United Kingdom

cross-posted from: https://metawire.eu/post/5637

The UK government sought to keep details of its row with Apple over requested access to its encrypted cloud storage tool private.

Publish Date: 07.04.2025, 15:22

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32268341

Archived

• Unmanned Russian vehicles have been discovered lurking next to deep-sea communications cables.
• The Ministry of Defence had credible intelligence that superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs may have been used to conduct underwater reconnaissance.
• The navy has discovered other sensors planted on the sea bed. The UK government is looking at requiring technology and energy companies to work more closely with the military and fund the protection of underwater infrastructure.

68 per cent of prescription doses were not administered within 30 minutes of the expected time, the study found

David Lammy branded Kemi Badenoch ‘disgraceful’ for backing Israel’s decision to refuse entry to the MPs

Britain is a rich country with the world’s 6th largest economy and the highest tax income for decades, which raises a simple question - why do we seem so broke?

Cross-post from https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32163743

Archived

Britain needs to re-arm and build reserves through a form of national service to defend against Vladimir Putin’s hopes to dominate eastern Europe and undermine the west, the former head of MI6 has warned.

Sir Alex Younger said people in the UK must realise that the threat from Russia - and its closeness to the US - is real, adding: “Putin and Trump together have done their best to persuade us that the rules have changed”.

[...]

Reflecting on whether Britain has the mettle for a full-scale war, he [said]: "We have, for many years, been completely free of any form of existential threat [...] We've unforgivably… launched a set of wars of choice, which have imposed sacrifice needlessly on young people and there's great cynicism about this idea of collective effort to defend your country."

[...]

Discussing what need to be done to prepare, Sir Alex, known as “C” during his time as spy chief, added: “You'd have to ask a soldier about the actual efficacy of things like conscription. I have no idea… I know that it just needs to be a more integrated feature of everyday life."

[...]

“In a sense, that's not the point [whether or not Trump is a Russian agent]. The point is he agrees with Vladimir Putin. He agrees that big countries get additional rights over small countries, particularly in their own backyard.”

[...]

“It really depends on how close to Moscow you are. I think in Finland it's well understood [that there is a threat of Russia attacking othrr European countries] and there's a properly integrated resilient culture where everyone is accustomed to playing their part. I think we go to Portugal at the other end that's just not true - and in a sense that's understandable."

[...]

[Dr Rachel] Ellehuus, [an American, former US defence secretary’s envoy to Nato, and now head of the the Royal United Services Institute, Britain’s leading security thinktank], said that while the threat posed by the Kremlin had been persistent, it has been the dramatic shift in Washington that has been the greatest strategic shock [and argued that] a hybrid war with Russia - where disinformation, cyberattacks and economic pressure are equally important - is already underway.

[...]

This threat has intensified following the sudden change in strategic ideology in Washington under Trump [according to Ellehuus].

[...]

“The galvanizing moment for Europe? Yes. Take a look at the Trump-Putin relationship or the Trump/MAGA-Putin relationship,” she said.

[...]

"Am I saying he's going to invade the Baltic states or Poland tomorrow? I'm not. But he is going to test the boundaries of what we call Article 5, which is the commitment that an attack against one Nato ally is an attack against all of them.

“He's already been pushing the boundaries of that through below-the-threshold activities that aren't conventional attacks.”

[...]

According to the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, there was a 300 per cent increase in unconventional attacks on Europe by Russia last year, 2023-2024.

“Roughly 27 percent of the attacks were against transportation targets (such as trains, vehicles, and airplanes), another 27 per cent were against government targets (such as military bases and officials), 21 percent were against critical infrastructure targets (such as pipelines, undersea fiber-optic cables, and the electricity grid), and 21 percent were against industry (such as defense companies),” the CSIS said in a report last month.

[...]

Russell Brand has been charged with rape, indecent assault and sexual assault between 1999 and 2005.

The charges relate to four separate women.

Brand has been interviewed multiple times by police since an investigation by the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4's Dispatches in September 2023 revealed multiple serious allegations against him.

In a new video posted on X, external this afternoon, Brand said: "What I never was, was a rapist. I've never engaged in non-consensual activity."

He added: "I'm now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I'm incredibly grateful for that."

