Ken Maccallum: Latest News

LONDON - Britain's domestic intelligence agency didn't act swiftly enough on key information and missed a significant opportunity to prevent the suicide bombing that killed 22 people at a 2017 Ariana Grande concert in northwest England, an inquiry found Thursday.Retired judge John Saunders, who led the inquiry into the Manchester Arena attack, said that one MI5 officer admitted they considered intelligence about suicide bomber Salman Abedi to be a possible national security concern but didn't discuss it with colleagues quickly enough."I have found a significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack," Saunders said.In a rare televised statement, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, who normally keeps a low public profile, said he was "profoundly sorry that MI5 did not prevent the attack.""Gathering covert intelligence is difficult, but had we managed to seize the slim chance we had, those impacted might not have experienced such appalling loss and trauma," McCallum said.Abedi, 22, set off a knapsack bomb in the arena’s foyer at the end of the May 22, 2017 concert, as thousands of young fans, including many children, were leaving the pop star’s show. More than 100 people were injured.

LONDON, MI5 : British spies are trying to defend COVID-19 vaccine work against hostile powers that seek to either steal or sabotage research data in the race for the global prize of a jab that could provide immunity, the head of MI5 said on Wednesday.Oxford University’s vaccine candidate, which has been licensed to AstraZeneca, is in late stage trials, while a vaccine candidate being developed by Imperial College London is in early stage clinical trials."Clearly, the global prize of having a first useable vaccine against this deadly virus is a large one, so we would expect that a range of other parties around the globe would be quite interested in that research," Security Service (MI5) Director General Ken McCallum told reporters.McCallum,