General news

• Russian diplomat insists Moscow has never possessed novichok nerve agent

  16-03-2018 23:23
  One of Russia's most senior diplomats has told Sky News his country has never possessed a nerve agent with the codename "novichok" and has destroyed all its chemical weapons.Alexander Shulgin is Russia's ambassador to the Netherlands and also the Russian representative at the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)."There has never been any programme under the group name 'novichok' in the Russian Federation," he said.
  
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• Irish border remains a Brexit hurdle, say EU sources

  16-03-2018 23:06
  The UK cannot get a legally watertight transition deal until it resolves the status of the Irish border as part of a wider divorce settlement with the EU, sources have said, as Brexit talks move into an intense phase.Senior UK and EU officials are due to meet this weekend in Brussels, ahead of an EU27 Brexit summit on Friday, when Theresa May hopes to bag the transition deal that British business demands.While optimism has risen in recent days, British negotiators will be told they need to move
  
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• Russian 'fugitives' on 'Putin hit list' topped by Nikolai Glushkov living in fear of lives

  16-03-2018 22:40 via feedproxy.google.com
  RUSSIAN "fugitives" on a Kremlin "most wanted" list, are living in fear for their lives after Nikolai Glushkov, whose name topped the list, was murdered earlier this week. Former Aeroflot director Mr Glushkov, 69, who was found dead in his London home on Monday, was number one on a Russian Embassy list of 22 people currently in the UK who are wanted by the Kremlin amid allegations of multi-million pound fraud and corruption.
  
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• Rapist caught 30 years later after urinating in neighbour's plant pot

  16-03-2018 22:35
  A man who raped two women in the 1980s has been caught more than three decades later after urinating in a neighbour's plant pot.Eric McKenna, 60, carried out separate street attacks in Gateshead and Newcastle in the 1980s but his crimes went unsolved until 2016.Five years later, he struck again in the Manors area of Newcastle, but police did not link the crimes and McKenna was not identified.
  
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• Student Mariam Moustafa dies after 'girl gang attack' in Nottingham

  16-03-2018 22:18
  A grieving father has called for "justice" following the death of his daughter, who had been in a coma for three weeks after an alleged attack by a group of girls in the street.Engineering student Mariam Moustafa, 18, died on Wednesday following the assault in Nottingham on February 20.Ms Moustafa was taken to hospital where she was put in an induced coma before her death.
  
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• Who was UK-based Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov?

  16-03-2018 21:29 via bbc.co.uk
  A murder investigation opens into a Russian magnate who, with his friend, sought refuge in the UK.
  
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• Gibraltar forced to share control of airport with Spain as sweetener in Brexit talks

  16-03-2018 20:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  GIBRALTAR is set to allow Spain to share the use of its airport as The Rock attempts to placate officials in Madrid who are threatening to hold the territory to ransom during Brexit.
  
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• Watch a police officer propose to his girlfriend in front of her students

  16-03-2018 20:47
  A heartwarming moment.
  
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• Kremlin says no clear proof Russia behind Skripal attack - RIA

  16-03-2018 20:29
  There is no clear proof that Russia is linked to an attack involving a nerve agent against a former Russian double agentin England, the Kremlin spokesman said on Friday, commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion that there was."It's obvious that there is a lack of any clear proof (of Russian involvement)... The whole wave (of such statements) originated from Britain," the state-run RIA news agency quoted Dmitry Peskov as saying.Former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yul
  
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• Prince Harry highlights shrinking defence budgets as he returns to Army school

  16-03-2018 20:11
  Prince Harry raised the issue of shrinking defence budgets as he returned to the Army centre where he learnt to fly Apache helicopters.The prince remarked that "in certain areas budgets are being shrunk" following widespread speculation of possible cuts to military personnel and equipment.Harry's comments were praised by the former head of the Royal Navy, who said more funds were needed to deliver plans to modernise Britain's military.
  
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• Lebanon central bank - IMF criticism valid, but budget a good start

  16-03-2018 19:46
  IMF criticism of Lebanon's public finances is valid, but the country's draft 2018 budget sends a good signal as it seeks to cut one of the world's highest debt-to-GDP ratios from above 150 percent, the head of its central bank said.Riad Salameh also said in an interview with Reuters on Friday that economic growth could be boosted by 1 percentage point for every $1 billion (717.46 million pounds) of donor funding that the government secures and spends.To help stimulate its battered economy, Leban
  
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• These pictures of Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron look like the perfect duet

  16-03-2018 19:31
  Absolute gold.
  
