LONDON: From the Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks to acid-wielding gangs, the city’s usual summer cheer is tinged with fear. Londoners are under siege.
On a balmy Sunday morning in July, Hyde Park in the center of the UK capital is in bloom and bustling with tourists enjoying the sunshine.
But in the boroughs beyond is a city deeply divided — by money, politics and religion.
The diversity, tolerance and good humor that once defined the UK capital are being shouted down.
At Speakers’ Corner, where public speakers have gathered since 1872, the shouting is being done by rival preachers of Christian and Muslim faiths.
They trade insults for the entertainment of the crowd — like boxers trash-talking before a bout.
Among the audience is Londoner Mercyn Botayi, who sees fear and inequality in many aspects of his home city — from the social deprivation revealed by the Grenfell Tower fire to the backlash against Muslims in the wake of a string of terror attacks in the capital.
“Islamophobia has become really real,” said the 18-year-old student, who is not himself a Muslim. “There is a typification of Muslims and I don’t understand where it comes from. People see Muslims and they think terrorists.”
Police figures point to a rise in hate crimes as well as those specifically targeting Muslims this summer.
The Metropolitan Police has increased its number of specialist investigators dealing with hate crimes by 30 percent over the last two years, with 900 members of staff now dedicated to this type of offense.
The Mayor of London’s office last month released figures that showed a sharp increase in hate crimes and Islamaphobic incidents in the aftermath of the London Bridge terror attack on June 3. Racist incidents leapt by as much as 40 percent.
Some have contrasted how the media covered the London Bridge attack to coverage of other incidents, such as the van attack on Muslims near Finsbury Park Mosque in June.
“The Finsbury Park attack was (allegedly) done by a white guy but they didn’t call him a terrorist. Had he been an Asian he would have been called a terrorist,” said Botayi.
His friend Simeon Mitchell, an 18-year-old student, agrees that the media has played a part in stoking such divisions and helping to tribalize a city world-famous for its tolerance.
Some commentators trace London’s changing temperament to last summer when Britain voted narrowly to leave the EU.
The vitriolic political language unleashed by Brexit is not just finding its voice in the city’s underclass estates or atop the angry soap boxes of Speakers’ Corner, but also among the highest rungs of society — as the jailing of aristocrat Rhodri Philipps this month highlighted.
The polo-playing viscount received a 12-week sentence for a string of menacing social media posts. One of them offered £5,000 for someone to “accidentally” run over anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller.
“If this is what we should expect from immigrants send them back to their stinking jungles,” he wrote in a post that he later claimed was “just satire.”
Mike Ainsworth, a director at Stop Hate UK, sees a clear link between the rise of hate crimes and the EU membership referendum.
He said that while there was nothing intrinsic in Brexit that should have encouraged more hate crimes, the rhetoric used by politicians and reported by a media that deliberately sought comment from individuals known for their extreme views, produced the same practical result.
“The relationship between hate speech and hate crime is absolute,” he said.The efficiency of social media in framing the narrative after a terror incident means that political leaders need to be equally swift in delivering messages that do not stoke up the potential for further hate crimes.
“We also tend to interact with people on social media who agree with us,” said Ainsworth. “The perpetrators of hate crime often say they never heard of the counter narrative until they were arrested.”
Rising wealth disparity in the capital could also be fueling tension.
The gulf between the city’s rich and poor — so vividly revealed by the Grenfell Tower fire in June, in which at least 80 people perished — is getting wider.
Grenfell Tower, which was home to many immigrants working on or below the poverty line, is located in a borough where the average terraced house sells for almost £4.3 million ($5.6 million), according to the Rightmove property listings website.”If you look at Grenfell, you can see the division in society,” says Botayi. “In a middle-class area there would never be a tower block with that cladding.”
Squalor and splendor have long lived cheek by jowl in London, back to the best and worst of Dickensian times.
But a rampant housing boom that is only now cooling has extended and distended that inequality by sucking a disproportionately large proportion of many people’s wages into paying rent — while many others fortunate enough to own their homes have become paper millionaires.
