Reserve aircraft flew to Manila amid reliability concerns after ex-leaders Ardern and Key suffered breakdowns
The New Zealand defence force plane ferrying the country’s prime minister to China this week has been judged so unreliable that a backup plane flew in reserve, prompting criticism of Chris Hipkins by the opposition.
The use of a backup plane follows previous mishaps involving aircraft carrying New Zealand leaders.
Continue reading...Development charity says patients denied treatment or held hostage until fees paid in private facilities in India and Kenya
Private hospitals in India and Kenya accused of refusing people on low incomes vital healthcare, or holding them hostage until bills have been paid, benefit from UK government investment funds, according to a report by Oxfam.
Investments worth hundreds of millions of pounds by government-backed agencies are used to facilitate the “impoverishment and even the imprisonment of the very people [the private hospitals] are supposed to be helping”, said the development charity.
Continue reading...Josep Borrell says Putin is facing consequences of working with Wagner and Russian military power ‘is cracking’
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in Russia was “the monster acting against his creator”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said.
“The political system is showing fragilities, and the military power is cracking,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Luxembourg as he arrived for a meeting with ministers from across the 27-member bloc.
Continue reading...Footage released showing Sergei Shoigu visiting troops in Ukraine as counterterror measures ended
Russia’s defence minister has appeared on state TV and emergency counterterrorism measures have been cancelled in Moscow and surrounding regions as the Kremlin seeks to restore calm following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.
The defence ministry released footage on Monday that it claimed showed Sergei Shoigu “visiting the forward command post of one of the formations of the ‘Western’ group of troops”. In the video, Shoigu is shown riding in a vehicle and arriving at a command post, where he listens to reports from officers and pores over a battlefield map.
Continue reading...Indian finance minister hits out after former US president said Modi government should protect rights of Muslims
India’s finance minister has derided comments by the former US president Barack Obama that Narendra Modi’s government should protect the rights of minority Muslims, accusing Obama of being hypocritical.
During the Indian prime minister’s state visit to the US last week, Obama told CNN that the issue of the “protection of the Muslim minority in a majority-Hindu India” would be worth raising in Modi’s meeting with the US president, Joe Biden.
Continue reading...British carmaker to use components from Lucid to produce luxury high-performance battery electric models
Aston Martin has struck a deal with the US firm Lucid to start making “ultra-luxury high-performance electric vehicles” from 2025.
The British luxury carmaker, whose losses more than doubled last year to almost £500m, has struck a cash and shares deal valued at £182m in which Lucid will take a 3.7% stake in London-listed Aston Martin.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Over the weekend, Russian mercenary group Wagner marched on Moscow – only to turn back at the last moment. Why did one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies turn on him – and how was bloodshed averted?
Good morning.
Months of simmering tension between the Russian military and the Wagner group, a Russian mercenary organisation, came to the boil over the weekend after the group’s leader, hitherto Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed to have seized control of all military sites in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
NHS | Britons die sooner from cancer and heart disease than people in many other rich countries, partly because of the NHS’s lack of beds, staff and scanners, a study has found. The UK “underperforms significantly”, in part because the NHS has been weakened by years of underinvestment, according to the King’s Fund health thinktank.
Strikes | The government is prepared to overrule and block the pay rises that public sector review bodies recommend, a senior minister has confirmed, as unions threaten to strike over the issue.
Tax | More than 180,000 people on low incomes were fined for not filing a tax return on time last year, even though they received so little that they had no tax to pay in the first place. Many of these people, already in severe financial difficulties, misunderstood the initial fine and were then subjected to further fines and interest.
Greece | The New Democracy Party has won a comfortable victory in Greece’s second election in five weeks. The centre-right party won 40.5% of the vote, giving them an outright majority and their leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a second four-year term in office.
UK news | The musicians Fatboy Slim, Billy Bragg, and Olugbenga Adelekan of Metronomy – in a letter to home secretary Suella Braverman – have called for the government to allow the resumption of tests of confiscated pills at music festivals. A cross-party group of MPs have condemned the Home Office’s decision to block onsite drug testing as “shortsighted and dangerous”.
Continue reading...Merseyside charity worker whose children are stuck in Khartoum says Foreign Office delays have trapped many in conflict zone
A British charity worker has called on the government to help evacuate his children from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, stressing that hundreds of people with the right to reside in the UK remain stuck in the conflict zone.
Alhussein Ahmed, 32, who works for the Merseyside Refugee Support Network in Liverpool, is concerned that the Foreign Office should be doing more to assist hundreds of people who have UK residency rights who remain stuck in Sudan.
Continue reading...Beijing says it supports Russia in maintaining national stability, without explicitly referring to Vladimir Putin personally
Chinese officials have described an aborted rebellion by the Wagner group of mercenaries as Moscow’s “internal affairs”, while one state media mouthpiece dismissed the divisions in Russia as an “illusion” being exploited by the west.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko held talks in Beijing on Sunday after the most serious challenge to president Vladimir Putin’s grip on power since he came to power in 2000.
Continue reading...Kyriakos Mitsotakis of centre-right New Democracy party says he now has ‘strong mandate’ to modernise nation
Greece’s new prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, vowed to immediately press ahead with his ambitious reform programme after winning a decisive victory in the general elections on Sunday.
