DES ABEND NEWS

Turkey has begun 'retaliation' missile strikes in Northern Syria and Iraq, after a bomb attack in Istanbul last week killed six people.  Credit: anews.com.  By: Sam Feierabend. The target for the bombings has been against Kurdish militant bases and have killed 11 civilians, including a journalist say the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF are led by militants from Kurdistan, the long-debated region that covers Northern Iraq and Syria. Kurdish people have long been targeted by others, including ISIS and Al-Assad's Syrian army.  Despite claiming no responsibility, the SDF have seemingly been the target for Turkish counter strikes which have been carried out as retaliation. Last Sunday (13 November), a bomb set off in central Istanbul killed six people and injured another 80. The Turkish ministry of defence has called this offensive Operation Claw Sword, which is claimed to only be targeting terrorist organisations and structures belonging to terrorists. ...

The UK will pay France £8m extra a year to try to stop people crossing the English Channel in boats. Credit: MSBN.com.  By: Sam Feierabend.  In the revised deal, UK police officers will be embedded with French police in control rooms and on beaches. The number of officers patrolling the French coast will increase from 200 to 300. The Government is under increasing pressure to limit the number of Channel crossings, with numbers hitting record levels this year. More than 40,000 people have crossed in boats this year, up from 28,000 last year and 8,500 the year before. Rishi Sunak has recognised that there is no single thing that can bring numbers down, but he is confident that the problem can be 'fixed'. In the new agreement, Home Secretary Suella Braverman increased the amount that the UK pays France from £55m to £63m. This would help to cover the 40% uplift in the number of French police patrolling beaches.  The UK will use night vision equipment and increase the usage of...

World leaders are meeting in Egypt this week to discuss climate change and what action should be taken to tackle it.   Credit: yahoo.com. By: Sam Feierabend. After initially saying he would not attend, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be present in Sharm-El-Sheikh. The annual COP meetings are held by the United Nations where governments agree to measures to combat global temperature rise. This year’s meeting has a lot to focus on, given the record-breaking heatwave across Europe and devastating floods that hit Pakistan.    More than 200 nations have been invited to the conference, with Sunak stating how the conference should highlight the Russian invasion of Ukraine will reinforce the need to end dependence on fossil fuels.    Russian delegates will attend, and it is not clear if China will send any representatives. The host nation Egypt has said that countries attending should put aside their differences and focus on dealing with the climate crisis.   Ahead...

  157 years ago the US constitution banned slavery – where one person is the legal property of another. So why will voters in five states see slavery on the ballot? Credit: Vox. By: Derry Salter. In the US, there is an exemption for slavery when it comes to convicted prisoners as involuntary servitude is a legal punishment for a crime. Tomorrow, five states will decide whether to remove these exemptions from their state constitutions and ban slavery entirely. Three states, Colorado, Nebraska and Utah, voted in 2018 to ban all forms of slavery. Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont are next to decide. 800,000 prisoners across the US work for pennies and in seven states, they work for nothing at all. Human rights researchers call it an ‘exploitative loophole’ which originates from the roots of the enslavement of African-Americans. After slavery was outlawed, many laws were passed that specifically targeted Black communities and forced them into prisons. Such movem...

British politics is the gift that keeps on giving, with this week’s bizarre story coming as Matt Hancock has been suspended as a Conservative MP. C redit: inews.co.uk. By: Sam Feierabend. Was it because of his abysmal record as Health Secretary during the Covid-19 pandemic in which he mislabelled PPE equipment or gave out contracts to companies run by close Conservative donors? No. It is because he has announced his participation in this year’s I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! cast. Hancock will jet to Australia to join other celebrities such as Boy George, Mike Tindall and Jill Scott to take part in challenges and trials that the public vote for. Ministerial code for sitting MPs states that ‘any appointments or employment must be checked before they are taken up.’ Allegedly Hancock did not do this. His spokesperson claims that one off media broadcasts are permitted within guidelines. Nonetheless the announcement of the former Health Secretary’s participation in the show h...

  Migrants are piled in at the Border Force migrant centre after facing a fire attack yesterday, which authorities refuse to label as terrorism. Credit: Express.Co.Uk By: Derry Salter. Yesterday morning, police were called to The Viaduct, after two petrol bombs were thrown by a suspect and started a fire. Surrounding fences were burnt and petrol marks stained the floor. Two people were injured in the fire.   Police have increased security in the local area, but most police cordons have been lifted.   The Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit later found a further device in the suspect’s car. The suspect, 66, was found dead in his car in a petrol station with self inflicted injuries. The motivation of the perpetrator is being described as ‘unknown’.  The suspect was from High Wycombe, over 100 miles away from the site of the attack.   The migrant centre is located near Kent’s port, a key location in migration to the UK.   Residents of the area...

Iran’s Supreme Leader has blamed the US and Israel for unrest in the country following the death of a woman in police custody.   Photo: atalayer.com By Sam Feierabend Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claims that riots had been engineered by enemies of Iran and their allies. The current protests are the biggest challenge for those ruling Iran in over a decade. They started following the detaining of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who fell into a coma just hours after arrest on 13 September.    Her arrest came for allegedly breaking the strict law requiring women to cover their hair with hijab. She died just three days later. Her family allege that her death came as a result of police brutality, banging her head against their vehicles.   Since her funeral, women have led the protests, waving their headscarves aloft with some even setting theirs on fire and chanting “Women, life, freedom”. This went further for many even going as far as to chant “Death to the dictator”.   The Ayat...

