Top story: ‘Is that mummy?’ Heartwarming scene at airport
Hello, I’m Warren Murray with the things that are making headlines this morning.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has touched down on British soil for the first time since she was detained in Iran six years ago. Wearing a blue dress and a yellow scarf, the colours of Ukraine, Zaghari-Ratcliffe stepped off a plane at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in the early hours of this morning. Alongside 44-year-old Zaghari-Ratcliffe as she disembarked was fellow British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, who was also released from jail in Iran on Wednesday.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was seen hugging and carrying her seven-year-old daughter, Gabriella, inside the airport reception building where they were surrounded by other family members, including her husband, Richard, who campaigned for years for her release. Gabriella was heard asking “is that mummy?” as her mother disembarked the flight. Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori had been accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and of spying respectively. As part of years-long negotiations, the UK is understood to have agreed to pay £393.8m owed to Iran since it cancelled an order of Chieftain tanks after the overthrow of the Shah in the revolution of 1979.
A third British detainee, Morad Tahbaz, has been released from prison on furlough but remains in Iran. All three deny the charges. Liz Truss, the British foreign secretary, said on Thursday morning that the government would “continue to work intensively” for the freedom of Tahbaz. Iran is treating Tahbaz, 66, as an American citizen, even though he was born in Hammersmith, west London, and holds US, UK and Iranian citizenship. The Tahbaz family told the Guardian they felt “let down and betrayed by the British government … The British now just say he is an American problem.”
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‘Weapons and sanctions’ – Volodymyr Zelenskiy has likened the “siege of Mariupol” to Leningrad while promising that “every Russian soldier who lays down his arms will get a chance to survive.” In a video address, the Ukrainian president said: “The Russian army is suffering losses that it did not see in Syria or Chechnya; that Soviet troops [didn’t have] in Afghanistan.”
Joe Biden has called Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” as Ukrainian officials accused Russian forces of further atrocities in Mariupol, including an airstrike on a theatre where hundreds of displaced people were believed to have been sheltering and a strike on a swimming pool where pregnant women and young children had gathered. Zelenskiy’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba has said the “fierce resistance” of Ukrainian forces and citizens is forcing Russian negotiators into concessions, whether the Kremlin admits it or not. In a CNN interview, Kuleba discussed what was needed to strengthen Ukrainian negotiators’ hand: “Weapons and sanctions, and the rest will be done by Ukraine.” Keep up with developments at our live blog.
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Second job curbs dumped – Plans to cap MPs’ earnings from second jobs have been dropped, only months after the issue plunged the government into crisis, the Guardian can reveal. Boris Johnson pledged to clamp down after the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal and furore over Geoffrey Cox earning nearly £6m as a lawyer since joining parliament – voting by proxy on days he was doing paid work. Now, the government has told the Commons standards committee it no longer backs limits on hours or amount of work. The government said it would support reforms to restrict the type of outside work, but did not set out what these restrictions should be, other than banning “paid parliamentary advice, consultancy, or strategy services”. In contrast, the Committee for Standards in Public Life has suggested an “objective means of setting reasonable limits” on earnings by MPs from second jobs.
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‘Denial of structural racism’ – Ministers will drop the term black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME), more closely scrutinise police stop and search, and draft a model history curriculum to teach Britain’s “complex” past in response to the Sewell report on racial disparities. Launched as a response to the Black Lives Matter protests, the report caused controversy when it was published last year for broadly rejecting the idea of institutional racism in the UK. In the government’s response, called Inclusive Britain, ministers acknowledge racism exists but stress the importance of other factors. Taiwo Owatemi, Labour’s shadow equalities minister, said the report still “agrees with the original report’s denial of structural racism. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have once again failed to deliver meaningful action.” The report sets out a long list of policies, some new and others already in place.
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Pensioners mired in poverty – One in five pensioners – more than 2 million people – are living in relative poverty in the UK, according to the Centre for Ageing Better’s annual State of Ageing report, published today. It says inequalities within older generations are some of the most extreme in society: the wealth of the richest 20% doubled between 2002 and 2018, while that of the poorest 20% fell a third. In a YouGov poll, more than 80% of respondents said the government was failing to ensure a decent life for older people. Ministers meanwhile are under growing pressure to soften the impact of the cost of living crisis amid fresh warnings that millions of low-income households risk sliding into further debt, hunger and poverty. More than 50 charities are urging ministers to uprate all benefits in line with inflation, which is projected to be running at 7.25% by April, instead of the planned benefits increase of 3.1%.