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• MPs urge PM to clarify Chris Grayling's post-Brexit border pledge

  16-03-2018 19:20
  Chris Grayling made the comments on BBC’s Question Time.MPs have written to the prime minister demanding clarification after the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said any additional physical checks on lorries at Dover after Brexit would be “utterly unrealistic”.The letter came as the Freight Transport Association (FTA) said Grayling’s promise would “open up the UK’s borders to potential abuse and breaches” and that the UK government would be unable t
  
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• 'The future will be equal': Sienna Miller speaks out at #MeToo summit – video

  16-03-2018 19:16 via theguardian.com
  In a powerful speech in New York, actor Sienna Miller hailed the Time’s Up movement for teaching a lesson to ‘our rampant patriarchal societies’. Miller was speaking at an event on sexual exploitation and harassment hosted by the Guardian, UN Women and the Norwegian government. She praised the courage of the women in the entertainment industry who have spoken up on sexual harassment and abuse, and talked about the discrimination she has felt in her own career. ‘I have rea
  
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• Russian spy poisoning: chemist says non-state actor couldn't carry out attack

  16-03-2018 18:37
  Vil Mirzayanov holds a copy of his book State Secrets at his home on 13 March 2018, in Princeton, New Jersey.The Russian chemist who revealed the existence of the novichok family of chemical agents to the world has dismissed the notion that a non-state actor could be behind the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, earlier this month.Police have confirmed that Skripal and his daughter were in Salisbury city centre by 1.30pm.
  
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• Europe's response to U.S. import tariffs

  16-03-2018 18:30
  The European Commission called for industry views on Friday on a list of U.S. products it will subject to import tariffs, the first step towards measures to counter planned U.S. taxes on European steel and aluminium.The Commission, which oversees trade policy for the 28-nation EU, has said it would respond in three ways.The European Commission would launch a legal challenge at the World Trade Organization and has been discussing doing so jointly with other trading partners.
  
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• Germany, France to discuss response to nerve agent attack in UK - Merkel

  16-03-2018 18:29
  PARIS (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday she would discuss with French President Emmanuel Macron an appropriate response to an attack using a military-grade nerve agent that Britain has blamed on Russia.
  
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• Skripals may have received nerve agent in liquid form, says expert

  16-03-2018 18:27
  Police officers in protective suits and masks working near the site in Salisbury on Friday where Sergei Skripal and his daughter were discovered.The nerve agent used in the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia may have been a liquid that was applied to their clothes, the former commander of the British regiment that specialised in detecting chemical weapons has told the Guardian.Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who was a commander of the now disbanded Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological
  
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• British police launch murder probe into death of Russian Nikolai Glushkov in London

  16-03-2018 18:23
  British counter-terror police have launched a murder investigation into the death of Russian Nikolai Glushkov in London.The Metropolitan Police said a post-mortem examination found the cause of the 68-year-old's death was compression to the neck.Mr Glushkov, who had received political asylum in Britain after being jailed in Russia for money laundering and fraud, was found dead at his home in New Malden, southwest London on Monday.
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn Might Be Right About The Russian Mafia - But Here’s Why It Doesn't Matter

  16-03-2018 17:52
  Jeremy Corbyn has called for calm in the response to the poisoning of Russian
  
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• UK treating death of Russian businessman Glushkov as murder - police

  16-03-2018 17:50
  British police said on Friday they had launched a murder investigation following the death this week of a Russian associate of late tycoon Boris Berezovsky."A murder investigation has been launched following the results of a post mortem into the death of 68-year-old Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov," London's Metropolitan Police said, adding the cause of death was "compression to the neck".The police said in a statement that at this stage there was nothing to suggest a link to the attempted
  
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• Pitch invaders get what they asked for

  16-03-2018 17:36
  A pitch invader is escorted off the pitch during West Ham’s game with Burnley. Photograph: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images
  
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• Debt relief and dignity required

  16-03-2018 17:36
  ‘The burden of debt affects relationships, health, child development and the wider economy,’ say the debt advisers.Jubilee Debt Campaign and the Centre for Responsible Credit have called for the government, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority to address the “severe and persistent” debt burden on low-income households (Report, 5 March).As debt advisers, we are acutely aware of the recent increase in debt problems, and the damage that this is causin
  
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• Russian Exile Death Of Nikolay Glushkov In London Now Treated As Murder

  16-03-2018 17:07
  A murder inquiry has been launched by counter-terrorism police investigating
  
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• Cheltenham horse DEAD: Sandsend dies in 'barbaric' race - animal charities call for BAN

  16-03-2018 17:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  A HORSE has died at Cheltenham 2018 causing animal cruelty activists to blast the sport as 'barbaric' and call for a national ban.
  
