LONDON: The UK government said on Tuesday that 6,000 specialist police officers were ready to deal with far-right rioting that broke out following the murder of three children, triggering a week of violence.
On Monday, six people were arrested and several police officers injured when they were attacked by rioters hurling bricks and fireworks in Plymouth, southern England.
Officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, were attacked as rioters attempted to set fire to a shop owned by a foreign national.
Police said a man in his 30s was seriously assaulted during the disorder and that they are treating the incident as a racially motivated hate crime.
Meanwhile, a group of men who gathered in Birmingham, central England, to counter a rumored far-right demonstration, forced a Sky News reporter off air shouting: “Free Palestine.” She was then followed by a man in a balaclava holding a knife.
Another reporter said he was chased by members of the group “with what looked like a weapon,” while police said there had also been incidents of criminal damage to a pub and a car.
The unrest broke out last Tuesday after three children were killed in a stabbing spree at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England.
Riots have since flared up in several cities and towns, leading to hundreds of arrests.
Justice minister Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday that the government had freed up an extra 500 prison places and drafted in 6,000 specialist police officers to deal with the ongoing violence.
“We will make sure that anyone who is given a custodial sentence as a result of the riots and disorder, there will be a prison place waiting for them,” she said.
Mobs threw bricks and flares, attacked police, burnt and looted shops, smashed the windows of cars and homes and targeted at least two hotels housing asylum seekers in a number of cities at the weekend.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday convened and emergency meeting of ministers and police chiefs to discuss the unrest.
The government will “ramp up criminal justice” to ensure that “sanctions are swift,” Starmer told the media after Monday’s meeting.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said 378 people had so far been arrested and that others would be “brought to justice.”
Clashes broke out in Southport on Wednesday, the day after three young girls were killed and five more children critically injured during the knife attack there.
False rumors initially spread on social media saying the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.
The suspect was later identified as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, born in Wales. UK media reported that his parents are from Rwanda, which has very few Muslims.
That has not stopped mosques from being targeted by rioters.
The government has offered new emergency security to Islamic places of worship.
In Burnley, northwest England, a hate crime investigation was underway after gravestones in a Muslim section of a cemetery were vandalized with grey paint.
“What type of evil individual(s) would undertake such outrageous actions, in a sacrosanct place of reflection, where loved ones are buried, solely intended to provoke racial tensions?,” local councillor Afrasiab Anwar said.
The prime minister warned rioters on Sunday that they would “regret” participating in England’s worst disorder in 13 years.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper told the BBC on Monday that “there will be a reckoning.”
Cooper also said that social media put a “rocket booster” under the violence.
Starmer stressed that “criminal law applies online as well as offline.”
On Tuesday, Alexander criticized Elon Musk, owner of X, after he claimed “civil war” in the UK was “inevitable.”
“I think it is deeply irresponsible. I think everyone should be appealing for calm,” she said.
Police have blamed the violence on people associated with the now-defunct English Defense League, a far-right Islamophobic organization founded 15 years ago, whose supporters have been linked to football hooliganism.
The rallies have been advertised on far-right social media channels under the banner “Enough is enough.”
6,000 specialist police at the ready to quell UK far-right riots — government
https://arab.news/nnrtn
6,000 specialist police at the ready to quell UK far-right riots — government
- Rioting broke out following the murder of three children, triggering week of violence
- Riots have since flared up in several cities and towns, leading to hundreds of arrests
Saudi doctors provide free eye surgery to hundreds of Sri Lankan patients
- Doctors conduct 500 cataract removal procedures in Walasmulla on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka
- Campaign will then move to the eastern city of Kattankudy, where another 500 patients will be treated
COLOMBO: Hundreds of Sri Lankan patients are set to receive eye surgery and specialist care this week under a blindness prevention program launched by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center.
The Saudi Noor Volunteer Program, running between Nov. 4 and 9, is organized by KSrelief in the town of Walasmulla on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka, hundreds of kilometers away from the capital Colombo. On Nov. 10-17, the campaign will move to the city of Kattakundy, further east.
Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness in Sri Lanka. Patients often have to wait for years to have them removed under government programs. At private clinics, the cheapest lens replacement procedure is too expensive for many patients in poorer parts of the country.
“There is big demand since poor people can’t afford surgery privately, which costs 100,000 rupees ($340) per person. There are many cataract patients in Sri Lanka but the facilities are few. There are long waiting lists for surgery,” M.S.M. Thassim, chairman of the Association of Muslim Youths — KSrelief’s local partner — told Arab News.
“We are doing it in two places; the first part is Walasmulla, which is finishing on Nov. 9, and we have already completed 400 surgeries and 100 more to go. Then at Kattankudy, which begins on Nov. 10, where another 500 will be performed.”
Some of the patients were already blind before the intervention of the KSrelief medical team, whose members have been praised for being “people friendly” and “committed” to their mission.
“The patients are full of gratitude to the Saudi government and the King Salman center for the noble intervention that restored their eyesight,” Thassim said.
The two-week eye care campaign in Walasmulla and Kattakundy is part of the Saudi government’s long-standing efforts to combat blindness in developing countries.
In Sri Lanka alone, 31,000 patients have undergone Saudi-sponsored surgery since 2001.
World must better adapt to ‘climate calamity’: UN chief Guterres
- Global efforts to adapt to climate change have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters
- Antonio Guterres: ‘Climate calamity is the new reality. And we’re not keeping up’
PARIS: The world is nowhere near ready for the “calamity” being caused by climate change and must urgently prepare for even worse in the future, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.
Global efforts to adapt to climate change – from building defensive sea walls to planting drought-resistant crops – have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters.
