Category Archives: UK news

UK asks EU to suspend Northern Ireland sausage ban

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Brexit minister Lord Frost asks for ‘a bit of breathing space’ to negotiate deal and head off trade war

The UK has asked the EU to suspend an imminent ban on the sale of British sausages in Northern Ireland to give both sides “breathing space” to negotiate an agreement on the Brexit protocol and avert a trade war.

Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, was speaking days after Boris Johnson warned he would do “whatever it takes” to protect Northern Ireland’s position as part of the UK.

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New drug cuts deaths among patients with no Covid antibodies

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Oxford University trial reports cocktail of manmade antibodies reduces fatalities by a fifth

A new drug has been found to cut Covid deaths by a fifth among the sickest patients in hospital and may change official practice so that every patient with coronavirus will have an antibody test before they are admitted.

The Recovery trial based at Oxford University has found a third drug that can help Covid patients recover in hospital – but this one is the first to tackle the virus itself, rather than the inflammation that develops in the later stages of the disease.

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Scotland Yard to review UK Ghislaine Maxwell trafficking claims

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Channel 4 News uncovered allegations socialite groomed young women and girls in UK for Jeffrey Epstein

Scotland Yard has said it will review allegations that British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked, groomed and abused women and girls in the UK.

Maxwell, 59, the former girlfriend of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and other charges in the US over her alleged role in procuring four teenage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004. She is currently in a US prison awaiting trial after proceedings were delayed until autumn.

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Home Office abandons plans to deport Osime Brown to Jamaica

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Family celebrate success of campaign to halt deportation of 22-year-old, who has autism

A 22-year-old man who has autism and his family are celebrating after the Home Office abandoned plans to deport him to Jamaica.

Osime Brown, who left Jamaica aged four to settle in the UK with his mother, Joan Martin, was facing deportation after being released from prison where he had been serving a sentence for stealing a friend’s mobile phone, though he and others said he did not do it.

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More countries restrict travel from UK over Delta variant fears

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Ireland to double to 10 days its quarantine period for UK travellers who are not fully vaccinated

Ireland is to double to 10 days its quarantine period for travellers from the UK who are not fully vaccinated, joining a growing list of countries imposing stricter travel rules on British arrivals due to concerns over the rapid spread of the Delta variant.

The announcement came after Boris Johnson on Monday delayed by a month the final stage of England’s exit from lockdown amid accusations the government should have acted faster by placing India, where the variant was first detected, on its red restricted-travel list before 23 April.

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‘People have already forgotten Jo Cox’: Samuel Kasumu on why he quit as No 10’s race adviser

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He resigned amid the fallout from a government report that dismissed institutional racism. In his first interview since, he says some members of the government are waging a culture war – and endangering the country

Samuel Kasumu is worried about what is to come. The former race adviser to No 10 has watched, dismayed, as commentators and members of the government – who he believes should know better – engage in a bitter culture war. He warns that the consequences for the UK will be severe.

“There are some people in the government who feel like the right way to win is to pick a fight on the culture war and to exploit division,” he says. “I worry about that. It seems like people have very short memories and they’ve already forgotten Jo Cox.” Kasumu believes the man who killed the MP may have been radicalised and worked into a “frenzy” by the narratives in certain newspapers that are pushed by media commentators.

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The Covid Delta variant: how effective are the vaccines?

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Analysis: what protection do they offer against infection, hospital admission and death?

As lockdown easing in England is delayed from 21 June to a possible date of 19 July amid concerns of a substantial wave of hospitalisations due to the Delta variant of coronavirus, we take a look at the latest data on the protection offered by vaccines.

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Why is Israel lifting Covid restrictions as England extends them?

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Analysis: both are viewed as running successful vaccine campaigns, but case numbers are very different

Israel and the UK were viewed as world leaders in their coronavirus vaccine campaigns but whereas the former is lifting almost all pandemic limitations, the latter is now glumly extending its restrictions in England amid a sharp rise in infections.

Despite starting its mass inoculation programme after the UK in December, Israel has sped ahead and it reached a key milestone on Tuesday, scrapping a requirement to wear face masks indoors, one of the final Covid limitations.

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The sexual assault of sleeping women: the hidden, horrifying rape crisis in Britain’s bedrooms

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A recent survey suggested a shockingly high proportion of women have been sexually assaulted by a partner as they slept. Now more and more are speaking out

Niamh Ní Dhomhnaill had been with her partner for almost a year when she discovered that he’d been raping her while she slept. At the time, she was 25, and a language teacher in a Dublin secondary school. Her partner, Magnus Meyer Hustveit, was Norwegian. The couple had moved in together within a few months of meeting, but things were tense. It wasn’t a happy relationship.

On that particular night, Ní Dhomhnaill had been out with Hustveit and other friends, but left early, alone, because she felt unwell. “I’d only drunk water but I’d gone to bed and was out for the count,” she says. “I didn’t hear Magnus come back, which is unusual because I’d always been a light sleeper.”

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British nationals in France face losing rights if they miss residency deadline

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Call to extend 30 June deadline over fears Britons will lose access to healthcare and pensions

Campaigners have warned that tens of thousands of British nationals living in France and three other countries risk losing local healthcare, employment and other rights if they do not apply to remain resident in the next 14 days.

British in Europe, a group set up to protect the post-Brexit rights of about 1.2 million UK nationals living on the continent, have called on France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Malta to extend their 30 June deadline as the Netherlands has done, to 30 October.

