A London council on Tuesday voted to seek an order creating a buffer zone around an abortion clinic to prevent pro-life campaigners from harassing and intimidating patients in the first case of its kind in Britain.
Ealing Council voted to pursue a public spaces protection order, which bars pre-defined activities in a geographical area and is usually used to stop anti-social behavior like drug taking.
Of the 69 counselors who were present at the council meeting, all voted in favor of the motion, bar two who abstained.
The motion will now be put to a public consultation.
Opposition Labour Counselor Binda Rai, who had proposed the motion, said it was time to tackle this head-on before a debate in which counselor after counselor highlighted the negative impact of anti-abortion protests on the community.
Developments in Ealing will be watched closely by other councils amid an increase in the volume and ferocity of anti-abortion protests around Britain, campaigners said.
“The increase [in protests] smacks of desperation as many more people in the UK now support the right to abortion,” British Pregnancy Advisory Service’s Clare Murphy said.
The vote in Ealing follows a petition from pro-choice group Sister Supporter, which regularly clashes with protesters outside a Marie Stopes clinic in the west London suburb.
Clad in high-visibility pink jackets, Sister Supporter forms a picket line to stop campaigners from the anti-abortion Good Counsel Network approaching women on their way into the clinic and brandishing graphic images of aborted fetuses.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of