At the Doha Forum, Ukraine’s representative warned Russia’s invasions have created a ‘new law of power’ that will allow strong states to occupy weaker ones unless the international system is restored. He urged experienced mediators and stronger, enforceable rules to deter aggression.
The Lebanese army arrested six people after gunmen attacked international peacekeepers patrolling in the south of the country, as a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) delegation was to embark on a visit to the zone.
The army said in a statement on Saturday that its intelligence directorate had detained six Lebanese suspects in connection with Thursday’s attack, which saw six men riding on three mopeds opening fire on a UN peacekeepers’ patrol vehicle without hurting anyone.
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It said it would not tolerate attacks on UNIFIL, as the UN force is called. For nearly five decades, its peacekeepers have acted as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon, with further monitoring of a ceasefire struck in November last year between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
The arrests were made after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met a visiting UNSC delegation on Friday, signalling that its members would be embarking on a tour of southern Lebanon to check “the situation on the ground”.
Aoun said the delegation’s trip south would help it to “see the real picture of what is happening there”, after discussions on escalating tensions with Israel and the army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah.
Last year’s truce was supposed to see Israeli forces withdrawing from Lebanon as Hezbollah disarmed. However, Israeli forces continue to occupy at least five positions inside Lebanese territory and have conducted near-daily attacks across Lebanon that have killed more than 300 people, according to the UN.
Israel claims its operations are targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the armed group from rebuilding its military capabilities, but it has killed dozens of civilians in its attacks and destroyed residential buildings and critical infrastructure. UNIFIL has also recently complained of Israeli forces firing at or near its peacekeepers.
The UNSC visit to the country comes amid tentative signs of potential deeper engagement between Lebanon and Israel, with the pair holding direct discussions on Wednesday under the auspices of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism.
Aoun told UNSC delegates on Friday that his country had “adopted the option of negotiations with Israel” and that “there is no going back.”
The BBC Strictly star is opening up on her father’s Alzheimer’s fears after her dad was diagnosed with the deadly disease.
Arlene Phillips’ dad Abraham, a former barber, began showing signs of the illness a decade earlier when Arlene was in her late forties – attempting to make tea in the kettle, placing empty pans on a lit stove, appearing bewildered at his daughter’s home near his flat. She was working tirelessly on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revamped Starlight Express in the West End, while also raising two daughters, Alana, now 45, and newborn Abi, now 34.
Now, Arlene has shared her fears over the disease, revealing she’d go to Dignitas if she was diagnosed. “My friends and I talk about this a lot. I think if I had Alzheimer’s I’d like to go to Dignitas,” she said. “So many people are against that, but it would be my decision. I don’t ever want my daughters to go through what I went through.”
Arlene cared for her father throughout his final years and she has now shared the heartache over watching her father Abraham succumb to Alzheimer’s, dying at 89 in 2000. She said: “I’ve watched someone go slowly, slowly, slowly from smart, snappy, bright to their every thought vanishing and becoming a non-functioning human being.
“It’s like watching a train going into a tunnel and by the time it emerges on the other side, it’s completely transformed. It’s heart-wrenching to have them gaze at you with no hint of recognition. You wonder, ‘What about all the times you embraced me? When you conversed with me? When you enjoyed me reading to you?’ All vanished, yet someone has to feed you to keep you alive.”
She continued: “Dad always used to tell me, ‘When I get old, I want to be like an animal, to wander into the forest, lie down and drift off. ‘ But he wasn’t granted that. Before work, during my lunch break and immediately afterwards, I’d dash to Dad’s with his breakfast, lunch and dinner. I attempted to arrange Meals on Wheels but he wouldn’t allow anyone else in.
“Then late at night, I’d return just to ensure he was in bed and safe,””she told The Times. “I was at sixes and sevens. It was a very challenging period.” Her partner, set builder Angus Ion, whom she met while filming Freddie Mercury’s I Was Born to Love You video, tried to lend a hand. “But dad only wanted me.”
New research reveals the UK’s 5.8 million unpaid caregivers are facing a hidden health crisis themselves, with more than half reporting a decline in their physical or mental health due to their responsibilities. And that’s why Arlene encouraged carers to prioritise their own health during last week’s Caring for Caregivers week.
At the time, Arlene exclusively told The Mirror said: “Caring for a loved one is one of the most difficult roles anyone can take on, both mentally and physically. Millions of unpaid carers work tirelessly, sacrificing their own needs to care for others, forfeiting sleep, their own hobbies and socialising due to their responsibilities.”
The daughter of a barber and a housewife, Arlene began dancing as a young girl in Prestwich, Lancashire, and always harboured ambitions to become a ballet dancer.
“I came from a very poor background and was the middle child with my older brother Ian and younger sister Karen,” she recalled. “When I was 15, my mum got leukaemia at a time when nobody seemed to know what it really was and in between going to hospital for blood transfusions she wanted me to stay off school to look after her. My dad wasn’t well at the time, and my brother was studying so I took care of mum, washed her and looked after the house. I found it hard going back to school because I’d missed so much. I was lost.”
Arlene paid for her own dance classes with money earned doing a paper round and was adamant she should keep Saturdays for herself. But one day her mother asked her to miss her dance class to look after her, a request Arlene ended up refusing. “I didn’t want to miss dancing and so I said one of the others had to do it,” she says.
“That guilt, which so many carers feel, has stayed with me to this day. There are so many child carers in the UK and for a while I was one of them.”
Rita died aged 43, just three months after her diagnosis. Arlene wasn’t allowed to attend her funeral and was sent straight back to school.
