Sir Philip Barton refused to say precisely when Raab had been on holiday in August
The head of the diplomatic service has admitted failing to show leadership after he began a three-week holiday two days before the Foreign Office internally accepted Kabul was about to fall to the Taliban.
Sir Philip Barton stayed on holiday until 28 August and during bruising evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, he admitted this was a mistake.
Continue reading...Frankie Smith, 20, has admitted child cruelty but accuses her partner, Savannah Brockhill, of killing 16-month-old girl
A 20-year-old woman was “a terrible mother” who was cruel to her toddler daughter but did not kill her, a court has heard.
Sixteen-month-old Star Hobson died on 22 September 2020 after being beaten to death in the flat she shared with her mother, Frankie Smith, in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
Continue reading...Researchers fear new Covid variant could spread unnoticed because rough means of flagging up cases does not work
Scientists have identified a “stealth” version of the Omicron variant which cannot be detected with the routine tests that public health officials are using to track its spread around the world.
The stealth variant has many mutations in common with standard Omicron, but it lacks a particular genetic change that allows lab-based PCR tests to be used as a rough and ready means of flagging up probable cases.
Continue reading...The Omicron variant has refocused attention on vaccination rates as data shows disparities in uptake across age, region and ethnicity
Hundreds of cases of the new Omicron Covid-19 variant have now been confirmed in the UK and experts have called for a renewed focus on vaccination rates.
As of 4 December, just over eight in 10 people aged 12 or older UK-wide had received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to data from the UK Health Security Agency, while 89% had received a first dose. This means about 6 million eligible people may still be unvaccinated, based on ONS population figures as opposed to counts of GP records. So who are they?
Continue reading...Early indications Omicron more transmissible than Delta, says Boris Johnson; Nicola Sturgeon says staff should work from home until mid-January
All international arrivals to the UK are now required to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test to tackle the new Omicron variant.
The tightened requirements have just come into force from 4am (GMT) on Tuesday 7 December.
Continue reading...‘Fahim’ was cleared to leave Kabul. Then the phone went dead. Now he moves house every two days to evade capture
Fahim, a journalist who had worked with British media organisations, was one of thousands of Afghans who approached the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for help to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban’s conquest this summer.
Told he was cleared to travel with his family to the UK, he was also one of the many left behind as the promised help from the FCDO failed to materialise.
Continue reading...Industry body warns that some operators won’t last the winter after return of strict Covid travel rules
Travel firms have called on the government to provide urgent financial help as fresh Covid-19 restrictions come in to force on Tuesday, hitting holiday travel just before the peak booking period.
Turnover has been at just 22% of normal levels for tour operators, according to figures from the travel association Abta.
Continue reading...Ex-diplomat claims string of failings within department led to ‘people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban’
Tens of thousands of Afghans were unable to access UK help following the fall of Kabul because of turmoil and confusion in the Foreign Office, according a devastating account by a whistleblower.
A former diplomat has claimed bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, lack of planning and a short-hours culture in the department led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.
Continue reading...Finding is good news for lower-income countries that have not yet completed their primary vaccination campaigns
Combining a first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with a second dose of either the Moderna or the Novavax jabs results in far higher levels of neutralising antibodies and T-cells compared with two doses of the AstraZeneca jab, a study has found.
The finding has important implications for lower-income countries that have not yet completed their primary vaccination campaigns, as it suggests you do not need access to mRNA vaccines – and therefore ultra-cold storage facilities – to trigger an extremely potent Covid-19 vaccine response.
Continue reading...The health secretary has updated the Commons on the latest numbers of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus virus, as well as new travel restrictions for those arriving in the UK
Continue reading...Actor and activist announces he will use future earnings to fund social projects after ‘turning point’ of organising 2019 Homeless World Cup
Hollywood star Michael Sheen has said he is now a “not-for-profit actor” after selling his houses and giving the proceeds to charity.
The actor and activist, 52, said organising the 2019 Homeless World Cup in Cardiff was a turning point for him. When funding for the £2m project fell through at the last moment, Sheen sold his own houses to bankroll it.
Continue reading...Two-thirds of contracts awarded before ‘eight-stage process’ was put in place were given out after referrals from ‘VIP lane’
At least 46 PPE deals were awarded to firms put in a special “VIP lane” by Conservative ministers, MPs and officials during the Covid pandemic before a formal due diligence process was put in place, it has emerged.
Ministers had claimed all PPE contracts were put through a rigorous “eight-stage process” for assuring quality and value for money, when criticised over the “VIP lane” via which contracts worth £5bn were handed to companies with political or Whitehall connections.
Continue reading...Exclusive: at least 16 notices issued to prevent future deaths after inquests highlight care failures
Coroners in England have said lessons must be learned from failings made by overstretched services that struggled to adapt during the Covid pandemic, as details of inquests into deaths only now emerge.
