Category Archives: UK news

UK children aged 16 and 17 expected to be offered Covid vaccine

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Minister says JCVI experts to update advice ‘imminently’ on widening access to vaccine to more teenagers

Covid vaccines are expected to be offered to children in the UK aged 16 and 17, in line with many other countries, after a minister confirmed government experts will update their advice “imminently”.

Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said the government was expecting an announcement from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on widening access to the coronavirus vaccine to more teenagers.

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Suspected tanker hijacking off UAE coast is over, says British military

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Armed group has left the Panama-registered Asphalt Princess, says British navy, after initial reports Iranian-backed forces had raided vessel

A group of armed men who boarded a tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman have left the targeted ship, the British navy has said without elaborating.

The notice on Wednesday came after the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) warned of a “potential hijack” under unclear circumstances underway the night before.

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Vaccinologist Barbie: Prof Sarah Gilbert honoured with a doll

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Co-creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab hopes it will inspire young girls to enter Stem careers

Prof Sarah Gilbert has had quite a year. The co-creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab has been made a dame, been given an emotional standing ovation at Wimbledon – and now a Barbie doll has been made in her honour.

Gilbert, who led the development of the Covid vaccine at Oxford University, said she initially found the gesture “very strange” but hoped it would inspire young girls to work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem).

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Vigil held in London park for murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman

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London mayor Sadiq Khan among large crowd gathered at Fryent Country Park to remember the sisters

Large crowds lit candles and laid flowers at a vigil to remember murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman on Tuesday evening on what would have been Nicole’s 29th birthday.

Family, friends, campaigners, politicians and well wishers gathered at Fryent Country Park in Wembley, north-west London, to honour the sisters and all women lost to male violence. The proceedings kicked off with Brent North MP Barry Gardiner singing Amazing Grace.

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Drug poisoning deaths in England and Wales reach record high

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Charities warn of a public health emergency after data shows 4,561 deaths in 2020 – up 3.8% on previous year

Deaths due to drug poisoning in England and Wales have reached a record high, with a growing number of people dying after using cocaine and opiates, data shows.

Charities warned the figures showed there was a public health emergency, with the pandemic negatively affecting those with addiction problems. In 2020, 4,561 died from drug poisoning– the equivalent of 79.5 deaths per million people. This is 3.8% higher than figures for 2019 and the highest number since records began in 1993.

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Rapist jailed after fight for justice by daughter born following attack

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Carvel Bennett receives 11-year sentence at Birmingham crown court for raping 13-year-old in 1970s

A rapist whose 13-year-old victim became pregnant in the 1970s has been jailed for 11 years, decades after the crime, following a successful prosecution pursued by the daughter conceived during the attack.

Carvel Bennett, 74, was found guilty of the rape of the teenager at Birmingham crown court on Monday after a three-day trial. She was at his home when the rape occurred because she had been asked to babysit his children.

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UN criticises UK for failure to redress colonial-era landgrab in Kenya

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Two clans brutally evicted to make way for tea plantations owned by white settlers are seeking reparations for rights violations

The British government has been criticised by the UN for a lack of resolution over colonial-era crimes committed in Kenya.

Six UN special rapporteurs have written to the government expressing concern over its failure to provide “effective remedies and reparations” to the Kipsigis and Talai peoples.

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Johnson’s travel policy in chaos, Labour says, after ‘amber watchlist’ ditched

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Ministers need to get a grip on ‘reckless U-turns and confusion’, shadow transport secretary says

No 10 is facing claims that its international travel policy is in chaos after Boris Johnson ditched a plan for an “amber watchlist” that would have created a five-tier warning system for England.

After a revolt in the cabinet and a backlash from the travel industry, government sources said on Monday night that Boris Johnson would not be going ahead with proposals for an amber watchlist tier to warn travellers which countries were at risk of turning red.

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Trial to test if cannabis-based mouth spray can treat brain tumours

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First such study in the world aims to find out if Sativex combined with chemotherapy can help treat glioblastoma

Cancer charities and the NHS are preparing to investigate whether a cannabis-based mouth spray can treat brain tumours and help patients to live longer.

Doctors will give patients across the UK with a recurrent brain tumour called a glioblastoma the drug, which is known as Sativex, alongside a chemotherapy medication – temozolomide – in a clinical trial in an attempt to kill off cancerous cells.

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Jeremy Clarkson criticises Covid scientists, saying ‘if you die, you die’

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Broadcaster complains about caution shown by ‘communists at Sage’ over reopening society

It is a long list that includes travellers, cyclists, animal rights activists, lorry drivers, George Michael and Liverpool. Now Jeremy Clarkson has opened himself up to more anger after he criticised “those communists at Sage” preventing opening up because, he argues, “if you die, you die.”

In an interview with the Radio Times, Clarkson gives his views on the pandemic and what should happen next. Many will find his thoughts typically boorish and insensitive.

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Dizzee Rascal charged with assault after domestic argument

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The rapper and producer is on bail after an incident at a residential address in Streatham

Dizzee Rascal, the award-winning rapper and producer whose real name is Dylan Mills, has been charged with assaulting a woman following a domestic argument.

In a statement, the Metropolitan police said: “Dylan Mills, 36, of Sevenoaks, Kent, has been charged with assault after an incident at a residential address in Streatham on 8 June. Officers attended and a woman reported minor injuries. She did not require hospital treatment.”

