Historian hones website focused on African slaves who were ‘liberated’ but not freed


By Bradley Worrell • Published: May 25, 2023

CU Boulder’s Henry Lovejoy updates LiberatedAfricans.org, which highlights a largely forgotten period of time in the history of African diaspora

For Henry Lovejoy, an associate professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder whose focus is on the history of Africa and the African diaspora, the two words provoking the cruelest irony are “Liberated Africans.”

The term “Liberated Africans” coincides with a now-little-remembered part of history following the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 by the United Kingdom’s Parliament, which prohibited the slave trade within the British Empire (although it did not abolish the practice of slavery until 1834).

Meanwhile, around the same time, the United States Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, among others, passed their own anti-trafficking laws. In the years that followed, the British Royal Navy—which then controlled the world’s seas—and other participating navies operated a squadron of ships in the Atlantic and Indian oceans to interdict the slave trade

Henry Lovejoy is an associate professor of history, a specialist in the digital humanities, and the director of the Digital Slavery Research Lab at CU Boulder. He recently relaunched an enhanced version of the website www.liberatedafricans.org.

Before 1900, those navies seized nearly 3,000 slave ships. Various British and international courts convened to determine the fates of the “Liberated Africans.”

However, in a cruel twist of fate, most of those “liberated” people weren’t actually freed—but were instead condemned as property, declared free under anti-slave trade legislation, and then subjected to indentures, lasting several years.

“So, scholars argue this is another type of slavery, because it resulted in bonded labor,” Lovejoy says, noting, “They were made to work on sugar plantations just like enslaved Africans. They get ignored from the history of indentured labor from Asia because they are sort of regrouped with chattel slavery.

“So, there’s a whole new social status that forms under the term ‘Liberated Africans,’ which is a misnomer. This is called a humanitarian effort, but the contradiction is, it’s a crime against humanity.”

Documenting the history of Liberated Africans online

Serving as specialist in the digital humanities and as the director of the Digital Slavery Research Lab, Lovejoy is a strong believer in using technology to make history accessible to researchers, scholars and students.

It’s the reason he is relaunching a greatly enhanced version of the website www.liberatedafricans.org, a memorial of information regarding the more than 700,000 men, women and children “liberated” in the British-led campaign to abolish African slave trafficking.

First established in 2015, Lovejoy says the website is getting a major upgrade, thanks to grant funding and a partnership with Walk With Web Inc., under the CEO direction of Kartikay Chadha, who is a doctoral candidate at McGill University. This Canadian company provides technical support to institutions associated with social sciences and humanities research, development and preservation.

The updated website will be notable for its complex datasets while being easy to navigate and highly interactive, according to Lovejoy.

“What I really like about this design is that it’s really simple. It’s 10 menu items makes accessible a very complex history,” he says.

The website features archives containing more than 500 pieces of anti-slavery legislation from the 1790s through the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Lovejoy says this section of the website was largely built by CU students in the Department of History.

Notably, the website also ties in with the website www.AfricanRegions.org, with regional maps explaining pre-colonial Africa in historical context.

Specific features of the relaunched l website, www.liberatedafricans.org, includes a map visualizing the maritime blockade of the slave trade off the coast of west Africa, complete with nearly 3,000 documented locations where navies seized slave ships in international waters, which Lovejoy says is the first time these efforts have been captured on a temporal map.

“No one has mapped all of this out before, and no one has seen all of this before,” Lovejoy says.

The website showcases more than 5,000 cases involving the “liberation” process resulting in involuntary indentures. Additionally, a growing collection of case files related to government schemes to “liberate” and involuntarily indenture enslaved Africans according to anti-slavery law are featured on the website.

Maps, in particular, play a huge role in telling the story of Liberated Africans.

“I’ve centered this project primarily on maps,” Lovejoy says, “because when you are talking about a global forced migration of people related to the suppression of the slave trade, putting it on maps helps locate people in terms of where these cases occurred and the broad geographic scope of 700,000 indentured Africans.”

Lovejoy is aiming to have the latest version of the Liberated Africans website go live on June 1, coinciding with the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences conference at York University in Toronto, Canada, where he will give a presentation highlighting its enhanced features and upgrades.

While this latest version of the Liberated Africans website represents a major step forward, Lovejoy says adding new content to the website is an ongoing effort.

“The long-term goal for LiberatedAfricans.org is to organize all the available digitized archival sources related to the cases, including registers naming nearly 200,000 people involved. Currently, these records are scattered in world archives,” he says. In May, Lovejoy spent more than two weeks in Portugal, reviewing government documents related to that country’s abolition and suppression of the slave trade.

Meanwhile, Lovejoy says he sees the improved website as appealing to a large audience, from historians to students.

“The people who will make use of this website primarily will be historians interested in Africa and Africa diaspora, but it should be of interest for any type of history, whether it’s economic history, migratory history, legal history etc.,” he says. “And, I’ve also designed it for classroom education, because I’ve essentially mapped out the entire suppression of the slave trade from Africa.”

Exxon CEO, a Climate Villain to Many, Makes His Debut at COP

Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Sat, 2 December 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Darren Woods cuts a strange figure at the COP28 climate summit — an oil executive moving among thousands of government officials, business leaders and activists gathered in Dubai to limit global temperature rise.

After all, he’s the head of the largest American oil and gas company — villainized by some environmentalists for decades denying the fossil fuel’s contribution to climate change.

But at this UN climate conference, hosted by the United Arab Emirates and led by another industry executive — the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. — Woods said he is finding open doors.

“The complexity of the challenge of transitioning the energy system is coming more into focus,” with “a much more diverse group of people recognizing this is a hard problem to solve” and “we need big companies to help with that,” Woods said in an interview at the UN conference.

There’s a greater recognition that the energy transition will require a breadth of technologies, including hydrogen production and carbon capture, Woods said. “That opens the door for us.”

Exxon’s balance sheet and technical know-how means the oil giant can contribute to the UN climate talks and a global energy transition that must involve a range of solutions, Woods said.

“We have to continue to meet the needs of society and reduce emissions — and frankly, we have the skills, the capabilities to actually do that, the balance sheet to actually fund it,” Woods said. “There’s an opportunity and a willingness now for people to engage in those discussions.”

Woods is the first Exxon chief executive to ever attend one of the UN Conference of Parties on climate change since the summits began in the early 1990s. But at this year’s meeting, he’s not alone. Other oil bosses, including Shell’s Wael Sawan, turned up to sign a pact among 50 oil companies to reduce emissions from their own operations.

Sultan Al Jaber, the president of COP28, has argued that even as the world develops more carbon-free power, oil and gas will remain part of the energy system for decades to come — and making them as clean as possible is essential to avert warming.

Many environmentalists strenuously disagree. Months before the conference opened, activists called for Al Jaber’s ouster as president and said having oil executives at the summit was tantamount to welcoming foxes inside the henhouse.

