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Violence against women, girls at ‘epidemic’ levels: UK police

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Violence against women, girls at ‘epidemic’ levels: UK police

Such violence accounted for 20 percent of all reported crime in England and Wales from 2022 to 2023, report says.

Women and girls in the United Kingdom are suffering “epidemic” levels of violent crime, police warn, with a new report documenting more than 1 million such offences within a year.

The report, released on Tuesday by the UK’s National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing, found that violence against women and girls made up about 20 percent of all reported crime in England and Wales from 2022 to 2023.

It said one in every six murders in England and Wales during the period was related to domestic abuse.

Based on the data, at least one in every 12 women will be a victim each year of gender-based violent crimes, including rape, stalking, harassment and online sexual abuse, according to the report.

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The number is likely to be higher due to unreported crimes, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said.

‘National emergency’

Blyth said the data were “staggering” and growing in scale and complexity every year with violent crimes targeting girls and women increasing 37 percent from 2018 to 2022.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation jumped by 435 percent from 2013 to 2022, the report estimated – from incidents climbing from just over 20,000 to nearly 107,000.

“Violence against women and girls is a national emergency,” Blyth said in a statement. “We need to move forward as a society to make change and no longer accept violence against women and girls as inevitable.”

Britain’s government last year classified violence against women and girls as a national threat to public safety, and police forces were told to prioritise their response to the issue in the same way as they do “terrorism” and organised crime.

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The report said thousands of police officers were newly trained to investigate rape and other sexual offences in the past year.

But the scale of the violence is so enormous that law enforcement alone cannot address it, the report said. One in 20 people are estimated to be perpetrators of violence against women and girls per year, with the actual number thought to be significantly higher.

The report cited early data showing a 25 percent increase in the number of arrests from 2019 to 2022.

But Blyth said this response was not enough and called for more government support to tackle a criminal justice system that is “overwhelmed and under-performing for victims”.

“Our focus will always be to bring the men behind these pervasive crimes to justice,” she said. “By enhancing the way we use data and intelligence, we will improve our ability to identify, intercept and arrest those causing the most harm in communities.”

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

new video loaded: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

Prosecutors in Switzerland ordered Jacques Moretti to be detained after investigators questioned him and his wife, Jessica Moretti. Officials are looking into whether negligence played a role in last week’s deadly fire at their bar, Le Constellation.

By Meg Felling

January 9, 2026

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.

Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”

“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.

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TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’

Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.

“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

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“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.” 

Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro. 

Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.

A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

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Euronews spoke to Patrick de Bellefeuille, a prominent Canadian weather presenter and climate specialist, on how Europe could benefit from Canada’s long experience with snowstorms. He has been forecasting for MétéoMédia, Canada’s top French-language weather network, since 1988.

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