In a short statement, the Metropolitan Police said it had written to Brand to inform him that he was being charged with one allegation of rape, one allegation of indecent assault, one of oral rape and two further counts of sexual assault.

The force said it is alleged that:

• In 1999 a woman was raped in the Bournemouth area.
• In 2001 a woman was indecently assaulted in the Westminster area of London.
• In 2004 a woman was orally raped and sexually assaulted in the Westminster area of London.
• Between 2004 and 2005, a woman was sexually assaulted in the Westminster area of London.

Brand has been told to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 2 May, but he is believed to be in the United States.

Percy Pig’s US invasion could be called to a halt amid fears that Donald Trump’s tariffs could affect sales of Marks & Spencer’s popular confectionery brand which has just launched in Target stores across the Atlantic.

Archie Norman, the chair of M&S, has described Percy as the retailer’s “gift to America” but he told the Retail Technology Show in London that “we might have to change our minds” as Trump imposes additional taxes on imported goods. While M&S is not considering withdrawing the sweets, tariffs could push up prices and make them less popular.

The pink confectionery which sells more than 18m bags a year in the UK and is apparently enjoyed by celebrities including Adele and Olivia Rodrigo, went on sale in the US on 30 March both in Target stores across the US and on its website in what was described as Percy’s “biggest journey to date”.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20326500

Archived

The pursuit of net zero has relied on Uighur Muslims forced to work in appalling conditions. Experts say Britain should follow other countries and take tougher stance.

...

Many of the Chinese workers who are helping us to go green do not want to be at those factories. They do not arrive at work to manually crush silicon and load it into blazing furnaces because of a love of renewables, much less to earn a decent wage.

They are there as part of a mass forced labour programme by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that critics describe as a genocide. A reliance on men and women from the Uighur Muslim minority living in detention centres has helped the Xinjiang region to become the epicentre of the solar industry over the last 15 years.

At its peak, analysts believe that 95 per cent of the world’s solar modules were potentially tainted by forced labour in the region [of Xinjiang, in northwestern China]. This reliance on products partly made through working conditions that would be unfathomable in modern Britain represents what the Conservative MP Alicia Kearns calls an ethical “blind spot”.

...

It is not only solar panels that are linked to widespread human rights abuses in the so-called Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region. Fuelled by an abundance of cheap, coal-driven electricity, the region produces vast amounts of everything from cotton to the lithium batteries that are ever more essential to our tech-driven lives.

But as governments across the world invest in solar energy in the race to reach net zero, experts have described a critical opportunity to curtail what has been one of Xinjiang’s champion industries.

...

Alan Crawford, a chemical engineer who authored a 2023 report that exposed several companies with ties to forced labour, said that transparency from Chinese producers had decreased as a result. “Transparency has gotten worse because the Chinese know that people like us are looking,” he said.

While the Chinese authorities maintain that the Uighur community is free, images of internment camps have shown razor-wire fences manned by police. Leaked police files revealed a shoot-to-kill policy for escapers.

...

The pervasiveness of forced labour across the early stages of the production process makes it difficult to find polysilicon from Xinjiang that has not been contaminated by forced labour. Hoshine Silicon, the dominant MGS producer in Xinjiang and a major supplier to the region’s polysilicon producers, has engaged in “surplus labour” programmes at its factories.

One propaganda account from 2018 details how a married couple were engaged in a “poverty alleviation” scheme in which they were moved 30 miles from their home in the rural Dikan township to work at a Hoshine factory in Shanshan county, leaving behind their children. The couple were described as being “relieved” of their worries by transferring their seven-acre grape farm to the state.

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[Laura] Murphy, a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said legislation introduced in the US in 2021 showed how supply chains can be cleaned up. The Uighur Forced Labour Prevention Act, which bans the import of goods linked to the region, has led to thousands of solar panel shipments being stopped by US customs.

...

It is for this reason that Murphy believes the UK should mirror the US approach, a strategy already being pursued by the European Union. If the UK’s controls against forced labour are not robust, there is a high probability that the UK will simply become a “dumping ground” for the tainted goods not wanted by the US.

...

