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Prince Andrew quits social media over sex assault case

The prince’s Instagram and Facebook pages appeared still to be open, though the Instagram was set to private…reports Asian Lite News

His accuser Victoria Giuffre has said that she had sex with the prince while aged 17 after meeting him through the late US financer and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein…reports Asian Lite News

Queen Elizabeth II’s second son Prince Andrew has deactivated his social media accounts, users said Wednesday, as he faces a US civil case for sexual assault.

Andrew’s official Twitter account @TheDukeOfYork now opens with a message saying “This account doesn’t exist”.

His YouTube account also comes up with an error message and a picture of a monkey.

The prince’s Instagram and Facebook pages appeared still to be open, though the Instagram was set to private.

The Daily Mail cited a source close to the 61-year-old prince as saying these accounts have also been removed and are no longer live.

This comes after announcements last week that the prince has ceased using his HRH, or His Royal Highness, title, and has also given up honorary military titles bestowed by the Queen.

The move effectively removes him from official royal life.

His accuser Victoria Giuffre has said that she had sex with the prince while aged 17 after meeting him through the late US financer and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The prince denies the allegations but lost a bid to dismiss the civil suit.

Andrew withdrew from public life as a royal in 2019 after a widely ridiculed BBC interview where he sought to vindicate himself of the accusation that he sexually assaulted a minor.

Since then he has been occasionally photographed driving or riding around the Queen’s private estate in eastern England, Sandringham.

He did not appear in the official wedding photographs when his daughter Beatrice got married in 2020.

In other signs of social ostracism, the York Racecourse in northern England has announced it is renaming an event called The Duke of York Stakes — even though this refers to an earlier bearer of the title.

And a police station in Devon in southern England has removed a plaque saying it was opened by the Duke of York, citing a complaint from a member of the public, the BBC reported this week.

Armed forces minister James Heappey on Wednesday said Andrew had kept “horrifically ill-advised” company, and the US case would overshadow celebrations later this year for his mother’s 70 years on the throne.

The decision to strip former Royal Navy helicopter pilot Andrew of his honorary military titles was reportedly made by the Queen and senior members of the royal family.

His nephew, second-in-line to the throne Prince William was asked by a reporter on Wednesday if he supported his uncle, during a visit to a London museum.

But William made no response. William’s father, Prince Charles, ignored a similar question last week.

ALSO READ-Prince Andrew’s sexual assault case results in more fallout

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London’s iconic red buses under threat in pandemic funding crisis

He said that the transport system is not only fundamental to London’s success, but to driving economic prosperity right across the length and breadth of the country…reports Asian Lite News

London’s famous red buses are in danger of being forced off the streets in a funding row between City Hall and the British government, Mayor Sadiq Khan warned on Monday.

Khan said that the continued electrification of London’s bus fleet is also under threat, with the date for a zero-emission fleet likely to slip till at least 2037, Xinhua news agency reported.

Khan outlined on Monday how tens of thousands of highly skilled jobs that support the Transport for London (TfL) supply chain across the country would be at risk if projects are delayed due to lack of funding.

He warned that if government ministers do not fund TfL properly, the repercussions will be felt across the country.

TfL has already paused awarding new bus contracts since early November last year, while 1,000 new red buses owned by TfL are also currently due their mid-life refurbishment.

“If the government fails to provide the funding required, TfL may be unable to refurbish these buses and, along with potential bus service cuts under a managed decline scenario, may need to be removed from the roads,” Khan warned.

He said that the transport system is not only fundamental to London’s success, but to driving economic prosperity right across the length and breadth of the country.

“It is no exaggeration to say that tens of thousands of highly skilled jobs will be at risk if ministers fail to properly fund TfL. In addition, our strides towards bus electrification will be halted, and the capital will suffer with fewer buses on the roads and an unreliable Tube service with aging trains,” he said.

City Hall said the government only provided a short-term pandemic funding deal that lasts until February 4.

When the pandemic hit, with Londoners staying home to stop the spread of coronavirus, passenger numbers on London’s public transport system plummeted by 95 per cent, leading to a devastating impact on TfL’s finances.

TfL said 72 per cent of its operating income comes from fares, whereas it is only 38 per cent in New York or Paris.

“Without a clear commitment to provide sufficient long-term funding, or continued short-term deals, TfL is currently having to plan on the basis of a managed decline of the capital’s public transport network,” a City Hall spokesperson said.

