150 people were on board the small boat that sailed from crisis-hit Lebanon on Wednesday morning, with the hope of reaching Italy for a better life.

    Those on board were mostly Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians, and included both children and the elderly, according to the United Nations.

    Four hours after the boat set sail, the engine stopped. Mansour, 29, recounted to Al Jazeera that those on board called the smuggler on shore, but he said: “If you come back, we will shoot you.

    “We also called 112 to seek help from Lebanese authorities, but no help came.”

    Due to the high waves, the boat lost control and capsized off the Syrian port of Tartous, some 50km (30 miles) north of Tripoli in Lebanon. In a matter of moments, 100 people died, Mansour said. He saw “bodies everywhere”.

    Those who survived were clinging onto the boat that overturned.

    “I cry all the time; I’m in shock. I saw bodies and horrible images. My heart hearts,” Mansour said. “I tried to help children and another man; I tried to keep their spirits alive, but I couldn’t. This is hurting me, especially because of the child who was holding onto me before I lost him. They told me he died.”

    Mansour eventually swam to the Syrian shore, reaching the coast on Thursday night.

    Syrian state media reported that 97 people have died, 20 people have been rescued and others are still missing.

    Among the dead are 24 children and 31 women, according to Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamie.

    In a statement on Sunday, the secretary-general of Lebanon’s Higher Relief Commission, Mohammad Khair, said that five Lebanese and eight Palestinians, who were on the boat, are still being treated at the al-Basel Hospital in Syria’s Tartous city and will return soon to Lebanon.

    The Lebanese army said it arrested a man it believes was behind the suspected “smuggling operation” to Italy.

    Another young man, who survived what he calls “a nightmare”, told Al Jazeera his story from an ambulance as he made his way back from Syria to Lebanon: “It’s impossible to forget what has happened and the scenes I’ve been through.

    When the boat capsized, “people onboard were pushed by waves to all directions, left and right, under and above the water. No one came to rescue us,” he said.

    “I stayed almost 24 hours near the boat, which was overturned, floating; it hadn’t sunk. I managed to keep myself over the boat, and then I swam for 13 hours until I reached the Syrian Tartous coast. I’ve been told that some survivors were saved and rescued by Russian and Syrian boats, but I saw nothing until I reached the shore,” he said.

    ‘Situation is reaching a desperate level’

    The disaster highlights the crippling poverty and mounting despair that has been forcing many people in Lebanon, including Mansour, to attempt the perilous crossing across the Mediterranean, in hopes of reaching Europe.

    Lebanon, a country that hosts more than a million refugees from Syria’s war, has since 2019 been mired in a financial crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern times.

    Since 2020, Lebanon has seen a spike in the number of Lebanese citizens, who have joined Palestinian and Syrian refugees in attempting dangerous boat journeys in search of a better life.

    Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Tripoli, said that “according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 3,500 individuals attempted to make the journey this year alone, but security sources tell us that is a conservative figure”.

    Many on the boat were Palestinian refugees, who, since the Nakba in 1948 (when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes by Zionist militias), have been living across Lebanon in overcrowded, makeshift camps that lack basic infrastructure. Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon do not have basic rights; they are denied citizenship and have no access to healthcare or education.

    Tamara Alrifai, the spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera that there were an estimated 25-30 Palestinian refugees on the capsized boat. Most of them were from the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, “a camp that was very much destroyed around 15 years ago in one of the rounds of violence in Lebanon.”

    “The situation of Palestine refugees in Lebanon is reaching such a desperate level, that they are willing to risk their lives along these perilous routes if there is hope on the other side,” Alrifai said. “The other side always looks better than what many of them describe as hell.”

    “[Palestinian refugees in Lebanon [are] marginalized, disenfranchised, barred from owning property, barred from professions. The economic and financial collapse of Lebanon, particularly this last year, has hit the most vulnerable first [including Palestinian refugees].”

    Alrifai said among the Palestinian group of migrants, two of them were UNRWA schoolchildren.

    “These are people we know, these are young people who go to school, who have an education, who wanted to go to the other side, and search for a better life for themselves and for their kids. This is truly tragic and my colleagues at UNRWA are horrified at the news.

    “No one wants to be a refugee. No one wants to live such a humiliating life as Palestinian refugees live in many of these camps,” Alrifai said.

    Khodr, the Al Jazeera correspondent reporting from northern Lebanon, said many families are still waiting to receive the bodies of their relatives.

    “Some have been identified and brought back for burial,” she said. “Others are still in Syria awaiting the results of DNA tests. Until they’re received, it won’t be known how many or who remains missing at sea.”

    “Lebanese and Palestinian refugees [survivors] are arriving home, but Syrian refugees have not returned. Neither have their bodies. Their families who escaped the rule of President Bashar al-Assad will be afraid to cross the border to identify their loved ones.”

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source: Aljazeera

  • Hell revisited: Surviving Israel’s bombs to get married

    For Palestinians like Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, planning a wedding is about hazard, hope and painful memories of loss.

    This is a story that needs to be told. It needs to be told because it conveys – better than any human rights report – the capricious cruelties and indignities Palestinians endure in Gaza and what is possible when humanity trumps hate.

    It is also, at times, the stuff that nightmares and some movies are made of.

    Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish told me the story of hazard and hope when we spoke by phone shortly after he returned to his adopted home in Toronto, Canada, earlier this month.

    The dogged, universally acclaimed Palestinian-Canadian doctor and teacher have devoted his life to harmony and healing. He is a man of peace who knows the indelible costs of war.

    On January 16, 2009, two Israeli tank shells obliterated his home in Gaza. His daughters, Bessan, 21, Mayar, 15, and Aya, 13, and a niece, Noor, 17, were killed. Dr Abuelaish discovered their dismembered bodies.

    The 67-year-old makes his way to Gaza and the West Bank often to tend to and provide for other Palestinians – especially children. It is, he says, a duty.

    In late July, Dr Abuelaish arrived in Gaza with three of his surviving children, Dalal, Abdallah, and, the bride-to-be, 29-year-old Shatha, to share with family and friends the joy of her upcoming wedding to Mohammed, a 32-year-old Palestinian-Jordanian.

    Their long-distance courtship – spanning the United States, Canada, and Saudi Arabia – was a year in the making. It began with exchanged notes, then more fulsome conservations. Although their families had known each other for years, Shatha and Mohammed – both computer engineers – met in Buffalo, New York for the first time in April. By May, they were engaged. The nuptials, set for August 9, would be held in Amman, Jordan.

    Excited and brimming with anticipation, Shatha welcomed her extended family in Gaza – 80 people in all – at the traditional henna party on July 30 to celebrate. She didn’t know then that she might be barred from traveling to attend her own wedding, for one reason alone: She is Palestinian.

    Israel invades every aspect of Palestinian life – even their love lives. Early in September, the ministry of defence issued a “directive” ordering foreigners to report if they had become smitten with a Palestinian. Israel’s war on who, when, and where Palestinians can marry is an old, grotesque bureaucratic affront to decency.

