Tweeting a response to Mr Robertson, the first minister Ms Sturgeon described him as an “outstanding” deputy leader.
She added: “You should be very proud of your enormous contribution to our party’s success. I wish you well and hope to see you back in frontline politics in the future.”
In his letter Mr Robertson wrote: “Since the 2017 general election I have been focussed on supporting campaign best practice for local SNP branches, constituency associations, elected members and the party nationally.
“As discussed recently, I believe I am no longer able to fully discharge my mandate, which was to partner you as Westminster SNP leader and as a parliamentarian representing a rural constituency.
“While it would be my greatest privilege to continue as depute leader, I know you understand that I have to focus now on pursuing new career opportunities.”
After losing his Westminster seat in the general election, Mr Robertson was replaced as SNP Westminster leader by Ian Blackford.
Mr Robertson had won widespread praise for his performance at PMQs, with many political opponents commending his forensic questioning of the prime minister.
Business Secretary Greg Clark said he wanted small and medium-sized businesses who were owed money by Carillion to know “they will be supported to continue trading”.
Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Vince Cable, urged companies to “take full advantage” the British Business Bank.
“There is a confidence issue… you’ve got a very complex supply chain, much of which depends on creditworthiness, and I can see their problem,” he said.
Carillion, the UK’s second-largest construction company, manages a huge variety of public sector and private projects around the UK, from rebuilding Battersea Power Station to cleaning prisons.
It collapsed, under a debt pile of £1.5bn, on 15 January.
It had employed 43,000 people, including around 20,000 in the UK. Almost 380 workers at Carillion will be made redundant.
Banks are cushioned from businesses defaulting on the loans by taxpayer cash – 75% of any losses to the lender will be picked up by the British Business Bank if the loan cannot be paid back.
Additionally the UK banking sector has promised to take the circumstances surrounding Carillion into consideration if individuals face problems repaying loans, overdrafts or mortgages.
Analysis
By OP
The government is determined to show that it has a grip on the Carillion crisis. And it needs to.
At stake are not just the thousands of jobs directly employed but also the thousands of SMEs such as suppliers and contractors indirectly dependent on the former construction giant who will now not repay its debts.
On top of that there’s the ideology behind the likes of Carillion and outsourcing in general.
Private finance initiatives and getting companies to do public sector work is an article of faith for the Conservative Party.
If thousands of small firms collapse in a domino fashion due to Carillion, then the PFI as a policy will come under intense scrutiny.
Image captionHeather Smith said the council received “significantly less” in government funds than other authorities and this had been made known to Whitehall
The leader of a local council forced to ban almost all spending said she warned the government it was about to “fall over the edge of the cliff”.
Northamptonshire County Council said on Friday it had brought in a section 114 notice, banning new expenditure.
It insisted staff wages and spending on statutory services for protecting vulnerable people were unaffected.
Heather Smith, Conservative leader of the council, said: “We did warn that we would become unsustainable.”
She said: “We have been warning government from about 2013/14 that, with our financial position, we couldn’t cope with the levels of cuts we were facing.
“Before Christmas, I wrote to the secretary of state to say we were about to fall over the edge of the cliff because we can’t just increase council tax.”
A government spokesman said it had appointed an independent inspector to look at the council’s finances, adding: “This is a decision for the authority, and it would not be appropriate for us to comment while the inspection is ongoing.”
Image captionNorthamptonshire County Council’s new headquarters officially opened in October
Speaking to Labour’s local government conference in Nottingham, the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “Austerity is unleashing chaos across our country, squeezing our local authorities and putting jobs, and the vital services they deliver, at risk.”
It is the first section 114 notice issued in more than 20 years but Prof Tony Travers, from The London School of Economics, believes others could follow.
He said: “I think there are others that are quite close to Northamptonshire’s position and, with so-called austerity continuing into the next decade, I would be amazed if Northamptonshire was the only council to get into these circumstances.”
Bob Scott, leader of the Labour Group on Northamptonshire County Council, said: “My only surprise is that a section 114 order has been issued just after an inspector has been appointed and started his work.”
The implications are due to be discussed at the full council meeting on 22 February.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionJacob Rees-Mogg chairs the Conservative Party’s European Research Group
Prominent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has accused Treasury officials of “fiddling the figures” on Brexit to keep the UK in the European Union customs union.
It comes amid claims, which the Treasury has denied, that it had deliberately created an economic model that made all other options look bad.
