List of All Articles with Tag 'uk'

King Charles will be on a charm offensive on this month's rearranged state visit to France.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv Wednesday on what is his third trip to the Ukrainian capital since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russian mercenary group Wagner will be declared a terrorist organisation and a draft order against the private militia will be laid in parliament on Wednesday, the Home Office said. Once cleared, the order will make it illegal to be a member of the group or to support it. The group, formerly led by now-dead Yevgeny Prigozhin, is known to carry out Russia’s dirty work in Syria and Africa, and has also handed Vladimir Putin Russia’s biggest victory of capturing Bakhmut against Ukraine in the continuing invasion. Assets belonging to Wagner, primarily consisting of contractors and prison convicts, will be declared as terrorist property and will be seized after the draft order is cleared. It will also render certain proscription offences punishable by up to 14 years in jail. Home secretary Suella Braverman called the group a “violent and destructive organisation which has acted as a military tool of Vladimir Putin’s Russia overseas”. “While Putin’s regime decides what to do with the monster it created, Wagner’s continuing destabilising activities only continue to serve the Kremlin’s political goals,” she said in a statement. “They are terrorists, plain and simple – and this proscription order makes that clear in UK law. Wagner has been involved in looting, torture and barbarous murders. Its operations in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa are a threat to global security,” the home secretary said. “That is why we are proscribing this terrorist organisation and continuing to aid Ukraine wherever we can in its fight against Russia.” Once declared illegal, Wagner will join other organisations on the proscribed list like the Islamic State, al-Qaida and neo-Nazi group National Action. The Home Office said proscription of the group comes after consideration of the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities as well as the threat they pose to British nationals abroad. In May this year, a government source said the move to declare the group illegal was “imminent” and the administration was working on building a legal case. The push came after a government department reportedly helped its millionaire owner Prigozhin to circumvent UK sanctions to take a British journalist to court in 2021. The Treasury commissioned an internal review of its processes after it was reported that licences had been issued to allow lawyers to help Prigozhin launch legal action against a reporter of investigative website Bellingcat in the UK while the Russian oligarch was subjected to sanctions. As a result of the review, the department said the government was committed to “further targeted changes to the process for issuing legal fees licences that safeguard the sanctions regime against the risk of manipulation and ensure ministers are accountable for OFSI Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation) decision-making”. Wagner’s fate as Russia’s trusted brutal force in private capacity has been hanging by a thread after its leader Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash last month. The crash occurred exactly two months after Prigozhin mounted a short-lived armed rebellion against Russia’s military leadership, posing the biggest challenge to Mr Putin’s authority in his 23-year rule. Read More With its leader dead, can the Wagner group rise and ride again? Russians are convinced Wagner warlord Prigozhin is still alive as conspiracy spreads that Putin killed body double Kremlin says 'Deliberate wrongdoing' among possible causes of plane crash that killed Prigozhin The Kremlin says Putin is not planning to attend Wagner chief Prigozhin's burial White House says Kremlin has ‘long history’ of killing its opponents following Prigozhin death

A Russian attack on port facilities in the Izmail area killed one person, the local governor says.

Moscow's forces have started covering some of their attack aircraft with car tires, in what experts say could be a makeshift attempt to protect them from Ukrainian drone strikes that have had increased recent success in targeting Russian military airports.

A group of MPs say the PM must call on Narendra Modhi to "immediately release" campaigner Jagtar Singh Johal.

Its soldiers are scattered between Belarus and Africa, while others have joined the Russian army.

By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON The Democratic and Republican leaders of the U.S. Senate expressed support for continued assistance

It will become illegal to be a member of or support the Russian mercenary group.

Nexperia announce 100 job losses after it was told to sell its stake over national security worries.

Euro 2022 winner Jill Scott has voiced “disappointment” that the World Cup kiss saga has detracted attention from the Spanish women’s team win. The former England midfielder told The Independent that issues within Spanish football have “overshadowed” the team’s “great football”. Her comments come after the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales has come under sustained criticism for kissing player Jenni Hermoso on the lips after Spain secured their 1-0 win over England last month. Rubiales, who was also condemned for grabbing his crotch after Spain won the women’s world title for the first time in history, has refused to step down over his behaviour but was suspended by Fifa. It comes as Jorge Vilda, head coach of Spain's women’s team, was fired on Tuesday after he was among those who praised Rubiales’ refusal to step down. Scott said she felt “disappointment” that the kiss has been “the main talking point”, rather than Spain actually winning the World Cup. “I know that there were girls that decided not to go to the World Cup because they weren’t happy with the way things were going. And that for me is just so sad to hear because it’s a dream to play in a World Cup. “I was so fortunate that I got to do that four times, and it’s something that you dream of from being a young girl, and to think that was taken away from them. First and foremost, that is sad.” Speaking to The Independent in a wide-ranging interview, the Lioness also discussed the bullying she endured as a young girl playing football at school. She said people often thought she was a boy because she played football and questioned how girls could play the game. The 36-year-old said it was “unusual” to see girls playing football back then and said she sometimes suffered worse bullying from parents rather than her classmates. “Sometimes for parents, if a young girl back then – I’m going back 30 years – beat their son, it was a bit of an embarrassment,” she added. Scott said she would attend football camps where she was the one girl alongside 50 boys, as well as going to football tournaments where she was the only girl. The former footballer said even though she was better at football than some of the boys she “never wanted special treatment for being a girl”. Scott added: “I just wanted to play football and as a young kid, I didn't understand why it was such an issue that I just wanted to play football.” She continued: “Once I stepped over that white line, that was where I wanted to be. I could escape everything.” Her comments come as new research by Starling Bank found three in 10 girls stop playing football when they get to their late teenage years – a far higher proportion than the one in ten boys who give up the sport. Researchers, who polled 2,000 11 to 16-year-olds in the UK, found that over a quarter of girls quit football over pressures to perform well at school. Meanwhile, 14 per cent stop playing because of insecurities about their body image and eight per cent bow out of football for being bullied for playing the game. Scott, who is an ambassador for the bank, said social media pressure was partly to blame as it puts pressure on girls to make them feel like they should look a particular way. “It’s kind of this perfect world isn't it, in a sense,” she reflected. “And I think we're all guilty of doing it. We don't want to post a picture unless you look good or if it’s filtered.” Scott explained she has coached football to girls aged between 13 and 15 and you can see they do not want to get “stuck into a tackle” or do not “want to get sweaty” due to anxiety about how they will look. Read More Spanish FA chief blames player for World Cup kiss and shouts ‘I am not resigning!’ in chaotic press conference Spanish soccer federation fires women's national team coach Jorge Vilda amid Rubiales controversy ‘He wasn’t raping her’: Woody Allen offers staggering defence of Spanish football boss Luis Rubiales ‘History in the making’: Lionesses’ Euros success sparks booming interest in women’s football Lioness Demi Stokes says misogynistic abuse online ‘really affected’ England players’ game

David Harewood visits a stately home built using the profits of plantations where his ancestors were enslaved.