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Boris knew about lockdown party, says former adviser

Cummings said that after Reynolds was told to cancel the invite by at least two people Reynolds checked with PM Johnson if it should go ahead…reports Asian Lite News

A former senior adviser to Britain’s Boris Johnson said on Monday he was willing to “swear under oath” that the prime minister knew a party was being held at his residence during a COVID-19 lockdown, accusing him of lying to parliament.

British media have reported that at least 11 gatherings took place at 10 Downing Street – the prime minister’s official residence and office – or in other government departments between May 2020 and April 2021, when COVID-19 rules limited how many people could meet socially. An internal inquiry is being carried out to establish the facts.

PM Johnson last week apologised to parliament for attending a “bring your own booze” gathering in the garden of Downing Street on May 20, 2020, but said he had thought it was a work event.

Dominic Cummings, an architect of Britain’s departure from the European Union and a former senior adviser to PM Johnson who left government under acrimonious terms in November 2020, said on Twitter that the prime minister had agreed that the drinks party should go ahead.

“Not only me but other eyewitnesses who discussed this at the time would swear under oath this is what happened,” he said on his blog.

Last week ITV News published an email invitation from Johnson’s Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds to a May 20, 2020 event, asking attendees to “bring your own booze”.

Cummings said that after Reynolds was told to cancel the invite by at least two people Reynolds checked with PM Johnson if it should go ahead.

“The PM agreed it should,” Cummings said in his blog.

PM Johnson’s spokesman denied earlier on Monday that the prime minister had been made aware of the May 20 event.

“It’s untrue to say that the prime minister was told or warned ahead of that,” the spokesman said.

ALSO READ-Starmer slams Boris over ‘party culture’

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British hate preacher had called to free ‘Lady Al Qaeda’

Anjem Choudhary had called on his supporters to release Aafia Siddiqui ‘physically or by ransom’ in a Telegram post in September last year, reports Asian Lite News

British hate preacher Anjem Choudhary urged his supporters to free a notorious Islamist fanatic dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’, months before a British terrorist demanded her release while besieging a Texas synagogue on Saturday.

Choudhary called on his supporters to release Aafia Siddiqui ‘physically or by ransom’ in a Telegram post in September last year, the report said.

The 54-year-old has been able to openly carry out social media campaigns again after licence conditions barring him from public speaking expired in 2021, three years after he was released from prison following a conviction for supporting ISIS, the report said.

“The obligation upon us is to either free her physically or to ransom her or to exchange her,” Choudary wrote on his Telegram handle, the Washington Post reported.

“However, until such time as we can fulfil one of these obligations, the minimum that we can do is to use all that we have to raise awareness about her case, to keep her name in the hearts and in the minds of Muslims,” he added.

Briton Malik Faisal Akram died in a hail of bullets after a 10-hour stand-off on Saturday in which four people were held hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, 27 miles from Dallas, the Daily Mail report said.

Police sources said one of the 44-year-old’s demands was for Siddiqui to be released from the federal prison 30 miles from where the hostage standoff took place.

Choudary is believed to have influenced around 100 British jihadis through his hate-filled lectures and videos, including Lee Rigby’s killers and one of the London Bridge attackers.

Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by local forces who found her with 2 kg of sodium cyanide and plans for chemical attacks on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.

The Pakistani-born neuroscientist had bragged to her student friends at the age of just 21 that she would be proud to be on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list.

Police arrest 2 in connection with attack

The man who held four people hostage at a Texas synagogue was identified by US authorities as a British citizen Sunday while UK police later arrested two teens.

Hours later, Britain’s counter-terrorism police arrested two people and were questioning them in connection with the incident.

“Two teenagers were detained in South Manchester this evening. They remain in custody,” the Greater Manchester Police said in a statement.

The FBI’s field office in Dallas had earlier said there was “no indication” that anyone else was involved in the attack on the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue.

“There is no question that this was a traumatic experience,” Cytron-Walker said in a statement Sunday. “We are resilient and we will recover,” he added.

A man identifying himself as Akram’s brother Gulbar said in a Facebook post that the suspect had suffered from mental health problems.

“We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident,” Gulbar said in the post to a Muslim community Facebook page in Blackburn, in northwest England — where British police said Akram was from.

Gulbar added that he had been in touch with law enforcement in Texas and that his family hoped to get Akram’s body back to Britain for a funeral.

Meanwhile, Britain’s foreign minister Liz Truss likewise Sunday condemned the hostage-taking as an “act of terrorism and anti-Semitism.”

