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JK Rowling has once again been criticised for her new novel, after she was accused of 'transliterating' one of the book's working class characters by spelling their dialect differently. Troubled Blood, written under Rowling's pseudonym Robert Galbraith, was released Tuesday and sees detective Cormoran Strike work out what happened to missing GP Margot Bamborough. The book originally came under fire for featuring a 'transvestite serial killer' called Dennis Creed, who murders his victims while wearing female clothing and a wig, sparking furious backlash online, amid accusations of transphobia against the author.

For decades, foreign policy experts—the blob—assumed much about the Middle East that has turned out to be completely wrong. It’s been remarkable to watch the mainstream press and official Washington try to downplay the significance of the peace deal the Trump administration brokered between Israel and two Arab states this week.The signing of the Abraham Accords on Tuesday between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain at the White House, which for the first time normalized relations between Israel and the two Persian Gulf states, is by any measure historic. It’s been 26 years since any Arab state recognized Israel,...

The United Kingdom’s fourth largest party suspended a candidate for mayor of London who was filmed in 1997 telling voters not to support a Jew. The Liberal Democrats suspended Geeta Sidhu-Robb, who was vying to become their candidate in London’s 2021 mayoral elections, the Jewish News of London reported. Over the weekend, a video emerged on Twitter showing her during her 1997 general election campaign for the constituency of Blackburn in northern England. In that campaign, Sidhu-Robb was running as a member of the Conservative Party against Jack Straw, a former Labour lawmaker. “Don’t vote for a Jew. Jack Straw...

A Labour councillor in Newquay has written to the Home Secretary urging her to deport a pastor who welcomed the cancellation of an LGBTQ+ pride event in a social media post. Councillor Stephen Hick asked for Pastor Josh Williamson, who's originally from Australia, to be investigated and branded him a hate preacher. He wrote: "Josh Williamson's ministry has caused harm to members of the community of Newquay and the wider LGBTQ+ community across Cornwall. "I believe his continued presence, preaching the hate that he does, presents a continuing harm to the same communities. "I am unaware of the previous ministry...

After a solid nine-month stretch that was blissfully devoid of major Brexit-related news as the global COVID-19 pandemic raged on, we declared last night that Brexit talks "suddenly matter again" as the drop in the pound was blamed - incorrectly, as Bloomberg later determined - for triggering yesterday's intraday declines in US markets. But on Friday morning, American traders awoke to some surprisingly positive trade news out of Great Britain. A trade deal with Japan had been agreed to in principle, which would - if finally ratified by both countries - allow 99% of the UK's exports to Japan...

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has predicted that law-abiding Britons will defy the prime minister’s new coronavirus restrictions after months of witnessing far-left protests and illegal raves. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that because of a rise in confirmed cases of coronavirus, from Monday a new law will prevent gatherings of more than six people in public or private. Police will be given the power to disperse, fine, and even arrest those who break the rules.

Boris Johnson privately told US diplomats that Donald Trump was “making America great again”, according to a cache of official notes taken during high-level UK-US meetings whose details have leaked to The Telegraph. The Prime Minister is quoted telling the US ambassador to Britain in August 2017, when he was foreign secretary, that Mr Trump was doing “fantastic stuff” on foreign policy issues like China, Syria and North Korea. Other records show Mr Johnson claimed the US president was becoming “increasingly popular” in Britain in 2017 and spoke warmly about how under his leadership America was “back and engaged in...

The paper said that Hijjawi was arrested at Heathrow airport and the 62-year-old's house in the Blackhall area of Edinburgh was searched by Scottish police. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, also known as BDS. British authorities arrested the former chairman of the Association of Palestinian Communities in Scotland  Dr. Issam Hijjawi on Saturday for allegedly committing preparatory acts of terrorism in connection with the New Irish Republican Army. He was the 10th person to be charged in a joint Police Service of Northern Ireland and MI5 investigation called Operation Arbacia, The Irish News reported Tuesday.

Between his meetings in Jerusalem last Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recorded a short address for the Republican National Convention in which he discussed many of the Trump administrationÂ’s foreign policy accomplishments. By the time his remarks were broadcast in the United States on Tuesday night, Pompeo had already landed in Khartoum, Sudan, the second stop on his week-long shuttle diplomacy mission aimed at expanding the circle of normalization between Israel and the Arab states of the region. Aside from the fact that it was nice to hear PompeoÂ’s warm remarks about Jerusalem, his address was significant...

The normalization agreement between the UAE and Israel has effectively ended the racist BDS movement. A Palestinian man walks by a grafitti sign calling to boycott Israel seen on a street in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on February 11, 2015. (photo credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90) With the recent developments between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, it’s become clearer than ever that there’s no future for the discriminatory and racist Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. From its inception, the movement was rooted in a desire to destroy the State of Israel as we know it. While cleverly presenting itself...

