Babak Belurs

Selasa, 08 November 2022

Just Stop Oil protests affect M25 and Dartford Crossing - BBC

Widespread disruption has affected the M25 for a second day running after protests at multiple locations.

The Dartford Tunnel was closed after Just Stop Oil activists staged protests at Thurrock in Essex, while further actions took place in Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey.

Essex Police said someone climbed a gantry at junction 31 on the northbound carriageway at about 07:00 GMT.

Just Stop Oil said it had about 15 supporters at "multiple locations".

Several arrests have been made by different police forces.

Earlier, Essex Police said the protests would cause "major disruption" to motorists using the M25 to drive from Kent into Essex via the A282 Dartford Crossing.

Both tunnels of the northbound crossing were closed earlier, but one reopened at about 08:45, with the second one reopening by 09:30.

Essex Police said due to officers "proactively patrolling the M25", a woman was arrested within 90 minutes of being spotted on the gantry.

Ch Supt Simon Anslow said: "I completely understand the anger and frustration and want to assure people we are working hard to prevent these criminal acts and to respond as quickly as we can where they take place.

"We have mobilised a significant amount of resources... resources which should be tackling knife crime, helping investigate sexual and domestic offences, and responding to burglaries."

The Metropolitan Police (Met) said teams trained to safely remove people who attached themselves to a structure, including those at height, had been used.

The affected locations were:

Essex - Junction 27 (Epping), Junction 30 (Lakeside) and Junction 31 (Dartford Crossing)
Herts - Junction 20 (Kings Langley), Junction 21a (Bricket Wood, Junction 22 (London Conley) and Junction 26 (Cheshunt)
Kent - Junction 1b (Dartford)
Surrey - Junctions seven (M23) to eight (Reigate), junctions eight to nine (Leatherhead), Junction 11 (Chertsey) and Junctions 12 (M23) to 13 (Staines)
London - Junctions 14 to 15 (Slough)

We are currently on scene at the north-bound track of the M25 at the Dartford River Crossing where a protester has climbed on to the gantry at junction 31. Dartford tunnel and two lanes are closed. We are working as quickly as we can to keep you moving. pic.twitter.com/SAD8gCAtkS
— Essex Police (@EssexPoliceUK) November 8, 2022

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Just Stop Oil activists said about 15 of its supporters were on gantries at "multiple locations".

It said in a statement that the action was to "demand that the government halts all new oil and gas licences and consents".

As part of that statement, Charlotte Kirin, a 53-year-old social worker and parent from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, said: "In order to survive, we need to take action to stop new oil and gas."

🛣 BREAKING: M25 BLOCKED FOR SECOND DAY 🛣
🚗 Approx 15 supporters of Just Stop Oil have climbed onto the overhead gantries of the #M25 at multiple locations — causing police to stop traffic — demanding that the Government halts all new oil and gas consents licences.#COP27 pic.twitter.com/6pa4XPt5DK
— Just Stop Oil (@JustStop_Oil) November 8, 2022

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Hertfordshire Police said it had responded to reports of "protest activity" at junction 20 (Kings Langley), junctions 21a (Bricket Wood) and junction 22 (London Colney) of the M25.

It had closed some lanes for officers to assess the situation, it added.

Surrey Police said it had dealt with protesters who climbed on to motorway gantries on the M25 between junctions seven (for the M23) and eight (Reigate), eight and nine (Leatherhead), and junctions 12 (M3) and 13 (Staines). A number of arrests were made.

Traffic flows were expected return to normal in Surrey, the force added.

Kent Police said two protesters had been arrested at junction 1b (Dartford) of the M25. The force said the motorway remained open, but motorists faced delays following the protest on the Essex side of the Thames estuary.

The Met said it was working with neighbouring forces "following further protest activity targeting the M25 this morning".

It said eight people had been charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, after being arrested on Sunday, following attempts to cause disruption on the M25.

Essex Police said three people were charged with intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance, after being arrested at junctions 27 and 30 on Monday.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk

Who is eligible for free school meals in England?

About 1.9 million children in England are eligible for free school meals, the government says, 22.5% of all pupils.

All infant-school pupils are eligible but children in Year 3 and above must live in a household receiving income-related benefits, with an annual income - after tax and not including welfare payments - no higher than £7,400.

About 40% of people who claim universal credit already have jobs and may earn above this threshold.

In Northern Ireland, the threshold is £14,000.

Scotland and Wales have recently committed to offering free school meals to all primary pupils.

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2022-11-08 07:22:12Z
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Senin, 07 November 2022

Channel crossings deal with France in final stages, says No 10 - BBC

French President Emmanuel Macron strides towards Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of their meeting

By Becky Morton

BBC political reporter

Talks on a deal with France over small boat Channel crossings are in the "final stages", No 10 has said.

