-
1 week ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper |Rachael Healy
Among the Gujarati community in the capital, many are looking for ways to help those affected by the disaster and some fear flying on that route in future Hundreds of people would be usually out on a warm Friday evening on Ealing Road. This half-mile stretch of Wembley suburbia, the heart of London’s Gujarati community, is perfumed with rose petal and betel leaf from the paan shops, wafts of sandalwood incense from sari sellers and spices from the chai wallahs and the pani puri stalls.
-
2 weeks ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper |Jon Ungoed-Thomas
Conservationists call for action after tracking hundreds of vessels they suspect of harmful deep-sea fishing More than 300 trawlers have been tracked fishing in some of the most vulnerable marine areas in European waters, where destructive bottom trawling is banned. The trawlers carried out 3,500 hours of suspected fishing activity in protected waters off the coasts of Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal.
-
2 weeks ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper |Jon Ungoed-Thomas |Rachel Sylvester
As the BBC’s most recognisable voice, David Attenborough has walked a fine line between informing viewers and advocating for the environment. Yet aged 99, the naturalist has managed the extraordinary campaigning feat of taking an often overlooked environmental issue and, barely a month later, forcing global leaders to act.
-
2 weeks ago | 
observer.co.uk | Jon Ungoed-Thomas |James Tapper
As David Attenborough warns of the damage being wreaked on the oceans by seabed trawling, the role of an army of mystery boats is in the spotlight The Ghanaian flag that droops from the mast of the Meng Xin 10 is one of the few African things about the fishing boat. The deckhands are Ghanaian, and officially it is owned by a company in Accra.
-
3 weeks ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper
Scraping the ocean floor and dumping the unwanted catch leaves an undersea desert Mankind is killing the seas. That’s the message from David Attenborough’s new film Ocean, which has put bottom trawling in the crosshairs of environmental activists. So what? The film cuts through. Bottom trawling and dredge fishing are among the most widespread methods of destructive fishing, but for decades they’ve been largely hidden from view.
-
1 month ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper
Global temperatures could rise as high as 1.9C above the pre-industrial average over the next five years, according to new data from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). It’s the first time climate models have predicted such a large increase, and 2C is not out of the question. So what? The Paris treaty aimed to limit the increase to 1.5C, a threshold that was breached for the first time last year, while also setting the goal of keeping the rise “well below” 2C.
-
1 month ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper
A Shropshire laboratory is taking skin samples so that beloved pets can be reproduced before finding their way home Tauron, a dog of unknown pedigree, died defending his master Zenon from a wild boar, and the third century BC Greek bureaucrat repaid his courage by burying him with an 11-line epitaph detailing how the dog had “made a gift of the beast to Hades and died himself”. Modern Zenons have more options for their memorials.
-
1 month ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper
Passengers on the first rail company to be nationalised by Labour share hopes and fears as a new era chugs in There’s a fight going on at Weymouth station. Not a fair fight – it’s man versus seagull and the bird has pulled off a fly-by heist, swooping down from the station roof to nab a tasty-looking bag from its victim’s hand. The gull is pecking at a pharmacy prescription – which it seems to think is full of chips – while the furious man is throwing things at it.
-
1 month ago | 
observer.co.uk | James Tapper
The president’s big buddies vie to be his man at the Court of St James It’s the sort of series finale that Mark Burnett would have tried to script for The Apprentice: two heavyweight candidates with very different styles, vying for a role as Donald Trump’s top man in London. One is Warren Stephens, the freshly minted US ambassador to the UK, a billionaire banker rewarded by Trump for being a generous donor to his 2024 presidential campaign with a top job and a Regent’s Park ambassadorial mansion.
-
2 months ago | 
theguardian.com | James Tapper
After last week’s supreme court decision, activists had been worried that trans people might become fearful of going out in public in case they were abused. They weren’t afraid in London on Saturday. Thousands of trans and non-binary people thronged Parliament Square, alongside families and supporters, waving baby blue, white and pink flags to demonstrate their anger at the judges’ ruling. The numbers seemed to take the organisers and police by surprise.
