This week, last year: 16th – 22nd October

Street art satirising Sir Philip Green in Hackney, east London, March 2017. Photo: Matt Brown / Flickr.com

Our news highlights from 12 months past, for your weekly dose of Slow Journalism perspective…

Sun 16th October 2016

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, 
insists her SNP party will push for another Scottish independence referendum if the UK takes a “hard Brexit” and leaves the European single market.

Twenty-one Nigerian girls are reunited with their families two-and-a-half years after their kidnap by Islamist group Boko Haram. It’s thought that 195 of the 276 schoolgirls, abducted from a government institution in Chibok in 2014, are still being held.

Photo: AP Photo / Olamikan Gbemiga

Read our interview with Bring Back Our Girls campaigner Aisha Yesufu who recalls the moment the 21 girls were reunited with their families

Mon 17th October 2016
Senior judges at the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal rule that security agencies including 
MI5, MI6 and GCHQ collected personal data unlawfully from British citizens for 17 years.

An Iraqi-led push is launched to retake Mosul. The UN expresses “extreme concern” for the 1.5 million people living in the area, which was taken by Isis in 2014.

Read ‘The lion, the vets and the war zone’ – the story of courageous animal rescuers who moved a lion and a bear out of Mosul at the height of the fighting

Tue 18th October 2016
Ecuador confirms it briefly restricted Julian Assange’s internet access due to his organisation’s release of Clinton campaign emails. The WikiLeaks founder has been living in Ecuador’s embassy in London since 2012.

Four policemen and a number of civilians are killed by a car-bomb in the Somalian town of Afgoye. Reports that the Islamist group responsible, al-Shabab, went on to take control of the town are later dismissed by African Union peacekeeping forces in the area.

Wed 19th October 2016
The former speaker 
of the Brazilian congress is arrested on corruption charges. Earlier in the year, Eduardo Cunha had led the impeachment process against former president Dilma Rousseff before his own expulsion from congress, accused of taking $5 million in bribes.

“Five litres of undiluted squash” – Professor David Field 
of the Zoological Society of London reveals the beverage choice of a silverback gorilla who briefly escaped his enclosure in London Zoo before being tranquillised and moved back into his den.

Thu 20th October 2016
The UK parliament approves a non-binding motion to strip retail tycoon Philip Green 
of his knighthood 
over “asset stripping” high-street firm BHS. Labour MP David Winnick brands Greene a “billionaire spiv who 
has shamed British capitalism”.

Fri 21st October 2016
Mazher Mahmood, 
the News UK undercover reporter known as the “Fake Sheikh”, is sentenced to 15 months in jail for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by changing a police statement.

Sat 22nd October 2016
“Their hands are quivering over the relocate button” – Anthony Browne, head of the British Bankers Association, warns that big banks are preparing 
to pull out of the UK in 2017 due to fears over Brexit negotiations.

Posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2017 - Categories: Extras, The week that was.