UK leader unveils Brexit Plan B, looks a lot like Plan A

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement to MPs in the House of Commons, London, Monday, Jan. 21, 2019. (AP)
Updated 21 January 2019
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UK leader unveils Brexit Plan B, looks a lot like Plan A

  • Corbyn accused May of being in “deep denial” about her doomed deal.
  • May launched a mission to resuscitate her rejected European Union divorce deal, setting out plans to get it approved by Parliament

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled her Brexit Plan B on Monday — and it looks a lot like Plan A.
May launched a mission to resuscitate her rejected European Union divorce deal, setting out plans to get it approved by Parliament after securing changes from the EU to a contentious Irish border measure.
May’s opponents expressed incredulity: British lawmakers last week dealt the deal a resounding defeat, and EU leaders insist they won’t renegotiate it.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party accused May of being in “deep denial” about her doomed deal.
“This really does feel a bit like ‘Groundhog Day,’” he said, referring to the 1993 film starring Bill Murray, in which a weatherman is fated to live out the same day over and over again.
Outlining what she plans to do after her EU divorce deal was rejected by Parliament last week, May said that she had heeded lawmakers’ concerns over an insurance policy known as the “backstop” that is intended to guarantee there are no customs checks along the border between EU member Ireland and the UK’s Northern Ireland after Brexit.
May told the House of Commons that she would be “talking further this week to colleagues ... to consider how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support in the House.
“And I will then take the conclusions of those discussions back to the EU.”
The bloc insists that it won’t renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.
“She is wasting time calling for a revision or clarification over the backstop,” said German politician Udo Bullmann, head of the socialist group in the European Parliament. 
While May stuck doggedly to her deal, she also acknowledged that control over Brexit wasn’t entirely in her hands. She noted that lawmakers will be able to amend her plan when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons on Jan. 29, exactly two months before Britain is due to leave the EU.
Groups of “soft Brexit“-backing lawmakers — who want to keep close economic ties to the bloc — are planning to use amendments to try to rule out a “no-deal” Brexit and make May ease her insistence that leaving the EU means quitting its single market and customs union.
Britain and the EU sealed a divorce deal in November after months of tense negotiations. But the agreement has been rejected by both sides of Britain’s divide over Europe. Brexit-backing lawmakers say it will leave the UK tethered to the bloc’s rules and unable to forge an independent trade policy. Pro-Europeans argue it is inferior to the frictionless economic relationship Britain currently enjoys as an EU member.
After her deal was thrown out last week by a crushing 432-202 vote in Parliament, May said she would consult with lawmakers from all parties to find a new way forward.
But Corbyn called the cross-party meetings a “stunt,” and other opposition leaders said the prime minister didn’t seem to be listening.
On Monday, May rejected calls from pro-EU lawmakers to delay Britain’s departure from the bloc or to hold a second referendum on whether to leave.
In a nod to opposition parties’ concerns, she promised to consult lawmakers, trade unionists, business groups and civil society organizations “to try to find the broadest possible consensus” on future ties between Britain and the EU, and said the government wouldn’t water down protections for the environment and workers’ rights after Brexit.
May also said the government had decided to waive a 65 pound ($84) fee for EU citizens in Britain who want to stay permanently after Brexit.
Guy Verhofstadt, the head of the EU Parliament Brexit steering group, welcomed news that the fee was being dropped for 3 million EU nationals, saying it had been a “key demand” for the EU legislature.
May’s immediate goal is to win over pro-Brexit Conservatives and her party’s Northern Irish ally, the Democratic Unionist Party. Both groups say they won’t back the deal unless the border backstop is removed.
The backstop proposes to keep the UK in a customs union with the EU in order to avoid checks on the Irish border. It is meant as a temporary measure that would last until a permanent solution is found. But pro-Brexit UK lawmakers fear Britain could become trapped in it, indefinitely bound by EU trade rules.
Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz broke ranks with EU colleagues Monday by suggesting the problem could be solved by setting a five-year time limit on the backstop.
The idea got a cool reception. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said that “putting a time-limit on an insurance mechanism, which is what the backstop is, effectively means that it’s not a backstop at all.”
Britain’s political impasse over Brexit is fueling concerns that the country may crash out of the EU on March 29 with no agreement in place to cushion the shock. That could see tariffs imposed on goods moving between Britain and the EU, sparking logjams at ports and shortages of essential supplies.
Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said Monday was “another bleak day for business.”
“Parliament remains in deadlock while the slope to a cliff edge steepens,” she said.
Several groups of lawmakers are trying to use parliamentary rules and amendments to May’s plan to block the possibility of Britain leaving the EU without a deal.
One of those legislators, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, said May was shirking her responsibility to the country by refusing to take “no deal” off the table.
“I think she knows that she should rule out ‘no deal’ in the national interest because it would be so damaging,” Cooper told the BBC. “She’s refusing to do so, and I think she’s hoping that Parliament will do this for her. That is not leadership.”


