London:

 British police said they arrested a man after an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were stabbed in Leicester Square, an area in central London popular with tourists.

The police said they didn’t believe there were any outstanding suspects and they were awaiting an update on the condition of the victims, both of whom were taken to hospital.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

King Charles III made his first comments on Friday about riots that have shaken British cities, praising the work of police in countering the violence.

While the monarch and Queen Camilla conveyed their condolences to the families of three girls killed in a mass stabbing on July 29, Buckingham Palace had not commented on the near-daily riots which followed.

The king praised British police and emergency services “for all they are doing to restore peace in those areas that have been affected by violent disorder”, according to a Buckingham Palace spokesperson.

He hoped the “shared values of mutual respect and understanding will continue to strengthen and unite the nation”, the spokesperson added.

Many observers had been watching to see if the king, who is on his annual summer holiday in Scotland, would end his noticeable silence on the disturbances.

Hundreds of people have been arrested in the near-nightly unrest that hit cities across England and in Northern Ireland and which authorities have blamed on far-right agitators.

Officials say the rioters took advantage of the killings of the girls in the northwestern English coastal town of Southport to launch racist and Islamophobic protests. The suspect accused of the killings was born in Britain.

Traditionally, the monarch does not comment on anything that could cause political controversy.

But in calls with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and police chiefs, the king said he had been “greatly encouraged” by the reaction “that countered the aggression and criminality from a few with the compassion and resilience of the many”.

While extra police have been put on standby, there have been many counter-demonstrations in cities where far-right protests had been planned.

 ‘Perilous moment’ 

His call for unity followed a silence that had concerned some royal watchers.

“I am surprised that the king as head of state hasn’t come out more forcefully, given that it’s a perilous moment for the United Kingdom,” historian and royal commentator Ed Owens said before the statement’s release.

According to constitutional law expert Craig Prescott, however, “the monarchy does not comment on current political events”. The late Queen Elizabeth II remained similarly quiet during the last wave of riots which shook England in 2011.

“Once the riots have subsided, you might expect members of the royal family to visit places affected and perhaps to see them more in multicultural settings,” Prescott said in a post on the X social media platform.

“If the king speaks out about this, then what about the next big issue and the one after that.”

Owens argued that Charles, who has gradually resumed public duties after a cancer diagnosis earlier this year, may not have publicly reacted for two main reasons.

He may have been “advised by his government that it would be unwise at this stage” to intervene directly.

And the monarch might himself have deemed the issue too “combustible”. The question of “illegal migration” is politically divisive and sensitive in Britain, said Owens.

But as heir to the throne, Charles made known his opposition to the previous government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

And the king has been more vocal about topics such as climate change over the years. Since becoming the monarch he is seen as having presented himself as more accessible than his predecessors, including by opening up about his health.

But for Graham Smith, head of Republic, a pressure group which campaigns for an elected UK head of state to replace the monarch, the lack of a response to the riots showed that the monarchy is an institution “for someone who isn’t able to speak really”.

According to media reports, quoting palace sources, the king has asked for a daily update on the crisis.

But Smith said: “There’s no value in a billionaire sitting in his holiday home being updated about what’s happening. I mean, it’s easy to be updated — switch the TV on.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

An co-pilot was hospitalised after he fainted on a flight from London to Portugal on July 27. He became ill during the approach to Lisbon Airport on easyJet Flight EZY2459 from Luton. Upon landing, he was attended to by paramedics at the airport. The first officer was then sent to Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon for medical treatment, as per a report in the Independent.

The Airbus A320 aircraft issued a rare “red alert,” which is an obligatory stop of operations as a safety precaution, as the medical situation developed. The 193-passenger flight made a safe, “in line with procedures” landing in Portugal.

A spokesperson for easyJet said in a statement: “easyJet can confirm that the flight EZY2459 from Luton to Lisbon was met by the paramedics upon landing due to a pilot member feeling unwell.

“The Captain landed the flight routinely in line with procedures and passengers disembarked normally. At no point was the safety of the flight compromised. The safety and welfare of passengers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority,” they said.

Notably, passengers leaving for the return trip to London from Luton experienced a three-hour delay.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, a pilot of a small aircraft experienced a medical emergency when a passenger took over and the aircraft crashed on an island in Massachusetts, US, as per The Washington Post.

The event happened in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, close to Martha’s Vineyard Airport. According to Massachusetts State Police, the male pilot, who is aged 79, experienced an emergency during the plane’s final approach. “The crash resulted in a hard landing outside the runway that caused the aircraft’s left wing to break in half,” The Post quoted the state police as saying.

