Exclusive: Dr David Wilson says former British police officer approached him as part of efforts to influence his work
The author of a Home Office-sponsored report on the Chinese state and organised crime in the UK was the target of failed honey traps and a suspected attempt to compromise him by a former British police officer, it is claimed.
Dr David Wilson, whose groundbreaking analysis was declassified in February, has told of multiple attempts to influence him or discredit his work as he sought to examine the policing challenges posed by the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and criminal gangs.
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In ancient Athens, there was a custom of sacrificing an ox in the Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus. Credit: Capillon, Public Domain
In ancient Greece, the killing of an ox was prohibited by law due to its vital role in daily life. However, a peculiar and ‘unlawful’ custom saw priests performing the sacrifice of an ox at the Sanctuary of Zeus, the king of the gods, located on the hill of the Acropolis, just a few meters from the Parthenon.
The Diipoleia, also known as Buphonia, was an ancient festival of the Athenians held towards the end of every June. It was also celebrated separately in other Greek cities during antiquity.
The Buphonia ritual and its origin
According to tradition, to justify the sacrifice, a group of oxen was led to the temple. There, the priest would place a type of bread offering made of wheat and barley on the altar. The first ox to eat from this area would be considered to have committed blasphemy, as it was believed to have consumed the offering meant for the god, and therefore had to be killed.
The priest chosen to perform the killing did so in isolation, without any witnesses present, and would then flee the city.
However, since ox sacrifices were forbidden at the time, an “investigation” was launched to identify the culprit. When the rest of the priests gathered to determine who had performed the sacrifice, the guilty priest was missing. In the end, the only evidence left would be the axe used for the killing, which would eventually be thrown into the sea.
How the ritual was performed
Ancient Greek geographer and traveler, Pausanias, provides further details in his account:
“There is a statue of Zeus—one by Leochares and another called Polieus. Concerning the established practices for the sacrifice and the reason said to justify them, I will not record them here.
For Zeus Polieus, they would place barley mixed with wheat on the altar without any kind of guard. The ox, which they have prepared for the sacrifice and kept under watch, approaches the altar and begins eating the grain. A member of the Thalonid family sacrifices the animal that eats from the sacred offerings with a double-headed axe.
They then summon a priest, called the ‘ox-slayer’ (buphonos), who kills the ox and, in accordance with the law, throws away the axe and flees. Since the identity of the person who committed the act remains unknown, they bring the axe to trial instead. Afterwards, they enter the temple that they call the Parthenon.”
The Buphonos and the trial of the axe
It was believed that the ancestor of the Thalonids, Thalon, was the first to strike the ox. Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry, attributes the first buphonia to a foreigner named Sopater. He also provides a shorter version of the story, in which the priest of Zeus, Diomos, “murdered” the animal.The others then cut up the sacrificial victim and ate it.
Afterwards, they would hold a trial to determine the guilty party responsible for the killing. The buphonos (ox-slayer) did not appear, while those who participated in the sacrifice accused one another. They shifted responsibility for the killing from one man to the other.
The participants included the water carriers who brought water for the sacrificial tools, those who sharpened the knife and axe, as well as individuals responsible for carrying the tools.
Ultimately, they would accuse the knife, condemn it, and toss it into the sea. The ox’s hide was stuffed with straw and yoked to a plow. They did this to create the illusion that the animal was still alive.
The entire ritual permeated participants with intense feelings of guilt over the slaughter of the animal, and it was regarded as an act of murder.
The entire ritual permeated participants with intense feelings of guilt over the slaughter of the animal. Credit: Wikimedia commons, Public Domain
Rituals, beliefs, and symbolism
It is noteworthy that, according to Porphyry, after the buphonos Sopater fled to Crete and before the establishment of the festival in Athens, a plague struck the city. The plague only ceased after Sopater’s return and the institution of the festival.
Additionally, as part of the measures to address the plague, the Oracle of Delphi deemed the establishment of the ritual involving the stuffing of the animal’s hide as necessary.
To avoid the pollution (miasma) of the murder, they made efforts to eliminate the act of murder itself. When this was not sufficient, they attempted to justify the act, for example, by claiming that the defilement resulted from impiety.
Finally, they shifted human responsibility by attributing the miasma to an inanimate tool, which became the scapegoat of the entire ritual. This object absorbed the miasma and was then removed from the city.
The ox, which they have prepared for the sacrifice and kept under watch, approaches the altar and begins consuming the grain. A member of the Thalonid family sacrifices the animal that is fed from the sacred offerings with a double-headed axe. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
Spiritual significance and agricultural connections
According to ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus, the remains of the ox were buried. Presumably, this was so as to prevent its spirit from seeking revenge on the city. It is important to note that, in this ritual, the value attributed to the spirit of the animal is equivalent to that given to a human.
British classical scholar and linguist Jane Harrison, connects the use of offerings to attract the animal to the altar with the rites of Dionysus Zagreus and Isodaites. Furthermore, the yoking of the stuffed hide of the ox to the plow associates the festival with fertility rituals, which pertain to chthonic deities.
This ritual of purification and averting evil was initially connected to the need to ensure an abundance of game in a pre-agricultural society. Later on, an agricultural society adopted it, shifting the focus to the fertility of the land.
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Amid growing scrutiny over the rising number of deaths in immigration detention, the Trump administration has eliminated a policy that required U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to investigate and report the deaths of detainees that occurred within 30 days of their release.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Enrique Martínez Chávez on Wednesday in Los Angeles, California, according to a statement the agency released Thursday on social media. The 32‑year‑old detainee is one of the military officers linked to the disappearance of 43 student teachers in the Mexican municipality of Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014. Martínez Chávez is wanted in Mexico for the alleged crime of enforced disappearance and has been a fugitive from justice for years. ICE says he will remain in its custody “until he can be sent home” to Mexico.
