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The chair of the COVID inquiry says it is up to her to decide what evidence is “relevant or potentially relevant” amid a legal row with the government over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages.

Baroness Hallett said she refused to withdraw her order for the government to hand over unredacted material for her investigation as she formally opened the COVID inquiry on Tuesday.

It comes just days after the government launched a judicial review over her order to the Cabinet Office that it hand over Mr Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages, diary entries and other documents.

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The former prime minister has already sent “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the inquiry.

Acknowledging the legal battle, Baroness Hallett said: “As has been widely reported in the media, an issue has arisen between the inquiry and the Cabinet Office as to who decides what is relevant or potentially relevant.

“I issued a notice under Section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 making it clear that, in my view, it is for the inquiry chair to decide what is relevant or potentially relevant.”

She continued: “The Cabinet Office disagrees, claiming they are not obliged to disclose what they consider to be unambiguously irrelevant material. They invited me to withdraw the Section 21 notice. I declined.

“They are now challenging my decision to decline to withdraw the notice in the High Court by way of judicial review.

“With litigation pending and as the decision-maker, I can make no further comment.”

In its reasoning for launching the judicial review, the government said it had done so with “regret” but that “important issues of principle” were at stake around privacy.

It also questioned whether Baroness Hallett had “the power to compel production of documents and messages which are unambiguously irrelevant to the inquiry’s work”, and argued that requesting such material “represents an unwarranted intrusion into other aspects of the work of government”.

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Ministers have confirmed that they expect an expedited High Court hearing to take place on or shortly after 30 June.

But Mr Johnson decided to bypass the Cabinet Office last week by sending “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the COVID inquiry, saying he was “perfectly content” for the material to be inspected.

The former prime minister said he would “like to do the same” with texts that are on an old mobile phone he stopped using due to security concerns in May 2021 – more than a year after the pandemic began.

He said he had asked the government for its help to turn on the device securely to hand over the material.

Hugo Keith KC, a counsel for the inquiry, told Baroness Hallett that Mr Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks were going to be compared with redacted copies provided by the Cabinet Office and that the inspection would begin this week.

He said the inspection “will allow your team to make its own assessment as to the redactions applied by the Cabinet Office and to satisfy ourselves and ultimately you of their appropriateness or otherwise”.

Mr Johnson’s locked former phone has also been handed to the government with the hope of obtaining his messages before May 2021, Mr Keith said.

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COVID Inquiry: Govt launch legal bid

“Neither Mr Johnson nor the inquiry has the technical expertise to ensure the contents of the phone can be downloaded safely and properly, particularly bearing in mind the overarching need to ensure no damage is done to national security.

“We have therefore agreed that this phone should be provided to the appropriate personnel in government for its contents to be downloaded.

“We have asked the Cabinet Office, in liaison with Mr Johnson and those government personnel, to obtain the phone without delay, to confirm in writing the process by which it will be examined and to give confirmation that it, like the diaries and the notebooks and the WhatsApps, will be accessed fully.

“That is to say, there will be no redactions made to the contents, other than in relation to national security, before we may view it.”

As well as receiving material from Mr Johnson, the inquiry has also received documents with redactions from two other individuals.

It said the Foreign Office had also supplied the inquiry with potentially relevant WhatsApps from two special advisers, with extensive redactions applied to parts that it deemed to be irrelevant.

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By contrast, Mr Keith said the Department of Health and Social Care had provided a “much fuller disclosure”, including messages from Matt Hancock, who was health secretary during the pandemic.

“We would of course invite the Foreign Office the Cabinet Office to pay close regard to the position adopted by the DHSC,” he said.

So far the inquiry has issued 38 requests to government departments and other bodies, 11 to regional mayors and 12 to ministers including former prime minister Liz Truss, former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.

Following this morning’s preliminary hearing, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said the government was “willing to agree another way forward” when asked whether it wanted to proceed with legal action.

“Obviously we have explored other possibilities for resolution previously. So obviously we continue to speak to the inquiry. And as I say, we are willing to agree another way forward.”

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Israel’s ban on UNRWA in Jerusalem and the West Bank comes into effect

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Israel's ban on UNRWA in Jerusalem and the West Bank comes into effect

A ban preventing UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, from operating in Occupied East Jerusalem and Israel has come into force today.

The highly controversial move came into force after the Israeli Parliament voted in favour three months ago, and after a legal challenge to pause the ban was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Israel accuses UNRWA of having close links to Hamas in Gaza, which the organisation denies.

Nine UNRWA employees were sacked for taking part in the 7 October attacks.

Many donor countries initially suspended funding but most, including the UK, have since reinstated it.

