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Investigators work in the garden of Sergei Skripal's house in Salisbury, southern England, on March 22. AFP/Getty Images

Niece of Russian nerve gas victim refused entry to UK

Viktoria Skripal was denied “on the grounds that her application did not comply with the immigration rules”.

BRITISH AUTHORITIES HAVE rejected a visa application by the niece of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned with a nerve agent along with his daughter Yulia in an English city last month.

“We have refused a visitor visa application from Viktoria Skripal on the grounds that her application did not comply with the immigration rules,” the Home Office, Britain’s interior ministry, said in a statement.

Sergei Skripal is no longer in critical condition and is “improving rapidly,” the hospital treating him.

It was the first official news on the condition of Sergei Skripal, 66, since he and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned on a bench on 4 March in Salisbury.

The affair has sparked a bitter diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow and prompted a wave of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats between Russia and the West.

Skripal ”is responding well to treatment, improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition,” said Salisbury District Hospital director Christine Blanshard.

As for his daughter, “her strength is growing daily and she can look forward to the day when she is well enough to leave the hospital”, Blanshard added.

Britain blames Russia for the poisoning of the Skripals — a charge the Kremlin furiously denies.

The first public comments by Yulia Skripal since the poisoning emerged on Thursday.

“My strength is growing daily,” she was quoted as saying in comments released by the police.

© AFP 2018 

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    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Greg Rybak
    Favourite Greg Rybak
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    Sep 8th 2014, 1:34 PM

    Does it have ‘I’m feeling lucky’ setting?

    74
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    Mute NoNeed4cryptoGreed
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    Sep 8th 2014, 12:57 PM

    Google everywhere. Not sure if we need gigantic companies involved in so many aspect of our life’s.

    45
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    Mute The Throwaway
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    Sep 8th 2014, 1:17 PM

    I think the horse has already bolted out of that door.
    Between smart phones alone there’s an incredible amount of data available to people to see how person lives their life. On the other side, there’s a raft of smart technologies out there for the home that are incredibly cheap; if you’re into that kind of thing.

    12
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    Mute Dave Fingleton
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    Sep 8th 2014, 2:25 PM

    Its really depressing that we have such badly insulated and air porous houses and apartments that we need to add tech that turns heating systems on 15mins before getting home such is the massive heat loss.

    26
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    Mute John Moylan
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    Sep 8th 2014, 3:15 PM

    @Dave Fingleton…….and people are still building that way. It’s entirely possible to build better, and easy too. I quoted to build such for a scheme lately and I the feedback I got back (by email) was they (the developer) saw ‘no merit in the marketplace to build beyond minimum compliance’. Doesn’t that just tell you all ?

    33
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    Mute Dave Fingleton
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    Sep 8th 2014, 9:06 PM

    Very interesting, John. We don’t learn from past mistakes in this country, do we?? I totally agree with how easy it would be to build better houses. I am a builder, once offs, extensions / renovations. Nearly finished a 1600 sq’ house in Co.Laois. I use an insulated concrete form system. Underfloor heating off an air to water heat pump, Heat recovery ventilation, very close attention paid to airtightness. The projected heating cost for the house is 82 euro per year. All for not much more than 100 p/sq’ build cost. It can be done…

    8
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    Mute Seeking Truth
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    Sep 8th 2014, 3:16 PM

    Even better if your partner is home and you’re out, and you turn the heat down on your smartphone and they freeze their tail off and wonder why for ages before seeing that you remotely changed the heating. Works once, anyways LOL

    21
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    Mute Random_paddy
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    Sep 8th 2014, 1:19 PM

    heatmiser is far cheaper and no monthly subscription, if you are a competent DIYer and able to configure port forwarding on your router. Good iphone app too. http://www.heatmiser.com/index.php/thermostats/wifi-thermostat-series

    18
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    Mute lostintallaght
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    Sep 8th 2014, 1:30 PM

    Google integration is where the Nest could win though. Imagine a heating system that knows you are on your way home (thanks to Google tracking in your phone) and turns on the heating automatically when you 15 minutes from the house. That’s the future of the Nest – true integration that is fully automated, not reliant on connecting via an app or browser.

    Also, 95% of the people that will want this sort of technology won’t want to learn how to play with port forwarding on the router tbh. They’ll want it to be ultra straightforward.

    39
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    Mute Ciaran Lynch
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    Sep 8th 2014, 2:07 PM

    Nest doesnt require any monthly subscription??

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    Mute brian magee
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    Sep 8th 2014, 2:44 PM

    The tado does this already. Best would only be playing catch up if they added it .

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    Mute Sean
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    Sep 8th 2014, 8:22 PM

    Nowhere the same amount of features as nest though

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    Mute Sean
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    Sep 8th 2014, 8:27 PM

    Also nest isn’t a monthly subscription

    3
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    Mute brian magee
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    Sep 8th 2014, 8:35 PM

    Sean care to expand on what features you think the Tado or heatmiser is missing? neither of which are subscription.

    NESt does not support muiti zones liek the Heatmiser does. An as such it really is not suitabel for any modern heatign system installed in Ireland in th epast 15 years. you would need to buy a new NEST for each zone.

    Heatmiser supports multizones,

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    Mute Ciaran Lynch
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    Sep 8th 2014, 2:12 PM

    Great product, have been using the thermostat a lot and i have to admit its pretty amazing.
    The product reviews say it all.
    Plus there is no data collected for google… which people seem to think.

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    Mute Stephen Gregg
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    Sep 8th 2014, 2:34 PM

    Interesting, are you using this in Ireland?

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    Mute potatoman
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    Sep 8th 2014, 5:04 PM

    The nest thermostat looks cool. I like the idea of smart homes and appliances but I wonder how much it will cost to install… The nest smoke alarm was less impressive when first released. They had to recall it when they realised that the waving gesture that disables it while the customer is doing a grill/fry is actually very similar to the frantic wave for help they might make as their body burns to a crisp… It has been tweaked since (gesture control removed – http://www.cnet.com/news/nest-protect-smoke-detector-gets-an-upgrade-still-no-gesture-control/)

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    Mute Colm Flaherty
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    Sep 9th 2014, 2:56 PM

    Will it turn off the immersion?

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    Mute Thierry Rat
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    Sep 8th 2014, 4:47 PM

    Imagine if a company like google collected data about every minor detail of everyone’s life…. Wait a minute…

    4
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