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Woman in Spanish cold case identified after 20 years

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32 minutes ago

Alice CuddyBBC News

imageInterpol

Valdecy Urquiza, secretary general of international policing agency Interpol which leads the campaign, said the latest identification would give “fresh hope to the families and friends of missing persons” and “new leads” to investigators.

“After 20 years, an unknown woman has been given back her name,” he said.

Ms Zavada’s body was discovered in July 2005 beside a road in the province of Barcelona in northeastern Spain.

She was referred to by police as “the woman in pink”, because she was dressed in a pink floral top, pink trousers and pink shoes.

Local police said the cause of death was “suspicious”, as evidence suggested that the body had been moved in the 12 hours before it was found.

But investigations failed to uncover her identity.

Last year, the case was added to Operation Identify Me, which has seen Interpol “black notices” – seeking information about unidentified bodies – released to the public for the first time, and records such as fingerprints shared with police forces around the world.

Earlier this year, Turkish police ran the fingerprints through a national database, uncovering Ms Zavada’s identity.

A DNA match was then established with a close relative in Russia.

imageInterpol A black and white photograph of Liudmila Zavada.Interpol

Police investigations into Ms Zavada’s death and the circumstances around it are continuing.

The first woman identified through the campaign was 31-year-old Rita Roberts from Wales, who was murdered in Belgium in 1992. Her family said they had worried for decades, not knowing what had happened to her.

Earlier this year, a woman found dead in a poultry shed in Spain was identified as 33-year-old Ainoha Izaga Ibieta Lima, from Paraguay in South America. The circumstances surrounding her death were described by police as “unexplained”.

Police are still trying to find the identities of another 44 women found dead in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. The majority of them are murder victims, believed to have been aged between 15 and 30.

Interpol said increased global migration and human trafficking had led to more people being reported missing outside their countries, which can make identifying bodies more challenging.

An official at the agency told the BBC that women were “disproportionately affected by gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking”.

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Co-op says cyber-attack cost it £206m in sales

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The Co-op has said the cyber-attack it suffered earlier this year cost it at least £206m in lost revenues.

The retailer’s IT networks were infiltrated by hackers in April, resulted in payment problems, widespread shortages of goods in shops, and the loss of customer data.

Co-op chair Debbie White said the “malicious” attack had caused “significant challenges” in the first half of 2025.

Overall, the retailer reported a £75m underlying pre-tax loss in the six months to 5 July, compared to a £3m profit in the same period a year earlier.

It also said profits were hit by increased staffing costs and regulations, as well as the cyber-attack.

The full cost of the attack could be much higher as the Co-op said it was also expecting there to be some impact to its business in the second half of the year.

Ms White said the group must now rebuild “better and stronger to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead”.

April’s cyber-attack resulted in empty store shelves and issues with digital payments. The disruption was particularly felt in some rural areas where the local Co-op is the only large supermarket.

After initially downplaying the attack, the Co-op later admitted all 6.5 million of its member customers had their data stolen.

The business’s funeral homes also had to resort to paper-based systems.

Co-op chief executive Shirine Khoury-Haq said she was proud of how the business had responded to the attack and that it highlighted many “strengths”.

“It also highlighted areas we need to focus on – particularly in our Food business,” she said.

The attack on the Co-op came amid a challenging period for the group, as it faces rising costs and and pressure on consumer confidence from the rising cost of living.

Last year, the company reported improved profits but warned in April it would face more than £200m in costs and spending pressures in 2025, including £80m from the impact of shoplifting.

Marks & Spencer and Harrods were both hit by cyber-attacks around the same time, but the Co-op was able to resume normal trading at a faster pace as it discovered the attack earlier.

Marks & Spencer, which stopped all online sales for six weeks following its hack, said it faced a £300m financial hit.

At the end of August, carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) also suffered a cyber-attack and the company was forced to shut down its IT networks.

Production at its factories in the UK and overseas was also shutdown as a result, and will remain suspended until October at the earliest affecting suppliers as well as factory workers.