“UNRWA equals Hamas,” an Israeli government spokesman said yesterday. “Israel has made public irrefutable evidence UNRWA is riddled with Hamas operatives.”

No evidence has been presented of those links existing in Jerusalem or the West Bank.

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In the Shuafat refugee camp close to Jerusalem, Palestinian patients told us they were angry and concerned by the loss of vital services.

“I’m against this decision, we’re all against it, the whole camp,” said Amal. “Everyone has benefited from this clinic. Both West Bank and Jerusalem residents.

“I’ve been coming here ever since I was a little girl, we’ve gotten used to coming here. This really doesn’t work for us.”

Amal, a Palestinian patient in Jerusalem
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Amal, a Palestinian patient in Jerusalem, said ‘I’ve been coming here ever since I was a little girl’

Another patient, Mohammed, was carrying boxes of prescription medicine, paid for by UNRWA because he couldn’t afford them himself.

“I have a chronic disease and I rely on a monthly prescription,” he told us. “My children get treated here; their children get vaccinated.

“And all of this is for free. I could not afford this medicine otherwise.”

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Although the ban only concerns operations in Occupied East Jerusalem, Israel has also severed communication with the Agency and revoked the visas of international staff, making it extremely hard to continue services in Gaza and the West Bank.

Almost all of the two million residents of Gaza rely on UNRWA in some form. UNRWA has contacts on the ground that no other agency has or could replicate in the current crisis.

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Following the vote to ban UNRWA, the Head of the World Food Programme Cindy McCain described the agency as “indispensable” and tweeted that “the decision will have devastating consequences on food security.”

UNRWA, which was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, provides medical services to at least 70,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem and runs schools for thousands of pupils as well as maintaining streets and carrying out waste disposal.

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Israel says those pupils will now be transferred to municipality schools but UNRWA says there has been little to no coordination around who will replace other services.

“We have not been given any indications of plans or indeed proposals by the Israeli authorities, not in East Jerusalem, also not in the West Bank,” UNRWA’s director of West Bank operations Roland Friedrich told Sky News.

UNRWA's Director of West Bank Operations Roland Friedrich
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‘The collapse of UNRWA… cannot be in the interest of anybody,’ Roland Friedrich says

He added: “It is very concerning because it doesn’t allow us to basically coordinate, prepare and in fact, to try to see how things can be done going forward.

“The collapse of UNRWA in the West Bank and in fact also in the Gaza Strip cannot be in the interest of anybody, not of Israelis, not of Palestinians, not of neighbouring countries, and clearly also not for those who care about the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”

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Surreal scenes as foreign soldiers sent to Rwanda alongside Congolese troops as rebels take capital

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Surreal scenes as foreign soldiers sent to Rwanda alongside Congolese troops as rebels take capital

On the doorstep of Goma – the site of the UN’s biggest peacekeeping mission in the world – there are signs of surrendered soldiers and fierce battles.

As we walked on the road in front of the United Nations’ main base, we stepped around fatigues, rounds and helmets once belonging to the Congolese army fighting the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.

The rebels now control the strategic city of Goma after fighting for the border post with Rwanda. It sits south of the swathes of mineral-rich mining territory the rebels have been seizing through last year.

Pic: Reuters
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Pic: Reuters

We see them packed on the back of trucks still marked by the FARDC logo of the Congolese army.

I ask one man watching from the side of the road what he makes of this extreme shift.

“This is bad!” he says to me discreetly on the side of the road, with our car as cover from the prying eyes of the junior M23 soldiers.

“My family is not good. I am not good – we don’t know what comes next.”

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Watch as M23 rebels take over Goma in DRC

Small groups are meeting the rebels with cheers and clapping.

We cannot tell if it is relief from the Congolese state or a necessary precaution for many who do not want to leave their hometown on the cusp of a new administration.

But before they can settle in and set up a local authority, M23 have time to stop and humiliate their former enemy.

Not just the Congolese troops, but the Romanian mercenaries fighting alongside them.

Romanian mercenaries evacuate at the Grande Barriere border amid clashes between M23 and FARDC in Gisenyi.
Pic: Reuters
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Pic: Reuters


MONUSCO, the United Nations’s peacekeeping group in the DRC, brokered an evacuation convoy for the paid fighters to go to Rwanda with trucks full of Uruguayan peacekeeping troops watching as M23 led the handover through their newly-captured border.

Captured Romanian mercenaries, who were fighting alongside Democratic Republic of Congo army (FRDC), are released by M23 rebels at Gisenyi border point in Congo, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, after the M23 rebels advanced into eastern Congo's capital Goma. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
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Pic: AP

As the Romanian men pass through in a single file, they are chastised by M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma who taps them mockingly one by one.