The New Democracy leader said his commanding 24-point lead over the leftist main opposition Syriza party had given him a “strong mandate” to modernise a country long seen as resistant to reform.
Continue reading...Secretary of state says mutiny may help Ukraine counteroffensive after Yevgeny Prigozhin calls off advance on Moscow
A day after renegade Wagner mercenaries almost sparked a civil war in Russia, the top US diplomat has said the uprising showed “real cracks” in Vladimir Putin’s government and may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the upheaval triggered by the aborted advance on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries on Saturday was far from over. Neither Prigozhin nor Putin have been heard from since coming to a last-minute agreement on Saturday to avert clashes near Moscow between mercenaries and regular Russian troops.
Continue reading...Muscovites tell of shock and anxiety in city blindsided by Prigozhin’s short-lived revolt
A sense of normal returned to Moscow on Sunday after Yevgeny Prigozhin halted his assault on the Russian capital under a deal that defused an unprecedented challenge to the authority of president Vladimir Putin.
Security forces were seen disassembling barricades that had been hurriedly put up as Prigozhin’s Wagner troops approached along the M4 road from Rostov-on-Don, while workers began repairing roads leading up to the capital that were destroyed to stop the warlord’s advances before he ordered their withdrawal.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Channel 4 film says officials contacted the palace in 2020 owing to concerns about Lord Lebedev’s father’s links to Putin regime
Government officials asked whether the late Queen would block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage because of concerns that he could be a national security risk due to his father’s links to the Putin regime, a documentary has claimed.
The aides contacted Buckingham Palace in July 2020 to request that the monarch intervene, which she was constitutionally entitled to do, after Boris Johnson decided to press ahead with the controversial peerage despite warnings from the intelligence agencies, according to the film-makers.
Continue reading...Despite ending his revolt, the mercenary chief will continue be a thorn in the Kremlin’s side unless he retires quietly to Belarus
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that the Wagner head had agreed to leave Russia for Belarus as part of a deal to end his armed revolt, while charges against him for organising the rebellion would be dropped. Peskov added that Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko had guaranteed Prigozhin’s personal safety.
Continue reading...Driven by his feud with the defence minister, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion has petered out … for now
Last Thursday Yevgeny Prigozhin let rip on his favourite subject: the incompetence and vanity of Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Seated in front of a Wagner flag and sipping from a mug of tea, he called his bitter enemy a scumbag. Shoigu was a craven PR man and oligarch who had never held a weapon in his life, he raged.
The defence ministry had duped Vladimir Putin into last year’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin added. The decision had nothing to do with “denazification” or “demilitarisation”, or an imminent Nato attack on Russia – the official reasons for the war. It was all about Shoigu’s wish for a second “hero of Russia” medal, he claimed.
Continue reading...Future of UK battery making thrown further into doubt after company founded by David Collard was visited by federal police
A company owned by the buyer of Britishvolt has been raided by the Australian authorities, throwing the future of UK battery-making further into doubt.
Britishvolt, based in Blyth, Northumberland, and which the UK government lauded for its potential role in British battery production and UK-built electric vehicles before it fell into administration, was bought by the Australian entrepreneur David Collard earlier this year.
Continue reading...Arnon Milchan begins testimony via video link in Israeli prime minister’s corruption trial
An Israeli producer of blockbuster Hollywood films has taken the stand in Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, describing how he routinely delivered tens of thousands of dollars worth of champagne, cigars and other gifts requested by the Israeli prime minister.
Arnon Milchan, who appeared by video-conference from the UK city of Brighton, near where he is based, is a key witness whose testimony is essential for prosecutors who are trying to prove that Netanyahu committed fraud and breach of trust in one of three cases brought against him.
Continue reading...Many LGBTQ+ Americans remain on edge and fearful of what the recent backlash means for their future
St Cloud, Florida, a suburb of Orlando, hosted its first official Pride celebration just last year. This year, the organizers made the difficult decision to cancel, in large part because of the state’s recent law effectively banning drag shows with minors in attendance.
The other reason was a death threat; a sign appeared in a nearby community that read: “Kill all the gays.”
Continue reading...Public health advocates say land at Hunters Point in San Francisco contains dangerous levels of strontium-90
The US navy is covering up dangerous levels of radioactive waste on a 40-acre former shipyard parcel in San Francisco’s waterside Hunters Point neighborhood, public health advocates charge.
The land is slated to be turned over to the city as early as next year, and could be used for residential redevelopment. The accusations stem from 2021 navy testing that found 23 samples from the property showed high levels of strontium-90, a radioactive isotope that replaces calcium in bones and causes cancer.
Continue reading...Disparity between rescue responses has sparked debate in Pakistan about double standards
Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives in the boat that sank off Greece on 14 June, watched in disbelief and growing anger as a frantic, multimillion-dollar rescue effort played out for five other men lost at sea last week.
Like thousands of others across Pakistan, Majeed, a law student from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, grieved at funeral prayers without a body to bury. At least 350 Pakistani citizens were on the overcrowded craft, the interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, confirmed on Friday.
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