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• Towers with Grenfell-style cladding ‘at risk of arson and terrorism’

  16-03-2018 17:00
  At least 288 towers in England failed combustibility tests after the Grenfell fire in June 2017.Public officials fear terrorists and arsonists could target high-rise homes that are still covered in combustible Grenfell-style cladding, amid increasing delays to safety works, a Guardian investigation has found.The estimated bill to reclad at least 288 towers in England, which failed combustibility tests after 71 people died at Grenfell Tower in west London, is now on course to reach £1bn.
  
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• Expelled Russian diplomats will leave Britain on March 20 - RIA

  16-03-2018 16:55
  MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian diplomats expelled from Britain will leave London on March 20, RIA news agency cited the Russian Ambassador to Britain as saying.
  
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• German home shopping channel HSE24 attracts suitors - sources

  16-03-2018 16:52
  Buyout group Providence is moving ahead with plans to pull out of German home shopping TV network HSE24, which it plans to sell or float on the Frankfurt stock exchange before the summer, several people close to matter said.Suitors including private equity firms Advent, Apax, BC Partners, Cinven and PAI are expected to hand in tentative bids worth around 1.5 billion euros (£1.32 billion) by a pre-Easter deadline, they added.HSE24 is expected to post earnings before interest, tax, depreciat
  
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• Parsons Green tube bomber was referred to Prevent programme

  16-03-2018 16:44
  Ahmed Hassan said he had made the bomb because he was ‘very bored, very depressed, very confused’.A teenage Iraqi asylum seeker who planted a bomb on a crowded London underground train had been involved in the government’s Prevent deradicalisation programme for more than a year, it emerged at the end of his Old Bailey trial.Ahmed Hassan was found guilty on Friday of attempted murder after his homemade device partially detonated at Parsons Green in west London during the morning
  
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• Nike President Trevor Edwards Resigns As Company Probes Workplace Complaints

  16-03-2018 16:43
  Nike president Trevor Edwards has resigned and will leave the company in
  
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• Britons face holiday red tape without Brexit deal - trade body CEO

  16-03-2018 16:23
  Britons going on holiday in the European Union next year will need to pay more for travel insurance and get documentation to take their cars to the continent without a strong Brexit transition deal, the head of Britain's insurance trade body said on Friday.Britain and the EU could agree a "provisional" deal next week on a post-Brexit transition period, a senior Brussels diplomat said on Friday, stressing that this will only happen if London and the bloc resolve all divorce matters first.The bloc
  
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• Arsenal to face Russian side CSKA Moscow in Europa League amid spy tension

  16-03-2018 16:23
  Arsenal have been drawn against Russian side CSKA Moscow in the quarter-finals of the Europa League.
  
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• Did Vladimir Putin order execution of British 'Spy in Bag' found dead in MI6 safehouse?

  16-03-2018 16:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  THE investigation into the death of "Spy in the Bag" Gareth Williams should be re-opened to see if there was any Russian involvement in the mysterious case, an MP has claimed. Chris Evans, MP for Islwyn in South Wales, has said the bizarre circumstances surrounding the death of Welshman Gareth Williams should be re-examined in the wake of the Salisbury nerve gas attack.
  
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• Secret deportation flights must stop

  16-03-2018 16:06
  ‘People across the UK are standing together to stop the Home Office breaking up families and tearing communities apart,’ say the signatories.Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
  
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• Russia launches murder probe into death of Nikolai Glushkov in London

  16-03-2018 16:03
  Moscow has opened a murder investigation into the death of Russian Nikolai Glushkov in London.The country's Investigative Committee, which looks into major crimes and reports directly to President Vladimir Putin, said it would investigate the 68-year-old's death in New Malden on Monday.A former deputy general director at the airline Aeroflot had received political asylum in Britain after being jailed in Russia for money laundering and fraud.
  
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• 'Jeremy Corbyn is coming over as a true leader': your best comments today

  16-03-2018 16:00
  ‘Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of the evidence, and our response must be both decisive and proportionate’ says Jeremy Corbyn.Jeremy Corbyn’s piece on the need for firm multilateral action to ensure the Salisbury spy poisonings never happens again, predictably, got readers talking.British consumers being in the dark about exactly what household waste they can recycle, and Sonia Sodha’s piece on reassessing the true value of university degrees.
  
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• Will Danny Boyle direct the next Bond film? Here's what we know so far

  16-03-2018 15:53 via bbc.co.uk
  The Slumdog Millionaire director says he's working on the next film with Trainspotting's John Hodge.
  
