Malik Abdulhasan has been charged with offences of; meeting a girl under 16 years of age following grooming; two counts of engaging in sexual communications with a child; three offences of making indecent images of children and one of possessing extreme pornographic images.

The 25-year-old offered no indication of plea to all seven offences when he appeared at South Cumbria Magistrates Court in Barrow.

He is accused of meeting a 12-year-old girl in Millom with the intention of raping her.

The defendant is also alleged to have intentionally communicated with two underage girls for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification in August 2024 in Bolton.

The charges state he made requests for sexual images and on one occasion requested to meet a girl for a sexual purpose.

Abdulhasan, of Glaister Lane, Bolton, is also alleged to have made 23 category A images, 11 category B images, 19 category C images as well as possessing a further three extreme pornographic images displaying a person performing a sex act with a horse, fish and a frog between November 2, 2023, and October 2, 2024.

Magistrates adjourned the case to Preston Crown Court for a plea and trial preparation hearing on May 26.

A man who stole Noah Donohoe’s missing laptop has denied that it is his hand in a picture discovered on the schoolboy’s phone after he was last seen.

Daryl Paul told Belfast Coroner’s Court that he had “never set eyes” on Noah and insisted under questioning that he had never been in possession of his green coat or phone.

The inquest into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard before a jury, is now in its 13th week.

Noah, a pupil at St Malachy’s College, was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain tunnel in North Belfast on June 27 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of the city.

A post-mortem examination found the likely cause of death was drowning.

Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe has attended every day of the long-running proceedings.

Paul, of Cliftonville Avenue, previously pleaded guilty to stealing a rucksack containing Noah’s laptop and books. He resumed giving evidence on Monday when he was questioned by Brenda Campbell KC, who represents Ms Donohoe.

Pointing out that Paul had previously lied under police questioning, the barrister said there were aspects of his possession of Noah’s belongings that “call for questions to be asked”.

The jury was shown CCTV footage of Paul in the Queen’s Quarter area of Belfast, close to Noah’s Fitzroy Avenue home, from the evening the schoolboy disappeared.

Paul said he had been in the area to see Maria Nolan, who he said he had recently met, and who has previously given evidence at the inquest.

Ms Campbell said: “On those occasions when you hung outside Queen’s Quarter like this afternoon, do you think you would have seen Noah? Did you speak to him?”

Paul replied: “No, never.”

She asked him if he had any knowledge of Noah leaving his home for a short period on the night before he disappeared.

Paul said: “I don’t know a single thing and if I did I would be the first to tell you, I have a heart.”

The jury was then shown CCTV footage of Noah cycling past Paul in Queen’s Quarter, wearing his green coat and carrying his rucksack.

Ms Campbell said: “This is the last time he leaves home, and you’re within a matter of metres of him.”

She pointed out that within an hour, Noah’s rucksack ended up in a green bag Paul is seen carrying in the footage.

The witness said: “I have no knowledge of that wee boy passing me.”

The barrister said: “What I want to explore on behalf of Noah’s mother is this series of coincidences, to understand whether they are coincidences or whether there’s reason to be more concerned.”

Ms Campbell continued: “Did you look in the direction of Noah after he went past?”

Paul responded: “I did. Just a natural thing, I guess.”

Ms Campbell said Paul had then travelled towards Royal Avenue in Belfast city centre while showing the jury a map of the route Noah cycled through the city.

Paul said: “I was only on same path as Noah for a short distance.”

The barrister said Paul had claimed during an interview with a journalist that he had found Noah’s rucksack containing his laptop on the ground in a covered walkway in the York Street/Frederick Street area.

The jury was shown footage of Noah cycling past that area without stopping.

Ms Campbell said: “I am going to suggest where you told the journalist that you found Noah’s bag is not where it was… you are wrong about that.”

Paul said: “I can only tell you where I found it. If I lied about that, what significance would that lie hold?”

Ms Campbell said: “Until this point in time we have got the coincidence of you being outside Queen’s Quarter and now the coincidence of you being on that part of his journey.

“But the coincidences, I am going to suggest, don’t stop there.”

The barrister said the jury had previously heard evidence about an anonymous caller to police who stated Paul had been in possession of Noah’s green coat.

