The need to house asylum seekers in hotels is more important than local objections to their presence, a UK court has been told.
The British government is appealing against a decision by a judge to stop the owner of a hotel from using the property to accommodate asylum seekers.
The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, became a flashpoint for local protests after an Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
A judge granted an interim injunction to Epping Forest district council preventing Somani Hotels from using the property to accommodate asylum seekers beyond September 12.
The decision could throw the system of accommodating asylum seekers into chaos as other councils weigh up similar legal action in the face of opposition among local communities.
There are around 32,000 migrants in more than 200 UK hotels. The Labour government has promised to halt the use of such accommodation by the end of this Parliament.
The Home Office and Somani Hotels are both now seeking to challenge Mr Justice Eyre’s ruling at the Court of Appeal in London. The government department is also attempting to appeal against the judge’s decision not to let it intervene in the case.
In papers submitted to the court, Home Office lawyers said the Home Secretary represents the public interest for the entirety of the UK, whereas Epping Council represents local planning interests.
Edward Brown KC, for the Home Office, said the Court of Appeal should discharge that interim injunction and said it was “wrong” for Mr Justice Eyre not to allow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to intervene in the proceedings.
He argued that the decision “substantially interfered” with her legal obligation to house “very large numbers of, potentially, destitute asylum seekers”.
Mr Brown said the legal action taken by the council “was broadly speaking triggered by protests and arrests in the individual cases” and it had done nothing over the previous five years when asylum seekers had been housed there.
The protests outside the Bell Hotel were “not realistically” about planning, he said, claiming that they were instead “driven by a range of grievances, and they include animosity towards asylum seekers”.
“In the real world, it is not realistic to think that the objective of the protests is compliance with the planning regime,” Mr Brown said.
He said claims by Epping Forest district council about fear within the community of asylum seekers staying in hotels “arises from a very small number of specific incidents, which are acknowledged to be serious”.
But asylum seekers did not have a “greater propensity” to commit crime, he said. “That was not a conclusion that can or should have been reached at all, and we say was not one that Epping was able to advance,” Mr Brown added.
Becca Jones, director of asylum support at the Home Office, said in a witness statement that the department “understands that local residents have concerns about the use of the hotel, which have been heard”.
“However, those concerns must be viewed in the context of demands on the accommodation estate,” she added.
Philip Coppel KC, for Epping Forest District Council, said in written submissions that the judge who provided the injunction was not dismissing “the impact of the claim on the Secretary of State’s statutory duty to support asylum seekers”.
The mounting discontent over the use of asylum hotels is reflected in a recent poll that showed 71 per cent of voters believe Prime Minister Keir Starmer is handling the issue badly.
In contrast, the right-wing populist Reform party has seen its popularity surge on the back of a promises to end small boat crossings to the UK, including by deporting 600,000 illegal migrants.
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 4/5
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Juvenile arthritis
Along with doctors, families and teachers can help pick up cases of arthritis in children.
Most types of childhood arthritis are known as juvenile idiopathic arthritis. JIA causes pain and inflammation in one or more joints for at least six weeks.
Dr Betina Rogalski said "The younger the child the more difficult it into pick up the symptoms. If the child is small, it may just be a bit grumpy or pull its leg a way or not feel like walking,” she said.
According to The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases in US, the most common symptoms of juvenile arthritis are joint swelling, pain, and stiffness that doesn’t go away. Usually it affects the knees, hands, and feet, and it’s worse in the morning or after a nap.
Limping in the morning because of a stiff knee, excessive clumsiness, having a high fever and skin rash are other symptoms. Children may also have swelling in lymph nodes in the neck and other parts of the body.
Arthritis in children can cause eye inflammation and growth problems and can cause bones and joints to grow unevenly.
In the UK, about 15,000 children and young people are affected by arthritis.
The specs: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
Price, base: Dh399,999
Engine: Supercharged 6.2-litre V8
Gearbox: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 707hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 875Nm @ 4,800rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 16.8L / 100km (estimate)
WandaVision
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany
Directed by: Matt Shakman
Rating: Four stars
Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Revibe%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202022%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hamza%20Iraqui%20and%20Abdessamad%20Ben%20Zakour%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Refurbished%20electronics%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20raised%20so%20far%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2410m%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFlat6Labs%2C%20Resonance%20and%20various%20others%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
