Oct 30, 2022 02:00 AM
(UK) Liz Truss spent final days as PM 'obsessed with weather amid Putin's nuclear threats'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/l...s-28362672
It has been reported that towards the end of her premiership, Truss had been worried about nuclear threats made by Russia as the war in Ukraine continues to rage on, and her fears grew that fallout would hit UK with raditation being blown in our direction.
Ex-UK PM Liz Truss’ phone hacked by suspected Putin agents: Report
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-new...01190.html
INTRO: Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss' phone was hacked by suspected agents working for Russian President Vladimir Putin when she was serving as the foreign minister, a report by the Daily Mail said on Saturday.
According to the report, these agents are believed to have gained access to "top-secret exchanges with international partners". Messages from Truss' phone included discussions with senior international foreign ministers about the ongoing war in Ukraine, including details about arms shipments, the report said.
In addition, the agents also gained access to Truss' conversations with her ally Kwasi Kwarteng criticising then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Daily Mail report added citing unnamed sources. Up to a year's worth of messages were downloaded, the report also said.
The hacking was discovered during the Tory leadership campaign that led to Truss becoming the Prime Minister. She stepped down from the top post after just 45 days and was replaced by Rishi Sunak... (MORE - details)
UK is now spending more of its foreign aid budget at home than in poorer countries, experts reveal
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-now-spending...al-1942525
EXCERPTS: The UK is now spending more of its foreign aid budget at home than in poorer developing countries, development experts have revealed. This is because a large proportion of the pot is being spent on housing refugees, mainly from Ukraine according to the Centre for Global Development (CGD).
Rishi Sunak was criticised for slashing the foreign aid budget from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of national income when he was chancellor, as well as setting a precedent for letting the Home Office and other departments use the pot, and stretching the rules on what can be counted as aid.
[...] While the UK is allowed to count refugee-hosting costs as official development assistance under internationally agreed rules, it is one of only a few countries – and the only one in the G7 – to fund all the costs of Ukrainian refugees from its existing aid budget, the Washington and London-based think tank said.
Ranil Dissanayake, policy fellow at CGD, said: “The development budget – the pot of money we put aside to help the world’s poorest people – is being squeezed from every angle..." (MORE - missing details)
Gay Royal Navy Officer outed and made to feel ‘sub-human’ wins £47,000 payout
https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/29/gay-royal...-17663200/
EXCERPTS: A gay Royal Navy officer has won a £47,000 payout after a dispute over housing ended with him being outed to his team.
[...] Left with no other choice, XA had to make the ‘difficult’ decision to come out to his bosses when he had no plans to. But he was outed to the rest of the team when an email flagging the accommodation issue was circulated to other offices.
This caused XA a ‘sleepless night’ as he felt ‘deeply anxious’. The serviceman told the hearing: ‘I have found the whole experience stressful, draining and a distraction from just being able to lead a normal life. ‘[It] makes me feel that somehow I am sub-human and not worthy of the consideration that others would receive.’
The MOD ‘failed to follow [its own] sound policies’ because of a ‘serious gap’ between the rules and ‘the level understanding’ from staff, the tribunal said. The way officials just ‘casually circulated’ the officer’s sexuality amounted to ‘repeated breaches of confidentiality.
XA, described as a ‘high-flyer with an impressive range of skills and qualities’ who displayed ‘consistently high performance’, was awarded £46,959... (MORE - missing details)
Primate died after becoming trapped in UK animal testing laboratory, dossier of blunders reveals
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...13458.html
INTRO: A primate undergoing experiments died in a British laboratory after becoming trapped behind a restraint device which staff failed to notice, a Home Office report reveals.
The accidental death was among a litany of blunders in the past three years set out in the report, which also discloses that:
The report, by the Animals in Science Regulation Unit, covering 2019 to 2021, also highlights how cases of failure by workers to provide adequate care almost doubled last year, to 34, against 18 in 2020, which was a fall from 31 in 2019.
Numbers of animals in cases of failure to comply with the law or licence conditions more than doubled between 2019 and last year from 1,600 to 3,400, after a slight fall in 2020 to 1,410.
When the primate crawled behind the crush-back in its enclosure, its absence was not noticed during checks for several days, the report reveals. The root causes of the death were put down to lack of adequate maintenance and use of an enclosure “in which it was difficult to count animals accurately”... (MORE - details)
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/l...s-28362672
It has been reported that towards the end of her premiership, Truss had been worried about nuclear threats made by Russia as the war in Ukraine continues to rage on, and her fears grew that fallout would hit UK with raditation being blown in our direction.
