Category: UK Politics

Smoke seen rising from area of southern Tehran following Israeli attackThe US and Israel have launched co-ordinated strikes across Iran, including Tehran, on Saturday, in a “preventative attack”.
Iran have retaliated with the Israel Defence Forces confirming that they had identified missiles launched towards them, and were intercepting the threat. Reports of explosions have also been made in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, which house US military bases.
President Donald Trump confirmed a “major combat operation” in an eight-minute speech, stating Iran could never have a nuclear weapon and adding: “It's been mass terror, and we're not going to take it any longer.”
Witnesses said they heard the blasts in the Iranian capital, while footage appears to show columns of smoke rising above the city.
Iran and Israel have closed their airspace, while officials in Tehran said their supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been transferred to a secure location.
The development comes amid hei..

The death of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), on February 22, was immediately framed as the fall of a narco kingpin.
Images of gun battles, torched vehicles and retaliatory violence dominated headlines. Commentators spoke of a power vacuum, of fragmentation, of the possible weakening of one of Mexico’s biggest cartels.
It was presented as the removal of a singular, hyper-violent male figure at the apex of a criminal empire. But this framing tells us more about how we imagine organised crime than about how it actually works.
The obsession with kingpins rests on a dramatic understanding of cartel power: a gun in one hand, territory in the other, masculinity performed through brutality. El Mencho embodied that image.
Yet cartels are not sustained by spectacle alone. They endure because someone moves the money, launders the profits, manages the assets, cultivates legitimate fronts and binds networks of loyalty through family..

Melania Trump is poised to make history by presiding over a United Nations Security Council meeting, a significant first for a US first lady.
The event, scheduled for Monday afternoon, will see her take the president’s chair, marking the inaugural instance of a first lady or first gentleman leading such a session, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
With the United States assuming the rotating presidency of the 15-member council for March, Mrs Trump’s office confirmed the meeting would “emphasise education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace.”
Children in conflict has been a signature issue for Melania Trump, who previously wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of a summit with Donald Trump, an effort that reportedly led to children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war reuniting with their families.
open image in galleryMelania previously wrote to Putin about children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war (AP)This engagement comes amidst ongoing criticizm of..

Four people were killed and six wounded when their Florida-registered speedboat entered Cuban waters on Wednesday, prompting a deadly exchange of gunfire with a patrol boat, the country’s government said, accusing the men of plotting an “armed infiltration.”
The vessel came within one nautical mile of the El Pino channel on Falcones Cay in Villa Clara province on the north coast of Cuba, about 120 miles east of Havana, when it was approached by a vessel carrying five Border Guard Troops, according to the official account.
When the patrol unit asked the occupants to identify themselves, they allegedly opened fire, wounding the commander of the Cuban vessel, prompting the troops to retaliate in kind.
The wounded were evacuated and received medical attention and were subsequently found to be “Cuban residents of the United States” with criminal records.
“Assault rifles, handguns, improvised explosive devices (Molotov cocktails), bulletproof vests, telescopic sights, and camouflage uniforms..

Russia launched a barrage of 420 drones and 39 missiles at Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday, as U.S. and Ukrainian envoys prepared to hold more talks in Geneva on ending the war that is now in its fifth year.
The nighttime bombardment, which included 11 ballistic missiles, targeted critical infrastructure and residential areas across eight regions of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. Dozens of people, including children, were injured, officials said, though authorities did not immediately publish a confirmed total.
Zelenskyy said late Wednesday he had spoken by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump and thanked him for his “efforts and engagement” in pursuing peace negotiations.
The U.S.-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv are continuing but are deadlocked on the issue of the future of Ukrainian territory that Russia claims as its own.
Trump representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were also discussing nuclear negotiations with Iran in Geneva before..

Russia’s drone campaign in Ukraine has been cut by up to 40 per cent, allowing Ukraine to regain territory after Elon Musk blocked Russia’s access to his Starlink satellite network, according to one of Ukraine’s most senior army chiefs.
Andrii Biletski, commander of Ukraine Third Corps, says the impact of SpaceX switching off Starlink in areas of Ukraine now held by Russia’s invading forces had been “enormous”.
“After the blocking of Starlink for the Russians, the level of their efficiency compared to ours has sharply decreased because Starlink is practically irreplaceable as a combat communication system,” the brigadier general tells The Independent.
“Starlink can only be replaced with another Starlink. Therefore, the impact of Starlink on the current course of the war is enormous.
“In the last two weeks, there has been a significant deterioration in the effectiveness of Russian strikes, by about 20 to 40 per cent.”
open image in galleryAndrii Biletski, commander of Ukraine Third Cor..

Watch the most outrageous moments from President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday (24 February).

Vladimir Putin is “standing in the way” of a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, Sir Keir Starmer has said, as he promised to stand by Ukraine “for as long as it takes”.
The prime minister made his comments on the fourth anniversary of the war, which was triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier, in a defiant message to his people, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Putin had not broken the Ukrainian people.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hit out at Putin (PA) (PA Wire)The Ukrainian leader used a televised address on Tuesday to say that “Putin has not achieved his goals”, while Ukraine has preserved its independence and “will do everything to achieve peace and to ensure justice”.
The UK defence secretary John Healey also hit out at the Russian leader, saying the war had been “four years of failure for Putin”.
The PM used an address to his cabinet to praise the “incredible resilience” of Ukraine.
Sir Keir also warned the conflict was not “a remote” one happening “a long way away ..

The masked suspect in the abduction of Nancy Guthrie may have been at her front door earlier than the date of her disappearance, according to multiple reports.
Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show star Savannah Guthrie, vanished from her home in the Catalina Foothills outside of Tucson, Arizona, in the early morning hours of February 1. Police believe the elderly woman was taken as she slept.
Authorities released photos of the suspect, who is yet to be publicly identified, earlier this month. The suspect was wearing a ski mask, gloves and, in most of the photos, a backpack.
The photos were taken from a doorbell camera at Nancy’s front door the morning of her disappearance, according to the FBI.
open image in galleryThe masked suspect in the abduction of Nancy Guthrie may have been at her front door earlier than the date of her disappearance, according to multiple reports (FBI)But ABC News reported Monday, citing sources familiar with the investigation, one of the images, w..