    Dr Abuelaish had planned to depart Gaza on August 4 joined by Shatha, Dalal, and Abdallah, for Ramallah in the West Bank. From there, they would enter Jordan via the Allenby Bridge.

    But those plans became casualties of this fact: Gaza is a prison and Israel is the prison’s warden. Israel decides who and what can come and go, who lives or dies, and when, of course, it chooses to raid, bomb or invade the narrow strip of Palestinian soil.

    On August 2, Israel stopped rail traffic and closed roads along the Gaza border after it arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the Jenin refugee camp, during a raid in which a Palestinian child was also shot dead. The brewing prospect that military tensions would escalate turned Shatha’s excitement and anticipation into fear and foreboding.

    For Dr Abuelaish, it was hell revisited. “We couldn’t get out,” he said.

    A father who had already lost three daughters and a niece during an Israeli invasion was confronting the unimaginable horror that Shatha, Dalal and Abdallah were at similar, lethal risk in Gaza. “War does not discriminate,” Dr Abuelaish said. “In Gaza, you wait and ask: Who will be next?”

    So, rather than wait, he acted to protect his children and to keep his promise to Shatha: She would be married in Amman on the date and time of their choosing, not Israel’s.

    Their improbable odyssey out of Gaza would be dangerous and the outcome uncertain.

    On August 3, Dr Abuelaish enlisted the help of influential contacts and friends on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, made over decades attempting to mend that intransigent divide. Despite enjoying Canadian citizenship, Dr Abuelaish elected not to approach the country’s diplomats in Tel Aviv or Ramallah. He was convinced they would have just blamed him for putting his family in jeopardy by bringing them to Gaza.

    On August 4, Dr Abuelaish was told by a Palestinian source that he and his family would be able to get out later that evening through Erez, the only crossing for people between Gaza and Israel. Accompanied by Palestinian drivers and guides, two golf carts carrying the family and their luggage made the short, treacherous journey towards the checkpoint.

    Meanwhile, Israel appeared poised to launch what it would soon describe as a “pre-emptive” assault on Gaza designed, once more, to pummel and terrorise Palestinians into submission. Given the looming danger, Dr Abuelaish was urged to turn back. He refused.

    They arrived at the checkpoint at 10pm. Private Israeli security contractors spent 90 minutes checking the Abuelaishs’ credentials and luggage and ordered the family to leave for Bethlehem without their belongings since the Israeli military was anxious to close the crossing. Again, Dr Abuelaish refused.

    The Israelis relented.

    A documentary crew – making a film on Dr Abuelaish’s life and work – arranged to meet him and his family on the Israeli side of the border and ferry them by van to Bethlehem using a maze of sandy, unfamiliar back roads. They were escorted briefly by Israeli security.

    Relieved and thankful, Dr Abuelaish credits the co-operation of Israelis and Palestinians for his family’s safe passage out of Gaza. “They made the impossible possible,” Dr Abuelaish said. “I will never forget.” And yet, his happiness was tinged with regret and worry for the Palestinians left behind in Israel’s crosshairs.

    Early on August 5, Dr Abuelaish’s family finally made the 2km (1.2 mile) crossing into Jordan.

    That afternoon, Israel began to bombard Gaza. Most of the 49 Palestinians killed were civilians. Seventeen were children.

    Among the dead was 30-year-old Ismail Dweik. Since June, he had been engaged to Abeer Harb. The couple had spent months preparing for their wedding. On August 6, Harb waited six hours for her fiancé’s body to be removed from under the rubble of the shattered remnants of his home.

    Three days later, Shatha married Mohammed at a hotel in Amman in front of 150 guests. Their wedding was, Dr Abuelaish said, “a miracle” fashioned by “good people who believe in hope, rather than hatred, in fulfilling dreams, rather than crushing them, in being human, rather than inhuman”.

    Still, Dr Abuelaish admits that sadness and guilt are his constant companions. “I feel the pain and suffering of my brothers and sisters in Palestine,” he said. “I live it, too. Every moment of every day. There must be another way.”

    More than anything, Dr Abuelaish misses his late wife, Nadia, who had died in 2008 of leukemia, and his lost daughters who ought to have been by their sister’s side in Amman. “They were missing,” he said. “The happiness I felt was incomplete because we were supposed to be together. Alive and together.”

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source: Aljazeera

  • Using phone behind wheel: Peer who organized Queen’s funeral banned

    The Duke of Norfolk told magistrates that losing his license would cause “exceptional hardship” because he needs to drive to organize the coronation of King Charles III.

    A senior peer who organized the Queen’s funeral has been handed a six-month driving ban for using his mobile phone behind the wheel.

    The Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, 65, argued in court that he should be spared a ban because he needs his licence to organize the coronation of King Charles III.

    A lawyer for the duke – a descendant of Queen Elizabeth I believed to be worth £100m – told magistrates on Monday that losing his license would lead to “exceptional hardship”.

    The Oxford-educated father-of-five, who is also responsible for arranging the State Opening of Parliament, pleaded guilty at Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court to using his mobile phone behind the wheel in Battersea, southwest London.

    The duke, also known as Edward Fitzalan-Howard, was stopped by police after he was spotted using his phone while driving his BMW on 7 April.

    The offense comes with a compulsory six-point endorsement – but he already had nine penalty points on his licence for previous speeding offenses.

    Passing the sentence, bench chair Judith Way, said: “We accept that this a unique case because of the defendant’s role in society and in particular in relation to the King’s coronation.

    “The hardship needs to be exceptional and although we find inconvenience may be caused, we don’t find it exceptional hardship.”

    The duke’s lawyer, Natasha Dardashti, made an application for parts of the hearing to be held “in camera” – excluding the press and public – over “national security” concerns regarding “very sensitive” information.

    The Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, at Lavender Hill Magistrates' Court, London, where he pleaded guilty to using his mobile phone while driving. Edward Fitzalan-Howard was stopped by police on April 7 after officers spotted him using the device as his BMW cut across their vehicle after going through a red light in Battersea, south-west London. Picture date: Monday September 26, 2022.
    Image:The Duke of Norfolk arriving at Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court

    She told the court: “In relation to the exceptional hardship argument, his grace will need to provide some detail and information about the preparation of the coronation of His Royal Highness King Charles III.

    “The application for this matter to be in camera is for reasons of national security and because details of this will be provided which have not yet been discussed with His Royal Highness, and not yet discussed with the prime minister and not yet discussed with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

    “It would be unacceptable for these details to be made public or made known to risk the escape of that information of a very sensitive nature.”

    The Duke of Norfolk, far right, at the Accession Council ceremony at St James's Palace where King Charles was formally proclaimed the new monarch.
    Image: The Duke of Norfolk, far right, at the Accession Council ceremony at St James’s Palace where King Charles was formally proclaimed the new monarch
    .

