A people smuggler who tried to run the operation from his London barber shop has been jailed for 10 years.
Gul Wali Jabarkhel, 33, tried to recruit lorry drivers with the promise of £2,500 ($3,137) per person they smuggled into the UK from France or Belgium.
Jabarkhel, who claimed to have links with Albanian criminals, aborted the first run from Belgium in November 2020 and flew to Afghanistan with an accomplice, Baz Mohammed Jabarkhil, 47.
British authorities then frustrated their attempts to return and the pair were forced to turn to the same lorry drivers to bring them back to the UK.
Two other British-based associates of Jabarkhel were arrested after they paid a lorry driver in cash, at a service station, north of London, to bring them over.
Jabarkhel eventually managed to get back to the UK but was later arrested at his barber shop in north-west London in July 2021.
Two months later, Jabarkhil arrived in the UK by small boat and was detained by border officials before he was arrested.
The four men were convicted after a trial in April. Jabarkhel was jailed for 10 years, Jabarkhil for five, while the other two men received shorter sentences.
Chris Hill, of the National Crime Agency, said: “This group were seeking to profit from the clandestine movement of vulnerable migrants, driven by money and more concerned with detection at the borders than the risks to human life.”
Conflict, drought, famine
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.
Zayed Sustainability Prize
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Red Joan
Director: Trevor Nunn
Starring: Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson, Tereza Srbova
Rating: 3/5 stars
Water waste
In the UAE’s arid climate, small shrubs, bushes and flower beds usually require about six litres of water per square metre, daily. That increases to 12 litres per square metre a day for small trees, and 300 litres for palm trees.
Horticulturists suggest the best time for watering is before 8am or after 6pm, when water won't be dried up by the sun.
A global report published by the Water Resources Institute in August, ranked the UAE 10th out of 164 nations where water supplies are most stretched.
The Emirates is the world’s third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada.
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
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Manchester City (0) v Liverpool (3)
Uefa Champions League, quarter-final, second leg
Where: Etihad Stadium
When: Tuesday, 10.45pm
Live on beIN Sports HD
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Mica
Director: Ismael Ferroukhi
Stars: Zakaria Inan, Sabrina Ouazani
3 stars
Sweet%20Tooth
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
