Man stabbed to death in Wandsworth and another shot in Greenwich
Police have arrested 10 people over two murders that occurred only minutes apart in London on Friday afternoon.
One man was stabbed to death in the street in Wandsworth, south-west London shortly before 4.45pm, while another man was shot dead in Greenwich, south-east London, at about 5pm.
Continue reading...Richard Ratcliffe fasts outside Iranian embassy in London to call for wife’s release
The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has begun a hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy in London in solidarity with his wife. Richard Ratcliffe called for a meeting with the next prime minister and demanded the incoming government stand up for British citizens unjustly held abroad.
The British-Iranian woman started her third hunger strike against her continued imprisonment in Iran on Saturday. She had vowed to take action if she was still in jail on their daughter Gabriella’s fifth birthday. At the same time, a vigil got under way in front of the country’s embassy in Knightsbridge.
Continue reading...Labour leader urges UK to ease tensions in Gulf after Foreign Office links blasts to Tehran
Jeremy Corbyn has called for the government to abstain from escalating tensions with Iran without “credible evidence” that Tehran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers.
The Labour leader said Britain risked increasing the threat of war after the Foreign Office (FCO) said it was “almost certain” in its assessment that “a branch of the Iranian military … attacked the two tankers on 13 June”.
Continue reading...Frontrunner refuses invite, but will take part in a similar BBC-hosted event two days later
Boris Johnson will be represented by an empty podium in a television debate on Sunday night as his five remaining rivals to be Britain’s next prime minister fight it out for a place alongside him in the ballot of Conservative members.
The former foreign secretary declined an invitation to participate in the Channel 4 leadership debate, saying he feared it would be “cacophonous”.
Continue reading...When armed officers arrived on scene, attackers ran at them with 30cm knives, court told
A terrorist involved in the attack on London Bridge got within 60cm of an armed police officer before he was shot, an inquest has heard.
Youssef Zaghba, 22, was one of three men who ran over pedestrians before stabbing people around London Bridge on 3 June 2017, killing eight. The attack was only stopped when the terrorists were shot dead by police, with eight officers firing a total of 46 shots, the inquest into the deaths of the victims heard on Friday.
Continue reading...Foreign involvement in Africa is far from unique to Russia (Leaked documents reveal Russia’s efforts to exert influence in Africa, 12 June). The new scramble for Africa involves more powers than the first round over a century ago. This time it’s in part about securing resources such as oil, gas and rare earth metals crucial for military and civilian digital technology, and denying these resources to rival powers.
The United States Africa Command (Africom) now has 7,500 American troops active in all but one African country, up from 6,000 in 2017. Apart from its huge base in Djibouti, controlling the narrow strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a vital chokepoint through which all shipping using the Suez Canal has to pass – most importantly (for the Americans) Chinese shipping – the US has constructed small “lily pad” bases, whose presence gives the US a strong military capability.
Continue reading...China’s power grab via a new extradition bill must be opposed by governments around the world, especially Britain’s
It took something out of the ordinary to provoke a million people in Hong Kong to take to the streets to demonstrate against proposed new extradition rules. Roughly one-sixth of the population demonstrated peacefully: families, young and old, lawyers, academics, students, professionals and manual workers.
What caused such an outpouring against a piece of legislation? Quite simply, the people of Hong Kong – not British, but Hong Kong Chinese – have seen their government connive with the Communist regime in Beijing to undermine their way of life and freedoms.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes
A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.
Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.
Continue reading...Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had said it would stand by Outrages after row in UK over its historical accuracy, but has now recalled copies from stores
Naomi Wolf’s US publisher has postponed the release of her new book and is recalling copies from booksellers, saying that new questions have arisen over the book’s content.
Outrages, which argues that the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 led to a turn against consensual sex between men and an increase in executions for sodomy, was published in the UK on 20 May. Wolf has already acknowledged that the book contains two errors, after an on-air challenge on BBC Radio 3 during which the writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet told her that she had misunderstood the term “death recorded” in historical records as signifying an execution. In fact it denotes the opposite, Sweet pointed out, highlighting that a teenager she said had been “actually executed for sodomy” in 1859 was paroled two years after being convicted. Wolf said last month that she had thanked Sweet for highlighting the mistakes, and was correcting future editions.
Continue reading...Decision on ‘consolidation’ imminent after former foreign secretary’s crushing victory
Conservative leadership candidates are in talks about joining forces to provide the strongest challenge to Boris Johnson, who looks all but certain to be Britain’s next prime minister after trouncing rivals in the first MPs’ ballot.
Johnson hoovered up the votes of 114 MPs, more than a third of the parliamentary Tory party, and enough backers to guarantee him a place in the final two, assuming he retains their support in later rounds.
Continue reading...Knox, twice acquitted of killing Meredith Kercher, is to attend a debate on ‘trial by media’
Amanda Knox’s return to Italy has been described as “inappropriate” and “very painful” by a lawyer for the family of the murdered British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox was twice convicted and twice acquitted of killing Kercher, 21, in the home they shared in the university town of Perugia in November 2007. The body of Kercher, a student from Coulsdon, Surrey, who was in Italy on an Erasmus programme, was found under a duvet in her bedroom, partly undressed with multiple stab wounds. She had also been sexually assaulted.
