Displaying items by tag: UK

Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy will stand trial for ‘mercenary activities’. Dylan is a chef who volunteered as an aid worker. He was captured with another Briton, Paul Urey, at a checkpoint in April while driving to a village to rescue a family. There is no news of Paul Urey. On the same day of their capture, Russia released a video of Andrew Hill in military uniform, saying he had surrendered. This follows last month’s death sentence for Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin who faced the same charges as Andrew and Dylan. Hearings are held at a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine, which is not internationally recognised. Russia has rejected calls for their release as they no longer implement the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights. The men’s fate is decided by the pro-Russian breakaway Donetsk People's Republic. Pray for the prisoners, who will be in atrocious conditions, and their families, who desperately want them home.

The CEO of the UK Health Security Agency said, ‘Covid hospitalisation numbers are expected to rise further’ as Covid cases jumped by 32% in a week. The Office of National Statistics reported ‘Over 1.7m people were infected on 7th July’. People are encouraged to ‘go about their normal lives but take precautions’ by handwashing, keeping a distance from others where possible and wearing a face-covering in enclosed, poorly ventilated areas. In England 9,000 Covid patients were hospitalised on 30 June, twice as many as at the start of June. The latest rise in Covid infections was 500,000 cases last week. One in 30 has the virus. It is ‘quite likely’ that hospital numbers will peak above where they were in the spring. There is evidence of a slight reduction in the effectiveness of vaccines on variants, but they are still keeping the majority of people safe from severe disease and hospitalisation. People with Covid symptoms should stay at home.

Ritchie Herron lived as a woman for five years and is suing the NHS for pressuring him into the ‘biggest mistake’ of his life. While battling mental health issues, strangers on the internet said he was trans. The NHS clinic he visited didn’t take his mental health crisis into account or counsel him about the impact of ‘sex swap’ surgery. The gender clinic diagnosed ‘transsexualism’ after two 30-minute appointments and prescribed testosterone-suppressing drugs. They ignored family concerns when they warned doctors ‘Ritchie was on strong antidepressants and had many complex issues’. Ritchie was then asked if he wanted genital surgery. Although uncertain, he said yes because ‘having surgery would make therapy available to him.’ The following year he had irreversible surgery and immediately regretted his decision saying, ‘Transition is being sold on a mass scale. It’s sinister. I’m proof the whole system must become far more robust. How many more people are there out there like me?’

The Bank of England’s chief economist pledged to ‘deliver inflation back to its 2% target’ despite the challenges of rising food and energy costs and a fall in the pound’s value that has made both more expensive. The central bank’s single purpose at the moment is to bring down the rate of price growth - a clear hint that more interest rate rises are on the way. His comments follow an equally stark warning from a deputy governor of the Bank, who said its monetary policy committee (MPC) would ‘do whatever is necessary’ to prevent the rocketing cost of living from becoming a lasting inflation problem. The Bank has raised interest rates five times since December in response to soaring prices.

Vaping among children and teenagers has almost doubled in two years. Experts blame the rise on social media. A survey by Action on Smoking on Health (Ash) showed 7% of 11- to 17-year-olds are vapers. They are being attracted to disposable e-cigarettes, in fruity flavours used by people on TikTok and Instagram. Over the past year, a new generation of disposable vapes known as ‘puff bars’, which contain nicotine, have come onto the market. While it is illegal to sell vapes to under-18s, social media carries posts from teenagers showing the new vapes and discussing the flavours, which include pink lemonade, mango and strawberry banana. The disposable popular vapes are brightly coloured, pocket-size, with sweet flavours and sweet names and cost under £5. Pray for more funding to enforce the law against underage sales. Pray for action against child-friendly packaging and labelling

Sats results show year 6 standards in reading, writing and maths have slipped in England since the pandemic. 59% of pupils met the expected level. The government says the Sats results were as expected due to the pandemic and there is ‘more work to do’ to help pupils catch up. By 2030 it wants 90% of children leaving primary school to have the expected standards in reading, writing and maths. Unions said further investment in schools and teaching staff was needed to achieve that target. The government said it values the work teachers up and down the country are putting into education recovery. £5bn has been allocated to help pupils catch up and children struggling in English and maths will ‘receive the right evidence-based targeted support to get them back on track’. The education unions and former advisor Sir Kevan Collins said the recovery fund falls short of what was required - around £15bn.

To strengthen international efforts to ensure freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), the government will host an international conference in London on 5 and 6 July. Promoting FoRB is one of the UK’s long-standing human rights priorities. The government remains deeply concerned about the severity and scale of violations and abuses in many parts of the world. Persecuting or discriminating against people for their religion or belief is often linked to other foreign and development policy challenges. The summit will gather politicians and campaigners from over 50 countries to continue to make progress on the issue. This year the organisers are being approached by diplomatic representatives from countries with historically poor records on religious freedom and who aren't part of the alliance, saying they want to come.

The Commonwealth Games start Thursday 28th July and end Monday 8th August in  Birmingham. They are known as ‘the friendly games’. As thousands of athletes and officials arrive from the 54 nations, The World Prayer Centre wants to prepare a highway of blessing and thanksgiving. The team have joined with Gas Street Church in Central Birmingham for a service that will include worship led by Tim Hughes and Gas Street music, together with prayers and messages from countries including, The Caribbean, India, Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. It’s free to attend this powerful event on Saturday 16th July 2022 for an afternoon of celebration to welcome and bless the nations and territories of The Commonwealth to the UK. Between now and 28th of July we can pray for God to watch over the police and security teams, keeping them safe and giving them wisdom as they keep our streets free from violence.

After President Zelensky told NATO he wants the war to finish ‘before winter sets in’, the UK pledged an additional £1bn of military aid to Ukraine. This brings UK military aid to £2.3bn plus £1.5bn spent in humanitarian and economic support. (Ukraine’s monthly defence cost is £4.12bn). The new £1bn comes from departmental underspends plus £95 million from Welsh and Scottish government budgets. Questions remain about whether the aid will be sufficient. Also, the Defence Secretary wants the government to increase spending on UK armed forces - to be prepared to invest more to keep people safe. Army personnel are being cut from 82,000 to 73,000 soldiers after 2021’s defence review. The new head of the armed forces said he had never known such a clear threat ‘as the brutal aggression of President Putin’. He likened the Ukraine war to the build up to World War Two.

The religious organisation, Jehovah’s Witness, has kept details of molestation accusations against members over the last 25 years at its headquarters known as Bethel. Documentation obtained by The Telegraph newspaper shows that senior officials - known as elders - were asked in the late 1990s to log details of child abuse allegations and forward them on to Bethel in Chelmsford. The instruction to record and keep details of abuse has been repeated multiple times since then. The existence of a database of abuse allegations has already been established in America and Australia, but this is the first time it has been shown to be in Britain. In a statement, the Christian Congregation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses said current child protection policies instruct leaders to ‘make a report to the police wherever it appears that a child is in danger of abuse’. They did not, however, respond when asked if the historical database of allegations had been passed to the authorities.