    Outlining the facts of the driving offense, prosecutor Jonathan Bryan said: “Officers were stationary at traffic lights, which turned green.

    “A BMW cut across them and on that basis, the officers assumed it must have gone through a red light because their light was green.

    “One of the officers noticed the driver was using a mobile phone while doing this and didn’t seem to be paying attention.

    “The officers drove up to the BMW and saw through the window that the driver was using his mobile phone.

    “They spoke to the driver, who was his grace. He said he had not been aware of going through the red light but accepted this was because he was using his mobile phone.

    “He said he was in communication with his wife.”

    Source: Skynews

  • ‘If they call, I have to go’: Horrific story of trafficked woman, as Sky News exposes UK’s failing system of protection

    Record numbers of children and young people are being registered with the National Referral Mechanism as suspected victims of modern slavery, but a Sky News investigation found the system is failing many of them.

    Over the course of nine months, we’ve got to know ‘Maria’, who says she has been sexually abused by a gang of men for a decade – and this exploitation is ongoing.

    During one interview she admitted that if the men called her that night, she would have to go to them – such is the level of threat, such is the violence she has already experienced.

    Maria, not her real name, is among thousands of people referred every year to what is called the National Referral Mechanism, which is often held up by the Home Office as a safety net for people trafficked in the UK. But it’s not working.

    Record numbers of children and young people are being registered with the NRM as suspected victims of modern slavery, but a Sky News investigation found the system is failing many of them.

    Freedom of Information requests by Sky News shows the NRM is dangerously slow to recognise victims. The average time it takes to conclusively recognise a victim is 553 days.

    Home Office guidance published in June 2022 says that the decision should be made “as soon as possible” after the 45 day recovery period when a potential victim is first registered.

    Support is offered for 45 days once a victim is first registered but a decision on their status should come soon after that.

    Jamie Fookes from Anti-Slavery International said: “The delays are getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And that is a huge hindrance to the recovery of the individuals in the NRM. Plus, also it massively increases the risk of re-exploitation.”

    He added: “Police are first responders, local authorities are first responders, yet a lot of the people in those organisations will not be aware of modern slavery, and certainly not be aware of the national referral mechanism and that’s a problem.”

    Furthermore, charities and victims say that support such as safe houses or counseling is often unavailable. It is even suggested that the system offers better protection to foreign victims compared to British nationals.

    Robyn Phillips from the Human Trafficking Foundation said: “A number of British survivors of modern slavery have told us that because they speak English, they’ve been perceived as less vulnerable or traumatized and have been left to navigate complex processes alone.”

    Modern slaves could be child drug mules, people exploited for domestic labor, or trafficked for sex.

    Maria says she has been sexually abused by older men from the age of 13 and since then she has been trafficked and raped by hundreds of men and now in her early 20s is still abused.

    She says she is regularly called up, threatened, coerced into meeting men, taken to houses, and raped and abused so brutally that she feels it is safer not to put up any resistance.

    The men, who she alleges are involved in a range of criminal activity, often sell her to others – and she says she has also been sold to pay off drug debts.

    Maria

    She told Sky News: “Sometimes I’d be gang raped by multiple men. Once, they poured petrol all over me, whilst I was naked, and then threatened to burn me.”

    Maria says, despite reporting her abuse to the police, she remains in their clutches. During one interview she explained how she had been threatened only the weekend before.

    She said: “I was getting phone calls on a Friday, saying that if I didn’t come and meet them, they were going to burn down my flat and then burn down my parents’ flat.”

    She felt she had no choice but to meet the men and allow them and others to rape her.

    ‘You want a beating later?’

    Sky News has seen the texts on her phone. One reads: “You know wots gonna happen if u don’t do what we say. Kill u and your fam.” Another reads: “You are testing me today. You want a beating later?” It goes on to describe brutal torture.

    Maria says: “So like the typical ones (texts) are ‘we’ll kill you, we’ll get you, we’ll burn you, we’ll chop you’ and, it sounds really stupid, but they say they’ll sell me as kebab meat in a takeaway shop.”

    We’ve decided not to identify where Maria lives, but she has been in regular contact with her local police force, and although there have been no charges against her alleged abusers she was registered as a victim of modern slavery on the National Referral Mechanism.

    Two years on she is still waiting for a conclusive decision – and she has only just begun to receive counseling.

    She says the Salvation Army which has a contract to offer support for the NRM denied her a safe house because she was a UK national.

    She said: “When there was a big incident, I asked to go into a safe house, and they were like ‘yeah that’s fine…’ but nobody called me back. And I was later told by a member of staff at the Salvation Army that ‘we don’t like putting British victims into safe houses, and to contact the council. She didn’t give any reason at all.”

    Maria

    The NRM was set up in 2009 as a support network for victims offering help and protection but critics say it was tailored towards people trafficked into the UK and hasn’t adapted well enough in offering support to domestic victims.

    British victims account for a third of all modern slavery victims registered last year, and 70% of those are children.

    In total 3,000 British children were registered last year.

    Robyn Phillips from the Human Trafficking Foundation said, “Despite being the highest nationality referred into the NRM, it’s only in the past year that the voices of British survivors are being heard.”

    He added: “Housing has been another obstacle, with British survivors often not qualifying for NRM safe house accommodation because the local authority has a duty to house them, but councils are not recognising them as ‘priority need’.”

    The Salvation Army told Sky News: “When victims of modern slavery are referred to us, we see the person and their need first and foremost. We can categorically state that we never make decisions about what support a person receives based on their nationality.

    “If someone is in need of safe house accommodation, regardless of their circumstances or nationality, they will be found a suitable place.

    “In most cases, our support workers are in touch much more frequently than the minimum standards to check on progress or respond as needs arise.”

    We’ve spoken to a number of young people who’ve been on the NRM. One said: “I didn’t get a worker with it, I didn’t get any of the money that comes with it, I don’t think I got any support from it, apart from a piece of paper.”

    She added: “I think it takes far too long. Two years I’ve been waiting and waiting for it and then they closed it, then they had to reopen it I had to go through it all again. I had to tell them my story again… it takes far too long.”

    ‘No one has ever helped me’

    Another woman who was trafficked to several towns and cities found out she had been referred to the NRM after being placed in secure accommodation.

    She said: “I’ve never actually been contacted by the NRM people, and no one has ever helped me in any kind of way.”

    And the father of a trafficking victim told Sky News: “I’ve not received any paperwork, or any professional to explain and NRM to me. I’ve spent time researching and reading up… it isn’t easy to understand.

    “As far as the service, my daughter has not had any interventions related to the NRM implemented in her care – to date.”

    Maria continues to receive threats to set fire to her home. And though she remains in contact with the police – she no longer trusts them.

    She said: “Every day I’m kind of just waiting for something to happen, or for a phone call or for an incident. I’m just living in fear every day.”

    A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are improving the decision-making times in the National Referral Mechanism by digitalising the referral process and case management systems, and recruiting more decision makers.”