The comment came as Rishi Sunak had his first meeting as prime minister with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Following the meeting, Mr Sunak said there was "not one simple solution" to tackling the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats.

But he said there was an opportunity to work closely with European countries on illegal migration.

More details would be set out in the coming weeks, he added.

The Elysee Palace said the two leaders agreed "to advance coordination to face the challenge of irregular migration".

The meeting with Mr Macron took place on the sidelines of the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Mr Sunak said he had also been talking to other European leaders, and was leaving with "renewed confidence and optimism that working together with our European partners, we can make a difference, grip this challenge of illegal immigration and stop people coming illegally".

However, he told broadcasters this was a "complex issue and it's not one simple solution that's going to solve it overnight".

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the UK needed to work "upstream" with France to stop people-smuggling across the Channel.

So far this year, almost 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats - the highest number since figures began to be collected in 2018.

A number of Conservative MPs raised concerns about the issue during an urgent question in the Commons.

Lee Anderson, who represents Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, said sourcing accommodation for "illegal immigrants" left a "bitter taste" when so many of his constituents could not get council housing.

Instead of blaming France and "lefty lawyers", he asked: "When are we going to go back and do the right thing and send them straight back the same day?"

Several other Tories also raised concerns about the suitability of hotels in their constituencies for accommodating migrants.

The government has blamed an increase in the number of crossings for overcrowding at an asylum processing centre in Manston, Kent.

At one point at the end of last month there were believed to be around 4,000 migrants at Manston - despite the centre being designed to accommodate only 1,600 people on a temporary basis.

On Monday, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the numbers at Manston were now below 1,600 again.

Mr Jenrick also said the government wanted to stop using hotels to home migrants, telling MPs it was "not sustainable for the country to be spending billions of pounds a year on hotels".

He suggested "luxurious" accommodation could be a pull factor for those considering crossing the Channel and the government may instead use "some larger sites to provide decent but basic accommodation".

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy hit back at the minister's use of the word "luxurious". She said the hotels she had visited were "dire" with families living in "cramped conditions" and suffering from an infestation of bedbugs.

Last month, MPs on the Home Affairs Committee were told that the UK was spending £7m a day on hotels for asylum seekers, including groups such as Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban.

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Suella Braverman, who was reappointed home secretary by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last month, has denied ignoring legal advice or blocking the use of hotels to ease the pressure at Manston.

Asked whether Ms Braverman had made the situation at Manston worse, Mr Sunak said she was making sure the numbers at the site were reduced "and we're making very good progress on that".

Earlier Grant Shapps said Manston was "tipping into becoming an unofficial detention centre" when he briefly served as home secretary last month.

He told BBC Breakfast he received "very clear advice" during his six days at the Home Office, after the resignation of Ms Braverman over data breaches in the final days of Liz Truss's premiership.

He said there were concerns people were "unintentionally being detained", which would not be legal.

Mr Shapps, who is now business secretary, said he was keen to ensure the government remained within the law and made changes to the operation of the site "to ensure that it wasn't a detention centre", while also moving people out.

He added: "Those are decisions that I very quickly made. Actually, the home secretary subsequently has continued to make the same changes to make sure that those numbers are brought down."

Analysis box by Nick Eardley, political correspondent

The big question Suella Braverman faces is whether she did enough to ensure the government was complying with the law at Manston.

Several people close to the process have said she did not take the action required to make sure people were moved on from the temporary facility quickly.

Ms Braverman has denied blocking the procurement of hotels. But Grant Shapps has just potentially opened a can of worms.

He says he got very clear advice about Manston, and that there were concerns about people being unintentionally kept for too long, thus acting outside the law.

Mr Shapps also talked about having to "rectify" the situation when he took over.

This raises more questions for the home secretary about whether she took all the action she needed to.

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2022-11-07 20:31:36Z
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Business Secretary Grant Shapps hints at autumn budget windfall tax expansion on energy firms due to 'unexpected profits' - Sky News

Business Secretary Grant Shapps has hinted that the government may extend the windfall tax on oil and gas companies in this month's autumn budget as it tries to stabilise the UK's public finances.

Speaking to Sky News with just 10 days to go before the government's fiscal plans are unveiled, Mr Shapps said: "I mean, it is the case that because fuel prices have been so high, there have been unexpected profits, of course.

"But I think it's important that we do carry on investing in making sure not on fossil fuels, but on the renewable energy as well, that we've we've got the capacity, we've got the ability to get that market moving as well."

