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Senegal stripped of Africa Cup of Nations over misconduct in final
Senegal has been stripped of the African Cup of Nations after misconduct in the tournament final, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has ruled.

The CAF Appeal Board said that Senegal is "declared to have forfeited" the final in January, which will be recorded as a 3-0 win for Morocco, the tournament hosts.

During the match at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, Senegalese fans tried to storm the pitch and Senegal players walked off in protest after Morocco were awarded a penalty in the 98th minute.

After a lengthy delay, the players and coach returned to the pitch where the penalty was saved by Senegal's goalkeeper, and Senegal went on to win the game 1-0 in extra time.

Read more: How controversy unfolded in final

The Royal Moroccan Football Federation said after the match it would "pursue legal action", saying the walk-off "had a significant impact on the normal course of the match and on the players' performance".

FIFA boss Gianni Infantino hit out at the "unacceptable scenes on the field and in the stands" as he criticised the behaviour of some "supporters" as well as Senegal players and staff.


'My daughter thought she was talking to a boy online and sent nude pics - but it was someone else'
Warning: This article addresses child sexual abuse that readers may find distressing

Marie and Dan say their daughter's childhood stopped when she was just 12 years old.

"Her innocence was taken away," Dan says.

Their child believed she was talking online to a 14-year-old boy from London. In fact, she was being preyed on by a predator who she sent nude photographs of herself.

A tearful Marie is haunted by the impact on her daughter.

"You go through all those questions thinking, 'I should have done more because I'm her mum, and I'm supposed to protect her'," she says.

The couple describe how the offender told their daughter he knew where she lived, and threatened to harm her and her family if she failed to do as he asked.

"She was really fearful we were going to be hurt," Marie says.

Dan adds: "Then, once that threat abated slightly, it was then, 'well, I'm going to commit suicide if you don't keep providing me with images'."

Experts say there is a "notable gap" in what we know about how offenders are using online platforms to exploit children - and they want to address it.

Sky News has been given exclusive access to a world-first report surveying online perpetrators globally.

Researchers carried out an anonymous survey among perpetrators who have used known keyword terms to search for child sexual abuse material on the dark web.

More than 20,000 responses were received, with participants taking part voluntarily, in several different languages, and they did not receive payment.

'Way too easy to access child abuse material'

It found that most offenders (59%) who search for child sexual abuse material first saw it when they were children themselves - including some (13%) when they were 10 or younger.

The research by Protect Children, funded by Ofcom, also found around a quarter (24%) of offenders first encountered child sexual abuse material by accident, without searching for it.

One offender described it as being "way too easy" to access child abuse material. Another said: "It used to be nearly impossible, now it's two clicks away, well, maybe three."

Other perpetrators said "it's all over the normal web", "it's almost everywhere", and, while some sites had been taken down, "new sites pop up really fast".

Read more from Sky News:
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According to the report, 10% of offenders said they viewed content involving infants and toddlers aged three or under; 29% reported viewing material involving children aged four to 10; half of offenders said they viewed content involving 11 to 14-year-olds; and 51% viewed material involving 15 to 17‑year‑olds.

Nearly a third (29%) admitted viewing violent sexual activity involving children, and almost a quarter (24%) said they view sexual content involving children and animals.

Those who took part in the survey were signposted to prevention resources, and more than 2,200 clicked through to a "ReDirection" programme.

Almudena Lara, Ofcom's online safety policy development director, said preventing abuse "requires a deep understanding of the motivations of perpetrators and the ways technology can be exploited to enable these crimes".

"This research will help inform and strengthen the global effort to protect children online," she added.

Call for government action

Marie and Dan, who are not using their real names to protect their daughter's identity, want stronger action from the government, saying: "If they can fine a water company £20m…they should be doing £100m to a company that can permanently damage a child's welfare."

Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said the government is taking "swift action" to protect children from online sexual abuse and exploitation online.

She added: "Soon, anyone who possesses, creates or shares tools for generating child sexual abuse material, publishes guidance on how legitimate technologies can be twisted to this purpose, or operates platforms that spread this filth will face tough prison sentences."


North Sea oil - is it time to reconsider drilling?
It is easy to forget that not all that long ago, Britain was one of the world's biggest oil producers.

Back in 1986, this country was the fifth biggest crude producer in the world, just behind Mexico and above Iran and Iraq. Even as recently as the turn of the millennium, the UK was still in the top ten.

It is easy to forget, too, that as the oil gushed out of the North Sea it had an extraordinary impact on Britain's public finances. In the middle of the 1980s, North Sea oil revenues accounted for a whopping 6% of all government revenues - the equivalent, in today's money, of every pound we spend on our armed forces.

