BBC Verify Live: Tracking aid in Gaza and analysing Trump's trade deals
Date: 09:41 BST
Title: Welcome to Monday's BBC Verify Live
Content: Tom EdgingtonBBC Verify live editor
Hello and thank you for
joining us for today's BBC Verify Live.
Israel has begun a 10-hour
pause in military activity in parts of Gaza to
allow more aid to be distributed. We're tracking air drop operations, including some that landed in an area that was declared a 'dangerous combat
zone'.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will meet US President
Donald Trump in Scotland later. Trade is one of the topics up for discussion as
Starmer seeks to reduce the US-imposed 25% tariff on British steel. We'll be
unpicking the US-UK trading relationship in light of the deal Trump struck with
the EU at the weekend.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage
is due to give a press conference later this morning on crime and policing. Our
fact-checkers will be following it.
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Sky News
28 minutes ago
- Sky News
Gaza latest: Hamas ready to deliver aid to hostages after footage of emaciated Israeli captive sparks outcry
IDF reviewing claim Palestinian killed in shelling of aid group's HQ Israel's military says it's reviewing a claim by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) that an Israeli attack on its headquarters in Khan Younis killed one of its staff and wounded three others. The humanitarian and aid group said Israeli forces shelled its facility three times at around 1am local time (11pm UK time). Video footage and images released by the organisation showed gaping holes in the building's walls and floors, and rooms strewn with debris. In a statement, the PRCS said: "We are heartbroken to share that our colleague Omar Isleem was killed early this morning. "Our headquarters' location is well known to the occupying forces and clearly marked with the protective red emblem. "This was not a mistake. "We renew our call for accountability and for the protection of all humanitarian and medical personnel." Asked about the shelling, the IDF said it "is reviewing the claim that a building belonging to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was damaged, and that uninvolved individuals in the Khan Younis area were harmed as a result of an IDF strike". "The incident remains under examination," it added.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Senior judges reveal regret at handing out ‘unfair' indefinite jail terms and call for scandal to be ‘put right'
Senior judges who imposed 'unfair' indefinite jail terms, which have left scores of inmates locked up for minor offences languishing in prison for decades, have revealed their regret for their part in the 'injustice'. Former High Court judge Sir John Saunders said he would apologise to offenders he handed imprisonment for public protection (IPP) jail terms, which were scrapped in 2012, but not retrospectively, leaving thousands already jailed incarcerated with no release date. Now the very judges who dished out the punishment have joined calls for the government to take urgent action to help more than 2,500 prisoners still trapped under the abolished jail term, which has been branded 'psychological torture' by the UN. Victims of the scandal, whose tragic cases have been highlighted by The Independent, include Leroy Douglas, who has served almost 20 years for stealing a mobile phone; Thomas White, 42, who set himself alight in his cell and has served 13 years for stealing a phone; and Abdullahi Suleman, 41, who is still inside 19 years after he was jailed for a laptop robbery. Sir John, 76, who served as recorder of Birmingham before he was appointed to the High Court, told The Independent that if he met an IPP prisoner he had jailed who was years over tariff, he would apologise. 'I should say I'm really sorry this has happened, it's extremely unfair,' he said. 'I didn't want to be party to unfairness. I would feel very bad about it, I would apologise to them.' He said that when the sentence was introduced in 2005 by New Labour in a bid to be tough on crime, it appeared there was a 'certain degree of sense' to plans to ensure offenders completed rehabilitation courses before they were approved for release by the Parole Board. But judges had no idea those prisoners would find themselves trapped in prison indefinitely, often without access to the courses they needed to be released. He added: 'I think the essence of the job of a judge is to be fair. And we really do all try to do that. So when we conduct criminal trials, we attempt to be fair. In passing sentences, we attempt to be fair. 'If we have been party to something which has been accepted by everybody as unfair and we have been part of it… it's a bit of an affront to the job.' He and Simon Tonking, the former recorder of Stafford, have lobbied prisons minister Lord James Timpson to help those still trapped under the jail term. Both have backed a package of proposals put forward by an expert panel convened by the Howard League for Penal Reform, calling for IPP prisoners to be given a release date within a two-year window at their next parole hearing. Mr Tonking recalled imposing an IPP sentence with a minimum tariff of just six months for a relatively minor offence after a man was caught following a woman in an alley. 'Now I wonder what happened to him,' he told The Independent. 'He was in his late twenties. For all I know, he may still be there [in prison]. 'And when I look back at that case, I think I should have tried harder not to impose it.' Although he was doing his best to administer the laws in place at the time, he is now determined to be part of the solution. 'I don't feel guilty, but I do feel, having been part of that, I should be doing all I can to put what has turned out to be an injustice right,' he added. 