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Foreign Office faces legal challenge over pause in UNRWA funding for Gaza  

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/foreign-office-faces-legal-challenge-over-pause-in-unrwa-funding-for-gaza/

UK could be sued over decision to stop funding a key UN agency delivering aid to Gaza

A legal challenge is to be launched against the Foreign Office over its decision to pause funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency. 

On behalf of a British-Palestinian man with family in Gaza, Bindmans LLP has issued a pre-action letter to the government department warning, if funding is not reinstated by Tuesday 2, April, the client will issue judicial review proceedings in the High Court. 

The legal challenge claims that the government’s decision to withdraw funds from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on 27, January was decided, “illogically and without due consideration of evidence, of international obligations, or of FCDO decision-making frameworks”.

Funding was paused by 10 governments including Australia, the United States and Canada following allegations by the Israeli authorities that several UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks. 

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/foreign-office-faces-legal-challenge-over-pause-in-unrwa-funding-for-gaza/

‘Death Sentence for Thousands’: Israel Bars UNRWA Food Aid to Northern Gaza

Continue ReadingForeign Office faces legal challenge over pause in UNRWA funding for Gaza  

‘Heartbreaking’: Shocking decline in public satisfaction with NHS under Tories

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/heartbreaking-shocking-decline-in-public-satisfaction-with-nhs-under-tories/

‘The NHS isn’t failing, it’s being failed. What an appalling act of state vandalism’

Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest ever level, plunging for the first time in the 41-year history of the survey to show less than a quarter of people are satisfied with the way the health service is currently running. 

Compared to 2010 when 70% of the public were satisfied with the NHS, the latest survey findings lay bare what 14 years of a Tory government stripping funds and resources from the NHS has had. 

Campaign group Keep Our NHS Public has called it “an appalling act of state vandalism” commenting that the NHS “isn’t failing, it’s being failed”. 

NHS workers have expressed heartbreak over the shocking decline in public satisfaction for the service under the Tories while unions have called for immediate action to address the staffing crisis.

One palliative care doctor wrote on X: “14 years of Tory government understaffing, underfunding & private sector outsourcing have trashed the NHS into a travesty of the service we want to give you.

“It is heartbreaking and so disgustingly wrong.”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/heartbreaking-shocking-decline-in-public-satisfaction-with-nhs-under-tories/

Continue Reading‘Heartbreaking’: Shocking decline in public satisfaction with NHS under Tories

Suella Braverman to speak alongside far-right Viktor Orban at Conservative event

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/suella-braverman-to-speak-alongside-far-right-viktor-orban-at-conservative-event/

Braverman will be addressing the upcoming National Conservatism Conference in April as a keynote speaker

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman is set to deliver a speech from the same stage as Hungary’s far-right authoritarian dictator Viktor Orban.

That Braverman is so comfortable sharing a platform with the far-right Orban who has spouted bigoted far right views, speaks volumes. Orban has previously made reference to the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory which claims that there is a liberal elite plot to replace the white populations of Europe and the US through immigration and demographic growth with non-white people. 

During his time as leader of Hungary, Orban has also attacked and undermined democratic institutions and attacked the rights of LGBT and minority communities.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/suella-braverman-to-speak-alongside-far-right-viktor-orban-at-conservative-event/

Image quoting Suella 'Sue-Ellen' Braverman reads ‘Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’.
Image quoting Suella ‘Sue-Ellen’ Braverman reads ‘Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’.
Continue ReadingSuella Braverman to speak alongside far-right Viktor Orban at Conservative event

‘Tone-deaf’ fossil gas growth in Europe is speeding climate crisis, say activists

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/26/tone-deaf-fossil-gas-growth-in-europe-is-speeding-climate-crisis-say-activists

European governments have rushed to build fossil gas infrastructure since Russia invaded Ukraine. Photograph: Annegret Hilse/Reuters

Just 2% of continent’s gas capacity has planned retirement date despite pledges to decarbonise, study shows

Europe’s “tone-deaf” expansion of fossil gas is accelerating climate breakdown and increasing reliance on hostile regimes, campaigners have warned.

Just four of Europe’s gas-fired power plants have a retirement plan and new projects will increase the continent’s gas generation capacity by 27%, according to analysis from the campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels.

It argues that the dash for gas contradicts the International Energy Agency’s recommendation that rich countries decarbonise their electricity grids in the next 10 years to stop the planet from heating 1.5C.

Governments must send a clear message to the gas industry that its days are numbered, said Alexandru Mustață, a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels. “This undermines our security, exposes us to volatile power prices and toxic emissions, and heightens the risk of stranded assets.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/26/tone-deaf-fossil-gas-growth-in-europe-is-speeding-climate-crisis-say-activists

Continue Reading‘Tone-deaf’ fossil gas growth in Europe is speeding climate crisis, say activists

Children ‘forgotten’ as figures show record poverty with top earners only ones better off

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/children-forgotten-figures-show-record-poverty-top-earners-only-ones

A preschool age child playing with plastic building blocks, January 24, 2016

CHILD poverty hit a record high as only the top earners were better off last year, official figures revealed today.

Campaigners said youngsters were being forgotten as the statistics showed food insecurity soared by 53 per cent, 100,000 more working households fell below the poverty line and more pensioners were unable to afford basic goods such as food and heating.

The Department for Work and Pensions estimated 4.33 million children in households in relative low income – below 60 per cent of median income after housing costs — in the year to March 2023.

This is up from 4.22 million the previous year and the highest since comparable records for Britain began in 2002/03.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/children-forgotten-figures-show-record-poverty-top-earners-only-ones

Continue ReadingChildren ‘forgotten’ as figures show record poverty with top earners only ones better off