Conservative Mr Rees-Mogg said the forecast was “politically advantageous” for the Treasury.
The Treasury said it was working hard to deliver the best deal for Britain.
Tory MP Mr Rees-Mogg told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you look at the forecasts the Treasury made before the referendum, they were a humiliation.
“They were clearly politically influenced.”
But the Treasury said that both the prime minister and the chancellor have repeatedly stated the UK will be leaving the single market and the customs union and that “any suggestion to the contrary is simply false”.
Mr Rees-Mogg said former chancellor George Osborne had set up the Office for Budget Responsibility, which provides independent analysis of the UK’s public finances, because Treasury forecasts “had been politicised”.
“And it was thought they were unreliable on political grounds,” he added.
“With the referendum and with the EU, the Treasury has gone back to making forecasts.
“It was politically advantageous for them in the past. It is the same now.
“So yes, I do think they are fiddling the figures.”
Analysis
By OP
This is more than a row about a backbench MP challenging Treasury figures he doesn’t like.
Jacob Rees-Mogg leads a section of MPs on whom Theresa May’s future might depend.
That bloc – the Tories’ European Research Group – are vehemently opposed to the UK staying in ANY form of customs union with the EU after Brexit.
This week, key ministerial meetings will take place on that very subject, with Theresa May known to be against staying in THE customs union, but open-minded to setting up a less expansive arrangement.
So Jacob Rees-Mogg’s intervention could be taken as upping the ante, exerting extra pressure on Mrs May ahead of this big week, which could provide crucial answers to our future relations with the EU, and to the prime minister’s future.
His comments came after Theresa May, on the final day of her official visit to China, appeared to suggest some sort of customs agreement with the EU could be possible – even though ministers have said Britain will leave the existing customs union.
Mr Rees-Mogg stated any such deal would be unacceptable to Tory Brexiteers as it would prevent the UK from striking free trade deals with other countries.
“We need to be free to do deals with the rest of the world,” he said.
“We must be out of the protectionist common external tariff which mainly protects inefficient EU industries at the cost to British consumers.”
Commons apology
It is the second time this week that Mr Rees-Mogg has condemned civil servants’ economic forecast concerning the impact of Brexit.
The row began on Tuesday with a report leaked to Buzzfeed which said growth would be lower in each of three different Brexit outcomes than if the UK had stayed in the EU.
The government said its preferred option however – a bespoke deal covering trade and financial services – was not among those analysed in the leaked paper.
But in the Commons on Thursday, Mr Rees-Mogg asked Brexit minister Steve Baker to confirm whether he had heard that officials were deliberately trying to influence policy in favour of staying in the EU customs union.
He attributed the remarks to Charles Grant, the head of the Centre for European Reform.
On Friday, Mr Baker apologised to MPs for saying Mr Rees-Mogg’s account of the remarks was “essentially correct”.
Mr Grant had denied making them and an audio recording emerged where he did not say what was attributed to him.
However, Mr Rees-Mogg said he stood by his original claim.
Mr Grant told the BBC he was surprised that Mr Rees-Mogg had not apologised to him.
‘Absolutely outrageous’
Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable called Mr Rees-Mogg’s claims about the Treasury “absolutely outrageous”.
“The government should be thinking about all possibilities and how to minimise the damage from Brexit,” he said.
“Serious Conservatives inside and outside government are saying that whatever happens with Brexit, we should remain in a customs union.
“The Treasury would be failing in its duty if it didn’t examine that possibility seriously; we should be inside a customs union whatever happens.”
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionHawaiian officials were criticised for taking a long time to correct the alert
A Hawaiian state worker who sent a false incoming missile alert last month says he is devastated for causing mass panic, but was 100% sure it was real.
“I felt sick afterward. It was like a body blow,” the man, who did not want to be identified, told reporters.
The mistake on 13 January sparked wide-scale panic, and it took the authorities 38 minutes to correct it.
The worker has been fired, and two top civilian officials from Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency resigned.
The recorded drill message began and ended with the words: “Exercise! Exercise! Exercise!” But the warning also included “This is not a drill”, in a script federal regulators say deviated from established procedure.
“I heard this is not a drill, and I didn’t hear exercise at all,” the worker who pressed the alert said on Friday, in his first comments since the incident.
“I’m really not to blame for this, it was a system failure and I did what I was trained to do,” he told NBC News.
Despite this, state officials say other workers present at the time clearly heard the word “exercise” repeated several times.
