UK would like to facilitate return of refugees to Syria, says minister The Home Office would like to facilitate the return of refugees to Syria,
UK would like to facilitate return of refugees to Syria, says minister
The Home Office would like to facilitate the return of refugees to Syria, a minister has said, saying about 6,500 asylum claims had been suspended as the government waited to assess the fallout from the end of the Assad regime.
The immigration minister Angela Eagle said many refugees had been fleeing from the persecution and torture inflicted by Bashar al-Assad’s regime and said that if people wished to return to Syria from the UK “we’d certainly like to facilitate that”.
Asked whether leave to remain would continue for people who had been granted the status after fleeing Syria, Eagle told Times Radio: “We have suspended our consideration of the current asylum claims – about 6,500 – until we can see what emerges from the current situation.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/10/syria-refugees-return-angela-eagle-uk
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
Iranian regime insider to the @FT on Assad: “He had become an obstacle, a liability — some even called him a betrayer. His inaction cost us dearly, and he aligned himself with regional actors who promised him a future that never materialised.”
Keir Starmer will strive to strengthen trade ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in his first trip to the Persian Gulf as prime minister. Read the full story here 👇
Welsh public bodies ‘could be shortchanged on NI hike’
Mark Drakeford told the Senedd’s finance committee the cost of workers within the Office for National Statistics definition of a public sector employee will be covered by the UK treasury.
Andrew Jeffreys, director of the Welsh treasury, explained the UK Government plans to use the Barnett formula to decide how much Wales will receive based on the costs in England.
But Prof Drakeford said: “That’s not my position … if public authorities in England are getting 100% compensation then public authorities in Wales should have 100 percent.
Welsh public bodies ‘could be shortchanged on NI hike’
“The Barnett share may turn out to be less than we need in Wales.
“That would seem to me fundamentally unfair if English public authorities know they’re getting everything covered and in Wales we’re left filling gaps.”
He added: “If things worked out in the way we just described where Wales doesn’t have full cover but English public authorities do …, I won’t simply be leaving it there.”
MS for South Wales East Peredur Owen Griffiths, who chairs the committee, raised a warning from Ynys Môn council of a “gaping hole” in the budget that leaves local authorities facing an existential crisis.
He said councils could be put in an invidious position of having to balance books, potentially making jobs redundant, in the interim before clarity on compensation in May or June.
Brexit reset: five business leaders on how they’d like relations with the EU to change
Rachel Reeves has spoken of a reset in EU relations. Here, experts in everything from music to farming explain what they hope it will mean
Earlier this week, the UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said she was hoping talks in the new year could lead to an extensive “reset” of post-Brexit relations.
The remarks were seized on by leave supporters who fear a betrayal of the referendum vote, while others argue Reeves won’t go nearly far enough.
Continue reading…
Brexit reset: five business leaders on how they’d like relations with the EU to change
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/14/brexit-reset-five-business-leaders-on-how-theyd-like-relations-with-the-eu-to-change
What to Watch
Amazon prime - TV & Netflix
What to Watch
Love Sports
- Good News