Condemned leaders
Former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity, for using lethal force against student protests last year. But on past records, she might yet live to an advanced age. The last national leader to be executed was Saddam Hussein in 2006, during the Allied occupation of Iraq. Other leaders sentenced to death in their country’s courts have fared better:
— Emile Derlin Zinsou, installed as president of Dahomey (now Benin) after a coup in 1968, was sentenced to death in 1975. That was rescinded and he returned to Benin in 1990. He died aged 98 in 2016.
— Chun Doo-hwan, who led a coup in South Korea in 1979, was sentenced to death in 1996, later commuted to life imprisonment. He died in 2021 aged 90.
— Pervez Musharraf was sentenced to death for leading the military coup which brought him to power in Pakistan in 1999. The sentence was overturned and he went on to live until the age of 80, dying in 2023.
Returning migrants
The Home Secretary announced that she is to ban UK visas being issued to nationals of Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo over their failure to take back failed asylum seekers from Britain. How many illegal migrants does Britain return?
— In the six-month period from 3 July 2024 to 4 January 2025, 16,400 migrants were returned to their home countries (4,390 were enforced returns and 2,590 were foreign offenders). In that period, 34 charter flights were flown to return migrants.
— By comparison, over the whole course of 2024, 36,816 illegal migrants arrived in small boats.
Careworn
How much is the state spending on social care? In 2024/25 the bill came to £34.5bn, an increase of 8% on the previous year.
— The average cost of residential/nursing care was £1,185 per week, the most expensive being in London (£1,309) and the least in the north-east (£1,012).
— However, the largest single expense for the over-65s was care in the community (£11.6bn). Residential care cost £7.9bn, nursing care £3bn.
Post combat
How safe was life in the armed forces after operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ended?
Between 1 January 2015 and 30 September 2025 there were 3 battle injuries and 1,433 non-battle injuries. There were 19 fatalities, only one of which was in battle.
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