“Come on soldier!” he said. “You were fighting for money – we were fighting for our life!”

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I corner him as he flags the buses through – could you have come this far without Rwanda’s support?

He tries to keep busy, and after the fourth time I repeat the question, he yells into my face in French:

“We are a Congolese army, we are Congolese! We fight for a fair and noble cause – we are Congolese. We are not helped by Rwanda!”

Sky’s Yousra Elbagir reports from Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, where "hundreds of mercenaries" are sent to Rwanda by Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.
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M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma gave a feverish denial that the rebels are backed by Rwanda

It will take more than a feverish denial to undermine the widely known support of Rwanda for M23 – one that has been condemned at the highest levels of the United Nations and senior diplomats from around the world.

As the “Welcome to Rwanda” sign gets closer, the last Romanian mercenary limps across with a wounded leg flanked by a UN security advisor and an Indian medic.

A surreal sight of a man heading home after fighting a war in a foreign country surrounded by Congolese families fleeing the war at home.

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Many feared dead after stampede at Maha Kumbh Hindu festival in northern India

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Many feared dead after stampede at Maha Kumbh Hindu festival in northern India

At least 30 people have died and 60 have been injured in a stampede at a Hindu festival in northern India.

Images from the scene in the city of Prayagraj, in Uttar Pradesh state, show bodies being stretchered away and rescuers helping those who were hurt.

All 60 people injured have been taken to hospital, according to local police.

Millions of people were attempting to take a holy bath in the river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival when there was an initial stampede at 1am local time (7.30pm UK time) on Wednesday.

People bathing in the Ganges on Wednesday. Pic: AP
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People bathing in the Ganges on Wednesday. Pic: AP

The banks and a bridge over the Ganges full of people on Wednesday. Pic: AP
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The banks and a bridge over the Ganges full of people on Wednesday. Pic: AP

Authorities said people trying to escape it were then caught in a second – and more serious – stampede at an exit.

Devotees had congregated to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

Authorities took more than 16 hours to release precise numbers of those injured and killed.

A Rapid Action Force unit, a special team deployed during crisis situations, was sent to the scene.

Security personnel assist a person after a stampede before the second "Shahi Snan" (grand bath) at the "Kumbh Mela" or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad, India, January 29, 2025. REUTERS/Sharafat Ali
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Security teams helping those injured at the Maha Kumbh festival. Pic: Reuters

People react, after a deadly stampede before the second "Shahi Snan" (grand bath), at the "Maha Kumbh Mela" or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad, India, January 29, 2025. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
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People in a state of shock after the deadly stampede. Pic: Reuters

still from APTN direct showing rescue teams after a stampede at Maha Kumbh Mela festival in India Credit APTN
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A Rapid Action Force unit was sent to the scene. Pic: APTN

The state’s most senior official, Yogi Adityanath, made a televised statement later on Wednesday, urging those still planning to bathe in the Ganges to do it elsewhere on the riverbank.

“The situation is now under control, but there is a massive crowd of pilgrims,” he said.

Around 30 million people had taken the holy bath by 8am local time on Wednesday, he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he has spoken to Mr Adityanath, calling for “immediate support measures”, according to the ANI news agency.

map showing location of stampede at massive Maha Kumbh festival in India

Authorities had expected a record 100 million people to visit Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh – “festival of the Sacred Pitcher” – on Wednesday for the holy dip.

It is regarded as a significant day for Hindus, due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.

Hindu devotees take a holy dip by the banks of the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers, on "Mauni Amavasya" or new moon day during the Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Deepak Sharma)
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A woman bathing in the Ganges as part of the festival on Wednesday. Pic: AP

The Maha Kumbh festival, which is held every 12 years, started on 13 January, lasts six weeks, and is the world’s largest religious gathering.

Organisers had forecast that more than 400 million people would attend the pilgrimage site over the course of the festival.

Before stampede - devotees gather early in the morning during the "Maha Kumbh Mela", or the Great Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, India, January 28, 2025. REUTERS/Sharafat Ali
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Huge crowds gathered on Tuesday. Pic: Reuters


Indian Hindu devotees arrive for a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers, on the eve of the 'Mauni Amavasya' or new moon day during the Maha Kumbh festival, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
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People arriving for a holy bath on Tuesday. Pic: AP

Authorities have built a sprawling tent city on the riverbanks, equipped with 3,000 kitchens, 150,000 toilets and 11 hospitals.

Stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds can gather in small areas.

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