We have a photo below that tells a thousand words of the week.
Launching the Reform party’s plans for a "deportation command" to tackle the small boats in the English Channel, leader Nigel Farage and sidekick Zia Yusuf said the legal obstacles to mass deportations could be removed by pulling out of international treaties and repealing UK human rights laws.
Mr Farage told an event at an airport in Oxford that the number of deportations that could be achieved over the lifetime of the next five-year parliament is about 600,000.
Polls show Reform has the support of about 30 per cent of the electorate, making it the most popular party currently, ahead of Labour on 21 per cent and the Conservatives on 17 per cent.
Nigel Farage, left, and Zia Yusuf of Reform. EPA
Foreign policy has been a contributor to the crisis as much as domestic maladministration.
I've written this week on one aspect of the migration crisis, even as it is poised to get worse.
A fierce focus on the moral rights of those affected by UK policies remains important and necessary. London can show it still has a moral dimension to its asylum policies.
Remember the Afghan data breach scandal that was revealed earlier in the summer? Since the Taliban takeover, more than 36,000 Afghans have been resettled in the UK. Thousands have spent years living an almost underground existence in Pakistan waiting for clearance and visas.
Many had served as fellow fighters, translators and local advisers within the UK military and diplomatic missions.
Billions have been spent and the government was forced into a cover-up over a data leak that exposed more than 18,000 Afghans who had applied. The government finally withdrew attempts to censor news of the leak in July and said it would honour a commitment to take in any outstanding applicants for resettlement in the UK.
Speaking then, John Healey, the Defence Secretary, confirmed there were applications in the UK’s system still to be processed and promised officials would “complete that job”.
The question marks over that pledge are pretty obvious, too.
A generation of one million Syrian refugees are choosing new German roots over the allure of their homeland, with fewer than 2,000 taking up a cash offer to return since the fall of Bashar Al Assad.
Research by Tim Stickings for The National has found that Syrians who started arriving en masse a decade ago are sticking with their new lives.
Then-German chancellor Angela Merkel poses for a selfie with Anas Modamani, a refugee from Syria, in Berlin in 2015. Getty Images / The National
The dramatic scenes of 2015 spawned a word in German, Willkommenskultur (welcome culture). Masses of people, carrying little but the clothes on their backs across Europe, slept at train stations, lit campfires in the streets and persuaded Germans to open their doors.
In interviews, Syrian-Germans say much has changed since. A new government in Berlin preaches border closures and deportations. A new government in Damascus has begun rebuilding from civil war, raising the question of whether Syrians still need asylum in Europe.
Yet many now have deep roots in Germany, with children born and raised there who never knew the old Syria. As a result, the attitude to going back has changed for those feeling the pull of two lands.
“We are not between two worlds – we are the bridge that connects them,” says one of the 2015 generation, Ahmad Al Hamid.
The complex nature of arranging exits from Gaza for scholars seeking to take up hard-won places at British universities is testing the UK government before the start of the academic year next month.
UK officials are boosting efforts on behalf of the Chevening Scholars and other students in Gaza seeking safe departures.
Nine students from Gaza who were awarded the UK government’s Chevening Scholarship will be evacuated to Amman or Cairo, where they can have their biometrics processed before coming to Britain. A total of about 40 students are set to be eligible for support to head to the UK.
“We are working urgently to support Chevening Scholars in Gaza who have offers from British universities to leave and take up their places in the UK,” a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office representative told The National. “We are doing everything we can to support their safe exit and onward travel to the UK, but the situation on the ground in Gaza makes this extremely challenging.”
But the students with scholarships to UK universities from private foundations and the British Council are at risk of being left behind, campaigners warn, as they face a hurdle in getting their biometric details processed.
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Key findings of Jenkins report
Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
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On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
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Jetour T1 specs
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The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 640hp
Torque: 760nm
On sale: 2026
Price: Not announced yet
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024. It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine. Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages]. The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts. With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians. Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved. Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world. The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
Priority access to new homes from participating developers
Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
Flexible payment plans from developers
Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened. He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia. Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”. Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Specs
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