UK Meteor Network says object in night sky most likely a deorbiting satellite from Elon Musk’s SpaceX
A fireball seen over Scotland and Northern Ireland is likely to have been space junk from Elon Musk’s satellite programme, according to astronomers examining it.
The UK Meteor Network said the fireball was visible for 20 seconds just after 10pm on Wednesday night. It received almost 800 reports from Scotland, North Ireland and northern England.
Continue reading...Queen’s coffin will travel from the Scottish capital to London on Tuesday
The Press Association reports:
The Australian prime minister has faced backlash from the business and health care sector following the announcement of a one-off bank holiday to mark a national day of mourning for the late Queen.
Continue reading...Service of thanksgiving at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh pulses with history as nation pays its respects
The people of Scotland, from prime ministers to benefit claimants, have said an emotional goodbye to their Queen as her coffin was set at rest in the “parish church of Edinburgh” where she was first given the Scottish crown 69 years ago.
Psalms the Queen used to sing in Crathie Kirk on the Balmoral estate were set to soaring organ music as hundreds of dignitaries attended a service of thanksgiving for her life at St Giles’ Cathedral.
Continue reading...Cortege passing through villages of Royal Deeside where many considered monarch a dear neighbour
The Queen has commenced her final journey from her beloved Balmoral estate in Aberdeenshire and is heading down the north-east coast to Edinburgh.
The cortege carrying her coffin left Balmoral at about 10am and was making slow progress through the villages of Royal Deeside, allowing the thousands who lined the route to bid a final farewell to the country’s longest-serving monarch and the woman many locally considered a dear neighbour.
Continue reading...Labour raises questions in the Commons over Johnson’s alleged actions as foreign secretary in the case of activist Jagtar Singh Johal
Labour has accused Boris Johnson of authorising the sharing of intelligence that led to the imprisonment and alleged torture of a UK-based Sikh activist in India.
A Foreign Office minister refused to confirm or deny Johnson’s alleged involvement – during his time as foreign secretary – in the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been detained for five years without trial.
Continue reading...Jason Grant’s appointment as Tay region’s period dignity lead had prompted anger on social media
A new regional role promoting period dignity across Tayside has been scrapped after the group involved received threats and abuse for appointing a man.
Last month, Jason Grant was announced as the period dignity regional lead officer for the Tay region in what was believed to be the first role of its kind in Scotland and the result of Holyrood’s groundbreaking women’s health legislation.
Continue reading...Unison, GMB and Unite suspend industrial action day after Nicola Sturgeon hosted talks
A wave of strikes across waste services and schools in Scotland has been called off after a “credible” new pay offer.
Hundreds of schools and nurseries were set to close over three days next week as support staff joined industrial action, along with a second wave of strikes by refuse workers that had already seen bins overflowing and piles of accumulated rubbish in Scotland’s major cities.
Continue reading...Government urged to ensure thousands living in park homes in Great Britain receive £400 payments
Gypsy and Traveller groups are calling on the government to ensure thousands of households living in park homes are not excluded from its energy bills support scheme this winter as bills soar.
The scheme will pay out a total of £400 to all households in Great Britain with a domestic electricity connection between October and March, with monthly payments administered by their energy supplier.
Continue reading...Unite says offer from Scotland’s councils is unacceptable and ‘represents a waste of precious time’
Refuse workers in Scotland will continue to strike next week after the Unite union rejected the latest offer from local authorities.
Council cleansing staff across much of the country are striking over pay. A strike in Edinburgh that led to rubbish building up in the streets during the city’s festival fringe – the busiest time of year for the city – is due to end on Tuesday morning. But further action in other council areas is planned.
Continue reading...Researchers find link between learning instrument while young and improved thinking skills later in life
The ageing rocker clinging on to their youth may be a figure of mockery, but research suggests they should be envied for their sharpness of mind.
Researchers have found a link between learning a musical instrument in youth and improved thinking skills in old age. People with more experience of playing a musical instrument showed greater lifetime improvement on a test of cognitive ability than those with less or no experience, a paper from the University of Edinburgh has said.
Continue reading...Prolonged bending to gather tea for James Finlay Kenya is argued to accelerate ageing of pickers’ backs by up to 20 years
More than a 1,000 Kenyan tea pickers who say that harsh and exploitative working conditions on a Scottish-run tea farm have caused them crippling health complaints can now pursue their class action in an Edinburgh court.
