China The invisible hand of Beijing has been busily pulling the backstage strings to try and organise Iran War peace talks. Pakistan—which has been the lead country in mediation country—is a close ally of China and is clearly coordinating Its honest broker activities with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi who prefers to remain in the shadows. Economically China desperately needs an end to Trump's War. Ninety percent of its oil comes from Iran and, as the world's second largest economy, China needs global stability to maintain growth. At the same time, Chinese President Xi Jinping must be smiling to himself ...
I think this from Gibraltar counts as "technology that didn't work as intended": [IMG: Healy's Mortar, Gibraltar] If only it didn't also feel like the forerunner of military procurement problems in the succeeding centuries too.
Theatre? Breaking Tunes explains: Hailing from the city of Limerick, Theatre are a rock band formed at the end of 2022 who have made a name for themselves throughout 2023 with their understated and ethereal sound, one which epitomises the guitar melodies of early '90s shoegaze and alternative rock, fused with their own style of unapologetic folk-laden sensibility. With similar sounds to the likes of Lankum, Just Mustard, and Sinead O'Connor, Theatre have spent their time cutting their teeth and making waves as a standout name in Limerick's thriving underground, more recently gaining more attention in Ireland's stronghold Dublin music ...
As Liberal Democrats we like to think of ourselves as champions of liberty and the equal dignity of every person. That is why we should be uneasy with the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament. It is not just a carving in stone. It is a symbol of honour placed at the threshold of our democracy by a state that still chooses to celebrate a man whose rule was built on conquest, massacre and the systematic displacement of entire peoples across Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. If we take our values seriously, that statue should not be ...
Nation Cymru tells us that a recent report has found that voters are more likely to support openly advocating for the UK to rejoin the EU than any "halfway house" deal. The news site adds that the findings come in response to the planned UK-EU reset legislation set to be part of the King's Speech package set out by the Prime Minister on May 13 involving a new law to allow single market rules to be adopted through secondary legislation: The Best for Britain report has used recent YouGov polling to establish that the Government's current plan has broad but ...
Another tale from the BBC's Secret Shropshire series. This time it's the ghost of Copper Hole: Richard Tisdale unravels the mystery of the Church Stretton ghost story that made global headlines.In1874 the glowing white spectre of a woman who'd vanished off the face of the earth caused mass hysteria in the south Shropshire town. It's a ghost story that has reverberated through the centuries and one that will never be laid to rest.
For the second day in a row, our Headline of the Day Award a) goes to the BBC News Suffolk pages and b) is about a bird. The judges advise the birds to other counties to look to their laurels.
Trump's War against Iran has upended the world economy. And it has only just begun. As one economist said: "At the moment things are bad. They are going to get worse and they could become catastrophic." At the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) spring meeting of world finance ministers the IMF revised down world economic growth for 2026 from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent. It then went on to warn that if the Iran War continued much longer there was a real risk of a global recession. Of the world's advanced economies, the UK is the hardest hit according to both ...
Sat 18th
07:30
Scottish Liberal Democrats launch manifesto focused on health, cost of living, transport and educati...
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has launched his party's manifesto focused on the issues that matter most to people right now, and made a plea to voters to back his party on the peach regional ballot to deliver change with fairness at its heart. The manifesto can be found here. Speaking at the Edinburgh Food & Drink Academy where he baked peach tarts for journalists, Mr Cole-Hamilton set out the party's ten target constituency seats which would enable it to block the SNP from winning a parliamentary majority as well as the party's four key priorities for the election: ...
Swansea Minster, formerly St Mary's Church, is an Anglican church in the centre of Swansea, Wales. It is considered the civic church of Swansea, having been designated as Wales' first minster church by the Church in Wales in 2024. As Wikipedia says, there has been a church on the site of St Mary's since circa 1328, which was erected by Henry de Gower, Bishop of Saint David's. It has rebuilt many times: One Sunday morning, in 1739, the roof of the nave collapsed into the church while the congregation was waiting to enter the building. The whole structure was re-built ...