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Report On Swansea Prison Shows It Is Not Fit For Purpose

A prison is not fit for purpose because of its low standards and failure to do more to prevent eight people taking their own lives over the past six years, a watchdog has said.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) said each of the deaths at Swansea prison were within the first week of arrival.

Four of those happened before an inspection in 2014 and the latest visit found lessons had not been learnt. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) said action was taken. Inspectors also found issues with violence, overcrowding and self-harm.

The Prison Governors Association said the “issues highlighted in the Swansea report are fairly systemic across the prison system”.

Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke said the inspection in August 2017 was “very disappointing”.”Between our last inspection in 2014 and when we went back in the middle of last year there have been four further self-inflicted deaths – all in similar circumstances, all in the early days of the individual’s imprisonment at Swansea jail,” Mr Clarke said. “Quite simply, not enough has been done to understand the sort of problems they may have been facing and to prevent them inflicting harm and death upon themselves.”

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Many Civilians Killed In Syrian Air Strikes

Twenty-five civilians are reported to have been killed in air strikes on two towns in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area outside Syria’s capital, Damascus.

The Syria Civil Defence said one of its rescue workers was among 18 people who died when what witnesses identified as Russian jets bombed Misraba. Another six people died in suspected Russian strikes on Arbin, it added.

Some 400,000 people in the area have been under siege by Russian-backed Syrian government forces since 2013.

Last week, the government permitted Red Cross teams to evacuate 29 critically-ill patients from the Eastern Ghouta as part of a deal that saw rebels release the same number of prisoners.

Hundreds more patients are in urgent need of evacuation from the enclave, where there are only 107 doctors and severe shortages of medical supplies. The Syria Civil Defence said Russian jets fired “seismic missiles” on residential areas of Misraba overnight, causing several buildings to collapse.

Nine women and two children were among the 18 people killed, it said, adding that the number might rise because some of the injured were in a critical condition.

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Twitter Feud Continues Between Trump And Kim Jong-un

US President Donald Trump has boasted that his nuclear button is “much bigger” and “more powerful” than North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s.

Mr Trump’s tweet is the latest contribution to the increasingly personalised feud between the nuclear-armed leaders.

Mr Kim threatened earlier this week that his nuclear launch button was “always on my table”. Unsurprisingly, Mr Trump’s unorthodox words sent social media into a frenzy. It ended a quickfire day of tweeting by Mr Trump that included taking credit for a lack of plane crashes, announcing awards for “corrupt media”, and threatening to pull aid from Palestinians who do not show “appreciation or respect”.

Mr Trump’s latest comment states the obvious: any US president has immediate access to the nuclear codes and the US has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal.

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