Who is Sajid Javid, the new home secretary? Sajid Javid has been named as the new home secretary, in charge of the UK's immigration, security and counter-terrorism efforts. It has been a quite a rise. The 48-year-old father of four has got his place in one of the key offices of state as part of the fallout from the Windrush revelations, and it will be his job to sort it out now. One advantage he should have is that, as he told the Sunday Telegraph : "It immediately impacted me. I'm a second-generation migrant, my parents came to this country from Pakistan, just like the Windrush generation, obviously a different part of the world, from South Asia not the Caribbean, but other than that, similar in almost every way." For those who haven't been following the story, the row has been about people who moved to the UK legally from the Commonwealth before 1973 being treated as illegal immigrants now if they had not elected to get a British passport in the pas...
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Where have the UK's 10,000 Syrian refugees gone? By Mark Easton & Ben Butcher Home editor The UK has accepted more than 10,000 Syrian refugees in the past two and a half years - but analysis by the BBC shows large disparities in the numbers going to different parts of the country. Scotland has taken four times as many Syrian refugees as Greater London, while Northern Ireland has taken over 300 more than the whole of the east of England. Relative to their populations, northern England has taken over twice as many Syrian refugees as the South. Overall, almost a third of local authorities are yet to take any Syrian refugees. The BBC analysis looks at the Home Office's breakdown of local authority intake of Syrian refugees and weighs this against the population size. It was the pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his tiny body washed up on a Turkish tourist beach in September 2015, that changed the politics of Syrian refugees. Within days of the distress...
Kim Jong-un 'wants closer North-South Korea ties' North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he wants to "vigorously advance" closer ties with South Korea, according to state media. The report follows a rare visit to Pyongyang by senior South Korean officials, who had dinner with the normally reclusive leader. They are the first officials from Seoul to meet Mr Kim since he came to power. It's part of a fast-moving wave of rapprochement on the Korean peninsula surrounding the Winter Olympics. South Korea has only commented briefly on the meeting, saying the two sides had reached a "satisfactory agreement" on holding future talks. The delegation is expected to visit Washington later this week to brief US officials on their talks in the North. The US has said it is "cautiously optimistic" about improving North-South contacts, but ruled out formal talks with Pyongyang unless it is ready to give up its nuclear weapons. Throughout the...
Nigeria's Dapchi school abduction: Father's plea to find daughter The father of a 14-year-old girl who is among 110 believed to have been abducted by Boko Haram has pleaded with the Nigerian government to act quickly. "We don't want these girls to stay long with those militants. Anything can happen to them," Kachalla Bukar told the BBC. Jihadists stormed the school in the town of Dapchi in the north-eastern Yobe state on 19 February. The attack has revived memories of the Chibok schoolgirl abduction in 2014. President Muhammadu Buhari said it was a "national disaster" and apologised to the girls' families. Mr Bukar says his wife cannot stop crying and he cannot sleep since their "brilliant" daughter Aisha disappeared. "We are begging the government to control the situation quickly." Nigeria has deployed extra troops and planes to search for the schoolgirls. "We want to assure Nigerians that no stone will...
Florida school shooting: Students to march on Washington Young survivors of Wednesday's school shooting in Florida have announced a national march on Washington to demand political action on gun control. Student organisers told US media that they were determined to make Wednesday's shooting a turning point in the national gun debate. The attack, which left 17 students and staff members dead, was the deadliest US school shooting since 2012. Yesterday protestors chanted "shame on you" to US lawmakers and the president. Mr Trump said last year he would "never" infringe on the right to keep arms - a long-running and contested debate within the US. In his first public comments on the gun control issue since the attack, Mr Trump blamed the Democrats for not passing legislation when they controlled Congress during the early years of Barack Obama's administration. He also rebuked the FBI for missing signals before Wednesday's school shooting ...