Young man rushed to hospital after being knifed in broad daylight on west London shopping street

Crime reporter,London(wp/es):

A man has been rushed to hospital after being stabbed on a busy west London shopping street.

The man, believed to be in his 20s, was knifed on Chiswick High Road, Turnham Green, at around 11.20am on Friday. 

Police and paramedics were scrambled to the scene and the man was taken to hospital with stab wounds. 

London's Air Ambulance landed nearby but the man was transported by road.

There have been no arrests. 

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "A man, believed to be in his 20s, was at the scene with stab injuries. He has been taken to hospital - we await an update on condition.

"No arrest - enquiries continue."

If you have info about this incident, call police on 101 ref 2713/21DEC or Crimestoppers anonymously 0800555111.

BBC says it complies with Russian regulations after new checks

Special correspondent(wp/Reuters):

The BBC said on Friday it worked in full compliance with Russia’s laws and regulations to deliver independent news after the country’s media regulator said it would carry out checks on the British broadcaster in an escalation of tensions.

Russia’s media regulator said it would carry out checks to determine if the BBC World News channel and BBC internet sites complied with Russian law, a move it described as a response to British pressure on a Russian TV channel.

“As everywhere else in the world, the BBC works in Russia in full compliance with the country’s laws and regulations to deliver independent news and information to its audiences,” said a spokeswoman for the British publicly owned broadcaster.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian regulator, was responding to Britain’s media regulator Ofcom which said on Thursday that Russian broadcaster RT had broken impartiality rules in news and current affairs programmes, including coverage of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

UK economy relies on stretched consumers as Brexit hits investment

Business correspondent(wp/Reuters):

British consumers are their gloomiest in more than five years, business sentiment is its weakest since the 2016 Brexit referendum and car output has tumbled this year, according to three surveys that paint an ominous picture for 2019.

Brexit worries weighed on consumer and business morale, according to the surveys, while car production is falling at its fastest rate since Britain was last in recession in 2009.

GfK’s monthly consumer sentiment index edged down to -14 in December from -13, its lowest since July 2013 although it was in line with economists’ expectations in a Reuters poll.

While consumers felt better about their personal finances over the past year and were more willing to make major purchases, their expectations for the economy over the next 12 months tumbled to its lowest since December 2011.

“In the face of ever-rising costs, and the threat of higher inflation combined with uncertainty around the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, it’s no surprise that consumers are in a chilly mood of despondency,” GfK executive Joe Staton said.

With less than 100 days until Britain is due to leave the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to win the support of much of her Conservative Party for the deal she struck last month with other EU leaders.

Without a deal Britain risks major economic disruption when it leaves the bloc.

On Thursday, Bank of England officials trimmed their forecast for quarterly economic growth in the last three months of 2018 to 0.2 percent from 0.3 percent and said the picture in early 2019 was likely to be similar.

Lloyds Bank said on Friday its monthly survey of business sentiment sank to its lowest since just after the referendum decision in June 2016 to leave the EU.

Similar to consumers, businesses were more downbeat about the outlook for the economy than their own financial situation.

“The expected slowdown in economic growth in Q4 could well be extended into early 2019, but there is potential for a rebound in sentiment should there be some respite in uncertainties that firms currently face,” Lloyds economist Hann-Ju Ho said.

A big slump in car production last month — linked to weaker growth in export markets as well as Brexit worries — is almost certain to weigh on fourth-quarter economic growth figures.

The number of cars produced in Britain in November fell 19.6 percent from a year earlier to 129,030, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.

This was the biggest year-on-year drop in nine months, and production for the year to date is down 8.2 percent at 1.44 million cars, the biggest such decline since Britain’s last recession in 2009.

“Output (was) seriously impacted by falling business and consumer confidence in the UK allied to weakening export markets,” SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said. “If the country falls off a cliff-edge next March the consequences would be devastating.”

Gatwick airport reopens after mystery drone saboteur sows chaos

Staff reporter(wp/Reuters):
London’s Gatwick Airport reopened on Friday after a mystery saboteur wrought 36 hours of travel chaos for more than 100,000 Christmas travellers by using drones to play cat-and-mouse with police snipers and the army.
After the biggest disruption at Gatwick, Britain’s second busiest airport, since a volcanic ash cloud in 2010, Gatwick said around 700 planes were due to take off on Friday, although there would still be delays and cancellations.

Britain deployed unidentified military technology to guard the airport against what Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said were thought to be several drones.

“I think passengers are safe,” Grayling said. “This kind of incident is unprecedented anywhere in the world.”

The motivation of the drone operator, or operators, was unclear. Police said there was nothing to suggest the crippling of one of Europe’s busiest airports was a terrorist attack.

Gatwick’s drone nightmare is thought to be the most disruptive yet at a major airport and indicates a new vulnerability that will be scrutinised by security forces and airport operators across the world.

The army and police snipers were called in to hunt down the drones, thought to be industrial style craft, which flew near the airport every time it tried to reopen on Thursday. The last time a drone was spotted at airport was at 2200 GMT on Friday.

The perpetrator has not yet been detained but the police said they had a number of possible suspects. No group has claimed responsibility publicly and police said there was no evidence another state was involved.

Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry said they were keeping an open mind about who was responsible.

“In terms of the motivation, there’s a whole spectrum of possibilities, from the really high-end criminal behaviour that we’ve seen, all the way down to potentially, just individuals trying to be malicious, trying to disrupt the airport,” he said.

After a boom in drone sales, unmanned aerial vehicles have become a growing menace at airports across the world.

In Britain, the number of near misses between private drones and aircraft more than tripled between 2015 and 2017, with 92 incidents recorded last year.

THERMAL IMAGING?

The British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) said it understood “detection and tracking equipment” had been installed around Gatwick’s perimeter.

BALPA said that it was extremely concerned at the risk of a drone collision. Flying drones within 1 km (0.6 mile) of a British airport boundary is punishable by five years in prison.

The defence ministry refused to comment on what technology was deployed but drone experts said airports needed to deploy specialist radar reinforced by thermal imaging technology to detect such unmanned flying vehicles.

Other ways to tackle them is typically by frequency jamming that can disable or disrupt control signals and the GPS signals that allow the drones to navigate.

The drone sightings caused misery for travellers, many sleeping on the airport floor as they searched for alternative routes to holidays and Christmas family gatherings.

Flights were halted at 2103 GMT on Wednesday after two drones were spotted near the airfield. The disruption affected at least 120,000 people on Wednesday and Thursday, with thousands more to be disrupted on Friday.

It was not immediately clear what the financial impact would be on the main airlines operating from Gatwick including easyJet, British Airways and Norwegian.

Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority said it considered the event to be an “extraordinary circumstance” meaning airlines are not obliged to pay compensation to affected passengers.

Airlines will have to refund customers who no longer wish to travel however and try to reschedule flights to get passengers to their destinations.

A Reuters witness at Gatwick’s South Terminal said the airport was busy, with many people waiting with luggage and queues for service desks, but not unusually so for such a day.

Some airport staff handed out chocolate and Christmas elf toys to stranded passengers.

Some, like Sarah Garghan-Watson, chose to stick it out at the airport overnight, having arrived at 8 a.m. on Thursday.

“It’s now 2 o’clock in the morning at Gatwick, and it’s very bright and very noisy. It’s now also very cold,” she said in a video shown on Sky.

“All I can see tonight ... is a sign that says ‘no more sleeps until the beach’. And here we are, sleeping, in the stairs at Gatwick, because there’s no flights.”