Category Archives: UK news

Julian Assange writes letter to King Charles and urges him to visit Belmarsh prison

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The WikiLeaks founder writes that he has been captive in the prison for more than four years ‘on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign’

Julian Assange has written a letter to King Charles ahead of his coronation inviting him to visit the UK prison where the WikiLeaks founder has been captive for more than four years “on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign”.

The letter is the first document the Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder has written and published since his time in Belmarsh prison in London and accounts the horrors of his life there.

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Global heads gather in London for lavish coronation of Charles and Camilla

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Crowning of new king and queen will include UK’s biggest military spectacle in 70 years

Foreign royalty, heads of state and other dignitaries from around the globe have descended on London for the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, which will include a military spectacle unmatched in Britain in 70 years.

Seven thousand troops will be on parade with 19 military bands in a coronation procession stretching one mile from front to rear, the most at any state occasion since the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

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Clapham Common: passengers smash windows to escape tube train amid fire alert

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London fire brigade suggest smoke probably caused by train’s brakes and police say nobody hurt in incident

Passengers climbed out of the smashed windows of a tube train at Clapham Common station in London on Friday evening amid a fire alert.

A video posted on social media shows a man with a hammer cracking one of the Northern Line tube windows to allow travellers trapped inside to get out, while other videos show smashed windows.

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Met police investigate more organ trafficking cases in UK

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Modern slavery team reveals further allegations of people being trafficked to London for body parts

The Metropolitan police is investigating more cases of organ trafficking in the UK after new victims came forward following the first conviction for the offence under modern slavery laws.

Detectives from Scotland Yard’s modern slavery and child exploitation team have said they are investigating more allegations of people being trafficked for their body parts to London and other areas of the UK.

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Nigerian politician jailed for nine years in UK over organ trafficking plot

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Judge says Ike Ekweremadu was ‘driving force’ in scheme to take kidney for his sick daughter from man brought to London

A senior Nigerian politician has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison in the UK for being the “driving force” in a plot to harvest a kidney for his sick daughter from a young man he had trafficked to London.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty by an Old Bailey jury in March in the first organ trafficking conviction under the Modern Slavery Act.

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Coronation build-up live: King Charles and Camilla at Westminster Abbey for final rehearsal

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Dignitaries arriving in London ahead of tomorrow’s ceremony as people already gather to line procession route

A children’s biography of King Charles III has topped the UK book chart before the coronation on 6 May.

Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara’s King Charles is part of the Little People, Big Dreams series, which includes illustrated biographies of notable figures such as Stephen Hawking and Michelle Obama.

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Local elections 2023 live: Labour becomes largest party in local government – as it happened

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Conservatives continue to suffer heavy defeats as Labour, Lib Dems and Greens make gains

Prof Rob Ford, an elections specialist, has written an article for the Guardian trying to assess what would be a good result and a bad result for the political parties in the local election. You can read it here:

Results from more than 60 councils are expected overnight with the remainder expected to trickle in throughout the day on Friday.

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David Tennant to play Macbeth at Donmar Warehouse

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The actor will take to the stage as the Scottish king in December, in the last production of the London theatre’s 30th-anniversary season

Hot on the heels of the news that Ralph Fiennes will play Macbeth in a tour of repurposed UK warehouses comes the announcement that David Tennant will also star as the Scottish king at London’s Donmar Warehouse.

It is the Scottish actor’s first Shakespearean stage role since he played Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company, on and off, from 2013 to 2016. In 2022 he was Macbeth in a two-part BBC Radio 4 broadcast. The Donmar production will be directed by Max Webster and will conclude the 30th-anniversary season for the London theatre, which was previously home to a banana-ripening warehouse.

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Local elections 2023: live council results for England

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Find out the scale of Conservative losses and the gains made by Labour, the Lib Dems and the Green party

• Latest reporting and analysis

• About these elections

On 4 May, 230 English councils are holding elections with more than 8,000 seats being contested. Some are for metropolitan boroughs such as Liverpool city council and others for unitary authorities such as Herefordshire or North Somerset. Both structures are single-tier authorities with responsibility for the whole range of council services, including education, social care, rubbish collection and parks.

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King’s coronation weather likely to be a washout, says Met Office

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Rain forecast for UK over bank holiday weekend, including in London as Charles III is crowned

A coronation washout is forecast for many this weekend with rain and drizzle likely to provide a quintessentially British backdrop to the royal pomp and pageantry.

Saturday, the day of the formal ceremony, is forecast by the Met Office to be a cloudy and wet day for many, including in the capital around midday, just as King Charles III is being crowned.

