Boris Johnson's unused water cannon are now up for sale

Water cannon bought by Boris Johnson which have languished in storage for two years are now up for sale.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the three "redundant" vehicles, purchased by his predecessor in 2014, had already cost taxpayers almost £323,000.

Mr Khan pledged to get rid of the water cannon during his campaign for City Hall, and has now produced a detailed breakdown of their cost.

Their sale will save almost £175,000 in maintenance fees over the next eight years, he said.

"It beggars belief that such a huge amount of taxpayers' money has been wasted on paying to store these redundant machines," he said.

"We've been left in this position by the previous mayor who rashly purchased them before he even had permission to use them, and now it's my job to claw back as much of London taxpayers' money as I can."

Mr Johnson bought the water cannon second-hand from Germany in 2014.

But Theresa May, who was home secretary at the time, banned their use over fears they could cause serious injuries, and questions were also raised over their effectiveness in fast-moving riot situations.

Money spent on the cannon so far includes £32,004 for low emission zone compliance, £19,035 for repainting, £3,109.20 for signage and £970.50 for the fitting of radios and CD players.

The vehicles are now to be sold via the Ministry of Defence to the "highest and most reputable" bidder from an EU policing or civil protection organisation.

Mr Khan said the proceeds and saved maintenance costs would be pumped into services to help tackle the causes of crime.

"By working with communities and returning to real neighbourhood policing, we can do far more for the safety of our city rather than relying on obsolete and illegal water cannon," he said.

"They do not belong on the streets of London."

Amazon's Prime Air drone delivers first package to customer

Online shopping giant Amazon says it has successfully delivered its first package to a customer using a drone.

'Richard B' is one of two people taking part in a trial to help test the technology near Cambridge.

The company released a video showing the drone taking off from a warehouse and flying below 400ft over fields to deliver the package outside his home 13 minutes later.

In a world first for the company, the drone drop took place on 7 December and contained a bag of popcorn and an Amazon Fire TV stick.

The craft is described as fully autonomous with no human pilots involved.

Under Amazon's Prime Air service, the company aims to make deliveries in 30 minutes or less.

Packages must weigh 5lbs (2.27kg) or less and can only be delivered during the day and in clear weather.

Amazon plans to expand the trial to dozens of people living within several miles of the warehouse and then hundreds more users in the future.

It said: "Prime Air has great potential to enhance the services we already provide to millions of customers by providing rapid parcel delivery that will also increase the overall safety and efficiency of the transportation system."

It pointed out it had permission from the Government to conduct extensive tests in three areas:

:: Beyond line-of-sight operations in rural and suburban areas.

:: Sensor performance associated with sense-and-avoid.

:: Flights where one person operates multiple highly-automated drones.

Despite the prospect of half-hour deliveries, some have claimed that the company's drones could be hacked and hijacked.

Colin Bull. from software specialists SQS, has urged Amazon to install an emergency jamming system to alleviate the threat of hijack.

He told InfoSecurity Magazine: "Putting it bluntly, these devices are in fact a flying payload system with the ability to deliver anything including incendiary devices or grenades in to uncontrolled airspace in the way that only Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been able to do in the past."

US tech employees vow to fight Trump on surveillance

More than 200 employees of technology companies including Alphabet Inc's Google, Twitter Inc and Salesforce have pledged not to help US President-elect Donald Trump's administration to build a data registry to track people based on their religion or assist in mass deportations.

Drawing comparisons to the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the employees signed an open letter at neveragain.tech rebuking ideas floated by Trump during the campaign trail.

The protest, which began with about 60 signatures but had more than tripled within hours of publication, comes a day before several technology company executives are due to meet with the president-elect in New York.

"We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans, immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the incoming administration’s proposed data collection policies," reads the letter, signed by a mix of engineers, designers and business executives.

It continues: "We refuse to build a database of people based on their constitutionally protected religious beliefs. We refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable."

The letter vows not to participate in creating databases of identifying information for the US government on the basis of race, religion or national origin, to minimise the collection or retention of data that could facilitate such targeting and to oppose any misuse of data at their respective organisations considered illegal or unethical.

Trump clashed with Silicon Valley on several issues during the campaign, including immigration, government surveillance and encryption, and his victory last month alarmed many companies who feared he might follow through on his pledges.

Those concerns have not been assuaged in recent weeks, as Trump has said he intends to nominate individuals to senior posts in his administration who favour expanding surveillance programmes.

Alphabet chief executive Larry Page, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Oracle Corp CEO Safra Catz are among those expected to attend the summit with Trump's transition team, according to two technology industry sources.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment regarding the open letter.