Siddiqui, the first woman to be suspected by the United States of links to Al-Qaeda and a cause celebre in Pakistan and in South Asian jihadist circles, was detained in Afghanistan in 2008.

Two years later she was sentenced by a New York court to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder of US officers in Afghanistan.

She is currently being held at a prison in Fort Worth, Texas — about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away from the synagogue which Akram attacked.

Siddiqui’s lawyer has said she “has absolutely no involvement” in the hostage situation and condemned it.

Any links she may have to Akram remained unclear.

Britain’s ambassador to Washington confirmed that British authorities were “providing our full support to Texas and US law enforcement agencies.”

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Starmer slams Boris over ‘party culture’

However, Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme he did not need to wait for the report to conclude that Johnson broke the rules…reports Asian Lite News

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of breaking Covid laws with parties held in Downing Street during lockdown, the BBC reported.

The Labour leader said the UK prime minister had “lied” about “industrial-scale partying” in No 10.

Six Tory MPs have now called on the Prime Minister to resign over gatherings held during restrictions.

But Tory party chairman Oliver Dowden said the Prime Minister would take action over the “underlying culture” in Downing Street, the report said.

Dowden told the BBC the Prime Minister was “committed” to doing this when he responds to an official inquiry on events in government buildings.

The internal investigation, led by senior civil servant Sue Gray, is expected to be published as soon as next week

However, Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme he did not need to wait for the report to conclude that Johnson broke the rules.

“The facts speak for themselves, and the country has made up its mind,” he said, adding it was “blindingly obvious what’s happened”.

“I think he broke the law, I think he’s as good as admitted that he broke the law,” he added, the report said.

Pressure on Johnson has been growing since he admitted he attended a gathering in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020, during the first Covid lockdown.

As many as 100 people were invited to “socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden” in an email on behalf of the prime minister’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, the report said.

On Wednesday, Johnson told MPs he had “believed implicitly” it was a work event, but admitted: “With hindsight, I should have sent everyone back inside”. 

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PM’s lockdown ‘party’ was held on eve of Philip funeral

Johnson is facing calls to resign over a slew of alleged parties held at his Downing Street office while the country was locked down as part of restrictions to stem the spread of coronavirus…reports Asian Lite News

Staff at the office of under-fire British Prime Minister Boris Johnson drank alcohol at two leaving events during lockdown on the eve of Prince Philip’s socially-distanced funeral, The Telegraph reported Thursday.

Advisers and civil servants gathered after work on April 16 last year to mark the departure of James Slack, PM Johnson’s director of communications, and one of the prime minister’s personal photographers, the paper reported.

Johnson is facing calls to resign over a slew of alleged parties held at his Downing Street office while the country was locked down as part of restrictions to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Eye-witnesses told The Telegraph that alcohol was served and guests danced as the gatherings stretched late into the night.

The events came the day before Queen Elizabeth’s late husband, Prince Philip, was laid to rest, and while the country was in a period of public mourning.

The queen sitting alone in church due to the Covid regulations provided one of the starkest images of the lockdown in Britain.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister offered “heartfelt apologies” for attending a lockdown-breaching party held in his Downing Street garden, but deflected calls to resign as the opposition leader called him a “man without shame”.

Breaking his silence over the latest of a slew of allegations regarding top-level misbehaviour, Johnson said he regarded the boozy get-together in May 2020 as a work event for Downing Street staff.

He added that he did not appreciate how it would look to millions of Britons who were respecting Covid rules, even missing out on farewells to dying relatives.

“And to them and to this House I offer my heartfelt apologies,” Johnson told a stormy session of questions in the House of Commons.

Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition Labour party, dismissed the apology as “worthless” and mocked Johnson for belatedly speaking out after “months of deceit and deception”.

“Is he now going to do the decent thing and resign?” Starmer said, demanding the Conservative leader’s head for the first time and arguing: “The prime minister’s a man without shame.”

Even some on his own side want Johnson to go, but in response to Starmer, he urged all sides to await the findings of an internal inquiry he has commissioned by a senior civil servant.

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Sunak bookmakers’ favourite to be PM

Liz Truss is the second favourite at 22/5. The others in the running as per the betting opportunities are senior backbench MP Jeremy Hunt, who put up a good fight against Johnson in the Conservative party leadership contest in 2019, reports Ashis Ray

Rishi Sunak, the Indian-origin Chancellor of the Exchequer, is tipped as the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed the current incumbent Boris Johnson as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The odds on Sunak are 9/4, according to Oddschecker, a comparison site compiling prices from leading British bookmakers.

