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The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Digested week: Trump merch and what's in a name? A lot if it's Sussex
Just back from New York and – this is what you get for flying out of Newark – I'm stunned by the volume of Trump memorabilia for sale at the terminal. Actual Maga hats and T-shirts; old-timey baseball shirts with 'Trump 47' on the front; a fridge magnet depicting Trump's Iwo Jima moment, fist in the air behind the words 'Fight! Fight! Fight!; and a Trump hoodie with the slogan 'Take America Back'. It's New Jersey but still, piles of Trump merch for sale so close to the city feels like finding a fur-coat store next to the vegan pantry. In New York itself, meanwhile, there is widespread and guilty determination by friends to turn away from the news because engagement is just so depressing. The question most asked of me is how are Americans regarded in general and when they travel overseas? On that front, at least, I can reassure. As ever, it seems most people are too wrapped up in their own parochial dramas to give much thought to what, or who, any passing American they encounter might represent. With one caveat: travelling on American passports, we clear immigration in Reykjavik en route to New York where the official demands paperwork I've never been asked for before and tells me brusquely: 'The way things are done in America isn't the way we do them in the rest of the world.' I'm so stung by this condescension I find myself huffing, Colonel Blimp-style, 'I'm a British citizen!' – which startles us both, but probably me more than her. That encounter in Iceland qualifies as a 'microstress', a small aggravation that, according to a recent survey of 2,000 people commissioned by psychologists, can over time take as serious a toll on one's nerves as the big ones: death, divorce, moving house. In the survey, the top three microstresses were listed as being stuck in traffic, when a bin bag breaks (really?) and losing one's keys. I get this, but consider the flipside: the equalising force of micro-joys: the first (and second and third) coffee of the morning; finding the remote after you've lost it; or catching site of the cat asleep on the sofa with its paws in the air – small pleasures and improvements that, unlike winning the lottery, say, trigger a governable amount of emotion. I often think that contentment truly rests on banking enough of these small joys in a way that comfortably outweighs the big stuff. It's reported in this paper that Prince Harry had to wait six months for his children's passports to be issued after he had a punt at sticking 'HRH' in the honorifics field and listed their surnames as Sussex, in direct defiance of the queen's 1960 ruling that descendants without royal titles could not inherit the surname associated with their parents' peerage. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion It's brilliant of Harry, in a way, trying to slide the issue past the king via an innocent piece of paperwork submitted to a faceless government body. When the passports weren't issued, Harry and Meghan, frustrated, put in a second application for 24-hour service and promptly had their meeting cancelled due to a 'systems failure', a piece of peerless counter passive-aggression by the king, with the added bonus of plausible deniability. There is, after all, simply no defeating British bureaucracy when it's set to truculence. These are Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet's second set of surnames, their first having been Mountbatten-Windsor, while Harry and William both grew up with the name Wales. The main takeaway from this story, as a friend observes, is that 'no one in that sodding family ever knows what their surname is'. From the land of move slow and frustrate things to the rapidly disintegrating Elon Musk who, in an even shorter timescale than anticipated, has turned on his benefactor, President Trump. Last week, Musk criticised Trump's 'big, beautiful' tax bill for swelling the deficit with that heavy-lifting word 'disappointed', and hedged with the coy qualifier, 'my personal opinion'. Obviously that mildness couldn't hold. By Tuesday this week, Musk's assessment of the bill had advanced from disappointing to a 'disgusting abomination'. By Thursday, Trump had retaliated on social media with threats to cut federal contracts to Tesla, provoking Musk to boast, 'without me, Trump would've lost the election' and make a veiled accusation – not the first time he's thrown 'paedo' around when challenged – that Trump was mixed up with Jeffrey Epstein. But while this was the moment we'd all been waiting for, watching the world's two most powerful men, both of whom appear to be suffering from cognitive impairment of some kind, duke it out, was less cathartic than simply morbidly depressing. An end of the week treat, however, in the form of Dame Rosemary Squires, the founder of the Ambassador Theatre Group, saying the quiet part out loud: does anyone really want to sit through a play that lasts longer than three hours? Her observation was triggered by the opening of Stereophonic, lately transferred to London from New York, which goes on for three hours 10 minutes. A Little Life, the recent stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel, ran to almost four hours, although as an experience preferable, surely, to reading the book. This week, I saw the brilliant My Neighbour Totoro, which clocks in at two hours 40 and is fantastic, although still shy of the dream phrase 'running time one hour 20 minutes'. Still, there are some weeks when all you're fit for is Samuel Beckett's reward to the very tired who attempt to go to the theatre midweek: his play Breath, which comes in at a small, beautiful 35 seconds.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Daily Mail
