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Thousands of ferry passengers are stranded on both sides of the Channel as port workers in Calais stage strike action for the second time in a week.

The MyFerryLink workers walked out on Monday over the sale of the company’s ferries to rival DFDS Seaways.

Sailings between Dover and the French port are at a standstill, but services to Dunkirk are operating as normal.

The boss of P&O Ferries said security at Calais had been “abandoned” leaving passengers “caught in the middle”. Also, passengers using the Channel Tunnel are subject to delays following an earlier incident, Eurotunnel said.

Operation Stack, where lorries use part of the M20 to queue for Channel crossings, has been implemented coastbound between junctions eight and nine, for Maidstone and Ashford, as a result of the latest action. Non-freight traffic travelling to Dover has been urged to use the A2 and M2. Passengers hoping to travel to Calais by ferry have been urged to contact their ferry operators.

A strike which began on 23 June led to the suspension of Channel Tunnel services and saw hundreds of migrants try to board UK-bound lorries amid the chaos. The current strike action is expected to continue until Thursday, when DFDS officially takes over the MyFerryLink service. Helen Deeble, the chief executive of P&O Ferries, said: “Through no fault of their own, our passengers are caught in the middle of an industrial relations battle that has been caused by Eurotunnel. “This has left thousands of holidaymakers and lorry drivers stranded without adequate facilities.”

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Police officers, soldiers, emergency services and intelligence officials are taking part in London’s largest counter-terrorism exercise to date. The simulation of a terror attack has been six months in the planning.

The exercise – codenamed Strong Tower – involves 1,000 police officers at locations across the capital until Wednesday afternoon.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said it would test responses to extremists using firearms.
It comes days after 38 people were killed by a gunman in Tunisia, the majority of them British holidaymakers.
The Metropolitan Police says this week’s exercise in London is not based on any specific intelligence and is part of a long-term strategy of planning and preparing for all possible types of terror attack.

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Data roaming charges are set to be abolished within the European Union by June 2017, it has been announced.

Firms will be allowed to add surcharges to their domestic rates for a 14-month interim period from April 2016.

The deal, which was reached on Tuesday, also sets out rules requiring telecom operators to treat most internet traffic equally.

But the net neutrality rules will allow blocking for some reasons, such as to counter cyber-attacks.

Rwanda’s intelligence chief Karenzi Karake has been granted bail of £1m ($1.6m) by a court in London.

Karenzi Karake was detained at London’s Heathrow Airport on Saturday, in response to a European Arrest Warrant.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame had earlier launched a scathing verbal attack on the UK government over Gen Karake’s arrest.

Mr Kagame said it was a continuation of “colonialism” and accused the British of “arrogance and contempt”.
Gen Karake is accused by Spain of ordering massacres in the wake of the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
He will be freed once the £1m is paid and other bail conditions are met.
After the hearing, Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Britain, Williams Nkurunziza, said: “I’m very happy but I would have been happier if he would have been allowed to return. “This is the best it gets with this legal system.”
Gen Karake will have to report to police daily and live either at the high commissioner’s home or in a house rented by the Rwandan embassy.
President Kagame said that the British authorities “must have mistaken [Gen Karake] for an illegal immigrant. The way they treat illegal immigrants is the way they treat all of us”.
He added that the British had been patronising, “wagging a finger at the African and telling him this is where you belong. We are no longer the African that belongs there”.
The BBC’s Newsnight programme reported that Gen Karake was in the UK to meet the head of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency.

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France’s interior minister has ordered a ban on the low-cost car-sharing service UberPOP after a day of nationwide protests by taxi drivers.

Bernard Cazeneuve said the service was “illegal” and ordered police and prosecutors to enforce its closure.

His announcement followed a day of sometimes violent protests by French taxi drivers, who say the US-based firm Uber is stealing their livelihoods.

US rock singer Courtney Love Cobain was caught up in the unrest.

She tweeted her frustration, saying her taxi had been ambushed as she left the airport.

The musician shared an image of the window of her car spattered with egg, and thanking two motorcyclists she said rescued her.

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