The man, believed to be in his fifties, said he did not want to be identified for safety reasons after receiving threats against his life.
Media captionPeople were warned to take shelter
According to federal officials, he has refused to co-operate with investigators beyond submitting a written statement. He was also said to have had a “poor performance” on the job, in a separate state report.
Reports say he had been a source of concern for colleagues for 10 years, having confused emergency drills with real-life incidents on at least two occasions.
The false alarm was transmitted to mobile phones and broadcast stations, causing hysteria and panicked evacuations across the Pacific island.
The nearly 40-minute delay in standing down the alert sparked recriminations, with state officials apologising.
“I feel very badly for what’s happened, the panic and stress people felt and all the hurt and pain,” the employee said. “The last few weeks and it’s been very difficult.”
The administrator and executive officer of the states’s Emergency Management Agency stepped down last Tuesday, after the report on its failures was released.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, measures have been taken by the agency to avoid a repeat of the incident.
Image copyrightAFP/GETTY IMAGESImage captionBarin Kobani (right) was killed in northern Afrin earlier this week, reports say
Kurds in Syria have reacted furiously to videos showing Turkish-backed rebels abusing the body of a female Kurdish fighter killed in battle.
Barin Kobani was part of all-female unit challenging a Turkish-led offensive in north-west Syria.
Kurdish officials accused fighters allied with Turkey of “playing with her corpse” and mutilating it.
Last month, Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels launched a campaign to capture the Kurdish-held Afrin region.
Barin Kobani was killed during fighting earlier this week in the northern part of the region, reports say. She was in her mid-20s, and joined the Kurdish all-female unit known as the YPJ in 2015.
The group is part of the YPG (People’s Protection Units), seen by Turkey as a terrorist group and an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in south-eastern Turkey for three decades.
The YPG denies any direct organisational links to the PKK – an assertion backed by the US, which has provided the militia and allied Arab fighters with weapons and air support to help them battle the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
Two videos emerged earlier this week, and the woman was soon identified as Barin Kobani.
The footage shows a group of rebels standing around the bloodied body of a woman lying on the ground. Parts of her torso appear to have been cut.
“We hold the Turkish government responsible for this heinous act,” Kurdish-led authorities said. One unconfirmed report claimed she had been captured alive before being killed.
Local official Aldar Khalil condemned the rebels’ “moral decadence”.
Turkey has not publicly commented on the issue. The rebels involved in the videos have not been identified.
Thousands of people have been displaced by the Turkish-led offensive, launched by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a bid to crush the YPG, which controls Afrin and more than 400km (250 miles) of Syria’s northern border.
Some 10,000 Syrian rebels are taking part in the campaign.
Image copyrightKCNA / STRImage captionNorth Korea’s military parades – like this one in April 2017 – can be large affairs
North Korea has defended plans for a large-scale military parade scheduled for the day before the Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Pyongyang’s annual military parade to mark the founding of its armed forces has taken place in April for 40 years.
From 2018, however, it has been changed to 8 February – when athletes will gather in Pyeongchang for the opening ceremony the following day.
North Korea said that no-one had the right to take issue with its plans.
A column in the ruling Workers’ Party newspaper – the Rodong Sinmun – dismissed views that the event was provocative or designed to showcase the North’s nuclear weapons.
Instead, the newspaper said, “it is a custom and very basic common sense that any country in the world takes the founding anniversary of its military very seriously and celebrates it with extravagant events,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap news.
Pyongyang previously held its main celebration of the military on 25 April.
The 2018 celebration, however, will mark the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army, which was established on 8 February 1948.
North Korea’s military parades are usually large-scale affairs, often featuring thousands of troops and a display of missiles or other military hardware.
Image copyrightKCNA / STRImage captionThis 15 April 2017 parade commemorated the late Kim Il-Sung’s 105th birthday
The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics have been the subject of sudden co-operation between the two Korean nations.
The two countries will march under a unified banner at the event, and even field a joint women’s ice hockey team.
But the diplomatic spat over the military parade threatens to cast a shadow over proceedings.
US Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein told a press briefing earlier this week: “We would prefer that this parade not occur”.
North Korea’s government-operated information outlet KCNA released a statement saying that if South Korea and its allies continued criticism in the form of “reckless confrontational acts”, it would “only bring about the consequences of souring the successful opening of the Winter Olympics”.
The two countries dramatically improved their bilateral relations in January, reopening lines of communication and negotiating their joint presence at the Winter Olympics.
