Health secretary announces ‘rapid’ national inquiry into failings in NHS care of mothers and babies in England
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has announced the launch of a national investigation into NHS maternity services.
The new rapid investigation is intended to provide truth to families suffering harm, as well as driving urgent improvements to care and safety.
Continue reading...The emergence of Hawk Trump dismayed some of his Maga base but students of US adventurism were unsurprised
So the military parade that brought tanks to the streets of Washington on Donald Trump’s birthday was more than just an authoritarian ego trip. It was a show of strength and statement of intent.
Exactly a week later, sporting a “Make America great again” (Maga) cap in the situation room, the American president ordered the biggest US military intervention in decades as more than 125 aircraft and 75 weapons – including 14 bunker-busting bombs – struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump called it a “spectacular military success” – but it remains unclear how much damage had actually been inflicted.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary also sidesteps questions on legality of strikes and Donald Trump’s ‘regime change’ post
The UK foreign secretary has repeatedly refused to say if the UK supported the US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday or whether they were legal.
Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday for the first time since the US launched airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, David Lammy also sidestepped the question of whether he supported recent social media posts by Donald Trump that seemed to favour regime change in Tehran, saying that in all his discussions in the White House the sole focus had been on military targets.
Continue reading...Researchers say contamination found at Montebello Islands is part of fallout from 1950s British tests and will persist for thousands of years
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Samples of marine sediment taken from the location of three 1950s British government nuclear bomb tests off the coast of Western Australia have revealed plutonium levels up to 4,500 times higher than the rest of the coastline.
Sixty six samples were taken from the shallow waters at the Montebello Islands, and scientists are now working to understand how marine life may be being affected by the sediment.
Continue reading...Clifton George, 44, arrested after Annabel Rook found with stab wounds in Stoke Newington on Tuesday
A man has been charged with the murder of a charity worker who was found stabbed in her home after a gas explosion.
Clifton George, 44, was arrested after Annabel Rook was found with stab wounds in Dumont Road, Stoke Newington, north London, shortly before 5am on Tuesday.
Continue reading...‘Inaction’ from governments and ‘baked in’ racism are hampering efforts to address entrenched disadvantage, according to first independent review
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Australian governments are failing to do “the heavy lifting” needed to address entrenched disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, an independent review of the national Closing the Gap strategy has found.
The review by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney is the first to independently assess the implementation of the Closing the Gap agreement since its establishment in 2008.
Continue reading...Trump has warned of broader US involvement in Israel’s war if Iran attempts to strike back against US military sites in the region
Iran had sought to deter Donald Trump from joining Israel’s bombing campaign with dire threats of retaliation, but its options now are limited and fraught with risk.
Iranian officials have said specifically that US ships and military bases would be targeted, but much of the capacity it had relied on as a deterrent has been stripped away over the past few days by Israeli strikes. Those strikes however, have focused on long-range ballistic missile launchers. Iran still has a formidable arsenal of shorter-range missiles and drones.
Continue reading...Scale of death and destruction in Gaza, and the violence of settlers in the West Bank, has shifted public opinion in the EU
In Israel, it can seem like only one other place really matters. Washington DC is on the other side of the world but provides Israel with weapons, the backing of the most powerful military in the world, and a critical diplomatic shield in forums like the United Nations.
Yet the country’s economy is bound far more closely to Europe than to the United States. A third of its trade is with the European Union, key academic work is supported by grants from the EU’s multi-billion dollar Horizon research fund, and it is the top destination for Israelis who want to travel.
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