Babak Belurs

Jumat, 24 Februari 2023

UK to hold one minute silence on Ukraine war anniversary - BBC

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By James Gregory & Paul Seddon

BBC News

The UK will hold a minute's silence to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The silence will be held at 11:00 GMT on Friday to commemorate the war, which has seen thousands of civilians and soldiers killed and injured.

It comes after crowds gathered in London's Trafalgar Square on Thursday to hold a vigil for Ukraine.

Later, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will urge allies to "move faster" in arming Ukraine at a meeting of the G7 later.

Mr Sunak will also host Ukrainian troops at a gathering at Downing Street.

Other British political leaders will also mark the war's anniversary, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer calling for the UK to "double down" on support for Ukraine.

At Thursday evening's vigil the crowd saw an emotional reading of the Ukrainian poem Take Only What Is Most Important by actress Dame Helen Mirren - who was visibly moved to tears.

The event also heard from Defence Secretary Ben Wallace who paid tribute to Ukrainian soldiers as the "bravest of the brave".

The conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February last year, has seen at least 100,000 of each side's soldiers killed or injured, according to the US military.

Thousands of civilians have also been killed, with more than 13 million people made refugees abroad or displaced within Ukraine.

Rita and her four children were among those who fled the country in the early stages of the conflict. They are now living in the UK with Rita's British partner, Andy.

She told BBC Two's Newsnight programme she would "never forget" the "horrible sound, that panic, that fear" when Russian troops invaded.

Rita said her heart was "aching" after witnessing how parts of Ukraine had changed after 12 months of conflict.

"The country is in pain," she said. "I know how my country is and how it can be, I know how beautiful it is. Now it's different [but] it can come back to that beautiful place.

"I can see summer time - it is going to be warm, it's going to be green. That's how I see Ukraine - with lots of green trees with lots of flowers... with lots of smiles on people's face and with tears from happiness."

Ukraine has been urging its Western backers to increase support, as Russia mobilises ahead of an expected spring offensive.

During a virtual meeting of leaders from the G7 group of advanced economies later, Mr Sunak is expected to say an acceleration in support is "what it will take to shift Putin's mindset".

"This must be our priority now," he will add. "Instead of an incremental approach, we need to move faster on artillery, armour, and air defence."

He is expected to make the argument for supplying Ukraine with "longer-range weapons" to disrupt Russia's ability to target Ukraine's infrastructure, something to which he committed the UK earlier this month.

Other senior UK politicians have sent messages to Ukraine on the anniversary of the war:

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was in office when Russia invaded, repeated his call to give Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky weapons "to finish the job"
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey paid tribute to the "amazing acts of heroism in Ukraine" and said the UK would "stand in solidarity with Ukraine until they achieve victory"
SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wished a "speedy victory for Ukraine" in a letter to Ukrainians in Scotland to mark the anniversary

During a recent tour of Europe, President Zelensky increased his calls for Western nations to supply his country with modern fighter jets.

The UK is to start training Ukrainian forces to fly Nato-standard aircraft. But like other Western nations, it has so far not supplied jets, saying it remains a long-term option.

Although support for Ukraine has united the UK's main political parties, Mr Sunak has faced pressure from some of his own Conservative MPs to supply fighter planes as soon as possible.

Shamima Begum loses legal fight to return to Britain

News broke out on Wednesday that Shamima Begum has lost the appeal she launched against a decision made three years ago by the Home Office to revoke her British nationality. The now 23-year-old argued that it was wrong to presume her a threat to the British public and claimed she was trafficked to Syria for sexual exploitation.

However, readers agreed with Allison Pearson, who argued that the judge’s verdict was simply common sense. Many of our readers also suggested Ms Begum should face the consequences of her actions, and were glad that the views of British people were listened to. However, other readers argued that she is British and therefore Britain's "problem".

Ukraine latest

Joe Biden visited Ukraine for the first time as US president on Monday, deciding to ignore objections from his security staff, and announced a package of extra military funding for Ukraine - making it clear that America was “here to stay”. Readers responded positively to the US president’s visit, arguing that it showed the West's "unwavering" support.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, Rishi Sunak faced pressure from both Liz Truss and Boris Johnson to send fighter jets to Ukraine. Telegraph readers were conflicted by this, as they explained how sending fighter jets is more complicated than it seems, because of the need to train pilots.

