The NS Champion oil tanker, majority-owned by the Russian state, is due to berth in Orkney on Tuesday
The UK government is considering restricting Russian ships from using British ports after it emerged that a Russian-owned oil tanker is due to dock in Orkney this week.
The NS Champion, operated by Sovcomflot, a large shipping company majority-owned by the Russian state, is due to berth at Flotta oil terminal in Orkney on Tuesday to collect crude oil.
Continue reading...Trafalgar Square a sea of blue and yellow as demonstrators protest against brutal Russian invasion
Thousands of people gathered in cities across the UK for at times highly emotional rallies in support of Ukraine as the country defended itself against the brutal Russian invasion.
In London, Trafalgar Square was a sea of blue and yellow as protesters voiced anguish and despair at Russian president Vladimir Putin’s assault on the eastern European country.
Continue reading...A Latvian double agent is getting death threats after British authorities inadvertently disclosed his alias
• Russia-Ukraine crisis: latest updates
In April 1997, Vechernyaya Moskva, one of the most popular newspapers in Moscow, published an article on a former Russian intelligence agent, Boris Karpichkov.
The article was illustrated with a picture of Karpichkov’s KGB identity papers, with the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle superimposed. It warned that the ex-KGB major was wanted by Interpol, faced interrogation by the Russian authorities and was being hunted by organised crime groups.
Continue reading...The US, Canada and key European countries, including Germany, have agreed to remove ‘selected Russian banks’ from the Swift international payments system. UK prime minister Boris Johnson welcomed the move, saying: 'More countries are joining the call of the UK to use Swift … to tighten the economic ligature around the Putin regime'. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that cutting off some Russian banks will 'effectively block Russian exports and imports’. The move was welcomed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. ‘This is billions and billions of losses for Russia, a tangible price for this vile invasion of our country,’ he said
Continue reading...The prime minister’s stirring rhetoric on the crisis in Ukraine earns him a reprieve from his woes… for now at least
It was the silence in the House of Commons – more than the words spoken from the dispatch box – that captured the magnitude of the moment, and the dramatic shift of political mood, on Thursday evening.
Boris Johnson had been woken at 4.10am that morning to be told Vladimir Putin’s troops had crossed the border into Ukraine. It was what military intelligence had prepared him to expect.
Continue reading...Staffordshire police say man was driver of a stationary ‘highways vehicle’ hit by a car they were pursuing
A road worker has died after a car police were chasing crashed into his vehicle on the M6. Staffordshire police said the man who was killed was in his 40s and was the driver and sole occupant of what they described as a “highways vehicle”.
It had been stationary and in a cordoned-off roadworks area of the carriageway when the crash happened on Saturday morning.
Continue reading...Figures from across Northern Ireland’s political spectrum came to mourn 39-year-old MLA who died suddenly
Mourners from across the political spectrum gathered in Belfast on Saturday for the funeral service of DUP MLA Christopher Stalford.
The DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, alongside party MPs and MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly), were among the congregation at Ravenhill Presbyterian Church in south Belfast.
Continue reading...Zavaroni was in the charts at 11 and died after years of illness aged 35. Her father talks about their family life as a new stage show about her is about to open
There are a few recordings of television interviews with Lena Zavaroni around online. One with Russell Harty where he comments that her eating disorder must save on restaurant bills and another when Terry Wogan tells her to eat up so she can get back to “your chunky self”.
The little girl with the big voice was 10 when she appeared on Opportunity Knocks – television’s predecessor to Britain’s Got Talent and Pop Idol – singing Ma! He’s Making Eyes at Me, 11 when it was a hit and 13 when she was diagnosed with anorexia, a barely known illness then called the “slimmer’s disease”. Before she died in 1999 the girl from Rothesay on the Scottish island of Bute had hosted her own TV shows, performed at the White House and shared a stage with Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. She remains the youngest artist ever to have a record in the Top 10 UK albums chart. Lena was huge.
Continue reading...Burnout from two years of battling Covid pandemic has created flood of departures and public concern, says survey
A record number of more than 400 workers in England have left the NHS every week to restore their work-life balance over the last year, according to a new analysis of the workforce crisis hitting the health service.
The flood of departures comes with staff complaining of burnout and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder following two years of battling the Covid pandemic. There are now concerns that the exodus is impacting the quality of care, with more than a quarter of adults saying they or an immediate family member had received poor care as a result of the workforce problems.
Continue reading...More than 50 years after they were forcibly removed from their homes, former residents of Britain’s last colony in Africa are challenging the UK’s claim to the archipelago. After a five-day journey across the ocean, from which they returned this week, a small delegation of Chagos Islanders made an emotional return to their homeland. They were there to symbolically lay claim to the islands for Mauritius, in the hope of eventually resettling there. Olivier Bancoult was four years old when his family was deported to Mauritius from the Chagos Islands. We follow his journey
Continue reading...Chief scientific adviser and England’s chief medical officer will focus on health inequalities and emerging technologies
The government’s two most senior advisers in the pandemic will turn their attention to health inequalities, the state of the UK’s air and emerging technologies following the milestone decision to end all legal Covid restrictions in England this week.
