LONDON: The British government will roll out the use of medication to suppress the sex drive of sex offenders, as part of a package of measures to reduce the risk of reoffending and alleviate the pressures on the prison system, which is running out of space.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Thursday that so-called chemical castration would be used in 20 prisons in two regions and that she was considering making it mandatory.
“Of course, it is vital that this approach is taken alongside psychological interventions that target other causes of offending, like asserting power and control,” she said in a statement to Parliament following the release of an independent sentencing review,
Though the review highlighted the treatment wouldn’t be relevant for some sex offenders such as rapists driven by power and control, rather than sexual preoccupation, Mahmood said that studies show that chemical castration can lead to a 60 percent reduction in reoffending.
It’s been used in Germany and Denmark on a voluntary basis, and in Poland as mandatory for some offenders.
The recommendation was part of a wide-ranging review led by former Justice Secretary David Gauke. As well as looking at ways to cut reoffending, Gauke recommended reforms to overhaul the prisons system, which is running at near capacity.
One of the first things Mahmood did as justice minister after Labour returned to power after 14 years last July was sanction an early-release program for prisoners to free up space. She says she inherited a judicial system that had been neglected for years by the previous Conservative government and set up the review as a means to stabilize it.
“If our prisons collapse, courts are forced to suspend trials,” she said. “The police must halt their arrests, crime goes unpunished, criminals run amok and chaos reigns. We face the breakdown of law and order in this country.”
The review recommended that criminals could be released from prison earlier than they are now for good behavior, while judges could be given more flexibility to impose punishments such as driving bans. It also recommended that sentences of less than 12 months would also be scrapped for tougher community sentences. It also called for the immediate deportation for foreign nationals handed a three-year sentence or less.
The review called for higher investment in the probation service to allow officers to spend more time with offenders for their rehabilitation and extra funding for the many more who are monitored with electronic tags in the community.
Mahmood responded by giving a 700 million-pound a year for probation within years.
“If the government doesn’t put the resources into probation that is necessary, then the risk here is that we won’t make progress on rehabilitation that we need, and there will be a public backlash against it,” Gauke said.
The prison population in England and Wales has doubled over the past three decades or so to nearly 90,000. That’s despite a fall in crime rates and is driven in part by the fact that longer sentences are being handed out amid pressure to be tough on crime.
Robert Jenrick, the justice spokesman for the Conservatives, warned that scrapping short sentences would be effectively “decriminalizing” offenses like burglary, theft and assault. And monitoring tags, he said, are as useful as “smoke alarms putting out bonfires” in stopping reoffending.
In response, Mahmood said that she was clearing up the mess left by the Conservatives and that the government has also embarked on the largest expansion of prisons since Victorian times in the 19th century.
UK will roll out chemical castration for sex offenders
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UK will roll out chemical castration for sex offenders
Macron turns to politics on second day of UK state visit
The number of migrants arriving on England’s southern coast via small boats from northern France is a major political issue for Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer is expected to push the French leader to do more to stop the crossings when the two leaders meet over lunch at the prime minister’s 10 Downing Street residence.
London hopes to strike a “one in, one out” deal to send small boat migrants back to the continent, in exchange for the UK accepting asylum seekers in Europe who have a British link, the domestic PA news agency reported.
After he took power a year ago, Starmer promised to “smash the gangs” getting thousands of migrants onto the small boats, only to see numbers rise to record levels.
More than 21,000 migrants have crossed from northern France to southeast England in rudimentary vessels this year, providing a massive headache for Starmer as the far-right soars in popularity.
In a speech to parliament Tuesday, Macron promised to deliver on measures to cut the number of migrants crossing the English Channel, describing the issue as a “burden” to both countries.
He said France and the UK had a “shared responsibility to address irregular migration with humanity, solidarity and fairness.”
The talks at Downing Street come after a first day dominated by pomp and a warm welcome from King Charles III and members of the royal family.
Tuesday’s royal welcome from King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla included a horse-drawn carriage procession, a 41-gun salute and a sumptuous banquet at Windsor Castle, west of London, for the president and his wife Brigitte.
The Macrons began the second day of their visit by paying their respects at the tomb of the late Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor’s St. George’s Chapel.
Macron then discussed biodiversity issues with the king during a stroll in the castle grounds before he bade farewell to his host and headed to central London.
This is the first state visit by a French president to Britain since Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 and the first by a European Union head of state since Brexit in 2020.
After Britain’s acrimonious departure from the European Union, the two countries smoothed post-Brexit tensions in 2023 during a state visit by the famously Francophile king and a summit with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in France.
At Tuesday evening’s banquet, Charles used a speech to around 160 guests — including royals, Starmer and music icons Elton John and Mick Jagger — to warn that the two nations’ alliance was as crucial as ever amid a “multitude of complex threats.”
Charles concluded by toasting a new UK-France “entente... no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” prompting Macron to laud “this entente amicale that unites our two fraternal peoples in an unwavering alliance.”
Hours earlier, in a speech to parliament, the French president had adopted a similar tone, saying that the two countries must work together to defend the post-World War II “international order.”
On Wednesday morning, Macron was also due to meet entrepreneurs and scientists working on artificial intelligence at Imperial College London.
Later, the French president will also visit the British Museum to formally announce the loan of the famous Bayeux Tapestry depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England.