Sunak to raise migrant crossings with Macron - Politics latest

He added that the general public will "have to wait until the 17th" to know exactly which measures the government is going to pursue to tackle what the Resolution Foundation thinktank has said is a £40bn financial black hole.

Last week, an initial report in The Times suggested that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt were planning to extend windfall taxes on oil and gas companies to raise an estimated £40bn over five years.

Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt want to maximise revenues from the windfall tax by increasing the rate from 25% to 30%, extending the policy until 2028, and expanding it to cover electricity generators - according to the paper.

With BP unveiling profits that doubled to more than £7.1bn in the three months to September, pressure is continuing to mount for an enhanced windfall tax on oil and gas giants to help fill the Treasury coffers.

COP26 president Alok Sharma, who was demoted from the cabinet by Mr Sunak, has backed this move, saying: "We need to raise more money from a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and actively encourage them to invest in renewables."

The Resolution Foundation said in a report last week that tax raises are "likely" to come soon as the government faces an "unpalatable menu" to find ways to re-balance the nation's finances after former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's ill-fated economic plans.

A combination of tax rises and spending cuts is likely to find the £40bn needed, it said.

Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt are currently figuring out how to tackle the abysmal economic forecast ahead of the autumn statement on 17 November, which was pushed back soon after Mr Sunak reappointed Mr Hunt.

The Resolution Foundation's report added that a recession next year could be predicted by the government's independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Last week, the Bank of England raised its official interest rates by 0.75 percentage points to 3% and said the UK was already in recession.

It was the single biggest increase in more than three decades.

While GDP forecasts could be cut by up to 4% by the end of 2024.

The autumn statement this month will likely encompass "rough" tax rises, Sky News has been told by a source in the Treasury.

The tax rises are likely to be across the board, although Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt are said to agreed those with the "broadest shoulders" should bear the greatest burden, it is understood.

Few concrete details have emerged but, according to The Times, public sector workers could face deep real-terms cuts to wages, with The Treasury reportedly looking at an increase of 2% across the board for 2023-24, at a time when inflation is expected to be well above that threshold.

The Resolution Foundation has said £9bn could be saved by the government choosing not to raise benefits and pensions in line with rising prices next year, but any such move would have a "huge" impact on those already struggling to make ends meet.

Another option would be to re-instate the health and social care levy to raise £15bn by 2026-2027, while around £2bn could be raised by extending the "stealth" freezes in income tax threshold by a further year to 2026-2027.

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2022-11-07 07:52:30Z
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Minggu, 06 November 2022

Floods close roads as homeowners prepare for more downpours - The Times

Thousands of homes and businesses across England and Wales are braced for flooding as a deluge sweeps across the country this week.

Flood alerts were in place across the southeast of England and the western coast of Wales last night after downpours over the weekend ensured a drenched Bonfire Night for many.

Persistent, heavy rain could lead to flooding of homes and businesses and affect public transport in the south of England from West Sussex to Kent, the Met Office said.

While rainfall in some parts has already reached a third of the monthly average, hosepipe bans remain in place across much of the country as water companies, including Thames Water, struggle to make up for the summer heatwaves and several dry months.

Much of

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2022-11-07 00:01:00Z
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Lord Lucan breakthrough as mystery man's face is 'exact match' for missing killer - Daily Record

Photos of a man living in Australia are a definite match for fugitive murderer Lord Lucan, says a facial recognition expert.

Leading computer scientist Professor Hassan Ugail used an artificial intelligence algorithm to run 4000 cross-checks of seven photos – four of Lucan and three of the mystery pensioner in Australia, according to an exclusive by The Mirror.

Prof Ugail, who ID-ed two of the Russians behind the Salisbury Skripal poisonings, said: “They produced a match. This isn’t an opinion, it’s science and mathematical fact.”

A facial recognition scientist claims this blurred image is of a man living in Australia whose face is an exact match to Lord Lucan (Image: Glen Campbell)

Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, who disappeared after the murder of his children's nanny and who has never been found

Monday, November 7, is the 48th anniversary of the day Lord Lucan murdered family nanny Sandra Rivett. Lucan disappeared the following day.

Friends claimed that he jumped off a cross-channel ferry but his body was never found. Lucan would now be 87 – the same age as the frail man living in a small town just outside Brisbane, capital of the state of Queensland.

Murdered Nanny Sandra Rivett (Image: LNS)

Four of the photos analysed were of Lucan – from a 14-year-old boy until his disappearance – and three of the mystery man in Australia tracked down by Rivett’s son Neil Berriman.

Berriman said: “I’ve spent nine years trying to prove this man is Lucan. Now, with this new scientific information, the police must act. This isn’t emotion. It’s fact.”

Prof Ugail’s startling findings will send shockwaves through the British establishment.