The pilot was then taken to a Boston hospital in critical condition. The female passenger was not hurt and was released from a local hospital, according to The Post, citing authorities.

Southport, United Kingdom:

UK police on Tuesday questioned a 17-year-old suspect arrested after a “ferocious” knife attack which killed three children and critically injured eight others.

Flowers, teddy bears and tributes were left near the scene of Monday’s stabbing spree at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, near Liverpool, that also saw two adults and six children critically injured and three more children hurt.

Police chief Serena Kennedy said the two adults were trying to protect the children, aged between six and 11.

Swift on Tuesday said she was “completely in shock”.

“The loss of life and innocence, and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families, and first responders. These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families,” she said.

Residents of Southport, a small seaside town popular with visitors in the summer, were still coming to terms with the attack.

“I’m just still in total shock — I just cannot believe that it happened so close to home,” Leanne Hassan told reporters on Tuesday.

She had rushed to collect her daughter from a nearby nursery which was locked down after the attack.

Her daughter was safe, “but unfortunately that’s not the reality for a lot of parents waking up today,” she added.

Police chief Kennedy confirmed the attack was not being treated as terror-related and that the attacker’s motivation was unclear.

Establishing motive

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the events were “just truly awful, the whole country is deeply shocked”.

“It is almost impossible to imagine the grief,” he added.

Interior minister Yvette Cooper visited Southport Tuesday to meet Kennedy and other officials, with an evening vigil to be held for the victims.

Starmer is likely to visit the community as well, Chancellor Rachel Reeves told Sky News.

The 17-year-old male arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder is from a neighbouring village called Banks and was born in the Welsh capital Cardiff, Merseyside Police said.

Witnesses told UK media the attacker was seen arriving at the scene in a taxi, and that he entered the venue wearing a mask.

Police said officers were called to the incident shortly before 1100 GMT on Monday, just minutes before the dance event was scheduled to end.

Armed officers detained the suspect nearby and seized a knife.

The suspect was in custody at a police station Tuesday and police said enquiries were ongoing “to establish the motive for this tragic incident”.

Targeted attacks on children are extremely rare in the UK.

Horror movie

Monday’s incident evoked memories of a school massacre in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996, which claimed the lives of 16 young pupils and their teacher in Britain’s worst mass shooting.

The North West Ambulance Service said it treated 11 casualties with stab injuries, who were then taken by ambulance and helicopter to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and other hospitals in the area.

Local business owner Colin Parry, one of the people who called police, told the Press Association (PA) news agency that he believed several “young girls” had been stabbed.

A member of his staff also saw “about 10 kids go running past him, all bleeding, and one of them collapsed on the floor outside the neighbour next door,” he recounted.

Bare Varathan, who owns a local shop, told PA he saw “seven to 10 kids” who were “injured, bleeding”.

Other witnesses told UK media they heard screams, comparing the attack to a scene from a horror film.

King Charles III offered his “most heartfelt condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” and called the incident “utterly horrific”.

Prince William and his wife Katherine posted on X that “as parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through”, calling it a “heinous attack”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader Kalvakuntla Kavitha said the Women’s Reservation Bill will inspire many women around the world to come forward in public life and called on women across continents to mobilise around the issue.

During an interaction organised by the think tank Bridge India in London on Friday night, the BRS Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) addressed a diaspora audience at Central Hall Westminster near the Houses of Parliament on the topic of ‘Gender Equality in India’s Political Representation’.

The daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, who was virtually mobbed by the cheering diaspora crowds, highlighted the progress made in her own state that is leading the way in the representation of women in politics.

“We are the world’s most populous nation, and we are about 70 crore women; if a very positive change were to happen to the women of our nation, I believe the world should know because that will inspire many, many, many more women to come forward in public life, to become active participants in policy making,” Kavitha told PTI with reference to her London tour.

The Women’s Reservation Bill, which seeks to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, received the Parliamentary nod on September 21. President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the bill on September 28.

“This bill, I’m very confident, will enable that to happen to the women of our nation, India, and India’s progress will see more and more participation of women, that is the hope,” the 45-year-old politician said.

Asked about stronger representation of women within political parties in the country, she admitted that parties have traditionally been slow in addressing the matter satisfactorily.

“I would say India is a much younger democracy, which is 75 years old. There are many democracies across the globe which are 200 years old or more who have still not been able to reach the extent and level of women participation that we have reached today,” she said.