On Wednesday evening Macron will meet with the business community at a dinner held in his honor at the Guildhall, a historic building in the City of London, the capital’s financial district, with 650 guests in attendance.
Kenya’s president warns against bid to ‘overthrow’ govt by protests
NAIROBI: Kenyan President William Ruto warned Wednesday against attempts to “overthrow” the government through “unconstitutional means,” claiming recent violent protests were sponsored.
“They want to start chaos, organize protests, burn people’s property, bring disaster so as to overthrow the government before 2027... You cannot tell us that you want to organize chaos to overthrow the government!” Ruto said in Swahili.
Europe’s top human rights court is set to rule on cases against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine
- Judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will rule on four cases, brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia
THE HAGUE: Europe’s top human rights court is set to rule Wednesday on Russia’s actions in the conflict in Ukraine, including human rights violations during the full-scale invasion and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
Judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will rule on four cases, brought by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia, marking the first time an international court will adjudicate Russian culpability for the wider conflict in Ukraine dating from 2014.
Any decision will be largely symbolic. The complaints were brought before the court’s governing body expelled Moscow in 2022, following the full-scale invasion.
Families of the victims of the MH17 disaster see the decision as an important milestone in their 11-year quest for justice.
“It’s a real step in understanding who was really responsible,” Thomas Schansman, who lost his 18-year-old son Quinn in the tragedy, told The Associated Press.
The Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, using a Russian-made Buk missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by separatist rebels. All 298 passengers and crew were killed, including 196 Dutch citizens.
In May, the UN’s aviation agency found Russia responsible for the disaster.
The ECHR is an important part of the Council of Europe, which is the continent’s foremost human rights institution. Russia was expelled from the council over Moscow’s invasion and war in Ukraine. However, the court can still deal with cases against Russia dating from before its expulsion.
In 2023, the judges sided with Ukraine and the Netherlands in a challenge over jurisdiction, finding there was sufficient evidence to show areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by separatist rebels were “under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation,” including providing weapons, and giving political and economic support.
Wednesday’s ruling won’t be the last from the EHCR dealing with the war. Kyiv has other cases pending against Russia and there are nearly 10,000 cases brought by individuals against the Kremlin.
The decisions in Strasbourg are separate from a criminal prosecution in the Netherlands in which two Russians and a Ukrainian rebel were convicted in absentia of multiple murders for their roles in the downing of Flight MH17.
Meanwhile, in 2022, the United Nations’ top court ordered Russia to stop military operations in Ukraine while a case is heard, a process that takes years. Russia has flouted the order by the International Court of Justice.
Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky formally approved plans to set up a new international court to prosecute senior Russian officials for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Schansman, who has also brought an individual case to the ECHR, has no plans to stop pursuing justice, more than a decade after his son’s death. “The worst thing we could to is stop fighting,” he told AP. “MH17 is not a case that will disappear for Russia.”
Russian FM Lavrov to visit North Korea this weekend
- Russia's security chief Sergei Shoigu has visited Pyongyang multiple times this year
SEOUL: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit North Korea this weekend, state media reported, the latest in a series of high-profile visits by top Moscow officials as the two countries deepen military ties.
Lavrov "will visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from July 11 to 13 at the invitation of the DPRK Foreign Ministry," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday.
Russia's security chief Sergei Shoigu has visited Pyongyang multiple times this year, including last month, when the two countries marked the one year anniversary of the signing of a sweeping military pact.
The two heavily-sanctioned nations signed the military deal last year, including a mutual defence clause, during a rare visit by Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the nuclear-armed North.
Pyongyang has become one of Moscow's main allies during its more than three-year-long Ukraine offensive, sending thousands of troops and container loads of weapons to help the Kremlin oust Ukrainian forces from Kursk region.
Around 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded fighting for Russia, Seoul has said, with Shoigu announcing in Pyongyang last month that the nuclear-armed North would send builders and deminers to Kursk.
North Korea only confirmed it had deployed troops to support Russia's war in Ukraine in April, and admitted that its soldiers had been killed in combat.
Leader Kim Jong Un has subsequently been shown in state media images honouring the flag-draped coffins of North Korean soldiers killed helping Russia fight Ukraine.
China says EU ‘mentality’, not trade, needs to be rebalanced
- EU chief Ursula von der Leyen remarked the EU would seek to rebalance economic ties with China, demanding it eases market access for European firms and loosen export controls on rare earths
BEIJING: Beijing said on Wednesday that the European Union needed to rebalance its “mentality,” not its economic ties with China, ahead of a summit between the two this month.
“It is hoped that the European side realizes that what needs to be rebalanced right now is Europe’s mentality, not China-EU economic and trade relations,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday the EU would seek to rebalance economic ties with China, demanding it eases market access for European firms and loosen export controls on rare earths.
Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, von der Leyen said Beijing was running the largest trade surplus “in the history of mankind” exporting vast amounts to the EU while making it harder for European companies to do business in China.
The trade deficit between China and the EU was a yawning $357 billion in 2024.
The commission leader, who will travel to Beijing with European Council President Antonio Costa, said the pair will seek to loosen export restrictions on rare earths — while Brussels also looks at “developing alternative supply resources.”
Beijing snapped back on Wednesday, saying that in the “current turbulent situation,” the bloc and China should “properly handle divergences and frictions.”
“We hope that the European Union will truly establish a more objective and rational understanding of China and pursue a more positive and pragmatic China policy,” Mao said.