    Source: Skynews

     

  • Giorgia Meloni: The far-right party in Italy wins the election and promises to rule fairly

    Giorgia Meloni, a leader of the far right, has declared victory in the Italian election and is on track to become the nation’s first female prime minister.

    The most right-wing government in Italy since World War Two is anticipated to be formed by Ms. Meloni.

    Giorgia Meloni, a leader of the far right, has declared victory in the Italian election and is on track to become the nation’s first female prime minister.

    The most right-wing government in Italy since World War Two is anticipated to be formed by Ms. Meloni.

    That will alarm much of Europe as Italy is the EU’s third-biggest economy.

    However, speaking after the vote, Ms Meloni said her Brothers of Italy party would “govern for everyone” and would not betray people’s trust.

    “Italians have sent a clear message in favour of a right-wing government led by Brothers of Italy,” she told reporters in Rome, holding up a sign saying “Thank you Italy”.

    She is set to win around 26% of the vote, ahead of her closest rival Enrico Letta from the center-left. Mr Letta told reporters on Monday that the far-right victory was a “sad day for Italy and Europe” but his party would provide a “strong and intransigent opposition”.

    Ms Meloni’s right-wing alliance – which also includes Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia – will take control of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with around 44% of the vote.

    Four years ago, Brothers of Italy won little more than 4% of the vote but this time benefited from staying out of the national unity government that collapsed in July.

    The party’s dramatic success in the vote disguised the fact that her allies performed poorly, with the League slipping below 9%, and Forza Italia even lower.

    Their big advantage, however, was that where they were able to put up one unified candidate in a constituency, their opponents in the left and centre could not agree a common position and stood separately.

    Giorgia Meloni appears certain to become prime minister but it will be for the president, Sergio Mattarella, to nominate her and that is unlikely to happen before late October.

    Although she has worked hard to soften her image, emphasizing her support for Ukraine and diluting anti-EU rhetoric, she leads a party rooted in a post-war movement that rose out of dictator Benito Mussolini’s fascists.

    Earlier this year she outlined her priorities in a raucous speech to Spain’s far-right Vox party: “Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!”1px transparent line

    The center-left alliance was a long way behind the right with 26% of the vote and Democratic Party figure Debora Serracchiani argued that the right “has the majority in parliament, but not in the country”.

    In truth, the left failed to form a viable challenge with other parties after Italy’s 18-month unity government fell apart, and officials were downbeat even before the vote. The Five Star Movement under Giuseppe Conte won a convincing third place – but did not see eye to eye with Enrico Letta even though they have several policies in common on immigration and raising the minimum wage.

    Turnout fell to a record low of 63.91% – nine points down in 2018. Voting levels were especially poor in southern regions including Sicily.1px transparent line

    Italy is a founding father of the European Union and a member of Nato, and Ms Meloni’s rhetoric on the EU places her close to Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orban.

    Her allies have both had close ties with Russia. Mr Berlusconi, 85, claimed last week that Vladimir Putin was pushed into invading Ukraine while Mr Salvini has called into question Western sanctions on Moscow.

    Ms Meloni wants to revisit Italian reforms agreed with the EU in return for almost €200bn (£178bn) in post-Covid recovery grants and loans, arguing that the energy crisis has changed the situation.

    Italy is already the second most indebted country in the eurozone and Prof Leila Simona Talani of King’s College London believes the next government will face a clutch of serious issues.

    “They have no experience economically. Tax cuts will be a problem, so Italy will have less revenue and it’s heading for a recession, so it’ll face problems with the financial markets and with Europe. How will they find the money to tackle the rising energy prices?”

    People stand next to a poster of Enrico Letta, secretary of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), at the PD headquarters, during the snap election, in Rome, Italy, September 25, 2022
    IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS Image caption, There was little cause for joy at Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party headquarters on Sunday night

    The Hungarian prime minister’s long-serving political director, Balazs Orban, was quick to congratulate Italy’s right-wing parties: “We need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to Europe’s challenges.”

    In France, Jordan Bardella of the far-right National Rally said Italian voters had given European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen a lesson in humility. She had earlier said Europe had “the tools” to respond if Italy went in a “difficult direction”.

    However, Prof Gianluca Passarrelli of Rome’s Sapienza University told the BBC he thought she would avoid rocking the boat on Europe and focus on other policies: “I think we will see more restrictions on civil rights and policies on LGBT and immigrants.”

    Ms Meloni wants a naval blockade to stop migrant boats from leaving Libya, and Matteo Salvini is known to covet the job of an interior minister which he held three years ago. However, he is currently on trial for barring a boat from docking as part of his policy to close ports to rescue boats.

    This election marks a one-third reduction in the size of the two houses, and that appears to have benefited the winning parties.

    The make-up of the Chamber and Senate is not yet clear but a YouTrend projection said the right-wing alliance would hold as many as 238 of the 400 seats in the lower house and 112 of the 200 seats in the upper house.

    As for the center-left, they are projected to have 78 seats in the Chamber and 40 in the Senate.

  • Boy dead: Aunt ‘push boy,3 into Lake Michigan and watched as he sank

    On Sunday, shortly after 10 a.m. local time, Josiah Brown was declared deceased. He had been taken from the lake last Monday while in a severe state, and it had not been anticipated that he would make it.

    A three-year-old boy has died after his aunt allegedly pushed him into Lake Michigan in Chicago, US officials say.

    Josiah Brown was pronounced dead shortly after 10 am local time (4 pm UK time) on Sunday.

    He had been in a critical condition after being pulled from the lake last Monday and had not been expected to survive.

    Victoria Moreno. Pic: Chicago Police
    Image:Victoria Moreno. Pic: Chicago Police

    Josiah was allegedly shoved by his aunt Victoria Moreno at Navy Pier, a fall of more than 6ft, and she then stood by as he sank below the water, according to authorities.

    Divers found the boy at the bottom of the lake about half an hour later.

  • Denmark issues a warning for the Baltic Sea as a result of the Nord Stream 2 leak

    Denmark’s energy agency has ordered ships to keep five nautical miles away from Bornholm in response to the midnight leak. The leak was regarded as “dangerous for ship traffic.”

    A gas leak from the defunct Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline has led the Danish authorities to issue a warning to ships in the Baltic Sea.

    Following the overnight leak, Denmark’s energy agency has asked ships to stay five nautical miles clear of the island of Bornholm.

    It described the leak as being “dangerous for ship traffic”.

    The German government and local law enforcement officials are also working to find out what caused pressure in the pipeline to plummet suddenly.

    “We are currently in contact with the authorities concerned in order to clarify the situation,” said a statement from the German economy ministry.

    “We still have no clarity about the causes and the exact facts.”

    Nord Stream 2’s operator said pressure in the pipeline, which had some gas sealed inside despite never becoming operational, dropped from 105 to seven bars overnight.

    The pipeline has been one of the flashpoints in an escalating energy war between Europe and Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has sent gas prices soaring.