Days before the conference opened, there were reports Al Jaber sought to advance oil and gas deals during meetings with foreign governments ahead of COP28 based on leaked memos released by the British Broadcasting Corp. in collaboration with the Center for Climate Reporting. Al Jaber has denied the allegations.

Oil executives have no business at a climate conference, said Collin Rees, US program co-manager at Oil Change International.

“Treating them as legitimate partners in the energy transition is dangerous,” especially given the industry’s “long history of nothing but delay and doubling down on their core business model of expanding fossil fuels,” he said. Even so, their presence is “a sign of how the conversation has progressed,” and “now they are being forced to defend themselves in public.”

For Exxon, joining the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter is consistent with work the company is already doing to pare methane emissions, Woods said. But the venture — which brings in 29 national oil companies — is seen as important to driving broad progress, even among firms that don’t face the same regulatory and investor pressure to clean up.

“It’s important that we get as much of the industry committed to raising the bar,” Woods said.

Exxon is pursuing an array of ventures that stand to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping climate law enacted in the US last year, including a Gulf Coast hydrogen-production project that has secured as much as $1.2 billion in government support.

And though President Joe Biden has had sharp words for oil producers, Woods said he sees signs of a balanced approach. “There’s a genuine effort by the Biden administration to strike the right balance, to focus and drive emission reductions and improve greenhouse gas emissions, but, at the same time, a recognition of the important role oil and gas plays.”

To greenwash or do the right thing? Corporate dilemmas at COP28

Mathilde DUMAZET

AFP
Sat, 2 December 2023 

Spectacular: the UN COP28 summit in Dubai is being held on the old Expo 2020 site (KARIM SAHIB)

They call the giant climate business expo running outside the COP28 United Nations talks in Dubai the "green zone".

With the enormous former Expo 2020 site given over to green -- and not so green -- companies to trumpet their climate credentials, the private sector has never been embraced so warmly at a climate summit as it has been in the oil-rich city state.

An astonishing 400,000 visitors have registered for day passes to the futuristic jamboree, with stands touting the latest carbon capture tech to a vegetable garden trying to hold up under the desert heat.


And that is not counting the 80,000 people accredited to the talks themselves.

Corporate pledges have been coming thick and fast, with Dubai-based Emirate Airlines -- which has its own huge pavilion -- heralding its first flight with "100 percent sustainable aviation fuel" and BNP Paribas bank saying they were phasing out financing projects related to extracting coking coal.

Others have been more hazy. The public relations teams of big companies feel they have to "come up with something during COP", sustainable finance expert Laurent Lascols told AFP. But most of the time they recycle "something they already have on the go".

But Sanda Ojiambo, assistant secretary-general of UN Global Compact, which tries to spur corporations towards sustainable development, praised the "very active and dynamic business movement that happens at COP.

"As long as it's credible and tangible and transparent, I think it really continues to demonstrate forward-looking discussion," she added.

But only 18 percent of big firms worldwide are cutting emissions "fast enough to reach net zero by 2050", according to a report last month by consultants Accenture.

Another by the Boston Consulting Group found that just 14 percent had reduced their carbon emissions in line with their own ambitions in the past five years -- and only one in 10 measured them precisely.

While COP28's Emirati president Sultan Al Jaber could not be more business friendly, experts say lingering suspicions of conflicts of interest -- Jaber is also CEO of the UAE's national oil and gas company -- put corporations in a complicated position.

- Big business commitments -

It is not as easy to make big announcements in Dubai "where you might be in the firing line" compared with the COP26 in Glasgow, said Lascols, because the UK was "more a model pupil in terms of energy transition".

"We did ask ourselves the question" whether we should go to Dubai, admitted the representative of a large French group, before deciding to press ahead "because it is important to take every chance to help move the lines". Other companies questioned by AFP took a similar stance.

But corporations are also at COP28 to influence as well as sell, with a huge number of lobbyists present.

And not all of them are trying to help wriggle out of responsibility for the climate.

More than 200 major corporations including the likes of Ikea, Coca-Cola, Sony, DHL, Heineken and Nestle have recently called on national leaders to set a timeline for phasing out unabated fossil fuels –- without the use of controversial carbon capture and storage technologies.

Many of them are also urging their energy suppliers to do the same and decarbonise their businesses.

Maria Mendiluce, head of We Mean Business, which coordinated the appeal, said we need to back companies trying to do the right thing. "We tend to focus on criticising those who are doing something... (but) we need to highlight those that are not doing anything."

mdz-bp/ico/er/lap/fg/giv

COP28 host UAE has climate plan downgraded to 'critically insufficient' while hosting summit

Sky News
Updated Sat, 2 December 2023 


The nation hosting the COP28 climate summit has had its climate plan downgraded to the lowest category.

The United Arab Emirates' climate plan is now rated "critically insufficient" by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a consortium of climate analysts and thinktanks.

The group assesses whether countries' plans - known as "nationally determined contributions" (NDCs) - are good enough to fulfil their part of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Even though the UAE recently ramped up the targets in its plan, the policies to match it were missing, CAT said.

"A country like the UAE with very high per capita emissions and very high GDP per capita, they need to reduce their emissions. That's very clear. And that's currently not happening," said Dr Niklas Hohne, an analyst from New Climate Institute involved in the research, and a professor in cutting emissions.

In October, the UAE's national oil company, ADNOC, awarded contracts worth $17bn (£13bn) for the development of the Hail and Ghasha offshore gas fields, as part of a $150bn (£118bn) fossil fuel expansion plan.

"That's totally counter to what is discussed here [at the climate summit]," said Dr Hohne.

The UAE's COP28 team was not immediately available to comment.

It comes as the UAE's COP presidency team unveiled a slew of announcements on energy it had brokered with governments and industries.

More than 110 countries pledged to triple the world's renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030, in a bid to displace demand for fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, more than 20 nations committed to trebling nuclear power, and more than 50 oil and gas companies said they would tackle emissions from their operations.

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Tom Evans from thinktank E3G, which was not involved with the analysis, but is tracking progress in Dubai, said: "For all the flashy announcements made on the stage of COP, when you look closer it's clear that there's much more the UAE needs to do to get its emissions down."

CAT had already rated the UAE's plan "insufficient", the fourth lowest of five categories.

The downgrade was partly due to the analysts filling out missing data about greenhouse gas emissions from air conditioning, relied on by people here in Dubai, where it is currently 30C in winter.

Read more:
Is Dubai playing its part to tackle climate change?
Will COP28 actually change the world?
Is the UK 'fuelling' the climate crisis?

The change was also down to an update in what science says is needed to try to limit global warming to 1.5C - a change that affected other countries' assessments too.

But Dr Hohne said it was "particularly unfortunate" in the case of the UAE because as COP28 president it has a leadership role, "and usually they should really do the right things".