Floods, fires and other climate shocks have affected nearly every continent in a year the EU climate monitor says is almost certain to be the hottest ever recorded.
The amount of money going to poorer countries for adaptation measures was barely one-tenth of what they needed to disaster-proof their vulnerable economies, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new assessment looking at 2022, the latest year for which data is available.
“Climate calamity is the new reality. And we’re not keeping up,” said Guterres at the launch of UNEP’s annual Adaptation Gap Report.
Rich nations are under pressure at this month’s UN COP29 summit to substantially increase the $100 billion they pledged for climate action in developing countries, including for adaptation.
But some donor governments are under fiscal and political pressure, and major new commitments of public money are not expected at the conference in Azerbaijan.
A UN biodiversity meeting this month failed to reach a funding agreement and the election of Donald Trump – who opposes global climate cooperation – hangs over COP29.
Most of the public money committed to climate change goes to reducing planet-warming emissions, not adapting to its long-term consequences.
Some $28 billion in public finance was paid to developing countries for climate adaptation in 2022.
This was an increase on the year prior, but still a drop in the ocean: UNEP estimates between $215 billion and $387 billion is needed annually for adaptation in developing countries.
Rich countries had pledged to double the amount by 2025 to roughly $40 billion a year but even this would leave an “extremely large” adaptation funding gap, UNEP said.
Climate disasters hit poorest communities hardest but the cost of inaction was no longer borne by them alone, said Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation.
“From rising seas and extreme heat waves to relentless droughts and floods, the impacts of climate change now reach every corner of the globe. No nation, no community is immune,” he said in a statement.
Spanish authorities were accused of being inadequately prepared when a major storm brought flooding that killed over 200 people last month.
Climate scientists say that global warming is fueling more frequent and severe extreme weather.
“We can’t postpone protection. We must adapt – now,” Guterres said.
Vatican hopes for ‘wisdom’ from Trump
- Parolin’s comments were the first diplomatic reaction from the Holy See to Trump’s win for the White House against Democrat Kamala Harris
VATICAN CITY: The Vatican’s secretary of state congratulated US president-elect Donald Trump Thursday, while expressing doubt that the Republican had a “magic wand” to end conflicts quickly as promised during the campaign.
“We wish him a lot of wisdom because that is the main virtue of leaders according to the Bible,” Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Rome.
Asked about Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours,” Parolin replied: “Let’s hope, let’s hope. I believe that not even he has a magic wand.”
“To end wars, a lot of humility is needed, a lot of willingness is needed, it really is necessary to seek the general interests of humanity rather than concentrate on particular interests,” he said.
To overcome divisions in American society, Parolin said he hoped Trump would be “the president of the whole country.”
He also hoped he would be “a factor that reduces tension... in the current conflicts that are bloodying the world.”
Parolin’s comments were the first diplomatic reaction from the Holy See to Trump’s win for the White House against Democrat Kamala Harris.
Pope Francis has not reacted.
In September, the Argentine pope criticized both candidates, accusing them of being “against life” in different ways: for Harris’ support of abortion, and for Trump’s anti-migrant policies.
During his first term in the White House, in May 2017, Trump was received by the Pope at the Vatican for a half-hour meeting.
NATO chief hopes to tackle North Korea-Russia threat with Trump
- ‘What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China, and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine’
BUDAPEST: NATO chief Mark Rutte said Thursday he aimed to work jointly with returning US leader Donald Trump in confronting the “dangerous new developments” linked to North Korea’s entry into the Russian war on Ukraine.
“What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China, and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte told reporters at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.
“This is more and more a threat, not only to the European part of NATO, but also to the United States — because Russia is delivering the latest technology into North Korea,” he warned.
“I look forward to sit down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.
North Korea has become one of the strongest backers of Russia’s full-scale offensive in Ukraine, and the West has long accused Pyongyang of supplying artillery shells and missiles to Moscow.
Based on intelligence reports, Western powers now believe Pyongyang has deployed around 10,000 troops to Russia, suggesting deeper involvement in the conflict.
Iran meanwhile stands accused of supplying Russia with missiles and drones, while China is suspected of helping Moscow to circumvent Western sanctions on technologies for use in the war against Ukraine.
Kyiv targeted in massive Russian drone barrage overnight
- Russia has systematically targeted the Ukrainian capital with drone and missile barrages
- Kyiv was targeted by drone attacks on six days in the first week of November and 20 days in October
KYIV: Kyiv was targeted by another “massive” Russian drone attack that wounded two people, damaged buildings and sparked fires in several districts, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday.
Officials meanwhile in the south and east of the country said Russian attacks had killed two Ukrainian civilians in Kherson and Sumy.
Russia has systematically targeted the capital with drone and missile barrages since the first day of its invasion launched nearly three years ago on Febr. 24, 2022.
The capital was targeted by drone attacks on six days in the first week of November and 20 days in October, officials said.
“The attack took place in waves, from different directions, with drones entering the city at different altitudes — both very low and high,” the city administration said.
It added that more than 36 drones had been downed over the capital and the surrounding area and that falling debris had fallen on six districts of Kyiv and wounded two people.
AFP journalists heard air raid sirens ring out over the capital beginning shortly after midnight Kyiv time and the alert lasted some eight hours.
The reporters also heard drones buzzing over the city and air defense systems working to shoot down the drones.
The attack caused a fire in a 30-story residential building in the city center, and residents had to be evacuated, the mayor’s office said.
The head of the Kherson region meanwhile said the body of a deceased man was recovered from the rubble of a house destroyed by the attack in a Russian attack overnight.
In the eastern Sumy region, the body of another killed person was recovered following a Russian airstrike hours earlier, the interior ministry said.