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Keir Starmer: Labour on track to win general election after local results

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Opposition leader hails ‘very, very good’ outcome of local elections after his party takes control of key councils

Keir Starmer has said the Labour party is on track to win the next general election, after taking control of key councils in the English local elections, including Medway, Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent.

Based on results counted early on Friday morning, the Labour leader said the party was heading for a result that if repeated across the country at a general election would give it an eight-point lead over the Conservatives.

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BA owner raises profit forecast as travel demand rebounds

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IAG expects to fly almost the same passenger numbers this year as before Covid pandemic

The owner of British Airways has upgraded its full-year profit expectations thanks to strong demand for holiday travel, as the airline group said it expected to fly almost the same number of passengers this year as it did before the coronavirus pandemic.

International Airlines Group (IAG) reported a first-quarter profit for the first time since 2019, before the travel industry was plunged into chaos by Covid lockdowns. It made an operating profit of €9m (£7.9m) in the first three months of the year.

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UK ministers urged to unseal files on Falklands attack that killed 56

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Calls follow release of account by captain who said he strongly warned against ‘folly’ of attempted landing in June 1982

The release of a witness account detailing the “folly” of an operation in which 56 service personnel died on ships off the Falkland islands – the deadliest day for the British military since 1945 – has prompted fresh calls for the government to unseal all files relating to the tragedy.

Attacks by Argentinian Skyhawk planes against the landing ships Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad killed dozens of service personnel on 8 June 1982 and left more than 150 injured, including Simon Weston, the Welsh guard whose disfigured face became a defining image of the conflict.

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End ‘megaphone diplomacy’ between UK and Hong Kong, says British diplomat

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Consul general calls for ‘constructive engagement’ with territory as Chinese vice-president says he will attend king’s coronation

Britain’s most senior diplomat for Hong Kong has called for an end to “megaphone diplomacy” between the UK and the Chinese territory, saying British and Hong Kong diplomats would make more progress with closed-door discussions.

Brian Davidson, the consul general to Hong Kong and Macau, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that the UK-Hong Kong relationship had weathered “some difficult headwinds” over the past four or five years, but that “we are looking to lean back into a constructive engagement to see where we can collaborate”.

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Local elections 2023 live: voter ID required for first time as people in England head to the polls

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With polls closing at 10pm, more than 8,000 council seats in England are up for grabs

Here is a comment from a reader.

Just been to the polling station: tellers outside were turning people without ID away instead of sending them in to be recorded for the so called evaluation. Numbers will be meaningless if this is widespread.

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The ‘coronation effect’: UK high street shelves being cleared of quiche and fizz

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Party products, including bunting, flying off shelves, with Britons forecast to spend £200m on weekend festivities

High street retailers are reporting a “coronation effect” sales boost as shoppers make a last-minute dash to the shops to stock up on party fare including bunting, champagne and cakes for this weekend’s celebrations.

With potentially more than £200m of extra sales riding on the festivities surrounding the coronation of King Charles, retailers’ shelves are being cleared of fizz, quiche, scones as well as buffet favourites such as pork pies and scotch eggs.

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UK competition watchdog launches review of AI market

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CMA to look at underlying systems of artificial intelligence tools amid concerns over false information

The UK competition watchdog has fired a shot across the bows of companies racing to commercialise artificial intelligence technology, announcing a review of the sector as fears grow over the spread of misinformation and major disruption in the jobs market.

As pressure builds on global regulators to increase their scrutiny of the technology, the Competition and Markets Authority said it would look at the underlying systems, or foundation models, behind AI tools such as ChatGPT. The initial review, described by one legal expert as a “pre-warning” to the sector, will publish its findings in September.

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Belize likely to become republic, says PM, as he criticises Rishi Sunak

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Exclusive: Johnny Briceño attacks his UK counterpart’s refusal to apologise for atrocities of slavery

The prime minister of Belize, Johnny Briceño, has sharply criticised Rishi Sunak’s refusal to apologise for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, and said it was “quite likely” Belize would be the next member of the Commonwealth realm to become a republic.

Speaking to the Guardian in the country’s capital, Belmopan, Briceño argued the British government had a moral responsibility to apologise for the atrocities of slavery and added to the calls throughout the English-speaking Caribbean for financial reparations from the UK.

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England local elections going smoothly under new voter ID rules, say officials

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‘No major issues’ reported so far, as most voters in Leicester say they were made well aware of change

Despite warnings that the introduction of new voter ID requirements might lead to disruption at polling stations across England on Thursday, by lunchtime there were few reports of problems.

In Leicester, the city council said things were “so far, running smoothly”.

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