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Labour MPs are privately urging me to challenge PM, says Burnham

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13 minutes ago

Jennifer McKiernanpolitical reporter,

Georgia Robertspolitical correspondent and

Henry Zeffmanchief political correspondent

imageAFP via Getty Images

Andy Burnham has said MPs have privately called on him to challenge Sir Keir Starmer to become prime minister.

In the Daily Telegraph the Manchester mayor, who is not currently an MP, said he was not “plotting to get back” to Westminster but in the interview he did not rule out running again for the leadership.

“I stood twice to be leader of the Labour Party. And I think that tells you, doesn’t it?”

Steve Reed, the housing secretary, said Burham was entitled “to make his case” but pointed out he had previously promised to serve a full term as mayor.

Reed suggested Burnham had been taking “potshots” at the prime minister and dismissed discussion of the Labour Party’s leadership as “tittle tattle”.

The housing secretary said Sir Keir had “picked this party up off the floor and led us through a record general election victory”.

“Our job now is to talk to the country, not ourselves about how we’re going to change the things they care about,” Reed said.

Burnham’s latest interview comes ahead of Labour’s autumn conference, and after Sir Keir faced pressure from some MPs following the resignation of his deputy Angela Rayner and his sacking of Peter Mandelson.

The mayor also told the Telegraph that Number 10 had created a “climate of fear” among some MPs.

“People have contacted me throughout the summer”, he said when asked if other MPs had urged him to run for the Labour leadership.

“I’m not going to say to you that that hasn’t happened, but as I say, it’s more a decision for those people than it is for me.”

His comments, likely to be seen as a pitch for a leadership bid, come after his interview with the New Statesman on Wednesday where he criticised the prime minister’s approach, saying there needed to be “wholesale change” to see off an “existential” threat to Labour.

Burnham said he was not attracted to going back to the old way of doing things in Westminster but added: “I’m happy to play any role. I am ready to play any role in that. Yes. Because the threat we’re facing is increasingly an existential one.”

Burnham said he was ready to work with anybody with a “plan to turn the country around” – including the Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn.

The challenges in his way are massive. He would need to become an MP before he could even begin the process of trying to challenge Sir Keir as Labour leader.

That would entail resigning as mayor of Greater Manchester in order to fight a Westminster by-election – a by-election which isn’t necessarily on the cards as it stands.

And that is before you even get to the question of whether ultimately he is an improved politician to the man he was when he tried to become Labour leader twice and failed twice.

Emma Burnell, editor of the independent news website LabourList, says Burnham has a “strong record of delivery” in Greater Manchester, but it is “not risk-free” for him to discuss the party’s leadership in the way he is doing.

“The fact that he’s speaking so publicly and so openly about this means that he has decided to take that risk,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “If it pays off, it pays off. If it doesn’t, this is probably his last shot.”

But Labour MP Callum Anderson accused Burnham of “wishful thinking” on economic policy, for saying in his New Statesman interview the government has to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets”.

Anderson, who is a parliamentary private secretary to the cabinet minister Liz Kendall, wrote on X: “To lead a Labour government – and a Labour Treasury – you can’t just dismiss the bond markets.

“Every pound spent on schools, hospitals and infrastructure depends on credibility with those who lend to the UK. Real change requires fiscal discipline, not wishful thinking.”

Those around Burnham say his comments have nothing to do with leadership ambitions, dismissing that as “Westminster speculation”.

But they also say that Burnham felt that something needed to be said about the “factional” way Number 10 was operating, as well as the need for the prime minister’s team to listen to a wider range of voices.

“What we need is a plan to defeat Reform,” one ally said.

A Labour source said: “I’ve heard of a stalking horse, but this guy is going to get hoarse from his endless stalking.”

In the interview with the Daily Telegraph he said higher council tax on expensive homes in London and the South East; £40bn of borrowing to build council houses; income tax cuts for lower earners; and a 50p rate for the highest-paid would “turn the country around”.

In previous leadership campaigns Burnham lost out to Ed Miliband in 2010 and Jeremy Corbyn in 2015.

Sir Keir has faced mounting pressure from within his party over his handling of the row over Peter Mandelson, who was eventually sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US following more details emerging about his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

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The Paralympic champion brewing beer for gold goal

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Dan Pembroke in action at Paris 2024 ParalympicsGetty Images
  • 24 minutes ago

If Dan Pembroke isn’t at the track, you will probably find him at his allotment.