British woman, 23, is arrested 'after being caught trying to smuggle 18 kilos of cannabis out of Ghana and into Britain on British Airways'
A British woman has been arrested in Ghana after being accused of attempting to bring up to 18kg of cannabis into the UK. The 23-year-old had been set to board a British Airways flight from Accra, Ghana, back to London 's Gatwick Airport on May 18, when she was approached by officers as part of a 'profiling exercise', the Ghanaian Government has claimed. Ghana's Narcotic Control Commission (NACOC) alleged that luggage checks revealed that the young Brit had hidden 32 slabs of substances initially suspected to be a narcotic drug in two suitcases destined for London. A later field test proved positive for cannabis, with the drug weighing 17.72kg in total. She was arrested by officers at the airport and has been reportedly moved to the NACOC's headquarters in Accra for further investigation. The major drug bust also came on the same day that officers were said to have arrested three people, including a young 19-year-old British citizen, allegedly found to have been carrying 53kg of cannabis across two suitcases on a return flight from Dubai. The young British citizen, along with two other suspects believed to have been assisting him, was identified and detained at the scene. The Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) confirmed that a 'further investigation is ongoing', with the Commission adding: 'NACCOC remains resolute and committed to the fight against drug trafficking usage in the country'. UK authorities have worked closely with drugs control officials in Ghana to clamp down on the rising tide of smuggling in the past. In September last year, four British men were found guilty of smuggling £4.3million worth of cannabis from Ghana into the UK, concealed in sacks of gari powder. Daniel Yeboah, 54, Kristoffen Baidoo, 48, Kwaku Bonsu, 52 and Edward Adjei, 48, were all convicted for importing the class B drug following a three-week trial at Southwark Crown Court. The drugs were illegally smuggled in a container that arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex, on 19 December 2019. An investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Ghanaian Narcotics Control Commission uncovered 2,355 packages of cannabis hidden inside the Gari powder sacks, weighing up to 1.5 tonnes. Yeboah was imprisoned for five years, Adjei for four years, Baidoo for 10 years, and Bonsu for seven years. In 2022, four members of a Ghanaian smuggling ring were jailed for more than 28 years after trying to import almost £3mn worth of cocaine into Britain, following a National Crime Agency investigation. Julius Tetteh Puplampu was intercepted by NCA officers at Heathrow Airport in August 2021, having flown in from Accra with six kilos of cocaine in his suitcase. He was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to drug importation offences, as reported by the Evening Standard. Puplampu had been in regular contact with Eric Appaih, also from Ghana, who was accused of trying to import 15kg of cocaine stashed in food boxes. Appaih was sentenced to six years in prison, while two others associated with the ring were also arrested and handed down sentences of nine and six years for their involvement in the trade. UK authorities have worked closely with drugs control officials in Ghana to clamp down on the rising tide of smuggling in the past. In 2021, the NCA reported a smuggler who had used coconuts to hide almost 140kg herbal cannabis sent from Ghana had been jailed. UK Police have also reported witnessing an 'exponential' rise in so-called 'cannabis couriers' who are brazenly attempting to flood the UK with drugs hidden in luggage. Footage released by the National Crime Agency (NCA) - Britain's answer to the FBI - showed one female drug mule being apprehended after attempting to smuggle two suitcases full of cannabis into Heathrow. Chelsea Allingham, a 40-year-old Canadian national, had just got to her hotel bar to enjoy a celebratory drink for her troubles when NCA officers swooped in and arrested her in May 2024. She was jailed for 10 months. And in May 2024, 51-year-old Spanish national Fernando Mayans Fuster was caught at Manchester Airport with eight suitcases containing 158 kilos of the drug. He had arrived on a flight from Los Angeles and it is believed the haul is one of the largest passenger seizures of its kind at the airport. Mr Mayans Fuster was jailed on July 19 for three years and four months. Speaking in August 2024, Charles Yates, the National Crime Agency's deputy director, said: 'We've seen an exponential rise in people flying into the UK with cannabis stowed in their luggage [and] are rapidly seeing more people brazenly walk through airports with suitcases full of cannabis. 'Subsequently, there has been a dramatic uptick in arrests for the importation of cannabis – already this year more than double those for the whole of 2023.'
