Mubeen Blogs

PM stressed shared ‘unbreakable commitment to Nato and Ukraine’ with Poland in meeting with Donald Tusk Keir Starmer has urged world leaders to “double down” in their efforts to support Ukraine during a visit to Poland, days before Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency risks jeopardising international solidarity on the issue. Speaking alongside the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, after the pair discussed a proposed defence-focused treaty, Starmer dodged questions on the possible impact of Trump, but insisted the only way forward was “peace on Ukraine’s terms”. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/NYI26yD

Protests in favour and against Gaza ceasefire deal have taken place across Israel while Palestinians welcome concessions News of a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas has been greeted with joy by Palestinians, but a more wary approach in Israel, where demonstrators both in favour and against the deal have taken to the streets in protest. The deal, which is supposed to go into effect on Sunday, is made up of three stages: in the first 42-day phase, 33 Israeli hostages are expected to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. In Gaza, the 2.3 million population – nearly all of whom are displaced from their homes – will be allowed to move freely around the territory, and there is expected to be a huge increase in aid supplies. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/RUzPE0r

Kemi Badenoch says she’s sorry not sorry for the mess left by 14 years of the Tories, but offers no clue of how to dig us out of it Seeing is not always believing. Fair to say that Kemi Badenoch’s time as leader of the Tory party has not got off to the best of starts. Hopeless at prime minister’s questions and seemingly already out of ideas, many in the party are already looking around for possible successors. Even Robert Jenrick. Things really are that desperate. Even so, 10 weeks in feels a little premature for a relaunch. If that’s what it was. Hard to know really as no one was much the wiser after Kemi had finished what had been billed as an “important” speech at the Institute of Directors in central London. No one does pointlessness quite like KemiKaze. She is the queen of futility. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/yk1cz4G

Julius Ayuk Tabe and other ‘Ambazonian’ activists speak from a prison where they still call for an independent state Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe has already served seven years of his life sentence at the Yaoundé principal prison in Cameroon, but he is not ready to budge an inch in the political beliefs that landed him there. “The fight for homeland is existential and non-negotiable – being part of the struggle is a calling and not a vocation,” he tells the Guardian. The 59-year-old computer engineer and former president of a breakaway state is still fighting his revolution from jail. As Cameroon’s civil conflict festers, his quest remains the freeing of his anglophone community from what he sees as the shackles of a francophone Cameroonian state. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/81D9QKf

Hamas and Israel ‘in final stages’ of agreement, with Gazans still reeling from fresh deadly airstrikes Middle East crisis – live updates Hopes rose across Gaza on Tuesday that the war that has devastated the territory, killing more than 46,000 and displacing millions, was finally over. Amid widespread reports that Hamas and Israel were in the “final stages” of agreeing a ceasefire agreement , residents of the embattled territory expressed mixed emotions: hope and fear for the future but pain and grief for the past 15 months. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/UNiGeXF

Former first lady’s office provides no explanation for plan to miss Trump ceremony in unusual break from tradition The former first lady Michelle Obama will skip Donald Trump ’s upcoming presidential inauguration, marking her second absence from a major gathering of US political figures this month. While her husband and former president Barack Obama will join fellow formers Bill Clinton and George W Bush at the 20 January ceremony, Michelle Obama will not be in attendance. Her office provided no explanation for her planned absence from the event at the US Capitol. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/zByVaKk

As hopes of a ceasefire grow, hunger and cold are adding to the suffering for the millions of Palestinians in the strip Fifteen months into the war in Gaza , where more than 46,500 Palestinians have been killed and almost all of the population of 2.1 million are living in makeshift accommodation, conditions continue to deteriorate in the face of famine and cold. At least 1.9 million people – or about 90% of the territory’s population – are displaced. Many have been forced to relocate repeatedly, some as many as 10 times. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/WEOMiy7

Public investment in technology is the right move. But ministers must not become boosters for an industry that causes harm as well as good Digital technology companies have reshaped our world and will continue doing so. Sir Keir Starmer knows his government must seek a role in shaping this new order – and avoid ceding all control to the US and China. According to official estimates, the UK is the third-largest AI market. Its universities are important incubators of talent. Google DeepMind, two of whose scientists won a Nobel chemistry prize last year , was a British company until Google bought it in 2014. But the world’s two largest economies, and particularly the US corporations that dominate our online lives, are a long way ahead. The danger for the rest of the world is being swept along in an AI wave over which it has little control. Expanding Britain’s publicly owned computing resource – a national asset known as sovereign compute capacity – is a necessary step toward securing ...