Paul said: “I was not in possession of any green coat.”

She said: “It would be another coincidence upon coincidence?”

He said: “I did not have his coat.”

The barrister asked the witness if he had next “followed Noah’s journey” from the city centre along North Queen Street.

He said he had not.

She continued: “To the location where the phone was found?”

Paul said: “No.”

Ms Campbell said: “Do you know anything about Noah’s phone? Did you have it in your hand? Did you find it in his coat pocket or in his rucksack?

He answered: “No.”

The barrister said a report from a police expert had revealed a photograph of a hand on Noah’s phone taken on the evening he disappeared, 40 minutes after he was last seen.

She said: “Is that your hand?”

Paul responded: “No, it is not my hand.”

The barrister said police arrested Paul later on the same day but he was never asked where he had found the laptop or about the green coat.

She then showed the jury phone records from Noah’s phone on the day he disappeared.

Ms Campbell said Noah’s mother Fiona had called her son’s mobile six times on the evening he went missing.

She said: “Whoever had Noah’s phone in their hand at 18.50 would have a phone with six missed calls from ‘Mum’.”

The jury was then shown a map of the area in north Belfast where the phone was when Ms Donohoe sent a text message to her son on June 21 2020.

She said Victoria Parade, where Paul said he had gone after leaving Frederick Street, was within the area of the map.

She said: “Did you have Noah’s phone?”

Paul said: “No, I did not.”

Ms Campbell continued: “Did you see that message coming in and those phone calls?”

He said: “I don’t appreciate that question, but the answer is no.”

She said: “It is not too late to tell the truth, not too late to give him some justice.”

He responded: “Thank you, but no.”

Ms Campbell added: “Was it you who went along North Queen Street and who chucked his phone over the railings into Castleton Park?”

He said: “I wasn’t even there.”

She said: “You realised this was a phone that was a bit hot, there was a mummy desperate to find her child?”

Paul said: “No.”

The inquest continues.

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The facility will have 1750 panels in 10 arrays, with each array mounted on a solar panel table.

North Lanarkshire Council has granted planning permission for a new solar power facility at a former landfill site near Airdrie.

Council officers have approved a planning application which proposed the installation and operation of photovoltaic panels, mounting frames, a transformer kiosk and onsite substation, along with other features such as security fencing and CCTV at Dalmacoulter Landfill.

The facility will have 1750 panels in 10 arrays, with each array mounted on a solar panel table.

A report on the decision noted that the proposals were in keeping with several relevant policies, including those concerned with environmental matters and green energy, while also reusing a brownfield site.

The report also states that existing peripheral tree cover, means there will not be a significant impact on the landscape, while habitat improvements will more than compensate for any lost habitat.

The development was, therefore, granted planning permission subject to conditions.

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The Iran crisis is reshaping how the world produces, uses and secures energy. This is no temporary shock. It has become a structural stress test of energy systems, industrial production and government strategy.

We’ve seen this in the recent past: household energy bills in 2024 were still about 4% higher than in 2019,
even after the 2022 global energy crisis had eased (annual bills were up 16% at the peak). That crisis was driven by a combination of post-pandemic demand recovery, tight energy supplies and wider geopolitical disruption, including the Ukraine war, which pushed energy prices sharply higher.

Affordability remains fragile because many lower-income households still spend a disproportionately large share of their income on energy. It’s also a problem for business. Sustained energy costs continue to burden European manufacturing, for instance, affecting industrial competitiveness and long-term economic resilience.

At the same time, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects global electricity demand will have grown 3.3% in 2025 and then 3.7% in 2026. The pressure from the 2022 crisis therefore shifted rather than disappeared.

International fuel markets remain highly sensitive to geopolitical shocks, especially when households and industry depend on imported gas and oil. Around 20% of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. This highlights how concentrated supply routes can transmit instability rapidly across global markets, causing not just rising energy prices but knock-on effects like increased fertiliser costs.

It’s also no longer just a question of fuel supply. Unpredictable, extreme weather conditions are compounding the problem of volatile prices of fossil fuels. Heatwaves raise electricity demand for cooling; drought weakens hydropower; storms disrupt transmission and distribution infrastructure; and low-wind periods test whether the system has enough backup power, storage and flexibility to maintain supply.