The Sun
24-05-2025
- The Sun
Brit woman, 21, rotting in Dubai hellhole jail without a shower for a month after being arrested on drugs charges
A BRIT woman has been rotting inside a Dubai hellhole prison without a shower for a month after being arrested on alleged drug charges. Cops arrested Isabella Daggett, 21, just five weeks after she relocated to Dubai from Yorkshire after landing a new job. 7 7 7 And she has not taken a shower or even changed her clothes in months after being banged up in a prison in March, her family claims. It all happened when Ms Daggett was offered to work in Dubai earlier this year. The Britton was working for a businessman doing internet recruiting for construction sites in the UK, who offered to send her to the Middle East for a similar role. But she was arrested by Dubai police - along with another man - soon after she set foot in the desert city. Ms Daggett's family claims that she has done nothing wrong, has never used narcotics and was rather lured to move to Dubai. Her grandmother Heather Smith told the DailyMail: "Bella has been locked up because she was in the wrong company. Wrong place, wrong time. Wrong boyfriend. "The bloke she was working for said for her to come to Dubai, you'll love it there, the lifestyle is wonderful. Now she is locked up. "But she is innocent because they have done all the tests and there was nothing in her system." Mrs Smith described how the woman was being treated harshly inside the prison. She added: "She hasn't had a shower for a month, she hasn't had a change of clothes for three months. She has had nothing. Charlotte May Lee fears being locked away for 20yrs over £1.2m Sri Lanka drugs bust – & is 'aware' of Bella Culley case "Women get treated far worse than male prisoners, who get to go outside, they get sports, a PlayStation and a television - Bella has nothing. "She can speak to me and her mum every day though, which is good. But we have been in bits." It is understood that Ms Dagget was arrested alongside another man, with whom she was living at the time. The grandma said her family had warned Ms Dagget about the potential dangers of the Middle Eastern city with tough prison laws. She added: "She was arrested with a lad, who was not her boyfriend, with whom she was staying because things had fallen through with another house. "She didn't really like him that much.'He may be guilty of something, but she isn't." "We told Bella before she went to Dubai, 'you know the rules in Dubai, play by the rules, don't flaunt this, don't do that'." She added said she was going to move back to Leeds just before being arrested. It is not clear under what charges Ms Dagget was arrested. Ms Daggett's mum Lucinda Smith, with whom she ran a Leeds-based modelling agency, posted a GoFundMe page to help her daughter. The fundraiser read: "My daughter Isabella has been wrongfully detained in Dubai, and we are doing everything we can to prove her innocence and bring her back home. "We have proof she was not involved in these charges and are determined to fight for her freedom. The hideous conditions she is living in are enough to break any mother's heart. "The legal and travel expenses are overwhelming, and we need your support. Any contribution, no matter how small, will help us cover the costs of legal fees, travel, and other necessary expenses." 7 7 In the last couple of weeks, two other Brit women were arrested abroad for alleged drug smuggling. Glam tourist Bella Culley allegedly tried to smuggle a suitcase of weed into Georgia and was locked away in a brutal ex-Soviet prison despite claiming to be pregnant. The 18-year-old was sent to the brutal Women's Penitentiary No. 5 in the town of Rustavi - a slammer notorious for its hellish conditions just outside Tbilisi. She had originally jetted to the Philippines to meet an old friend, but reportedly changed her plans last minute to go to Thailand with a gang of British lads unknown to her. A sentence ranging from 20 years to life could be a possibility for teen Bella from County Durham, according to prosecutors. Meanwhile, former air stewardess Charlotte May Lee was then caught allegedly trying to smuggle drugs worth £1.2million into Sri Lanka. Her two suitcases were said to have been stuffed with 46kg of a synthetic cannabis strain known as kush — which is 25 times more potent than opioid fentanyl. If found guilty, South Londoner Charlotte could face a 25-year sentence. There are also fears that both the "smuggling cases" could be linked. Experts told The Sun how wannabe Brit Insta stars are being lured by cruel gangs into carting drugs across the world. 7
The Sun
21-05-2025
- The Sun
Brit ‘drug mule', 21, speaks from jail & insists £1m cannabis haul was PLANTED – cryptically saying ‘I know who did it'