This year marks the first time in nearly 20 years that both an American man and woman are seeded in the top four of a major Analyzing a grand slam draw before the tournament begins is a fraught exercise. Very rarely does a draw play to form as upsets and injuries can disrupt the seemingly logical progression of the 128-player field. And how a player is performing heading into the event is often a better indicator of their chances than their ranking or seeding would indicate. Further, no major is as difficult to forecast as the Australian Open, which is already under way in Melbourne ; being that it’s the first big tournament after the sport’s “off-season” (if one can call six weeks a legitimate off-season), it’s very tough to gauge the level of the top players. Having said that, things do look promising for the top American man and woman at the Australian Open, as Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff are playing stellar tennis. The duo teamed up to lead the United States to victory in the Uni...

Polling for far-right insurgent and its extreme policies is rising but other parties have closed ranks against it despite their weak popularity Germany’s far-right AfD party has signed off on its manifesto before next month’s critical election, proposing a series of deeply controversial policies on everything from migration to education as the campaign for a new government in Europe’s powerhouse formally kicked off. The party, founded in 2013, endorsed the far-right concept of “re-migration” into its programme, threatening the mass deportation of migrants if it came to power. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Mg6yiUE

Manchester City reeled off a third win on the bounce and it was all the sweeter with their victims ­having such strong Manchester United connections. Salford City, owned by the Class of 92, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Phil and Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes, were always primed to be easy fall-guys and with 65 places between them and England’s champions, Karl Robinson’s men were cuffed aside as if in an exhibition. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/n9D8JGq

The US novelist and co-writer of The Wire on why his new book isn’t about cops and robbers, his 80s drug addiction and the authors who have inspired him Richard Price, 75, is a screenwriter and author whose books include the 600-page drug-war epic Clockers (1992), which was filmed by Spike Lee and inspired the HBO crime drama The Wire , co-written by Price. Michael Chabon has called him “one of the best writers of dialogue in the history of American literature”. Born and raised in the Bronx, he lives in Harlem – the setting for his new novel, Lazarus Man , in which four strangers cross paths amid the collapse of a tenement block. The book’s acknowledg ments mention its “incredibly long gestation”... I signed the contract to write this 17 years ago; if it was a baby, it’d now be applying to college. I’d just written Lush Life , a sort of panorama of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and I wanted to try to do the same for Harlem, but I’d only just moved there. New York City is 1,00...

The supreme court order may also be a harbinger of what awaits the US over the next four years: litigation that again divides the judiciary and the nation Donald Trump will take the office on 20 January 2025 as a convicted felon. On Thursday night, a sharply divided US supreme court declined to ride to his last-minute rescue . In a one-paragraph order, the majority refused to stay his state court sentencing whose genesis lay with payments that Trump allegedly arranged to cover up his purported affair with the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Last May, a Manhattan jury unanimously found the 45th president guilty of 34 counts of conspiracy and fraud. The supreme court order may also be a harbinger of what awaits the US over the next four years: litigation that again divides the judiciary and the nation. Five of the nine supreme court justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, refused to buy what the monarch of Mar-a-Lago was selling. Th...

Panels installed on south quire roof expected to meet a third of church’s electricity needs “And God said, Let there be light” – and on a witheringly cold winter morning there was light, as the Dean of York carried out a rooftop blessing for the minster’s 184 new solar panels. The sky was blue and the sun shone when the Very Rev Dominic Barrington led the blessing ceremony as the panels were switched on for the first time. “They were absolutely gleaming,” said one witness. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/5cgBFSU

Labour’s fiscal rules may limit the chancellor’s ability to act, but waiting it out may be the best option The UK government has come under pressure from a bond market sell-off and the tumbling pound, heaping pressure on the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to reassure investors about Britain’s economic and financial position. After a challenging first six months in power for the government, the chancellor’s options have been limited by Labour’s political promises. There are a range of measures, of varying severity, the Treasury and the Bank of England could still take, depending on how market conditions unfold. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/nw56taU