While the pandemic is far from over, Boris Johnson’s announcement on Monday of the “living with Covid” plan is expected to be the last time Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, and Sir Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, will flank the prime minister to explain the UK’s response.
Continue reading...Chris Mullin is challenging action by West Midlands police at Old Bailey to make him reveal source’s identity
A former MP and investigative journalist has refused to divulge the sources of his information about the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings in a hearing at the Old Bailey.
Chris Mullin, 74, is challenging an application by West Midlands police to require him to disclose source material dating back to his investigation in 1985 and 1986.
Continue reading...Forces not being sent to Ukraine itself to avoid ‘existential’ war with Russia, say UK ministers
Nato will deploy significant extra troops to countries in eastern Europe which are part of the alliance, but UK ministers warned there would be no forces going to Ukraine itself to avoid an “existential” war between Russia and the west.
Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, chaired a virtual summit of 30 leaders on Friday, where the agreement was made to amass forces in eastern Europe.
Continue reading...Legal hearing challenges Home Office decision to prevent prince from paying for police protection when visiting
The Duke of Sussex received “insufficient information” about a decision to change his taxpayer-funded police protection when he is in the UK, the high court has heard.
Prince Harry has brought a legal challenge against the Home Office after being told he would not be given the “same degree” of personal protective security when visiting the UK from the US – despite him offering to pay for it himself.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak said to have agreed to decision not to follow public health advice on testing in vulnerable settings
Public health advice is no longer being followed under Boris Johnson’s “living with Covid” strategy to end mass testing, senior civil servants have acknowledged in a leaked account of a cross-Whitehall briefing.
The briefing by a senior member of the Covid taskforce was delivered to civil service leaders across Whitehall on Thursday afternoon, making clear that following public health advice was no longer the sole priority.
Continue reading...Reports say artillery rounds and large blasts were heard in Ukrainian capital; Russia vetoes UN resolution deploring invasion of Ukraine
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked eastern European Nato members for defence assistance.
Zelenskiy spoke with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Friday to seek defence assistance from eastern European members of Nato and help in bringing Russia to the negotiating table.
We need effective international assistance. Discussed this with Andrzej Duda. Appealed to the Bucharest Nine for defence aid, sanctions, pressure on the aggressor. Together we have to put Russia at the negotiating table. We need anti-war coalition.”
Last time our capital experienced anything like this was in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany.
Ukraine defeated that evil and will defeat this one. Stop Putin. Isolate Russia. Severe all ties. Kick Russia out of everywhere.”
Continue reading...Latest updates: armed forces minister tells Commons Nato and UK forces must not play active role; 1,000 troops on standby to help with refugee response
Culture secretary Nadine Dorries welcomed Uefa’s decision to strip St Petersburg of the Champions League final over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She said:
I welcome Uefa’s decisive action to strip St Petersburg of staging this year’s Champions League Final.
Russia must not be allowed to exploit sporting and cultural events on the world stage to legitimise its unprovoked, premeditated and needless attack against a sovereign democratic state.
I appreciate there is an urgent question on Ukraine later on, but I wonder if the government has given any indication about whether they are going to make a statement about our relations with China, given that China has done nothing to condemn the Ukrainian incursion, and whether the government will also make a statement about what is happening in the Balkans where I understand that missiles are arriving in Serbia ready to destabilise the Dayton Agreement and create a new crisis there.
I have been given no notification that anything is forthcoming. What I would say is that we do have the urgent question and I am sure that he may be able to press the minister if he were able to catch my eye.
Continue reading...UK watchdog says app was not clear about how data is used and it may consider ‘further regulatory action’
The Scottish government and NHS Scotland have been rebuked for breaching data privacy laws on a Covid vaccine status app downloaded by millions of people.
The Information Commissioner’s Office, which polices the UK’s privacy laws, said it had warned the Scottish government and NHS last year that there were serious privacy problems with the app, but not all those problems were fixed before it was launched.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary goes on diplomatic drive to rally support for peak sanctions measure
The UK has said it will work “all day” to persuade fellow European states to cut Russia off from the international Swift payment system.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, ended the pretence that Britain was not at odds with its fellow European leaders over the issue. He said there was still time for Russia to be excluded, and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said: “The UK is working with allies to exclude Russia from the Swift financial system.”
Continue reading...Stolen London hire-scheme bicycles sighted in unlikely destinations as annual thefts rise
They have been a feature of London’s streets for nearly 12 years: the docked public bikes for sharing that are billed as one of the easiest and quickest ways for people to make shorter journeys. Or in some cases, it seems, considerably longer ones.
Among the hundreds of bikes that go permanently missing from the 14,000-plus fleet every year, a handful have been tracked down to distinctly non-London locations, including Australia, the Gambia and Turkey, a freedom of information request has disclosed.
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