Axe falls on projects for Yemen, Syria, Rohingya refugees and people affected by famine in Africa
The government claimed Britain would be a “force for good” in the world when it defended merging the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office last year, but it soon announced £4bn in cuts to aid.
Charities instead warned that the world’s most vulnerable people would be hit by the “deadly force” of Britain’s new policies.
Continue reading...Portugal has been removed from the government’s ‘green list’ of destinations from which people can return to England without having to quarantine, and no extra countries have been added.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, raised concerns of a new coronavirus mutation and rising cases in Portugal, adding the UK had to put ‘safety first’ ahead of a national reopening on 21 June
No countries added to England’s quarantine-free holiday register as seven moved from amber to red
Portugal has been taken off the UK’s “green list” of destinations from which people can return to England without having to quarantine. The government has said the threat of new Covid-19 variants means that less restricted travel could jeopardise domestic unlocking.
No countries were added to the green list, but seven more – Afghanistan, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Trinidad and Tobago – were moved from the amber list to the red list of nations to which almost all travel is barred, the Department for Transport said.
Continue reading...While restrictions in England could lift soon, impact of Delta variant on vaccination programme is uncertain
On Wednesday Boris Johnson said he saw nothing in the current data to stop the planned lifting of Covid restrictions in England on 21 June. But he said questions remained over how much protection the current vaccines offered against the Delta variant, B.1.617.2.
Continue reading...Publishing staff, in rows over authors from Mike Pence to Woody Allen, are voicing their reluctance to work on books they deem hateful. But is this really ‘younger refuseniks’, or a much older debate?
In the 1960s, Simon & Schuster’s co-founder Max Schuster was facing a dilemma. Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect and armaments minister, had written a memoir providing new insights into the workings of Nazi leadership. As Michael Korda, Schuster’s editor-in-chief, recounted in his memoir Another Life, Schuster knew it would be a huge success. “There is only one problem,” he said, “and it’s this: I do not want to see Albert Speer’s name and mine on the same book.”
In the liberal industry of publishing, the tension that exists between profit and morality is nothing new, whether it’s Schuster turning down Speer (the book was finally published by Macmillan), or the UK government introducing legislation to prevent criminals making money from writing about their crimes.
Continue reading...Beijing is using blockchain to build a new internet and many developing countries are likely to sign up – but at what cost?
Cyberspace is one huge, unregulated mess. A virtual wild west where sophisticated criminal gangs ply their trade alongside multinational companies, spy agencies, activists, celebrity influencers – and nation states. The question of who governs it is one of the biggest of our time.
Britain needs to be, if not quite ruling the waves, at least a global force for good in the expanding virtual world. The issue has never been so pressing. Six years ago, I acted for a coder in the biggest cyberfraud phishing case in the UK. The malware my client and others created was so sophisticated that the police could not decode it but were able to show it was used for fraud. The financial data harvested was stored on two servers, one in France and one in the US, and the lack of international cooperation meant law enforcement never got their hands on it.
Continue reading...A 21-year-old man has been charged with the murder of Tony Eastlake who was fatally stabbed close to his stall in Islington
A 21-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a flower seller who was fatally stabbed close to his stall in north London, the Metropolitan police said.
Tony Eastlake, 55, died from a knife wound after being attacked on Essex Road in Islington just before 5.30pm on Saturday.
Continue reading...Decision not to lift travel restrictions follows rise in cases linked to variant first identified in India
The EU has delayed putting the UK on a “white list” of countries from where non-essential travel into the bloc is approved because of concerns about the rise in cases linked to the Delta variant first identified in India.
Japan, which is in an extended state of emergency during which there has been a sustained reduction in the number of new infections, has been added to the list, diplomatic sources said. The country is due to host the Olympic Games on 23 July.
Continue reading...This year, 331 entrants are vying for the title of Cuprinol Shed of the Year, including a Catholic oratory, a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-inspired ‘inventor’s workshop’ and a haven for bats.
Continue reading...In spite of green rhetoric, money has piled into aviation and car industries since start of pandemic, report finds
The nations that make up the G7 have pumped billions of dollars more into fossil fuels than they have into clean energy since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite their promises of a green recovery.
As the UK prepares to host the G7 summit, new analysis reveals that the countries attending committed $189bn to support oil, coal and gas between January 2020 and March 2021. In comparison, the same countries – the UK, US, Canada, Italy, France, Germany and Japan – spent $147bn on clean forms of energy.
Continue reading...All eyes now turn to whether this makes an easing of England’s Covid measures on 21 June more likely
Good news is broadcast across Wednesday’s front pages, as editors seize a rare opportunity to report on hope in the battle against the coronavirus.
