Markus Andrews

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreThe Israeli government has attacked David Lammy for using X (formerly Twitter) for diplomacy after he posted strong criticism about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.Less than 24 hours after the foreign secretary attended the Labour Friends of Israel annual lunch and met the mother of a hostage held by Hamas, he has provoked a row with Israel over his joint statement on the war in Gaza.Amid growing concerns over the humanitarian situation in Gaza following thousands of deaths and reports that aid angencies cannot get access, Mr Lammy and his German and French counterparts (the E3 group) agreed today to sennd an ultimatum to the Israeli government.Mr Lammy then posted on social media: “Together with France and Germany, I have written to the Israeli government to urge action on the unacceptable humanitarian situation in Gaza. Israel must implement the UN‘s winter plan now: send equipment to guard against cold & flooding, give access to fuel, repair vital infrastructure, and get aid in.”David Lammy More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreThere are growing fears that the government is preparing to greenlight the continued provision of financial assistance to countries that have overseen appalling human rights abuses, despite previously being extremely critical of the policy. It comes as a review into human rights abuses overseas is seemingly turning into a rubber-stamping process with no consultation of major campaign groups having yet taken place. The government’s review of the UK’s Overseas Security and Justice Assistance guidance (OSJA), which was launched by the previous Tory administration, is designed to prevent UK assistance from contributing to human rights abuses abroad.The UK’s current policy does not explicitly prohibit British involvement in countries accused of human rights abuses, including the death penalty and torture.The guidance currently acknowledges that it is “important that we work with a wide range of countries”, including territories in which the UK has “concerns about human rights”.Lammy has been warned against rubber stamping the “deeply flawed” policies of the previous government More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreSir Keir Starmer looks set to lose another key ally in a blow to his plans to reset the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union.Michel Barnier looks likely to be ousted as French prime minister on Wednesday in a no-confidence motion after he pushed through a controversial budget without a vote.If passed, it will bring down the government and force Mr Barnier’s resignation after less than three months on the job.The move would be a setback to Sir Keir, who has developed a strong relationship with the French politician that dates back to his time as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator.Sir Keir has promised to fix Britain’s damaged relations with the bloc for the benefit of “generations to come”.The PM has also rejected demands that he make a choice between a trade deal with the US and closer relations with the EU in the wake of the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House.But the loss of Mr Barnier would come just weeks after the government of another key ally in Europe, Olaf Scholz, collapsed. The German chancellor is now widely expected to lose a general election scheduled for early next year.Keir Starmer and French PM Michel Barnier last month More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead more TikTok took down several networks that tried to meddle in Romania’s elections, executives said Tuesday as they defended the company’s election integrity measures to European Union lawmakers. The video-sharing platform is a focus of controversy in the Eastern European country after far-right outsider Calin Georgescu emerged as the frontrunner in the vote, plunging the country into turmoil amid allegations of electoral violations and Russian meddling. Among the networks that TikTok uncovered were two small groups that it disrupted on Friday, days after the first round of voting, Brie Pegum, the platform’s global head of product, authenticity and transparency, told a committee.Both networks targeted Romanian users. One had only 1,781 followers and supported Georgescu, who was a little-known independent candidate until he set off shockwaves by convincingly winning the first round of voting, beating out the incumbent prime minister. The other networks supported different candidates, Pegum said. Many observers chalked up Georgescu’s success to his TikTok account, which now has 5.8 million likes and 527,000 followers. He gained huge traction and popularity in the weeks leading up to the first vote. But experts suspect Georgescu’s online following was artificially inflated while officials hinted that he was given preferential treatment by TikTok. The controversy highlights how TikTok has become a key election tool in Romania, an EU and NATO member state that shares a long border with war-torn Ukraine. TikTok applied its “global playbook” for the Romanian election and took a local approach with staff on the ground, said Caroline Greer, the company’s top lobbyist in the