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“Quite a lot” of MPs and peers have downloaded the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! app in order to vote for Matt Hancock to do bushtucker trials, a cabinet minister has said.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris told Sky News he did not watch the MP for West Suffolk on the ITV reality show on Wednesday evening, but understands many of his colleagues in parliament are trying to influence what happens during his time in the jungle.

“So I know the format of the show, and I do believe there’s quite a lot of people in a building not too far away from here, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, who’ve downloaded a certain app so they can vote,” he told Kay Burley.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.”

Probed as to whether this was a true story, Mr Heaton-Harris replied: “Yes, of course.”

Sunak to meet devolved leaders for the first time as PM – follow live politics updates

Pic: ITV/Shuttershock
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Pic: ITV/Shuttershock

The Northern Ireland secretary added Mr Hancock “should be here with us voting and debating in parliament”.

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Asked whether he thinks it is “totally inappropriate” Mr Hancock is currently on the other side of the world, Mr Heaton-Harris said: “I mean, I’ve read this morning what he said about how he wants to prove that all MPs are human and that’s actually true – all MPs are human.

“But I think we do that every day in our constituencies and (through) what we do in parliament.”

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Peter Kyle accused Mr Hancock of using his dyslexia campaigning as an “excuse” for appearing on the show.

“I’m very severely dyslexic. When I heard that Matt Hancock had used the excuse of dyslexia for going on there, I was really upset by it because I want dyslexia to be associated with success,” he told Sky News.

“For those of us who have neurological challenges and we overcome them, I think we all acknowledge that it gives us something positive in life because what you learn by overcoming channel challenges is a pathway to success.

“Very often what Matt Hancock has done is once again just associated dyslexia with failure.

“And I hate that, I just wish that we could get back to the point where we’re talking about the positive attributes to some of the barriers that people have in life.

“Matt Hancock just seems to be always dragging all of the good things in life down into the gutter.”

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Would the Commons Speaker go on I’m A Celebrity

Mr Hancock, who was health secretary during the coronavirus pandemic until June 2021, got a mixed reception from campmates when he made his debut on I’m A Celebrity on Wednesday evening.

Boy George revealed his mother was in hospital during the pandemic and said if she had not survived he would have quit the show when Mr Hancock entered.

The Culture Club singer was in tears after the former health secretary, who was booted out of the Conservative Party over his decision to head to the jungle, entered camp for the first time.

Meanwhile, DJ Chris Moyles said “I can’t help but think he should be at work.”

Former professional rugby player Mike Tindall accused him of talking “b*******”.

TV news presenter Charlene White questioned the former minister about why he had come on the show.

Mr Hancock replied it was because there was “stability” in government.

Ms White replied: “We’ve had stability for all of five minutes Matt.”

Mr Hancock then said: “Rishi’s great, he’ll be fine.”

The controversial contestant entered the ITV show alongside comedian Seann Walsh.

The pair were thrown in at the deep end by taking on “the beastly burrows” bushtucker trial to win food for the celebrities, and to make their way through creepy crawly-filled tunnels blindfolded to collect their stars.

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Politicians who swapped Westminster for reality tv

Opening the show, presenters Ant and Dec joked that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had now “downloaded the I’m A Celebrity app” so he could vote for Mr Hancock to face the trials.

After arriving back at camp with six stars out of a possible 11, Mr Hancock chatted with the other celebrities, as Boy George laughed and told him: “You’re really going to get it. You’re really going to get it.”

TV presenter and property developer Scarlette Douglas then asked the former minister why he had decided to do the show.

“Why?” he replied. “Because, all politicians are known – and me in particular – for being in a very sort of strict way of being, which is just not actually how we are.”

Instead, he insisted he was “more human than that”.

After a public vote for who should do the next bushtucker trial, Mr Hancock was chosen. He will do the task later, with his performance being shown on ITV tonight.

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
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The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
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Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

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What are storm shadow missiles?
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Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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