Liz Truss, the present Foreign Secretary, is the second favourite at 22/5. The others in the running as per the betting opportunities are senior backbench MP and former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who put up a good fight against Johnson in the Conservative party leadership contest in 2019. He is quoted at 11/1.

Sunak and Truss have been neck-and-neck for a while in public opinion surveys. On Wednesday, when Johnson tendered a conditional apology (because he apologised for the function, but not for his presence at it or for its illegality under prevailing legislation) in the House of Commons for his office holding a drinks party at his 10 Downing Street garden during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK in May 2020, Truss sat next to him, often nodding her head in support of the statement. On the other hand, the Chancellor was conspicuously absent from Parliament, 225 miles away from London in southwestern English county of Devon.

PM Boris Johnson during a press conference. (Picture Simon Dawson No 10)

Political commentators saw this as Sunak distancing himself from Johnson. In the evening he tweeted: “I’ve been on a visit all day today continuing work on out #PlanFor Jobs as well as meeting MPs to discuss the energy situation.” He added: “The PM was right to apologise and I support his request for patience while Sue Gray (a senior civil servant) carries out her enquiry.”

A YouGov poll carried out within hours of Johnson’s apology indicated 89 per cent of respondents did not accept his expression of contrition, while only 4 per cent supported it. The rest didn’t have an opinion.

Sunak is of East African Punjabi origin. His father has been a general practitioner and his mother a pharmacist in the southern English coastal city of Southampton since they migrated to Britain. He is also the son-in-law of N.R. Narayan Murthy, one of the founders of the software giant Infosys. He was educated at Winchester school, Oxford and Stanford Universities. An MP for less than seven years, his rise up the Conservative political ladder has been meteoric.

A powerful body within the Conservative parliamentary party known as the 1922 Committee has to receive 54 letters from its party’s MPs (out of around 365) to call for a leadership contest. As Johnson fights to save his political career, the big question is when will such a battle take place?

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Britain to halt ‘smart motorways’ rollout for 5 years

Those roads already in operation will be upgraded, although the hard shoulders will not be reinstated…reports Asian Lite News

Britain will pause the rollout of new “smart motorways” for five years while it gathers safety data on those already operational, following criticism that they are dangerous, the government announced Wednesday.

Campaigners and the high-selling tabloid the Daily Mail have led the resistance against the high-speed roads, in which variable speed limits are introduced and the hard shoulder is used as a normal lane unless it is required by emergency vehicles or a broken-down vehicle.

Signs above the road tell motorists which lanes are in use.

The government, in announcing the pause, maintained that smart motorways “are comparatively the safest roads in the country in terms of fatality rates”, but said it would carry out more safety tests before considering their future.

Those roads already in operation will be upgraded, although the hard shoulders will not be reinstated.

“While our initial data shows that smart motorways are among the safest roads in the UK, it’s crucial that we go further to ensure people feel safer using them,” said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

He said the pause on new smart motorways and the upgrading existing ones would help provide additional data to decide on further steps.

The roads began to appear at the turn of the century, and have gradually become more prevalent.

While accidents between moving vehicles are reported to have fallen, there has been an increase in the number of accidents in which moving vehicles, unaware that the left lane is serving as a hard shoulder and collide with a stationary vehicle.

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‘Partygate’ puts Boris in the dock

In the latest in a string of such allegations, Johnson and others allegedly held a drinks gathering in the garden of his official residence in May 2020 when any in-person socialising was outlawed, reports Asian Lite News

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was embroiled Tuesday in another scandal over his government’s alleged lockdown breaches as police said they were investigating a Downing Street gathering attended by dozens of top officials.

In the latest in a string of such allegations, Johnson and others allegedly held a drinks gathering in the garden of his official residence in May 2020 when any in-person socialising was outlawed.

An email leaked late Monday indicated that Martin Reynolds, a senior civil servant, invited more than 100 Downing Street colleagues to “bring your own booze” to the event, which Johnson and his wife Carrie allegedly attended.

The potentially highly damaging revelations follow a series of similar accusations which emerged last month about Downing Street parties held during later lockdowns in the run-up to Christmas in 2020.

They prompted Johnson to appoint another senior civil servant, Sue Gray, to investigate the allegations, and she is now expected to expand her probe to cover the new claims.

