Week in the UK. Good or bad

On Monday, it turned out that a UK government regulator has failed to publish a key survey of oil and chemical spills in British seas for three years because the expert who compiled it retired . The body responsible for pollution in UK waters, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), used to publish an annual survey of all spills of “hazardous and noxious substances” into the sea, by boats and the oil industry. As well as making this data available to the public, the MCA says the survey helps its counter pollution team do its job. Spills of oil and chemicals at sea have the potential to kill wildlife, destroy habitats and contaminate beaches. But the report – which was compiled by the expert Advisory Council on Protection of the Sea (ACOPS) for the previous 40 years – has not been published since 2020, with the most recent available data from 2017.  In response to a freedom of information (FOI) request by The Ferret asking for new data, the MCA said the gap in reporting...

On Wednesday, the Guardian brought forth a revelation that the UK government has been helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence. Redditors ironically reacted on this news: "I can’t be certain, but I’d guess it’s very hard to give aid to anyone in Uganda that doesn’t have some level of homophobia / anti-LGBTQ within themselves. That being said, the point of these reports is to find out if the aid is being used to push homophobia/anti-LGBTQ. That kind of funding should be stopped."   "I'm sure there must be alternative charities that aren't also hate groups." "A quick google search reveals multiple charities operating in Uganda that don't appear to be overtly religious in their output so it can't be that impossible. I appreciate it may be difficult to totally separate them out when an issue is endemi...