When Justo Betancourt, 55, was released from Alligator Alcatraz on May 14, after nearly six months in detention, he had lost 22 kilograms (48.5 lb) and could barely walk. Two days later he was admitted to hospital, on the verge of a diabetic coma. While in detention, he did not receive the insulin doses he needed, suffered strokes, and during one episode, he fell and lost a tooth. He has been left with neurological after-effects: his right hand trembles, and to climb a step, he lifts his leg from behind the thigh. “Sometimes I have to grab it and push, because it doesn’t respond,” he says on the ground floor of the apartment building where he lives, in Miami’s Little Havana. This week, President Donald Trump dedicated a message to him on Truth Social: “Welcome home to Justo Betancourt, whose Daughter, Arianne, fought very hard to free her father from Alligator Alcatraz. Enjoy your Freedom together!!!”
The app AT4K turns the messy Google TV interface into something closer to the Apple TV interface, making it cleaner, more customizable, and less frustrating to use.
Limassol, Cyprus. The UK has removed a special travel warning for Cyprus linked to Middle East tensions. Credit: Flickr / Leonid Mamchenkov / CC BY 2
The UK has removed special travel warning for Cyprus that had been introduced following heightened tensions in the Middle East, offering a positive signal for the island’s tourism sector at the peak of the summer season.
The updated guidance from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office no longer includes specific references to heightened regional risks or possible travel disruption linked to developments in the Middle East.
UK drops special warning for Cyprus
The previous advisory had placed Cyprus alongside at least 17 other countries in the region under a specific warning related to the increased risk of regional instability.
The concern was connected to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, as well as a drone attack targeting a British military base on the island. At the time, the FCDO warned that regional tensions could result in travel disruptions and other unforeseen consequences.
British citizens were advised to exercise increased caution when traveling, although the UK government never advised against travel to Cyprus.
General safety advice remains in place
The latest update removes those special references from the official travel guidance. While general safety advice for Cyprus remains in place, there is no longer any specific mention of heightened regional risks or potential disruption caused by the Middle East crisis.
The change is being interpreted as an indication that British authorities believe the risk of direct consequences for Cyprus from regional developments has significantly diminished.
Positive signal for Cyprus tourism
The update is particularly important for Cyprus as the summer tourism season reaches its peak. The United Kingdom remains the island’s largest tourism market, making British travel advice highly influential for the tourism industry.
The earlier warning had raised concerns among tourism stakeholders in both Cyprus and the UK, with several British media outlets highlighting the references to regional instability.
For the island’s tourism sector, the removal of the warning is expected to help ease concerns among British travelers and operators, especially as Cyprus continues to depend heavily on arrivals from the UK during the summer months.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 03, 2026.It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The US Supreme Court late Tuesday gave Alabama a green light to use an aggressively gerrymandered congressional map that a lower court said was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”
The unsigned decision, from which the high court’s three liberal justices dissented, enables Alabama’s Republican-dominated government to replace its current congressional map, which has two majority-Black districts, with a map that the US Supreme Court struck down in 2023. That map has just one majority-Black district.
In her dissenting opinion, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the court today doubles down on chaos.”
“In addition to being wrong on the merits, the court’s decision inflicts two grave harms on the public,” wrote Sotomayor. “It debases the democratic process by upending Alabama’s entire election in the name of permitting Alabama to discriminate against Black Alabamians. It also corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.”
The liberal justice noted that in order to switch to the map previously struck down by the high court, Alabama election officials “will have to reassign hundreds of thousands of voters across the state to new congressional districts.”
“Three of Alabama’s counties will be particularly hard hit because they are split across two congressional districts,” Sotomayor noted. “These counties have about 600,000 registered voters between them (roughly 15% of the state’s total number of registered voters).”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, postponed US House primary elections in the wake of the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which severely narrowed the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s protections against racial discrimination and paved the way for Alabama and other states to impose new maps ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“The Supreme Court’s shameful ruling allowing Alabama to move forward with a gerrymander that was drawn with the explicit intent to dilute Black voting power—as found by a panel of judges that included two Trump appointees—is an absolute affront to the founding principles of our democracy, and wipes out whatever was left of the court’s credibility,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation. “This country deserves better, and we must continue to work toward federal legislation that not only bans partisan and racial gerrymandering but also ensures that our rights cannot be undermined by captured courts.”
The ruling drew condemnation from the two Democrats in Alabama’s US congressional delegation. Rep. Shomari Figures, who was elected to the US House under the independently drawn map that Alabama Republicans are working to replace, said in a statement that “the Supreme Court has now confirmed that there is no longer a Voting Rights Act in America, and states are essentially free to discriminate against minority voters with no consequences.”
“This is a dangerous ruling that sets the state and this nation back decades,” said Figures.
Rep. Terri Sewell called the ruling “just the latest in a pattern of outrageous Supreme Court decisions that help Republicans desperately cling to power ahead of the midterm elections while diluting Black voices and erasing decades of hard-fought civil rights progress.”
“No matter how hard Alabama state officials may try, they will not succeed in silencing our voices,” said Sewell. “We will not go back to the Jim Crow era. The fight for fair representation continues.”
“The era of deportations has begun.” A few months ago, this line from far‑right Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers sounded like a provocation. Now, after the agreement on the EU’s new Return Regulation between Parliament, the member states and the Commission, it reads more like an accurate description of the European Union’s political direction. With the legal framework for sending migrants to deportation camps outside Europe nearly complete, several member states — Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece — have intensified their search for countries willing to host them, mainly in Africa, far from the European continent, according to diplomatic sources. The political battle is over; the geographical one is just beginning.
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