French navy helicopter winched woman from the sea, but she was later pronounced dead
A woman has died after going overboard from a passenger ship off the Channel Islands.
The French coastguard said it received a distress message saying a woman in her 20s had gone overboard north of Les Casquets rocks, west of Alderney, shortly after midnight on Saturday. The woman went overboard from the Maltese-flagged cruise ship MSC Virtuosa.
Continue reading...Legislation expected to be brought by end of 2025, with service for residents in place by mid-2027
Jersey is to move ahead with allowing assisted dying for people with a terminal illness after a vote in its parliament on Wednesday.
Legislation is expected to be brought before the island’s states assembly by the end of 2025, and an assisted dying service for residents to be in place by mid-2027.
Continue reading...Proposals deter ‘death tourism’ by requiring applicants to have lived on the island for at least 12 months
Jersey could legalise assisted dying for people who are terminally ill or have an incurable condition with unbearable suffering under proposals to be debated in the island’s parliament.
The proposals, published on Friday, may lead to Jersey becoming the first jurisdiction in the British Isles to allow assisted dying.
Continue reading...Parliamentary inquiry highlights likelihood of Scotland, Jersey or Isle of Man passing new laws
Laws to allow assisted dying may pass in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man in the next few years, leading to a divergence between different parts of the UK and British Isles, MPs have warned.
The government must consider the repercussions of this, a parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying has said.
Continue reading...School leavers in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man will also receive their results today
The number of students accepted on to UK degree courses has fallen this year, Ucas figures show.
Press Association reports:
Firstly, I want to say a huge congratulations to the hundreds of thousands of students up and down the country who are celebrating their results and next steps today.
I am delighted to see more than 200,000 UK 18-year-olds have secured their first choice, which is testament to their hard work and commitment to progress to higher education in a year that has seen many complex factors at play, such as geopolitics, the economy and job market, and cost of living.
Labour recognises the enormous effort that all of our young people have put into their studies over the past year.
Young people have achieved these results despite the challenges they’ve faced: with a Labour government behind them, offering them pathways to good prospects, there will be no limit on what they can achieve.
Continue reading...An official investigation of claims that many more people than previously thought died during Nazi control of the Channel Island has pleased some, but dismayed others
Their foreboding entrance smothered in ivy, the tunnels gouged out of sheer rock beside Water Lane on the island of Alderney have long terrified generations of the island’s children.
For decades, though, it seemed that was as far as the notoriety of the dank tunnels on the outskirts of St Anne, the capital of the tiny Channel Island, would extend.
Continue reading...Thousands of people may have perished on Alderney during the second world war but their murderers never stood trial
The official inquiry into Nazi atrocities committed on Alderney in the Channel Islands is under pressure to investigate why those responsible for committing war crimes on British soil were never brought to trial in the UK.
Prof Anthony Glees, the security and intelligence expert who advised Margaret Thatcher’s war crimes inquiry, told the Observer: “This is a vital opportunity to establish all the facts, and it must examine why those who perpetrated such heinous war crimes were never brought to trial in this country. The review into the atrocities on Alderney is to be warmly welcomed, but I believe it should not just focus on the numbers killed, as important as that is.”
Continue reading...Review could show that thousands more Jews and prisoners of war died on Alderney than previously thought
The full horrors of the only Nazi concentration camps to exist on British soil will finally be investigated in an official government inquiry, the Observer can reveal.
Eighty years on from one of the darkest episodes in British history, the government is to carry out a review into the numbers of prisoners murdered by the Nazis on Alderney, the tiny Channel Island and British crown dependency.
Continue reading...New government register shows how offshore jurisdictions used for ownership of nearly 200 properties including hotels and country estates
The royal families of Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar own more than £1bn of UK property via offshore jurisdictions, such as Jersey and the British Virgin Islands, the Guardian can reveal.
Nearly 200 properties, including hotels, London mansions and country estates, belong to a few small but super-rich dynasties, according to analysis of a new government register that reveals who is behind offshore companies that own UK property.
Continue reading...Kathy McGinness, who lived adjacent to flats that collapsed, died in hospital on Christmas Day
A woman injured in an explosion at a block of flats in Jersey earlier this month died on Christmas Day, taking the death toll to 10.
Kathleen (Kathy) McGinness, 73, who lived at Haut du Mont adjacent to the building that collapsed, died at Jersey general hospital.
Continue reading...As many as 12 people feared killed and criminal inquiry could be launched after blast at block of flats in St Helier
Twelve people are feared to have been killed and a criminal investigation could be launched after a suspected gas explosion destroyed a block of flats in the centre of Jersey’s capital, St Helier.
Five people have been confirmed dead but more are said to be missing, with the island’s fire chief, Paul Brown, saying he was no longer leading a rescue mission.
Continue reading...Police say there could be more fatalities after 4am collapse of three-storey building on Channel Island
At least three people have died and about 12 people are believed to be missing after an explosion in a block of flats in St Helier, Jersey police have said.
The blast at Haut du Mont, Pier Road, in the capital, occurred at about 4am on Saturday, less than eight hours after firefighters had been called to the site after concerns from residents, it was confirmed.
Continue reading...Fishing boat believed to be resting on seabed after collision with Condor Ferries freight vessel
The search for three fishers whose boat sank in the Channel after a collision with a freight vessel has resumed off the coast of Jersey.
Lifeboats and a search aircraft were launched at first light to continue to scour the area to the west and north-west of the island.
Continue reading...British government says move agreed during talks before Friday midnight deadline set by Brussels
The UK and Jersey governments have issued further licences to French fishing boats to trawl British waters in an apparent attempt to ease cross-Channel tensions.
The Brussels-imposed deadline of midnight on Friday for solving the post-Brexit fishing row passed without an agreement being announced.
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...No 10 threatens retaliation against French measures including port ban on British fishing boats
A major trade dispute has broken out between the UK and France after Paris banned British fishing boats from key ports, vowed to impose onerous checks on cross-Channel trade, and threatened the UK’s energy supply over a row over post-Brexit rights to UK waters.
The move prompted a dramatic response from Downing Street where a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said the UK government would retaliate over what was a described as a potential breach of international law.
Continue reading...French government pushing EU to take stronger stance in dispute over access to Channel waters
The EU could hit Britain and Jersey’s energy supply over the UK’s failure to provide sufficient fishing licences to French fishers, France’s EU affairs minister has said.
Clément Beaune, who is a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion.
Continue reading...Locals in the port of Granville think the row between France and the UK over fishing makes no sense
If you look out to sea from the Christian Dior museum on the cliffs above Granville, you see the grey outline of what appears to be another part of the Norman coast.
It is. But it isn’t.
Continue reading...Their families have been fishing here for decades but despite promises of frictionless trade, the market for their fish is disappearing
Steph Noel, who has been fishing the waters off Jersey for almost four decades, could not see the point of chugging out to sea in his 8.5-metre boat, Belle Bird, this weekend.
“There’s no value in it for me,” he said. “It’ll cost me in bait and diesel but even if I have a good day there’s no market there for what I bring back.”
Continue reading...Boris Johnson dispatches two gunboats to protect island from feared blockade
Boris Johnson has dispatched two Royal Navy patrol boats to protect Jersey from a feared blockade by French fishing vessels, in an escalation of a dispute over post-Brexit access to waters around the Channel island.
The move followed talks on Wednesday evening between the prime minister and the chief minister of the British crown dependency, John Le Fondré, who had warned Downing Street of imminent movements by French fishing boats to cut off the island’s main port.
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