'And I am driven in part by the fact that I was part of the administration of justice at a time when these sentences were being passed. 'I have been a part of the system that is wrong. I feel that I ought to be part of the system to put it right.' Successive governments have resisted calls to resentence IPP prisoners, claiming they cannot risk letting prisoners out until they have passed the Parole Board's release test. However, at least 94 inmates have taken their own lives in custody after losing hope of being freed, according to campaigners, with many struggling as their mental health deteriorates in prison. Mr Tonking urged the Labour government to use its majority to finally end the injustice by taking up the Howard League's proposals, adding: 'Virtually everybody who has had any professional dealings with IPP knows that it's unjust and now is the time to act.' The proposed reforms also include providing a package of mental health support for released IPP prisoners and tightening up the criteria for recalling them. Currently, many find themselves hauled back to prison indefinitely for minor breaches of strict licence conditions, despite committing no further offences. Paul Glenn, who last year retired from his role as the most senior judge in Stoke-on-Trent, also backed the charity's proposals. He told The Independent: 'Nobody envisaged that 10 years after they should have been released, they would still be in custody. The injustice there is pretty obvious. 'It's undoubtedly right that we should be sentencing people for what they have done, rather than what they might do in the future.' Prisons minister Lord Timpson said: 'It is absolutely right that the IPP sentence was abolished. 'As the IPP annual report shows, we have significantly improved support for these offenders, with greater access to rehabilitation and mental health support. 'There is more work to do as we reduce the number of IPP offenders in custody, but we will only do so in a way that protects the public.'
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Jeffrey Epstein sold Prince Andrew's secrets, new book claims
Jeffrey Epstein sold Prince Andrew's 'most intimate secrets' to foreign intelligence agencies around the world, a new book has claimed. Compromising material on the Duke of York is alleged to have been passed to Israel's Mossad, the Saudi Arabian authorities and the Libyan intelligence services under Colonel Gaddafi. Details of the claims are made in a new book on the prince, by author Andrew Lownie, which describes how the royal was easy prey for a 'rattlesnake' like Epstein. Victims of the US billionaire, who took his own life in 2019, have claimed for years that Epstein kept video recordings of his high-profile friends having sex with women. No proof of any recordings has ever been made public. Lownie, in his new book, credits a documentary by the Canadian journalist Ian Halperin as the source of allegations that Epstein sold Andrew's secrets to foreign agencies in the Middle East and Libya. The claims were 'confirmed' to Halperin by 'many in Andrew's circle', Lownie wrote. Halperin wrote about Epstein in his own book, Controversy: Sex, Lies and Dirty Money by the World's Powerful Elite, which was published on Amazon in 2020. In his book, Halperin claims that he spoke to Epstein in 2001 and quotes the financier at length as he discussed the Duke of York and the rest of the royal family. Epstein is quoted as telling Halperin that he had met Queen Elizabeth and introduced Princess Diana to Dodi Fayed, among other eyebrow-raising claims. The royal family were 'completely brilliant' because they were the 'richest motherf***ers' in the world, while collecting money from British taxpayers, Epstein is alleged to have told Halperin. The Canadian journalist, who wrote a bestselling book about Michael Jackson in 2009, has a colourful past. A September 2007 story on the website Spiked Online, seven months after the death of the model Anna Nicole Smith, said Halperin claimed to have once slept with her in front of Marilyn Monroe's grave. Halperin told The Times that the incident happened. He added: 'When I interviewed Epstein, he made numerous sensational claims. As I've said numerous times, Epstein was a complete sociopath who could not be trusted at all, as far as I am concerned.' Lownie told The Times that he didn't 'buy everything' in Halperin's Epstein book, but added that the information he had put into his own book had been 'verified'. He said: 'The claim about the kompromat, I've got it from other sources.' In his book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, Lownie wrote that 'other sources' alleged Epstein had Kremlin connections and may have been an 'agent of influence' for Vladimir Putin. Epstein played Andrew, Lownie said. He wrote in his book: 'The prince was a useful idiot who gave him respectability, access to political leaders and business opportunities. He found him easy to exploit.' The book also quotes US businessman, and convicted fraudster, Steven Hoffenberg, who knew Epstein, as saying that Andrew was his 'Super Bowl trophy' and Epstein planned to sell Andrew's secrets to Mossad. Hoffenberg said: 'Andrew had a weakness for the girls and fast life, Epstein provided that fantasy. 'Andrew would then give intelligence that Epstein would give to Israel. Andrew didn't understand that he was being used.' The Duke of York, 65, who was friendly with Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell for years, was accused of sleeping with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, then known as Virginia Roberts, in London. He later settled with Giuffre in 2022, with no admissions, after she sued him in the US. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. The Duke of York has been contacted for comment.
