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Britain enjoyed its share of the worldwide failure of 8.5 million computers reliant on Microsoft, through a faulty update of the CrowdStrike antivirus software. On the first day, 167 air departures were cancelled in the United Kingdom – 5.4 per cent of those scheduled. (Worldwide it was 5,078 – 4.6 per cent of those scheduled.) Doctors’ appointment systems stopped working and customers at Gail’s bakery could not pay for their pains au chocolat. BT was fined £17.5 million for a ‘catastrophic failure’ on 25 June last year that led to 14,000 999 calls not being connected. National debt, which fell from 251.7 per cent of GDP in 1946 to 21.6 per cent in 1990, had risen by June this year to 99.5 per cent. Seven Labour MPs had the whip suspended for six months after voting against the government on the two-child benefit cap. Alexander Waugh, the writer and grandson of Evelyn Waugh, died aged 60.
A soldier in uniform was stabbed near barracks at Gillingham, Kent. Rioters in Harehills, Leeds, proved rather slow in setting a bus on fire, not at first realising the seat coverings were flame-retardant. But they got it going eventually and turned a police car upside down. The unrest followed an incident in which social services took away the children of a family; Leeds council later said it had ‘agreed to undertake an urgent review of the case and work with Romanian and Roma-led organisations’. Roger Hallam, 58, a founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, was jailed for five years, and four others for four years, for their part in blocking the M25 in 2022. Ray Reardon, six times the world snooker champion, died aged 91.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed a cabinet meeting in Downing Street and asked for restrictions to be lifted on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons supplied by western allies so that they could strike targets in Russia. Britain must be ready to fight a war in three years, General Sir Roland Walker, the new Chief of the General Staff, said. The Conservatives agreed a method of finding a new leader by 2 November, with the final two candidates going to a vote by party members. In a 217-page report from the Covid Inquiry, on resilience and preparedness, Baroness Hallett said that the United Kingdom had been prepared for the wrong kind of pandemic. In the seven days to 23 July, 1,073 migrants arrived in England on small boats.
Abroad
President Joe Biden withdrew as a candidate for the next presidency of America. In an open letter he wrote: ‘I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down.’ He then offered his endorsement to Vice President Kamala Harris as the Republican candidate. She soon secured the support of a majority of Democratic delegates. After being questioned by a congressional committee, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the director of the Secret Service over failures that allowed Donald Trump to be shot in the ear. A Russian court found Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security penal colony. An Italian judge ordered a journalist to pay Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister, damages of €5,000 for mocking her height; Giulia Cortese had called her a small woman, adding: ‘I can’t even see you.’
The UN’s International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is against international law; the judgment is not legally binding. The Houthi movement in Yemen said it had carried out a drone attack on Tel Aviv which hit a block of flats, killing one person. Israel responded with air strikes on the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Yemen. The Israeli military ordered civilians to evacuate part of its designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza before a ‘forceful operation’ against Palestinian armed groups.
A court in the United Arab Emirates jailed 57 Bangladeshis, three for life, for holding street protests against their own country’s government. In Bangladesh, more than 100 people died during protests against a third of public-sector jobs being reserved for relatives of veterans from the war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. China is gradually to raise its retirement age, currently 60 for men, 55 for women in white-collar jobs and 50 for women manual workers. Fire engulfed a 14-storey shopping centre in Zigong, in China’s Sichuan province, killing at least 16. Paris put 75,000 security personnel on the streets for the Olympics. CSH
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