Kemi Badenoch wanted an inquiry because she wanted an inquiry. Why was that difficult to understand? Last weekend the Daily Mail ran a front-page story about the imminent demise of Keir Starmer. A few days on and it’s increasingly looking like Kemi Badenoch whose job may be on the line. Just take a look at the faces of her backbench MPs at prime minister’s questions. Faces taut. Wishing they were somewhere else. Not a smile in sight. What’s more, they know they have no one to blame but themselves. KemiKaze hasn’t changed. She hasn’t got the top job by false pretences. She’s always been primarily a culture warrior. A fundamentally unserious politician. Someone who bounces around in her own echo chamber until she collides with a piece of political opportunism. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/U0lQeqP

Has there been a cover-up or a lack of action over ‘grooming gangs’, and why is Elon Musk supporting Tommy Robinson? The Elon Musk-instigated argument over whether the UK needs another national inquiry into rape and sexual abuse gangs reached the Commons on Wednesday, with the Conservatives pushing an amendment that would set up such a process, while at the same time torpedoing a wider government bill on schools and child welfare. Below are four claims being made about this much-contested subject, and what we actually know to be the case. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/OQNenhD

With infants dying of exposure and desperation growing, a ceasefire and hostage release deal have never been more necessary The new year has commenced as bleakly as the last one concluded in Gaza. As December came to an end, the UN announced that the healthcare system was on the brink of outright collapse due to Israel’s attacks. Within days of the new year beginning, an official with Unrwa warned that social order will collapse if Israel ends all cooperation with the aid agency for Palestinians later this month, as scheduled. In between, scores of people were killed in intensified Israeli strikes, including in an area designated as a safe zone . Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday that at least 45,854 have now died there in the 15 months since the Hamas attacks in southern Israel. The crisis is so familiar and relentless now that international attention has flagged. And yet it is so desperate that the facts must be reiterated. At least seven infants have died from the c...

There is a nagging sense that justice still has not been done. At a Reform rally, I watched Nigel Farage exploit that “Sophie” was 12 years old when she walked into Oldham police station to report a sexual assault. For a vulnerable child, first befriended and then viciously exploited by much older men, that must have taken courage. But officers simply told her to come back when she wasn’t drunk . It was a terrible missed opportunity, as an independent review of so-called grooming gang allegations in Oldham commissioned by the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham made clear in 2022 . Sophie was picked up from the police station and driven to a house where she was raped by multiple men. Many years later, she learned that although a man eventually convicted of abusing her had given Greater Manchester police two other names, they had inexplicably failed to follow these leads. There are thousands of Sophies out there, yet they are already slipping through the cracks of a debate that is s...

The UK prime minister calls out the reckless amplification of conspiracy theories by the world’s richest man on child sexual abuse. Good On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer rightly defended robust debate but insisted it “must be grounded in facts, not lies”, in response to Elon Musk’s falsehoods about his role in dealing with child sexual exploitation. The prime minister has wisely not engaged Mr Musk directly, partly because the world’s richest man is a member of Donald Trump’s inner circle . Sir Keir recognises this epistemic crisis as a coordinated campaign to spread disinformation, sow division, and erode trust. As the philosopher Lee McIntyre aptly notes : “The truth isn’t dying – it’s being killed.” The goal is clear: to create groups in society that unquestioningly accept an authoritarian leader’s word. In this way, opinions are no longer based on facts but rooted in identity. Disinformation becomes a potent political weapon, making voters believe falsehoods while distrusting – even ...

Away from the spotlight sportsmen and women are helping tackle disadvantage and inequality and can have a huge impact As we anticipate what sport will bring us in 2025, we might be tempted to look ahead to the major international tournaments in rugby, cricket and football. But there’s another space to consider, less glamorous but absolutely vital, where sport is making an increasingly significant contribution to society – the growing cadre of sportsmen and women working as mentors in support of young people facing challenges and disadvantages. Organisations such as the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust (DKHT) , Dallaglio Rugbyworks , Football Beyond Borders and Streetgames use sportsmen and women to provide support, encouragement and a trusted connection for young people trapped in complex adverse situations around the country. Just turning up at a sports session isn’t enough; it’s about creating a relationship with a trusted mentor within that setting. Continue reading... from The Guardi...

