The government will make it a crime to climb on Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, it will be announced today.

Offenders could face up to three months in prison and a £1,000 fine for desecrating the monument to Britain’s wartime leader.

The Churchill statue is not officially classified as one of the UK’s war memorials, but Home Secretary Yvette Cooper plans to add it to the list of statues and monuments which it will soon become a criminal offence to climb.

These will include the Cenotaph in Whitehall, the Royal Artillery Memorial in Hyde Park, and many other famous structures across Britain commemorating the service of the armed forces in the First and Second World Wars.

The new law is contained in the flagship Crime and Policing Bill currently progressing through Parliament.

Announcing Churchill’s addition to the list of protected memorials, Cooper said: “As the country comes together to celebrate VE Day, it is only right that we ensure Winston Churchill’s statue is treated with the respect it deserves, along with the other sacred war memorials around our country.”

Churchill was said to have personally picked the spot where he wanted his statue to stand when approving plans for the redevelopment of Parliament Square in the 1950s.

The bronze, 12-foot statue of the former prime minister was unveiled in Westminster Square in November 1973 by his widow Clementine, eight years after her husband’s death.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother were in attendance at the ceremony.

Giving his backing to the new protection, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Sir Winston Churchill stands at the summit of our country’s greatest heroes, and has been an inspiration to every prime minister that has followed him.

“The justifiable fury that is provoked when people use his statue as a platform for their protests speaks to the deep and enduring love that all decent British people have for Sir Winston.

“It is the least we owe him, and the rest of the greatest generation, to make those acts criminal.”

In recent years, the statue has become a regular target for demonstrators.

In 2014, a man was arrested after spending 48 hours on the statue plinth as part of Occupy Democracy protests in Westminster, but was subsequently acquitted of all charges.

The statue was infamously sprayed with red paint and adorned with a green turf Mohican during May Day protests in 2000, for which the perpetrator received a 30-day jail sentence.

The statue was also daubed with graffiti during Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in 2020, for which an 18-year-old protester was given a £200 fine and told to pay £1,200 in compensation.

During the Black Lives Matter protests earlier that year, the statue was again sprayed with graffiti, and was eventually boarded up and ringed by police officers to protect it from demonstrators.

Most recently, trans rights campaigners who occupied Parliament Square in late April in protest at the Supreme Court decision on the legal definition of a woman, climbed the Churchill statue and waved placards from its plinth, as well as daubing slogans on other statues in the square.

(BBC News)

India’s military says it launched “Operation Sindoor“, striking nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, after which Islamabad said it had retaliated by striking Indian military targets, including downing several warplanes.

The Indian strike and counterattack by Pakistan come amid soaring tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours after a deadly attack last month on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad, which denied any involvement.

India’s government said in a statement early on Wednesday that its military had attacked “terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed”.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” it said.

Pakistani officials said at least eight people were killed and more than 35 injured in India’s attacks. The missiles struck locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the country’s eastern Punjab province.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said the cities of Muzaffarabad and Kotli, both in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, were among the targets of the Indian strikes.

“Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, speaking to a foreign TV network, confirmed that at least five Indian aircraft have been shot down and that a number of Indian soldiers have been taken prisoner,” Hyder said.

“Pakistan said that it would respond to any Indian attack against Pakistan, and Pakistan is now responding to that Indian attack,” he said.

“Heavy shelling has now resumed on the Line of Control that separates Pakistan-administered Kashmir from Indian-administered Kashmir,” he added.

A Pakistani military spokesman had earlier told the broadcaster Geo that at least five locations, including two mosques, had been hit. He had also said that Pakistan’s response was under way, without providing details.

Following India’s attacks, the armies of the two sides exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across their frontier in disputed Kashmir in at least three places, the Reuters news agency reported, citing police and witnesses.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum restraint from both sides.

“The secretary-general is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries,” the spokesperson said.

“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan.”

United States President Donald Trump said the clashes were “a shame”.

“I just hope it ends very quickly,” Trump said at the White House.

The eruption of violence comes amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours in the aftermath of an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

India blamed Pakistan for the violence, in which 26 men were killed, and promised to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings.

Nitasha Kaul, the director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, said the strikes are “very concerning”.

“Once again, the worst affected are going to be the people in the region, the Kashmiris, who are caught between the competing and proprietorial and rival postures and attitudes of India and Pakistan,” Kaul told Al Jazeera.

Still, she said, the escalation is “not that surprising, because within India … there has been a domestic pressure building up for a more militarist response, given the fact that there is a particularly hyper-nationalist government in power.

“In that sense, sadly, this was a countdown to a greater escalation, and hopefully it won’t proceed much further beyond what has already happened with these strikes,” Kaul added.

(Aljazeera)

Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to expand its military offensive against Hamas which includes the “capture” of Gaza and the holding of its territory, according to an Israeli official.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the cabinet had decided on a “forceful operation” to destroy Hamas and rescue its remaining hostages, and that Gaza’s 2.1 million population “will be moved, to protect it”.

He did not say how much territory would be seized by troops, but he stressed that “they will not enter and come out”.

The cabinet also approved, in principle, a plan to deliver aid through private companies, which would end a two-month blockade the UN says has caused severe food shortages.

The UN and other aid agencies have said the proposal would be a breach of basic humanitarian principles and that they will not co-operate.

A Hamas official said the group rejected Israel’s “pressure and blackmail”.

Asked about the Israeli plan to expand its offensive, President Donald Trump repeated a pledge to help get food to Palestinians there.

The UK meanwhile said it “does not support an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza”. The EU earlier urged restraint, saying it was concerned about “further casualties and suffering for the Palestinian population”.

(BBC News)