The analysis carried out by Ugail, Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford, included micro-millimetre measurements of spaces between facial features.

Ugail has spent 20 years developing his artificial intelligence algorithm. A second company, a highly respected US firm, ran the same tests and came to the same conclusion.

Prof Ugail said: “In recent years there has been a massive improvement in artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology.

“We can now confirm things that would have been impossible just five years ago. We’ve compared thousands and thousands of people and there have been literally millions of photos that we’ve analysed using the algorithm.

“It has never been wrong. This algorithm has been trained on millions of photos.

“People of different ethnicities, different ages – the only time it will fail is if you put in identical twins. It only takes a few minutes to run it and it comes back with a percentage – a ‘similarity index’.

“Even if you put two exact images of the same person in, you are never going to get 100 per cent similarity because of the way images are taken – pixels and everything else.

George Bingham, son of Lord Lucan (Image: Nick Ansell/PA Wire)

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“Anything with a similarity index of 75 per cent or higher is conclusively the same individual.

“The lowest score I got was around 76. I think the highest was 88.” When Berriman initially contacted Prof Ugail, he did not tell him who he suspected was in the pictures.

Prof Ugail, who grew up in the Maldives, said: “Now that I know more about this Lord Lucan case I’m very pleased that I said ‘yes’.

“It wasn’t a story I was particularly interested in, or a more recent one like Madeleine McCann. I had heard of Lord Lucan but knew very little about the case.”

Lady Lucan – Veronica Bingham – fled from her house in Belgravia, London, covered in blood on November 7, 1974.

Safe in a nearby pub, the Plumbers Arms, she told how she had heard screams from the basement and found her husband there.

She said he attacked her. His car, its interior stained with blood, was later found abandoned in Newhaven, Sussex. A piece of bandaged lead pipe was found in the boot.

In 1975, an inquest jury found Lord Lucan – formerly John Bingham – to be responsible for Sandra Rivett’s death. Her body was found in his home. Lucan was declared legally dead in 2016.

Lady Lucan had three children, Frances, George and Camilla. She committed suicide in 2017, aged 80, after wrongly diagnosing herself with Parkinson’s disease.

Prof Ugail said of his facial recognition system: “It’s actually the culmination of 15 to 20 years of work with a lot of people in our lab, not just me, my academic colleagues, 15 to 20 PhD students.

"There has been millions of pounds of research money that came into the visual computing-related research I do, part of which is this face recognition algorithm.

“It comes partly from the Government and its research grant-awarding bodies, like the Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council and the EU.

“My first research grant from the British government was back in 2002. Interestingly, that was to develop an efficient face-recognition algorithm.

"And every single year since then I’ve received another one to work on a research problem related to visual computing. I am more than happy to make my findings on this particular analysis available to anyone.”

Bonfire Night: Teenage boy dies at house near where youths were hurling fireworks in Halifax last night - Halifax Courier

The 17-year-old was found hurt in the garden of a house on Vickerman Street, off Parkinson Lane.

He was taken to hospital where he died from his injuries.

Police said they were called by the ambulance service shortly before 8.15pm yesterday to reports of an injured young man.

Police at a house on Vickerman Street in Halifax today after youths were hurling fireworks in Parkinson Lane last night

Crime scene investigators have been at Vickerman Street this morning to establish the full facts of what happened.

A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said: “The matter has been reported to the Independent Office of Police Conduct as police were called to the vicinity due to a report of fireworks being set off prior to the incident.”

As this dramatic video shows, there was disorder on Parkinson Lane last night, with fireworks being set off in the street towards buildings and cars.

One person reported up to 80 teens in the area, hurling fireworks.

Police at a house on Vickerman Street in Halifax this morning after youths were hurling fireworks in Parkinson Lane last night.

Bonfire Night: Three Calderdale shops found selling booze and fireworks to kids

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2022-11-06 21:36:50Z
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Babak Belurs

Selasa, 08 November 2022

Just Stop Oil protests affect M25 and Dartford Crossing - BBC

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Former One Direction star Zayn Malik writes to PM over free school meals - BBC

Who is eligible for free school meals in England?

Senin, 07 November 2022

Channel crossings deal with France in final stages, says No 10 - BBC

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Business Secretary Grant Shapps hints at autumn budget windfall tax expansion on energy firms due to 'unexpected profits' - Sky News

Minggu, 06 November 2022

Floods close roads as homeowners prepare for more downpours - The Times

Lord Lucan breakthrough as mystery man's face is 'exact match' for missing killer - Daily Record

How to get the latest crime news with the Daily Record

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Bonfire Night: Teenage boy dies at house near where youths were hurling fireworks in Halifax last night - Halifax Courier

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