If Arsenal are serious about winning the Premier League this season then Mikel Arteta may want to rethink his plans for the January transfer market. This was another two points dropped in the race to keep up with pacesetters Liverpool as a penalty from João Pedro cancelled out Ethan Nwaneri’s second Premier League goal. But it could have been even worse had Fabian Hürzeler’s side taken their chances in a second half when they were much improved. Despite extending their unbeaten run in all competitions to 12 matches, Arsenal have become too reliant on their prowess from set pieces and were hanging on at the end in the face of concerted Brighton pressure. Arteta has so far insisted that he is happy with the squad at his disposal yet he surely needs reinforcements in attack given the extended absence of talisman Bukayo Saka and other obstacles that are presenting themselves. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/8B1Icq3

Abu Kamara stars as Hull hold Leeds to 3-3 draw Coventry left reeling by two late Norwich goals Abu Kamara ended a difficult week with two goals as struggling Hull claimed a breathless 3-3 draw at home to Leeds, the league leaders. Kamara apologised on Friday for posting “wrongly timed” emojis on former club Portsmouth’s Instagram account after Hull’s defeat to Middlesbrough on New Year’s Day. But redemption was as satisfying as it was dramatic as he bookended the scoring with a lovely early lob over a stranded Illan Meslier before scoring a precise shot after 89 minutes. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/BAvkeMa

Bill begins its next parliamentary stage next month, with amendments expected before it proceeds The bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales will begin its next parliamentary stage this month as a committee of MPs chosen by the bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, begins taking evidence. MPs voted for the assisted dying bill to proceed in late November but there are still significant hurdles in the Commons and the Lords for it to become law. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/RHizYdu

His trilogy captured my heart – and while Amis, Bradbury and Jacobson spoke to me, Lodge’s writing had an extra something David Lodge, Campus Trilogy novelist and academic, dies aged 89 ‘It’s largely thanks to him that the British comic novel remains in good health’: David Lodge remembered by Jonathan Coe David Lodge was already a lauded novelist in 1987, when I arrived at the unassuming doors of Foster Court on Malet Place to study English literature and language at University College London. Lodge had taken the same course there himself more than 30 years before, got a first and went on to do a master’s there, too. His name was spoken with pride in hushed, reverent tones – and this was a department that would happily dismiss anything published after 1850 as hopelessly modern. I dutifully bought Changing Places to see what the fuss was about. The campus novel was a serious literary genre then – Kingsley Amis, Malcolm Bradbury and Howard Jacobson were prominent names and their n...

As life in the historic French Quarter tried to return to normal, the grief and sadness among residents was acute At the cross-street of Bourbon and Saint Phillip, a few dozen yards from the police security line around the crime scene on Thursday morning, it was almost as if nothing had happened. Tourists meandered past the ornate old creole cottages, the bars served cold beer on tap, and horse-drawn carts traipsed through the western end of the French Quarter, in a familiar scene. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/O4u7p82

Madison Square Garden, New York Unsinkable Vermont four-piece ring in the new year with a dazzling mix of improvisation, spectacle and fan devotion Phish have long been something of a unicorn in the fabric of popular music. Operating largely outside the traditional framework of the industry, the Vermont four-piece has become one of the world’s highest-grossing touring acts without a single mainstream hit or a platinum-selling album, consistently selling out stadiums and amphitheaters across the United States for decades. Their extraordinary commercial success, built almost entirely on the strength of their live performances and anything-can-happen ethos, stands as a testament to the loyalty and dedication of their fanbase. While they have played outside the US sparingly over the years – a couple of tours of Europe and Japan, even warming up the Pyramid Stage for that Prodigy set at Glastonbury – Phish remain a uniquely American phenomenon. Nowhere is that more palpable than at Ma...

Some complained of ‘wokeism’ when the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons dropped ‘races’ in favour of ‘species’ “My first Dungeon Master was an anti-racist skinhead,” Jeremy Cobb says of his introduction to the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. For Cobb, a 32-year-old actor, one of the joys of D&D is that it unites nonconformists – “the nerds who didn’t want to play sports”, as he puts it. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/xmIYFVb