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Net migration reached a record 745,000 last year, the Office for National Statistics said, 139,000 higher than the 606,000 it had previously given. Robert Jenrick, the minister for immigration, was reported to be ‘pressuring’ No. 10 with ideas for cutting immigration, such as by making a minimum salary of £35,000 a requirement for a work visa. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, had agreed with Suella Braverman, when she was home secretary, to raise the salary requirement to £40,000, according to a copy of their agreement seen by the Telegraph. Eight small boats carried 364 migrants to England on 26 November. Caolan Gormley, 26, from Co. Tyrone, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration, the 11th defendant to be convicted in connection with the death of 39 Vietnamese people in a lorry trailer near Purfleet, Essex, in 2019.

The nation worked out what the Autumn Statement meant for their finances. For workers, the reduction of National Insurance from 12 per cent to 10 per cent, from 6 January, would save someone on an average salary of £35,000 £450 a year. State pensions will rise by 8.5 per cent. But a freeze on income tax thresholds would bring many into higher bands of tax as their income rose. Nissan is to invest £2 billion to make two new electric models in Sunderland and build another battery factory there. Barclays is to cut 900 jobs in Britain, according to the trade union Unite. Sunak cancelled a meeting with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, after he spoke out about returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Terry Venables, the former footballer and England manager, died aged 80.

Organisers said that 100,000 took part in a march against anti-Semitism in central London on Sunday; organisers said that a day earlier 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators had marched through central London calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Thousands of HSBC customers were unable to make use of online banking, which the company attributed to ‘an internal system issue’. Michael Gove, the Levelling-up Secretary, said at the Covid Inquiry that there is ‘a significant body of judgment that believes that the virus itself was man-made’; Hugo Keith KC replied: ‘It forms no part of the inquiry, Mr Gove, to address that somewhat divisive issue.’ The first human case in Britain of a new strain of swine flu, A(H1N2)v, was reported in North Yorkshire.

Abroad

A four-day ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas allowed the exchange of 69 hostages held by Hamas and 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. More days’ ceasefire were then agreed. Russia launched its biggest drone attack on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, with more than 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones reported. Bird flu killed 220 flamingos in Argentina.

In the Dutch elections, the Freedom party (PVV), led by the anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders, won the most seats. Two people died less than a mile from the French coast attempting to cross the Channel in a small boat. In Dublin, 500 were involved in riots that badly damaged 13 shops and burnt 11 police vehicles and a tram in O’Connell Street; 34 arrests were made. The riots were blamed on right-wing sympathisers reacting to the arrest of a naturalised Irish citizen after the wounding by stabbing of a woman and three children. Pakistan confirmed that it was charging undocumented refugees who wanted to leave the country $830. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, who published Montaillou in 1975, died aged 94.

In China, Zhongzhi, an unregulated ‘shadow bank’ that has lent billions to property companies, said it had liabilities of $64 billion and assets of $38 billion. North Korea claimed it had put a military spy satellite into space; it then repudiated the Comprehensive Military Agreement made with South Korea in 2018. Gunmen on motorcycles abducted at least 100 people from villages in Zamfara state, Nigeria, as part of an operation to extort money. In South Africa, Oscar Pistorius, the former Paralympic champion, was freed on parole, ten years after murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. In India, rescuers broke through debris and brought out 41 workers trapped for 17 days in a tunnel in Uttarakhand state. The new government in New Zealand dropped the planned law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008; the scheme had inspired Sunak to announce a similar ban in the United Kingdom. Equinox, the world’s highest-rated Flat horse, won an emphatic victory in the Japan Cup.         CSH