Andrew Yeh, executive director of the China Strategic Risks Institute, said relying too heavily on China for solar energy products could also leave Britain vulnerable in a geopolitical crisis.

...

For Murphy, legislation is the only meaningful response to the issue. [...] She said: “Whatever it is that other countries think they might be doing to discourage it, shy of legislation, shy of enforcement, it is not working.

“We can be morally outraged all we want and we can express our desires not to have forced labour-made goods, even at governmental level. But until we actually put it in law and enforce it, companies will continue to import goods made with forced labour into the UK.”

London PhD student convicted of 10 rapes may have 60 more victims, force fears

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/19213440

The Socialist Equality Party condemns the attack on the Youth Demand organisation and demands the release and dropping of all charges against its members and supporters arrested over last Thursday and Friday by London’s Metropolitan Police.

The raid on the group’s publicly advertised meeting at Westminster Quaker Meeting House, a little over half a mile from Downing Street, is a major escalation in the Starmer Labour government’s assault on democratic rights. Up to 30 police officers, some armed, smashed their way into the meeting at St Martin’s Lane, central London Thursday evening (March 27).

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I just want to point out how the Quakers have been real OGs for the side of human rights, historically.

Russia is to be put on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), meaning anyone working for the Russian state in the UK will need to declare what they are doing or risk jail, the government announced [...]

Introduced under the National Security Act 2023, FIRS is a tool to help protect our democracy, economy and society from covert, deceptive or otherwise harmful activities against UK interests. The enhanced tier has been specifically designed to shed light on activities directed by particular foreign powers which pose a threat to the safety or interests of the UK.

Russia is the second country to be placed on the enhanced tier, following the announcement in March that Iran would be specified. The government will designate all parts of the Russian state – including its president, its parliament, all Russian ministries and their agencies, and the Russian intelligence services.

The specification of the Russian state is in response to the significant and persistent threat Russia poses to the UK and our interests, which has only increased in recent years. Russian hostile acts on UK soil have ranged from the use of a deadly nerve agent in Salisbury, malign cyber incidents - which included targeting UK parliamentarians through spear-phishing campaigns - as well as espionage and arson.

[...]

Meanwhile, Russia continues to wage its unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine, a war which Russia could end by tomorrow by withdrawing its forces. The UK remains committed to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and will continue to exert maximum economic pressure to stop Russia from threatening and undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, and to help ensure Russia pays for the damage it has caused.

[...]

My opinion:

Telegraph just dosent get it. No one pays tax on savings.

Yeah they get it they just intentionally mislead in the title. Tax is paid on the income savings earn. Not your savings.

But the Telegraph has no interest in arguing why those who can afford to save should get that extra income tax free. When they know full well it helps the economy more when it is spent or invested in other ways.

Putting money into savings only helps the bank. It is safer for the saver. But only to a very limited point the best investment for them.

This is why ISA have always had limited maximums and often encourage investment with some risk. Rather then supporting a tax free passive income alone.

Any form of passive income can only be beneficial to a society as a whole. If the recipient is encouraging growth in the form of income for the rest of society iE jobs/inferstructure/or risk based investments. (At least assuming we stick to fiat based currency. )

Same old cycle the last few years, omg crazy flavour so funny hahaha... oh well you asked for it I guess here it is. Coprorations never fail to make something cultrual into some cold overplayed markting gimmick

A woman who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault says she has four days to live after a car accident.

In a post on Instagram, Virginia Guiffre said she was in a car that was hit by a school bus "driving 110km [68.3mph] as we were slowing for a turn".

Ms Giuffre then said: "I've gone into kidney renal failure, they've given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology.

...

A spokesperson for Ms Giuffre told Sky's US partner network in a statement: "Virginia has been in a serious accident and is receiving medical care in the hospital.

"She greatly appreciates the support and well wishes people are sending."

She sued the Duke of York for sexual abuse in August 2021, saying Andrew had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by his friend, the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Metropolitan Police launch ‘extensive search’ after child falls into water in east London

Thames Water has picked US private equity giant KKR as its "preferred partner" to buy the troubled water utility firm.

The planned investment by KKR would help it deal with its mountain of debt, and Thames is aiming for the transaction to be completed in the second half of this year.