A BRIT jailed in Sri Lanka over serious smuggling accusations has claimed the drugs found in her suitcase were "planted" on her. Charlotte May Lee, 21, has pleaded her innocence in her first statement since her arrest - even revealing she knows exactly who set her up. 5 5 5 The Brit will appear in court for the first time today - after languishing in a 'hell-hole' prison for days. Charlotte may soon be moved to the maximum security Welikada Prison in appalling conditions as she fears a 25-year jail term if convicted under Sri Lanka's strict anti-drug laws. The part-time beautician, of Chipstead in Surrey, was stopped by Sri Lankan customs officials after stepping off a flight from Thailand on Monday last week. It was claimed her two suitcases were stuffed full of 46kg of super-strong 'Kush' marijuana - which is 25 times more potent than powerful opioid fentanyl. Speaking to MailOnline from behind bars Charlotte said she had "no idea" that there were drugs in her luggage when she left Bangkok. She claimed: "I had never seen them before. I didn't expect it all when they pulled me over at the airport. I thought it was going to be filled with all my stuff. "I had been in Bangkok the night before and had already packed my clothes because my flight was really early. "So I left my bags in the hotel room and headed for the night out. As they were already packed I didn't check them again in the morning." The young Brit believes the huge amount of illegal substances were planted in her luggage in a planned move by dangerous dealers in Southeast Asia. And Charlotte has now said: "I know who did it." Brits accused of trying to smuggle drugs into the UK from abroad are being locked away for a long time She revealed: "They [the people she believed planted the drugs] were supposed to meet me here. But now I'm here - stuck in this jail." Negombo Prison is a notorious jail in Sri Lanka with a dark past. Charlotte says the rumours around the conditions the women and men are made to live in are all true. She said: "It is hard. I feel as though I have no human rights here. "There are no beds, no blankets. And where you sleep is like a long corridor with lots of other women. "I am sleeping on a concrete floor - literally. All I have is my jumper as a pillow. "I only have this one pair of clothes, nothing else to change into and I'm not being allowed my medication for ADHD." Charlotte also said the shower is just a bucket of water with a broken TV the only activity available. 5 5 Another major issue the Brit, from Coulsdon, is facing is eating. She said: "I've not eaten in two days because the food is just too spicy for me. "I have told my lawyers - I have three of them - that I need different food. They said they would sort that but they still haven't. I don't know why. "Fortunately, some of the girls speak English and have shared biscuits and things like that with me, which is nice." Her first hearing begins today over the discovery of £1.2 million worth of kush found in her luggage. Kush, a highly addictive synthetic drug, has claimed the lives of thousands in West Africa where it first appeared in 2022 - and is spreading globally at an alarming rate. The dirt-cheap drug is cut with an array of additives including acetone, the opioid tramadol and formalin, a toxic chemical commonly used to preserve bodies in mortuaries. It comes as a friend of Charlotte's revealed she is aware of the similar case of Bella Culley - an 18-year-old arrested in Georgia who is also accused of drug smuggling. However, the two youngsters have never met, and Charlotte "doesn't know if there is any connection" to her own ordeal. Why Brit backpackers are prime targets, Thai cop reveals By Patrick Harrington Police Lieutenant Colonel Arun Musikim, Deputy Inspector of the Surat Thani province police force, said: 'Cases involving British nationals smuggling cannabis have been around for a while. 'There is a lot of cannabis grown on Thailand's islands in the south because the climate is suitable and it is legal. A lot of gangs are attracted to this. 'There are now various smuggling methods that we have seen. Some carry it themselves, some hire backpackers, and some send it via mail. 'This year, there have been many cases we have intercepted. Most involve British and Malaysian nationals. 'It's easy for British citizens to travel as they can enter Thailand and return to the UK without needing a visa. 'Most of the smugglers are people hired to carry the cannabis, similar to how tourists might smuggle tax-free goods. 'They're usually unemployed individuals from the UK. The gangs offer them flights, pocket money and hotel stays, just to come and travel and take a bag back home with them. 'These people often have poor social standing at home and are looking for ways to earn quick money. They find them through friends or on social media. 'Many will go to festivals or parties while they are here, just like they are having a normal trip abroad. 'They are told that it is easy and they will not be caught. Then the amount the organisers can sell the cannabis for in the UK is much higher than it costs in Thailand. 'Police suspect that there are multiple employers and groups receiving the drugs on the other end. The cannabis then enters the UK market. 'We are being vigilant to ensure there are no routes out of the country.'
