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The political leader of the Basque separatist group Eta has been arrested in the French Alps after 17 years on the run, officials say.

In a joint French-Spanish police operation, Josu Ternera — whose real name is José Antonio Urrutikoetxea — was arrested in Sallanches. He is accused over several Eta killings.

Eta, which waged a violent campaign for Basque independence for more than 40 years, said in 2018 it was disbanding. The group killed more than 800 people during its campaign of violence before declaring a ceasefire in 2011.

Reports say Ternera is seriously ill and Spanish police tipped off their French colleagues that he was on his way to hospital, triggering his arrest.

Spanish prosecutors allege that Josu Ternera was involved in a car bomb attack outside a Civil Guard barracks in the northern city of Zaragoza in December 1987, which killed 11 people, including five children.

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Giving the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei a role in building the UK’s 5G network poses an unnecessary risk to national security, a former MI6 chief has said.

Sir Richard Dearlove said such a move could give the Chinese government a «potentially advantageous exploitative position» in the UK’s telecoms network. It follows reports last month that the PM is ready to let the firm supply some parts of the UK’s 5G infrastructure.

A Huawei spokesman said Sir Richard’s warnings were «short on fact».

Sir Richard’s intervention comes as US President Donald Trump signed an executive order effectively banning American firms from using foreign telecoms deemed to pose a threat to national security.

Although it does not name Huawei, it is widely considered to be aimed at the firm following repeated warnings by US officials that it could be used by the Chinese state to spy on or sabotage foreign networks. The company has vehemently denied the allegations and insists it is independent from state control.

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Legislators in San Francisco have voted to ban the use of facial recognition, the first US city to do so.

The emerging technology will not be allowed to be used by local agencies, such as the city’s transport authority, or law enforcement. Additionally, any plans to buy any kind of new surveillance technology must now be approved by city administrators.

Opponents of the measure said it will put people’s safety at risk and hinder efforts to fight crime. Those in favour of the move said the technology as it exists today is unreliable, and represented an unnecessary infringement on people’s privacy and liberty.

In particular, opponents argued the systems are error prone, particularly when dealing with women or people with darker skin.

«With this vote, San Francisco has declared that face surveillance technology is incompatible with a healthy democracy and that residents deserve a voice in decisions about high-tech surveillance,» said Matt Cagle from the American Civil Liberties Union in Northern California. «We applaud the city for listening to the community, and leading the way forward with this crucial legislation. Other cities should take note and set up similar safeguards to protect people’s safety and civil rights.»

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Organised crime poses such a threat to the UK that an extra £3bn will be needed to fight it over the next three years, the National Crime Agency says.

Its head Lynne Owens says this includes more than doubling the NCA’s annual budget from £424m to nearly £1.1bn. In a speech, she warned the public will «feel the consequences» if the government does not find the cash.

The agency’s annual review of organised crime says there are more than 4,500 groups with 37,000 members in the UK. But it says the threat from these offenders is rapidly changing «in scale and complexity» — and it needs a vast increase in resources to keep up.

Ms Owens told BBC Radio 4’s Today show that the NCA is facing a «chronic and corrosive threat». She said: «It’s a number of things, it’s globalisation, it’s the rapid use and expansion of technology, it’s the development of encryption and it’s the demand for services — it’s the supply of drugs, and we are a nation unfortunately, with a high demand for drugs. «It’s paedophiles using the dark web to target children in their bedrooms, those who dominate communities using fear and violence through the trade of drugs and firearms and illicit finance and cyber crime.»

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Hackers were able to remotely install surveillance software on phones and other devices using a major vulnerability in messaging app WhatsApp, it has been confirmed.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, said the attack targeted a «select number» of users, and was orchestrated by «an advanced cyber actor». A fix was rolled out on Friday.

The attack was developed by Israeli security firm NSO Group, according to a report in the Financial Times.

On Monday, WhatsApp urged all of its 1.5 billion users to update their apps as an added precaution. The attack was first discovered earlier this month.

WhatsApp promotes itself as a «secure» communications app because messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning they should only be displayed in a legible form on the sender or recipient’s device.

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