Middle East

A new bill drafted to create a “hostile environment” for asylum seekers will include tough new powers to strip pubs, liquor stores and takeaways of their licenses and shut down firms that hire illegal immigrants in the UK.

Criminal gangs from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam earn up to €4m each year ferrying vulnerable migrants across the Mediterranean who have fled their homelands and are desperate to carve out a new life in Britain.

Sir John Chilcot fears a legal onslaught from those who are sharply criticized in his Iraq War Inquiry report and is refusing to be pressured into setting a concrete deadline for its release, a source familiar with the inquiry says.

Shadowy pockets of the financial sector, NGOs and charities are increasingly vulnerable to “terrorist financing abuse” as lone actors seek to unleash domestic terror attacks, a British analyst says.

Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn dismissed allegations on Monday he knowingly associated with Holocaust deniers, calling such claims “ludicrous.” The anti-war advocate insisted any attempt to deny the Holocaust “is vile and wrong.”

Peace activists have condemned the British government’s campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, insisting continued bombing of the region will fail to defeat the terror group and lead to further civilian fatalities.

As impressionable and vulnerable young Britons are considered at risk of radicalization, dozens may be taken into state care. Others have had their passports confiscated amid fears of extremist Islamist indoctrination.

The IAEA will have no problem monitoring uranium production in Iran, the problem will come when the agency is asked to look into things where they have no expertise like explosives, detonators, missiles, says former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley.

As long as the Afghan government aligns itself with the US, which is keeping troops, planes, special operations and drones to bomb targets in Afghanistan or Pakistan, there will be no peace, says former US Marine Matthew Hoh.