Meanwhile, in a statement released late Monday, London police said they were also making enquiries over potential breaches of the lockdown laws in relation to the May gathering.

“The Metropolitan Police Service is aware of widespread reporting relating to alleged breaches of the Health Protection Regulations at Downing Street on May 20 2020 and is in contact with the Cabinet Office,” the force said.

Johnson has previously denied knowledge that any rules were broken in Downing Street during the pandemic, as he faced weeks of excoriating headlines over the previous allegations before Christmas.

But the latest accusations appear to directly contradict those claims.

In the May 2020 email sent by Reynolds, he wrote: “After what has been an incredibly busy period it would be nice to make the most of the lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the No10 garden this evening.”

Britain at the time was in the throes of its first lockdown, and outdoor social gatherings of any kind were banned.

ITV News, which obtained the email, said around 40 staff ended up gathering in the garden that evening, eating picnic food and drinking.

BBC News, which followed up, said it had contemporaneous emails from some Downing Staff that questioned the wisdom of the invitation.

“It’s right that Sue Gray is looking into this matter independently,” Health minister Ed Argar told Sky News on Tuesday during a round of broadcast interviews.

“I’m not going to make comments that would prejudge or get in the way of that.”

Johnson had hoped to start the new year with a reset of his embattled government, leaving behind the so-called “partygate” scandals that ratcheted up the pressure on his position, after a series of other claims of sleaze.

But many of Tuesday’s newspapers, including those which normally back Johnson and his Conservative party, again splashed the latest revelations over their front pages.

“Enough Boris! You must end ‘partygate’ farce now” implored the typically supportive Daily Express.

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UK may bring down self-isolation period for vaccinated to 5 days

The Opposition Labour Party is also in favour of a cut in the length of the self-isolation period if it is supported by scientists…reports Asian Lite News

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday confirmed that cutting the self-isolation period for fully vaccinated people who get Covid-19 from seven to five days was under review.

Under current rules, people in England who test positive for COVID-19 can end their isolation period if they receive a negative lateral flow test on days six and seven. However, mounting pressure on frontline services due to staff absences as a result of self-isolation has led to calls for this period to be cut even further for milder COVID infections, which continues to record daily highs of 141,472 in the UK.

“Yes, of course, we’re looking at that and we’ll act according to the science as we always have,” Johnson told reporters during a pharmacy visit in London, in response to a question about the self-isolation period.

“But what I would say to everybody is that Omicron is still out there, it’s incredibly contagious, everybody will know somebody who has had it, it can be pretty unpleasant. Sadly, as you know, 90 per cent of the people who are in the ICU with COVID have not been vaccinated and it’s absolutely vital that everybody gets their booster,” he said.

Several members of Johnson’s Cabinet, including UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, are said to be increasingly in favour of a shorter self-isolation period to address the crisis of staff absences on the frontline.

The Opposition Labour Party is also in favour of a cut in the length of the self-isolation period if it is supported by scientists.

“I’ll be guided by the science on this. If the scientists and the medical experts say that it is safe to reduce the period of self-isolation, then I would be inclined to support it,” Labour Leader Keir Starmer told reporters virtually, while he is self-isolating following a positive COVID-19 test last week.

Johnson’s official Downing Street spokesperson noted: “If it is possible to go further, we’d want to act quickly, but it needs to be based on the latest evidence and that work is still ongoing. We certainly haven’t received any further updated advice.”

Meanwhile, Johnson hailed the success of the National Health Service (NHS) led vaccination programme, which he said had helped the UK make “great progress” against the Omicron variant, behind surges in COVID infections in recent weeks.

“We’re making great progress – the number of people who have been boosted, as I say, is 36 million, 90 per cent of the over-50s have been done – but there are still millions who need to do it,” said Johnson.

It comes as the state-funded NHS announced a new deal with privately-run local hospitals to activate surge capacity as part of the country’s COVID response. A three-month agreement with multiple independent healthcare organisations will see their staff and facilities put on standby to support the NHS should the Omicron variant lead to unsustainable levels of hospitalisations or staff absences, the health service said.

The deal comes on top of additional capacity created within NHS hospitals, by identifying areas such as gyms and education centres to create “super surge” wards.

Nightingale hubs are also being created in the grounds of some hospitals as part of the drive to create up to 4,000 “super surge” beds as part of efforts to cope with additional pressures on the health service from the COVID-19 surge and self-isolating staff.

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