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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, brought forward his speech on new relations with the European Union from 22 January when it was realised that it was the 50th anniversary of the Elysée treaty between Germany and France. Britain went to war in Mali by sending two transport planes in support of the French invasion directed against Islamist groups. The rights of a British Airways employee, Nadia Eweida, had been violated by her being forbidden to wear a cross at work, the European Court of Human Rights ruled. But a marriage counsellor sacked for saying he might object to giving sex therapy advice to gay couples, a registrar who refused to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies, and a nurse who wanted to wear a necklace with a cross had not suffered violation of their rights. Liberal Democrat peers joined with the opposition to delay the reduction of MPs by 50 until 2018. Horsemeat was found in burgers sold by Tesco, Iceland, Lidl and Aldi.
HMV, with 239 shops and 4,350 employees, went into administration. Jessops, the camera chain, went into administration and its 187 shops, with 1,370 staff, were closed. Inflation measured by the CPI remained at 2.7 per cent for the third month, but as measured by the RPI it edged up from 3 to 3.1 per cent. The Office for National Statistics had earlier surprised everyone by leaving unchanged the way RPI is calculated, though it decided to publish figures in addition derived from RPIJ — the Retail Prices Index calculated by the Jevons formula. A helicopter crashed into a crane at a tower block under construction at Vauxhall in London. The City of London approved a 38-storey, 620ft tower nicknamed the Scalpel, to be built in Lime Street.
The starting salary for police constables in England and Wales is to be cut by £4,000 to £19,000, in line with recommendations of the Police Arbitration Tribunal. Old prisons at Shrewsbury, Canterbury, Gloucester, Shepton Mallet, Kingston in Portsmouth and Bullwood Hall in Essex are to be closed, and plans revived for a new prison with room for 2,000. Nine men, Kamar Jamil, 27, Akhtar Dogar, 32, Assad Hussain, 32, Mohammed Karrar, 38, Bassam Karrar, 33, Mohammed Hussain, 24, Zeeshan Ahmed, 27, and Bilal Ahmed, 26, went on trial at the Old Bailey charged with taking part in a child sex-trafficking ring in Oxford involving six girls aged between 11 and 15. Robert Kee, the writer and broadcaster, died, aged 93.
Abroad
France sent 750 troops initially to Mali in an attempt to secure the southern half of the country for its government and to counter the Islamist groups who have gained control of the northern half. The UN Security Council voted in favour of its action. President François Hollande of France called for support from west African countries. More than 144,000 Malian refugees had been registered in neighbouring countries since last April. Three women associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), including one of its founders, were found shot dead in Paris.
A bomb at a snooker hall in Quetta, Pakistan, killed 85, and at least 34 more, also predominantly Shia, died in a series of blasts. Mourners blocked the road with coffins demanding army protection in the city. The Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered the arrest of Raja Pervez Ashraf, the Prime Minister, and 15 others over allegations of corruption. In Syria, rebel fighters took a government airbase at Taftanaz in the north. More than 80 people were killed by two explosions at a hall of residence and the architecture faculty of Aleppo University. In Egypt a court ordered a retrial for Hosni Mubarak, aged 84, who was overthrown as president in 2011.
Long queues formed at passport offices in Cuba when a new law lifted the need for citizens to obtain an exit visa before travelling. In the capital, Havana, more than 50 people contracted cholera. P&O cruise ships stopped docking in Argentina lest they be turned away for having put in at the Falkland Islands. Japan’s two main airlines grounded their Boeing 787 Dreamliners after one made an emergency landing. Anglo American Platinum said it would stop production at four mine shafts in Rustenburg, South Africa, with the loss of almost 14,000 jobs. Australia experienced a wave of migration from India about 4,000 years ago, which introduced the dingo, according to a genetic study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. In Stockholm, a cleaning lady stole an empty train and crashed it into a house, injuring only herself. –CSH
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