Sunday newspaper round-up: Protest crackdowns, Gaza ceasefire, Kemi Badenoch, Viaro Energy, JLR, Chinese spies

(Sharecast News) - Ministers are to give police new powers to target repeated protests, aimed particularly at cracking down on demonstrations connected to Gaza, the Home Office has said. The announcement, made the morning after almost 500 people were arrested in London for expressing support for Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation, could allow police to order regular protests to take place at a different site. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will also look at all anti-protest laws, with the possibility that powers to ban some demonstrations outright could be strengthened. - Guardian Despite Donald Trump telling Israel in a message on social media on Friday to "immediately stop the bombing", there are continued reports of deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza. Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting that six Palestinian people have been killed since dawn in Israeli attacks. It is reported that four civilians were killed waiting for aid near distribution centres northwest of Rafah, one man was killed in Israeli shelling targeting Gaza City and another man was killed by Israeli forces near an aid distribution centre around the Netzarim junction. On Sunday, witnesses told the Reuters news agency that Israeli planes escalated attacks across Gaza City, the territory's biggest urban centre and an area that Israel claims to be the last bastion of Hamas. - Guardian

Kemi Badenoch has pledged to deport 150,000 illegal migrants a year with new Trump-style immigration squads. The Conservative Party leader will use this year's conference in Manchester to announce how she would reform Britain's migration system after leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Mrs Badenoch has unveiled a seven-point plan to "secure Britain's borders", including a commitment to deport small boat arrivals within a week, refuse any asylum claims by illegal migrants, deport all foreign criminals and remove immigration powers from judges. - Telegraph

An oil trader attempting to buy swathes of the North Sea from Shell has been accused of relying on "fictitious" loans from Abu Dhabi Sheikhs. New court documents obtained by The Telegraph claim that Francesco Mazzagatti, who runs start-up Viaro Energy, banked on facilities that "never existed" to support his acquisition of RockRose, a rival oil and gas company, in 2020. The claims have been made as part of a fraud case against Mr Mazzagatti in the High Court, brought by his former employer, Alliance Petrochemical Investment (API). Newly filed documents allege that Mr Mazzagatti's Viaro relied on £500m worth of "sham" facilities from Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Thiab, two members of the Abu Dhabi royal family. - Telegraph

Bosses have been shocked by the rise, which will help fund upgrades to the electricity network. An announcement about the increase was slipped out three weeks ago and is set to come into force in April. Standing charges will go up by £3.7 billion, an increase of 94 per cent. The rise will not apply to about 500 of the UK's biggest electricity users, mainly those in heavy industry. Such companies currently benefit from a 60 per cent discount on network charges, which will rise to 90 per cent next year. The effect of this will be to foist the cost of discounts onto businesses such as pubs, restaurants and retailers. - The Times

Jaguar Land Rover is finalising a deal to lend its suppliers hundreds of millions of pounds after a taxpayer-backed "rescue" of Britain's biggest carmaker hit the skids. Bosses are this weekend putting the final touches to a radical lifeline that would see up to £500 million injected into its bombed-out supply chain, The Sunday Times can reveal. The privately funded initiative is separate to a £1.5 billion "rescue" unveiled by ministers last Saturday. The taxpayer-backed deal is still yet to be signed off despite appearances to the contrary, multiple sources said. JLR declined to comment. - The Times

Sir Keir Starmer is facing hard questions over his government's role in the collapse of the trial involving allegations that a parliamentary assistant was spying for China. Christopher Cash, 30, from Whitechapel, east London, and teacher Christopher Berry, 33, of Witney, Oxfordshire, were each charged with the offence of spying under the Official Secrets Act. They were set to face trial in October, but proceedings against them were stopped on Monday, sparking criticism from Downing Street and MPs. The pair were accused of passing information about the Government's foreign policy to a high-ranking member of the Chinese government. - The Daily Mail