The IEA’s work on climate resilience in power systems makes clear that climate-related extremes are becoming more important across electricity generation, networks and demand. Price risk and weather risk are increasingly overlapping drivers of modern energy insecurity (the risk of energy becoming unaffordable, unreliable or unavailable).

The strain is emerging from a mismatch between how energy systems were built and the conditions under which they now operate. Electricity systems are being asked to integrate larger amounts of low-carbon power, but the supporting infrastructure has not developed at the same speed. This means there is still not enough grid capacity, energy storage, system interconnection or ability to match electricity demand with changing supply to move electricity efficiently, store surplus power or reduce pressure at times of peak demand.

À lire aussi :
The oil price surge is just one symptom of a supply chain network that is not fit for this age of global tensions

At least 1,650GW of renewable electricity capacity worldwide is waiting in grid connection queues. That is equivalent to more than 40 times Britain’s recent peak electricity demand of about 38GW, which shows how large the backlog has become.

An estimated US$400 billion (£296 billion) is spent annually on grid infrastructure, including transmission lines, substations and distribution networks that carry electricity from where it is generated to where it is used.

This compares with roughly US$1 trillion spent on forms of energy generation, such as solar farms, wind farms, hydropower plants and gas-fired power stations. This shows how electricity-generating capacity has expanded faster than the systems needed to connect it, balance supply and demand, and keep the system secure.
When electricity demand is rising rapidly, there’s less of a buffer if the supporting infrastructure needed to manage it (such as grids or storage) is not expanding at the same pace.

Missed warning signs

Well before the Iran energy crisis, it was clear that we are overly dependent on internationally traded fossil fuels. The same goes for the slow pace of grid expansion relative to new generation capacity, and our failure to treat weather variability as a core energy-security issue rather than a secondary climate concern.

Recent European electricity data underlines this. Wind and solar generated 30% of EU electricity in 2025, slightly above the 29% from fossil fuels. Nevertheless, less windy and less rainy conditions contributed to a 12% fall in EU hydro output in 2025.

Cleaner systems do not automatically become more resilient. Network strength, flexibility and climate preparedness all need to advance at the same pace.

The strongest evidence points towards a more integrated response in which energy security and decarbonisation are treated as part of the same agenda. Lowering dependence on volatile fossil fuels, using energy more efficiently in homes, transport and industry, and strengthening system flexibility are increasingly central to long-term security. Yet many electricity systems remain too slow to adapt when supply drops, demand surges, or electricity must be shifted across regions or time periods.

You can see the implications with households. Heat pumps are typically three to four times more efficient than gas boilers in the sense that they can deliver three to four units of heat for each unit of electricity used, because they move heat rather than generate it directly.

However, the Climate Change Committee also notes that lower running costs depend on electricity prices and policy support, so greater efficiency does not always mean lower bills in the short term. Solar panels can help here. The UK government’s solar roadmap says a typical household installing rooftop solar could save around £500 per year on bills. Meanwhile, the IEA also estimates that electric vehicles displaced more than 1.3 million barrels of oil demand per day in 2024.

These are not only indicators of decarbonisation; they also show how cleaner technologies can reduce direct exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility.

At the policy level, the choice is between deeper structural resilience and repeated cycles of short-term crisis management. The European Commission’s REPowerEU plan is to make Europe’s energy system more secure, affordable and sustainable by reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels, accelerating clean energy and improving energy efficiency. It is intended to strengthen long-term energy resilience across the EU by diversifying energy supplies and speeding up the transition to domestically produced low-carbon energy.

What remains uncertain is the timing and scale of future shocks. What is certain is that the greatest vulnerabilities still lie in fossil-fuel dependence, weak infrastructure and delayed policy adjustment. The most credible route to a more secure energy future lies in efficiency, electrification, renewables, stronger grids, storage and policy that takes a longer-term approach.

The Scottish Labour leader said the SNP would rather focus on the constitution than fixing the NHS or supporting public services.

Anas Sarwar has accused John Swinney of “shifting the goalposts” on Scottish independence ahead of next week’s Holyrood election.

The Scottish Labour leader spoke out after the First Minister his government would begin its push for powers to hold an IndyRef2 on the first parliamentary day after it is formed.