“But that being said, the parties have to take the onus on themselves to make sure more and more women come in. And obviously, it’s not happening, so it is for the Election Commission to step in. It is for more laws to be put in place to protect the places for women,” she noted.

During her charged address that drew applause and cheers from the crowd, Kavitha said it “pained” her to state that inequality in public life is a reality around the world. She traced the journey of the Women’s Reservation Bill that she had been campaigning for and was passed in the Lok Sabha last month – from former prime minister Deve Gowda in 1996 to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023.

“I sincerely thank all of them from the bottom of my heart for making this bill a reality. This is not just politics, but this is the respect these people have shown to the women of this great nation,” she said.

She added, “When I say Women’s Reservation Bill, it is not only to make 181 women members of Parliament, but it is about billions and billions of women. When we talk about women, countries don’t matter, there are no borders.” “Across the globe, I don’t know how men managed to subjugate us for centuries. Now, the time has come that women across continents should connect, and should take up these issues. Today, if India has this bill and some other country does not, I think it is the duty of Indian women to go help our sisters there,” she said.

During some light-hearted moments in her hard-hitting speech, she acknowledged her very “strong opinions” and cautioned men to get used to hearing many more strong opinions from “our sisters”.

She also referenced the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which has a connection to Telangana, given its roots in the Golconda mines. The MLC said while the discussion over the return of the infamous diamond to India will “go on forever”, “at least give us back Vijay Mallya” – referencing the former Kingfisher Airlines chief based in the UK and wanted in India on fraud and money laundering charges.

Earlier on Friday, Kavitha commenced her tour to the UK with a visit to the Ambedkar Museum in north London and spoke of how she drew great inspiration from the principles of the architect of the Indian Constitution in her fight for gender equality.

MLC Kavitha’s itinerary in the UK includes engagements with Indian diaspora groups, discussions on collaborative initiatives and participation in events to foster cultural exchange between the two countries. 

The iconic Tower Bridge in London was stuck in an open position after it allowed a boat to pass underneath on River Thames on Thursday around 1.15 pm, causing traffic to come to a halt, as per a report in the Independent. At that time, the sailing barge Adieu was supposed to pass beneath the bridge, however, the bridge struggled to close, causing chaos on London’s roads.

According to people present at the spot, the bridge finally closed after more than half an hour. An eyewitness told the outlet, “I first thought it was nice to see the bridge open but then realised something might be wrong due to the different angles. I watched it for a little while. A lot of traffic (built-up) with two tourist buses waiting on the bridge and large crowds.”

He added that people started cheering when the bridge closed after a long waiting time. “I was almost more excited to see a Thames seal which I had never seen before pop up (in the water). There were cheers from the bridge as it eventually closed with bikes first allowed through and then traffic a moment later,” the man said.

As per Metro UK, a vital passage in central London was cut off while the hydraulically driven bascules of the bridge struggled to drop back down.

The movable Tower Bridge is built over River Thames between the Greater London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Southwark in London, as per Britannica. It is a historic landmark in the city that “complements” the Tower of London, which is located next to it. The bridge was completed in 1894 and has an entrance that is 76 metres (250 feet) broad and 240 metres (800 feet) long. Its twin towers soar 61 metres (200 feet) above the River Thames. There are also two glass-covered walkways between the two towers that are well-liked by tourists.

A popular radio DJ in London was allegedly tortured to death by “sadistic thugs” who inflicted around 94 injuries on him and locked his girlfriend in a bathroom for two days, a court has heard. According to The Independent, 43-year-old Mehmet Koray Alpergin and his girlfriend, Gozde Dalbudak, were kidnapped by six men near Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London, last year in October. They were taken to an empty wine bar where Mr Alpergin was allegedly beaten, throttled, scalded with boiling water, stabbed, maimed and violated. 

On Wednesday, the jurors were told that the couple was abducted when they were returning home from an Italian restaurant in Mayfair. The assailants had allegedly installed a tracking device on Mr Alpergin’s car, the outlet reported. They were put in separate vehicles and taken to a bar on White Hart Lane. Mr Alpergin’s naked body was later dumped in Essex woodland and his 34-year-old girlfriend spent two days locked in a toilet before being freed. 

Six men are now on trial at the Central Criminal Court in London. They are accused of murder, kidnap, false imprisonment and preventing the course of justice. 