However, he praised the advances the UAE has made, including its investment in renewable power domestically and in dozens of countries abroad, though it is outweighed by the investment in oil and gas.

Other countries rated 'critically insufficient' include fellow major fossil fuel producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey, Singapore and Thailand.

Climate summit host UAE to ‘aggressively increase’ oil production, charity says

Emma Gatten
Sat, 2 December 2023 

Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the president of Cop28, is also head of the state oil firm - GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP

The UAE’s state oil firm is to ramp up production over the next decade, according to new analysis that comes as the petrostate hosts the Cop28 global climate summit.

The new data came as a key adviser to the climate summit quit because of reports that the UAE planned to use its role as host to push oil and gas deals in meetings with other governments.

The developments underlined the difficult role the UAE has in convincing countries to reach a deal on reducing emissions during the two-week negotiations.


Its state oil firm, Adnoc, which is headed by Cop28 president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, is on course to become the second-biggest oil producer in the world by 2050, according to analysis by charity Global Witness, based on data from industry analysts Rystad Energy.

Global Witness said assets operated by Adnoc are projected to produce 35.9 billion barrels of oil between the start of 2023 and the end of 2050, second in terms of volume only to Saudi Aramco’s 100.5 billion barrels.

The group photo at Cop28, which got off to a shaky start - Sean Gallup/Getty

It said the data showed Adnoc was also planning to “aggressively increase its production in the short term”, despite Al-Jaber acknowledging that emissions must drop 43 per cent by 2030 to keep world targets of limiting warming to 1.5C on track.

Adnoc told Global Witness that the analysis was “inaccurate as it does not make any distinction between production capacity and actual production, nor does it reflect the difference between Adnoc’s production, partner production and UAE total production.”

It added that: “The hard truth is that all credible energy outlooks, including those by the International Energy Agency and Rystad, show that both renewable and conventional energy will be required to ensure a just and responsible energy transition.”

The global summit got off to a shaky start last week, after the BBC reported on leaked documents that suggested Al-Jaber was briefed to push oil and gas deals in meetings with governments in the run up to Cop28.

Al-Jaber has dismissed the briefings as “false, not true, incorrect,” and the Cop28 team says the briefings “were not used by Cop28 in meetings”.

But the reports prompted the resignation of Hilda Heine, a member of the main advisory board to the summit and the former president of the Marshall Islands.

Ms Heine said the reports were “deeply disappointing” and would “undermine the integrity of the Cop presidency and the process as a whole,” in a letter to Al-Jaber.

A Cop28 spokesman said: “We are extremely disappointed by Dr Heine’s resignation from the Cop28 Advisory Committee. We appreciated her advice throughout the year and we only wish she would have been with us here in the UAE celebrating the adoption of a fund that will support vulnerable island states and those most affected by climate impacts.

“As the Cop28 president has said, we have been completely clear, open, and honest throughout this process and it is a shame to see unverified reporting affect our team and undermine the world’s best chance to keep 1.5 within reach.”

The UAE saw a further knock to its climate credibility, after it was downrated on its emissions reduction plans to “critically insufficient” by influential think tank Climate Action Tracker. The update came after new estimates of emissions from air conditioning in the country.

The hosts had an early success with the launch of a new fund to compensate developing nations for the loss and damage from climate change, after it pledged $100 million (£79 million). Funding totalled nearly £350 million for the loss and damage fund, including £60 million from the UK.

And on Saturday, the US made a historic pledge to phase out coal power, joining a global agreement first made by the UK in 2017.

But the Cop hosts face a trickier challenge getting to an agreement at the end of the two-week summit on emissions reductions.

The UAE will be under intense scrutiny over the final language on fossil fuels, with many observers fearing it will steer away from language on “phasing out” oil and gas, to the alternative “phasing down”, taken to indicate the continued use of gas with carbon capture technology.

In a message to the conference on Saturday, the Pope called for the “elimination of fossil fuels”, and said “the destruction of the environment is an offence against God.”

UK
Thames Water could run out of money by April, auditor warns

James Fitzgerald
Sat, 2 December 2023 

Thames water

Thames Water’s parent company could run out of money by next April if its shareholders don’t inject more equity into the debt-laden utility, its auditors have warned.

The group’s auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), said there is “material uncertainty” about its future because there are no firm arrangements in place to refinance a £190m loan held by one of the company’s subsidiary businesses.

Thames Water is set to face scrutiny over its debt levels and financing structure when its results are published on Tuesday.

Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said it’s considering calling the firm’s executives in to explain whether they misled MPs about the company’s financial situation when they gave evidence in the summer.

The panel’s chair, Conservative MP Robert Goodwill, said on Friday: “Recent revelations of Thames Water’s financial situation raise further concerns about the stability of the company’s finances.”

In June, the water company entered emergency talks with the water regulator Ofwat, ministers and government departments after the exit of its chief executive and concerns over its ability to continue operating without a multibillion cash injection.

At the time, regulators suggested the company could be facing a hole of £10bn in its finances.

The business also faces breaching an interest cover covenant on a separate £200m loan by the same date “under a severe but plausible downside scenario,” PWC said. The disclosure was made in the 2022-23 accounts of Kemble Water Holdings, the top company in Thames’ ownership structure.

Thames Water shareholders have pledged to support the company, with a commitment in writing to inject £750m of further equity into the group. But PWC said that “the letter is not legally binding and there are no other firm commitments to refinance the £190m loan”.

In October, Ofwat said the firm had ‘significant issues’ to address. A spokesman said: “Thames Water must address their operational shortcomings and strengthen their financial resilience.”

The regulator has indicated that shareholders will need to put another £2.5bn into the business between 2025 and 2030.

A Thames Water Utilities Limited spokesman said: “We are in a robust financial position and are extremely fortunate to have such supportive shareholders”.

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LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for THAMES WATER 

Inside the secretive IDF intelligence unit for autistic teenagers

Samuel Lovett
Sat, 2 December 2023 

The 9900 is increasingly working with neurodivergent young people to conduct its analysis - Alon Talmor/IDF

Corporal N is unequivocal in her answer. “Yes, my workload has absolutely increased since the start of the war,” she says. “It’s work around the clock. To do my job, I need to be much more aware, because things happen – and have happened – immediately.”

But what exactly her “job” is, remains something of a mystery. There is talk of “cognitive capabilities,” needing to “remember all the little details,” “creativity” and, perhaps most importantly, she says, patience. “You need a lot of it.”

Such ambiguity stems from the fact that Corporal N, just 19 years of age, serves in an intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) Southern Command. It’s a demanding job, cloaked in mystery and secrecy, but one that Corporal N excels at – largely thanks to her autism.

The teenager, fresh out of school, is one of 400 autistic recruits currently serving across the IDF in a range of departments – from the air force to the navy to the army (though none are placed into combat positions).

