News (Page 357)

zefart/Shutterstock The series of scandals that has hit the UK’s biggest police force suggests longstanding and serious underlying problems. The newly published Casey review details these problems in depth, adding another stain to the Metropolitan police’s reputation. The report found that institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia are rampant throughout the Met, the organisation’s recruitment and vetting is weak, and internal processes fail to adequately tackle poor performance. But how different is the Met from the 44 other police forces in England and Wales? The Met generally deals with more violent offences, such as murder and robbery, than other forces. It also has the highest percentage of firearms operations and the highest number of firearms officers. Firearms roles are seen asContinue Reading

The heirs to two of the most violent revolutions in modern history shook hands and took stock of their “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era”, at a recent meeting in Moscow. Many in the west have puzzled over this relationship between Chinese Communist Party chairman Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Some have imagined, for example, that Xi would be a neutral party in Putin’s war in Ukraine, or that he could even be a peacemaker. But rather than imagining a troubling new partnership has emerged unpredictably after decades of peacetime globalisation, we should look to a longer arc of history to understand Russia and China’s shared confrontation with the world. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – backedContinue Reading

On March 26 1973, the London Stock Exchange admitted its first female members. This followed years of resistance, with London trailing behind other smaller exchanges around the UK. That women had been excluded for so long was not only due to institutional misogyny. Research has shown how finance was imagined in sexist terms for centuries. And despite the extraordinary accomplishments of prominent female figures over the past 50 years, these biased beliefs persist to this day. Long before stock exchanges existed, women were active investors and speculators. They navigated the bustling coffee shops of London’s Exchange Alley, where people met to trade stocks. They sometimes acted as intermediaries, managing the investments of others in return for commission. In other words,Continue Reading

Two people have been arrested in connection to the 1984 killing of a baby in Co Kerry. They are suspected of murder. An Garda Síochána said on Thursday that a man (60s) and woman (50s) were being held at stations in the south of country under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. ‘Baby John’ was discovered at White Strand, Caherciveen on April 14th, 1984. The infant male was found lifeless, having sustained multiple injuries. The full circumstances of the baby’s death, which became known as the ‘Kerry Babies’ case, have hitherto been unknown. Superintendent Flor Murphy said in a release that the arrests are a “significant development” in the effort to “establish the truth” about Baby John’s death.Continue Reading