“It is obvious that before his death Koray Alpergin had been stripped naked and horrifically tortured. From the number and nature of the injuries sustained, the prosecution suggest that it is not hard to envisage a group of sadistic thugs taking it in turns to inflict injury, whether with punches and kicks, hitting him with a bat, scalding him with boiling water, stabbing his feet…” lawyer Crispin Aylett said, according The Telegraph. Mr Aylett also alleged that the attack was connected to “organised crime” and “almost certainly drugs”. 

The jurors were told that the 43-year-old was originally from northern Cyprus. He was a well-known figure in the British Turkish community and owner of a Turkish language radio station in London called Bizim FM. 

On Wednesday the jurors heard that before his death, Mr Alpergin was not his usual “happy-go-lucky” and that he seemed anxious. He was allegedly in debt, including around $40,000 for his car. 

Mr Alpergin’s body was found by a dog walker a few hours after it was dumped in woods on October 15 last year. Mr Aylett said that a post-mortem report identified 94 separate injuries to his body. There were also wounds to the victim’s genitals and an internal injury, the lawyer said. 

Steffan Gordon, 34, Tejean Kennedy, 33, Samuel Owusu-Opoku, 35, Junior Kettle, 32, Ali Kavak, 26, and Erdogan Ulcay, 56, have been accused of murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and perverting justice. 
 

London:

An Indian-origin police officer has been dismissed from Scotland Yard after a misconduct hearing found she had used “unreasonable force” on duty while arresting a man in north London two years ago.

Police Constable (PC) Mandeep Dharni, attached to the Metropolitan Police’s North West Basic Command Unit (BCU) in the UK capital, appeared at a misconduct hearing last week related to the incident which occurred in September 2021 in a car park in Barnet.

It was alleged that PC Dharni failed to use the appropriate force and failed to act with authority, respect and courtesy when restraining a man, who was later charged with criminal damage and public order offences.

The hearing concluded Dharni had “breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour at the level of gross misconduct in relation to Authority, Respect and Courtesy, Use of Force and Discreditable Conduct after she used unreasonable force on duty during the arrest of a man”.

“All our officers know they will be held to account for any use of force while on duty,” said Chief Superintendent Dan Knowles, in charge of the Met’s policing in north-west London.

“On this occasion, PC Dharni went beyond what was acceptable or reasonable in the situation, especially as there were a number of other officers in attendance helping to detain the suspect,” he said.

A video of the incident was shared on social media and the officer was placed on restricted duties. The matter was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and they referred it back to the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS). After hearing all the evidence, the misconduct panel found the allegations proven and she was dismissed without notice. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Rolling Stones will on Wednesday reveal details of “Hackney Diamonds”, the band’s first studio album of new music since 2005, at a launch event in east London.

It is the English group’s first album since drummer Charlie Watts’ death, and the first containing original material since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang”.

Hackney Diamonds is English slang for the shards of glass left scattered on the ground after smash-and-grab robberies, and refers to the historically working class east London neighbourhood.

US talk show host Jimmy Fallon will host the launch event at the Hackney Empire theatre, where he will talk to band members Mick Jagger, 80, Keith Richards, 79, and Ronnie Wood, 76.

It will be the band’s first studio album since 2016’s “Blue & Lonesome”, which was made up of blues covers.

The band have already teased the release through a spoof advert in the local Hackney Gazette newspaper.

The cryptic ad, which also appeared in sister title the Islington Gazette, referenced several of the band’s best-known songs including “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “Gimme Shelter” and “Shattered”.

The ad went on: “Opening our new store on Mare Street, September 2023. Our friendly team promises you satisfaction when you say gimme shelter we’ll fix your shattered windows.”

Clues that the ad was not for a bona fide east London glass repair business included a miniature version of the band’s famed lips logo to dot the letter i.

The ad — in the same font as the Stones’ 1978 album “Some Girls” — also says the firm was established in 1962, the same year the band was formed.

A website also links to the Stones’ record label Universal Music Group, which handles the band’s catalogue. 

Wednesday’s event, scheduled for 2:30pm (1330 GMT) will be livestreamed on YouTube.

“Hackney may be at the heart of Hackney Diamonds, but this is a truly global moment we want to share with fans around the world via YouTube,” said the band.

Last year the Stones travelled through Europe for their 60th anniversary tour which featured stops in cities including Madrid, Milan and Munich, and also a performance at British Summer Time (BST) festival in London.

They were joined on tour by Steve Jordan on drums, following the 2021 death of Watts.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)