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Research into non-injectable Covid vaccines brings hope for needle-phobics

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Scientists say anxiety around needles could be playing role in vaccine hesitancy in the UK

The sight of a needle piercing skin is enough to chill a quarter of adult Britons and trigger up to 4% into fainting. But hope is on the horizon for needle-phobics as researchers are working on a range of non-injectable Covid vaccine formulations, including nasal sprays and tablets.

Almost every vaccine in use today comes with a needle, and the approved Covid-19 vaccines are no exception. Once jabbed, the body’s immune system usually mounts a response, but scientists in the UK and beyond are hoping to harness the immune arsenal of the mucous membranes that line the nose, mouth, lungs and digestive tract, regions typically colonised by respiratory viruses including Covid-19, in part to allay the fears of needle-phobics.

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Princess Latifa campaigner had ‘phone compromised by Pegasus spyware’

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Human rights activist David Haigh targeted in attack suspected to have been ordered by Dubai

A British human rights campaigner and lawyer who was fighting to free Dubai’s Princess Latifa had his mobile phone compromised by Pegasus spyware on 3 and 4 August 2020, according to a forensic analysis carried out by Amnesty International.

David Haigh is the first confirmed British victim of infiltration by Pegasus software, an attack suspected to have been ordered by Dubai, because of his connection with the 35-year-old princess, a daughter of the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed, and the Free Latifa campaign of which he was part.

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Exhibition to show 50 contemporary portraits of Holocaust survivors

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Imperial War Museum display shows survivors alongside younger generations of their families

When Kitty Hart-Moxon, 97, was recently asked to choose one object that symbolised the horrors she survived at the hands of the Nazis in Auschwitz, Belsen, and on death marches, she had no doubts.

A glass container encasing the preserved tattooed numbers she had cut out of her own arm and also that of her mother, Rosa Lola, which she keeps in a cupboard at her home in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, is a shocking, tangible reminder.

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Angela Rayner: ‘We don’t want to be an opposition, we want to be a government’

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Labour’s deputy leader opens up about being a carer, byelections, and achieving a ‘cultural shift’ in the workplace

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has said her own experience as a care worker helped to convince her more flexible working could be a “win-win” for staff and employers.

Speaking to the Guardian after announcing new policies last week on employment rights and flexible conditions, Rayner said she had helped negotiate family-friendly working when she was a trade union representative.

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Police appeal for information after teenager stabbed to death in Birmingham

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West Midlands police seek contact details of family of Brahane Yordanos, who do not yet know of her killing

Detectives are trying to find the family of a 19-year-old woman found fatally stabbed at her home in Birmingham. West Midlands police named the victim as Brahane Yordanos, from Eritrea in north-east Africa, on Sunday.

Just after 6am on Saturday, officers were called to Unett Street, Newtown, where the teenager was discovered with stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Johnson faces rebellion over ‘intolerable’ hunger and poverty in home counties

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Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe, urged ministers not to ignore the cost of living crisis in constituencies like his

Boris Johnson faces another backbench rebellion over the Treasury’s spending this autumn, as a high-profile Tory MP hit out at “intolerable” levels of hunger and poverty in his affluent home counties constituency, and urged ministers to abandon plans to cut universal credit.

Steve Baker, a leading Brexiter and MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, called on ministers not to ignore the cost of living crisis faced by people “in real trouble” in constituencies like his who had been “tipped over the edge” financially by the pandemic.

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The Guardian view on Fortress Europe: a continent losing its moral compass

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The increasingly draconian approach to irregular migration betrays the spirit of the 1951 refugee convention

Seventy years ago, the 1951 UN refugee convention established the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary, and the obligations of states to protect them. Increasingly, it seems that much of Europe is choosing to commemorate the anniversary by ripping up some of the convention’s core principles.

So far this year, close to 1,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean, more than four times the death toll for the same period in 2020. Many will have been economic migrants. Others will have been fleeing persecution. Increasingly, Europe does not care. All were “irregular”. And all must be discouraged and deterred through a strategy of cruelty.

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‘Highly likely’ Iran was behind fatal oil tanker attack – Dominic Raab

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Foreign secretary backs Israeli PM’s claims Iran was behind drone strike that killed Briton and Romanian

The UK has said it is “highly likely” that Iran carried out an “unlawful and callous attack” on a ship in the Middle East, which left a Briton dead.

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the government believed the drone attack on the oil tanker off the coast of Oman was “deliberate, targeted, and a clear violation of international law by Iran”.

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Coronavirus live news: UK chancellor ‘pushes PM to relax holiday rules’; mass testing amid China outbreak

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Latest updates: Rishi Sunak says restrictions ‘out of step’ with international rivals, according to media reports; China battling worst caseload in months

As cases of the Delta coronavirus variant have risen and vaccination rates slowed, several US businesses and institutions have announced they will now require vaccinations from employees.

Major companies like Walmart and Disney said this week all employees must be vaccinated, while Joe Biden said all federal employees must be vaccinated or face masking, testing and distancing requirements.

Related: America mulls vaccine mandates – will they work?

Hackers have attacked and shut down the IT systems of the company that manages Covid-19 vaccination appointments for the Lazio region surrounding Rome, the regional government said on Sunday.

“A powerful hacker attack on the region’s CED (database) is under way,” the region said in a Facebook posting.

It is a very powerful hacker attack, very serious... everything is out. The whole regional CED is under attack.

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