The British Army's Challenger 2 tank is already old. In 2019 the then defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, went as far as to suggest it was obsolete. She noted: "Challenger 2 has been in service without a major upgrade since 1998. "During this time the US, Germany and Denmark have completed two major upgrades, whilst Russia has fielded five new variants, with a sixth pending." Previous defence reviews have also seen tank numbers slashed from more than 500. Theoretically, the Army still has 227 Challenger 2 tanks. But in reality only about half of those are out of storage and ready...

The father-in-law of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's closest aide has reportedly said Johnson plans to stand down in six months because of lingering health problems caused by the novel coronavirus. The Times of London's Diary column reported a conversation between Humphry Wakefield, the father of Dominic Cummings' wife, Mary, and a woman named Anna Silverman last week in which he is said to have told her that Johnson would resign early next year because of the lasting effects of his time in intensive care.

The Queen gave Prince Harry a dressing down for using offensive language about her closest aide, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The scolding came after Harry, 35, flew into a rage when the Queen's dresser and confidante Angela Kelly was unable to meet Meghan's sudden demand to visit Buckingham Palace with her hairdresser to try on a tiara that the couple had chosen for their wedding. When it was pointed out that protocol dictates an appointment must be made to access the Queen's jewels, Harry is understood to have used offensive language about Ms Kelly as he heaped pressure...

America and the United Kingdom would be wise to let Egypt, France, and Greece take the lead in balancing a dangerous and resurgent Turkey. With Americans focused on the anarchy in Democrat-led cities, a cryptic tweet from French President Emmanuel Macron on July 20 went out relatively unnoticed. Macron tweeted he had a great discussion with “his friend” Donald Trump about Libya.Within hours, the Egyptian parliament declared they had voted unanimous support for Egyptian President Al-Sisi to send in Egyptian troops and armor in support of battered Eastern Libyan forces on their back foot due to Turkish intervention. Anyone keeping...

Safety experts are urging the UK government to exclude American cars from any post-Brexit trade deal. They say imported vehicles should meet British safety standards for accidents with pedestrians, cyclists and children. UK PM Boris Johnson has indicated he expects cars to be included in any new transatlantic trade agreement. But safety campaigners point to a spike of pedestrian injuries and deaths in US road accidents. The increase is associated with a boom in large SUVs, which have been engineered to protect passengers but not pedestrians In the UK and Europe, cars are designed to minimise harm to people on...

The Independent Security Committee has said that it “saw no evidence” of Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. The crux of the report, however, criticised the government for failing to task intelligence agencies to look into the possibility, advising the Boris Johnson administration to undertake a review — a claim the government has rejected. On Tuesday, the ISC, the body responsible for the oversight of the UK’s intelligence community, released its report on Russian interference in Britain’s democratic processes. In the case study on the EU referendum, the authors criticised the “narrow coverage” given to the possibility of Russian...

The UK has suspended an extradition treaty with Hong Kong following the imposition of controversial new security laws on the territory by China. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced the "necessary and proportionate" measure in a statement to the House of Commons on Monday. The UK will also extend to Hong Kong the arms embargo it has applied to mainland China since 1989, Mr Raab said. "The extension of this embargo will mean there will be no exports from the UK to Hong Kong of potentially lethal weapons, their components or ammunition," the foreign secretary told MPs. "It will also mean...

Donald Trump has called for the extradition of a former MI6 agent who was behind a controversial dossier about his alleged links to Russia. Christopher Steele, now a director of Orbis Business Intelligence, was responsible for the 'dirty dossier' published in 2016 that alleged Russian influence over President Trump. The Steele Dossier contained allegations of collusion between Mr Trump's US presidential campaign and the Kremlin, which have been denied by both parties. On Wednesday, Orbis was ordered to pay compensation to two Russian businessmen that had complained about data protection breaches including inaccuracies in the dossier relating to them. Taking...

A court in the United Kingdom ordered British ex-spy Christopher Steele to pay thousands in damages to two Russian bankers named in the former MI6 agent’s dossier as having “illicit” financial ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Justice Warby of the Queen’s Bench Division of the British High Court of Justice presided over a weeklong March hearing in the defamation lawsuit brought by the owners of Russia’s Alfa Bank, Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan, against Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele’s private intelligence firm through which he conducted research in 2016 for Fusion GPS through the Perkins Coie law firm...

Court rules Steele's firm violated Britain's data privacy law by failing to aggressively check allegations in his dossier ================================================================================ British judge ruled Wednesday that Christopher Steele violated a data privacy law by failing to check the accuracy of information in his infamous dossier, ordering the former spy’s firm to pay damages to two businessmen he wrongly accused of making illicit payments in Russia. Justice Mark Warby of the High Court of England and Wales ordered Steele’s firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to pay a modest 18,000 English pounds – about $22,596 in American currency – each to Petr Aven and Mikhail...