But only a small proportion of this group are placed in the IDF’s highly classified intelligence units, including the famed 9900 and 8200.

The 9900 is responsible for analysing visual intelligence from satellites and aircraft which is then fed into troops on the battlefield, while the 8200 is similar to that of Britain’s GCHQ, covering everything from public data analysis to the use of in-field human operators.

'Precision is a key adjective,' says Corporal N - IDF

Corporal N insists she “can’t really talk about most aspects of her position,” and doesn’t give any clues as to which intelligence unit she serves in, but cryptically emphasises that “precision is a key adjective here for the requirements of my job”.

Prior to the events of Oct 7, at least, which have tarnished the reputation of Israel’s intelligence agencies, the 9900 and 8200 units were widely considered by analysts to be among the most formidable of their kind in the world, keeping civilians safe from both internal and external threats.

Enrolment into either unit has long been a source of pride for any Israeli, but only those with the sharpest minds and a fine “attention to detail” are considered – which is why teenagers with autism often make the cut.

“It’s clear that they have a qualitative edge over other soldiers, and that’s why they find themselves in cyber and intelligence units,” says Lt Col Rotem Sabag, head of the service for the IDF’s Meitav department, which processes new recruits.

“The capabilities that are often associated with autism – their ability to focus, their ability to recall specific details very well – these all contribute to their edge.”

Once an autistic soldier is integrated into an intelligence team – a process that can take time and usually involves support from a mentor – their photographic memory and cognitive skills are put to use in a range of jobs: aerial imagery analysis, geographical data collection, 3D mapping and much more.

In return, these individuals who, as children, may have never envisioned playing such a vital role for their country “get to enjoy a challenging and interesting army service,” says Lt Col Sabag. “What we like to say in the army is that this is a win-win.”
‘Highly independent and lower need’

Such is their value to the IDF that the force has even created an entire team within the 9900, called the Roim Rachok (RR) programme – Hebrew for “far beyond horizons” – that is composed entirely of autistic recruits.

“The work done in the RR programme is largely in collaboration with other branches of Unit 9900. They use satellite imagery and maps to understand Israel’s geographical landscape and defend its borders,” says the IDF.

But entry into the 8200, 9900, or any of the force’s many other intelligence units – some so secret that Israelis refuse to acknowledge their existence – isn’t easy, especially for autistic recruits.

First, these individuals have to get a place on the IDF’s Titkadmu programme, which determines whether a person with autism is fit to serve in the force and provides support to those who are accepted.

Only teenagers who are “highly independent and lower need” on the autistic spectrum are considered, says Yuval, the Titkadmu commander. They undergo questionnaires and interviews with autism experts and psychologists to initially assess their suitability.

After that, a recruit will face further interviews and extensive testing. “According to how they score on these tests, they can go to any of the different units that regular soldiers go to,” says Lt Col Sabag – including intelligence.

Research certainly suggests that those with autism can be well-equipped to deal with the demands of serving in a unit like the 9900.

“A growing body of research is showing that autistics outperform neurologically typical children and adults in a wide range of perception tasks, such as spotting a pattern in a distracting environment,” Laurent Mottron, a psychiatry professor at the University of Montreal, wrote in a 2011 column for Nature magazine.

Most people with autism “outperform in auditory tasks (such as discriminating sound pitches), detecting visual structures, and mentally manipulating complex three-dimensional shapes,” he added.

Perception tasks are a crucial element of intelligence work - IDF

Israel, like many developed countries, has experienced a rise in autism cases in recent decades. According to the Israeli Society for Children and Adults with Autism diagnoses are increasing by an average of 13 per cent annually.

In this period, societal attitudes towards people with autism have improved – though not entirely – paving the way for teenagers like Corporal N to prove her worth.

There was no need for her to join the army. At the age of 16, she received a medical exemption stating that, because of her autism, she was not required to draft for the IDF.

Military service is obligatory for most over-18s in Israel, with men required to serve for 32 months and women for two years, but not those with mental or physical conditions, such as autism.

But the desire to serve her country proved far stronger than the social anxiety that had characterised Corporal N’s childhood.

Having once struggled to communicate and make eye contact with other people, the teenager is now thriving in the IDF, generating vital intelligence that is fed into armed soldiers fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

There are still moments when her autism resurfaces, she says, expressed through the “difficulty of understanding social situations or anxiety”. But thanks to years of mind training and input from her Titkadmu mentor, she knows how to cope.

“I usually ask people to switch out for 5-10 minutes and go and breathe to kind of get back my senses,” she says. “I find the techniques and methods that work best and use my brain in order to overcome the stress.”

Corporal N’s commitment to her work is greater than most, having lost her 23-year-old sister in the attacks of Oct 7. The horrors of that day continue to haunt her mind, the loss of her sibling still raw. But it’s through service to Israel that she continues to push on with her life. “The way to process it has been by working, by doing.”

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The Last Oracle: A Sigma Force Novel - James Rollins 

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Prince Harry’s book Spare is most traded-in biography of the year

Camilla Tominey
Sat, 2 December 2023

Prince Harry's autobiography Spare was translated into 15 languages - Michael Sohn/AP

It may have been a bestseller, breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time, but Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare has now reached a new, rather less salubrious milestone.

According to We Buy Books, the 416-page tome, which was published on Jan 10, was the most traded-in biography of the year.

A spokesman for the books specialist, which “turns unwanted books into cash”, said: “Prince Harry’s Spare was our most traded-in biography of the year. We’ve accepted 459 copies. We limit how many we accept in a timeframe so chances are if we’d accepted every copy, there’d have been a lot more!”

Customers trade in their books online by typing the ISBN number into the website or scanning it on the app and then accepting the instant valuation offered. Although Spare originally retailed at £28, We Buy Books would offer customers £2.40 for their second hand copies. The hardback edition is currently selling for £14 on Amazon and is priced £19.99 at Waterstones.

The book came out in digital, paperback, and hardcover formats and has been translated into 15 languages. There is also a 15-hour audiobook edition, which Harry narrates himself.

Total sales including audio and e-book editions were around 400,000 copies on the day of its release, making it the UK’s fastest selling non-fiction book ever.

It sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US, Canada and Britain on its first day, which was described by Penguin Random House as the largest first-day sales total for any non-fiction book it ever published.

More sales than Barack Obama

It beat Barack Obama’s 2020 autobiography, A Promised Land, to become the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time.

Sales were fueled by many booksellers including Waterstones, WHSmith, and Amazon offering it to customers at half price.

After selling 467,183 print copies in its first week and 750,000 copies across all formats in the UK, it became the fastest-selling nonfiction book in the UK since Nielsen BookData began recording official printed book sales in 1998. Sales well surpassed Kay Allinson’s Pinch of Nom cookbook, which sold 210,506 copies in its first three days of release in 2019.