EU. Greer and Pegum were being grilled by EU lawmakers about Tiktok’s role in the Romanian vote as well as its compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Services Act, a sweeping set of regulations designed to protect users online from illegal or harmful content. Greer said TikTok deployed 95 Romanian language content moderators, worked with a fact-checking group and met with political parties and a number of different authorities including the country’s electoral authority. But many lawmakers were not satisfied with their responses. “The feeling here is that we are losing patience … and that we need more specific answers,” said Dirk Gotink, a Dutch member of the European Parliament. He also questioned what the scores of Romanian content moderators were doing during the election, and compared Pegum and Greer to firefighters TikTok sent to put out a fire.“They come, they let the fire rage online for weeks, months, during an election. And then they send very nice people here into this committee to answer questions in a very polite way,” Gotink said. “But it is simply not convincing — and it also doesn’t reflect what is happening online.”According to a report by the Bucharest-based Expert Forum think tank, Georgescu’s TikTok account garnered 92.8 million views primarily within the last few months, a figure that grew by 52 million views a week later, just days ahead of the first-round vote.Another TikTok account solely featuring Georgescu content, which had 1.7 million likes on the night first-round polls closed, was removed the day after voting. It had posts with Georgescu attending church, doing judo, running around an oval track, and speaking on podcasts.In an emailed statement to The Associated Press on Monday, TikTok said the account was one of “more than 150 accounts impersonating Georgescu” to date that has been removed, but added: “We also removed more than 650 additional impersonation accounts belonging to other candidates.”Georgescu will face reformist Elena Lasconi, of the progressive Save Romania Union party, in a presidential runoff on Sunday.—-AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan reported from London. __This story corrects the spelling of lawmaker Dirk Gotink’s name. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreJess Phillips has become the latest high profile politician to come out and condemn Gregg Wallace, saying the MasterChef host “missed the perfect opportunity to say nothing”.The often outspoken Home Office minister was reserved in her criticism, and stressed that she supported the BBC’s decision not to take the cooking show off air while he is investigated.But her pointed comment about Mr Wallace’s comments, after he said complaints against him were coming from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”, make her one of many Westminster figures speaking out.Below is a list of those who have commented on the allegations against Mr Wallace:Keir StarmerSir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman on Monday condemned Mr Wallace’s remarks as “completely inappropriate and misogynistic”.Keir Starmer’s official spokesman on Monday condemned Mr Wallace’s remarks More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreThe gaffe-prone leader of the Welsh Conservatives has resigned following a vote of no confidence.Andrew RT Davies said he was standing down “with regret” and conceded that as a “substantial minority’’ of his party did not support him, his position was “untenable’’. In his resignation letter, he hit out at his critics, praising Tory members who helped the party “not out of financial motivation or in the interests of personal gain, but because they believe passionately in conservative values and in the United Kingdom as our nation state. This stands in direct contrast to some Conservative Senedd members.”He added that in recent months “it has become increasingly difficult” to take the political approach he wanted “due to resistance from some members within the Senedd Group”.Davies referenced ‘resistance’ within the Conservatives in Welsh parliament in his resignaton letter More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreSir Keir Starmer ruled out discussing a return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece in his meeting with his Greek counterpart on Tuesday despite claims from Athens that progress had been made on the issue.While Downing Street insisted that the ancient sculptures would not be on the agenda for the bilateral meeting between the Sir Keir and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a Greek government official said progress has been made and it will be discussed further on Tuesday.The Greek official told The Times: “Progress for the return of the Parthenon marbles has been made by the two sides and that is why Mitsotakis is meeting today with the British prime minister. Nothing is in hiding. Nothing is hidden.”But ahead of the meeting, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “It’s not going to be on the prime minister’s agenda. His focus will be on support for Ukraine, the urgent need for a ceasefire in Gaza.”