United Kingdom

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, who has a son serving in the Israeli army, has warned the Church of England’s General Synod that it risks damaging Christian-Jewish relations if it proceeds with a motion encouraging engagement with A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide, a document published by Kairos Palestine, also known as Kairos II.

The General Synod, the Church’s legislative body, is due to consider the motion at its annual gathering in York. The motion does not ask the Church to endorse the document, but to receive and engage with it as part of its understanding of Palestinian Christian experience amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The document describes Israel as a “colonial, settler, and exclusionary entity” and says Palestinians are “the indigenous people of this land”. It calls on churches “to distinguish between dialogue with Jews and dialogue with Zionism”. It also says “The genocidal war on Gaza is the continuation of the Zionist project to seize all of Palestine, emptied of its Palestinian people.”

Exclusive: Call for ministers to tighten bill amid Nigel Farage funding controversies

The United Kingdom's most senior government lawyer last year warned the executive body of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that its proposed process for disciplinary proceedings against Prosecutor Karim Khan was legally flawed, Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal.

Eadie warned the case risked undermining the integrity of the court if “fair process” was not followed in light of “political pressures” surrounding Khan over his office’s investigation into Israeli war crimes.

Eadie was instructed by Khan's legal team to "assist and inform" the bureau during its consideration of the process.

The 21-page document, obtained by MEE through diplomatic sources, criticised the “restrictive mandate” provided to the three-judge panel by the bureau to make a legal determination regarding the misconduct allegations facing Khan.

It argued that the bureau had stripped the judges of the adjudicative power necessary for a fair process, and warned against denying the panel any fact-finding role.

This, Eadie warned, would leave “no judicial, or independent, fact-finding phase at all” and would be “unlawful, unsustainable in principle”.

The bureau disregarded the advice, and proceeded with its ad hoc procedure.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/uk@feddit.online/p/1818794/sexually-transmitted-diarrhoea-spreading-rapidly-among-some-networks-of-gay-men-in-the

Many men who have sex with men remain unaware of the growing risk posed by sexually transmitted Shigella, say researchers, as a new study shows variants are spreading quickly in the UK and evolving resistance to key antibiotics.

Several libraries in Surrey are using CCTV cameras made by a Chinese firm whose equipment is banned from sensitive government sites over security concerns.

The cameras, made by Hikvision, are in libraries in Guildford, Ash, Chertsey, Cobham, Farnham, Merstham and New Haw, according to a Freedom of Information response to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The UK government stopped the installation of Chinese-made surveillance cameras at sensitive sites in Whitehall in 2022, citing security concerns.

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A Surrey County Council (SCC) spokesperson said its library cameras operate as closed systems, meaning they are not connected to any corporate networks or the internet.

They said: "As a result, the primary risks normally associated with these devices – such as remote access or cyber vulnerabilities, do not apply in this case.

The council said the cameras were kept in secure staff-only areas and that any risk was considered "low" and the equipment was properly managed.

Sam Goodman, of the China Strategic Risks Institute, said councils should review their use of Hikvision equipment following concerns over national security and human rights.

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The establishment want you to believe the problem with Farage is he didn't declare his £5m gift correctly; the Greens say the issue is big money in politics.

When Lloyds Bank suddenly terminated Canary’s business banking facility without a clear explanation, this wasn’t just some sort of bureaucratic inconvenience. It was a direct, calculated assault on press freedom, political dissent, and the very idea of a democratic public sphere.

Without a bank account, a media outlet cannot pay staff, process subscriptions, receive donations, or pay its bills. De-banking is not just closing an account — it is the power to destroy an organisation financially, to starve it of oxygen, and to silence its voice without ever having to win an argument.

The hypocrisy is astounding. When billionaire plaything Nigel Farage had his Coutts account questioned, the political and media establishment erupted in outrage. Heads rolled, inquiries were launched, and protections were promised.

Yet when socialist, anti-war, or pro-justice outlets face the same fate, there is barely a murmur in Westminster or the BBC.

Muslim communities, Palestine campaigners, and left-wing grassroots groups have been de-banked for years with little recourse or public sympathy.

The message is unambiguous: right-wing dissent is treated as a civil liberty, left-wing critique is treated as a risk to be eliminated.

Israel has faced UK sanctions before which did nothing. Dozens of cross-party MPs and peers have renewed their calls and told the Canary why