Northern Ireland faces blackouts and drastic electricity price rises in the event of a no-deal Brexit, leaked government documents reveal. The country would likely be cut off from electricity supplies from the Republic of Ireland and unable to use its sole electricity link to the UK mainland, according to an internal briefing.

Officials have been warning for months that Northern Ireland’s electricity market could collapse, triggering “unprecedented consequences” and forcing authorities to prepare to take energy infrastructure into public ownership to keep the lights on.

The government documents, shared widely across Whitehall and seen by the Guardian, show that in the event of a no-deal Brexit:

• Householders in Northern Ireland could see electricity bills rise by up to £200.

• Energy companies could collapse.

• Diesel generators would be needed to keep power supplies running.

• The UK government has not yet talked to power station operators in Northern Ireland.

For more than a decade, Ireland and Northern Ireland have had a joint electricity market, known as the Single Electricity Market (SEM), allowing power to be traded across the border.(theguardian)…[+]

Using a mobile phone while cycling is to be banned in the Netherlands amid mounting safety fears in a country where bikes outnumber people. A draft law scheduled to take effect next July will extend an existing 2002 ban on car and lorry drivers using their mobile phones at the wheel unless in hands-free mode to “the use of a mobile electronic device while driving any vehicle (including a bicycle)”.

The Dutch transport minister, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, said the law was needed because the advent of social media and unlimited mobile data had changed how people used smartphones and the time they spent on them. Cyclists were excluded from the initial ban because of their lower speeds, Van Niewenhuizen said. “But in fact, using a phone is just as dangerous on a bike as it is in a car,” she said. “The fact is that whenever you’re on the road you should be paying full attention and not doing anything at all on a phone.”

The increasing popularity of electric bikes meant cyclists’ average speed had risen, the minister added, while the country’s 22,000 miles of cycle lanes and paths had become more crowded. The Netherlands has more bikes – about 22.5m – than people: 17 million. Almost a quarter of the population cycles every day and cycle use has increased by about 12% since 2005; the average Dutch cyclist now covers more than 600 miles a year in 250-300 trips.(theguardian)…[+]

The tension had been building for months, maybe years. In the days before Alan Hogg, the wealthy Scottish businessman, and his Thai wife Nott, were killed and then buried in the garden of their home, relatives have revealed that the relationship between Nott and her brother Warut Satchakit, who has since been charged with the murders, had soured beyond repair.

For 20 years, Nott’s favourite older brother had lived in a house on her and her husband’s expansive property where he worked as the chief gardener, looking after the plants, the fruit orchard, the chickens and the 15 cows. According to numerous neighbours, Hogg and Satchaikit tended the 13-hectare plot of land side-by-side, though not always harmoniously.

But Nott’s and Satchakit’s youngest brother Thanom Suddan, 53, said Nott had been planning to kick her 63-year-old brother off the property, after the family conflict became too much.

“She visited me the Saturday before she was killed to tell me she could no longer stand Warut,” Suddan told the Guardian, as he sat by their bodies which had been brought to the local Phrae Thammaran temple. “He was creating too many arguments and not looking after the land properly. He didn’t even tell them when the dogs died. She told me she was going to ask him to leave.”(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump is accustomed to addressing diehard supporters at rallies. His press conferences are rare and tightly controlled. So the open derision of his fellow leaders at the UN general assembly clearly came as a surprise. He insisted he was “OK” with the mirthful reaction to his claims of historic achievements, but he was clearly not OK. Trump is said never to forgive or forget those who laugh at him, so this second outing at the UN podium is unlikely to end well for his administration’s already ambivalent relations with the global body.

Trump made an entrance – nearly half an hour later than his allotted time – determined to trash everything the UN stands for. The president explicitly rejected “the ideology of globalism” in globalism’s high temple and proposed in its place the “doctrine of patriotism”.While most leaders have used their time on the UN stage to list the agreements they have made, the protocols agreed and treaties signed, Trump clearly delighted in telling the world how many such pieces of paper he had ripped up.(theguardian)…[+]