United Kingdom

With David Cameron starting as foreign secretary and under scrutiny for his previous business links with China, the document does not hold back in challenging the Chinese development model or its growing influence.

The drawbacks listed include “operating with lower social and environmental standards, limited transparency, allegations of corruption and capture of local elites, and limited coordination through the multilateral system, especially of bilateral instruments like the belt and road initiative”.

It is one of Britain’s most expensive streets, earning the moniker “Billionaire’s Row”. Yet The Bishops Avenue in north London also has areas of dilapidation, with mansions there having been left derelict for decades.

Four men have been found guilty of the murder of a Liverpool woman who was shot dead in her home last year.

James Witham, 41, Joseph Peers, 29, Niall Barry, 26, and Sean Zeisz, 28, have been found guilty at Liverpool crown court of the murder of 28-year-old Ashley Dale.

Flooding, wildfires and extreme weather threaten the future of nearly three-quarters of sites managed by the National Trust, a new report says.

The charity says climate change is "the single biggest threat" facing its 28,500 historic homes, 250,000 hectares of land and 780 miles of coastline.

In Monday's report, the trust called on the UK government to do more to help organisations adapt to climate change.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5819167

Original link: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/19/david-camerons-links-to-china-could-weaken-his-role-on-world-stage-as-uk-foreign-secretary

Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, will make an all-day appearance on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the former deputy chief medical officer, and the current chief scientific adviser, Prof Dame Angela McLean – who described the-then chancellor Rishi Sunak as “Dr Death” in the weeks following the Treasury- inspired “eat out to help out” scheme in August 2020 – will appear before the inquiry.

Sounds like a very generous thing to do for the public good except Welcome to Gresham’s

If you want to attend the same school as James Dyson then this is the cost.

Meanwhile state funded schools are falling down around us. This is why we need better tax laws than we have now.

Chinese state media have welcomed the appointment of the former prime minister David Cameron as the UK’s foreign secretary, as opponents of Beijing raised concerns about the return of a figure closely associated with the “golden era” of UK-China relations.

Life is cheap it seems.

Amazon has been accused of showing contempt for UK consumer law by insisting that customers whose orders fail to arrive submit a police report in order to qualify for a refund.

Some buyers have been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket after the retail giant required them to report missing deliveries to police, then refused to accept their crime reference number.

Under consumer law, it is the responsibility of the retailer to ensure purchasers receive their goods and liaise with the courier if there is a problem.

In June, the Observer investigated a complaint when a reader was told to get a crime reference number after a package with more than £70 of goods was not delivered. At the time, Amazon claimed one of its customer service agents was to blame for the misinformation.

However, since then, dozens of others have reported that they have been left without their orders, or their money, after police declined to investigate delivery failures and Amazon refused refunds.

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Customers who pay by credit or debit card can issue a chargeback via their bank, but, according to those who contacted us, Amazon is contesting their claims. Its stance comes amid soaring courier thefts, where parcels are taken from doorsteps or pilfered by delivery drivers. The number of overall claims for missing parcels jumped by 59% in the year to June, compared with the previous 12 months, according to technology firm Metapack.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8344778

Britain’s medicines regulator has authorized the world’s first gene therapy treatment for sickle cell disease, in a move that could offer relief to thousands of people with the crippling disease in the U.K.

In a statement Thursday, the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency said it approved Casgevy, the first medicine licensed using the gene editing tool CRISPR, which won its makers a Nobel prize in 2020.

The agency approved the treatment for patients with sickle cell disease and thalassemia who are 12 years old and over. Casgevy is made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Europe) Ltd. and CRISPR Therapeutics. To date, bone marrow transplants, extremely arduous procedures that come with very unpleasant side effects, have been the only long-lasting treatment.

“The future of life-changing cures resides in CRISPR based (gene-editing) technology,” said Dr. Helen O’Neill of University College London.

A convicted murderer has offered to return to the UK from Trinidad to show his victim’s daughter where he put her mother’s body 54 years ago.

Muriel McKay, the wife of a newspaper executive, was kidnapped and held ransom for £1 million by a pair who had mistaken her for Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

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Nizamodeen Hosein, then aged 22, and his older brother Arthur were convicted of her murder and handed life prison sentences.

Now living in his native Trinidad, where he was deported after serving his jail sentence, 75-year-old Nizamodeen Hosein has been in touch with Ms McKay’s daughter Dianne, 82.

He has offered to return to the UK to show her where he buried her mother’s body.

In a letter seen by Sky News, Hosein asked the Home Office to lift a deportation order which still bars him from the UK.