The UK firm De La Rue has announced it will not appeal the government's decision to award the contract for producing British passports to a company based in France.
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A 10-Minute Trial, a Death Sentence: Iraqi Justice for ISIS Suspects Photo People fleeing clashes between Iraqi security forces and the Islamic State in Mosul last year. Iraq captured thousands of fighters, functionaries and their families in the battle with the Islamic State. Credit Ivor Prickett for The New York Times BAGHDAD — The 42-year-old housewife had two minutes to defend herself against charges of supporting the Islamic State.
Amina Hassan, a Turkish woman in a flowing black abaya, told the Iraqi judge that she and her family had entered Syria and Iraq illegally and lived in the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate for more than two years. But, she added: “I never took money from Islamic State. I brought my own money from Turkey.”
The whole trial lasted 10 minutes before the judge sentenced her to death by hanging.
Another accused Turkish woman entered the courtroom. Then another, and another.
Within two hours, 14 women had been tried, convicted and sentenced to die.
Iraq’s ju..
Far-right Israelis have tried to prevent thousands of Jews and Arabs from jointly attending an alternative memorial service in honor of fallen victims on both sides of the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Read Full Article at RT.com
At least four people have been injured after a student armed with a knife stormed his school in the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia’s Urals, and attempted to set it on fire, according to local media and officials.
Read Full Article at RT.com
California Lawmakers Kill Housing Bill After Fierce Debate Photo A bill considered by a California State Senate committee aimed to create increased housing density near rail and ferry stops, overriding local zoning codes. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times SACRAMENTO — Just before a committee of California state senators voted on a landmark bill to ramp up housing production by overriding local resistance, legislator after legislator talked about a dire affordable-housing crisis that demanded bold action and a marked increase in new building.
Then they killed the bill.
The vote here on Tuesday evening highlighted the emergence of California’s housing and homeless problem — and the fraught question of how to address it — as a potent election-year issue that promises to dominate the state’s politics for years.
The ferocity of that debate was on display throughout a meeting of the State Senate’s Transportation and Housing Committee, which met to vote on a divisive bill that would force ..
U.S. Moves to Block Sales by Chinese Telecom Equipment Makers
The United States undercut China’s technology ambitions on Tuesday, advancing a new rule that would limit the ability of Chinese telecommunications companies to sell their products in this country.
The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to move forward with a plan that would prevent federally subsidized telecommunications carriers from using suppliers deemed to pose a risk to American national security. The decision takes direct aim at Huawei, which makes telecommunications network equipment and smartphones, and its main Chinese rival, ZTE, sending a message that the government doesn’t trust them.
A day earlier, the government barred ZTE from using components made in the United States, saying the company had failed to punish employees who violated American sanctions against North Korea and Iran.
The moves intensify an already testy fight between China and the United States for high-tech supremacy. Although ..
'Younger workers are searching for greater meaning in their work and a role that will bring them satisfaction and the social impact they are looking for'
The majority of millennials have chosen to stay in one career as many are reluctant to start from scratch, new research suggests.
More than half (53 per cent) of the millennial generation – those born between 1980 and 1999 – have remained in the same job sector, according to a survey by education charity Teach First.
Almost three in ten millennials do not move on as they worry about starting at entry level in a new sector – or they fear that a career change will not work out, the research suggests.
Read more Millennial renters should have German-style tenancy rights The findings buck the stereotype of “footloose” millennials constantly swapping careers, rather than opting for a job for life, and it suggests younger workers have more in common with prior generations, the charity said.
Russell Hobby, CEO of the Teac..
Complaint was made by food charity Sustain in 2016
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned two Pret a Manger ads for making “misleading” claims that the sandwich chain uses natural ingredients.
The ASA received complaints about Pret ads seen in December 2016, the first being a description of the firm on Facebook which stated: “Pret opened in London in 1986. College friends Sinclair and Julian made proper sandwiches avoiding the obscure chemicals, additives and preservatives common to so much of the ‘prepared’ and ‘fast’ food on the market.”
The second ad in question was on the company’s website and contained the phrase “Pret creates handmade natural food… doing the right thing… naturally”, along with repeated uses of the words “good natural food”.
Read more This healthy food delivery service wants to be the new Pret a Manger Food and farming charity Sustain made the complaints on the basis that claims that Pret’s products were natural implied the chain’s food was f..
The UK’s largest coffee retailer, Costa Coffee, has committed to recycling half a billion coffee cups a year by 2020 in a landmark act to tackle plastic waste.
The pledge, which amounts to recycling the same volume of cups it puts onto the market, would take a significant chunk out of the 2.5 billion takeaway cups thrown away across the country every year.
Despite often being marked as recyclable, the vast majority of paper coffee cups end up on landfill or being incinerated due to the plastic lining used to make them waterproof.
By paying waste collectors to take coffee cups to specialist facilities, Costa hopes to massively increase the rate at which cups are recycled.
Latte levy: The plastic problem inside your coffee cup Ultimately, all a customer will need to do to ensure their cup avoids landfill is throw it into a standard recycling bin.
The move is the most ambitious so far by a major coffee chain since the start of The Independent’s Cut the Cup Waste campaign.
Launched f..
Shops selling more Marine Stewardship Council-certified fish than ever in the UK, with sales up 60 per cent in last two years
Aldi stocks the highest proportion of sustainable seafood of any supermarket in the UK, according to new research.
Almost 80 per cent of the German discounter’s seafood range is certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.
Iceland and Morrisons were at the bottom of the league table with less than 5 per cent of their seafood range certified sustainable. Marks & Spencer had 19 per cent of its seafood products certified.
Read more Stop eating cod and tuna in favour of sustainable fish, Britons told Supermarkets are now selling more sustainable seafood than ever in the UK, with sales up 60 per cent in the last two years the MSC said.
Sainsbury's came second in the table, stocking more than 200 certified products to make up 76 per cent of its wild seafood range.
Lidl came third with just over 100 products or 72 per cent of its range. Wa..