Yet speak to most folks, both in Westminster and beyond, these days and not only have they typically forgotten this history, they also assume something else: that the North Sea is essentially finished.

Such questions, always hotly debated, are suddenly all-important, given Britain is once again facing a sharp increase in energy prices, after the attacks on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent oil and gas prices spiralling.

To some extent, this whole debate can be boiled down to a chart which frequently does the rounds in Westminster. It shows a precipitous decline in North Sea oil and gas production. And, even more damningly, it shows that even if there is more exploration and further discoveries, production would barely be any higher. The Labour MP Jeevun Sandher recently reproduced a version of this chart on X, in response to calls to explore for more North Sea gas, commenting: "What North Sea gas?"

I should probably come clean and admit that I have occasionally reproduced this chart as proof that there is little left to be squeezed out of the North Sea, even if we wanted to. But then I dug a bit further and found something intriguing. In fact, the chart isn't necessarily inevitable; in fact, North Sea production could be considerably higher.

To understand why we need to start with a little bit of geology. The North Sea is what most folks in the oil sector call a "mature basin". This doesn't mean there's no oil left or indeed that new discoveries couldn't happen (Norwegian firms seem to be discovering rather a lot of new fields at the moment) but it does mean there are pretty good geological maps of most of the region.

And we have a pretty good sense of how much oil and gas there is beneath the surface of the seabed. Those figures are marshalled by an organisation called the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which does for oil and gas figures what the Office for Budget Responsibility does for the government's economic and fiscal numbers - it's a sort of independent regulator within government.

And one of the important jobs the NSTA does is to tot up how much oil and gas there is thought to be beneath the sea. Those figures, reserves and resources as they're known, are relatively uncontentious. Some of the oil and gas is easy to extract, because it's in areas with uncomplicated geology and is close to existing pipelines. Other parts are far more challenging. In those parts it would take much more investment and effort to get the hydrocarbons out. And the decision to invest depends on all sorts of factors - everything from oil prices to tax levels to regulations.

But if you look at these charts - for instance the one for gas, at least three things leap out. First, there's rather a lot of gas - over three billion tonnes. The estimates of total reserves and resources have been going up over time. Second, the majority of that gas - roughly 80% depending on how you skin these things - has already been extracted. Third, of that remaining 20%, the majority falls into the hard-to-get category.

So that's the starting point: there's a decent if not overwhelming amount of oil and gas. But the more you want to get, the harder (and more expensive) it gets to extract. All of which brings us back to that "What North Sea Gas" chart posted by Jeevun Sandher. It turns out that this chart is not a concrete forecast. Instead it's determined by the prevailing economic conditions, taxes and regulations faced by North Sea oil producers.

You can see as much if you look back through its history. Back in 2023, before the current government came in and imposed its ban on new licenses and exploration in new fields, it projected that by 2050 we could be getting 2 mboe (million barrels of oil equivalent) of gas out of the North Sea. But when it came to do the same exercise in 2026, after the new government came in and imposed its new rules (and kept the post-Ukraine windfall tax in place) the projected amount coming out by 2050 was only 1 mboe.

The projected output in that year had halved. Far from being set in stone, in other words, this chart is subject to quite a lot of variations, as the various rules on North Sea exploration and production change.

All of which raises a question - a question that's being asked more and more these days: how much oil and gas could Britain extract from the North Sea if it really wanted to? If those taxes on producers were cut, could Britain become energy independent all over again?

That's a thought experiment the North Sea producers' lobby group, OEUK, has now carried out. And it has found that while UK gas production would continue to fall, in a best-case scenario, it would fall far slower than those current projections. And since UK gas consumption is expected to fall rapidly in the coming years, thanks to all those incentives to bring in heat pumps and make more of our power renewable, come 2035 UK North Sea gas could satisfy more than half of Britain's demand.

Full energy independence is still a long way away, based even on these optimistic assumptions. But, critically, this would mean the UK being considerably less dependent on imports than it is current projected to.

And that brings us back to the big story of the day. If that "What North Sea Gas" chart proves to be right, it implies Britain becoming dependent on imported Liquefied Natural Gas for almost half of its consumption in a decade or so. That means being dependent on countries like the US and Qatar, it means potentially paying more for gas (since LNG is quite expensive to refrigerate and condense) and it means emitting more carbon (since the process of making and shipping LNG involves quite a lot of carbon emissions).

All of which is to say, the case for reconsidering the economic environment in the North Sea is very different today than it was only a few years ago. And if that environment were to change, there could plausibly be significantly more oil and gas coming out of this basin. While still declining, the fall would be far less precipitous than is currently assumed.


