Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel has stood by her plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda despite being urged to change course in talks with the United Nations refugee agency.
Ms Patel defended the scheme at a meeting in Geneva with UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta and other diplomats, insisting she was trying to save lives by deterring dangerous English Channel crossings.
But Mr Grandi, who said his agency was proposing “concrete alternatives” to Ms Patel, did not back down on his criticism of a plan which he and some activists consider a potential breach of international refugee law.
“Shifting asylum responsibilities is not the solution,” he said after the talks ended with no sign of the two sides seeing eye-to-eye.
Ms Patel, who overruled concerns from her department’s top official to announce the Rwanda plan last month, promised to work with UN agencies but maintained that the deportations would not break human rights laws.
The partnership with Rwanda would "deter criminality, exploitation and abuse, while supporting the humane and respectful treatment of refugees”, she said after briefing US, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand officials on the deal.
Thousands of people have crossed the English Channel in small boats already this year, posing a political and logistical headache to UK ministers. Britain and France have previously blamed each other for failing to stop the people-smuggling trade.
Rwanda last month signed up to the arrangement after being offered £120 million ($150m) in development assistance and funding to provide accommodation for the incoming refugees. Britain and Rwanda have played down concerns about the African nation's human rights record.
Mr Biruta said UNHCR was entitled to its views but Rwanda had “no reason to doubt our motivations or our ability to offer sanctuary” because 130,000 people already take shelter in the country.
The African country has a “long history of offering those in need safety, dignity, and protection”, he said, citing a recent UNHCR-run evacuation from Libya to Rwanda.
Campaigners revealed this week that they had been told the Rwanda flights would not begin until June 6 at the earliest, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said dozens of people had already been selected for deportation.
Asylum seekers still in Britain are to be housed at a reception centre in Linton-on-Ouse, nicknamed the “Yorkshire Guantanamo” by campaigners in reference to the US detention camp.
The Home Office revealed late on Thursday that Ms Patel planned to visit the village to hear objections from residents that a former Royal Air Force base will be turned into an asylum centre.
“The villagers are in crisis and I mean crisis right now,” local resident Aundrea Watson said at a two-hour consultation with civil servants in Linton.
She accused officials of “not taking on board” that the 1,500 asylum seekers expected to live at the camp would dwarf the village’s population of 300, making her feel unsafe.
“I don’t think you are grasping the concept of what you are doing to our community,” she said.
But Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab came to Ms Patel’s defence on Friday, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that refugees were being encouraged to use legal routes to the UK.
He cited the “big-hearted welcome” offered to refugees from Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine as evidence that Britain was not turning its back on people fleeing persecution.
Tony Smith, a former head of the UK Border Force, told the same programme that "the jury's still out" on whether the Rwanda plan would really deter migrants if they are desperate to reach Europe.
But he sympathised with ministers on the grounds that it was hard to return people to their countries of origin, while reaching consensus with the European Union has proved difficult.
"Migrants know that they really simply need to get into UK territorial waters and they're into the UK pretty well permanently," Mr Smith said. "That's the business model that the government is trying to break."
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
Pharaoh's curse
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.
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Where to Find Me by Alba Arikha
Alma Books
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
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The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
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Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation while their claim is assessed.
The Home Office provides the accommodation, meaning asylum seekers cannot choose where they live.
When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to hotels or large sites like former military bases.
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
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
2.0
Director: S Shankar
Producer: Lyca Productions; presented by Dharma Films
Cast: Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
RESULTS
Bantamweight:
Zia Mashwani (PAK) bt Chris Corton (PHI)
Super lightweight:
Flavio Serafin (BRA) bt Mohammad Al Khatib (JOR)
Super lightweight:
Dwight Brooks (USA) bt Alex Nacfur (BRA)
Bantamweight:
Tariq Ismail (CAN) bt Jalal Al Daaja (JOR)
Featherweight:
Abdullatip Magomedov (RUS) bt Sulaiman Al Modhyan (KUW)
Middleweight:
Mohammad Fakhreddine (LEB) bt Christofer Silva (BRA)
Middleweight:
Rustam Chsiev (RUS) bt Tarek Suleiman (SYR)
Welterweight:
Khamzat Chimaev (SWE) bt Mzwandile Hlongwa (RSA)
Lightweight:
Alex Martinez (CAN) bt Anas Siraj Mounir (MAR)
Welterweight:
Jarrah Al Selawi (JOR) bt Abdoul Abdouraguimov (FRA)
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PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
The bio
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite travel destination: Maldives and south of France
Favourite pastime: Family and friends, meditation, discovering new cuisines
Favourite Movie: Joker (2019). I didn’t like it while I was watching it but then afterwards I loved it. I loved the psychology behind it.
Favourite Author: My father for sure
Favourite Artist: Damien Hurst
