Category Archives: UK news

Suspicious packages found at Glasgow University and RBS in Edinburgh

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Students and staff evacuated from campus and bank building after calls to police

Several buildings at the University of Glasgow and the Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters in Edinburgh have been evacuated following reports of suspicious packages.

The two packages have not been linked and it is not clear if they represented a threat, but they follow reports on Tuesday of a package bursting into flames after being opened at a building operated by Heathrow airport, and similar packages being found at other London transport hubs.

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Javid: government must give police more resources to tackle knife crime

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Home secretary insists he will back chiefs despite cabinet clash with May

Sajid Javid has said the government must listen to police chiefs’ demand for more resources after they asked the home secretary for emergency cash to fund an immediate rise in the number of officers in England to tackle knife crime.

Javid met chief constables from seven of the areas worst affected by knife crime on Wednesday to discuss solutions to the problem, which has been described as a national emergency.

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Brexit meaningful vote will go ahead, says No 10, despite talks stalling

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PM’s spokesman says UK still looking for backstop changes after ‘robust’ discussions

Downing Street has insisted the meaningful vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal will go ahead as promised on Tuesday, despite negotiations in Brussels stumbling.

The prime minister’s spokesman repeated the line on Wednesday that the government is determined to secure “legally binding changes” to the Irish backstop, despite the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, returning empty-handed from the talks.

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UK firms cut staff; Greek debt auction success; Carney on Brexit – business live

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Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as China sets its lowest growth target in almost three decades

Mark Carney is then asked about activist investor Edward Bramson, who has used a $1.4bn loan from Bank of America to buy his stake in Barclays (and agitate for a board seat),

Q: Would that loan affect his ability to meet the City’s ‘fit and proper person’s test’?

Earlier in the hearing, Mark Carney suggested that that City has underestimated future interest rate hikes.

The governor pointed out that Bank of England’s most recent economic forecasts - based on market expectations of borrowing costs - showed inflation above the BoE’s target over its three-year forecast period

“In other words, the path of interest rates is not firm enough, it’s not quite high enough for us to be fulfilling our mandate, which sends a broad signal in terms of the stance of policy.”

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Explosive devices found at Waterloo station, Heathrow and City airports

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Met launches inquiry over packages capable of lighting small fires when opened

The Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command has launched an investigation after three suspicious packages were received at transport hubs in London.

The three package sites were the post room at Waterloo station, City Aviation House at City airport and the Compass Centre in Hounslow on the grounds of Heathrow airport.

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No peace in Yemen until south’s wish to split with north heard, MPs told

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Head of southern transitional council says ignoring will of people is ‘recipe for instability’

Peace in Yemen is impossible without acknowledgement of southern Yemen’s calls for independence from the north, leaders of the United Arab Emirates-backed southern transitional council (STC) are due to tell British MPs and officials as they step up efforts to be involved in the peace talks.

The south of Yemen, briefly a communist state, was united with the north in 1990 and southern separatists were then beaten militarily when they tried to secede in 1994. Continued southern resentment at the north’s control of the country’s resources, including by the rebel Houthis, is a large undercurrent in the civil war.

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Donald Tusk claims anti-European forces meddled in Brexit vote

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European council president echoes Emmanuel Macron’s warning of malign influences

Donald Tusk has claimed external powers meddled in the Brexit vote as he called for EU member states to do more to protect the upcoming European elections.

Speaking at a press conference in Brussels with the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, the European council president said he agreed with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who used an editorial in the Guardian and other newspapers to call on European countries to be alert to malign influences.

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Clintons accused of nepotism in book on US-Ireland relations

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Exclusive: Policy adviser claims couple tried to gain grant for Chelsea’s boyfriend

A veteran Democratic foreign policy adviser has accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of nepotism, dishonesty and vindictiveness in an assault on a previously untouched part of the Clinton political legacy – Ireland.

Trina Vargo, who was a behind-the-scenes Washington player in Northern Ireland’s peace process, claims the couple tried to obtain a scholarship to Ireland for a boyfriend of their daughter, Chelsea, and later cut funding for the scholarship to punish Vargo for backing Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination race.

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UK policy on migration ‘disconnected and incoherent’, MPs warn

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Report says aid to displaced people in Africa undermined by Home Office approach to asylum seekers and refugees

The UK government’s migration policy is “disconnected and incoherent” and involves the pitting of one government department against another, a report by MPs has said.

The international development committee (IDC) urged the government to double the number of vulnerable refugees offered resettlement in Britain, up to 10,000 a year.

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Knife crime victims: the 10 teenagers killed in 2019

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Five victims have died in London, three in Birmingham, one in Manchester and one in Sunderland

Ten teenagers have been killed in knife attacks in the first two months of 2019, according to a list compiled by the Guardian from media coverage and police press alerts.