At the height of the pandemic, everything from mental health and coastguard services to care homes had to quickly change how they operated, and coroners across England are highlighting failures made during this time through reports that identify avoidable deaths.
Azra Hussain, 41, who died in secure accommodation in Birmingham on 6 May 2020. Two months before her death, she had been due to begin electroconvulsive therapy, but because of an administrative error the treatment was cancelled and was then no longer possible because of Covid restrictions. The inquest jury concluded that had she been given this treatment, she would probably have lived.
Ruth Jones, a frail older woman thought to have caught Covid, who died in a care home after a fall in self-isolation. A coroner said the care home was not equipped to watch Jones during her isolation but she needed to be monitored because of her risk of injury if left alone.
Anthony Williamson, an experienced sea kayaker who died on his 54th birthday after getting into difficulty. The coroner said he was concerned there was a reduced level of coastguard cover around the Cornish coastline owing to the pandemic.
Continue reading...Amelie Osborn-Smith said she felt 'very lucky' to be alive and was not going to be held back, after a crocodile mauled her during a white water rafting trip along the Zambezi in Zambia.
Osborne-Smith, 18, thought she would lose her foot after the attack and said she was very 'relieved' when doctors told her they had managed to save it
Continue reading...Amelie Osborn-Smith says she feels ‘very lucky’ in first interview after incident while rafting in Zambia
A British teenager who was mauled by a crocodile in southern Africa feared she would need to have her foot amputated, and said she felt “very lucky” during an interview from her hospital bed.
Amelie Osborn-Smith, 18, was left with her right foot “hanging loose” and a dislocated hip after the attack in the Zambezi River in Zambia while she was taking a break during a white water rafting expedition.
Continue reading...Members of Belarus Free Theatre say authorities ‘are more scared of artists than of political statements’
For 16 years, the Belarus Free Theatre has advocated for freedom of expression, equality and democracy through underground performances from ad hoc locations to audiences hungry for an alternative voice to the country’s repressive dictator, Alexander Lukashenko.
Now the banned company has taken the momentous decision to relocate outside Belarus, saying the risk of reprisals against its members is too great for it to continue its cultural resistance under the Lukashenko regime.
Continue reading...Covid vaccine rollout must reach developing world to prevent further variants, experts say
Failure to vaccinate the world against coronavirus created the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of the Omicron variant and should serve as a wake-up call to wealthy nations, campaigners have said.
Scientists and global health experts have called for action since the summer to tackle the crisis of vaccine inequality between rich and poor countries. The longer large parts of the world remained unvaccinated, they said, the more likely the virus was to mutate significantly.
Continue reading...Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert says this will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods
The coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed more than 5 million people worldwide is far from over and the next one could be even more lethal, the creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has said.
As fears grow over the threat posed by the highly mutated Omicron variant, detected in more than 30 countries, Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert cautioned that while it was increasingly obvious that “this pandemic is not done with us”, the next one could be worse.
Continue reading...Hospitals already struggling to cope as they enter winter, says president of Royal College of Emergency Medicine; people march in Brussels against latest restrictions
The UK’s deputy prime minister Dominic Raab has defended the government’s decision to reintroduce pre-departure tests. He has told Sky News:
I know that is a burden for the travel industry but we have made huge, huge strides in this country. We have got to take the measures targeted forensically to stop the new variant seeding in this country to create a bigger problem.
We have taken a balanced approach but we are always alert to extra risk that takes us back not forward.
Well of course it was the Labour party who were calling for pre-testing to take place because we’re very concerned that the government consistently throughout the pandemic have been very late in making the calls that are required to keep our borders safe, very late in terms of trying to ... control the spread of that virus. And what we want to do is to make sure that we don’t jeopardise the vaccination rollout.
The worst thing in the world after all the sacrifices that we’ve made is that a new variant comes in and completely takes the rug from under that programme. And so it’s very important the government get a grip, it’s very important the government takes swift action and frankly it shouldn’t be for the opposition to keep continually one step ahead of the government. The government needs to take control themselves.
Many flying home for their first Christmas since the pandemic began will be hit with scandalous testing costs. Unscrupulous private providers are pocketing millions, and leaving many families forced to shell out huge sums.
Ministers are sitting on their hands while people who want to do the right thing are paying the price for this broken market.
Continue reading...Artist would sell stencil used to paint mural depicting what was thought to be Oscar Wilde on listed building
Banksy has offered to raise millions of pounds towards buying Reading prison, where Oscar Wilde was once held, so that it can be turned into an arts centre.
The street artist has promised to match the jail’s £10m asking price by selling the stencil he used to paint on the Grade II-listed building in March, a move campaigners hope will prevent it from being sold to housing developers.
Continue reading...