Strikes: Decision on training troops to drive ambulances ‘not far off’

Published

1 year ago

December 10, 2022

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A formal request for troops to drive ambulances during strike action could be made within days, Sky News understands.

After a formal request known as a MACA – or Military Assistance to the Civil Authorities – is made to the Ministry of Defence (MOD), training to drive ambulances would begin.

A decision from the Department of Health and Social Care could come as early as this weekend, government sources have told Sky News, who say the decision is “not far off”.

Service personnel have already been training at Heathrow and Gatwick to assist in checking passports at the border.

Elsewhere, in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, rail union leader Mick Lynch requested an urgent meeting in order to try and resolve long-running rail strikes.

With two 48-hour strikes planned to proceed on 13-14 and 16-17 December, as well as from 6pm on 24 December until 6am on 27 December, Mr Lynch said a meeting would be the “best prospect of any renewed progress”.

Responding to Mr Lynch’s call for a meeting with Mr Sunak, a government spokesperson said that it was “incredibly disappointing” that the RMT continues to hold “Christmas hostage,” despite an improved deal offering “job security and a fair pay rise”.

“The Government has played its part by facilitating a fair and decent offer and the RMT and its members should vote this deal through and end this harmful disruption,” the statement concluded.

The union rejected the latest offer of a backdated 5% pay rise this year and 4% from January and no compulsory redundancies until 2025.

On Friday 9 December, the MOD confirmed to Sky News that armed forces personnel arrived at London’s two main airports – Heathrow and Gatwick – earlier this week.

This is to assist with Border Force officers going on strike at the two London airports, as well as airports in Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and Port of Newhaven, from 23-26 and 28-31 December after rejecting a 2% pay rise offer from the government.

The Cabinet Office said up to 600 military personnel and 700 civil servants were being trained at airports and ports in the event of strike action.

In a visit to an RAF base, Mr Sunak gave a individuals “an enormous debt of gratitude” for stepping in and missing their Christmas.

In a similar sense, more than 10,000 ambulance workers, including paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and other staff, across nine trusts in England and Wales are set to strike on 21 and 28 December.

Unions GMB, Unison and Unite are coordinating the industrial action, also due to a row over pay. If requested, service personnel would be mainly involved in logistical roles rather than taking on any medical duties.

This comes after Mr Sunak said he will “do what I need to do in order to keep people safe,” even if this meant banning strikes by emergency services.

Other sectors set to strike over the course of December include civil servants, nurses, driving examiners, Royal Mail workers, national highway workers, and baggage handlers.

World

Ebrahim Raisi: Who is hardliner Iranian president?

Published

45 mins ago

May 20, 2024

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Ebrahim Raisi: Who is hardliner Iranian president?

A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday.

But who is Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faces sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.

The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.

Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash

Mr Raisi is a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some have suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran as he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.

Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.

The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Ms Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.

The president also supported Iran’s unprecedented decision in April to launch a drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war with Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza responsible for the 7 October attacks which saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel.

Involvement in mass executions

Mr Raisi is sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under the president, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections.

Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine and has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

He successfully ran for the presidency back in August 2021 in a vote that got the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history as all of his potentially prominent opponents were barred from running under Iran’s vetting system.

A presidency run in 2017 saw him lose to Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

‘Very involved in anything’

Alistair Bunkall, Sky News’s Middle East correspondent, said the president is “a major figure in Iranian political and religious society” but “he’s not universally popular by any means” as his administration has seen a series of protests in the past few years against his and the government’s “hardline attitude”.

Mr Raisi is nonetheless “considered one of the two frontrunners to potentially take over” the Iranian regime when the current supreme leader dies, Bunkall said.

He added the president would have been “instrumental” in many of Iran’s activities in the region as he “would’ve been very involved in anything particularly what has been happening in Israel and the surrounding areas like Lebanon and Gaza and the Houthis over the last seven and a bit months”.