Swinney told an audience of SNP candidates in Govan today: “I can confirm today that on the first sitting day after the appointment of the new government, we will bring forward a vote of the Scottish Parliament to approve the development of a Section 30 order to give Scotland the power to hold an independence referendum.”

But the SNP leader refused to rule out pushing for a referendum even if his party fails to win a majority.

Sarwar said: “This just demonstrates that John Swinney’s priority is not the NHS, not supporting our public services, and not making our streets safer. It is dividing our country and obsessing over the arguments of the past.

“I am absolutely clear that on day one of a Scottish Labour government, my focus will be on cutting waiting lists, supporting our emergency services, and bringing our country together.

“This election is not about whether the SNP wins a majority or not – it is about whether they remain in power or not.

READ MORE: SNP Government spends £11,000 fighting villagers trying to take community control of historic pubREAD MORE: Poll finds SNP on course to win Holyrood election but falling short of overall majority

“Swinney is taking the classic approach of the SNP, whether it is failing to meet legally binding targets, or failing to cut waiting times – They shift the goalposts to cover up for their failures. Scotland deserves so much better. That’s why we need to remove them from office.

“All across the country, it is clear that only Scottish Labour can kick the SNP out of power after 20 years of failure. We deserve so much better than this rotten, out of touch, and tired SNP government.”

It comes as Scottish Labour today pledged to implement the Equality Act “straight away” as the party set out its Women’s Manifesto.

Sarwar met with Labour candidate Carol Mochan and talked to women in the Cumnock constituency. The Labour leader said the main new pledge in the women’s manifesto would be to implement the Equality Act changes.

The UK Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that the definition of a woman in equalities law is based on biological sex.

This has changed the definition of a “woman” in the 2010 Equality Act to mean a biological female, and that the term “sex” means biological sex. It also said that sex is binary, meaning someone is either male or female.

Mr Sarwar said: “First of all, the clearest example of the difference is we will stop using taxpayers’ money to challenge women and people, and we’ll get on straight away with implementing the Equality Act and making sure we’re protecting single sex spaces based on biological sex. Services, spaces and schools. ”

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Production vans are currently in Le Mans Crescent, which has become the go to location for producers of some of the biggest TV dramas.

Quite what the giant streaming platform is filming is not yet known, although The Bolton News has reached out to the company.

(Image: BBC)

Netflix is currently filming Peaky 1954 and Bolton has been a popular location for the original series, which throughout its run filmed key scenes in and around Le Mans Crescent – with the iconic image of the three Peaky Blinders shot with the arches in the background.

Production crews setting up

Filming for the last series took place in 2022 attracting huge crowds and national attention.

The two new series continue the Peaky Blinders movie story.

Bolton has become a prime location for Netflix, with the town often dubbed the Hollywood of the North.

Major Netflix productions filmed in the beautiful crescent include Toxic Town, Missing You and The Stranger.

And more recently Netflix’s supernatural thriller, The Talamasca, which dropped last year was filmed in the town and across Greater Manchester.

Recently, stars from the eagerly anticipated drama Saviour were spotted on the steps of the old Bolton Magistrates Court.

Set to air on ITV, the legal drama stars Anjli Mohindra, Shaun Parkes and Aidan Gillen, who played ‘Little Finger’ in the hit HBO show Game of Thrones.

As soon as we know what is being filmed we promise you will be the first to know.

While recent global attention has focused on the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively held closed since late February in a move that has disrupted world energy supplies, a quieter but also important development has been taking shape in south-east Asia.

On April 14, the US and Indonesia announced a “major defence cooperation partnership”, strengthening their military ties. According to reports, the US is also seeking to gain wider access to Indonesian airspace. Several media outlets say Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, has approved the proposal.

These developments matter because Indonesia’s vast archipelago sits astride some of the most critical sea routes in the world. These include the Strait of Malacca, an important chokepoint for global shipping and trade. The region surrounding Malacca has seen growing military attention from outside powers in recent years.

Both the US and China have been steadily expanding their military presence around the strait and its approaches. The US has largely done so through base access and naval deployments, and China through its port network and naval buildup. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located near the strait’s western approaches, also provide India with a strategic presence in the region.