US blames Rwanda for deadly attack on displaced camp in DR Congo

Updated 15 sec ago
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US blames Rwanda for deadly attack on displaced camp in DR Congo

  • DR Congo government spokesman Patrick Muyaya on Friday had also accused “the Rwandan army and its M23 terrorist supporters” of being responsible in a statement on X, the former Twitter

WASHINGTON: The United States has accused Rwanda of involvement in a deadly attack on a camp for displaced people in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a claim dismissed as “absurd” by Kigali on Saturday.
At least nine people were killed in blasts on Friday in the camp on the outskirts of the city of Goma, local sources said.
“The United States strongly condemns the attack (Friday) from Rwanda Defense Forces and M23 positions on the Mugunga camp for internally displaced persons in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Miller said the United States was “gravely concerned” by the expansion in DR Congo of Rwandan forces and the M23, a mostly Tutsi group that resumed its armed campaign in the vast, long turbulent DR Congo in 2021.
“It is essential that all states respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and hold accountable all actors for human rights abuses in the conflict in eastern DRC,” he said.
DR Congo government spokesman Patrick Muyaya on Friday had also accused “the Rwandan army and its M23 terrorist supporters” of being responsible in a statement on X, the former Twitter.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo described the US comments as “ridiculous,” in a post on X.
“How do you come to this absurd conclusion? The RDF, a professional army, would never attack an IDP camp,” she said.
“Look to the lawless FDLR and Wazalendo supported by the FARDC (the Congolese armed forces), for this kind of atrocity,” she added.
The FDLR, or Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, is an armed ethnic Hutu group operating in Congo’s east for 30 years, while Wazalendo is fighting the M23 alongside the Congolese army.
The origin of Friday’s blasts has not been clearly established.
According to witnesses, government forces positioned near the camp had been bombarding the rebels on hills further west since early morning and, according to a civil society activist, “the M23 retaliated by throwing bombs indiscriminately.”
“Horror in its most serious form! A bomb on civilians, deaths, children! A new war crime,” said the government spokesman Muyaya.
The United States has repeatedly backed Kinshasa’s claims that Rwanda has backed the M23, but Miller’s statement amounts to an unusually direct implication.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron also this week called on Rwanda to end its backing for M23 rebels and withdraw its troops from DR Congo territory.
President Paul Kagame in turn has demanded that the DR Congo act against Hutu forces over ties with the perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, which mostly targeted Tutsis.
The United States has repeatedly sought to mediate between the two sides, with intelligence chief Avril Haines in November visiting DR Congo and Rwanda and announcing a pathway to reduce tensions.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken this year met Kagame and voiced hope that Rwanda was willing to engage in diplomacy.
 

 


Netherlands remembers World War Two dead amid tight security due to Gaza war

Updated 04 May 2024
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Netherlands remembers World War Two dead amid tight security due to Gaza war

  • Normally some 20,000 people attend the Dam commemoration
  • Earlier this week municipal authorities announced unprecedented security measures to keep the ceremony safe and avoid possible disruptions linked to the Israel-Hamas war

AMSTERDAM: Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte joined around 4,000 people on Saturday for the country’s annual World War Two remembrance ceremony amid restricted public access and heightened security due to the war in Gaza.
The ceremony on Amsterdam’s central Dam square, with the traditional two minutes of silence at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) to commemorate the victims of World War Two, passed smoothly despite fears that there might be protests.
Normally some 20,000 people attend the Dam commemoration without having to register. But earlier this week municipal authorities announced unprecedented security measures to keep the ceremony safe and avoid possible disruptions linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
At the opening of a Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam in March, pro-Palestinian protesters opposed to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza set off fireworks and booed Israeli President Isaac Herzog as he arrived on a visit.
Every town and the city in the Netherlands holds its own remembrance ceremony on May 4 and tens of thousands of people attend the events. The Netherlands then marks on May 5 the anniversary of its liberation from Nazi occupation in 1945.


