RAF TYPHOONS FLY TO ROMANIA AMID RISING TENSIONS
The Express reports that the RAF is preparing six Typhoon super-jets bound to Romania at a time of skyhigh tensions – with Russia deploying troops to the Ukrainian border, according to reports. UK defence bosses have announced the RAF jets are set to fly to eastern Europe in a bid to patrol the air space surrounding the Black Sea. Along with the Typhoons, troops from the RAF’s No 1 Expeditionary Logistics Squadron and No 2 Mechanical Transport Squadron will leave UK bases this week. The mission is part of an annual Nato air patrolling activity, Operation Biloxi. The Ministry of Defence said: “Operation Biloxi is a long-planned deployment of RAF Typhoons to Romania in support of the Nato Southern Air Policing mission to monitor the airspace of our ally. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian President Vladimir Putin had not responded to his invitation to talk over the phone.
UKRAINE CRISIS CONFLICT NEARER SAYS FORMER US AMBASSADOR
The Daily Mail reports that Russia is ‘one step from war’ with Ukraine, state TV has warned in the latest bout of sabre-rattling between Moscow and Kiev that has jangled nerves across Europe. Dmitry Kiselyov, a Russian news anchor who has been called a ‘Putin propagandist’ in the past, issued the warning during a primetime broadcast in Russia on Sunday. He branded Ukraine a ‘Nazi’ state, saying that Russia may be forced to ‘de-Nazify’ it buy force – a process he said would bring about its ‘economic and military collapse’. Russia is now thought to have massed more than 80,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern border, including tanks, artillery pieces, armoured transports and support vehicles – raising fears of an invasion. Ukrainian presidential spokesman Iuliia Mendel said today that 40,000 troops are now stationed in Crimea with another 40,000 near the Donbass region where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting government forces for years.
BROWN SLAMS CAMERON
The Express reports that Gordon Brown has slammed David Cameron for bringing public service into “disrepute” following the lobbying scandal that engulfed the former Conservative Prime Minister. Speaking to Radio 4 Today programme, Gordon Brown furiously lambasted his successor David Cameron following a lobbying crisis which saw Mr Cameron send text messages to ministers urging them to give loan contracts to Greensill Capital, a company he worked for. Mr Brown demanded former ministers and Prime Ministers “must never be lobbying for commercial purposes”.
SHIRLEY WILLIAMS DIES AGE 90
The Daily Mail reports: Shirley Williams, one of the ‘Gang of Four’ Labour MPs who lead a breakaway from the party in the early 1980s after it lurched to the Left, has died at the age of 90. The forceful and forthright politician was one of the disenchanted ex-Cabinet ministers who rocked politics when they set up the short-lived Social Democratic Party in 1981. She was a former Education Secretary under James Callaghan who, along with William Rodgers, David Owen and Roy Jenkins, quit Labour after its defeat by Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 election. She had lost her Hitchin seat to the Conservatives. After Callahan was replaced by Michael Foot in 1980, she and the other three quit in fury at the party’s disastrous lurch leftward under the new leader. She returned to the Commons as the first SDP MP when she won the 1981 Crosby by-election, but lost the seat two years later. When the SDP merged with the Liberal party to form the Liberal Democrats she was made a peer and was the Lib Dem leader in the House of Lords between 2001 and 2004. More recently she warned then leader Nick Clegg against the disastrous 2010 coalition with the Conservatives that put the Lib Dems in Government but which led to the party almost being wiped out at the 2015 election.
IRAN SEEKS REVENGE AFTER TERRORIST ATTACK
From the Express: Iran has vowed to seek revenge after blaming arch-enemy Israel for what it claimed was a “terrorist attack” on its nuclear facility at Natanz. And in a bizarre twist, the spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy organisation has apparently sustained serious injuries after slipping and falling during a visit to the site to inspect the damage which had been caused. Iranian authorities have described yesterday’s incident as an act of nuclear terrorism and said Tehran reserves the right to take action against the perpetrators.
REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES OF BREXIT
The Mirror reports that Monday marked 100 days since Brexit properly happened in the UK – with seamless trade and EU rules replaced by a weighty trade deal and although it’s not been the apocalypse some feared there are plenty of grim real-life consequences in the 100 days since the UK fully left the EU. It’s not been billed as the total disaster some feared – especially because the impact on firms is masked by the hit from coronavirus. House prices have not collapsed, we got a trade deal, we’ve not seen 7,000-truck queues and we’ve ‘taken back control’ of UK laws. But the 100 days since the transition period ended on December 31 have also been fraught with controversy such as drop in exports, problems in Northern Ireland, and in the fishing industry.