    Intended to double the volume of gas flowing from St Petersburg under the Baltic Sea to Germany, it had just been completed and filled with 300 million cubic meters of gas when Germany canceled it days before the invasion.

    European countries have resisted Russian calls to allow the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to operate and accused Moscow of using energy as a weapon.

    Russia denies doing so and blames the West for gas shortages.

     

  • Hacked to death: Gangster Salem Koudou dies in revenge for birthday party attack, court told

    Salem Koudou, 19, was stabbed 32 times after he was chased by up to 15 people in Brixton, south London, jurors heard.

    Darius Kwakye, 29, Donte McCalla, 21, and Tristan Bullock, 21, are on trial at the Old Bailey for his murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, which they deny.

    Opening their trial on Monday, Oliver Glasgow KC said there could be no excuse for the “murderous attack”.

    The jury heard that on 20 August 2020, Mr Koudou – a member of Stockwell-based gang All ‘Bout Money (ABM) – and two others went out in a stolen VW Golf to attack rivals.

    ABM was in a violent dispute with gangs known as 17 or Wandsworth Road, One Five-O (150) or Get Back Gang (GBG), and Four Ten (410).

    After failing in one attempt, Mr Koudou and his companions went on to Brixton where they came allegedly across an “ideal target”.

    Just before 6 pm, the VW Golf was driven head first into Kwakye’s parked Mercedes outside a birthday party on Marcella Road for Tyreicke Williams, 28, who was affiliated to GBG.

    Mr Koudou got out with an “enormous knife” and began to chase guests, including Mr Williams and Kwakye, it was alleged.

    Mr Williams fell to the ground and was set upon by Mr Koudou but managed to get away despite being hurt.

    Mr Glasgow said the response was “immediate and violent”, “swift and aggressive” as party guests armed themselves and gave chase.

    He told jurors: “The roles were now reversed, Salem Koudou no longer had the upper hand, and he had 15 or more people to escape from.”

    ‘No hope of survival’

    Realising he was “hopelessly outnumbered”, Mr Koudou fled but fell to the floor and was set upon by members of the group, the prosecutor said.

    Mr Glasgow told jurors: “In total, he was stabbed more than 30 times and the injuries he sustained were catastrophic.

    “His lungs, liver, and stomach were damaged by the knives that were used to stab him, and the blades were wielded with such ferocity that some of the wounds were as deep as 14cm.

    “Others damaged the bones of his rib cage, and one went through his skull.

    “There was no hope of survival and yet seconds was all it took for this attack to take place, for his pursuers to have their revenge, and for the killers to disappear calmly as if nothing had happened.”

    He added: “Given the build-up to this shocking violence, there can be no doubt that Salem Koudou’s pursuers wanted to avenge the attack upon Tyreicke Williams.”

    The defendants, from south London, were allegedly identified as being among the group of men who chased and stabbed Mr Koudou to death.

    However, Mr Glasgow said they do not accept CCTV and forensic evidence and deny that they had anything to do with the murder.

    The trial continues.

  • News of ‘Tsunami’: Wall Street mixed

    After a flurry of events last week, US markets and foreign equities were neutral on Monday morning.

    US stocks were mixed, oil prices were choppy, and the dollar and Treasury yields rose on Monday, with Wall Street digesting a raft of macroeconomic news.

    The moves came after sterling slumped to a record low earlier in the day, before recovering, and a renewed selloff in British gilts pushed euro zone bond yields higher as the reaction to last week’s fiscal statement in the United Kingdom again roiled markets.

    US stocks were mixed to start the week – the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped about 0.5 percent and the S&P 500 fell nearly 0.3 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4 percent.

    Global equities were also mixed after initially sliding on concerns about high-interest rates continued to put pressure on the financial system. Reaction to Italy’s election result, where a right-wing alliance won a clear majority, was muted.

    Europe’s STOXX 600 index at first slipped to hit a new low in December 2020 but then swung back for a slight 0.1 percent gain on the day. Asian stocks fell 1.45 percent.

    “I think everyone felt they were swimming in a tsunami of newsflow last week after one of the most incredible macro weeks in recent memory,” Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid wrote in a client note on Monday.

    The pound skidded to an all-time low against the dollar, the last trading down about 0.4 percent, as investors waited to see if the Bank of England will intervene to calm concerns over government plans that could stretch the country’s finances.

    Sterling’s declines are partly due to dollar strength. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six peers, hit a new 20-year top of 114.58 in early trade. It was last at $113.5, up about 0.36 percent.

    The tumble is leading to speculation the Bank of England will have to hold an emergency meeting to raise rates.

    “The Bank of England is in a very difficult spot where if they don’t react, they risk another sterling collapse and things getting very messy,” said Mike Riddell, senior portfolio manager, Allianz Global Investors. “If they do react, a developed market hiking rate to defend the currency looks like an emerging market. So they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.”

    Stress building

    European government bonds were also hit. Five-year UK government bond yields jumped 50 basis points to their highest since October 2008, sending euro zone bond yields higher. Germany’s 10-year government bond yield hit its highest since December 2011 at 2.132 percent, and Italy’s benchmark bond yields rose to their highest since 2013.

    In the United States, Treasury yields also rose to new highs on Monday amid concerns that central banks globally will keep tightening monetary policy to curb stubbornly high inflation.

    Two-year Treasury yields, which tend to be more sensitive to interest rate changes, rose to a new 15-year high of 4.237, and benchmark 10-year note yields were up about 5 basis points from their Friday close, climbing to 3.746 percent.

    Oil prices hit nine-month lows on Monday before recovering to stand higher on the day in choppy trade, as recession fears and a strong dollar spooked the market where participants were waiting for details on new sanctions on Russia.

    Brent crude futures for November settlement were up about 0.9 percent, at $86.95 a barrel, having earlier fallen as far as $84.51, the lowest since January 14.

    Gold prices edged up from a two-and-a-half-year low on Monday as the dollar pulled back slightly from its two-decade peak, offering some support to bullion in the face of jitters over rising US interest rates.

    Spot gold was flat at $1,643 per ounce, after dropping to its lowest price since April 2020 at $1,626.41.

    “There has been an economic logic at play, as central banks raised rates to drive monetary policy into restrictive territory, get below trend growth for a while – a polite way of saying a recession – and then you get lower inflation,” said Samy Chaar, chief economist at Lombard Odier.

    “The question is whether the financial world can go through that sequence. It feels like we are reaching the limit of that, things are starting to break, for example, what we see with sterling.”

  • Bank of England: ‘Don’t panic, we know what we’re doing’

    This afternoon, the Treasury and the Bank of England made an effort to reassure. The message was crystal clear: Don’t worry; we have you covered.

    Privately among some Conservative MPs though, there’s a fear the government doesn’t.

    And so politically, a tussle for perhaps the biggest prize of the lot: the mantle of economic credibility.