In a city where the average price of a home is now more than £630,000, some 27 percent of Londoners live in poverty after housing costs are taken into account, according to the New Policy Institute.
Almost 700,000 jobs in London (18 percent) pay below the London living wage. This number has increased for five consecutive years, particularly among men working full-time.
And there are more people in poverty in private rented housing than there are in social rented or owner-occupied homes. A decade ago it was the least common tenure among those in poverty.
A report released by the Resolution Foundation think tank this month reveals sharply rising inequality in the capital, driven by housing costs.
It estimates that the number of children living in poverty has more than doubled in a decade.
The number of eviction notices in London is currently almost double the rest of the country.
Stop Hate UK’s Ainsworth sees a clear link between poverty and hate crimes — such as when unemployment is blamed on immigration.
“Making that link has had an impact on hate crime,” he said.
Violence, whether motivated by hate, crime or a combination of both, has dominated the media.
Some 27 young people have been stabbed to death in London since the start of the year with police registering more than 12,000 knife attacks between April last year and March 2017, the highest figure in five years.
Acid attacks have also surged with 454 incidents recorded in London last year, compared to 261 in 2015. That number rose again earlier this month when five acid attacks took place within 90 minutes by young assailants on mopeds.
Such moped gang attacks were part of the biggest increase in police-recorded crimes across England and Wales in 10 years in the year to March 2017, according to official statistics.
At Speakers’ Corner the preachers are still shouting. There are no counter narratives here — or at least none that can be easily heard.
But as if to show that London’s spirit of tolerance has not been fully browbeaten into submission by fear and loathing, a lady emerges from the crowd dressed in a little mermaid outfit to tell everyone they need to start listening more.
“Every day go on to social media and find one thing you really disagree with,” she said. “Instead of trolling the person with whose opinion you so vehemently disagree, try to understand them.”
For a moment at least, the applause drowns out the shouting.
London’s long summer of hate: UK capital becoming divided along fault lines of religion, race, money and politics
London’s long summer of hate: UK capital becoming divided along fault lines of religion, race, money and politics

LA stars speak out against Trump’s increasingly ruthless migrant crackdown

- Celebrities hit disconnect between Trump’s claims about arresting dangerous criminals and raids that appear to be targeting day laborers and factory workers
- “There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order," says singer Doechii
LOS ANGELES: As President Donald Trump’s military-backed crackdown on immigrants continues in Los Angeles and across the US, celebrities are speaking out against the tactics and what they say are the intolerant views driving them.
Some pointed to the gulf between Trump’s apocalyptic descriptions of a city in flames and the reality of a vast and diverse metropolis where largely peaceful protests are limited to a small part of downtown.
Here’s what the glitterati had to say:
Many celebrities touched on the disconnect between Trump’s claims about arresting dangerous criminals and raids that appear to be targeting day laborers and factory workers.
“When we’re told that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) exists to keep our country safe and remove violent criminals — great,” LA native and reality star Kim Kardashian wrote on social media.
“But when we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up.”
The billionaire behind Skims underwear added: “Growing up in LA, I’ve seen how deeply immigrants are woven into the fabric of this city. They are our neighbors, friends, classmates, coworkers and family.
“No matter where you fall politically, it’s clear that our communities thrive because of the contributions of immigrants.”
Singer Doechii echoed that sentiment in her acceptance speech for best female hip hop artist at the BET Awards on Sunday.
“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order. Trump is using military forces to stop a protest,” the “Anxiety” singer said. “We all deserve to live in hope and not fear”
Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel gave a blistering 12-minute monologue from his studio in the heart of Hollywood, opening with footage of tourists enjoying the nearby attractions and a movie premiere.
“Not only is it not an apocalypse, they’re having a Disney/Pixar movie premiere right now for ‘Elio’, a movie about aliens — don’t tell Trump, he’ll send the Green Berets in, too,” the comedian said.
