Thursday, April 24

Tag: Featured

Back to blue: UK passports to ditch EU burgundy
ENGLISH, Featured, United Kingdom

Back to blue: UK passports to ditch EU burgundy

    Once the UK has left the European Union, passports will no longer be required to conform to EU standards. In a move to symbolise the UK's national identity, the cover will be changing from the current burgundy colour to navy blue, which was the colour of the first UK passport to come in the form of a book in 1921. The design was changed to burgundy when the UK joined the European Union. The new blue passports will also be one of the most secure travel documents in the world with new features to protect against fraud and forgery. The current paper-based picture page on the burgundy passports will be replaced with a new, super-strength plastic polycarbonate material that will be more difficult to alter. Mr Lewis said: Leaving the EU gives us a unique opportunity to...
Double Decker Bus In Birmingham Has Its Roof Completely Ripped Off Driving Under Low Railway Bridge
ENGLISH, Featured, United Kingdom

Double Decker Bus In Birmingham Has Its Roof Completely Ripped Off Driving Under Low Railway Bridge

    Roof of double-decker bus completely ripped off by low bridge Incredible images have emerged of a double decker bus with its roof completely torn off after it drove under a low railway bridge. The top deck of the bus which was travelling through Bournville, Birmingham was totally removed in the crash, one paramedic reported from the scene. According to local reports, there is a sign on the bridge which is near Cadbury’s World warning drivers of its low height. There were no passengers on board the out-of-service National Express West Midlands bus at the time of the incident. Meanwhile, the driver escaped uninjured. But witnesses described being shaken by the smash. Amy Tunney wrote on Facebook: “So a bus just drove under Bournville Lane bridge and took the top cle...
Gunman who blasted man in head in front of terrified Christmas shoppers outside Primark escaped on push bike
ENGLISH, Featured, United Kingdom

Gunman who blasted man in head in front of terrified Christmas shoppers outside Primark escaped on push bike

    Police now believe the shooter in the lunchtime attack in Southport fired a shotgun from about a road's width away - spraying pellets across a street packed with terrified Christmas shoppers. Amazingly perhaps due to the gunman's carelessness in firing from a distance  the victim survived the attack despite suffering what are described as non-life threatening head injuries. Liverpool Echo It's now known that a bus driver who was stood in the street waiting to change vehicles also suffered minor injuries after being hit by one of those stray pellets. Tonight shocked locals are saying that it could have been much, much worse especially with so many children stood nearby at the time. And the gunman is still at large and the weapon yet to be recovered. In the immedia...
Theresa May’s Cabinet reshuffle in January will be wider than expected
ENGLISH, Featured, United Kingdom

Theresa May’s Cabinet reshuffle in January will be wider than expected

    The safest Christmas bet is that the workaholic Theresa May will not switch off for long during her mini-break. Her mind will soon drift back to the item at the top of her in-tray for the New Year: a Cabinet reshuffle. Before she sacked her deputy Damian Green on Wednesday, May’s advisers had been urging her to shake up her top team and bring some fresh blood into the Government’s junior and middle ranks. No decision had been taken and some advised May to keep a reshuffle up her sleeve until after next May’s local authority elections, when the Conservatives are likely to get a bloody nose, especially in London. Green’s departure has now made a January reshuffle inevitable, and it will probably be wider than expected. Although Green had known May since Oxford Univers...
Miss Saudi Arabia Forced Out of Beauty Pageant
Arab world, ENGLISH, Featured

Miss Saudi Arabia Forced Out of Beauty Pageant

    Malak Youssef, a 24-year-old beauty queen, was nominated by a Saudi civil society organization to compete as Miss Saudi Arabia in the Miss Arab World pageant held in Morocco on Saturday. But the young woman chose to drop out of the race before the crowning ceremony due to intense online backlash from people who said she was misrepresenting her conservative Muslim country by participating in a beauty contest. I announce my withdrawal from the final competition rounds in 'Miss Arab World 2018'. I am happy with just carrying the Miss Saudi Arabia title,” Youssef announced in a video posted to her Twitter account. She also said she was shocked and saddened by the backlash. Ultra-conservative Sunni Saudi Arabia does not have an official national beauty pageant, and women...
Meghan Markle tenderly touches Prince Harry’s cheek in adorable engagement photos released by Kensington Palace
ENGLISH, United Kingdom

