- Roma stroll past Udinese as fans protest De Rossi sacking
- Horschel outduels McIlroy to win PGA Championship play-off
- Audiences summon 'Beetlejuice' to top of N. America box office for third week
- Stones salvages point for Man City against 10-man Arsenal
- Egypt fears 'all out' regional war: foreign minister to AFP
- Last-gasp Boniface gives Leverkusen victory, Stuttgart outclass Dortmund
- Scholz's party beats far-right AfD in east German state vote: projections
- Olympic champion Evenepoel retains world title in 'toughest time trial'
- Horschel's eagle beats McIlroy in PGA Championship play-off
- Mourners at commander's funeral express loyalty to Hezbollah
- Norris hails his 'mega' McLaren after dominant win at Singapore
- Monaco beat Le Havre to join PSG at the top of Ligue 1
- Scholz's party narrowly leads far-right AfD in east German state vote: exit polls
- New leftist president vows to 'rewrite Sri Lankan history'
- UN adopts pact to tackle volatile future for mankind
- Leclerc hails Ferrari fightback from torrid Singapore GP qualifying
- Belgian Evenepoel retains world title in 'toughest time trial'
- Sosa rescues point for Forest against Brighton
- Last-gasp Boniface gives Leverkusen victory over Wolfsburg in seven-goal thriller
- Swiss voters reject environment, pensions reforms: official results
- No fairytale ending for Ricciardo after 13 years in Formula One
- Israel and Hezbollah urged to step back from the brink
- What is the UN's 'Pact for the Future'?
- Norris dominates Singapore Grand Prix to cut Verstappen's title lead
- From bullets to ballots: Sri Lanka's comrade president-elect
- McLaren's Lando Norris wins Singapore GP to narrow F1 title race
- UN adopts pact promising to build 'brighter future' for humanity
- Military escalation not in Israel's 'best interest': White House
- Marxist leader declared Sri Lanka's president-elect
- Classes resume at Bangladesh university at heart of protests
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- 'Warrior' Joshua vows to fight on despite Dubois mauling
- Martin extends MotoGP lead as Bastianini wins at Misano and Bagnaia crashes out
- New French government instantly under pressure on multiple fronts
- Australia's Brown adds world title to Olympic time trial gold
- Russian strike on Ukraine's Kharkiv wounds 21
- UK's Starmer rules out austerity as Labour conference opens
- Swiss voters reject environment, pensions reforms: projected results
- Israel says 'landed blows' on Hezbollah as Lebanon violence intensifies
- Roma CEO steps down amid anger over club icon De Rossi's sacking
- Incoming French government under pressure on multiple fronts
- Hezbollah rockets strike near Israel's Haifa as UN warns of 'catastrophe'
- Haddad Maia roars back to beat Kasatkina in Korea Open final
- All-rounder Ashwin powers India to 280-run Test win over Bangladesh
- Failed Springbok 'gamble' sets up rugby championship decider
- Lebanon strikes send Israelis to shelters as UN warns of 'catastrophe'
- Far-right AfD eyes new win in east German state vote
- Tony Popovic set to become new Socceroos coach - reports
- All-round Ashwin powers India to big Test win over Bangladesh
- NZ chase 275 to win first Sri Lanka Test after Patel bags six
Ex-PM Johnson apologises to UK Covid victims' families but defends record
Boris Johnson apologised Wednesday for "the pain and the loss and the suffering" caused by the Covid-19 pandemic but defended his government at a public inquiry into its handling of the crisis.
The former British prime minister, who has faced a barrage of criticism from former aides for alleged indecisiveness and a lack of scientific understanding during the pandemic, began two gruelling days in the witness box.
Johnson -- forced from office last year over lockdown-breaching parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic -- accepted "mistakes" had "unquestionably" been made but repeatedly insisted he and officials did their "level best".
"I understand the feeling of the victims and their families and I'm deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and the suffering to those victims and their families," Johnson said.
"Inevitably we got some things wrong," he added, noting he took personal responsibility for all the decisions made. "At the time I felt... we were doing our best in very difficult circumstances."
The former premier arrived around three hours early for the proceedings, with some suggesting he was eager to avoid relatives of the Covid bereaved, who gathered outside later in the morning.
As he started giving evidence, four women were evicted from the inquiry room after holding up signs stating "the dead can't hear your apologies".
Nearly 130,000 people died with Covid in the UK by mid-July 2021, one of the worst official per capita tolls among Western nations.
Critics have blamed Johnson's government for a slow, erratic and dysfunctional response.
- Deleted WhatsApps -
Johnson, whose lengthy written submission to the inquiry will be published later Wednesday, insisted the "overwhelming priority" of his government had been protecting the state-run National Health Service (NHS) and saving lives.
Rejecting statistics that Britain fared worse than European neighbours, he argued "every country struggled with a new pandemic" while noting the UK had an "extremely elderly population" and is one of the continent's most densely populated countries.
His grilling began with questions about a failure to provide about 5,000 WhatsApp messages on his phone from late January 2020 to June 2020.
"I don't know the exact reason," he claimed, adding the app had "somehow" automatically erased its chat history from that period.
Asked if he had initiated a so-called factory reset Johnson said: "I don't remember any such thing".
Inquiry counsel Hugo Keith questioned Johnson about Downing Street chaos during the pandemic, and claims of general incompetence.
Johnson's understanding of specialist advice was doubted last month by his former chief scientific officer, Patrick Vallance, who said he was frequently "bamboozled" by data.
His former top aide Dominic Cummings and communications chief Lee Cain both criticised their ex-boss when they gave evidence at the inquiry.
"What all those comments reflect is the deep anxiety of a group of people doing their level best who cannot see an easy solution and are naturally self-critical and critical of others," Johnson insisted.
- 'Meaningless' -
Keith also quizzed Johnson about everything from shaking hospital patients' hands in early March 2020 to delaying the country's first lockdown for weeks.
"I shouldn't have done that, in retrospect, and I should have been more precautionary," the ex-leader conceded of the hand-shakes, adding he should also have stopped sports events sooner.
He added the eventual March 23, 2020, lockdown stemmed from "the sudden appreciation" that the virus was more rampant in Britain than previously thought.
"We were clearly wrong in our estimation of where the peak was going to be," Johnson said.
"Once we decided to act, I think it was pretty fast from flash to bang."
Johnson noted that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, then finance minister, had raised lockdown concerns related to "a risk to the UK bond markets and our ability to raise sovereign debt".
Sunak is due to be questioned at the inquiry in the coming weeks.
Bereaved families appeared unimpressed by Johnson's appearance -- and apology.
"We've had nearly four years now of rule-breaking, partying, making the wrong decisions. It's been constant lies that are now finally coming out," Kathryn Butcher, 59, whose sister-in-law died of Covid, told AFP.
"His apology is meaningless."
H.E.Young--AMWN