South-east Asia is becoming more explicitly tied into great-power competition, with the new US-Indonesia defence partnership adding the latest layer. Should this competition intensify – whether through a crisis in Taiwan, a spillover from Hormuz or a shift in alliances – the Strait of Malacca would be at the centre of it.

The strait is the shortest sea route connecting the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean, making it the default corridor for trade between east Asia and the west. It stretches roughly 900km from the Malay Peninsula to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. At its narrowest point, the Phillips Channel near Singapore, it is barely 2.8km wide.

Almost 24% of global seaborne trade by volume flows through the strait. It carries 45% of the world’s seaborne oil, over 25% of all cars traded internationally and 23% of dry bulk cargo including key agricultural commodities like grains and soybeans. A large portion of European imports of electronics, consumer products like footwear and toys, machinery and industrial goods pass through the strait in sea containers as well.

The strait is also home to some of the world’s most critical port infrastructure. Singapore, located at the strait’s southern entrance, is the second-busiest container port and the busiest container transshipment hub on the planet. It handles over 40 million containers a year and is the world’s largest ship refuelling hub. Port Klang in Malaysia ranks among the world’s top ten container ports too, handling 14 million containers annually.

Why Malacca is irreplaceable

The most commonly cited detours around the Strait of Malacca, the Sunda and Lombok Straits, both lie within Indonesian territory and neither is a straightforward substitute. Rerouting through either adds roughly 1,000 to 1,500 nautical miles to the journey – three to five extra days at sea – along with higher fuel costs and the loss of Singapore’s refueling infrastructure.

Beyond Indonesia, the Torres Strait near Papua New Guinea is too shallow for large commercial vessels with a draft of over 12 metres. Ships avoiding all these routes would face a detour around the entire Australian continent, adding another ten to 15 days of transit time. These geographical features are the reason why the Strait of Malacca is so difficult to bypass.

China understands the risk of relying on Malacca perhaps better than anyone. In 2003, the then-president of China, Hu Jintao, coined the phrase “Malacca dilemma” to describe a strategic exposure that has continued since. Between 75% and 80% of China’s imported oil still passes through the strait.

Beijing has invested heavily in alternatives, but none come close to matching the scale of what transits Malacca. Pipelines running from Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal in Myanmar into Yunnan province in China bypass Malacca entirely. However, their capacity is only around 440,000 barrels per day, a small fraction of China’s roughly 11 million barrels of daily oil imports.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor plans to link Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea to Xinjiang in north-west China through road, rail and energy infrastructure. But it remains only partially developed, with its completion affected by difficult terrain and security challenges in parts of Pakistan. China has also diversified through Central Asian oil and gas pipelines, which provide about 10% of its total imported oil.

There are rail freight corridors connecting China to Europe, which avoid maritime chokepoints entirely and are faster than shipping. However, they are far more expensive and very limited in capacity. Arctic shipping routes along Russia’s northern coast offer a longer-term hedge, cutting the distance between Asia and Europe, but remain seasonal and marginal in global trade terms.

For now, there is no clear indication that the growing military presence around the Strait of Malacca will have any impact on commercial shipping. But if a conflict does arise in the future, it will be trade-dependent economies like China that will suffer.

Tipsea Wines Ltd has applied for a premises licence that would allow it to offer wine-tasting sessions and sell wine from its premises at 1 Grape Lane, Whitby.

The business was founded by owners Adam and Chris, who said they had a vision to establish the town’s first wine merchants.

“Tipsea Wines is an independent wine merchant based on the Yorkshire Coast in Whitby. Founded by two best friends, who together have decades of experience running family-owned restaurants,” the company’s website states.

If the business is granted a premises licence, it would be allowed to sell alcohol from 10am to 6pm, seven days a week.

The proposal also seeks permission for pre-booked wine tastings, which could be organised from 6pm to 10pm.

Additionally, 24-hour internet sales have also been proposed.

The application is currently open to representations from members of the public.

Residents wishing to comment on the scheme should contact the licensing authority by Sunday, May 10.

Anyone wishing to make representations regarding the application should give notice in writing to: North Yorkshire Council, Licensing Services, Town Hall, St Nicholas Street, Scarborough, YO11 2HG or by email to licensing.east@northyorks.gov.uk.