In the book, which was ghost written by J. R. Moehringer, Harry details how he played second fiddle to his brother William as the “spare to the heir” and reveals the trauma he suffered as a result of the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

He describes being “assaulted” by William, reveals how the King begged his sons not to “make my finals years a misery” and details losing his virginity by “an older lady” in a field behind a pub.

He also revealed he had killed 25 “enemy combatants” while serving with the British Army in Afghanistan.

The book, which accused his stepmother Queen Camilla of leaking stories to the press and suggests the Princess of Wales was insulted by Meghan referring to her having “baby brain”, received mixed reviews.

Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder, review: a jaw-dropping injection of sheer Saturday night magic

Michael Hogan
Sat, 2 December 2023

Revelling in chemistry: Catherine Tate and David Tennant in Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder - James Pardon/BBC

It began with an historical bang and ended with a heartbreaking posthumous appearance. In between, Doctor Who (BBC One) delivered a blockbusting adventure. Writer Russell T Davies warned that Wild Blue Yonder was “weird”. Leading man David Tennant said it was “shocking… unlike any episode ever”. They weren’t wrong. This was a deeply creepy, dazzlingly creative hour of teatime TV.

A witty prologue saw the Tardis crash-land in an apple tree, circa 1666. A certain physicist happened to be sitting beneath it. The Doctor greeted him as “Sir Isaac Newton” before correcting himself and losing the honorific. The colour-blind casting of Nathaniel Curtis, the half-Indian actor best known for starring in Davies’ It’s A Sin, could rattle a few cages. The Doctor (Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) were far more concerned with the fact that the influential polymath was “hot”. They left him with the made-up word “mavity” as a parting gift. He’ll get there eventually.

The main meat of the story took place on a seemingly empty spaceship at the edge of the universe. Except this is sci-fi, where spaceships are rarely really empty. Lying in wait was “something so bad that the Tardis ran away”: two shape-shifting, war-mongering lifeforms which morphed into doppelgängers of the Doctor and Donna, planning to steal the Tardis and wreak intergalactic havoc. Like Newton said: “Odd bodkins! What the devil?”

As their physical forms settled, they sprouted long arms, slack jaws and vampiric teeth. They ran on all fours, grew to outlandish size, got stuck in corridors and melted into puddles. Unsettling and strange, they referenced horror films from Invasion of The Body Snatchers to Jordan Peele’s Us.

The design team faced a challenge bringing to life what Davies had written on the page. They rose to it. The show’s new distribution deal with Disney brings a boosted budget, which was visible in the fully realised spacecraft and Hollywood-worthy visual effects. These were supplemented by fine physical acting by Tennant and Tate, playing their own doubles in eerie style.

When they finally returned to Earth, they were greeted by Wilfred Mott (the late Bernard Cribbins), now wheelchair-bound but still a doughty warrior. Cribbins filmed scenes last year before his death. The Doctor spoke for us all when he beamed: “Now nothing is wrong. Nothing in the whole wide world. Hello, my old soldier.”

For all the hype-building talk of shocking weirdness, this was Doctor Who boiled down to its essence. The Timelord and his loyal companion, landing somewhere mysterious, finding themselves in trouble. No big cast nor political preaching. Just a rollicking yarn in a confined setting with scary monsters. A back-to-basics “base under siege” adventure with a whopping twist.

Tennant was funny and fizzingly charismatic, revelling in his chemistry with Tate. There was warm bickering, clever wordplay and dark hints of the Doctor being haunted by his origins. Their reunited double act feels nostalgic yet thrillingly new – perfect for marking the show’s 60th anniversary, before launching its new era.

We now await next Saturday’s climactic special The Giggle, which marks the return of classic villain The Toymaker (now played by Neil Patrick Harris) – and presumably ends with Tennant’s regeneration into the 15th Doctor (long-term replacement Ncuti Gatwa). In just two episodes, Davies has restored our faith in family-friendly sci-fi. This was a jaw-dropping, joyous injection of sheer Saturday night magic.

Doctor Who says Sir Isaac Newton 'was so hot' in hint at his sexuality

Liz Perkins
Sat, 2 December 2023 

David Tennant, back in the Tardis, has made a hint about the doctor's sexuality

He has travelled across time and space but in his latest adventure, the Doctor has revealed a previously unseen dimension to his character in saying he finds Sir Isaac Newton “hot.”

David Tennant, who has stepped back into the Tardis to be the 14th doctor for three Doctor Who anniversary specials, made the hint about his sexuality in a remark to Catherine Tate, who returns as his assistant Donna Noble.

They have been asked to make a comeback to mark the 60th anniversary of the hit show, after originally starring together in 2005, which David previously described as an “unexpected treat.”

Sir Isaac Newton was ‘hot’

In the exchange seen by viewers on Saturday night, Donna said: “Is it just me or was Isaac Newton hot?”

And the Doctor replied: “He was, wasn’t he? He was so hot. Oh! Is that who I am now?”

Donna added: “Well, it was never too far from the surface, mate. I always thought you...”

Award-winning Russell T Davies, who was the creator and the sole writer of Queer as Folk, has returned as the showrunner to mark the special anniversary.

He is credited with turning the series into a worldwide hit after returning in 2005.
Show moving into new areas

Ahead of the show being screened, he said: “It’s set far away from Earth. It’s a bit weird, it’s scary, it’s freaky, it pushes the show into areas it’s never quite been into before.”

The programme in the official synopsis is described as “The Tardis takes the Doctor and Donna to the furthest edge of adventure. To escape, they must face the most desperate fight of their lives, with the fate of the universe at stake.”

The Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder show saw the Tardis crash-land in an apple tree, circa 1666, and on his return to Earth, the Doctor was greeted by Bernard Cribbins, who played Donna’s grandfather, Wilf.

David Tennant previously revealed Cribbins was making his final appearance in the poignant episode. The actor died in July last year.

BBC Studios are partnering with Bad Wolf to produce the series.

UK
Police ‘surrounded’ by protesters at pro-Palestinian march in London

Janet Eastham
Sat, 2 December 2023 

The Metropolitan Police said it had arrested a man for a racially aggravated public order offence in Brixton, and another, a teenager, on suspicion of criminal damage

Police were “surrounded” by demonstrators and prevented from leaving after making two arrests at a pro-Palestinian march in south London.

The arrests came as Liz Truss, the former prime minister, claimed on Fox News that people are being allowed to “demonstrate in favour of terrorists”.

The Metropolitan Police said it had arrested a man for a racially aggravated public order offence in Brixton, and another, a teenager, on suspicion of criminal damage.


The protest in Brixton was one of dozens taking place across the country on Saturday in a day of action organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

The group is demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after fighting resumed on Friday and said its primary motivation was concern over further civilian casualties.