Meghan Markle tenderly touches Prince Harry’s cheek in adorable engagement photos released by Kensington Palace

    Prince Harry and his bride-to-be Meghan Markle have been released by the couple to mark their engagement. An intimate black and white portrait of the couple embracing has been published alongside an endearing but more formal picture of the couple sat together holding hands. The photographs were taken by fashion and celebrity photographer Alexi Lubomirski earlier this week at Frogmore House, Windsor. Mr Lubomirski said: "It was an incredible honour to be asked to document this wonderful event, but also a great privilege to be invited to share and be a witness to this young couple's love for one another. I cannot help but smile when I look at the photos that we took of them, such was their happiness together. The black and white image, taken in the grounds of the house, show...
Britain’s richest MP worth £110million banned from roads after being caught texting in his BMW
ENGLISH, United Kingdom

Britain’s richest MP worth £110million banned from roads after being caught texting in his BMW

    Britain's wealthiest MP who spoke out against using phones behind the wheel has been banned from the road for six months after he was caught texting while driving his BMW. Tory MP and property developer Richard Benyon, 57, was seen using his phone while sitting in stationary traffic by a police officer in Islington, north London. Magistrates' heard the Newbury MP continued to use his mobile after the light turned green and he moved five to seven metres forward. Benyon, a former parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department of Environment, claimed he earns £3,987 a month in a 'means form' submitted to the court. As well as the ban, the Conservative MP was ordered to pay £421 including a fine, prosecution costs and a victim surcharge. Beata Murphy, prosecut...
Dental student from British Army family plotted terror attack in UK
ENGLISH, United Kingdom

Dental student from British Army family plotted terror attack in UK

    Mohammed Awan who was jailed for 10 years at Sheffield Crown Court, for preparing for acts of… A dental student from a British Army family plotted a terror attack in the UK after learning his jihadi brother had been killed in Syria on the news. Mohammed Abbas Idris Awan, 24, who was "radicalised" by his suicide bomber brother, was caught by police in June after purchasing 500 ball bearings online and a catapult. Detectives found a "significant volume" of extremist material, including advice on how to be a "sleeper cell" in the West. It included material from his brother "which celebrated brutal and depraved acts of terror such as beheadings, burning of people alive and the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris in 2015". © Provided by The Telegraph His older brother Rizwan Awan, 2...
British Iranian Nazanin eligible for early release lawyer
Arab world, ENGLISH

British Iranian Nazanin eligible for early release lawyer

    Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in an Iranian jail for more than 18 months, is eligible for early release. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe told her husband Richard that she had been informed of the news by her Iranian lawyer. Her case has been marked on the Iranian judiciary database as "eligible for early release". Mr Ratcliffe told Sky News: "This is definitely a positive step. I am a bit cautions but this is terrific news. There has not been confirmation yet and there is still some paperwork to complete. "But compared to where we have been in recent weeks, there is absolutely no doubt that this is positive news, fingers crossed. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family My job is not to get too excited but it all does seem much more positive. Mr Ratcliffe sa...
Donald Trump threatens to cut aid to countries over UN Jerusalem vote
America, ENGLISH

Donald Trump threatens to cut aid to countries over UN Jerusalem vote

    Donald Trump has threatened to withhold billions of dollars of US aid from countries which vote in favour of a United Nations resolution rejecting the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. His comments came after the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley warned member states that she will be taking names of countries that vote for a general assembly resolution on Thursday critical of the announcement which overturned decades of US foreign policy. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump said: Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care. But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars, he said. We’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer...