Protesters need support following the bloody crackdown by a ‘zombie’ regime – not wild threats or worse from the US president
The brutality of Iran’s crackdown on protesters is almost unfathomable. Despite the authorities cutting off communications and destroying evidence, it is clear that a regime never reluctant to shed its citizens’ blood has done so with unprecedented zeal, sensing an unprecedented threat from unrest across the country, challenging not only its policies but its very existence.
Officials have reported 3,000 deaths, but human rights groups have tallied many more, and a network of medical professionals has estimated that 30,000 could have been killed. Security forces shot people dead as they fled a fire and are arresting doctors for helping the wounded.
Continue reading...A ground rent cap is a good start, but ministers need to go further in reforming an unjust system
Changes to lease agreements, leading to steeply increasing ground rents over recent years, are an outrage. An estimated 18% of leaseholders in England and Wales – around 1m households – have a so-called “modern ground rent” lease, with escalating charges that make it impossible in many cases to remortgage or sell. Cost-of-living pressures, including food and energy price rises, make it all the more urgent that their situation is addressed. Angela Rayner was right to argue in the Guardian last week that ministers must pick a side.
This market should never have been allowed to develop in the way that it has. An investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority found no evidence that leaseholders get anything for these annual fees – which are separate from service charges that pay for the maintenance of common areas. Campaigners for leasehold abolition are right that the rent-seeking behaviour of freeholders is wrong. Mortgage lenders, as well as politicians, should have put their feet down years ago.
Continue reading...New study into ‘heritability’ shows that 50% of the variation in human lifespan could be down to genetics
Some people who live to a great age put it down to an evening tot of whisky, others to staying out of trouble. Now scientists think they may have unlocked a key secret to long life – quite simply, genetics.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers described how previous studies that had attempted to unpick the genetic component of human lifespan had not taken into account that some lives were cut short by accidents, murders, infectious diseases or other factors arising outside the body. Such “extrinsic mortality” increases with age, as people often become more frail.
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De spreidingswet gaat in februari een nieuwe ronde in. Afgelopen twee jaar werden duizenden extra opvangplekken voor asielzoekers ingericht, toch is het doel nog niet gehaald. Met verkiezingen in het verschiet, blijken gemeenten terughoudend. „Er is nieuwe energie nodig.”
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NEW YORK (ANP) - De secretaris-generaal van de Verenigde Naties roept de Verenigde Staten en Iran op een diplomatieke oplossing te zoeken. De landen hebben elkaar bedreigd met militair geweld. Volgens António Guterres moeten de landen met hulp van bemiddelaars in gesprek.
Iran heeft oefeningen aangekondigd in de Straat van Hormuz waarbij met scherp wordt geschoten. De Amerikaanse president Donald Trump dreigde ook met oorlogsschepen als er niet snel een deal ligt die kernwapens onmogelijk maakt. "De tijd raakt op, het is echt essentieel!", schreef hij. Hij dreigde dat een "enorme armada" onderweg is die anders "met snelheid en geweld" ingrijpt.
De VN willen niet dat Iran kernwapens ontwikkelt en Iran zegt dat ook niet van plan te zijn, aldus Guterres. "Dus als dat het geval is, is aan alle voorwaarden voldaan voor serieuze onderhandelingen. En ik moedig alle partijen aan om serieus te onderhandelen om een confrontatie te voorkomen. Dat zou een tragedie zijn."