There is something wrong, he said, with innocent people “being abducted — which is the correct word to use — by agents in masks, hiding their identities, grabbing people off the streets.”
Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician and producer Finneas, famous for collaborations with sister Billie Eilish and for work on the “Barbie” movie soundtrack, reported being caught up in a heavy-handed police response at a protest.
“Tear-gassed almost immediately at the very peaceful protest downtown — they’re inciting this,” the LA native wrote on Instagram.
“Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria, called the raids “un-American.”
“It’s just so inhumane, hard to watch, it’s hard, it’s hard to witness from afar, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in Los Angeles right now,” she wrote on Instagram.
Longoria added that the protests were a result of “the lack of due process for law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants who have been a part of our community for a very long time.”
Trump is receptive to contacts with North Korean leader, White House says

- Trump open to communication with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un
- North Korea rejecting Trump letter, according to a report
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump would welcome communications with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after having had friendly relations with Kim during his first term, the White House said on Wednesday.
“The president remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong Un,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
She was responding to a report by Seoul-based NK News, a website that monitors North Korea, that the North’s delegation at the United Nations in New York had repeatedly refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim.
Trump and Kim held three summits during Trump’s 2017-2021 first term and exchanged a number of what Trump called “beautiful” letters. In June 2019, Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone with South Korea.
Little progress was made, however, at reining in North Korea’s nuclear program, and Trump acknowledged in March that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power.”
Since Trump’s first-term summitry with Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of a new president, Lee Jae-myung, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
As a gesture of engagement on Wednesday Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the Demilitarized Zone along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Lee and Trump than it was in the US president’s first term.
Since then North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, to which Pyongyang has provided both troops and weaponry.
Kim said in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported on Thursday.
Russia hits Ukraine’s Kharkiv with deadly nighttime barrage of drones

- Zelensky: Attack shows Russia is not facing enough pressure
- Two southern regions without electricity after attacks
KHARKIV, Ukraine: A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on Wednesday killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack followed Russia’s two biggest air assaults of the war on Ukraine this week, part of intensified bombardments that Moscow says are retaliatory measures for Kyiv’s recent attacks in Russia.
A new wave of drone attacks on four city districts was reported early on Thursday by Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, including a drone that landed in a school courtyard and smashed windows. There were no other reports of casualties or damage.
Elsewhere, two southern Ukrainian regions, Mykolaiv and Kherson, were left without electricity on Wednesday after Russian forces attacked an energy facility, the governors said.
Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, withstood Russia’s full-scale advance in the early days of the war but has since been a regular target of drone, missile and guided aerial bomb assaults.
Prosecutors in Kharkiv region said on the Telegram messaging app that the death toll in Tuesday night’s incidents had risen to six as rescue teams pulled bodies from under the rubble. They said three people were still believed to be trapped.
The strikes by 17 drones on Kharkiv sparked fires in 15 units of a five-story apartment block and caused other damage in the city close to the Russian border, Mayor Terekhov said.
“There are direct hits on multi-story buildings, private homes, playgrounds, enterprises and public transport,” Terekhov said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Every new day now brings new despicable blows from Russia, and almost every blow is telling. Russia deserves increased pressure; with literally every blow it strikes against ordinary life, it proves that the pressure is not enough,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.
A Reuters witness saw emergency rescuers helping to carry people out of damaged buildings and administering care, while firefighters battled blazes in the dark.
Nine of the injured, including a 2-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, have been hospitalized, Oleh Sinehubov, the governor of the broader Kharkiv region, said on Telegram.
In total, the Ukrainian military said Russia had launched 85 drones overnight, 40 of which were shot down.
Blackouts
In the southern Kherson region, workers were trying to restore electricity supplies after Russian forces attacked what its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said was “an important energy facility.”
“It is currently impossible to predict the duration of the work. Residents of the region, I ask you to show understanding and prepare for a prolonged power outage,” he said on the Telegram messenger.
The governor of the neighboring Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, said his region was also experiencing emergency shutdowns but that power would soon be restored.