Ex-UK PM Liz Truss’ phone hacked by suspected Putin agents: Report
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-new...01190.html
INTRO: Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss' phone was hacked by suspected agents working for Russian President Vladimir Putin when she was serving as the foreign minister, a report by the Daily Mail said on Saturday.
According to the report, these agents are believed to have gained access to "top-secret exchanges with international partners". Messages from Truss' phone included discussions with senior international foreign ministers about the ongoing war in Ukraine, including details about arms shipments, the report said.
In addition, the agents also gained access to Truss' conversations with her ally Kwasi Kwarteng criticising then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Daily Mail report added citing unnamed sources. Up to a year's worth of messages were downloaded, the report also said.
The hacking was discovered during the Tory leadership campaign that led to Truss becoming the Prime Minister. She stepped down from the top post after just 45 days and was replaced by Rishi Sunak... (MORE - details)
UK is now spending more of its foreign aid budget at home than in poorer countries, experts reveal
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-now-spending...al-1942525
EXCERPTS: The UK is now spending more of its foreign aid budget at home than in poorer developing countries, development experts have revealed. This is because a large proportion of the pot is being spent on housing refugees, mainly from Ukraine according to the Centre for Global Development (CGD).
Rishi Sunak was criticised for slashing the foreign aid budget from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of national income when he was chancellor, as well as setting a precedent for letting the Home Office and other departments use the pot, and stretching the rules on what can be counted as aid.
[...] While the UK is allowed to count refugee-hosting costs as official development assistance under internationally agreed rules, it is one of only a few countries – and the only one in the G7 – to fund all the costs of Ukrainian refugees from its existing aid budget, the Washington and London-based think tank said.
Ranil Dissanayake, policy fellow at CGD, said: “The development budget – the pot of money we put aside to help the world’s poorest people – is being squeezed from every angle..." (MORE - missing details)
Gay Royal Navy Officer outed and made to feel ‘sub-human’ wins £47,000 payout
https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/29/gay-royal...-17663200/
EXCERPTS: A gay Royal Navy officer has won a £47,000 payout after a dispute over housing ended with him being outed to his team.
[...] Left with no other choice, XA had to make the ‘difficult’ decision to come out to his bosses when he had no plans to. But he was outed to the rest of the team when an email flagging the accommodation issue was circulated to other offices.
This caused XA a ‘sleepless night’ as he felt ‘deeply anxious’. The serviceman told the hearing: ‘I have found the whole experience stressful, draining and a distraction from just being able to lead a normal life. ‘[It] makes me feel that somehow I am sub-human and not worthy of the consideration that others would receive.’
The MOD ‘failed to follow [its own] sound policies’ because of a ‘serious gap’ between the rules and ‘the level understanding’ from staff, the tribunal said. The way officials just ‘casually circulated’ the officer’s sexuality amounted to ‘repeated breaches of confidentiality.
XA, described as a ‘high-flyer with an impressive range of skills and qualities’ who displayed ‘consistently high performance’, was awarded £46,959... (MORE - missing details)
Primate died after becoming trapped in UK animal testing laboratory, dossier of blunders reveals
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...13458.html
INTRO: A primate undergoing experiments died in a British laboratory after becoming trapped behind a restraint device which staff failed to notice, a Home Office report reveals.
The accidental death was among a litany of blunders in the past three years set out in the report, which also discloses that:
- four dogs were given “a substance not authorised for testing”
- 120 fish died when water was drained from their tank
- a sheep’s bone was fractured when surgery was carried out on the wrong leg
- four mice died after an intravenous injection containing fragments of a pestle and mortar
- five rabbits were left without water for more than 45 hours
- and 1,300 fish died when chlorine was added to the wrong tank
The report, by the Animals in Science Regulation Unit, covering 2019 to 2021, also highlights how cases of failure by workers to provide adequate care almost doubled last year, to 34, against 18 in 2020, which was a fall from 31 in 2019.
Numbers of animals in cases of failure to comply with the law or licence conditions more than doubled between 2019 and last year from 1,600 to 3,400, after a slight fall in 2020 to 1,410.
When the primate crawled behind the crush-back in its enclosure, its absence was not noticed during checks for several days, the report reveals. The root causes of the death were put down to lack of adequate maintenance and use of an enclosure “in which it was difficult to count animals accurately”... (MORE - details)