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Eradicating polio is finally within reach. Why is the UK taking its foot off the pedal? | Anne Wafula Strike

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Instead of cutting the aid budget – including 95% from the plan to stamp out the disease – Britain should take a global lead

Despite the Covid pandemic, there have been just two recorded cases of wild polio in 2021 – in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two remaining hiding places for the disease. But eradication is not guaranteed. Polio is virulent and spreads quickly. Even one case poses a threat to unvaccinated children everywhere, which is why a new strategy launched last week by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) outlines a plan to utilise this small window of opportunity for the world to end polio for good.

A 99.9% fall in polio cases globally in recent decades is thanks in large part to the GPEI and its supporters. The British government’s recent announcement that it will slash its contributions to the GPEI by more than 95% has been a body blow. The funding cut amounts to almost a quarter of the annual World Health Organization polio eradication budget.

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Scientists convert used plastic bottles into vanilla flavouring

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Production of chemical could help make recycling more attractive and tackle global plastic pollution

Plastic bottles have been converted into vanilla flavouring using genetically engineered bacteria, the first time a valuable chemical has been brewed from waste plastic.

Upcycling plastic bottles into more lucrative materials could make the recycling process far more attractive and effective. Currently plastics lose about 95% of their value as a material after a single use. Encouraging better collection and use of such waste is key to tackling the global plastic pollution problem.

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Losing our thunder: why the UK is seeing fewer thunderstorms

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Warm air from Spain usually means thundery days will follow – but changing weather patterns are making this less likely

Today is the day when Benjamin Franklin supposedly flew a kite in a thunderstorm, to prove that lightning was electricity. We have learned a lot about thunderstorms since 1752, but our fascination with them has not diminished: who can resist the energy in that crackling drum roll, the angry purple clouds and those brilliant fleeting flashes of light?

For nearly 200 years aficionados in Oxford have been measuring thunderstorms. Analysis of this uniquely long record has been published in the journal Weather, and reveals a marked drop in the number of thunderstorms in the Oxford area during the last decade. Curiously the 1920s and 30s were peak thunder years, with an annual average of 20 days of thunder heard. By contrast, the most recent decade averaged just 8.1 days of thunder a year.

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England’s Covid lockdown lifting: is a four-week delay enough?

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Analysis: Even a short pause is expected to reduce the number of people going to hospital as more people are vaccinated

The roadmap out of lockdown – England’s strategy to return to a life more normal – was heavy on dates from the start. The first three steps, in March, April and May, passed so smoothly that a crucial point was easily forgotten: reopening rested on data, not dates, at least that was what scientific advisers hoped. Well, now the data has spoken.

England is not in lockdown today. Children are back at school. Cafes, restaurants and pubs are open. People can mix indoors, albeit in small numbers. Thousands can watch football matches. As the country moved from one step to another, more contact between people was expected to fuel cases, hospitalisations and even deaths. To keep them to a minimum, we have the vaccination programme.

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Neo-Nazi ex-Ukip member jailed for 18 years for terror offences

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Dean Morrice described by judge as ‘dangerous neo-Nazi’ who pumped out racist propaganda online

A former Ukip member who posted violent racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic propaganda online and collected the means for making bombs has been jailed for 18 years.

Dean Morrice had ball bearings, pipes and instructions for an improvised explosive device (IED) by the time his home was raided last year, and the judge at Kingston crown court said it was “fortunate” that police arrested him when they did.

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Losing ‘Freedom Day’ is galling for Boris Johnson, but things could get worse

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Analysis: The PM will get a media pasting, but backtracking would be more painful than delaying

Boris Johnson has once again been persuaded that he must do the inevitable and cancel “Freedom Day” – a decision that will deeply rankle with him.

The prime minister is said to have complained to aides over the weekend about briefings to newspapers at the end of last week that a four-week delay was the likely outcome, saying he had technically not made the decision yet. But one thing matters more to Johnson than being able to join crowds in a packed pub on 21 June: not having to close them again a few weeks later.

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Delta variant of Covid spreading rapidly and detected in 74 countries

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Concerns over impact on poorer countries, while richer governments try different containment measures

The Delta variant of Covid-19, first identified in India, has been detected in 74 countries and continues to spread rapidly amid fears that it is poised to become the dominant strain worldwide.

With outbreaks of the main Delta strain and several of its sub-lineages confirmed in China, the US, Africa, Scandinavia and the Pacific, concern increasingly is focusing on how it appears to be more transmissible as well as causing more serious illness.

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UK and EU try to settle standoff over Northern Ireland Brexit checks

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Brexit minister and EU Commission official to meet this week as tensions remain high

The Brexit minister Lord Frost and the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, are expected to meet virtually this week to try to break the deadlock over Brexit checks in Northern Ireland.

But as the countdown begins to a 30 June ban on the sale of chilled meats, including sausages, from Great Britain in Northern Irish supermarkets, tensions between the EU and Boris Johnson’s government remain heightened.

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Novavax Covid vaccine has efficacy of 90%, say manufacturers

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UK has ordered 60m doses of vaccine that is also critical part of effort to vaccinate developing world

A Covid vaccine that is a critical part of the effort to vaccinate the developing world, as well as the UK, has an efficacy of 90% overall, its manufacturers have said after trials in the US and Mexico.

The UK has ordered 60m doses of Novavax, which has manufacturing agreements in Britain. Novavax has signed an agreement to provide 1.1bn doses to Covax, the UN-led initiative to get vaccines to poorer countries. The Serum Institute of India is contracted to make 100m doses, but has been making vaccines only for India in recent months in response to the Covid crisis there.

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