LONDON: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told voters not to dismiss opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a harmless “mutton-headed old mugwump” but rather to see him as a serious threat to the economy and national security.
In his first intervention in the campaign ahead of a snap election due on June 8, the Conservative politician argued that it would be disastrous for Britain if veteran leftist Corbyn became prime minister instead of Theresa May.
In a column in The Sun newspaper, Johnson said people who watched Corbyn “floundering” in debates with May in Parliament with his “meandering and nonsensical questions” may draw the conclusion that he would never be prime minister.
“Well, they say to themselves: He may be a mutton-headed old mugwump, but he is probably harmless,” Johnson wrote.
“Have you felt a pang of sympathy for his plight? If so, fight it.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “mugwump” as “a person who remains aloof or independent, especially from party politics,” although the term also appears in the Harry Potter books with a different meaning. It was unclear exactly what Johnson meant by using the word.
He said that at a time when Britain faced threats from a “revanchist Russia,” a “semi-deranged regime” in North Korea, and the Daesh group, as well as the challenge of delivering Brexit, only May was capable of leading the nation.
There was no immediate comment from Corbyn, who after decades on the fringes of Labour unexpectedly became party leader in 2015 on a wave of grassroots enthusiasm but has clashed with Labour’s members of Parliament.
Labour’s spokeswoman on foreign affairs, Emily Thornberry, called Johnson’s comments “crass and offensive.”
“It seems Boris Johnson has finally been allowed out of hiding, on the condition he only talks delusional nonsense,” she said in a statement.
There had previously been much speculation in the media about what role Johnson would play in the election campaign.
He was the most prominent campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union ahead of last year’s referendum, and was widely seen as a leading contender to be prime minister, although when the position became vacant after the referendum he decided not to run.
The main Conservative message so far in the campaign has been that the nation needed May’s “strong and stable leadership” and that Corbyn would bring chaos.
Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives enjoy a huge lead over Labour, leading some political commentators to criticize the ruling party’s campaign strategy as pointless.
UK’s Johnson says Labour’s Corbyn no harmless ‘mugwump’ but a dire threat
UK’s Johnson says Labour’s Corbyn no harmless ‘mugwump’ but a dire threat
North Korea’s Kim was ‘sincere’ in Trump talks: Seoul’s former president Moon
- Former South Korean president Moon Jae-in was instrumental in brokering two high-profile summit meetings between Kim Jong Un and then-US president Donald Trump
Moon, who led South Korea for five years from 2017, was instrumental in brokering two high-profile summit meetings between Kim and then-United States president Donald Trump, aimed at securing Pyongyang’s denuclearization in return for sanctions relief.
But after the second summit collapsed in 2019, diplomatic outreach was abandoned, with relations between the two Koreas now at one of their worst points in years, as Kim doubles down on weapons production and draws closer to ally Moscow.
In the memoir released Friday, titled “From the Periphery to the Center,” former president Moon outlined in great detail his interactions with the North Korean leader.
“Kim said he would forsake nuclear weapons if there was a guarantee of regime survival,” Moon said in the book, adding that he felt the young North Korean leader was “very honest.”
According to Moon, Kim’s reasoning was: “I have a daughter and I do not wish her generation to live with nuclear weapons... Why would we continue to live in difficulty, under sanctions, with nuclear weapons if our security can be guaranteed?“
But the North Korean leader was “well aware of mistrust from the international community and the (belief from the) US that the North had been lying” about its commitments to denuclearization, Moon said.
Kim specifically asked him how the North could manage to “make Washington believe in our sincerity” to disarm.
In five years since the Hanoi summit, Pyongyang has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear weapons power, accelerated weapons development, branded Seoul its “principal enemy” and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.
It has also moved closer to Moscow, purportedly supplying it with arms in exchange for space technologies, something which would violate rafts of United Nations sanctions on both countries.
Despite how things have played out, Moon said in his memoir that he still believed Kim was sincere in his plans to denuclearize, but that it was strongly contingent on “corresponding measures” from the US.
Kim and Trump failed to strike a deal because Washington demanded complete denuclearization before it would consider providing sanctions relief, Moon wrote.
“In retrospect, I regret that (South Korea) did not mediate more effectively by listening to the North’s demands and relaying them to Washington if deemed reasonable,” he said.
“Though there are negative views about Trump, he was a very good fit for me as a counterpart in alliance diplomacy,” he said.
“While there are assessments that he is rude and harsh, I liked him for his honesty. A person who has a smiling face but acts differently and thus can’t be read is more difficult to deal with,” he added.
Trump was both apologetic and regretful that the Hanoi summit ended without a deal, Moon wrote.
Trump was “willing to accept (the North Koreans’ terms) but then-Security Adviser John Bolton fervently opposed it,” Moon wrote.
When Trump asked then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a second opinion, he agreed with Bolton, leaving Trump no option but to walk away, Moon wrote.
It is impossible to take Kim’s words at face value now, Hong Min a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said.
What was clear “is that Kim tried to change the status quo by expressing his intention to denuclearize,” he said.
The only way to know if Kim was serious, would have been to strike a deal in Hanoi and “gauge how far the North would go toward denuclearization,” he added.
Moon was succeeded by conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, who has taken a significantly more hawkish stance on North Korea.
Yoon has not commented on the memoir but his minister for unification Kim Yung-ho said on Monday that taking Kim’s words at face value could have lead to a security-related “miscalculation.”
