5 h. ago Britain must prepare for possibility of attack on UK soil, government warns

The government’s new security strategy said it has to actively prepare for potential wartime scenariosBritain needs to prepare for the possibility of being attacked on its own soil, the government has warned in its security strategy, laying out in stark terms the range of threats ministers say the UK now faces.Russia’s military buildup and Iran’s increasing attacks on dissidents abroad mean the country could soon find itself involved in a domestic war, the review says. Continue reading...

Events

8 h. ago UK must ‘actively prepare’ for a war on home soil, major government review warns

The new National Security Strategy has been published with a grim warning as international turmoil in the Middle East and Ukraine continues

Events

12 h. ago Words of War review – Maxine Peake leads line as murdered Putin

Peake stars opposite Jason Isaacs, as Politkovskaya’s husband, in this sentimental look at the life of a woman who, 19 years after her death, remains a folk heroThis British-American co-production offers a dramatised portrait of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (played by Maxine Peake) who was assassinated in 2006. Politkovskaya’s gutsy, impassioned reporting on the second Chechen war was highly critical of the Kremlin, the Russian army and Vladimir Putin personally. (The fact that she was murdered on his birthday was surely no coincidence.) Nineteen years after her death, she remains a folk hero worldwide for resistances to autocracy, especially given the rise in repression everywhere and constant threats to journalists.Given all that, the film deserves respect for the subject matter, even though this is a pretty basic rendition of Politkovskaya’s story, a little too sticky with hagiographic sentimentality and the cliches of crusading journalist-led movies. It also should be n...

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29 h. ago Five bodies with their hands and feet bound wash up on beach in Spanish holiday hotspot

Bodies have been washing up on beaches but these particular ones have been shackled, leading police to believe they had been murdered for some unknown reason.

Events

33 h. ago Horror as bodies of suspected migrants with hands and feet tied together wash up on Balearic beaches

Bodies have been washing up on beaches but these particular ones have been shackled, leading police to believe they had been murdered for some unknown reason.

Events

40 h. ago Endling by Maria Reva review – a Ukrainian caper upended by war

Jaw-dropping formal invention turns this witty heist tale of endangered snails and ‘mail-order’ brides into an urgent dispatch about writing during conflictMaria Reva’s dexterous and formally inventive debut novel is impossible to review without giving away a major surprise. I do this with a heavy heart: one of the pleasures of this book is the jaw‑dropping coup de théâtre that comes halfway through. Until that point, Endling offers its readers the pleasures of a more or less conventional novel.The central character is a misanthropic obsessive called Yeva who drives a converted campervan around the countryside of her native Ukraine, rescuing endangered snails. She’s hoping to get them to breed, but some turn out to be endlings – the last living member of a species. First coined in the 1990s, the word was unknown to me before I read this book, but the tragic biological checkmate it describes is older than history. Aurochs, dodos, quaggas, mammoths and Tasmanian tigers must all have c...

Events

4 d. ago Investigator and jurors speak out about Karen Read murder trial in aftermath of not guilty verdict

Two jurors and the lead investigator in the murder trial of Karen Read have come forward to comment about the case since a jury returned a not guilty verdict earlier this week

Events

1 week ago Unsolved murder revisited after 34 years as police seek new leads

More than 700 people were questioned as part of the investigation in the murder of 29-year-old Lynne Trenholm

Events

1 week ago Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan audiobook review – love and conflict in Sri Lanka

The civil war transforms a young trainee doctor’s life as she copes with her feelings for a Tamil Tiger in last year’s Women’s prizewinning novelBrotherless Night opens with 16-year-old Sashi Kulenthiren, who hopes to be a doctor like her eldest brother, making tea when the kettle slips out of her hand, causing her to pour boiling water on herself. When a neighbour, K, hears her screams, he rushes over to help, cracking raw eggs over the scalds to soothe the pain. “So I began as K’s patient though he ended as mine,” Sashi reflects.Set in 1980s Sri Lanka, VV Ganeshananthan’s coming-of-age novel – which won the 2024 Women’s prize for fiction – is an epic and hard-hitting tale of family and survival as it documents life during the civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese majority that lasted three decades. Before fighting breaks out, Sashi’s most pressing problem is whether she will pass her exams at school. But soon violence and kidnapping become the norm, communities are...

