A self-driving passenger bus trial in Scotland will take passengers across the Forth Road Bridge.
Described as a world first, the UK Government-funded trial will see five autonomous single-deck vehicles running between Edinburgh and Fife but regulations mean a driver will remain on board during all journeys.
Funding of £4.35 million was awarded by the UK Government through Innovate UK with additional investment from operator Stagecoach, Transport Scotland and other organisations.
Once complete, the ADL Enviro200 vehicles will operate between Ferrytoll Park & Ride in Fife and the Edinburgh Park Train and Tram interchange.
Buses will operate on-road and using the hard shoulder, as well as using the dedicated public transport corridor across the Forth Road Bridge.
The autonomous services will be capable of carrying up to 42 passengers for the 14-mile journey, with buses running every 20 minutes.
Work on the project is expected to get underway during the second quarter of next year, with services operating from 2020.
£4.35m
Funding awarded by the UK Government through Innovate UK
Scotland’s Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said: “The deployment of these vehicles in Scotland will bring transformative change to the way we travel and work, as well as having a positive impact on the economy, the environment and safety.
“This collaborative trial, using one of the country’s most iconic transport corridors, shows Scotland is very much open for business in this innovative sector.
“I very much welcome the strong Scottish contingent in the bid team and I look forward to following this project with great interest.”
In the short-term, buses will be used in autonomous mode only within the depot environment, to carry out movements such as parking and moving into the fuelling station and bus wash.
Using self-driving vehicles within depots more widely could help improve safety, efficiency and space utilisation within the depot.
Gibraltar’s chief minister Fabian Picardo has said he is willing to discuss directly with the Spanish government their bilateral relations after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
But Mr Picardo warned on Thursday that the sovereignty of the British territory at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula is non-negotiable.
Spain has never dropped its claim of jurisdiction over the rocky outcrop, and its government has baulked at the possibility of its post-Brexit future being decided between London and EU authorities without direct Spanish involvement.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has threatened to vote against the planned Brexit agreement unless Spain’s misgivings are addressed.
Mr Picardo told Gibraltar’s parliament that as long as issues such as sovereignty, jurisdiction and control of the territory are off the table, he is happy to discuss close cooperation with Madrid.
The first Italian government ship accompanying the migrant aid boat Aquarius has docked at the Spanish port of Valencia.
The Italian coastguard vessel Dattilo arrived just before 7am on Sunday.
It will be followed by the Aquarius and another Italian navy ship, the Orione.
The Aquarius and the two Italian boats are carrying the 630 migrants rescued by the Aquarius while attempting the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean last week.
The Aquarius, a boat operated by the aid groups SOS Mediterranee Sea and Doctors Without Borders, was stuck off the coast of Sicily last Saturday when Italy refused it permission to dock and demanded Malta do so.
Malta refused and Spain stepped in and offered to grant them entry some 930 miles away.
The migrants were met by emergency workers, including health officials and psychologists, at the city’s marina.
Spanish authorities have said they will examine the migrants case by case to see if they qualify for asylum according to the country’s regulations.
Spain’s minister of public works, Miguel Angel Abalos, said on Saturday that the migrants from the Aquarius would be granted a “special authorisation” to remain in the country for one month before “they will be dealt with according to our laws without exception”.
Abalos said the Spanish government “will act with sensitivity and at the same time within the law, and with a message to Europe that it doesn’t have an immigration policy up to the challenge at hand”.
The boatload of migrants that was forced to spend days crossing the western Mediterranean includes 123 unaccompanied minors, 11 children and as many as seven pregnant women, according to Valencia’s regional authorities.
Spain has accepted the French government’s offer to take in those migrants who want to go to France “once they have fulfilled the protocols established for their arrival”.
The refusal by Italy and Malta to allow the Aquarius to enter their ports has created a row between EU members over how to handle immigration.