Drone footage shows Ukrainian village battered to ruins as residents flee Russian advance

Updated 04 May 2024
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Drone footage shows Ukrainian village battered to ruins as residents flee Russian advance

  • Residents have scrambled to flee the village, among them a 98-year-old woman who walked almost 10 kilometers (6 miles) alone last week, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane, until she reached Ukrainian front lines

KYIV: The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Russian troops have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs. Ukraine’s military has acknowledged the Russians have gained a “foothold” in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says that fighting continues.
Residents have scrambled to flee the village, among them a 98-year-old woman who walked almost 10 kilometers (6 miles) alone last week, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane, until she reached Ukrainian front lines.

FASTFACT

Ukraine’s military has acknowledged the Russians have gained a “foothold” in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says that fighting continues.

Not a single person is seen in the footage, and no building in Ocheretyne appears to have been left untouched by the fighting. Most houses, apartment blocks and other buildings look damaged beyond repair, and many houses have been pummeled into piles of wood and bricks. A factory on the outskirts has also been badly damaged.
The footage also shows smoke billowing from several houses, and fires burning in at least two buildings.
Elsewhere, Russia has in recent weeks stepped up attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in an attempt to pummel the region’s energy infrastructure and terrorize its 1.3 million residents.
Four people were wounded and a two-story civilian building was damaged and set ablaze overnight after Russian forces struck Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, with exploding drones, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday.
The four, including a 13-year-old, were hurt by falling debris, he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian state agency RIA reported Saturday reported that Moscow’s forces struck a drone warehouse in Kharkiv that had been used by Ukrainian troops overnight, citing Sergei Lebedev, described as a coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas. His comments could not be independently verified.
Syniehubov said Russia also bombed Kharkiv on Friday, damaging residential buildings and sparking a fire. An 82-year-old woman died and two men were wounded.
Ukraine’s military said Russia launched a total of 13 Shahed drones at the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of eastern Ukraine overnight, all of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

 


Students in Ireland, Switzerland join the protest wave over Gaza

Updated 48 min 25 sec ago
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Students in Ireland, Switzerland join the protest wave over Gaza

  • Dublin students build encampment, forcing university to restrict campus access and close Book of Kells exhibition
  • Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory

DUBLIN: Students at Trinity College Dublin and Lausanne University in Switzerland have staged occupations to protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, joining a wave of demonstrations sweeping US campuses.

In Dublin, students built an encampment on Friday, forcing the university to restrict campus access on Saturday and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland’s top tourist attractions.
The camp was set up after the students’ union said the university had fined it €214,000 ($230,000) for losses caused by protests in recent months, not exclusively over Gaza.
The protesters were demanding that Trinity cut academic ties with Israel and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

BACKGROUND

The protesters were demanding that Trinity College Dublin cut academic ties with Israel and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Students’ union president Laszlo Molnarfia posted a photograph of benches piled up at the entrance to the building housing the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks in about 800 AD.
Trinity College said it had restricted access to students, staff, and residents to ensure safety and that the exhibition would be closed on Saturday.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s seven-month-old assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the enclave.
The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
Pro-Palestinian protests have also been held at universities in Australia and Canada.
In Lausanne, around 100 students occupied a building to back demands, including an end to scientific cooperation with Israel.
“Palestinians have been dying for over 200 days, but we are not being heard,” one protester told Swiss television on Saturday.
“There’s a global movement to get governments to take action, but it’s not happening. That’s why we want to get universities involved now.”
The university said the occupation could continue until Monday, provided it did not disrupt work on campus.
“We universities are not called upon to take political stands,” the university’s rector, Frederic Herman, told RTS radio.
Last week, the head of Trinity College, Linda Doyle, said it was reviewing its investments but that it was for individual academics to decide whether to work with Israeli institutions.