ITALY ASKED TO CONFRONT WARTIME PAST
The Telegraph reports that unlike Germany, Italy was not forced to confront its wartime conduct – there was no Italian equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials. For decades, Italians liked to think that their soldiers behaved with decency and compassion during the Second World War, in contrast to the atrocities carried out by their German counterparts. Italy now faces an appeal to confront its past and to acknowledge that its troops massacred civilians, burned villages and executed prisoners during the war, in some cases on a par with the worst ravages of the Nazis. A group of 140 Italian, Croatian and Slovenian academics and historians launched the appeal to mark the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Yugoslavia, which involved Italian, German and Hungarian forces. The call for a reckoning of past crimes coincides with a new online exhibition on the Italian occupation of Yugoslavia entitled “Put to the Torch – the Italian Occupation of Yugoslavia 1941-1943.”
JABS FOR THE FORTIES FROM TODAY
The SUN reports that Brits in their forties will be invited for their Covid jabs from today after the government reached its target to vaccinate the most vulnerable in society. Everyone in the top nine priority groups has now been offered a jab – meaning the vaccination plan can move on to its next phase. So far in the UK more than 32 million people have received a coronavirus vaccine with more than 7.4 million having had their second. There are three jabs being rolled out, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab and the Moderna vaccine also joined the lineup last week. Ministers had previously pledged that 32 million people in the top nine priority groups would receive the jab by April 15. Sources claimed that the NHS would be “easing into” the next phase of the programme.
NHS COVID TRACK AND TRACE APP PAUSED
The Guardian reports that ministers have paused a planned update to the NHS Covid-19 app after Apple and Google blocked it from their stores over privacy violations. The app, which aids contact tracing in England and Wales, uses technology built by the Silicon Valley companies to track interactions between users with their bluetooth signals and venue check-ins. It was to have been updated on 8 April, in time for lockdown easing and the introduction of free rapid coronavirus testing for everyone in England. So far, it has allowed people to check into indoor places such as bars and restaurants by scanning a QR code before they enter, but the data was kept on the individual’s phone. Should a venue be identified as a potential virus hotspot, every device is then sent this data, allowing the app to crosscheck with the owner’s own log of locations and alert them if they might have been exposed.
STURGEON ATTACKS UK GOVERNMENT DECISION
The London Evening Standard reports that Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described as repugnant the UK’s Government’s decision to challenge legislation passed in the Scottish Parliament. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill were passed in the weeks leading up to the parliamentary recess. The UK Government has insisted the referral was not due to the substance of the Bills, but because of technical aspects which may place legal duties on UK Ministers. A spokeswoman for the UK Government said: UK Government Law Officers have today referred two Bills from the Scottish Parliament to the Supreme Court under Section 33 of the Scotland Act 1998. The UK Government Law Officers’ concerns are not about the substance of the legislation, rather whether parts are outwith the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.”
AND FINALLY
From the Morning Star: Humans could soon speak to spiders by playing them the ‘music’ of their webs.Researchers said arachnids use vibrations on their webs to sense the world around them. They have now translated the structure of a spiders’ webs into music in the hopes their project could lead to interspecies communication and their study could also help build 3D printers that make complex microelectronics. Researchers trying to understand the mysterious world of spiders scanned and adapted webs into music by allocating notes to each strand. This, they say, could give them valuable new ways of looking into other fields of research.
ANY COMMENTS DEEMED TO BE ‘AD HOMINEM’ WILL BE BINNED.
ukrainians heros, Putin baddie . ulster unionists baddies IRAs goodies .
Correct ?
BROWN SLAMS CAMERON:
Surely a case of the kettle calling the pot black? Neither were fit to be our PM, not that more recent incumbents are any better.
A people that elect corrupt, politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims……….but accomplices. George Orwell
Something is wrong I sense when ‘Prime Minister’ is increasingly featuring half way down ones CV.
Ukraine.
it’s interesting to read up the history of expansionist imperial Russia.
As territory was conquered, the locals were rounded up and send to Siberia as slave labour building such things as the trans-Siberia railway.
Russians were put in their place.. The Russian Empire had foreseen today’s situation, the transplanted Russians always wanting to be part of Russia.
Next will be the Baltic states. with the same situation.
Places such as Poland, Hungary etc only joined the EUSSR to seek protection from Russia, another looming problem.
Putin wants his empire back. Things don’t look good.
There is no easy solution. Why do you think we (UK)are building up our nuclear weapon stockpile again?
WW3 looms. Or a new cold war.
MAD (mutual assured destruction) is coming back.
The Nazi run EUSSR is wanting a European Army to fight their traditional enemy (Russia). Think on First, second and third Reichs plus Napoleon & Philip II of Spain, Princes of Orange, Bourbons.)
They are turning their backs on NATO which has kept us safe for decades, they want their own power base.
The Russians have sussed all this out and see the opportunity to strike before the EUSSR army is prepared.
They got Crimea, now they want Ukraine (plus all the rest of the escapees)
The build of of invasion forces around Ukraine and Taiwan are surely buoyed by the enfeeblement of the US leadership and increasing enforced wokeness of their military – Wonder if Putin and Si are in the same lockstep for invasion as the West is in Lockstep for Lockdown – They could wait for the wokeness to permeate further or for another stairway stumble but probably now is the perfect invasion window?