But despite this, she found herself in the role of carer once again as an adult when her father Abraham, who had been unwell with blood clots when her mum was dying, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He eventually died aged 89 after battling the disease for more than a decade.
“He didn’t want anyone coming in the flat to look after him apart from me,” says Arlene. “People with dementia can be very frightened. He always thought people were breaking into his home. I organised things like meals on wheels but he wouldn’t let them in.
“So it all fell on me to do everything for him, as it often does with so many people looking after relatives with dementia, who only trust their loved ones to care for them. I did it for 10 years, determined not to put him in a care home but eventually I had to. I was exhausted and broken by it and, again, there is that guilt carers feel.”
With the release of Meghan Markle’s Netflix show earlier this year, the Duchess set up a ShopMy page featuring a selection of her favourite fashion, beauty, and homeware products.
Although this page has since been updated, one beauty product that previously caught our eye was the Medicube Collagen Jelly Cream. Meghan always has a healthy-looking, radiant complexion, and this plumping cream appears to be the secret behind the glow.
And the best bit? The cream is currently reduced at Boots from £26 to £23.40, making it the perfect opportunity to stock up before Christmas or try out a new product.
The K-Beauty buy is packed with collagen for firmness, niacinamide to brighten and strengthen the skin barrier, and squalane for that long-lasting glow. It sinks in fast and leaves the skin looking immediately plump and refreshed.
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The jelly texture is a big part of the hype; it gives that dewy finish people rave about while also being gentle enough to work for pretty much every skin type. No wonder it’s one of Meghan’s go-to products.
Our beauty editor, Laura Mulley, tested out the cream for herself, saying, “It has a consistency unlike anything I’ve ever tried before: red, bouncy and surprisingly firm, like actual edible jelly, and comes with a little scoop to spoon it out with. I usually find gel moisturisers not hydrating enough for me, disappearing too quickly into my skin, but not this one – this had a really smoothing, plumping effect, and gave a genuine ‘glass skin’ look without the greasiness that sometimes comes with very dewy creams.”
Another favourite moisturiser of Meghan’s, and one she’s shared her love of numerous times over the years, is Tatcha The Dewy Skin Cream, priced at £67.
Strictly Come Dancing icon Dame Arlene Philips made a heartbreaking admission about her own death.
The popular dancer and choreographer, 82, was opening up about her father’s battle with Alzheimer’s when she considered how she herself would react to the cruel disease.
Speaking in the Weekend pullout of The Times, she said: “My friends and I talk about this a lot. I think if I had Alzheimer’s I’d like to go to Dignitas. So many people are against that, but it would be my decision. I don’t ever want my daughters to go through what I went through.”
Arlene, who is currently working on choreography for Footballers Wives: The Musical, recalled her painful memories of watching her dad Abraham’s decline before his death in 2000 at the age of 89.
Speaking about her late father, she continued: “It’s like watching a train going in a tunnel and by the time it gets out the other side it’s completely transformed.
“It’s crippling to have them stare at you with no sign of recognition. You think, ‘What about all the times you put your arms around me? When you talked to me? When you loved me reading to you?’ All gone but someone has to put food in your mouth to keep you alive.
“Dad always used to say to me, ‘When I get old, I want to be like an animal, to walk into the forest, lie down and go to sleep.’ But he couldn’t have that.”
Abraham, who used to work as a barber, started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s, which is the most common cause of dementia in the UK, when mum-of-two Arlene was in her early 40s and working on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express show.
She remembered bringing her father breakfast, lunch and dinner and how he sometimes refused to get dressed or believed his flat had been broken into.
The judge, who starred in Strictly from 2004 until 2008, later became an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society after his death.
Earlier this year, Arelne also spoke to the Guardian where she revealed dying was her greatest fear.
And when asked what her biggest disappointment has been, she answered: “Being let go from Strictly.”
She reflected about the BBC show earlier this year when speaking to Closer about the debate that rages annually – should the celebs be allowed to have prior dancing experience?
And giving her take, she said: ‘The thing is, and this is really important, it doesn’t mean because you are trained dancers, you are going to win. Think about Bill Bailey. Think about Ore Oduba… Stacey Dooley. So I wish people would get over it.”
She added: “Just enjoy what they do, they may win. Ellie [Leach] wasn’t the best dancer; she had dance training – not necessarily the best dancer. In the end, the public can fall in love with anyone, and they can rocket them to a win.
“So I think people should just relax. Yes, they’ve been trained, and Layton [Williams] didn’t win. He’s phenomenal, and together, they did things that have never been seen on Strictly anymore. They did come second; didn’t win.
Britain’s Mia Brookes claimed the fourth World Cup win of her career with victory in the Freestyle Snowboard Big Air World Cup in Beijing.
The 18-year-old finished on 176.5 points, ahead of Austria’s Hanna Karrer (146.75) and Japan’s Momo Suzuki (145.25).
Brookes’ signature frontside spin with her second jump secured the 12th podium finish of her career.
Team-mate Kirsty Muir, 21, was fourth in the Big Air final.
Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson won bronze in the Grand Prix of Figure Skating final in Japan.
The pair, whose bronze last year was Britain’s first medal in the event, finished on 208.81 points.
Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates took the title for a third straight year with 220.42, ahead of France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron on 214.25.
“It feels like a sprint to get to the Grand Prix final and then all of a sudden you have a month or two before we’ll meet again in Milan (at the Winter Olympics),” said Bates.
Fear and Gibson, who claimed a record eighth British ice dance title last month, are set to compete in the European Championships in Sheffield in January.