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• MPs back refugee family reunification bill

  16-03-2018 15:34
  Caroline Nokes, the immigration minister, has been accused of ‘Orwellian doublespeak’.MPs have backed a bill that would allow child refugees to sponsor close relatives to join them in the UK, though the government has said it will oppose the legislation at a later stage.The Commons voted in favour of the Scottish National party MP Angus MacNeil’s refugee family reunification bill at its second reading and it will now move to committee stage.
  
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• Four parents who take term-time holidays explain why

  16-03-2018 15:22 via bbc.co.uk
  Some say they actively budget for fines, while others believe the penalty system is a "mess".
  
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• Skripals poisoning: what we know so far

  16-03-2018 15:08
  People walk past the Zizzi restaurant where Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, ate on the day they were poisoned.CCTV footage from a pub caught Sergei Skripal driving his daughter, Yulia, into Salisbury at 1.35pm.Emergency services were called to the bench in the Maltings where the Skripals had fallen ill at 4.15pm.
  
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• In Pictures: The world goes green for St Patrick’s Day

  16-03-2018 15:06
  From Rome to Rio and from London to Las Vegas, a host of buildings and sites around the world are turning a shade of green.
  
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• French food retailer Leclerc takes on rivals to crack Paris

  16-03-2018 14:54
  French supermarket chain Leclerc, which launches a home delivery service in Paris this month, also aims to open click and collect stores and hypermarkets in the capital.Leclerc is France's biggest food retailer by market share but most of its 681 stores around the country are outside big cities.Tackling the lucrative Paris market is its next frontier for expansion and Chief Executive Michel-Edouard Leclerc said it will take three years to establish a solid foothold in the city.
  
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• Iraqi teenager guilty of carrying out London train bombing

  16-03-2018 14:51
  An Iraqi teenager, who had come to Britain as an asylum seeker, was found guilty on Friday of attempted murder after detonating a homemade bomb on a packed rush-hour London commuter train, injuring 30 people, prosecutors and police said.Ahmed Hassan, 18, was found guilty of trying to murder thepassengers on board an underground train heading to central London on Sept. 15 last year, prosecutors said.The bomb went off at Parsons Green station and flames engulfed the carriage, but it did not fully
  
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• 'Overwhelmingly likely' Putin ordered spy attack, says Boris Johnson

  16-03-2018 14:42
  Boris Johnson has said it is “overwhelmingly likely” that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, personally took the decision to use a nerve agent to attempt to kill the former double agent Sergei Skripal on UK soil.The foreign secretary said Britain was taking retaliatory action against “Putin’s Kremlin” and not the Russian people, as he visited the Battle of Britain Bunker museum in Uxbridge with his Polish counterpart.“We think it overwhelmingly likely that
  
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• Britain says likely that Russia's Putin made decision for nerve agent attack

  16-03-2018 14:10
  British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Friday that it was overwhelmingly likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself made the decision to use a military-grade nerve toxin to strike down a former Russian agent on English soil.There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening," Johnson told reporters at the Battle of Britain bunker from which World War Two fighter operations were controlled."Our quarrel is with Putin's Kremlin, and with his decision – and we th
  
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• Scottish minister demands Labour expel councillor over racist remark

  16-03-2018 13:55
  Scotland’s transport minister, Humza Yousaf, has demanded that a councillor who made an Islamophobic comment about him be expelled from the Scottish Labour party.Jim Dempster, a Labour member of Dumfries and Galloway council, told transport officials at a meeting on Tuesday that “no one would have seen [Yousaf] under his burqa”.
  
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• Kremlin - Accusation of Putin role in poisoning is shocking: TASS

  16-03-2018 13:53
  MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday that British accusations that President Vladimir Putin was involved in a nerve agent attack in England were shocking and unforgivable, TASS news agency reported.
  
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• Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko Says Britain Is Using Salisbury Poisoning 'To Divert Attention From Brexit'

  16-03-2018 13:50
  Russia's ambassador to London has suggested Britain is using the Salisbury
  
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• Presidents Club scandal casts shade over 'sleazy' property industry

  16-03-2018 13:47
  Female delegates examine a scale model of London at Mipim, an international real estate exhibition in Cannes, France.Under palm trees on the French Riviera, the property industry is desperately trying to shake the shadow of the Presidents Club, the men-only charity dinner at which estate agents and developers reportedly groped and harassed female hostesses.The organisers of Mipim, the property industry’s annual “champagne, yachts and fun” bash in Cannes, have repeatedly warned
  
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• In poison attack, EU's first focus not to boycott Russian World Cup - Merkel

  16-03-2018 13:46
  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the immediate priority of European Union leaders discussing the nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy in Britain would not be to discuss a potential boycott of the soccer World Cup in Russia.
  
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