    For years, this has been an Achilles’ heel for Labour; pummelled by Conservative opponents labeling them fiscally incontinent; unable to restrain the urge to tax, borrow and spend.

    But they are now attempting to turn that charge around on the Tories, and allow themselves to imagine this might be a moment – like Black Wednesday 30 years ago – where events spiral beyond the government’s control and so mug ministers of reputations, never to properly return.

    Others, though, counsel caution… this moment may pass; pressures may ease.

    Plenty within Labour still see a landscape changing; a willingness to be listened to again.

    What we are witnessing in the markets are the short-term consequences of Friday’s statement from the chancellor.

    But there will be long-term consequences too – that will shape the political debate between now and the next election.

  • Ebola outbreak: Ebola trainee medics walk out over safety concerns

    Trainee doctors fighting Ebola in Uganda’s epicenter of the disease accuse the government of endangering their lives.

    “Most times you come into contact with a patient and you use your bare hands,” one worker told the BBC anonymously.

    All trainees at Mubende’s regional hospital say they are on strike and are demanding to be moved somewhere safer.

    But Ugandan health ministry spokesman Emmanuel Ainebyoona told the BBC there was “no strike at the hospital”.

    Yet all 34 of the hospital’s interns – including doctors, pharmacists, and nurses – have announced their decision to strike in a joint statement.

    They say they are being put at undue risk because they lack appropriate safety kits, risk allowances, and health insurance.

    Six interns at the hospital have already been exposed to the virus, and are awaiting their test results in isolation.

    Since the outbreak began earlier this month, official government data shows 36 people are suspected of contracting Ebola, of whom 23 have died.

    A 24-year-old-man was the first known Ebola death, and six members of his family also died.

    No effective Ebola vaccine is available here yet, because the Sudan strain circulating in central Uganda is different from the Zaire strain that has afflicted West Africa and DR Congo and which can be immunized against.

    Experts say it is unrealistic to think Ebola will ever be eradicated, but it is now easier to prevent a crisis.

    A map of Uganda showing the location of the Ebola outbreak

  • Concerning the legal aid fund, Cardinal Zen and activists are in court in Hong Kong

    An ex-bishop of Hong Kong who is 90 years old has been accused of fraudulently registering a support fund for protesters who were detained in 2019.

    A 90-year-old Catholic cardinal and five others have gone on trial in Hong Kong for allegedly failing to register a now-defunct fund to help provide legal aid to people arrested in the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

    Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired bishop of Hong Kong, was arrested in May together with others including singer Denise Ho and barrister Margaret Ng under the national security law.

    They have since been charged for failing to properly register the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund and appeared in court on Monday.

    Zen, together with Ho, Ng as well as cultural studies scholar Hui Po Keung and former legislator Cyd Ho, were trustees of the fund. A sixth defendant, Sze Ching-wee, was the fund’s secretary.

    All have pleaded not guilty.

    None of the defendants spoke to reporters on their way into West Kowloon court on Monday morning.

    If convicted they face a fine of up to 10,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,274) but no jail time.

    “Colluding with foreign forces”, the security law offense for which they were originally arrested, carries a potential life term.

    The 612 funds helped pay medical and legal fees for arrested protesters during the 2019 protests but were wound up last year after the national security police demanded information on its operations including its donors and beneficiaries.

    The Societies Ordinance requires local organizations to register or apply for an exemption within a month of their establishment.

  • People smuggler: Clients sign a waiver

    A people smuggler says that his clients are unaffected by the UK government’s proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. He is met by Jane Corbin at his Turkish headquarters.

    The night is falling as I make my way up the creaking stairs of a safe house in an anonymous alleyway in Istanbul, Turkey. I’m here to meet a kingpin in the people-smuggling trade – it has taken months to arrange, working through a trusted intermediary. It is the culmination of a BBC Panorama investigation into how thousands of migrants end up on the beaches of southern England claiming asylum.

    The people smuggler is from the Middle East – young and softly spoken, smartly dressed in black. He has agreed to tell me about his business if we do not reveal his identity. His bodyguards discreetly keep watch outside the house.

    I challenge him that smuggling people is illegal: “I know this is not legal,” he says, “but for me, it’s about humanity – that’s worth more than the law. We help people, we treat them well, we respect women – we don’t disrespect or hurt anyone.”

    Nearly 2,000 people died in the Mediterranean Sea last year.

    In April, the UK government signed a £120m deal with Rwanda to send some migrants, mostly single men, to Africa to have their asylum claims processed.

    Migrants carry a boat towards the water before they attempt to cross the Channel illegally to Britain, July 2022
    IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Image caption, More than 30,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel already this year

    The government said the aim was to smash the business model of the people smugglers and stop record numbers of people making the dangerous English Channel crossing.

    Already this year, more than 30,000 people have made the crossing in small boats, about as many as the whole of last year.

    The people smuggler sends hundreds of migrants to the UK. He readily admits his trade is very profitable and says he runs it like a businessman.

    “It doesn’t matter if it’s a whole family or an individual – each person pays the same price,” he says. “A trip to Britain will cost $17,000 [about £15,000] in total.”

    So how can he justify putting people’s lives at risk in dangerous sea crossings in flimsy boats?

    “Accidents can happen. We try and scare people to dissuade them,” he claims. “I say to them, ‘This road is dangerous and not worth it. You could die. And I tell his mum and his dad too.’”

    He shows us a form – a disclaimer he says he gets customers to sign, acknowledging the risks.

    Translation of the document

    Istanbul is the gateway between Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe – and this black market trade is booming here.

    Marketing is competitive. On social media, smugglers offer different rates depending on the destination.

    There are fake passports and British driving licenses for sale. Even sample questions from British Home Office officials to prepare migrants for a grilling.

    Istanbul at night
    Image caption, At night, migrants are taken in vans from Istanbul to the mountains, where they walk down to the Mediterranean

    The people smuggler collects his clients in safe houses in this sprawling city, which is home to about five million refugees. They are packed into small rooms, where they can wait months while their passage is arranged. His gang brings them food and water from local supermarkets.

    “We put them in a house and wait for everything to be prepared. And when it’s ready we take their phones so the cops can’t find out about us,” the people smuggler explains.

    Then the migrants are taken in a van at night from Istanbul to the mountains. They walk in groups of six or ten, down to the Mediterranean, to one of the people smuggler’s boats.

    They are bound for Greece or Italy.

  • Russian citizenship granted to Edward Snowden

    A former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed vast US surveillance programmes, has been awarded Russian citizenship.

    The decree was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

    Mr Snowden, 39, has been living in exile in Russia since exposing the National Security Agency (NSA) programme affecting millions of Americans in 2013.

    Mr Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the US, has made no public comments.

    In 2020, the NSA surveillance of millions of Americans’ telephone records was ruled unlawful by the US Court of Appeals.

    Mr Snowden said afterward that he felt vindicated by the ruling.

    Top US intelligence officials had publicly insisted the NSA had never knowingly collected data from private phone records until Mr Snowden exposed evidence to the contrary.