It is where the first seed of an idea grew into something far greater; an initial enjoyment of growing hops and dabbling with home brew kits has bloomed into an actual beer with his name on the can.

In the lead-up to last year’s Paralympics, Pembroke started brewing ‘Paris Gold’, as a physical representation of what he wanted and ultimately would go on to achieve in the French capital.

Now Pembroke – a two-time Paralympic and world champion in the F13 javelin, for athletes with a visual impairment – has a new brew in the works that he hopes can have the same effect for his compatriots heading to the colder climates of the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympics in Italy.

“Two months before going to Paris, my new coach, John Trower, was talking about visualisation and manifestation, these things that he deemed very powerful in sport,” Pembroke told BBC Sport.

“I’d never really dabbled with visualisation, so I thought, what way could I make this unique to myself? How could I manifest what I want out in Paris?

“I want to get the gold medal, I want it to be in Paris, and I want to hold up a beer to celebrate what I’ve done.”

After his success in Paris, Pembroke’s home brewing caught the attention of a craft brewery, which has worked with the 34-year-old to produce it on a commercial scale.

His new Milan beer will be an Italian pilsner using West Coast hops, as a nod to the next summer Games in Los Angeles.

With plans for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions, he hopes to send batches to Italy for British athletes to enjoy after the Winter Games.

“I’m getting it out there and putting the message across about manifestation for them,” Pembroke said.

“It’s quite a wacky way to do it with beer and athletes, it’s not something that normally goes together, but I think because of that it makes it stand out a little bit. And you’ve got to rock the boat a little bit sometimes to get eyes on you.”

Because for Pembroke – who has only 10% vision having been diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition, retinitis pigmentosa, when he was six – it’s not just about beer.

“This is about me talking in front of crowds of people in conferences, in hospitality, about accessibility for people with invisible disabilities like myself,” he said.

“I go into a restaurant or a bar and I often get asked ‘do you have any dietary requirements?’. But never have I been asked ‘do you have any accessibility requirements?’.

“Often I can’t be accommodated for. I want to change that space for invisible disabilities, and in particular, visual impairments.”

Post-Paris blues and the continuing record hunt

Earlier in his athletics career, Pembroke was targeting the London 2012 Olympics before an elbow injury put paid to that dream.

After a seven-year break and with his eyesight deteriorating, he came to Para-sport in 2019. Within two years he was Paralympic champion, throwing a Paralympic record of 69.52m in Tokyo.

In Paris he reached new heights, breaking Uzbekistan’s Aleksandr Svechnikov’s seven-year world record with his third throw, before bettering that mark by more than three metres on his next effort with 74.49m to successfully defend his Paralympic crown.

A year on from that golden achievement, Pembroke’s next task is defending the global title he won in both 2023 and 2024 at the Para-athletics World Championships in New Delhi, which get under way on Saturday.

As part of a 37-strong British contingent headed for India, he goes into the championships with “my hunger back”, having struggled with the comedown from his Paralympic high.

“Paris was the pinnacle of my career so far,” he said. “It’s weird to adjust coming back down the other side, because you need to reset your goals and your ambitions of where you want to go in the future.

“Those four months after Paris were very odd and strange for me. I was having ups and downs, but a big roller coaster of emotions, trying to adjust to what I’d done and where I’m going next.

“It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it was pretty difficult.”

Sunshine is now on the horizon, however – Pembroke and his wife, Martina, will welcome their first baby in November.

The prospect of having his child trackside at the LA Paralympics in three years’ time is providing added motivation for Pembroke to continue his work both in and out of athletics.

“I’m not getting any younger, and I want to make the most of how my body’s feeling at the moment,” he said.

“I think I have the potential to break the [world] record and go more than 75m. Leading up to LA, that’s what I wanted to achieve.

“But when I do finally retire, and I’m not sure when that is yet, I want to have a wholesome feeling that I’ve done something good, not just from throwing javelins far, but I want to try and change the space in society that deals with visual impairment.”

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