World

Iran president helicopter crash: The ‘butcher of Tehran’ has a fearsome reputation – and many will be fearing instability

Published

45 mins ago

May 20, 2024

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Iran president helicopter crash: The 'butcher of Tehran' has a fearsome reputation - and many will be fearing instability

Ebrahim Raisi has been one of Iran’s hardest of hardliners, a fanatical and absolute believer in the Iranian revolution and its mission.

If he has died on a mountainside in the north of the country, as looks increasingly likely, it will be a major moment for the country and the region.

It will remove from the Middle East one of its toughest most uncompromising players.

Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash

A man who launched the first direct attack on Israel in his country’s history and a hardliner on whose watch hundreds of Iranians have been killed in the brutal repression of recent women-led protests, Mr Raisi has a huge amount of blood on his hands.

His fearsome reputation goes back to the 1980s – a period that earned him the dubious soubriquet the Butcher of Tehran.

He sat on the so-called Death Panel of four Islamic judges who sentenced thousands of Iranian prisoners of conscience to their deaths during the purge of 1988.

Mr Raisi has personally been involved in two of the darkest periods of Iranian repression. And he was seen as one of the favourite contenders to replace the elderly and ailing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

His accession to that role would have guaranteed years more of the same… and years more meddling abroad.

With Mr Raisi as president, Iran has engaged in more and more adventurous interventions beyond its borders.

With him in charge Iran has helped Houthis menace international shipping in the Red Sea; helped Hezbollah engage Israel in a seven-month duel over its northern border; aided militia in Iraq to attack, and in some cases kill, American soldiers; and helped Hamas fight its own war against the Jewish state.

After two years of unrest, economic failure and stuttering recovery from the pandemic, Iran is divided and weakened.

Its government has lost much of its credibility and support because of the atrocities it has meted out to its women.

Few outside the regime and its ranks of ardent followers will mourn a man who has overseen the death, incarceration or torture of so many.

Iranians may dare yearn for less repressive times without him. Outsiders will hope for a less troublesome Iran.

Read more:
Who is Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?

But there are plenty more where he came from and the Supreme Leader is likely to find another hardliner to replace him.

The fear will be of instability in the run-up to elections. The government has been undermined by recent events, its Supreme Leader is unwell.

If Mr Raisi is dead, his government will try to secure the succession as quickly and smoothly as it can.

World

Ukraine launches ‘co-ordinated strikes’ against glide bomb Russian airbase – military source

Published

45 mins ago

May 20, 2024

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Ukraine launches 'co-ordinated strikes' against glide bomb Russian airbase - military source

Ukrainian forces have launched “co-ordinated strikes” against an airbase in southern Russia that is used to unleash glide bomb attacks on Ukraine, a military source has said.

The operation, which took place overnight on Saturday, had “significantly reduced” Moscow’s ability to use glide bombs against frontline Ukrainian positions, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Ukrainian military source claimed this would “seriously impact” a Russian attempt to advance on the battleground town of Chasiv Yar, in the east of Ukraine.

War latest: Ukraine ‘destroys Russian Black Sea minesweeper’

The strikes targeted the Kushchyovskaya airbase in Krasnodar Krai, which is in the North Caucasus region in southern Russia, the source said.

The source did not elaborate on what form the “co-ordinated strikes” took.

It was not possible independently to verify the claims.

The source said a number of aircraft – including fighter jets such as the SU-27, SU-34 and SU-35 – are based at the airfield. They are capable of launching munitions fitted with glide bomb technology that pose a huge threat to Ukrainian troops and civilians.

“The degradation of this airfield and the capability it holds will mean that Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian troops on the front line is significantly reduced,” the source said.

Explaining why Ukraine chose to target the airfield, the source said that it is used to conduct daily strikes on Ukrainian frontline positions, including with glide bombs.

“This airbase and others are used to launch between 100-150 sorties per day, of which a significant number are launching munitions along the frontline positions concentrated around Chasiv Yar,” the source said.

Russia has been deploying glide bombs against Ukrainian positions since early 2023.

“These glide bombs were vital in the seizure of Avdiivka and are currently being used heavily in Chasiv Yar. They allow the Russian aircraft to release their bombs further away from the target so they are at less risk from Ukrainian air defence.”