The latest YouGov poll on voting intention has shown Labour to be 33 points ahead of the Conservative party in the wake of the mini-budget announcement last week. The lead is the highest ever recorded by a political party in a published poll since the late 1990s. Credit: trendradars.com By:  Sam Feierabend. If an election was held tomorrow, the forecast would be 54% of vote share for Labour and just 21% for Conservative. Even more damning for the Tories, is that of those who voted for the party in 2019, less than two fifths would now vote the same way. 17% would swing to Labour which in historical comparison, is far higher than the 5% swing that was seen the last time Labour were leading the polls. One estimate shows that the Conservatives would lose a whopping 304 seats in an imminent election, leaving them with just 61, their lowest ever. Labour would win an extra 296 seats, putting them in control of 498 constituencies, another new record. While it is always naïve to take th...

Italians headed to the polls over the weekend with a simple question being whispered across Europe: Will Italy be   heading far-right for the first time since the Second World War? Photo: The Toronto Star. By: Sam Feierabend. The name on everyone’s lips is Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party who is aiming to become the country’s first female prime minister. Her party is running allied to two other parties that are right leaning. She has gained public attention for some of her views, including speaking out against the ‘LGBT lobby’ and campaigning for a naval blockade of Libya to halt migration to the country. Despite her softening her image in recent months, she still embraces the slogan, ‘God, fatherland and family’ which was adopted by Benito Mussolini’s fascist party of the 1920s and 1930s. The surge in popularity in more extreme parties, especially in Italy is driven by public unrest over everyday matters. Despite Italy’s economy showing re...

After months of internal political battling, Liz Truss has seen off competition from Rishi Sunak to become the UK’s fourth Prime Minister in seven years. She takes control of a country crippled in economic crisis, divided in public opinion, and dragged into international conflict. Photo: chinaglobalsouth.com. By: Sam Feierabend. Truss’ promotion from Foreign Secretary to the hotseat in Number 10 Downing Street is the culmination of a political career that surprisingly saw her start as President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats. Her values would stand close to that of the ‘liberals’ even after defecting to the Conservative Party in 1996. Her work and ideas focus on rigorous academic standards in all schools, including writing for a liberal think tank arguing for an end to bias against serious subjects in schools so social mobility can be improved, while also supporting the legalisation of cannabis and the abolition of the monarchy – some may describe as radical policies. She...

The former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has died aged 91 after a battle with a longstanding illness. He is hailed for his efforts to end the Cold War peacefully. Photo: rbth.com. By: Sam Feierabend. Gorbachev, revered by the West and despised by the East, was famously instrumental in the collapse of the Berlin Wall, symbolising the end of political tensions that had built up from the Second World War. He is regarded by many as one of the most influential politicians of the 20 th century and even won a Nobel Prize for peace in 1990 for his efforts at ending the Cold War. After graduating from Moscow State University in 1955, Mikhail Gorbachev quickly rose through the ranks of the Communist Party, becoming leader of the Young Communist League by 1961. He was part of a new generation of party activists who were becoming frustrated by ageing leadership. In 1980, Gorbachev was appointed as a full member of the Politburo, the principal policy making committee of the Co...

  On 8 August, former US President Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, was searched by the FBI after the US Department of Justice suspected Trump of breaking the Espionage Act. Credit: Steve Helber. By: Derry Salter. The search warrant details how the FBI gathered evidence on 8 August to investigate whether Trump took government records from the White House to his home whilst in power; this improper handling is a serious offence with all US Presidents having to abide by the law of transferring all documents and emails to the National Archives.   Earlier this year, the National Archives claimed they retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago, which the former President should have handed over. These documents included classified information, which saw the National Archives take action and call for the justice department to undertake an investigation.   The search a fortnight ago recovered twenty boxes of material and the FBI took 11 sets of classified f...

The Royal Air Force (RAF) have come under fire for recent developments that have claimed the force are ‘effectively pausing’ offering jobs to white males in an attempt to meet diversity targets. This would allegedly see more women and ethnic minorities employed to the force. Credit: easterneye. By: Sam Feierabend. As a result of the allegations, the RAF Head of Recruitment, who is a woman herself, has resigned from her post. This came amid concerns that any such restrictions on hiring, no matter how temporary or limited, could undermine the fighting strength of the RAF. They said the service was attempting to hit ‘impossible’ diversity targets. Sources within the defence department have accused Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, Head  of the RAF, of compromising UK security in pursuit of goals such as improving diversity and inclusion. At a time when international tensions are at a volatile state, watertight security is key. An RAF spokesperson has disputed the allegations, sa...

Following disruption last month due to strikes from railway workers, a further round of strikes will take place next week (19   August) causing more chaos in the height of the summer holidays.   Credit: The Express . By: Sam Feierabend. Members of the RMT Union will take part in a 24 hour walkout with up to 10,000 London Underground workers expected to be involved. Tube workers are striking over disputes about their pensions, prompted by Transport for London’s (TFL) refusal to share details of a draft government proposal for funding the transport system. The funding deal has been drafted in response to Covid-19 leaving an economic black hole in the transport industry – the union are demanding that assurances are made about jobs, no detrimental changes to pension or changes in working conditions. The Underground strikes sit in between a further two days of National Rail strikes which are expected to cause even more disruption to a summer of travel turmoil; holidaymakers and f...