“Our programmes are suffering… (people) are scared of all vaccines now”, he warned.
Mr Domingo added that vaccination rates for some preventable diseases had dropped as much as 60% in recent years – significantly lower that the nationwide target of 85%.
Image copyrightAFPImage captionDengue is a potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease
Mr Domingo expressed concerns about potential epidemics in the Philippines – a nation of about 100 million people, many of whom are impoverished.
What triggered fears about Dengvaxia?
More than 800,000 children were vaccinated across the country in 2016-17. Fourteen of them have died.
Dengvaxia immunisations were halted last year, as the Philippines launched an investigation into what caused the deaths.
On Saturday, Doctors for Public Welfare (DPW) said a clinical review conducted by Philippine General Hospital forensic pathologists had determined that the deaths were not linked to the vaccine, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
What about Sanofi’s reaction?
In a statement to the OP, the French company said: “The University of the Philippines – Philippine General Hospital expert panel confirmed yesterday that there is currently no evidence directly linking the Dengvaxia vaccine to any of the 14 deaths.
“In Dengvaxia clinical trials conducted over more than a decade and the over one million doses of the vaccine administered, no deaths related to the vaccine have been reported to us.
“Clinical evidence confirms dengue vaccination in the Philippines will provide a net reduction in dengue disease, including severe dengue and, thereby, reduce the overall public health burden associated with this disease.”
Last November, Sanofi announced that its vaccine could worsen the potentially deadly disease in people not previously infected.
“For those not previously infected by dengue virus, however, the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination upon a subsequent dengue infection,” the firm said in a statement.
Sanofi says Dengvaxia has been registered in 19 countries and launched in 11 of them.
In its latest advice on the vaccine, the WHO saidthat “until a full review has been conducted, WHO recommends vaccination only in individuals with a documented past dengue infection, either by a diagnostic test or by a documented medical history of past dengue illness”.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionThe shootings took place in various parts of the town
At least six people have been wounded in a series of drive-by shootings in a town in central Italy, and one man has been arrested, police and media say.
Those targeted in Macerata were black immigrants, media said.
The suspect, named locally as Luca Traini, 28, had an Italian flag wrapped around his neck when he was detained.
He had taken part in regional elections for the anti-immigration Northern League last year and reportedly made a fascist salute when he was captured.
Mr Traini, who is from the surrounding Le Marche region, did not resist when he was detained near the town’s war memorial and is now being questioned. Police found a gun in his car.
The mayor had warned people to stay indoors during incident, which saw shootings across a number of locations.
The victims are being treated in hospital. At least one of them is said to be in a serious condition.
The shooting began at 11:00 local time (10:00 GMT), La Repubblica website reports. The gunman was captured two hours later, after fleeing from the car on foot near the town’s war memorial.
Video of the moment he was apprehended was published by local website, Il Resto del Carlino, showing a white bald man draped in an Italian tricolour being escorted away by police.
Italian police also tweeted a photo of the moment of capture, saying one of the wounded had required surgery.
Shots had been fired in the Via Spalato and Via dei Velini parts of town, two key areas in an investigation into the murder of an 18-year-old girl whose body was found dismembered and hidden in two suitcases last Wednesday.
A 29-year-old Nigerian male migrant has been detained over the killing of Pamela Mastropietro.
Several racist comments calling for revenge attacks were posted on the Facebook page of the victim’s mother in the run up to Saturday’s shootings, Ansa reports.
Local reports are linking the two incidents.
Right-wing politicians have been using Pamela Mastropietro’s killing to promote their anti-migrant message as part of their campaign for next month’s general election.
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has temporarily suspended campaigning over the shootings.
New Unexplained Wealth Orders introduced this week will allow government officials to keep hold of assets including property until they have been properly accounted for.
In the interview with the paper, the security minister warned: “We will come for you, for your assets and we will make the environment you live in difficult.”
Dozens of targets have already been identified, according to The Times.
Mr Wallace commended BBC drama McMafia’s “really good portrayal” of the international nature of organised crime.
“Beneath the gloss there is real nastiness,” he said.
“So far it’s very close to the truth, the international nature of organised crime and the impunity with which some of these people operate and the brutality of it, is absolutely correct.”
He then referred to the so-called Laundromat case – a scheme in which fake companies mainly based in the UK were used to launder Russian cash through Western banks.
“The government’s view is that we know what they are up to and we are not going to let it happen anymore,” he said.
REUTERS
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