 


Sadiq Khan, Pakistani immigrant bus driver’s son, makes history by winning third term as London mayor

Updated 04 May 2024
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Sadiq Khan, Pakistani immigrant bus driver’s son, makes history by winning third term as London mayor

  • Khan, an official with global renown, became the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital when elected in 2016
  • Born in London in 1970, he grew up in public housing the Tooting area and slept in a bunk-bed until he was 24

LONDON: Sadiq Khan, who was Saturday re-elected for a record third term as London mayor, rose from humble roots to spar with world leaders and bring consequential change to the British capital.
The 53-year-old Labor party politician – a former human rights lawyer brought up on a London public housing complex – comfortably defeated Conservative rival Susan Hall for a third stint at City Hall.
He now overtakes predecessor Boris Johnson as the longest-serving holder of the post, which notably has powers over the emergency services, transport and planning in the city of nearly nine million.
Victory continues a remarkable journey for the Pakistani immigrant bus driver’s son, who became the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital when initially elected in 2016.
As mayor, he has made a name for himself as a vocal critic of Brexit and successive Conservative prime ministers, including Johnson, as well as for a feud with former US president Donald Trump.
The pair became embroiled in an extraordinary war of words after Khan criticized Trump’s travel ban on people from certain Muslim countries.
Trump then accused Khan of doing a “very bad job on terrorism” and called him a “stone cold loser” and a “national disgrace.”
The mayor in turn allowed an infamous blimp of Trump dressed as a baby in a nappy to fly above protests in Parliament Square during his 2018 visit to Britain.
“He once called me a stone cold loser. Only one of us is a loser, and it’s not me,” Khan told AFP during his 2021 campaign.
But Khan’s own tenure has not been without its controversies, particularly over last year’s expansion of an Ultra-Low Emission Zone into the largest pollution-charging scheme in the world.
The daily toll on the most-polluting vehicles prompted a fierce backlash in outer boroughs of Greater London, with anger at the extra financial burden during a cost-of-living crisis.
Khan has also been criticized for failing to get to grips with high levels of knife crime and since last year, his handling of large weekly pro-Palestinian protests.
Born in London in 1970 to parents who had recently arrived from Pakistan, Khan was the fifth child out of seven brothers and one sister.
He grew up in public housing in Tooting, an ethnically mixed residential area in south London, and slept in a bunk-bed until he was 24.
His modest background plays well in a city that is proud of its diversity and loves a self-made success story.
Khan still regularly recalls how his father drove one of London’s famous red buses, and his mother was a seamstress.
He is a handy boxer, having learnt the sport to defend himself in the streets against those who hurled racist abuse at him, and two of his brothers are boxing coaches.
He initially wanted to become a dentist, but a teacher spotted his gift for verbal sparring and directed him toward law.
He gained a law degree from the University of North London and started out as a trainee lawyer in 1994 at the Christian Fisher legal firm, where he was eventually made a partner.
He specialized in human rights, and spent three years chairing the civil liberties campaign group Liberty.
He represented Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam movement, and Babar Ahmad, a mosque acquaintance who was jailed in the United States after admitting providing support to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Khan joined Labor aged 15 when Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was in her pomp.
He became a local councilor for Tooting in the Conservative-dominated Wandsworth local borough in 1994, and its member of parliament in 2005.
He still lives in the area with his lawyer wife Saadiya and their two teenage daughters.
Labor prime minister Gordon Brown made him communities minister in 2008 and he later served as transport minister, becoming the first Muslim minister to attend Cabinet meetings.
In parliament, he voted for gay marriage – which earned him death threats.
As mayor, he vowed to focus on providing affordable homes for Londoners and freezing transport fares, but – like many in power around the world – saw his agenda engulfed by the pandemic.
He is London’s third mayor after Labor’s Ken Livingstone (2000-2008) and Johnson (2008-2016), with widespread speculation he could eventually try to follow in his predecessor and become prime minister.