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Spies in UK undisturbed – New laws to make it easier to expel Russian spies and other foreign agents need to be urgently speeded up in light of the Ukraine crisis, opposition parties have said, with the UK lagging behind other nations in tackling interference. Laws forcing foreign agents to sign a register were promised in last year’s Queen’s speech. The government fast-tracked its economic crime bill to help speed up sanctions against oligarchs this week, but the bill to deal with espionage has never been published, even in draft form. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the US has expelled 12 Russian diplomats that it accuses of being spies; at the same time the UK has not expelled any diplomats or spies.
Today in Focus podcast: Refugees now welcome here
People in Britain have been signing up in their thousands to offer a place in their homes to those seeking refuge from the war on Ukraine. Recent government policy sits at odds with this spirit of generosity, says Amelia Gentleman.
Lunchtime read: Kenya’s quiet slide underwater
Kenya’s great lakes are flooding, in a devastating and long-ignored environmental disaster that is displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Plate tectonics? Climate change? Or a cyclical phenomenon last seen in the 1940s? Carey Baraka examines the theories and visits the areas affected.
Sport
Jürgen Klopp promised Manchester City a “proper fight” for the title after ruthlessly efficient Liverpool pulled to within a point of the longstanding league leaders with a 2-0 win over Arsenal. In the Champions League, Chelsea survived a scare as Christian Pulisic and César Azpilicueta helped fend off Lille to progress to the last eight as the club’s off-field turbulence continues. Three late goals earned Villarreal a stunning 3-0 second-leg victory at Juventus to condemn the Serie A side to a last-16 exit for the third successive season. Manchester United are monitoring Thomas Tuchel’s situation at Chelsea as they intensify their search for a new manager and also have Sevilla’s Julen Lopetegui on their shortlist.
Joe Root scored his 25th Test century but Dan Lawrence was out to the last ball of the first day of the second Test against West Indies as England reached 244 for three at stumps. Emma Hayes cautioned that Chelsea have the tougher run in after her side cut Arsenal’s lead at the top of the Women’s Super League to two points with a comfortable 3-0 defeat of Everton. None of the four tennis grand slam tournaments will feature extended final sets any more after it was announced that a 10-point tie-break will be enforced. And the RSPCA is prosecuting the West Ham defender Kurt Zouma and his brother Yoan under the Animal Welfare Act, the charity has said, after a video emerged last month of a cat being kicked.
Business
The Federal Reserve raised US interest rates for the first time since 2018 yesterday and promised another six hikes this year. Today it is the turn of the Bank of England’s policy committee who must decide whether tackling inflation with another rate increase is the priority, or whether raising UK borrowing costs for a third time in succession risks tipping us into recession. The pound could benefit from the latter scenario and is up slightly today at $1.316 and €1.193. The FTSE100 is down 0.6% in futures trade.
The papers
With the war in Ukraine relegated to the second spot in most papers, the Times’ splash headline says: “Free at last, Nazanin will ‘learn to be happy again’” alongside a picture of her on the plane out of Iran. The same picture dominates the front page of the Guardian as well, under the headline “Zaghari-Ratcliffe released after six years in Iran jail”. The Mirror goes with a domestic angle: “Home … for a nice cuppa” after her husband said she was looking forward to one.
The Telegraph says “‘Mummy really is coming home’” and the Daily Mail also likes the family line with the splash headline “Mummy’s home at last!”. The Express speaks to the picture of Zaghari-Ratcliffe with the headline “Smile that says: I’m free”. The i’s headline is almost the same while its main story is “Russia bombs theatre being used as shelter”.
The Financial Times has “Zaghari-Ratcliffe released from Iran after UK pays $530m debt”. But it too leads on Ukraine with “Moscow and Kyiv explore neutrality plan in peace talks”. The Metro leads with “Nazanin jets home”.
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