Many papers suggest that the first day without a single Covid death for 10 months means the complete easing of lockdown restrictions will go ahead in England as planned on 21 June.
Continue reading...Analysis: vaccine programme could sever link between infections and deaths but there are reasons to be seriously doubtful
For those who are urging the government to push ahead with easing of lockdown restrictions later this month, Tuesday’s announcement of ‘zero deaths’ in the UK will be cited as further proof of the necessity to end the delay.
Certainly, the country has come a long way since the new year Covid surge, when the daily number of infections reached a peak of more than 68,000, and the number of people in hospital would later rise to almost 40,000. Daily death tolls of more than 1,000 were common during the bleakest weeks of winter.
Continue reading...Lockdown hobbyist painted 1m tiny cobbles for scale model of Yorkshire town’s demolished St Hilda’s district
Lockdown has inspired many of us to take up new hobbies, but for one Middlesbrough man, the pandemic just meant more time to devote to a mammoth project already nine years in the making.
“It was business as usual,” says Steve Waller, 61, a model artist and historian known affectionately as the “Michelangelo of Middlesbrough” who has spent almost a decade recreating the town’s historical St Hilda’s district in his bedroom.
Continue reading...As coalition troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years, former soldiers, key officers and the public are asking what went wrong with some special forces
“Whatever we do … ,” one Australian special forces soldier said of his service in Afghanistan, “I can tell you the Brits and the US are far, far worse.
“I’ve watched our young guys stand by and hero worship what they were doing, salivating at how the US were torturing people. You just stand there and roll your eyes and wait for it to end.”
Continue reading...Former interior minister Fathi Bashagha claims ‘lazy’ UK failing in moral responsibility after 2011 Europe-led regime change
The UK has been distracted by Brexit and “lazy” in fulfilling its moral responsibility to pull Libya out of the chaos that enveloped it after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, a leading presidential candidate claimed.
The candidate, Fathi Bashagha, a former interior minister, who narrowly failed to become prime minister of an interim Libyan government in a UN process in February, said the UK had a special duty to come to Libya’s aid given David Cameron’s role in the country’s 2011 regime change.
Continue reading...Britain records no new deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test for first time since July 2020
The UK has announced no deaths from Covid-19 for the first time since July last year.
Official figures showed all four nations of the country recorded no new deaths on Tuesday within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test and 3,165 new cases of the virus. It means the official UK total number of deaths remains at 127,782, the first time the daily total has not risen since 30 July 2020.
Continue reading...Amid claims PM wanted to be infected with Covid on TV, volunteers tell of taking part in a human challenge trial
If Dominic Cummings is to be believed, Boris Johnson was so sceptical that Covid-19 was a threat early last year that he was willing to inject himself with the virus that causes the disease on television. But there are actual volunteers – young and healthy people – who elected to be infected with the virus, all in the name of science.
These volunteers lined up to participate in “human challenge trials”, which have long been successfully employed to develop vaccines for diseases from typhoid to cholera.
Continue reading...European Environment Agency judges only 110 British coastal and inland sites to be excellent
Swimmers in the UK hoping to enjoy waters certified clean and healthy this summer have been let down again. Only 110 coastal and inland sites were judged excellent in the latest bathing water quality data from Europe’s environmental watchdog.
Most of the UK’s bathing sites were not classified in 2020, however, because Covid-19 restrictions prevented sampling. This meant that out of 640 sites, 457 received no verdict in the rankings, compiled annually by the European Environment Agency and published on Tuesday.
Continue reading...EU forecast to reap extra €50bn per year with UK expected to gain €200m from BP alone
A proposal to be tabled by the US president, Joe Biden, at the upcoming G7 meeting for a 15% global corporate tax rate could reap the EU €50bn (£43bn) a year, and earn the UK nearly €200m extra alone from the British multinational BP, according to research.
Should the tax rate be set higher at 25%, the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies, the EU would earn nearly €170bn extra a year – more than 50% of current corporate tax revenue and 12% of total health spending in the bloc.
Continue reading...WHO unveils new names for variants of concern to replace ones linked to where they were discovered
Coronavirus variants are to be named after letters of the Greek alphabet instead of their place of first discovery, the World Health Organization has announced, in a move to avoid stigma.
The WHO has named four variants of concern, known to the public as the UK/Kent (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), Brazil (P.1) and India (B.1.617.2) variants. They will now be given the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta respectively, to reflect their order of detection, with any new variants following the pattern down the Greek alphabet.
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