Exclusive: Paris shelved plans to ban UK boats from French ports following last-ditch talks
France backed down on its threats to clog up British trade and ban UK fishers from its ports after Jersey offered to expedite approval for “five or six” new fishing vessels in its waters.
Ian Gorst, Jersey’s minister for external affairs, said the offer from his administration and the UK government had proven to be a “good way to move things forward”.
Continue reading...Listening to the women who alleged abuse, and fighting to get their stories heard, helped change the treatment of victims by the media and the justice system
On Saturday 29 October 2011, the day the entertainer Jimmy Savile died aged 84, a couple of comments were posted on the Duncroft School page of the networking site Friends Reunited. Duncroft was designated as an “approved school” by the Home Office, and offered residential care for “intelligent but emotionally disturbed girls”. “He died today, RIP no RIH yes rot in hell,” read one message. “Perhaps some closure for the childhoods that were ruined by this animal.” Over the next few days a handful more messages appeared: “You child molester – you were no better than all the other pervs who have been banged up … only your celebrity status saved you.” Someone else wrote how she would never recover from what “JS” did to her.
Across the news bulletins and weekend front pages, Savile was being given a sendoff fitting for someone who had achieved national treasure status. As BBC Radio 1 DJ, and co-presenter of the BBC’s flagship music programme Top of the Pops, Savile became a personality in the pop music scene in the 60s and 70s; his oddness and mannerisms enhanced his celebrity. As the host of the long-running Saturday evening TV show Jim’ll Fix It, he played godfather, granting the wishes to children who wrote in. On the Monday after his death, during the news editors’ 9.15 morning meeting at BBC headquarters in west London, those present were asked to take coverage of Savile’s funeral seriously. The concern was that the news editors might sneer at Savile; they were reminded that, to much of the audience, Savile was a northern hero. He had started out working in the mines, going on to earn a knighthood and befriend royalty through his television shows and charity work.
Continue reading...Analysis: while UK railways have an excellent safety record, dangerous incidents have been increasing in frequency
Rail accident inspectors have said it is too early to release indications of what caused the collision between two trains at Salisbury on Sunday evening. But by now CCTV and data logs from signals and trains are likely to have given them a strong idea of what led the Great Western and South Western Railway services to crash into each other.
That might prove to be a fault with the signal; or that a train passed a red light; that the brakes failed; or even that the brakes worked but the wheels slid, in the season when leaves on the line can make the rails treacherous.
Continue reading...Boy, 15, sustained ‘unimaginably serious injuries’ after being shot by Jacob Talbot-Lummis while walking to school
A teenager who shot a 15-year-old boy in the face with a double-barrelled shotgun has been sentenced to 24 years in custody for attempted murder.
Jacob Talbot-Lummis, 16, had an “obsessive interest in all kinds of firearms and had become entrenched in watching computer games online”, Judge Martyn Levett told Ipswich crown court.
Continue reading...World leaders have convened on Glasgow for the first day of the UN’s climate conference
Travel chaos hampered many delegates and observers’ arrival in Glasgow for Cop26 yesterday, with a tree on the tracks taking out the west coast main line for a large part of the day. Trains on the east coast line were also delayed after overhead wires near Peterborough sustained damage.
Guardian reporters Patrick Greenfield (who ended up having to hire a van from Luton and drive to Glasgow) and Phoebe Weston (who endured a heavily delayed journey up the east coast line) have more details here.
1. The arrival. Here we go again. Teams of jet-lagged lobbyists, diplomats, journos, bankers and business folk queue with delegations of indigenous peoples and youth groups, lawyers, NGOs and economists to enter the parallel universe that is a UN climate Cop. Within hours, the complaints will start about the price of coffee, the distance between meeting rooms, the Glaswegian accents, the rain, the trains, the traffic, the UN security, the heavy policing and the dearth of good restaurants.
Continue reading...Regulators will compare the version of events he shared with Barclays with emails from JP Morgan
When it was revealed last year that Jes Staley had sailed his luxury yacht to a meeting with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island, the Barclays boss told colleagues he was “going nowhere”.
But on Monday Staley resigned as chief executive of Barclays after the board said it had been made aware of the preliminary conclusions of an investigation by City regulators into how he had characterised his relationship with Epstein to Barclays. Staley intends to contest the report’s findings.
Continue reading...President of China, world’s worst emissions source, calls for more support for developing countries
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has called on developed countries to “provide support to help developing countries do better” in dealing with the climate crisis, in a written statement to the Cop26 climate conference that fails to make any new significant pledges.
The Chinese leader also urged all parties to take stronger actions to “jointly tackle the climate challenge”, and said his country would “speed up the green and low-carbon energy transition, vigorously develop renewable energy, and plan and build large wind and photovoltaic power stations”.
Continue reading...Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry and the former archbishop of Canterbury appear in a chummy documentary recounting the gay rights activist’s most outrageous stunts and impressive achievements
“My doctors have said very clearly: ‘No more head injuries.’” So says Peter Tatchell, one of the world’s most tenacious, divisive and necessary activists, as he prepares to fly to Moscow in 2018 to protest against state-sanctioned homophobia. The trip, which returns him to the city where he was beaten and arrested in 2007, forms one of the few present-tense sections of this greatest hits-style documentary. Tatchell has sustained numerous injuries from his lifetime of protest, though claims of memory loss are comically undermined during a kid-gloves interview with Ian McKellen. “Fifty two years of civil disobedience, Peter!” gasps the actor admiringly. “Fifty three now,” Tatchell replies, unable to resist the lure of being right.
