British police arrest politician’s spouse over tweet

Wife of UK councillor has been indicted after calling on rioters to “set fire” to migrant hotels

The wife of a Conservative councillor in the UK has been arrested on charges of racial hatred, after saying hotels housing asylum seekers should be burned down, British media reported on Tuesday.

Lucy Connolly made the remarks on her X account (formerly Twitter) hours after the fatal stabbing of three schoolgirls at a dance class in the town of Southport on July 29. The suspected killer has been identified as Axel Rudakubana, a 17-year-old born in Britain to Rwandan parents.

In a now deleted post, the 41-year-old woman, who works as a childminder in Northampton, said: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f* hotels full of the b** for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them.”

“I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.”

Connolly has since apologized, and said she had acted on “false and malicious” information and wrote the post in a moment of “extreme outrage and emotion.”

Northamptonshire Police said she was arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred, and remains in custody.

Her husband, Tory councillor Raymond Connolly, said his wife made a “stupid, spur-of-the-moment tweet out of frustration and quickly deleted it.”

“She’s a good person and she’s not racist,” he told the BBC, adding that “she’s got Somalian and Bangladeshi kids she looks after and she loves them like they’re her own.”

In another post on X on Tuesday, Ms Connolly said: “I am someone who cares enormously about children and the similarity between those beautiful children who were so brutally attacked, and my own daughter, overwhelmed me with horror, but I should not have expressed that horror in the way that I did.”

Dozens of British towns and cities have been rocked by rioting since the attack last Monday, with demonstrators chanting anti-immigrant and anti-Islam slogans, setting fires, and clashing with groups of counter-protesters. Although initially sparked by a false rumors that the stabbing suspect was Muslim, the demonstrations have since grown into a wider backlash against Islam and mass immigration.

https://www.rt.com/news/602264-uk-tory-councillor-wife-racial-hatred/

Hamas names new leader

Yahya Sinwar’s appointment follows the assassination of his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh

Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of its political wing, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week. The appointment was announced in a brief statement by the Palestinian militant group on Tuesday.

Sinwar has served as the group’s leader inside Gaza since 2017. Israel believes him to be the architect of the October 7, 2023 incursion into southern Israel, in which Hamas killed some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage. The attack sparked the current war in Gaza, which has so far killed almost 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Israeli officials believe that Sinwar has been hiding in Hamas’s network of tunnels beneath Gaza since the massacre that he allegedly orchestrated 10 months ago.

Immediately after the Hamas statement, Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for Sinwar to be killed.

“The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organization off the face of the earth,” Katz wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.

The announcement comes at a time of heightened tensions, as Iran and its allies threaten retaliation for the killing of Haniyeh, which they blame on Israel. The Jewish state has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

The escalation has prompted the US to deploy extra forces to defend Israel, in case of an attack.

Earlier this year, Iran launched a large-scale missile and drone barrage against Israel, in retaliation for the bombing of an Iranian consulate in Syria. The bombardment was repelled with significant help from the US, UK and other allied forces in the region.

https://www.rt.com/news/602255-hamas-names-new-leader-sinwar/

Fourth African state sanctions Ukraine for ‘supporting terrorism’

Niger says the move is in solidarity with Mali, which has accused Kiev of backing rebels involved in deadly attacks

Niger has severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine in response to Kiev’s alleged support for militants who killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group contractors in an attack last month.

The West African state’s decision on Tuesday came just two days after Mali took the same step, accusing Kiev of supporting international terrorism. Ukrainian officials had earlier indicated that Kiev had assisted Tuareg rebels who staged an attack in the village of Tinzaouaten.

In an interview following the incident, Ukraine’s spy agency spokesman, Andrey Yusov, indicated on national TV that the insurgents had received intelligence to conduct a “successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” He warned that “there will be more to come.” Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal posted the video – now deleted – on its Facebook page along with a comment from Ambassador Yury Pivovarov, who said “there will certainly be other results.”

Niamey’s military government spokesman, Amadou Abdramane, called the remarks “indecent” and “unacceptable” in an address on state TV late on Tuesday, claiming that they characterize “acts of aggression.”

“Niger, in total solidarity with the government and people of Mali, has decided in all sovereignty […] to sever diplomatic relations between the Republic of Niger and Ukraine with immediate effect,” Abdramane said.

Kiev has yet to respond to the African state’s move.

On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied any involvement in the terrorist attack and described Mali’s decision to break off diplomatic ties as “shortsighted and hasty.”

“Ukraine is known in Africa as an important contributor to ensuring regional security,” the ministry stated, arguing that Bamako had acted without providing any evidence of Kiev’s complicity in the ambush near the Algerian border.

READ MORE: African state breaks off diplomatic relations with Ukraine

On Tuesday, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS condemned the killings in Mali and expressed “strong” opposition to “any foreign interference” that threatens the region’s peace and security.

Bamako’s neighbors, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, have all criticized Ukraine over the statements by its officials.

Since 2012, Mali has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. A decade-long French military mission failed to quell the violence, which has spilled over to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. All three former French colonies, led by their militaries, have severed defense ties with Paris and formed the Alliance of Sahel States to combat terrorism.

Russia, which Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou regard as a strategic security ally, has agreed to assist the troubled Sahel states in combating long-standing terrorist threats.

https://www.rt.com/africa/602265-niger-sever-ukraine-ties/

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US arms makers refusing to invest in Ukraine – media

Manufacturers are hesitant to plough cash into a corrupt nation at war despite pressure from the Pentagon, according to Defense One

American arms manufacturers are reluctant to open workshops in Ukraine despite the Pentagon coaxing them to do so, the military news outlet Defense One reported on Tuesday, citing a US State Department official.

The Ukrainian government has touted the build-up of domestic arms manufacturing by foreign firms as an alternative to the long-term supply of military aid by Western sponsors. Germany’s Rheinmetall has so far voiced the most ambitious plans to operate on Ukrainian soil, promising to make not just munitions, but also armored vehicles and tanks in the country.

However, other large players, particularly those from the US, have been cautious about making such pledges. Northrop Grumman is an exception, having announced last month that it had finalized an agreement to produce medium-caliber ammunition in Ukraine. The company will provide equipment and training, but has refused to put its own employees on the ground.

Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case,” a US State Department official told Defense One on the sidelines of the Farnborough air show in the UK. The US industry “is really eager” to profit, but needs the government to hedge their investments for risks, according to the source.

”It has to be a business case for what they’re trying to do, and so looking at maybe starting off with a maintenance, repair, and overhaul type stuff, spare parts production, so kind of starting a crawl-walk-run-type philosophy, before you actually get to the more advanced stuff,” the official said.

In addition to the war-related risks, Western firms are also concerned about corruption, the source acknowledged. The US diplomat claimed that Ukraine was making progress in that regard, but was far from where it needed to be to allay the concerns.

Graft has been an endemic problem in the country since it gained independence in the early 1990s. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has reportedly complained about the attention paid to the problem by his Western backers, claiming that it is largely irrelevant at a time when his nation is fighting Russia.

READ MORE: Ukrainian draft dodgers found in meat truck

Russia has described the Ukraine conflict as a US-triggered proxy war against it, waged for the sake of Washington’s geopolitical interests. The American economy has benefited from it by boosting demand for weapons and tanking the competitiveness of Western European manufacturers, Russian officials have said. European firms have lost access to cheap Russian energy and raw materials due to the breakdown of trade with the country, with some relocating plants to the US as a result.

https://www.rt.com/news/602263-us-arms-manufacturers-ukraine/