The Spectator - 29.02.2020

(Joyce) #1
6 the spectator | 29 february 2020 | http://www.spectator.co.uk

a copyright application for the name Sussex
Royal. ‘There is not any jurisdiction by the
monarchy or cabinet office over the use of
the word “royal” overseas,’ it said. Daniel
Horton, 29, appeared in court accused of
causing grievous bodily harm by stabbing
Raafat Maglad, aged 70, during afternoon
prayers at Regent’s Park mosque.

Abroad


A


t the beginning of the week the total
number of deaths in China from
Covid-19 was 2,618, out of 79,331 reported
cases. The annual meeting of China’s
parliamentary gathering, the National
People’s Congress, was postponed. Iran’s
Deputy Health Minister, Iraj Harirchi,
announced that he had contracted Covid-
19 a day after appearing on television
denying that 50 people had died from the
virus in the pilgrimage city of Qom. South
Korea reported more than 900 cases, and
deaths in double figures. Venice cut short
its carnival by two days as about 50,
people in several towns in the Veneto and
Lombardy were put in quarantine; cases
spread across Europe. People threw stones
at evacuees from Wuhan when they arrived
at a health spa in Novi Sanzhary in central
Ukraine. A thousand guests in a hotel in
Tenerife were forbidden from leaving.
Thousands more were stranded in the
Canary Islands when sand blown from the
Sahara closed airports for the weekend.

I


n the Iranian elections the principalists
or conservatives won a landslide, partly
because reformist candidates were barred
from standing; turnout was only 42.6 per

cent. Another peace agreement was signed
in South Sudan after six years of civil
war, which has seen 400,000 killed. Hosni
Mubarak, president of Egypt from 1981 to
2011, died aged 91. Thomas Thabane, the
Prime Minister of Lesotho, appeared in
court to answer charges of murdering his
wife in 2017. A 43-year-old German,
named by the authorities only as Tobias R,
shot dead nine people at shisha bars in
Hanau, and was found dead next to his
mother’s body; he had a firearms licence.
Jean Vanier, who died aged 90 last year,
the founder of L’Arche, a network of small
communities for people to live with the
intellectually disabled, had ‘emotionally
abusive’ sexual relationships with six
adult women (not disabled) between 1970
and 2005, according to an investigation
commissioned by the organisation.

T


he EU budget was rejected by
four countries described as frugal
(Denmark, Austria, Sweden and
Holland), which thought it too big, and
17 beneficiaries, which thought it too
small. Harvey Weinstein was convicted
of third-degree rape and a first-degree
criminal sexual act. Roger Stone, a long-
time political backer of President Donald
Trump, was sentenced to 40 months in
jail for lying to the House Intelligence
Committee about WikiLeaks and Hillary
Clinton. Three nights of rioting in Delhi
over citizenship laws unfavourable to
Muslims left at least 21 dead. Josipa Lisac,
a singer aged 70, was denounced to the
criminal courts for the way she sang the
national anthem at the inauguration of the
new president of Croatia. CSH

Home


T


he government told Britons returning
from 11 quarantined towns in
northern Italy to isolate themselves, for
fear of spreading Covid-19, the contagious
coronavirus fever. Random testing began
at 11 hospitals. Thirty British and two Irish
passengers from the cruise ship Diamond
Princess quarantined at Yokohama had
been flown to Britain and sent for another
fortnight’s quarantine in the Wirral. The
price of first-class stamps is to go up
on 23 March from 70p to 76p. The EU
disclosed its negotiating position on a trade
agreement with the United Kingdom,
saying in a strange sing-song formula that
it ‘should uphold common high standards,
and corresponding high standards over time
with Union standards as a reference point’.

T


he Independent Inquiry into Child
Sexual Abuse dismissed claims made
by Tom Watson of a ‘powerful paedophile
network linked to parliament and No. 10’
but said that a blind eye had been turned
to the evil, as in the case of the late Cyril
Smith, a Liberal MP; Lord Steel, the former
Liberal leader, left the Liberal Democrats
in response. The Revd Canon Dr Jeremy
Morris ‘voluntarily stepped back’ from
being Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge,
after criticisms of his handling of a case in
which a male student was accused of rape,
which he denied. Wilfred De’Ath, who
wrote a column about being homeless, died
aged 82. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex
posted on their website SussexRoyal.com
a rambling response to a statement by
Buckingham Palace on their withdrawal of

Portrait_29 Feb 2020_The Spectator 6 26/02/2020 13:

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