As of this year, it’s 54. Tatchell was already an activist when he moved from Melbourne to London in 1971 at the age of 19. Among other achievements, he went on to stage the first gay rights protest in a communist country (East Germany, 1973), co-found the gay pressure group OutRage!, and attempt citizen’s arrests of Robert Mugabe (London, 1999 and Brussels, 2001). The former MP Chris Smith correctly identifies those run-ins with the Zimbabwean dictator as turning points which softened public hostility toward Tatchell.
Continue reading...Officials from France and UK to meet in Brussels after threats from both sides in post-Brexit dispute
Jersey has issued another 49 licences to French boats in an apparent attempt to de-escalate a post-Brexit row over fishing rights in which the UK and France have issued tit-for-tat threats.
The Jersey government said it was allowing another round of temporary licences until the end of January to allow time for new arrangements to be put in place, as the two sides prepared to meet to try to resolve the row.
Continue reading...Loyalists reportedly claim attack in Newtownards in which driver was held at gunpoint, according to minister
Armed and masked men hijacked and set fire to a double-decker bus at dawn on Monday, fuelling fears of a fresh wave of Brexit-related violence in Northern Ireland.
The charred and smouldering remains of the vehicle remained in the Newtownards area on Monday afternoon.
Continue reading...Monarch seen alone in green Jaguar that she usually uses to take her dogs to go for a walk
The Queen, who is following medical advice to take it easy for two weeks, donned a headscarf and sunglasses as she got behind the wheel to drive herself around her estate at Windsor on Monday.
Forced to cancel her appearance at Cop26 in Glasgow after a recent overnight stay in hospital for tests, she was seen alone in the green Jaguar estate that she usually uses to take her dogs to go for a walk.
Continue reading...At the heart of the row is the Brexit deal’s failure to spell out what proof French fishers need to get a permit
Britain and France have been at loggerheads over post-Brexit fishing licences for UK waters since the start of the year. Both sides are now threatening imminent action – and mistranslations have not helped.
Continue reading...Cliches aside, new hires and storylines add inclusivity to the menu in show’s series two
It has been criticised for trotting out cliches about France and the French and mocked for its idealised portrayal of Paris. But now the Netflix show Emily in Paris will focus on diversity and inclusion for its second series, according to its star, Lily Collins.
The actor, who stars as Emily and is also a producer on the series, said she had heard viewers’ concerns about the show, which first hit our screens last year, and efforts had been made to address them.
The second series of Emily in Paris is scheduled for release in December.
Continue reading...Accolade reflects how use of the short form of ‘vaccine’ rose by 72 times in a year and spread across society
In a year when talk over the virtual garden fence has focused on whether you have been jabbed, jagged or had both doses yet, and whether it was Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna you were injected with, Oxford Languages has chosen vax as its word of the year.
After deciding last year that it was impossible to sum up 2020 in one word, the company that produces the Oxford English Dictionary said the shorthand for vaccine had “injected itself into the bloodstream of the English language” this year during the Covid pandemic.
Continue reading...Number of injuries not yet known but rail services are suspended in the area
Emergency services have scrambled to respond to a collision of two trains near Salisbury on Sunday night, in a critical incident that left one train carriage derailed.
About 50 firefighters from Dorset and Wiltshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight and South Western fire and rescue services are at the scene, which is close to London Road in Salisbury, along with Wiltshire police and Network Rail.
Continue reading...UK PM says climate crisis talks at G20 over weekend only ‘inched forward’
The Cop26 climate summit is at serious risk of failure because countries are still not promising enough to restrict global temperature rises to below 1.5C, Boris Johnson has warned.
In a blunt admission after two days of preliminary talks at the G20 meeting of world leaders, the prime minister conceded little progress had been made – and the conference is not on track to achieve a deal that keeps the goal alive. He put the chances of success as “six out of 10”.
Continue reading...No 10 says ‘our stance has not changed’ after French officials state Macron and Johnson found path to de-escalating dispute
A dispute between the UK and France over post-Brexit fishing rights has escalated significantly after a meeting between Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, with Downing Street rejecting a French claim that the two leaders had agreed a path towards resolving the issue.
Johnson and the French president met alone for half an hour on Sunday morning on the fringes of the G20 summit in Rome, where they discussed the fishing row, as well as tensions over Northern Ireland and this week’s Cop26 climate summit.
Continue reading...Follow the latest updates on the coronavirus from the UK and around the world
Covid infections in the UK are at record levels, with 1.28 million people suffering from the virus, but scientists say that cases may have peaked as separate figures suggest the number of daily infections has declined by 14%.
Russians are spurning the Sputnik jab and heading west for vaccines to enable them to travel more freely as international regulators delay approval.
Continue reading...With more retailers welcoming pets, our reporter ventures out with her puppy Calisto to see if we really are a nation of animal lovers
It’s a Saturday morning and I’m crammed into a small changing room, attempting to try on a new pair of trousers. It’s always a struggle with the multiple layers of autumnal clothing, and I’m even more flustered than usual. Because also crammed into the tiny space is a large dog, giving me a quizzical look and clearly wondering if this is the start of a new game. She quickly decides, yes, yes it is.
Dog ownership is booming. According to the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association, there are 12.5m dogs in the UK this year, with 33% of households having a canine companion, while the Kennel Club is among the charities and organisations that have reported a surge in puppy ownership during the Covid pandemic.
Continue reading...Evidence from animal remains shows Norse seafarers settled on the islands centuries before Portuguese explorers
They came from the land of the ice and snow and the midnight sun – but still ended up in some balmy destinations. This is the conclusion of researchers who have discovered evidence to support the idea that the Vikings settled on the clement shores of the Azores several hundred years before the Portuguese arrived in 1427.
Given that the Vikings are usually associated with the frozen north, the claim is startling. Nevertheless, it is based on solid science, says a group of international researchers who recently analysed lakebed sediments in the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic.
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