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Brit arrested in Bali pleads judges for leniency as prosecutors say they want to DROP drug charges that carry death sentence
A British man on trial for drug offences pleaded for leniency in an Indonesian court in Bali on Tuesday after a charge that could carry the death penalty was dropped. Thomas Parker, from Cumbria, was arrested near Kuta beach in January after allegedly collecting a package from a taxi driver at a nearby street. The package contained slightly over a kilogram of MDMA, a party drug and the main ingredient in ecstasy, according to a lab test result cited in court documents. Parker, a 32-year-old electrician by trade, was initially charged with drug trafficking and could have faced the death penalty by firing squad if found guilty. But the trafficking charge was dropped after police investigators determined that the package was not directly linked to him. Parker repeatedly expressed his remorse in his final plea today, and asked the panel of three judges in Denpasar District Court to consider his situation and impose a lenient sentence. 'I am very sorry and apologise, I know it was a mistake,' Parker said, 'I promise not to repeat it again, because I really didn't know that (the package) was drugs.' British citizen Thomas Parker, who is accused of drug offences, walks to a holding cell after his trial hearing at a district court in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 20, 2025 After Parker read out his plea, Presiding Judge Gusti Ayu Akhirnyani adjourned the trial until May 27, when the judges will read out their sentence in a verdict. 'Until now, they (prosecutors) cannot prove that our client is a middleman or trafficker,' Pangkahila said. 'He has no connection with any drug network, we hope the judges will come to the same conclusion.' He said his client is nervous and depressed as he faces trial. According to the court document obtained by The Associated Press, Parker was noticed 'acting suspiciously' by officers while he was collecting the package. He allegedly discarded it in a panic and fled when police approached him. He was traced back to the villa where he was staying and was arrested. But Parker, in court, has maintained that he did not order the package and had initially refused to collect it, doing so only after a friend assured him it was safe and would not endanger him. The package was sent by a drug dealer friend, identified only as Nicky, who Parker had known for around two years and spoke to regularly through the Telegram messaging app. Parker was told someone would pick it up shortly from him, his lawyer, Edward Pangkahila said. Parker was not promised money or anything else by Nicky in return, Pangkahila said. During the police investigation, Parker was able to prove that he did not order the package. Authorities reduced the charge from trafficking to the less serious offence of hiding information from authorities. Prosecutors on May 6 sought a one-year prison term for Parker. However, under Indonesian legal system, judges have an important role as legal determinants in a trial. They could seek further charges if applicable laws are unclear or non-existent, meaning that the trafficking charge could be reinstated. Pangkahila said that Parker last met Nicky a year ago when he was on vacation in Thailand. As his friend was a dealer, Parker worried the package was filled with drugs. He panicked when he saw police officers on the street and and was approached by them, Pangkahila said. He was traced back to the 7 Seas Villas in North Kuta, where he was arrested. Police showed the discarded package to Parker, who allegedly admitted it was the package he had received earlier. They claimed they had found a light-brown powder inside later identified as MDMA. Police took the suspect to the narcotics office for processing back in January, and he has been remanded in custody since. The case went unreported until authorities showed a handcuffed Parker at a news conference on March 6. A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told MailOnline they were supporting a British man detained in Bali and are in contact with the local authorities. Indonesia has very strict drug laws and convicted traffickers can be executed by a firing squad. About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections' data showed. Indonesia's last executions, of an Indonesian and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.
