All posts tagged: News

How King Charles profits from the assets of dead citizens – podcast | News

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For most people in the UK, what happens to your assets when you die is a relatively simple process: you either specify your wishes in a will or your estate passes to your next of kin. But some people have neither: no will, no known next of kin. What happens to their assets is not so simple, and if you live in certain parts of the UK, even less so. As the Guardian’s investigations correspondent Maeve McClenaghan tells Nosheen Iqbal, if a person dies in England and Wales with no will or next of kin, their money goes to the Treasury. There is, however, an exception for people who die in parts of England with historical links to two royal estates: the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. For those who die within the boundary of the ancient county palatinate of Lancashire, their assets, if unclaimed, go to the king’s private estate, the Duchy of Lancaster. It’s an archaic custom known as bona vacantia. The duchy has for decades said that after it …

Photos: The Growth of Solar-Power Stations

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Construction of utility-scale renewable-power facilities around the world has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Although the total percentage of global power needs met by photovoltaic energy alone remains small, at about 6 percent, it is on the rise. Governments and large companies are building massive facilities to provide both solar thermal and photovoltaic energy, converting the sun’s energy into electricity for millions of homes and businesses. Solar-panel farms are being installed on hillsides, rooftops, and pastures, and, more and more, in floating arrays in harbors or reservoirs. Gathered below are images of some of these new solar-power installations around the world. Source link

UK ministers approved £60m payments to Saudi royals to maintain arms deal, court told | UK news

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Cabinet ministers and Whitehall mandarins approved payments totalling £60m to Saudi royals and high-ranking officials over decades to secure and maintain a huge arms deal, a court heard on Monday. The accusation was made by Tom Allen, a barrister representing one of two men who are being prosecuted for corruption in a longstanding arms deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia. Allen alleged that British politicians – including unnamed “secretaries of state and ministers” – approved, facilitated and encouraged the payments over many years to ensure that leading Saudis gave huge arms contracts to British firms. Senior members of the British government and military figures were “absolutely in the thick” of organising the payments, a large slice of which went to a Saudi prince, he said. He also claimed that the British and Saudi governments engaged in what he called a “deniable fiddle” to conceal the payments if they came to light. At Southwark crown court in London, the Serious Fraud Office is prosecuting the two men, Jeffrey Cook, 67, and John Mason, 81, for …

Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 642 | World news

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Russia is having to pull air defence systems out of Kaliningrad, its external province on the Baltic Sea, to replace the ones it has lost in the Ukraine war, according to an intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence. “This follows an uptick in losses of SA-21 air defence systems in Russian-occupied Ukraine in late October 2023.” The move shows that Russia is so overstretched by its Ukraine war that it is having to accept additional risk to strategically important Kaliningrad, which is bordered on three sides by Nato member states, according to the MoD. The Russian military death toll in Ukraine has reached 324,830 according to estimates provided by the Ukrainian military. Russia sent waves of kamikaze drones into Ukraine on Saturday in what Kyiv said was the most intensive drone attack since the start of the war. Five people were wounded by falling debris, while several buildings were damaged as about 17,000 people in the Kyiv region were left without electricity, reports said. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 74 of …

British Jews ‘will not be intimidated’, says chief rabbi at London march | UK news

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Britain’s chief rabbi has said Jewish communities will not be intimidated by an increase in antisemitism, as tens of thousands marched in protest against a rising tide of hate triggered by the crisis in the Middle East. The protest organisers had pleaded for the far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to stay away, but he failed to, leading to his arrest by police. Yaxley-Lennon, 40, better known as Tommy Robinson, was detained on Sunday after officers told him to leave the area. His arrest came during a march against the rise in antisemitism faced by Jewish people in Britain since the Middle East was plunged into crisis after the attack in southern Israel by Hamas on 7 October. Organisers said up to 60,000 people attended the march in central London, making it the biggest stand against antisemitism since 1936, when protesters confronted Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts at Cable Street in east London. The march itself saw the chief rabbi vow that British Jews “will not be intimidated” by antisemitism. Sir Ephraim Mirvis said: “We call for a strengthening …

Geert Wilders vows to become Dutch PM by compromising with other parties | World news

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Veteran Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders on Saturday vowed to be prime minister of the Netherlands, after an election in which his party won the most seats. In a long post on X, formerly Twitter, that expressed frustration at other parties for their apparent unwillingness to cooperate with his Freedom party (PVV), Wilders said he would “continue to moderate” his positions if necessary to gain power. “Today, tomorrow or the day after, the PVV will be part of government and I will be prime minister of this beautiful country,” Wilders wrote. Although Wilders’ PVV, which stood on an anti-immigration platform, finished well ahead of rivals in the 22 November vote, his party is forecast to take only 25% of the seats in the Dutch parliament. That means he will have to cooperate with at least two more moderate parties in order to form a government. On Friday, the conservative VVD party of caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte, which shares many of Wilders’ views on immigration, said it would not participate in a cabinet with him. …

Meet the teenager flying solo around Australia and breaking records in between exams | Australia news

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Chloe Familton answers the phone in mid-air. The 17-year-old is flying between Armidale in northern New South Wales and Caloundra in Queensland’s south. She is also piloting the plane, solo. It’s a short conversation, but in any case she’s allowed to use her phone in the same way car drivers are, hands-free – it’s an essential tool as she circumnavigates Australia by light aircraft. Her route takes her anti-clockwise from Cessnock in NSW around the entire mainland, looping up to Horn Island in the Torres Strait and down to Tasmania along the way. The school leaver from the Sydney suburb of Cherrybrook will become the youngest woman to fly solo around Australia in a light aircraft after a journey of 7,600 nautical miles (14,100km), stopping at 40 aerodromes over about 19 flying days. We talk when she is on the ground in the Sunshine Coast, pausing because of bad weather that has set her schedule back three days. The trip has taken a year of meticulous planning, coinciding with study for her high school certificate …

Celebrations in the West Bank as first batch of Palestinian prisoners released – video | World news

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Celebrations broke out in parts of the West Bank after a truce mediated by Qatar between Israel and Hamas led to the freeing of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. The 39 released Palestinians were taken from Ofer prison by coach to the West Bank where they were welcomed by large crowds. Laith Othman, one of the released prisoner said: ‘I can’t express my feelings now, thanks to God.’ Earlier on Friday, 24 hostages were released by Hamas, including 13 Israeli citizens, 10 Thais and one citizen from Philippines. They were transported by International Red Cross to the Egyptian border Source link

‘It brings hope’: in Tel Aviv plaza cheers greet news of hostage release | Israel

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In the heart of Tel Aviv, several hundred people waited in the plaza now called Hostages Square. As darkness fell the mood was melancholic but hopeful as people waited for a confirmation that 13 women and children held by Hamas had been freed as planned. Then came a cheer as news of their release was confirmed. People sang Shabbat or old folklore songs as they waited outside the Museum of Art, where among the most poignant displays was an empty dinner table, surrounded by 240 empty seats, representing each of the missing hostages, not just the handful in the slow process of coming home. “I’m just looking at these pictures and seeing that Israeli children and women and whoever are coming back to their families. I mean, it’s amazing for us,” Gil Dickmann told the BBC, even though his cousin Carmel Gat was not going to be one of those released in the first wave. Gradually the names of those being released began to filter out, their ages ranging from two to 85. First confirmed …