Empress Zita brought stone to Canada as Nazis took over Europe in 1940s and it remained in bank vault ever since
At the height of the Battle of Britain, when the UK government needed a secret location to store 186,332 gold bars, it turned to Canada.
Shipped across the Atlantic and stored beneath a hastily constructed vault in Montreal, Operation Fish became known both for the vast amounts of gold involved – and the immense secrecy that followed.
Continue reading...New deputy leader also calls on government to lift two-child benefit cap urgently and in full
Labour should stand by its manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, its deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said in a challenge that will put pressure on Rachel Reeves.
With the Treasury examining whether to raise income tax to plug a £30bn fiscal hole, Powell said it was “really important we stand by the promises we were elected on and do what we said we would do”.
Continue reading...International mediators broker three-month halt to civil war as further evidence emerges of mass civilian killings
A Sudanese paramilitary group accused of killing thousands of unarmed civilians in an ethnically motivated massacre has agreed to a truce.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is facing mounting criticism over apparent war crimes committed by its fighters in the city of El Fasher last month, said it had agreed to a “humanitarian ceasefire” put forward by the quad countries of the US, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Continue reading...Release follows supreme court ruling that overturned Jeanine Áñez’s conviction for allegedly staging coup to seize power
The former interim president who oversaw a bloody crackdown on protesters in Bolivia has been freed from prison after almost five years, following a supreme court ruling that overturned her conviction for allegedly staging a coup to seize power.
Jeanine Áñez, 58, left the Miraflores women’s orientation centre in La Paz on Thursday, saying that “the monster had to go” for her to walk free – a reference to the end of nearly two decades of rule by the leftwing Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas) party.
Continue reading...