Kherson region directly borders a war zone and is under daily drone, missile and artillery attack. The Mykolaiv region faces mainly missile and drone attacks.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the latest overnight attacks.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched on its smaller neighbor in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Mali’s government adopts bill granting junta leader 5 more years in power

- The bill now awaits ratification by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body overseeing the transition
BAMAKO, Mali: Mali’s Council of Ministers on Wednesday adopted a controversial bill granting the head of the military junta an additional five years in power.
Gen. Assimi Goita has led the West African nation since orchestrating two coups in 2020 and 2021. The move follows the military regime’s dissolution of political parties in May.
According to the government’s cabinet statement, the bill will lead to the “revision of the Transition Charter, granting the Head of State a five-year renewable mandate starting in 2025.” It implements the recommendations of the national dialogue consultations organized by the military regime in April, which the political parties boycotted.
The bill now awaits ratification by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body overseeing the transition.
Earlier in May, Gen. Goita signed a decree dissolving political parties, a decision made against a backdrop of burgeoning opposition. It coincided with a surge in kidnappings of pro-democracy activists in the capital, Bamako, and just days after a demonstration by several hundred activists.
Mali, a landlocked nation in the semiarid region of Sahel, has been embroiled in political instability that swept across West and Central Africa over the last decade.
The nation has seen two military coups since 2020 as an insurgency by jihadi groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group worsened. The junta had promised a return to civilian rule by March 2024, but later postponed elections. No date has been set yet for the presidential election.
At least 49 people have died in flooding in South Africa with toll expected to rise, officials say

- The death toll included six high school students who were washed away when their school bus was caught in floodwaters
JOHANNESBURG: At least 49 people were confirmed dead Wednesday as floods devastated one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, and officials said the toll was expected to rise as more bodies are recovered in the search for missing people.
The floods hit the largely rural Eastern Cape province in the southeast of the country early Tuesday after an especially strong weather front brought heavy rains, gale force winds and also snow in some parts.
“As we speak here, other bodies are being discovered,” Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane told reporters at a briefing, adding that it was one of the worst weather-related disasters his province had experienced. “I have never seen something like this,” he said.
The death toll included six high school students who were washed away when their school bus was caught in floodwaters on Tuesday near a river close to the town of Mthatha, which was especially hard hit and at the center of the worst flooding. Four other students were among the missing, Mabuyane said.
Authorities found the school bus earlier Wednesday, but it was empty. Three of the students were rescued on Tuesday when they were found clinging to trees and crying out for help, the provincial government said.
A driver and another adult who were on the bus with the schoolchildren were among the dead.
Search and rescue operations would continue for a third day on Thursday, authorities said, though they didn’t give details on how many people might still be missing. They said they were working with families to find out who was still unaccounted for.
Disaster response teams have been activated in Eastern Cape province and the neighboring KwaZulu-Natal province after the torrential rain and snow hit parts of southern and eastern South Africa over the weekend. Mabuyane said there had also been reports of mudslides.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the National Disaster Management Center was also working with local authorities in the Eastern Cape, the province that took the brunt of the extreme cold front that weather forecasters had warned was on its way last week. There were unusually large snowfalls in parts of Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State province in South Africa’s interior.
Ramaphosa offered his condolences to the affected families in the Eastern Cape in a statement from his office and described the situation as “devastation.”
Power outages have affected hundreds of thousands of homes in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Eastern Cape provincial government officials said hundreds of families were left homeless and in temporary shelters in that province after their houses were washed away or broken apart, while at least 58 schools and 20 hospitals were damaged by the floods, which mostly affected Mthatha and the surrounding district.
Other houses were left submerged under water. Cars and debris that were carried away by the floods were left strewn in piles as the rain stopped and the water began to subside.
South Africa is vulnerable to strong weather fronts that blow in from the Indian and Southern Oceans. In 2022, more than 400 people died in flooding caused by prolonged heavy rains in the east coast city of Durban and surrounding areas.
Poor areas with informal housing are often the worst affected and where the majority of fatalities occur.