MSPs vote against bill to legalise assisted dying
MSPs have voted against plans to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults in Scotland.

It comes after politicians debated hundreds of amendments during multiple marathon sessions as the proposed legislation made its way through Holyrood.

The deciding Stage 3 debate and vote for the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill took place on Tuesday evening.

Final results for the vote were 57 for, 69 against and one abstention. Health Secretary Neil Gray said he would abstain earlier in the day.

The result was earlier deemed too close to call, given MSPs were permitted a free vote instead of being "whipped" or instructed along party lines.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Liam McArthur, who introduced the bill, previously said it would be the "toughest and most comprehensively safeguarded assisted dying bill in the world".

Sturgeon and Sarwar voted against bill

Speaking to Sky's Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said that he did not vote in favour of the law as "I didn't feel as if there were adequate safeguards".

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon also told Sky News "I am relieved that it hasn't passed", adding: "I just do not think any bill could provide the safeguards for the issues that most concern me.

"And the issue that most concerns me is a situation where somebody, even if it is a small number of people, feels an internal pressure to exercise a right to die.

"It becomes not a right to die, but a duty to die."

Read more:
Two terminally ill adults debate their views
'My mum wouldn't have chosen that end'

During the debate, Independent MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy, who was the first permanent wheelchair user elected to Holyrood, insisted the Bill would "put sick and disabled people at risk".

Green MSP Lorna Slater said, however, that everyone "should have the right to choose" as she recounted her father's assisted death in Canada in November 2025.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of the Care Not Killing campaign group, said after the vote: "We are relieved that MSPs have decided not to back this legislation.

"We believe the Bill posed serious risks to the most vulnerable in society - including disabled people and those suffering from domestic abuse."

This is the third time MSPs have considered legislation on assisted dying, with two previous attempts having failed at their first vote.

Last month, Jersey voted to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults.

It came almost a year after the Tynwald in the Isle of Man became the first parliament in the British Isles to agree a framework for assisted dying.

However, the process of getting that framework on the statute book is yet to be finalised.

Meanwhile, at Westminster, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill for England and Wales is progressing slowly through the House of Lords and is at risk of failing due to a lack of parliamentary time.


Naval escorts could make tankers a target for Iran, warns UN maritime chief
Naval escorts will not guarantee safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and could even present a target for Iran as it attempts to leverage control of the vital shipping lane, the head of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has warned.

Speaking at the start of a two-day emergency meeting of the UN maritime agency's governing council in London, secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez told Sky News "de-escalation" was the only sustainable way to restore the flow of shipping.

Follow: Iran war latest

The Strait of Hormuz - in normal circumstances the conduit for a fifth of global oil demand - has effectively been closed for more than two weeks since the US-Israeli offensive against Iran.

Tehran responded to the assault by attacking tankers and other energy infrastructure, paralysing traffic and triggering a price shock on global energy markets.

'Not a long-term solution'

US President Donald Trump has called on allies including the UK to provide naval support for tankers to reopen the shipping lane, but Mr Dominguez warned that would not be enough to restore the flow of oil, cargo, fertilisers and food to and from the Gulf.

"The reality is that a ship can still be targeted even with an escort vessel next to it, and it doesn't really provide the guarantees, not even on insurance or to the seafarers, that trade can continue to come back. It's not a long-term sustainable solution," he said.

Asked if he was concerned that a naval convoy could present a target, he replied "absolutely" and said it was unlikely that traffic would resume without a formal ceasefire.

"I can't see that because it's too risky, and I will not be calling on anyone to take the risk to send innocent ships and innocent seafarers in particular through the Strait of Hormuz when there are no guarantees from all the parties involved that it is safe to do so.

"We need to de-escalate the situation. It's the only solution. And this is why we meet here at IMO. We actually believe and trust multilateralism and dialogues. And that's how we find solutions."

'Cowardly' attacks threaten industry

The emergency meeting was called by members of the IMO's 40-strong council, which includes the UK and the US, as well as Gulf states that have faced retaliation from Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.

Representatives of Iran and Israel will be present as observers at the meeting in London, which takes place at the IMO's headquarters on the south bank of the Thames opposite the Palace of Westminster.

Read more from Sky News:
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Describing the Iranian attacks on shipping as "cowardly", Mr Dominguez said that commercial vessels and their crews had been put at unacceptable risk.

"Shipping should have never been put in this situation. Those are very cowardly attacks on a sector that doesn't take part in these geopolitical conflicts," Mr Dominguez said.

"The reality is that everybody's affected, not just the countries in the region."


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