Lawyers acting for the tea pickers have won an order from the court of session, Scotland’s highest civil court, telling James Finlay Kenya Ltd (JFK) to abandon attempts to block the suit through the Kenyan courts.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Jagtar Singh Johal say he was given electric shocks after unlawful arrest in Punjab in 2017
A British Sikh campaigner is facing a possible death sentence after the UK intelligence services passed on information about him to the Indian authorities, according to a high court complaint.
Lawyers for Jagtar Singh Johal from Dumbarton, Scotland, say he was tortured, including being given electric shocks, after his unlawful arrest in the Punjab in 2017 where he had travelled for his wedding.
Continue reading...At security debriefings, Aimen Dean and his family fell in love with the Highlands. Three years later, they feel rejected
Aimen Dean remembers the moment he and his wife, Saadia, decided to make their home in Scotland. They had toured the Highlands and were standing on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, looking out over the city’s skyline.
Dean already knew Scotland: as one of the UK’s key spies, operating in the highest levels of al-Qaida, he had visited the country in secret six times before, to be debriefed by MI6 officers at safe houses deep in the Highlands or, on one occasion, a hotel on the island of Iona.
Continue reading...Inquiry opens into St George’s after Aimen Dean claims it singled out his daughter over fears he was a security risk
One of the UK’s leading private schools is under investigation after being accused of discrimination against the daughter of one of the west’s most important spies, a former al-Qaida bomb-maker credited with saving thousands of lives.
Aimen Dean, who spied for British intelligence inside the terrorist network for eight years, has made a formal complaint against St George’s School in Edinburgh, claiming it singled out his five-year-old daughter because other parents feared he was a security risk.
Continue reading...Islands bond idea, dismissed as ‘election gimmick’ by critics, found to be unpopular with islanders
Controversial proposals to offer a £50,000 welcome grant to encourage more young people and families to stay on or move to Scottish islands have been scrapped after a consultation found that islanders themselves did not believe the scheme was the right way to tackle depopulation.
The Scottish government announced that the proposed islands bond, which was dismissed as a gimmick by critics and attracted initial inquiries from as far afield as Ecuador, would not go ahead after an analysis of consultation responses found that those in favour of it were largely non-islanders.
Continue reading...Rival candidates questioned in Perth after frontrunner Truss makes belligerent remarks about Sturgeon
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have ruled out freezing energy prices by claiming it would be an expensive, short-term fix that would fail to solve the underlying problem with soaring energy costs.
The Conservative leadership contenders were questioned on whether they would back Labour’s new strategy to fix the domestic energy cap during a leadership hustings at Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...Data shows just 43,000 EU citizens received visas for work, family, study or other purposes in 2021
The number of EU citizens moving to the UK has plunged since Brexit closed the doors to low-paid workers, according to a report.
The dramatic decline in migration from the EU has hit hospitality and support services hard. But the Migration Observatory (MO) at the University of Oxford and ReWage, a group of independent experts, have said that while Brexit “exacerbated” chronic labour shortages in Britain, it was not the only cause.
Continue reading...Nick Gardner bagged Cairn Gorm on Saturday, ending his quest in aid of Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis charities
An 82-year-old man said he felt “like a child on Christmas Eve” as he set out to scale the final peak in a mission to climb every Scottish Munro.
Nick Gardner embarked on the challenge in an attempt to raise funds for Alzheimer’s Scotland and the Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS) after his wife, Janet, 84, who has since moved to a care home, developed both conditions.
Continue reading...John MacKinnon named as man who died while three others were injured in incidents on Skye and in Wester Ross
Communities in Skye and Lochalsh have experienced “one of the worst days” in their history after shooting incidents that left one man dead and three others injured.
Police named John MacKinnon, 47, as the man who died following a series of incidents on the Isle of Skye and in the Dornie area of Wester Ross on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Tory leadership contender says rival had previously dismissed direct support as ‘handouts’
Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is giving a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on equalities and rights. There is a live feed here.
In a preview of the speech published in the Daily Telegraph, Braverman says she wants to clarify the law on trans rights as it applies in schools. She says:
When it comes to gender-questioning children, we should always have compassion. At the same time, our compassion should never blind us to the harm it is possible to do to children by misplaced affirmation. Many schools and teachers believe – incorrectly – that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child. Many are scared of the consequences of not doing so.
I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.
The UK and partners have condemned in the strongest terms China’s escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement.
I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions.
Continue reading...