    Following the revelation, officials said the NSA’s surveillance program had played a crucial role in fighting domestic terrorism, including the convictions of Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh, of San Diego, for providing aid to al-Shabab militants in Somalia.

  • Hurricane Ian: Nasa forced to shelter Artemis Moon rocket

    Due to an impending hurricane, the American space agency will remove its Artemis-I Moon rocket from the launch pad in Florida.

    In order to preserve it, NASA says that the Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle will be rolled back into its engineering workshop.

    Hurricane Ian is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to make landfall in Florida on Thursday.

    High winds and heavy rain are forecast for the Kennedy Space Center.

    Although the spaceport will probably escape the worst of the storm’s impacts, Nasa can’t risk its multi-billion-dollar rocket being damaged.

    The return to Kennedy’s famous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) likely now moves the maiden flight of the SLS to November.

    Nasa had hoped the storm’s track through the Gulf would take it sufficiently westwards so that the rocket could stay out on the pad, enabling a lift-off to take place sooner.

    But the medium-range forecast models have, in recent hours, seen the expected track shift eastwards, putting the west coast of Florida, or its panhandle, directly in the firing line.

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has already declared a “state of emergency”.

    Nasa has one of its giant tractors on standby at the pad, ready to initiate the roll-back.

    The slow speed at which this Crawler Transporter moves means the 6.7km (4.2 miles) journey to the VAB takes the best part of half a day. Engineers will therefore want to get it underway as soon as possible.

    The retreat is expected to begin at 0400BST (2300EDT).

    Artemis-I is the first in a series of missions that will eventually see humans return to the lunar surface after an absence of 50 years.

    The initial flight of the SLS is uncrewed: it’s billed as a safety demonstration of the hardware and will send a capsule called Orion out to and beyond the Moon before coming home to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

    Assuming everything works as it should, astronauts will then climb aboard the next scheduled SLS-Orion outing in 2024. This again will do a simple loop around the Moon.

    It’s on Artemis-III, possibly in late 2025, that astronauts will make the trip down to the lunar surface.

  • Ukraine war: Russia acknowledges mobilization faults in the Ukraine war, despite mounting public opposition

    In the face of mounting public criticism, the Kremlin has acknowledged that its efforts to mobilise Russian army reservists to fight in Ukraine were flawed.

    “There are cases when the decree is violated,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said, adding that “all the errors will be corrected”.

    Multiple reports say people with no military experience – or who are too old or disabled – are being called up.

    Last week’s mobilization decree has already triggered widespread protests.

    President Putin announced what he described as partial mobilization on 21 September, with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu later saying 300,000 reservists would be called up.

    However, reports in opposition Russian media suggested that up to one million people could be called up, pointing out that one paragraph believed to be about the exact number of the required reservists was omitted (classified) in the published version of Mr Putin’s decree on the official Kremlin website.

    A number of military experts in the West and Ukraine say Mr Putin’s decision to call up reservists shows that Russian troops are failing badly on the battlefield in Ukraine – more than seven months after Moscow launched its invasion.

    Since the mobilization announcement, more than 2,000 people have been detained at protests across Russia.

    At a briefing on Monday, Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, conceded that mistakes were being made.

    He said that in some regions, “governors are actively working to rectify the situation”.

    Mr Peskov also said he was unaware of any decisions to shut Russia’s borders and impose martial law in the country.

    Media reports earlier suggested this could be done to stop potential recruits from escaping abroad.

    In the latest sign of growing public protest, a man critically injured an army recruitment officer in the Siberian city of Ust-llimsk on Monday.

    Footage has emerged on social media apparently showing the attacker approaching the officer and then shooting him. People in the building are then seen screaming and running in panic after the gunman shouted to them to flee.

    Over the weekend, people in Russia’s Dagestan republic in the North Caucasus clashed with police over the mobilisation drive. More than 100 people were arrested during protests in the regional capital, Makhachkala, said OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights monitor.

    There have also been reports of a number of arson attacks on recruitment centres and other administrative buildings across Russia.

    In his last week’s mobilisation announcement, Mr Putin did not specify how many reservists would be called up.

    But speaking immediately after the president, Mr Shoigu said 300,000 reservists – people who have had military experience and required specialist skills – would be enlisted.

    The minister said this was just over 1% of Russia’s 25 million military reserve potential. The process would be spread over several months.

    Certain age and disability limits would apply, the mobilisation decree said. It provided no further details. It is believed that males aged 18-60 – and in some cases even older – could be mobilised.

    Russian commentators have cast serious doubts on the promises of the president and his defence minister that the call-up will be limited.

    They also point out that the decree says nothing about exceptions, such as not recruiting students or conscripts.

    It is believed to have been left to regional heads to decide who to call in order to meet quotas.

    Before launching its invasion on 24 February, Russia had amassed about 190,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders.

     

  • Kerala lottery: India jackpot winner tired of requests for help

    An Indian lottery winner claimed he regretted winning the jackpot because he is receiving so many pleas for financial assistance.

    Anoop, an auto driver from Kerala in southern India, won 250 million rupees ($3.06 million, £2.9 million) in a state lottery earlier in September.

    But a week later, he posted a video requesting strangers to stop bothering him and his family.

    “I wish I hadn’t won,” he says. “The third prize may have been better.”

    Anoop says in the video that he is considering moving houses to escape the overwhelming public attention.

    He had made national headlines when he won the prize, the highest ever offered in the state for a lottery.

    He bought the ticket on 17 September – a day before he was supposed to fly to Malaysia for a job – after breaking open his son’s piggy bank.

    After news broke of his win, his family received a lot of media attention.

    “I was overjoyed when I won,” he says in his recent video. “There were people and cameras at the house and we were happy.”

    But the situation soon got out of control, he says.

    “I can’t leave the house, I can’t go anywhere. My child is ill and I can’t take him to the doctor.”

    Anoop – who will receive 150mn rupees after government taxes – says people begin arriving at his house every morning.

    “All I can tell everyone is that I haven’t gotten any money yet. No one seems to understand my problem, no matter how many times I say it,” he says.

    Anoop says he and his family have been staying with relatives to escape the attention.

    The state government has said it will arrange a day’s training programme for Anoop on financial management to help him use the money well.

  • Inferior oil blamed for Sri Lanka power cuts

    A senior Sri Lankan official has attributed the shutdown of a power plant that resulted in prolonged outages to imports of crude oil of poor grade.

    The oil used in the furnaces, according to utility regulator chief Janaka Ratnayake, contained an excessive amount of sulphur.

    But the country’s energy minister has disputed the allegation.

    Last week, Sri Lanka increased its daily power outage from 80 minutes to 140 minutes because of a drop in power generating capacity.

    “Sulphur content is too high in the furnace oil [fuel oil] which is not suitable for the current power plants and it’s also not conforming with environmental standards,” Mr Ratnayake, the head of the Public Utilities Commission, told the BBC.