Under the EU’s asylum laws — currently the subject of a major political dispute and under revision — migrants must apply for asylum in the country where they first enter Europe.
In practice, the policy has placed a heavy burden on Italy and Greece, where hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers have arrived in recent years.
Spain’s new Socialist government has taken up the cause of the migrants’ plight to demonstrate its commitment to protecting human rights and respecting international law.
The arrival of the Aquarius convoy comes during a spike of seaborne migrants crossing from African shores to southern Spain.
Spain’s maritime rescue service pulled 986 people from 69 small boats its rescue craft reached in waters in or near the Strait of Gibraltar between Friday and Saturday. It also recovered four bodies.
At least 792 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year, according to the United Nations.
Through the first five months of 2018, a total of 35,455 migrants reached European shores, with 11,792 of them arriving in Spain.
Union leader Len McLuskey was in attendance serving ice cream.
Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey serves ice cream to revellers (Rick Findler/PA)
Jeremy Corbyn appeared onstage to address fans, but there were also some imposters.
A man wearing a mask of Jeremy Corbyn at Labour Live (Rick Findler/PA)
And there were plenty of Corbyn t-shirts on show.
A variety of t-shirts supporting the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (Rick Findler/PA)
This football fan wants to see the Labour leader in Downing Street.
A man wearing a Jeremy Corbyn shirt with number 10 on the back (Rick Findler/PA)
Great to have @OwenJones84 at #LabourLive as we bring people together to enjoy music, art, entertainment and discuss how we can win the next General Election to build a country that works for the many, not the few. pic.twitter.com/8KJU0wyNDz
Some anti-Brexit sentiment was on show during the festival despite Mr Corbyn’s insistence that his party respects the result of the June 2016 referendum.
EU supporters hold up an anti-Brexit banner while Jeremy Corbyn delivers a speech (Rick Findler/PA)
A man carrying an EU flag watches a performance by Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols (Rick Findler/PA)
An EU supporter at the Labour Live event (Rick Findler/PA)
There were rumours of sluggish ticket sales in the build-up to the event. Here, a smattering of festivalgoers watch Reggae Reggae Sauce inventor Levi Roots perform.
The crowd watch a performance by Levi Roots at Labour Live (Rick Findler/PA)
This reveller could’ve been tired out by all the excitement or maybe she was bored.
A woman takes a nap at Labour Live (Rick Findler/PA)
They said Labour Live wouldn’t work. They sneered at it. They mocked it.
Thousands came, listened to music, heard speeches, discussed politics and will leave inspired.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was flanked by security.
Jeremy Corbyn at Labour Live (Rick Findler/PA)
The Labour leader managed to stop to sign a t-shirt.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn signs a t-shirt (Rick Findler/PA)
I've been walking around #LabourLive meeting people who are enjoying music, art and politics. I just pointed this one-day Labour voter in the direction of the @unitetheunionice cream van. pic.twitter.com/SQrqK4gHTA
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at Labour Live (Rick Findler/PA)
Jeremy Corbyn waves after speaking at Labour Live (Rick Findler/PA)
A huge THANK YOU to all the incredible musicians, campaigners, speakers and supporters who joined us today at #LabourLive. What a day! 🌹 pic.twitter.com/KKZRv73l03
Greece’s left-led coalition government survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Saturday brought over a deal to end a decades-old dispute with neighbouring Macedonia concerning the latter’s name.
However, the government suffered a loss in its parliamentary majority after lawmaker Dimitris Kammenos of the nationalist Independent Greeks, the government’s junior coalition partner, voted in favour.
He was kicked out of the party immediately after the vote, leaving the governing coalition with a three-member majority.
Lawmakers voted 153-127 in the 300-member parliament against the motion brought by the conservative main opposition party over the deal to rename the former Yugoslav republic North Macedonia. In the agreement, Athens would drop its objections to the country joining Nato and the European Union.
