Nearly half a million Russian soldiers have died since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. The figure, one of the highest Western estimates made public so far on the human cost of the war for the Kremlin, was revealed this Wednesday by Anne Keast-Butler, the director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), one of the country's three security agencies.

The Ebola crisis is worsening in Central Africa. Ugandan authorities ordered this Wednesday to close the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo "with immediate effect" due to the increase in cases of a rare variant of the virus in the neighboring country. The first infections have also begun to appear in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, located between 400 and 500 kilometers from the initial focus of the outbreak.

Change of political cycle in the United Kingdom after fourteen years of Conservative governments. Keir Starmer's Labour Party has achieved a resounding victory in Thursday's general election. With the results from two constituencies still to be announced, Labour has secured 412 seats, which comfortably surpasses the threshold for an absolute majority, set at 326. The party led by Starmer since spring 2020 has thus brought about a spectacular turnaround in the figures from the last election, held in 2019 (202 MPs), at the peak of Boris Johnson's popularity. Starmer has thus brought about a spectacular turnaround in the figures from the last election, held in 2019 (202 MPs), at the peak of Boris Johnson's popularity.

No time to lose. The transfer of power in the United Kingdom is immediate. At five in the morning this Friday, the Labour Party managed to surpass the threshold of an absolute majority (326 seats; it has obtained 412, with the result of two constituencies yet to be known), and seven and a half hours later, Keir Starmer, accompanied by his wife, Victoria, entered Downing Street after having received the commission from King Charles III to form a new executive, and having thus become the 58th premier in the country's history.

One of the most evoked poems to highlight London's uniqueness is by the romantic William Wordsworth. It is titled Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802, and it is a lyric sonnet that reflects the calm that emanates from the city at dawn as seen from Westminster Bridge. Wordsworth wrote it after crossing the Thames near the Houses of Parliament, and not, as the title suggests, that he "composed" it from the bridge.

The full summer atmosphere that has accompanied us for days is leaving thermal records that, in some cases, have never been seen in the middle of May. The United Kingdom, France, and Cantabria and Asturias in Spain are some of the places where unusual values have been recorded in a heatwave with few precedents, both for its date on the calendar – at the end of meteorological spring – and for its intensity and persistence, with many days widely above the climatic average. Also in Catalonia, in recent days, temperatures more typical of early July than of May have been reached, with thermometers approaching 35 °C in some territories.

The British historian Mark Galeotti, an analyst specialized in Russian security and transnational crime, has just published a new essay in Spanish, which is also a history of organized crime: Homo criminalis. How Crime Organizes the World (Capitán Swing). A pleasant, rigorous, and also worrying book because it reveals what we often only believe happens in crime novels or screen fiction: crime never rests, it is closer than we suspect, and today's criminals can become tomorrow's legislators.

There is no peace or oblivion for Prince Andrew. The police have expanded their investigation in recent weeks to cover a wide range of possible crimes, including inappropriate sexual conduct, corruption, and misuse of confidential information.

The Brexit wound continues to bleed the British Labour Party, and by extension, the United Kingdom. The crisis that opened up in Keir Starmer's government last week following the electoral catastrophe of May 7 –and the growing internal pressure to oust him– has once again placed membership of the European Union at the center of the debate, as the tenth anniversary of the referendum approaches on June 23.

British politics has been advancing for decades like a Shakespearean comedy of errors: the characters change, but the pattern repeats. Long before Brexit, which will be a decade next month, Westminster was already chaining together cycles of confusion, miscalculated maneuvers, and governments trapped in their own mistakes. From 1974 –with two general elections, the fall of the conservative government, the winter of discontent, and the unions on war footing–, to the parliaments without an absolute majority in the 21st century, passing through the illegal suspension of Parliament in 2019, the British system has shown a recurring fragility that contrasts with an image of impeccable solidity.

has been very clear. At this point, then, it is very difficult to say if the revolt of the According to various British press reports, the head of the Interior Ministry, Shabana Mahmood, and the Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, have made it clear in recent hours that sustaining his leadership is impossible. The Justice Minister and number two in the executive, David Lammy, and the Defence Minister, John Healey, would also have spoken about his future. But the prime minister has been very clear. At this point, then, it is very difficult to say if the revolt of the backbench MPs will succeed.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has borrowed some words from the ad hoclaw.