Police talk to protesters at the demonstration in Brixton - Peter Marshall/Alamy Live News

The Met declined to provide details about the content of the placard it deemed to be potentially “racially aggravating”, but numerous posters on display during weekly pro-Palestinian marches have been described as anti-Semitic by campaign groups.

The force said protesters obstructed their route as they attempted to leave the Windrush Square, a pedestrianised area in the centre of Brixton, having arrested the first man.

In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, the force said: “When officers tried to leave the area, their vehicle was surrounded by other protesters. Some sat in the road blocking their path. Additional officers were deployed and the arrested man is now on his way to custody.”

Turning onto Saltoun Road, the police van was again stopped by protesters and a male teenager was arrested for criminal damage to the vehicle. A spokesman for the Met said that “a number of people tried to obstruct the police van as it drove off. They were moved out of the way by officers”.

The force had been criticised for being “too soft” at initial marches in the capital. However, last weekend it warned demonstrators that it would take incitement to violence or racist language far more seriously.

Officers handed out leaflets to provide “absolute clarity” on what was deemed an offence, while Arabic-speaking officers were deployed to pick out offensive chants and images in the crowd.

The protest in Brixton was one of dozens taking place across the country on Saturday - Peter Marshall/Alamy Live News

In response to the resumption of hostilities in Gaza, protesters gathered at rallies and vigils across the UK and Ireland on Saturday. While the marches were largely peaceful, protesters across the country continued to chant slogans condemned by many as anti-Semitic.

On the streets of Dublin, some marchers called for an “intifada”, while at Plashet Park in East Ham, east London, there were chants accusing Israel of being a “terrorist state”.

Ms Truss, who has been on a trip to the United States as part of a delegation with the Conservative Friends of Ukraine, claimed the protests showed the “woke Left” would “rather support authoritarian regimes” than the West.

She said: “On the streets of London, I see people demonstrating in favour of terrorists, and that being allowed to happen.

“They are about saying: ‘The way of life that we have in Britain or America, that is not the right way of life. Actually, we would rather support terrorists, we’d rather support authoritarian regimes.’”

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who has previously refused to condemn Hamas as terrorists, appeared as the keynote speaker at a Stop the War Coalition event in east London.

Journalists attending the “Freedom for Palestine; Imperialism, War and the Middle East” were told the meeting at a small conference centre was not open to them.

Pro-Palestinian protesters block police cars as two arrested at rally in Brixton

Sky News
Updated Sat, 2 December 2023


Two people have been arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest in Brixton, south London.

People sat in the road blocking the path of the police cars carrying the arrested protesters, the Metropolitan Police said.

One man was arrested because of the placard he was carrying - police said he was detained "on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence".

Police did not release details of what the placard said.

Met Police said on X, formerly Twitter: "When officers tried to leave the area their vehicle was surrounded by other protesters. Some sat in the road blocking their path.

"Additional officers were deployed and the arrested man is now on his way to custody."

A male teenager was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage of a police vehicle.

People again tried to block the police van as it drove off and were moved out of the way by officers, police said.

Read more from Sky News:
What does jihad mean and why isn't it illegal to chant the word?

Last weekend police handed out leaflets to pro-Palestinian protesters warning them about potential criminal offences.

The leaflet warns against using "words or images that are racist or incite hatred against any faith", that "support Hamas or any other banned organisation" or "that celebrate or promote acts of terrorism - such as the killing or kidnap of innocent people".

"If in any doubt bin any placard or sign that might break these rules," it says.

The leaflet also tells those attending to check if any restrictions are in place and warns: "Don't cause fear or be violent, including using flares or fireworks, or using threatening words or aggressive behaviours that could be considered intimidating.

"Don't deface or damage statues, monuments or other property."

Pro-Palestinians being ‘allowed to march in favour of terrorists’, Liz Truss claims

Patrick Daly
Sat, 2 December 2023 

Liz Truss has claimed people are being “allowed” to demonstrate “in favour of terrorists” as more pro-Palestinian marches take place across the UK on Saturday.

In an extraordinary interview with right-wing broadcaster Fox News, the former prime minister also claimed “trans extremists and eco extremists” would rather support authoritarian regimes than the “Anglo-American” way of life.

Her interview came as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has arranged a country-wide “day of action” to demand a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Fighting has resumed between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian military group following a week-long truce that allowed hostages being held in Gaza to be released, along with Palestinian prisoners who had been incarcerated in Israel.

There are fears of further civilian casualties after Israel dropped leaflets on Friday warning residents to leave the southern part of the strip where two million people — almost the entire Gazan population — are based.

On the streets of London, I see people demonstrating in favour of terrorists, and that being allowed to happen  

Liz Truss, former prime minister

The conflict, sparked by Hamas’s deadly assault on Israel on October 7, has led to regular protests in support of the Palestinians in the UK since the bloodshed started. The protests split opinion within government, with sacked home secretary Suella Braverman describing them as “hate marches” while former cabinet colleagues such as justice secretary Alex Chalk publicly distanced themselves from her comments.

But former PM Ms Truss, who has been on a trip to the US this week with the Conservative Friends of Ukraine, claimed the protests showed the “woke left” would “rather support authoritarian regimes” than the West.

Speaking to the right-wing US broadcaster Fox News while in Washington DC, the Conservative MP said: “On the streets of London, I see people demonstrating in favour of terrorists, and that being allowed to happen.

“And you’ve got the trans extremists, the eco extremists, the anti-capitalists, the degrowth-ers.

“They are about saying, ‘The way of life that we have in Britain or America, that is not the right way of life.

“‘Actually, we would rather support terrorists, we’d rather support authoritarian regimes’.”

Former home secretary Suella Braverman had branded the protests “hate marches” before she was sacked by the Prime Minister.

Rishi Sunak, who succeeded Ms Truss after the fallout from her disastrous mini-budget led to her becoming Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, is reportedly looking to tighten the law to make it easier to ban marches and prosecute those glorifying terrorism.

More than 80 people have been charged in the UK over alleged hate crimes and violence linked to pro-Palestinian protests since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict.


There has been controversy about those on the marches chanting the phrase “from the river to the sea”, which critics have claimed is antisemitic, while some attendees have been accused of showing support for Hamas.

The militant organisation is proscribed as a terror group in the UK and support for it is banned.

Former No 10 incumbent Ms Truss said anti-Western sentiment was “not the view of the vast majority” of Britons and that her constituents in South West Norfolk were “frustrated” that such ideology “is not being taken on enough by Conservatives”.

“This is why we need Conservative leadership to actually take on the leftists, show strength in the face of aggressors abroad, so that we can revive the values that most people in our societies are desperate for,” she said.

“They believe in family, they believe in freedom, they believe in Anglo-American values.

“The problem is that so much of the public debate is now dominated by the woke left.