Lego pushes up its UK prices because of weak pound after Brexit

Lego prices in the UK are set to go up by an average of 5%.

The toymaker confirmed the change - starting on New Year's Day - was a reaction to the collapse in the value of the pound since the UK's vote to leave the EU.

It said that while it was raising the prices it charged retailers to stock its products, it was up to stores to decide if they passed on the increase.

The company, which recently confirmed the appointment of a British chief executive, is the latest to warn of rising costs - a scenario which economists expect to squeeze household budgets with inflation tipped to creep towards 3% over the next 12 months.

Weaker sterling makes imported products - such as food ingredients - more expensive. It is one factor behind rising fuel prices as oil is priced in dollars.

The issue came to prominence in October during the so-called Marmite-gatespat between supplier Unilever and supermarkets, which have warned of price pressures in 2017 despite fierce competition in the sector.

Just weeks later Apple confirmed it was raising UK prices for its computers by 20%.

Since then a string of retailers, such as luxury hamper firm Fortnum & Mason, have warned that price rises are inevitable.

The pound has fallen by up to 20% against the dollar alone since the Brexit vote but is currently trading at $1.27 - 14% down on its pre-referendum level.

Against the euro, sterling remains 8.8% weaker.

Philippines president Duterte admits hunting for criminals to kill

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has said he used to tour city streets on a motorcycle looking for suspected criminals to shoot dead.

The former mayor of Davao claimed he used to patrol the streets with police and blindly fire at suspects during his 20 years running the southern city.

Mr Duterte made the remarks in Cambodia while talking to expatriates about his personal mission to wipe out illegal drugs, a campaign which has led to police and unknown assailants killing thousands of people since the president took office on 30 June.

Speaking to the businessmen at the Cambodian presidential palace, Mr Duterte said: "In Davao I used to do it personally.

"Just to show to the guys (police) that if I can do it why can't you.

"And I'd go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike ... and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also.

"I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill."

The lawyer and former state prosecutor said: "If you say I shot someone, maybe I did. I was closing my eyes because I am scared of firing a gun."

Mr Duterte, 71, has been defiant in the face of criticism from human rights groups and Barack Obama about his anti-crime tactics, saying he would not be intimidated into stopping.

"Sorry, I am not about to do that," he said.

Mr Duterte has previously been accused of running vigilante death squads in Davao which organised the killing of more than 1,000 suspected criminals, including children accused of petty crimes.

He has both denied and acknowledged involvement in the death squads.

However, he has the support of the people, having easily won the presidential election in May after promising to roll out such law and order policies across the nation.

Since he won the presidency, 2,086 people have been reported killed in anti-drug operations. More than 3,000 others have been killed in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.

Syria's Civil War Explained

Five years since the conflict began, more than 450,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, more than a million injured and over 12 million Syrians - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced from their homes.

In 2011, what became known as the "Arab Spring" revolts toppled Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

That March, peaceful protests erupted in Syria as well, after 15 boys were detained and tortured for having written graffiti in support of the Arab Spring. One of the boys, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb , was killed after having been brutally tortured.

The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more. In July 2011, defectors from the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow the government, and Syria began to slide into civil war.

More than 1,000 high street bank branches closed over two years

More than 1,000 high street bank branches have closed over the past two years, according to a new report from consumer group Which?

The scale of closures is attributed to the shift to online banking as well as banking services being offered at Post Offices.

But the consumer group warned that while 56% of adults used online banking last year there were still 20 million adults that did not - often those who did not use the internet or had poor broadband.

Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said: "Access to the services necessary to make everyday banking possible should be simple and straightforward.

"Banks can and must do a better job of working with their customers to understand their needs and those of the local community, especially when they are making changes to the services they offer or closing branches."

The research found that across the UK, 1,046 sites had shut or were due to do so in the two years from January 2015 to January 2017.

It said HSBC cut the most branches, at 321, or about a quarter of its network.

Royal Bank of Scotland - a group which includes NatWest as well as the RBS brand - closed 191 branches or about 10%.

Lloyds Banking Group - which includes Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland - shut 180 sites or 14% of its network.

There were 132 closures at Barclays, 117 at the Co-op, 87 at Santander and 18 at TSB, the report said.

In November, banks promised to offer greater support and advice to customers faced with bank closures after a report by Professor Russel Griggs called for improvements.

HSBC, responding to the latest report, said it remained committed to a "high-quality branch network" but that visits to its branches had fallen sharply.

The British Bankers' Association said there had been a "digital revolution" in the way people manage their money.

A spokeswoman said: "This has had an inevitable impact on the use of bank branches, which has led to a number of branch closures.

"However, the decision to close a branch is never taken lightly."