Complaints upheld against some former South Yorkshire and West Midlands officers but none will face proceedings
Dozens of allegations of misconduct against police officers relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster have been upheld by the police standards watchdog, bereaved families have been told.
However, none will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all left the police service.
Continue reading...Daniel Noboa, who is seeking re-election, announced the partnership with Erik Prince, a supporter of Donald Trump
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has announced a “strategic alliance” with the Donald Trump-supporting founder of the private military firm Blackwater to supposedly reinforce his controversial “war” on crime.
Noboa, the rightwing heir to a South American banana empire, announced the partnership with Erik Prince on social media on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...New data reveals child protection, incarceration and suicide rates getting worse
The rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people imprisoned increased by 12% in a year and was up 20% since 2019 – despite state and federal governments agreeing to reduce rates of incarnation by 15% by 2031 in June 2020.
Indigenous organisations have urged greater action from all governments to improve the lives of Indigenous people after new Closing the Gap data revealed child protection, Indigenous incarceration and suicide rates were getting worse.
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Continue reading...Psychiatrist describes the detained woman at Thomas Embling hospital as one of the most unwell patients in the state
One of the most mentally unwell patients in Victoria will deteriorate further if she continues to be held in solitary confinement, where she has been detained for almost a decade, a court has heard.
Victorian county court judge Nola Karapanagiotidis heard a major review on Wednesday of the detention of the woman under the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act.
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Continue reading...Kirsty McKenna filmed entire colonies clinging on to debris, ready to make nests on dry ground in Queensland and beyond
Fire ants are forming rafts to survive and travel on flood waters caused by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred in south-east Queensland as experts warn extreme weather events could sweep the highly invasive species into other parts of Australia.
Footage captured in the Scenic Rim and northern Gold Coast in recent days shows red imported fire ants (Rifas) grouping together and floating on flood waters. Clumps of the ants can then be seen forming nests on previously uninfested land after waters receded.
Continue reading...As Scottish energy firms race to meet challenges of storing power, critics fear plans will affect delicate hydrology of loch
Brian Shaw stood at the edge of Loch Ness and pointed to a band of glistening pebbles and damp sand skirting the shore. It seemed as if the tide had gone out.
Overnight, Foyers, a small pumped-storage power station, had recharged itself, drawing up millions of litres of water into a reservoir high up on a hill behind it, ready for release through its turbines to boost the UK’s electricity supply. That led to the surface of Loch Ness, the largest body of freshwater in the UK, falling by 14cm in a matter of hours.
Continue reading...Security services claim to have rescued about 190 people being held by Baloch Liberation Army in remote area
An operation to rescue hundreds of people taken hostage when a train was hijacked by a separatist militant group in remote south-west Pakistan has ended with dozens killed in the onslaught, a spokesperson for the army has said.
Pakistan’s security services claimed late on Wednesday to have rescued about 190 people who were being held captive after militants from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) blew up a railway line and launched an attack on the Jaffar Express train.
Continue reading...After the shock resignation of the festival’s chair, the Sydney writers’ festival unveils its starry 2025 program in ‘an incredibly polarised environment’
Over the past two years, programming a writers’ festival has become one of the most politically fraught undertakings in the Australian cultural sphere. Both Sydney and Melbourne writers’ festivals have seen board members resign over programming decisions, while Adelaide and Perth have fended off calls for the de-platforming of speakers on both sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Literary events are traditionally lauded for their “restraint, reason and tolerance in the face of opposing views” – but writers’ festivals are now issuing safety tips and employing security as they navigate “the frontier between social media’s echo chambers of outrage and the traditional public square’s conventions”, the University of Melbourne journalism academic Denis Muller observed in the Conversation last year, after the resignation of the Melbourne writers’ festival’s deputy chair, Leslie Reti.
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