Continue reading...Police and ambulance units replaced 24 cars, vans and 4x4s due to novichok contamination
Emergency services spent hundreds of thousands of pounds scrapping and replacing contaminated vehicles after the Salisbury nerve agent poisonings, it has been revealed.
Police and ambulance services had to destroy 24 cars, vans and 4x4 vehicles following the attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. The pair collapsed after coming into contact with novichok at Skripal’s home in Salisbury on 4 March last year. DS Nick Bailey, 39, was also taken to hospital.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the first round of voting in the Tory leadership contest
Here is my colleague Rafael Behr on Boris Johnson.
Related: Boris Johnson has an unfair advantage in the leadership race … there’s two of him | Rafael Behr
One of the two Johnsons served as mayor of London from 2008-2016. He has liberal, metropolitan instincts – broadly pro-immigration, old-fashioned in his use of idiom, but a moderniser at heart. Then there is 2016-2019 Johnson, figurehead of the Vote Leave campaign, the ultimate Brexit-booster. He is a more aggressive, divisive figure – a partisan of nationalistic culture wars who has consorted with Steve Bannon. Both Johnsons are dispensing wild promises to Tory MPs behind closed doors. The self-styled “One Nation” Conservatives and rightwing ultras each seem to think the other side is being taken for a ride, which suggests they all are.
Matt Hancock surpassed expectations, a spokesman for his campaign said. The spokesman went on:
MPs have responded well to Matt’s energetic and positive campaign. His pro-business message, his focus on taking the fight to Corbyn and the Lib Dems not just the Brexit party, and his argument that the Tory party “need a leader for the future, not just for now” has gone down well with colleagues.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as tanker fires send crude prices soaring
Iran hasn’t said who it thinks is responsible for today’s attacks off its coastline.
But on Twitter, foreign minister Javad Zarif has described the attacks as beyond suspicious:
Reported attacks on Japan-related tankers occurred while PM @AbeShinzo was meeting with Ayatollah @khamenei_ir for extensive and friendly talks.
Suspicious doesn't begin to describe what likely transpired this morning.
Iran's proposed Regional Dialogue Forum is imperative.
Here’s the key line from president Rouhani’s speech on Iranian TV:
“Security is of high importance to Iran in the sensitive region of the Persian Gulf, in the Middle East, in Asia and in the whole world. We have always tried to secure peace and stability in the region.”
Continue reading...European newspapers in chorus of disapproval after Tory leadership hopeful’s campaign launch
European newspapers have expressed horror at the prospect of Boris Johnson becoming the UK’s next prime minister, describing him as a scandal-proof serial promise-breaker whose arrival at No 10 would be “a calamity for his country and for Europe”.
Le Monde, in a coruscating editorial, said Johnson had shown himself to be “a stranger to logic and convictions” in a career rich in “deceits, blunders and failures”. In the run-up to the 2016 referendum he “told lies on the side of a bus, promised the UK could have its cake and eat it, and compared the EU to the Third Reich,” it said.
Continue reading...British home secretary says final decision on WikiLeaks founder is ‘now with the courts’
The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has revealed he has signed a request for Julian Assange to be extradited to the US where he faces charges of computer hacking.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Javid said: “He’s rightly behind bars. There’s an extradition request from the US that is before the courts tomorrow but yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be going in front of the courts tomorrow.”
Continue reading...Investigators thought they were socialising and found no evidence of terrorism plans
MI5 knew of occasions when two of the men who attacked London Bridge met in the weeks before the the atrocity but did not realise what they were planning, an inquest has heard.
The ringleader, Khuram Butt, 27, was under MI5 investigation from 2015 for a suspected desire to stage an attack.
Continue reading...An attempt to block the UK leaving without a deal was defeated on Wednesday, so can no deal still be stopped?
Have MPs missed their last chance to block a no-deal Brexit?
Not quite. Labour seized the opportunity for action on Wednesday because they had been allotted an opposition day debate – an opportunity to decide what MPs discuss and vote on.
Continue reading...Labour-led attempt to stop the UK leaving without a deal is defeated, in move that could help Boris Johnson
Conservative leadership candidates including Boris Johnson hoping to force a “deal or no deal” Brexit in October have been handed a boost after MPs defeated a Labour-led attempt to tie the next prime minister’s hands.
Labour vowed it would not end efforts to stop no deal but the defeat bolstered Johnson’s claim at his leadership launch that MPs would not be prepared “reap the whirlwind” of halting Brexit entirely as Tory MPs prepared for the first round on votingto choose the next prime minister on Thursday.
Continue reading...Claims in YouGov poll come as news websites report record numbers of visitors
A growing number of Britons claim they are actively avoiding the news out of frustration at coverage of Brexit, research has found, even as news websites report record numbers of visitors wanting to read about major developments.
The discrepancy suggests that while many people publicly insist they are avoiding news about the UK’s ongoing political crisis, some may be unable to stop themselves secretly gorging themselves on updates about Britain leaving the EU.
Continue reading...