SNP leadership bid

Following Nicola’s Sturgeon resignation, the SNP leadership campaign commenced this week, with three candidates having entered. Ms Sturgeon’s favoured choice, Humza Yousaf, is currently being described as the most likely to succeed, but the initial front runner was Kate Forbes, the current Finance Secretary.

'It's refreshing to see a politician who has beliefs and principles and is prepared to say so' Credit: ANDREW MILLIGAN/PA

The change in popularity came after Ms Forbes, a devout Christian, admitted she would have opposed gay marriage. Readers were quick to defend her, arguing that she should not be discriminated against for her religious beliefs.

What are your thoughts on the biggest talking points of the week? Join the conversation in the comments section below

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2023-02-24 07:00:00Z
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Kamis, 23 Februari 2023

Keir Starmer's five missions speech fact-checked - BBC

Keir Starmer delivering his speech in Manchester

By Reality Check team

BBC News

Labour leader Keir Starmer set out his five missions for government on Thursday.

We've been looking at some of the claims made in his speech.

Keir Starmer unveils Labour's five missions for the country

'If growth over the last 13 years had been as strong as under the last Labour government, we would have £40bn extra to spend'

Growth has certainly been slower in the last 13 years than it was in the previous 13 years, when the Labour Party was in power.

Between 1997 and 2010, the economy grew at an average of just under 2% a year.

Labour's argument is that, had growth kept going at that rate (instead of at just below 1.5% a year) the economy would be bigger and the government would take more in taxes.

Using that method you can come out with that overall figure of about an extra £40bn in the tax take.

So, it is correct to say that had the economy kept growing at the rate seen before 2010, the government could have tens of billions more to spend now.

However, whether all of the differences in growth rates seen over the last 26 years are down to the decision of the governments of the time is a more contentious question.

The sluggish growth seen during the 2010s was not a problem unique to the UK, for example, and all economies faced challenges due to Covid.

'The worst decade for growth in two centuries'

We have tried to check this claim before, from previous speeches by the Labour leader.

UK economic growth was indeed very poor between 2010 and 2019, with total growth of just over 20%.

But that wasn't as bad as the decade around World War One, for example. Between 1917 and 1926 the economy contracted by almost 10%.

We asked Labour how they reached their conclusion and they pointed us towards research from the TUC.

It wasn't looking at all decades, but at the 10 years after a recession.

It found that the period 2009-2019 had been similar to the decade after 1921, but worse than all other recovery periods since 1808.

However, that's not the same as it being the worst decade of growth in two centuries.

'Zero-carbon British electricity by 2030... will put us ahead of any major economy in the world'

Labour announced in September 2022 that it was committed to generating all of the UK's electricity without using fossil fuels by 2030.

It means Labour is taking a more challenging target than the Conservatives. Boris Johnson announced when he was prime minister in October 2021 that UK electricity would come from clean sources by 2035.

Sir Keir is right that no other major economy is matching the 2030 target. The G7 group of big economies, for example, has pledged to "predominantly" decarbonise electricity by 2035.

'These missions... will be measurable, so we can track progress and be held to account'

While the Labour leader repeatedly said that each of the five missions would have measurable targets, we have not yet been given any of those targets.

Even the missions that sound like they are easily measurable are more complicated than they look.

For example, the first mission is to have "the highest sustained growth in the G7".

We know how to measure which economy has the highest growth, but Labour has declined to tell us yet how they will assess which economy has the highest sustained growth.

And measuring whether a Labour government manages to "break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage" will also be tricky.

But Labour has said it will announce the metrics in the future, so we will have to wait and see.

What claims do you want BBC Reality Check to investigate? Get in touch

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2023-02-23 17:18:49Z
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Environment secretary urges Britons to ‘cherish’ turnips amid food shortages - The Guardian

The UK environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has caused a furore after she suggested people should “cherish” seasonal foods such as turnips as bad weather cleared supermarket shelves of tomatoes and other fresh produce.

“It’s important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country,” Coffey told parliament. “A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar.”

With a love of turnips more commonly associated with the long-suffering manservant Baldrick in Blackadder, Coffey handed her critics the kind of material they could normally only dream of.

“Let them eat turnips!” suggested the Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, using the hashtag #TomatoShortages, as “turnips” started to trend on Twitter timelines for possibly the first time.

Coffey made her comments after being called to the Commons to answer an urgent question about supermarket rationing of salad ingredients, owing to shortages caused by bad weather in Spain and north Africa. She had been trying to make a point about eating seasonally.

“I’m conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world try to satisfy,” she added.