“You can see that here in Washington DC, you can see that in London, you can see that right across Europe.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters are expected to gather across the UK, with the PSC arranging ceasefire rallies and vigils in places such as London, Cardiff, Hull and Coventry.

Israel pounded targets on Saturday in the southern Gaza Strip as it pursues Hamas targets following the resumption of violence.

Most Gazans are in the area after Israel urged people to relocate there at the war’s start, a move that left three-quarters of the population displaced and facing widespread shortages of food, water and other supplies.

In a move that appears to hint that the Israel Defence Forces plans to extend its ground assault, Palestinians are being urged to move out of the south.

Unable to go into the battleground of north Gaza or neighbouring Egypt, their only escape is to move around within the 85 sq mile area.

Lord Ricketts, who served as the UK’s first national security adviser, said Israel is in danger of causing “massive civilian casualties” if it takes the fight to Hamas in southern Gaza.

The peer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “They’ve got an increasing dilemma.

“They ordered a million people from the north to leave into the south.

“They now have two million people there, many of them displaced, many of them living out in the open.

“They simply can’t use the same kind of armoured all-out assault that they used in the north without massive civilian casualties.”

He said Tel Aviv’s plan to destroy Hamas “seems to me to be impossible” due to the political and social nature of the organisation.

UK

Civil servants ‘trying to block’ Sunak’s Rwanda legislation

Will Hazell
Sat, 2 December 2023 

The Prime Minister reportedly hopes to finalise plans for a new illegal migration bill by the end of Monday - GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images

Civil servants are trying to block Rishi Sunak’s legislation to deem Rwanda a safe country to deport asylum seekers to, it has been claimed.

Sources have claimed that Whitehall feels “institutionally bound” to raise concerns about proposals to disapply elements of the Human Rights Act from the Rwanda scheme.

It comes amid heated discussions in Government about how far the Bill should go, with Conservative MPs on the Right of the party claiming that the legislation will fail unless it also disapplies the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The Telegraph understands that Victoria Prentis, the Attorney General, has been opposing such a move, arguing that using “notwithstanding” clauses to circumvent the ECHR would be unlawful.

After losing at the Supreme Court last month, Mr Sunak wants to get deportation flights off the ground by passing legislation that will declare Rwanda a safe country.

The Government has also been negotiating a treaty with Rwanda that would commit the country not to deport asylum seekers to third countries – one of the chief concerns raised by the court.

The Telegraph understands that the treaty could be finalised this week, with the Home Secretary on standby for a flight to Rwanda to sign the deal.


However, debate is still ongoing about how expansive Mr Sunak’s legislation should be. Under one plan – dubbed the “semi-skimmed” option – the UK’s Human Rights Act would be officially disapplied in relation to the safety of Rwanda.

Sources have claimed that ministers are facing resistance in Whitehall to such a policy in the form of questions repeatedly being raised around its legitimacy, conflicting advice and attempts to dissuade ministers.

The Prime Minister is expected to finalise his plan by the end of Monday, meaning that it could potentially be signed off by ministers at Tuesday’s weekly Cabinet meeting.

However, senior Tories have expressed concerns that if he chooses the semi-skimmed option it may be too “limited” to resist legal claims against deportation.

Some MPs on the Right of the party are pushing for a “full-fat” option – believed to be supported by Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister – that would use notwithstanding clauses to set aside the whole of the Human Rights Act, the ECHR and other international conventions.

But this hardline approach is being resisted by the Attorney General and Tory centrists.
‘The most appallingly adverse reaction’

The Telegraph understands that Mrs Prentice has argued that notwithstanding clauses would be unlawful and previously blocked them when they were proposed by Suella Braverman, the former home secretary.

Mrs Prentis is also strongly opposed to the idea of withdrawing from the ECHR altogether.

In conversations with Conservative MPs she has said that leaving the ECHR would require the Government to reopen the Northern Ireland Protocol Brexit deal, with any new agreement with the EU requiring every member state to ratify it.

A former cabinet minister on the Tory Right claimed that Mrs Prentice was “wrong in law” on the use of notwithstanding clauses.

The MP said there would be “huge concern” if Mr Sunak’s Bill did not include the clauses.

“If we can’t utilise the Rwanda policy – and we won’t be able to if we don’t block off all the obstacles through notwithstanding clauses – then there will be the most appallingly adverse reaction from Conservative voters,” they said.

“Bearing in mind that we’re now on average more than 20 points behind in the polls, I think that lots of MPs simply won’t put up with that.”

Another senior Tory warned that Mr Sunak faced the prospect of a leadership challenge if he was seen to deliver weak legislation that was unlikely to fix the problem or reassure the public.

Concerned MPs on the Right were generally backbenchers rather than ministers and “more likely to do something” than centrist parliamentarians nervous about changes involving the ECHR and Human Rights Act, they said.

Writing for The Telegraph, the veteran backbencher Sir Bill Cash – a proponent of notwithstanding clauses – said the issue was about “the will of the voters and their trust in government” and that the public would “not excuse failure on illegal migration in yet another Bill”.

On Saturday night, Labour said that they believed that activity in the Channel on Saturday meant that the number of people crossing in small boats was likely to have met or exceeded the 28,526 recorded in 2021, making it the second highest year on record.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “Rishi Sunak claimed he would stop the small boats this year but instead this weekend’s figures are set to make it the second highest year of crossings on record, the Tory asylum chaos is continuing and he has broken another promise he made to the British people.

A source close to Mrs Prentis said she was focused on making the policy work and getting flights off the ground to Rwanda.

They indicated that the Attorney General would wait to see what any clause said before making a judgment about it.

‘That’s not resistance, that’s the job’

Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA civil servants’ union, hit back at claims that Whitehall mandarins had been obstructing the Rwanda plan.

He said: “The job of a civil servant is to give evidence-based frank advice to ministers and if ministers have got policies which will create difficulties, may fail legal challenges, then it’s the job of a civil servant to give that advice.

“That’s not resistance, that’s the job that they’re there to do.”

He went on: “It’s not civil servants that have stopped Rwanda happening. It’s the courts.

“We’ve just got people pointing fingers and trying to blame civil servants for the fact that their policy has significant flaws in it.”

He said the idea that there was “some kind of resistance movement within the Home Office” was “nonsensical”. “You wouldn’t go and work in the Home Office unless you knew you were going to be dealing with some pretty controversial things,” he said.

Mr Penman said briefing against civil servants by ministers was an “act of desperation”.

“What it shows is their policy is failing and the failure of their policy they want to blame on someone,” he added.

“If a civil servant does resist – genuinely resist and doesn’t do what they’re asked or refuses to implement a government decision – then name them.”

Liz Truss urges Government to protect Telegraph’s editorial independence

UAE CAN OWN UK FOOTBALL CLUB 

BUT NOT UK PRESS
Tony Diver
Sat, 2 December 2023 

Liz Truss has said it is vital that The Telegraph is able to publish freely - Dermot Tatlow for The Telegraph

Liz Truss has urged the Government to protect The Telegraph’s editorial independence amid growing concerns about a takeover of its titles by an Abu Dhabi-backed fund.