    “If you buy good quality crude oil for refineries, then this problem will not happen.”

    Mr Ratnayake said about 10% of the country’s electricity came from diesel and fuel oil power plants. The rest of the electricity is generated from hydro, renewable, and coal-powered plants.

    But Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekara defended the crude oil import policy.

    In a tweet, he said Sri Lanka’s state-run fuel retailer, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, would respond legally to Mr Ratnayake’s allegation.

    According to Mr Wijesekara, the power cut was extended because of a breakdown at one of the hydro-power stations and insufficient funds for diesel and fuel oil.

    The South Asian nation has been facing its worst financial crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948. It is struggling to find enough dollars to import fuel and food.

    The shortages led to months of anti-government protests and long queues outside petrol stations.

    In July, the unrest came to a head when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to flee the country and then resign after thousands of protesters stormed his official residence.

    Veteran politician Ranil Wickremesinghe was subsequently elected by MPs as president.

    Since then, the government has introduced a ration system for fuel using a QR code that has reduced the queues outside petrol stations.

    Sri Lanka has reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan of $2.9bn (£2.7bn) and it expects the deal to be approved by the IMF board by the end of this year.

    But the conditions include Colombo reaching an agreement with its creditors on debt restructuring. Sri Lanka has about $50bn of external debt.

  • Cuba Family Code: Country votes to approve same-sex marriage

    In a national referendum, Cubans decided to legalise same-sex marriages.

    A new Family Code that will also permit surrogate pregnancies and grant gay couples the ability to adopt children was approved by around two-thirds of the electorate.

    It marks a big moment for Cuba, which saw gay people persecuted and sent to work camps in the 1960s and 70s.

    However, there was significant opposition to the reforms among religious groups and conservatives.

    The referendum on Sunday was for a new Family Code – a 100-page document that went through more than two dozen drafts and hours of debate in community-level meetings.

    Cuba’s government had backed the law change and ran a nationwide campaign urging people to approve it.

    Speaking as he voted on Sunday, the country’s President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said he expected most of the population would vote yes and that the new code reflected the diversity of people, families, and beliefs.

    On Monday, preliminary results indicated an “irreversible trend”, with 66% of votes counted so far in favour of the reform, electoral council president Alina Balseiro said on state television, according to AFP news agency. The law required 50% of voters’ approval to be adopted.

    The reforms were the culmination of efforts by gay rights activists in Cuba.

    Official attitudes towards homosexuality on the Communist-run island have changed over the past decades, partly thanks to the efforts of former leader Raúl Castro’s daughter Mariela.

    In the early part of communist leader Fidel Castro’s rule after the 1959 revolution, homosexual men and women were sent to work camps for supposed “re-education”.

    However, many in Cuba still oppose the step, including evangelical churches and other non-religious conservatives.

    Parts of the opposition also campaigned for a “no” vote, urging Cubans to seize a unique opportunity to hand the country’s communist government a defeat in the polls.

    Some anti-government activists consider the referendum an effort by the state to improve its human rights image following a brutal crackdown on all forms of dissent in recent years.

    The referendum also comes during a serious energy crisis, which has led to daily power cuts affecting millions of people across the island.

    A child holds a banner which reads "Code Yes" referring to a family code referendum to take place on September 25, during a state organized pro-referendum demonstration in Havana, Cuba, September 17, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
    A child holds a banner that reads “code yes”

  • Canada removes  vaccination entry requirements and makes the Arrive Can  optional

    All remaining Covid border restrictions, including the requirement for traveller vaccinations, have been lifted, Canada reports.

    As of 1 October, travellers will also no longer need to provide proof of Covid vaccination, undergo any testing, or isolate and quarantine.

    The mask mandate on planes and trains will also be lifted.

    The ArriveCan app – used to upload health documents when entering Canada – will become optional.

    Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in an announcement on Monday that Canada is “in a much better position” than it was earlier in the pandemic, in part due to the availability of Covid-19 vaccines and treatment options.

    The country’s high vaccination rate – with around 82% of the population having received two doses – and a falling death rate are also factors.

    Around 32 Canadians are currently dying each day from the virus.

    Covid-19 cases are slowly rising in Canada and signs point to a resurgence ahead of autumn, Mr Duclos said, but he added this is “largely explained by the domestic transmission of the virus”.

    He said Ottawa is open to reintroducing measures, especially if a new, highly-transmissible variant emerges.

    Vaccine mandates for travellers entering the US remain in place, and some American lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to drop the remaining restrictions.

    Other countries, including the United Kingdom, dropped Covid entry requirements earlier this year.

    Covid-19 mandates were opposed by some in Canada and were the subject of the ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests in Ottawa, which were held in support of truckers who refused to get vaccinated to cross the US-Canada border.

    The February protests gridlocked Canada’s capital for two weeks.

    Supporters of the convoy also staged blockades at key border crossings between the US and Canada, disrupting the flow of goods between the two countries.

    The protests were eventually cleared after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the never before used Emergencies Act, which gives the government additional powers in times of national crisis.

    The World Health Organisation declared in early September that Covid-19 deaths have hit their lowest point but experts have warned about the ongoing threat of the virus, especially if new variants emerge.

    Despite the end of the restrictions, Mr Duclos urged people to get their booster shots and encouraged people to continue wearing masks in public.

  • Reports: Deadly clash between rival Libyan government forces

    Five people have been killed and 13 others hurt in clashes between two opposing forces that support the UN-backed government of Libya on Sunday, according to AFP, which cited medical sources.

    The gun battle in Zaouia, some 40km (25 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, was between fighters linked to the defense ministry and those with ties to the interior ministry, local media reported.

    The victims included a 10-year-old girl, the report said.

    The fighting broke out over a dispute about fuel smuggling which is common in the country, a security source told AFP.

    The clashes come amid a political crisis between backers of rival Libyan Prime Ministers Abdulhamid Dbeibah and Fathi Bashagha, whose forces are vying for control of the oil-rich nation.

    Mr Dbeibah’s government was installed last year as part of a United Nations-led peace process, while Mr Bashagha was appointed by Libya’s eastern-based parliament in February.

  • ‘Sham’ referendums’: UK sanctions Russians

    The United Kingdom has imposed a new round of sanctions.in response to what it described as Russia’s “sham” referendums in four occupied regions of Ukraine.

    “The Russian regime has organised these sham referendums in a desperate attempt to grab land and justify their illegal war,” the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) said in a statement.

    “The process reflects their approach in Crimea in 2014, combining disinformation, intimidation, and fake results. These referendums do not represent the demonstrated will of the Ukrainian people and are a severe violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and political independence,” it added, citing Moscow’s seizure of the Black Sea peninsula eight years ago.

    The FCDO said the measures will specifically target individuals behind the votes in Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia on whether to join Russia, including several Moscow-installed officials in the occupied regions, a number of oligarchs, board executives from major state-owned banks and IMA Consulting, a firm described as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “favourite PR agency”.