The war between the United States and Israel against Iran and the consequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is beginning to have a direct impact on the mental health and working conditions of the sailors trapped in the area, who, according to data from the International Maritime Organization (IMO), number around 20,000. This pressure is confirmed to ARA by Amy Liebthal, spokesperson for the International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN), an entity that operates a free, confidential, and multilingual 24-hour telephone assistance service (Seafarer Help), aimed at seafarers in situations of risk and their families.

Keir Starmer is living on borrowed time. He doesn't know it yet, he doesn't want to admit it, and he intends to fight with all his might, but the result of Thursday's local elections in England, along with those in the national Parliaments of Scotland and Wales, have left the British prime minister mortally wounded. As a defibrillator and last resort to avoid the inevitable, Starmer, who has been practically rudderless since he won the elections, less than two years ago, has dusted off two of the old glories of New Labour.

A decade after the Brexit earthquake, the British far-right leader Nigel Farage has once again shaken the politics of the islands and has toppled the pillars of traditional Westminster bipartisanship. The Reform Party led by Farage, the man who unleashed the United Kingdom's divorce from the European Union (EU), has been the big winner of the English local elections held this Thursday in 136 municipal authorities. The government has suffered a humiliating defeat, losing more than 1,400 councillors out of the 5,000 in dispute. The defeat has been aggravated from its left by the rise of the Green Party, which has gained just over 300.

In February 2024, the writer and journalist Patrick Radden Keefe published an article in The New Yorker –he has been writing for it since 2006– titled A teen's fatal plunge into the London Underworld (La caiguda mortal d’un adolescent als baixos fons de Londres). With his usual style, which blends the rigor of the best journalistic investigation with writing that captivates the reader, Radden Keefe addressed the death, in November 2019, of a 19-year-old boy, Zac Brettler, the second son of a well-off family in West London.

At seven in the morning this Thursday, local time, polling stations have opened on a day that could be decisive for the political future of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Millions of citizens are called to the polls to renew almost 5,000 councilor positions in different local authorities in England, including the 32 districts of London; and the national parliaments of Scotland and Wales. The final results will not begin to be known until well into the early hours of Friday and, above all, throughout the morning and midday, when the most important counts are completed. Political expectation is at its peak in Westminster because the super-Thursday will be the first major verdict on the management of the premier since he arrived at Downing Street, less than two years ago.

This is a compass article. Like the magnetized needle instrument, the aim of these words is to try to show us where we are. Or, more precisely, where the Iran war is, a strident earthquake that has strained international politics and the economy.

The Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya (HAYI) group, an Islamist organization with alleged ties to the Iranian regime, has claimed responsibility for a knife attack against two Jewish men this Wednesday in the Golders Green area, north London, home to a significant Jewish community. The two victims, one aged 34 and the other 76, were injured but their lives are not in danger. The assailant, aged 45, whose identity has not yet been released, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder. In his attempt to flee, he also tried to stab a police officer.

Charles III and Camilla brought the British weather to Washington this Tuesday. Intermittent rain in the early hours of a grey morning over the District of Columbia, as the King and Queen of England were formally received, with all honors, by Donald Trump and Melania in the gardens of the White House, as part of a four-day state visit to the United States. A visit to celebrate the two hundred and fifty years of independence that, in fact, had begun in the early hours of Monday afternoon. The Trumps today unveiled a solemn ceremony on the South Lawn of the presidential residence, a sign of the utmost distinction and diplomatic consideration towards a visiting head of state.