Was a bounty of this unloved root vegetable part of the promised Brexit dividend? people asked, as they shared doctored images of campaign buses emblazoned with “forget tomatoes, let’s eat turnips instead”.

@theNewEuropean asked whether Brexit might be a factor in the tomato shortage alongside an image of what looked like Spain’s annual La Tomatina tomato fight.

The realities of eating seasonally – and not relying on imported food – were not lost on people who persevere with their veg box delivery through the winter months. As the parsnips, swedes and butternut squash pile up in kitchen cupboards, many could be forgiven for shedding a tear just thinking about cherry tomatoes.

For inspiration, one person shared a link to a poster for an Ann Widdecombe-fronted post-Brexit cookery series called 101 Ways with Turnips, complete with blurb promising “hours of fun with your weekly turnip ration!”

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After enduring an avalanche of turnip jokes, Downing Street stepped in to defend Coffey, saying she had been promoting British vegetables. The prime ministerial spokesperson also rejected suggestions Brexit was to blame for the lack of cucumber availability.

He said: “We don’t believe it is for us to tell people what they should or shouldn’t buy – that is entirely a matter for them. I think what the secretary of state was doing was setting out the importance of celebrating the produce that we grow here in the UK but, ultimately, it is for individuals to decide what food they wish to buy.”

Asked if Brexit had had an impact on shortages, he said: “The industry and retailers themselves have spoken about the reason for some of the supply issues we are facing, notably poor weather in certain parts of southern Europe and north Africa.”

Those lucky enough to have a turnip but who are unsure of what to cook with it may want to rewatch Blackadder for inspiration from Baldrick, not least his recipe for turnip surprise. A one-pot wonder, the surprise – spoiler alert – is there’s nothing else in it except the turnip.

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2023-02-23 17:27:00Z
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Politics latest news: Starmer signals Labour already planning second term in power - The Telegraph

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested he is already planning for a second term in power after he set out his vision for fixing the nation's problems.

The Labour leader used a speech in Manchester to unveil five new "missions", including boosting economic growth, delivering an NHS "fit for the future" and making the UK a "clean energy superpower".

Sir Keir has previously spoken of the need for a "decade of national renewal" and he was asked after his address if he believed he would need two terms in government to achieve the "missions" he set out.

He said that while he was "humble" about the party's electoral chances he was also "honest enough to say that some of these issues are not going to be fixed within five years".

He said: "I am pretty humble about this. We lost badly in 2019 and my ambition is to take the Labour Party back into power. That will be an incredible journey if we are able to do it and I am mindful that every single vote has to be earned and we have got a long, long way to go.

"But I am also honest enough to say that some of these issues are not going to be fixed within five years. They are longer term than that."

You can follow the latest updates below.

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2023-02-23 16:00:00Z
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“My condolences remain with them": Inquest opens into tragic death of mother-of-two Nicola Bulley - Lancashire Evening Post

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“My condolences remain with them": Inquest opens into tragic death of mother-of-two Nicola Bulley Lancashire Evening Post
‘She’s not in the river’: diving expert in Nicola Bulley case under the spotlight The Guardian
Police handling of Nicola Bulley case to be under full independent review The Independent
Nicola Bulley’s body has tragically now been found – will it bring closure? The Independent
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2023-02-23 15:52:14Z
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Police name off-duty detective injured in Omagh shooting - The Guardian

The senior police officer shot in Omagh on Wednesday evening has been named as DCI John Caldwell, as police said the primary focus of the investigation was on dissident republicans.

Caldwell is in a critical but stable condition in hospital after the attack at a sports complex in Omagh. He was shot a number of times by masked men in front of young people he had been coaching.

Caldwell is a high-profile officer who has led a number of major cases, including taking a leading role in the investigation into the killing of Natalie McNally in Lurgan in December.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is treating the attack on Caldwell as suspected attempted murder. The assistant chief constable Mark McEwan told BBC Radio Ulster: “The investigation is at an early stage, we are keeping an open mind. There are multiple strands to that investigation. The primary focus is on violent dissident republicans and within that there is a primary focus as well on New IRA.”

Irish police are working closely with their counterparts in the PSNI and have intensified patrols amid suspicions that the gunmen may have fled across the border.

The shooting has been condemned by politicians in the UK and Ireland. Rishi Sunak said he was appalled by the “disgraceful” shooting of an off-duty police officer. The Irish premier, Leo Varadkar, condemned what he called a “grotesque act of attempted murder”.

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2023-02-23 08:45:00Z
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