Thousands of protesters rallied outside parliament during the debate, waving Greek flags and chanting anti-government slogans. Scuffles broke out, with riot police firing tear gas to stop protesters from breaching police lines.
A flare thrown by protesters highlights riot police guarding the parliament in Athens (Yannis Liakos /InTime News via AP/PA)
The deal reached by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev on Tuesday aims to end a bitter dispute that has roiled the two countries’ relations since shortly after Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Greece argued the term Macedonia implied territorial claims on its province of the same name, which is the birthplace of the ancient warrior king Alexander the Great, and usurped its ancient Greek heritage and history.
The deal was met with fury by critics in both countries, who accuse their respective prime ministers of conceding too much.
“Hatred toward the country of another is not patriotism,” Mr Tsipras said during his speech in parliament.
The agreement will be signed on Sunday morning by the two nations’ foreign ministers at Lake Prespa near their common border. Both prime ministers will attend the ceremony, as will European officials. Protests have been called in both countries.
Speaking during the debate, defence minister and Independent Greeks head Panos Kammenos stressed that voting against the no-confidence motion was not a vote in favour of the Macedonia name deal, which he vowed to reject when it is eventually brought to parliament.
Mr Tsipras stressed the deal met all of Greece’s demands and would close “the open wound that has been troubling our country for more than 26 years”.
Conservative New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who had brought the no-confidence motion, argued that a vote in favor of the government was a vote in favor of the name deal.
An orthodox monk waves a Greek flag during a protest against the agreement between Greece and Macedonia (Petros Giannakouris/AP/PA)
“Today you are all mortgaging the future of the country,” he told lawmakers.
Across the border, Mr Zaev has also met with opposition, with President Gjorge Ivanov saying he will not sign off on the agreement. Mr Zaev has said he will put it to a referendum in the autumn.
“With the signing of the agreement between Macedonia and Greece, everyone will benefit,” Mr Zaev said Saturday.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov stressed the deal would pave the way for Nato and EU accession.
“We have forces that are fighting for the future, we have forces that are fighting for the past,” Mr Dimitrov said in Skopje. “We cannot change the past, we could the future.”
The ratification process will take months.
In Macedonia, the agreement must clear the hurdles of parliamentary ratification, a referendum and a constitutional amendment. If Mr Ivanov refuses to sign off on the deal, it will be sent back to parliament for a second vote. If it passes again, the president must sign it.
In Greece, the deal faces ratification in parliament only after Macedonia has completed its part of the process.
The growing pangolin trafficking industry has prompted plans in South Africa for a rehabilitation centre for sick or rescued animals as well as the deployment of sniffer dogs specially trained to detect the scales’ pungent aroma.
Conservationists say well over one million pangolins have been poached since around 2000; the various kinds range from vulnerable to critically endangered on a list of threatened species.
Pangolin scales contain keratin, a protein also found in rhino horn and human fingernails.
There is no scientific proof that they provide any medicinal value.
Traffickers often sell the pangolin meat locally and ship the scales for use in traditional medicine in Asia, mainly China.
A pangolin from the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital forages for food, near Johannesburg (Denis Farrell/AP)
Africa’s four species of pangolins are under increasing pressure from poachers because Asia’s four species have been decimated, according to experts.
While commercial trade in all eight species is forbidden, international confiscations of African pangolin scales amounted to about 47 tons in 2017, more than double the quantity seized in the previous year, said the African Pangolin Working Group, a conservation organisation based in South Africa.
“The rate of escalation is astounding,” said Eric Ichikowitz, director of South African-based Ichikowitz Family Foundation.
The foundation, which has previously trained dogs to detect rhino horn, has funded the training of several dogs that will check for hidden pangolin scales at South African borders, Mr Ichikowitz said.
It has also acquired land near Johannesburg for the construction of a “pangalorium” – a research and medical centre for one of the world’s most heavily trafficked mammals.
About 10 rescued pangolins have been treated at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital since last year.