Half the victims were in London, three died in Birmingham in just 12 days, and the other casualties were in Manchester and Sunderland.

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PM considers calls for vote on future relationship with EU

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Labour MP says idea could get dozens more MPs representing leave-voting areas to back deal

Theresa May is considering demands from Labour MPs for a parliamentary vote on the UK’s future relationship with the EU as the price for backing her Brexit deal, as she faces an uphill battle to win over Conservative Eurosceptics.

The prime minister has been told by Labour MPs that a package of greater guarantees for workers after Brexit, due to be unveiled on Wednesday, is only enough to convince perhaps three or four more to vote for her withdrawal bill.

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EU must learn from Brexit and reform, says Emmanuel Macron

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French president sets wide-ranging plans to overhaul EU in response to UK’s vote to leave

Dear Europe, Brexit is a lesson for all of us; it’s time for renewal

Emmanuel Macron has called for a new European agency to fight against international cyber-attacks and the manipulation of election campaigns, as well as a ban on foreign powers funding European parties, as he set out plans to overhaul the EU in response to Britain’s vote to leave.

The French president, a pro-European centrist, made the rare move of appealing directly to citizens across the bloc in a long letter published by the Guardian and 27 other newspapers.

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MEPs vote to scrap twice-yearly clock change by 2021

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Proposed end to spring and autumn custom could affect Britain even if it leaves EU

A committee of MEPs has voted to scrap the custom of changing the clocks in spring and autumn by 2021, as momentum builds behind a draft law that could raise tensions with Britain after Brexit.

If the plans become law, they would apply to the UK if it was still in the EU or in a transition period at that time.

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UK museum agrees to return Ethiopian emperor’s hair

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National Army Museum says it has agreed to a formal request for two locks of hair of Tewodros II

A British museum has agreed to repatriate to Ethiopia two locks of hair taken from the head of the 19th-century emperor Tewodros II.

The National Army Museum on Monday said it had agreed to a formal request for the return of objects “considered to be of cultural sensitivity to Ethiopian citizens”.

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Aid worker stranded in Syria after British citizenship revoked

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Tauqir Sharif calls on UK to distinguish between humanitarian workers and potential security threats

A British aid worker and his family say they are stuck in Syria after his UK citizenship has been revoked and his eldest daughter refused a passport.

Tauqir Sharif, 31, from Walthamstow, who lives and works in Idlib alongside his British wife, Racquell Hayden-Best, had his citizenship revoked in May 2017. Speaking to the Guardian this week, he called on the UK government to review its revocation policy for those engaged in humanitarian work in conflict zones.

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Banking leak exposes Russian network with link to Prince Charles

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Exclusive: investigation reveals how Troika Dialog channelled $4.6bn to Europe and US

A charity run by Prince Charles received donations from an offshore company that was used to funnel vast amounts of cash from Russia in a scheme that is under investigation by prosecutors, the Guardian can reveal.

Money flowing through the network included cash that can be linked to some of the most notorious frauds committed during Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

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Breast-ironing: victims urge stronger action to root out dangerous custom

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Medical experts and victims say practice, deemed by perpetrators to protect girls from sexual harassment and rape, is child abuse

Comfort was nine when her older sister told her she was going to flatten her chest with a stone to prevent her breasts from developing too soon, telling her it was for her own good.

“She said it’s so that girls don’t get abused as children or as teenagers,” Comfort said.

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‘The whole world knows us’: Salisbury one year on from novichok attack

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Some talk of anxiety following the Skripal poisoning, yet the city is determined to move on

A year after the nerve agent attack on Salisbury, Jason Regent is still startled by the sound of sirens.

“Every time I hear an ambulance I think: ‘Is it happening again?’” says Regent, who runs a tailoring shop in the city. “I’m a little bit scarred. It was like being in a film with all the helicopters clattering overhead.

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ERG warns May not to ‘bounce’ parliament over new Brexit deal

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Tory Eurosceptic group says at least two days will be needed to scrutinise new compromise on Irish backstop

Tory Brexiters are to demand at least two days to scrutinise any new offer from Brussels on the Irish backstop mechanism, warning the prime minister not to “bounce” the group into an early vote on her Brexit deal.

May has pledged that a vote will take place on her proposal, including any changes agreed in Brussels, by 12 March, though it is possible that Downing Street will seek to bring the vote forward to this week if changes can be secured.

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Brexit and bad weather puts UK farmers at risk of suicide, say charities

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Crisis networks report rise in number of farmers distressed by uncertainty over future

Charities have said British farmers are increasingly at risk of suicide owing in part to uncertainty over Brexit and the impact of bad weather.

Distressed farmers have made dozens of calls to crisis networks and some have been placed on “suicide watch”, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

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