“While ignoring North Korea’s (nuclear) capability, if we only focus on the North’s intentions, this could result in a miscalculation of the security situation,” he said, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Russia accuses US of seeking to place weapons in space
MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday said the United States was seeking to place weapons in space, the latest accusation in an ongoing row, that came a day after Washington vetoed a Russian non-proliferation motion at the United Nations.
“They have once again demonstrated that their true priorities in the area of outer space are aimed not at keeping space free from weapons of any kind, but at placing weapons in space and turning it into an arena for military confrontation,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
India shuts schools as temperatures soar
- India’s weather bureau has warned of “severe heat wave conditions” this week
- Sweltering heat has dipped voter turnout in India, where world’s largest election is underway
New Delhi: Indian authorities in the capital have ordered schools shut early for the summer holiday, after temperatures hit 47.4 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) with Delhi gripped by a “severe heatwave.”
Delhi city officials asked schools to shut with “immediate effect” due to the blistering heat, according to a government order quoted by the Hindustan Times Tuesday, cutting short the term by a few days.
India’s weather bureau has warned of “severe heatwave conditions” this week, with the mercury reaching the sizzling peak of 47.4 degrees Celsius in Delhi’s Najafgarh suburb on Monday, the hottest temperature countrywide.
Authorities in other states — including Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan — have also ordered schools close, Indian Today reported.
India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures.
But years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
The Indian Meteorological Department warned of the impact of the heat on the health especially for infants, the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
In May 2022, parts of Delhi hit 49.2 degrees Celsius (120.5 Fahrenheit), Indian media reported at the time.
The next round of voting in India’s six-week-long election takes place on Saturday, including in Delhi.
Turnout in voting has dipped, with analysts suggesting the hotter-than-average weather is a factor — as well as the widespread expectation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will easily win a third term.
India’s election commission has formed a task force to review the impact of heatwaves and humidity before each round of voting.
At the same time, India’s southern states including Tamil Nadu and Kerala have been lashed by heavy rains over the past few days.
Severe storms also hit parts of the country last week, including in the financial capital Mumbai, where strong winds flattened a giant billboard that killed 16 people and left dozens more trapped.
How cockroaches spread around the globe to become the pest we know today
- Study confirms German cockroach species found worldwide actually originated in southeast Asia
- Cockroaches may have stowed away with people to travel to Middle East, Europe, says study
DALLAS: They’re six-legged, hairy home invaders that just won’t die, no matter how hard you try.
Cockroaches are experts at surviving indoors, hiding in kitchen pipes or musty drawers. But they didn’t start out that way.
A new study uses genetics to chart cockroaches’ spread across the globe, from humble beginnings in southeast Asia to Europe and beyond. The findings span thousands of years of cockroach history and suggest the pests may have scuttled across the globe by hitching a ride with another species: people.
“It’s not just an insect story,” said Stephen Richards, an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine who studies insect genes and was not involved with the study. “It’s an insect and humanity story.”
Researchers analyzed the genes of over 280 cockroaches from 17 countries and six continents. They confirmed that the German cockroach — a species found worldwide — actually originated in southeast Asia, likely evolving from the Asian cockroach around 2,100 years ago. Scientists have long suspected the German cockroach’s Asian origins since similar species still live there.
The research was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The cockroaches then globe-trotted via two major routes. They traveled west to the Middle East about 1,200 years ago, perhaps hitchhiking in soldiers’ breadbaskets. And they may have stowed away on Dutch and British East India Company trade routes to get to Europe about 270 years ago, according to scientists’ reconstruction and historical records.
Once they arrived, inventions like the steam engine and indoor plumbing likely helped the insects travel further and get cozy living indoors, where they are most commonly found today.
Researchers said exploring how cockroaches conquered past environments may lead to better pest control.
Modern-day cockroaches are tough to keep at bay because they evolve quickly to resist pesticides, according to study author Qian Tang, a postdoctoral researcher studying insects at Harvard University.
9 Egyptians go on trial in Greece over deadly shipwreck, as rights groups question process
- International human rights groups argue the defendants’ right to a fair trial is being compromised as they face judgment before an investigation is concluded
KALAMATA: Nine Egyptian men go on trial in southern Greece on Tuesday, accused of causing a shipwreck that killed hundreds of migrants and sent shockwaves through the European Union’s border protection and asylum operations.
The defendants, most in their 20s, face up to life in prison if convicted on multiple criminal charges over the sinking of the “Adriana” fishing trawler on June 14 last year.
International human rights groups argue that their right to a fair trial is being compromised as they face judgment before an investigation is concluded into claims the Greek coast guard may have botched the rescue attempt.
More than 500 people are believed to have gone down with the fishing trawler, which had been traveling from Libya to Italy. Following the sinking, 104 people were rescued — mostly migrants from Syria, Pakistan and Egypt — and 82 bodies were recovered.
Early Tuesday, police in riot gear clashed with members of a small group of protesters gathered in front of the courthouse and detained two people.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described the shipwreck off the southern coast of Greece as “horrific.”
The sinking renewed pressure on European governments to protect the lives of migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach the continent, as the annual number of people traveling illegally across the Mediterranean continues to rise.
Lawyers from Greek human rights groups are representing the nine Egyptians, who deny the smuggling charges.
“There’s a real risk that these nine survivors could be found ‘guilty’ on the basis of incomplete and questionable evidence given that the official investigation into the role of the coast guard has not yet been completed,” said Judith Sunderland, an associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch.
Authorities say the defendants were identified by other survivors and the indictments are based on their testimonies.
The European border protection agency Frontex says illegal border detections at EU frontiers increased for three consecutive years through 2023, reaching the highest level since the 2015-2016 migration crisis — driven largely by arrivals at the sea borders.