Events

1 week ago Flight 149: Hostage of War review – a tale so staggering you couldn’t write it

This excellent documentary tells the tale of a BA plane’s Kuwait stopover just as Saddam Hussein invaded. It’s a crucial tale of a four-month nightmare that is barely believableIf it were a work of fiction, the story of Flight 149 would probably be deemed too horrifying – or too unbelievable – for television. Indeed, as a documentary interspersed with dramatic reconstructions, at points it is almost unbearable to watch. But it is a crucial piece of work: a one-off film that goes deep into a bizarre and increasingly hideous ordeal to ask how and why it happened.On 2 August 1990, a British Airways plane carrying nearly 400 passengers and crew from London to Kuala Lumpur touched down for a scheduled stopover in Kuwait. Those on board knew nothing of the unfolding Iraqi invasion of the country and the brutality Saddam Hussein was inflicting on his neighbours (this would, of course, soon lead to the Gulf war). British Airways maintains that it, too, was unaware of what was taki...

Events

2 w. ago Reeves’s spending review is not the end of Labour’s bitter civil war – it’s only the beginning

Ongoing rows over cuts and economic policy will not go away with the announcement on Wednesday and will continue to fuel questions over the futures of Reeves and Starmer, says David Maddox

Events

2 w. ago Blix Not Bombs review – former UN weapons inspector revisits the Iraq war

Greta Stocklassová’s documentary films Hans Blix, aged 97, and asks about his role in the war, WMD, and why his world of diplomacy has now disappearedAt the age of 97, entirely lucid, still writing books and physically spry enough to be shown swimming in a Norwegian lake, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has given an extended interview to the Czech-born Swedish film-maker Greta Stocklassová about his life and times, about George W Bush Jr, Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction that were not there. The result is insightful and a vivid time capsule for the grim and mendacious era of the “war on terror”, during which Blix was tasked with discovering the truth about Saddam’s supposed weapons. The film is also unexpectedly spiky, with Blix at one stage threatening to walk out, as Stocklassová presses him on his apparent fence-sitting, then as now, insisting on an absence of evidence for WMD but also reluctant to commit himself definitively to this being evidence of abse...

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2 w. ago Rachel Reeves in crisis as cabinet civil war blocks spending review plans

The Treasury is scrambling to reach an eleventh-hour deal with Yvette Cooper and Angela Rayner as they push back against budget cuts

Events

2 w. ago Reeves hits back at spending review critics claiming ‘my choices are Labour choices’

Exclusive: As a cabinet civil war heats up over her spending review, Rachel Reeves has written for The Independent defending her motivations and choices as chancellor

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2 w. ago Labour ‘at war’ over Reeves’ spending review amid fears manifesto pledges will be ditched

Chancellor is facing a push to consider wealth taxes instead of cuts before she publishes her spending review next week

Events

2 w. ago Queen Camilla has leading role in her favourite author Peter James’s latest murder mystery

Both Queen Camilla and King Charles are featured in the new royal whodunnit, written by Peter James, whom Her Majesty has openly named as her favourite crime author

Politics

3 w. ago Labour 'at war' over cash for Net Zero, housing, cops and education: Spending review goes to the wire as Rayner, Miliband, Yvette Cooper and Bridget Phillipson hold out

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to unveil the crucial three-year settlements for departments in just over a week, amid mounting pressure on the public finances.

Economics

3 w. ago Crucial defence review warns Britain's Armed Forces aren't ready to fight a war against a foe with similar capabilities in stark assessment of UK's military prowess

Britain's Armed Forces aren't ready to fight a war against a military with similar capabilities, the authors of Britain's Strategic Defence Review have warned.

Events

3 w. ago Strategic defence review live: Starmer reveals largest increase in spending since Cold War as UK faces ‘new era of threat’

John Healey warns ‘new era’ for UK defence needed as ‘threats we face now more serious and less predictable than at any time since end of Cold War’

Events

3 w. ago From a ‘more lethal’ army to extra AI – what’s in Starmer’s strategic defence review?

The Independent looks at the outcome of the strategic defence review

Politics