The former prime minister said it was vital that it was able to publish “freely” after ministers decided to launch a review of the deal amid fears of censorship and foreign interference.

In an interview with The Telegraph in Washington DC, Ms Truss also argued that the UK should work to prevent Gulf states becoming part of a growing global “axis of authoritarianism” led by Russia, China and Iran.

“I am a great supporter of the free press and I’ve always been a great supporter of the free press,” she said. “I want the Government to ensure that any ownership of the press enables them to freely publish according to what they believe to be the case.”

Ownership of The Telegraph is set to pass to RedBird IMI, an investment fund led by Jeff Zucker, the former CNN boss, and backed by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the UAE’s royal family.

The fund has issued a £600 million loan to the Barclay family, who have owned Telegraph Media Group since 2004, to repay a debt to Lloyds Banking Group. IMI, an Abu Dhabi vehicle, is lending them an additional £600m to repay other debts to the bank. Under the deal, the first loan will be converted into shares of The Telegraph and The Spectator magazine.

However, Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, last week temporarily blocked the fund from taking control of The Telegraph while she carries out a review.

Her decision came after a dozen Conservative MPs, including Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, and Alicia Kearns, the chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the Government requesting a review. They warned of a “very real potential national security threat” if the deal went ahead.

Liz Truss is in Washington DC to discuss foreign policy with wavering Republican congressmen who have threatened to end security assistance from the US to Ukraine - Dermot Tatlow for The Telegraph

In her interview with The Telegraph, Ms Truss said the UK must try and prevent the UAE from being drawn into an alliance with hostile foreign states, including Russia and China.

Citing the rise of the USSR during the Cold War, she said: “What worries me is that we have this axis of authoritarian regimes trying to build their influence around the world, and what we need to do is show strength. That is both economic strength, military strength and moral strength.

“We need to attract other countries who are not part of that axis to align with the West and to align with our values. No country is perfect. And if you only had allies that perfectly subscribe to every value that we hold dear in Britain, you wouldn’t have that many allies. So we need to reach out, in my view, to countries and persuade them.”

Ms Truss is visiting Washington DC to discuss foreign policy with wavering Republican congressmen, who have threatened to end security assistance from the US to Ukraine.

She said wars in Ukraine and Israel and concerns over Taiwan were part of the same conflict of democracies against “authoritarian dictators”.

“These are not multiple wars – this is the same war,” she added. “This is a war against freedom and democracy and our way of life. That’s what it is, and we should see it as such. If you look at Israel, or you look at Ukraine, or you look at Taiwan, these are free democracies that are neighbours to autocracies.

“We need to give our full support to the Israeli government. No ifs, no buts. I don’t want to see double standards applied, that Israel is held to different standards than other countries.

“They are a free democracy in a part of the world where free democracies are rare and the heinous crimes, the rape, the brutality, the kidnapping of children that has taken place is truly horrific.”

Ms Truss called on the US to do more to support Ukraine in the coming months as the country faces a winter air offensive from Russian forces, saying: “What I would like to see is more of the weapons that will help Ukraine actually win being provided. So the long-range weapons, for example, the mine-clearing equipment, for example.

“Planes, as well, would be extremely helpful to enable the Ukrainians to actually have the wherewithal to win the war, rather than just maintaining the status quo.”

Responding to the UK Supreme Court’s decision last month to declare the Government’s Rwanda migrant deportation policy unlawful, Ms Truss said Rishi Sunak should legislate to circumvent the European Court of Human Rights.

Asked whether she supported the Government’s plan to pass a law to allow the flights to go ahead, she replied: “I’ll wait to see the legislation.”

Culture Secretary blocks Abu Dhabi fund from seizing Telegraph during investigation

James Warrington
Fri, 1 December 2023 

Lucy Frazer's most recent order blocks any changes being made to Telegraph management or the removal of key editorial staff - Yui Mok/PA Wire

The Culture Secretary has blocked an Abu Dhabi-backed fund from taking control of The Telegraph while she carries out a review of a proposed takeover deal.

Lucy Frazer today issued a “hold separate” order that prohibits ownership of the newspaper from being transferred to RedBird IMI.

The move, known formally as an interim enforcement order, also prevents the group from merging The Telegraph with any other entity and blocks any changes in management or the removal of key editorial staff.

The order is designed to prevent actions by the bidders that might impede the Government’s ability to review the transaction.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, RedBird IMI will provide a £1.2bn loan that allows the Barclay family to repay debts to Lloyds Banking Group, releasing The Telegraph and The Spectator magazine from receivership.

Roughly half this loan would then be converted into ownership of the two titles. However, the hold separate order ensures this second phase of the transaction cannot go ahead until the review is completed.

It comes after Ms Frazer yesterday intervened in the takeover amid concerns about censorship and foreign state ownership.

The Culture Secretary issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN), triggering investigations by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and media regulator Ofcom.

Manchester City owner and UAE vice-president Sheikh Mansour has provided three quarters of RedBird IMI’s funding - Martin Rickett

RedBird IMI is a joint venture between RedBird, a US private equity firm, and International Media Investments (IMI), an Abu Dhabi vehicle backed by the Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

IMI is providing 75pc of the £600m price for The Telegraph and The Spectator, while the bid is being fronted by former CNN chief Jeff Zucker.

The proposed deal has sparked concerns given the UAE’s authoritarian leadership and track record of press censorship.

Senior figures including Lord Hague have called for the deal to be blocked, while Tory MPs this week wrote to Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden urging him to intervene on national security grounds.

RedBird IMI has said it is willing to make legally binding undertakings to ensure editorial independence, with the UAE remaining a fully passive investor.

But in a letter to the group yesterday, officials said Ms Frazer felt further investigation was needed “given the limited information she has seen and the lack of detail about the proposals”.

Ofcom will examine the impact of the deal on the need for accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion in newspapers, while the CMA will look at potential competition issues.

Both watchdogs have opened a call for evidence allowing interested parties to comment over the coming fortnight. They must report back to the Culture Secretary by Jan 26.

Rival suitors, whose bids were derailed by the complex loan-funded deal, are expected to lobby against the UAE-backed takeover in their responses.

They include a consortium led by the hedge fund founder Sir Paul Marshall and DMGT, the publisher of The Daily Mail.

In a statement on Thursday, a spokesman for RedBird IMI said: “We welcome the opportunity to provide the Government with the information needed to scrutinise our deal, and we will continue to cooperate fully with the Government and regulator throughout this process.

“RedBird IMI remains entirely committed to maintaining the existing editorial team of The Telegraph and Spectator publications and believes that editorial independence for these titles is essential to protecting their reputation and credibility.”