( More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreThe UK’s reliance on technology across government, businesses and people’s personal lives has left us more vulnerable to potentially devastating online attacks, the head of the cyber security agency warned.National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) chief Richard Horne said the threat was “getting broader and in some parts deeper”, with online criminals and state-backed hackers from countries such as Russia and China looking to exploit vulnerabilities.He said since taking on the role at the NCSC in October, he was both more concerned because of the “stark truth about the risk” but also more reassured because of the strength of the UK’s cyber defence community.The head of the NCSC, part of the GCHQ intelligence agency, told the PA news agency: “We’re seeing the threat getting broader and in some parts, deeper.“So where it’s getting broader is we’re seeing more and more cyber criminals able to have quite devastating effects on organisations and customers of those organisations, or people who rely on those services.”And “in some cases, it is going deeper” with more sophisticated attacks being carried out around the world, he added.“That tends to be more in the theatre of war, as it were, but there’s always the possibility of that sort of those really sophisticated attacks spilling over, which we’ve seen in the past.”In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government and state-aligned hackers have sought to target countries including Ukraine to support the war there – but also Nato members including the UK.Mr Horne said: “In some ways, the breadth of threat is really criminals, and those criminals might be in Russia, and they might be kind of state-aligned rather than state-directed.“But the breadth of threats that most organisations in the UK need to think about is criminal threat, and especially ransomware, because of the devastation it can cause.”Hackers from China have been blamed for hacking the Electoral Commission’s database and targeting MPs’ emails.Mr Horne told PA: “China are a very capable cyber actor and they’re certainly establishing their position in the world.“And for us it comes back to: where are we exposed, where are we vulnerable, how are we managing our risk?“As geopolitics unfolds and different actors assert their position more, we need to be ready to assert our position, and part of that is defence.”The last government took action to remove Chinese firm Huawei from the UK’s 5G mobile network because of security concerns.But with the proliferation of Chinese technology across all aspects of life, Mr Horne insisted the country that technology originated from was not the main factor in determining risk.He said: “I think in some ways, one of my colleagues had a great expression, ‘the flag is not a great indicator of risk’.“It’s more a case of ‘what is that technology taking out and what information is leaving’ and it’s not necessarily going to one place or another and it doesn’t really matter, from the perspective of defence, where it’s going because attackers can misuse it.“It’s more a case of more and more technology is impeding on our lives, we are depending on it more, and as a result, data is leaving us to go elsewhere, and that’s very much part of the risk we need to understand.”The NCSC’s annual review showed a threefold increase in the most serious cyber incidents affecting the UK in 2023-24, but Mr Horne warned the danger is still being “widely underestimated” by both public and private sector organisations and individuals.Asked whether it was the Government, companies or individuals failing to understand the risk, Mr Horne said: “I think it’s everyone … The extent to which technology is taking our information and moving it elsewhere, the extent to which organisations rely on their supply chains, and those supply chains have all sorts of risks that they haven’t considered.“The extent to which organisations apply basic security controls consistently everywhere and not just at the core – they all kind of add up to not properly understanding the extent of exposure and the extent of vulnerability.“And at the same time, the threat is getting broader. So add all of that together and it’s a growing risk.”Mr Horne joined NCSC from professional services giant PwC in October. Asked whether he was more concerned or more reassured as a result of his time at the cyber defence agency, he said: “I think you’re more concerned because you do see the stark truth about the risk, but more reassured because there is so much happening.”The NCSC was part of a cyber defence community “and I think if there’s one thing we have in this country that is probably better than anywhere else, it’s the way we can pull together as that community across all parts of society and protect ourselves together”.In a speech launching the agency’s annual review at its headquarters in London, Mr Horne said the UK relied on online infrastructure “to keep the lights on and the water running, to improve our public services, to keep businesses running, and to drive our growth and prosperity”.“But those critical systems and services make attractive targets for hostile states and malicious actors in cyberspace.“They are increasingly using our technology dependence against us, seeking to cause maximum disruption and destruction.” More