United Kingdom

    Counter terrorism police have launched an investigation into the ‘unexplained’ death of a Russian business partner of Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Putin’s arch enemy. Nikolai Grushkov, 69, was found dead at his home in New Malden in south London on Monday evening. Grushkov was the closest aide to Berezovsky who died in mysterious circumstances in 2013 at his home in Surrey. The death of Grushkov just eight days after the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, the Russian double agent who sold state secrets to MI6, will cause alarm although Scotland yard has insisted there is no evidence to suggest the two incidents are linked. Friends of Berezovsky insist he was murdered on president Putin’s order. The metropolitan Police said in a statement issued on Tuesday af...

    A man is facing a lengthy jail sentence after he admitted choking a woman to death as they had sex after they met at the end of a night out. Mark Bruce, 32, killed 20-year-old Chloe Miazek at his flat in Aberdeen in the early hours of 3 November last year. Chloe, from Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, was waiting at a bus stop after she had been thrown out of a nightclub for being drunk eight days before her 21st birthday. There, she met Bruce, and they went back to his flat after discovering a shared interest in ‘erotic asphyxiation’, the High Court in Aberdeen was told. The court heard how Chloe died ‘in seconds’ after Bruce seized her neck while they had sex. The 20-year-old died ‘in seconds’, a court was told (Police Scotland) CCTV later captured Bruce wandering the st...

    One of the inventors of the nerve agent used to poison former double agent Sergei Skripal has warned that tiny traces of the chemical could put hundreds of people at risk for years to come. Dr Vil Mirzayanov was part of the team that developed Novichok in a Russian chemical weapons institute. He later became so concerned about the damage it could cause he became a whistleblower and fled to America. ‘It’s the same as nerve gas but 10 times, at least 10 times, more powerful,’ he told Sky News. The chemist warned that symptoms could develop even years after exposure to the substance, and that there is no cure. Today Russia hit back at the UK over the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, saying Moscow is ‘not to blame’ for the nerve agent...

    Brexit preparations have cost at least £400m in the current financial year, with the bill estimated to reach £2bn by Brexit day in March 2019, according to new research. The report by the Institute for Government (IfG) into Whitehall spending claims that after strict controls on departmental budgets, Philip Hammond is loosening his purse strings. Around half of the money will have been spent on staffing government departments, with the think-tank claiming that Brexit has reversed the staff reductions made in the civil service in the years before the EU referendum. It comes after the Chancellor set aside £3bn in preparations for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union last year to allow for every possible outcome. Around £1.5bn of this money has been set aside ...

    London Mayor Sadiq Khan has revealed how strangers have labelled him a gay Muslim terrorist and wished he was killed. Some people have said he should be deported; another wished he would blow himself up. The Mayor highlighted some of the vicious abuse and threats he has received on Twitter in an effort to highlight racism and its effect on young people. He spoke out after a former Tory minister urged the Government to introduce a proper legal definition of Islamophobia” following reports that anti-Islamic letters were posted across Britain at the weekend. West Yorkshire Police are investigating a possible hate crime after receiving a string of reports of letters advertising Punish a Muslim Day. Social-media users in London and Birmingham also reported receiving t...

    Meghan Markle has arrived at her first official royal engagement with the Queen for a service to mark Commonwealth Day. Ms Markle, who is to wed Prince Harry in May, arrived arm-in-arm with her husband-to-be at the Westminster Abbey event on Monday afternoon. It is the first time the American actress who wore a dress and coat by Amanda Wakeley and hat by Stephen Jones has attended an official royal engagement with the Queen. The Commonwealth Day service was also attended by the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Prime Minister. American Ms Markle joined the royals in singing the National Anthem at the start of the service. The camera focused on the former Suits star singing the words "happy and glorious" during the televis...

    Britain has formally accused Russia of being behind the attempted murder of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with nerve agent on its territory. Prime Minister Theresa May made the claim in a statement to Parliament on Monday afternoon, in which she said Russia either ordered the attack or lost control of whoever carried out the attack. It came after a National Security Council meeting, where she took evidence from the UK's three intelligence agencies MI5, MI6, and GCHQ. Skripal and his daughter Yulia collapsed in a shopping centre in Salisbury on March 4 after being poisoned with nerve agent. They remain in critical condition. He was pardoned and sent to the UK as part of a spy swap in 2010, in which Russia released four agents to the US and UK in exchange f...

    Meghan Markle has reportedly undergone a two day training conducted by the SAS to help her in case of an emergency. Gerald Moor, a former senior Army intelligence officer, said that Markle’s training would have been the toughest and most challenging experience a person could ever have. Markle’s training was also conducted by the best of the best in the army or those men who have done everything imaginable during service in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. “The men enact a kidnap situation, during which she will have been treated as a hostage, with the area being stormed by the SAS. She will also have been advised how to develop a relationship with her kidnappers, which is often far better than trying to escape. She will have shown how to deal with situation...

    The Islamaphobic letter incites violence on a points-scoring based system Threatening letters calling for a Punish a Muslim Day on 3 April are being investigated by counter terror police. Muslims in London, Yorkshire and the Midlands have reported receiving the letter that calls for attacks in a points scoring system. The note incites verbal abuse and assaults on Muslims, as well as attacks on mosques. West Yorkshire Police confirmed it had received six reports related to the letters. The force said it had a couple of letters that will undergo analysis in an attempt to determine their origin. Tell MAMA, a project that monitors Islamaphobic hate crimes, said a photo of an envelope suggests at least one of the notes was dealt with at a Sheffield sorting office. Im...

    Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter may have been poisoned by the deadliest nerve agent ever produced, it has been claimed. Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia remain seriously ill after the shocking attempted assassination in Salisbury, Wilts., last Sunday. Police confirmed a nerve agent was used in the attack that also left Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey in hospital. It is believed to be the first time a chemical weapon has been used on the streets of Britain. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the nerve agent is very rare and experts appear to have ruled out both VX, developed by Britain in the 1950s and Sarin, developed by Germany in the 1930s. Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the former head of Britain’s Chemical, Biological Radiation and ...