BURSTIn today’s newsletter: For years, Dominique Pelicot drugged his wife and recruited men to rape her. It could be a turning point in social and legal attitudes to sexual assault
Good morning.
Dominique Pelicot, described as one of France’s worst sex offenders, has been sentenced alongside 50 other men who he recruited to rape his wife, Gisèle Pelicot. Dominique, who was given the maximum sentence possible of 20 years in prison, had been drugging and raping his wife for a decade before he was caught. The scale of the horror and depravity of this case has shocked the world, and reignited conversations around consent and sexual violence.
Middle East | Israel has launched widespread airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, killing at least nine people in the port city of Hodeidah, and threatened more attacks against the group, which has launched hundreds of missiles at Israel over the past year.
Water | Water bills in England and Wales will rise by 36% over the next five years, as suppliers were accused of forcing struggling households to pay for years of underinvestment to fix leaky pipes and cut pollution.
Diplomacy | Peter Mandelson is set to become Britain’s next ambassador to the US, the first time a politician has been appointed to the role for almost half a century.
Climate crisis | Potential new North Sea oil and gas fields with early stage licences from the UK would emit as much carbon dioxide as British households produce in three decades. The finding has led to calls to the government to reject demands from fossil fuel producers for the final permits needed to allow their operations to go ahead.
Russia | Vladimir Putin said the war in Ukraine had made Russia “much stronger” and denied that the fall of his key ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria had hurt Moscow’s standing, as he held a marathon year-end press conference and television call-in seeking to project confidence at home and abroad.
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