GOTHENBURG, Sweden: EU leaders warned British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday that the “clock is ticking” to make Brexit concessions and it is increasingly likely talks will fail to move on to the next phase in December.
Britain’s impending split threatened to overshadow an EU summit in the Swedish port city of Gothenburg that was meant to focus on improving social standards and seeing off the threat of populism in the post-Brexit future.
May expressed hopes the bloc would respond “positively” after she met several leaders on the sidelines, but they all warned that time was running out to settle the key divorce issues, and unlock negotiations next month on a trade deal and transition period.
“The clock is ticking. I hope that we will be able to come to an agreement as far as the divorce is concerned at the December council (summit) but work has still to be done,” European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said.
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier warned last week that Britain had just two weeks to meet the bloc’s conditions on its divorce bill, citizens’ rights and the Irish border if it wanted an agreement.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar struck a firm line, saying Dublin’s demands that Brexit should create no “hard border” between British-ruled Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland must be “written down” in the conclusions of the first phase.
“If we have to wait until the new year, or if we have to wait for further concessions, so be it,” Varadkar told reporters before having breakfast with May.
“It’s 18 months since the referendum, it’s 10 years since people who wanted a referendum started agitating for one, sometimes it doesn’t seem like they’ve thought all this through,” he added.
May said Britain would “honor our commitments” on the exit bill, as she promised in a speech in Florence in September, and urged the bloc to start trade talks now.
“I look forward to the European Union responding positively to that so we can move forward together and ensure that we can get the best possible arrangements for the future,” May said.
British media reports have suggested May could be ready to double the UK’s €20 billion offer on the exit bill in a bid to clear what has been the most difficult hurdles in talks so far. The EU says the bill is around €60 billion.
She will also meet European Council President Donald Tusk, with Tusk set to warn her that opening the next phase “is not a given, will require more work and that time is short,” an EU source told AFP.
Failure to reach a deal in December would push back a decision until February or March, leaving little time for trade talks before Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019.
May’s government is still pressing for a quick transition to future EU-British ties while shrugging off EU pressure on the divorce terms.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in Dublin on Friday that doing so would help solve the Irish issue, while Barnier’s British negotiating counterpart David Davis called on the EU to compromise across the board.
“Surprise, surprise: nothing comes for nothing in this world,” Davis told the BBC in Gothenburg, adding that various EU countries “can see there are big, big benefits in the future deal that we’re talking about.”
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who also held talks with May, said it was “very dificult to say” whether a deal was possible in December and added that London “needs to clarify what they mean about the financial responsibility.”
But Lofven said he also wanted to keep the focus on the so-called “social summit” in Sweden, which is the first step in a two-year reform drive to show the bloc can survive after Brexit and other setbacks, by tackling the economic inequalities fueling populism.
EU leaders are looking to reboot the union based on plans by France’s new president Emmanuel Macron and by Juncker.
“This is absolutely crucial for EU’s legitimacy,” Lofven told reporters at the meeting, the bloc’s first social summit since one in 1997 in Luxembourg.
Most of the EU’s 28 national leaders attending with the exception of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the bloc’s economic and political lodestar, who is in Berlin for talks on a new governing coalition.
Berlin said she fully supports the meeting’s goals, which will be enshrined in a European Pillar of Social Rights signed by key figures on Friday.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite shrugged off suggestions the Gothenburg summit would be hijacked by the Brexit issue, quipping “No, at least not this one.”
EU warns May ‘clock ticking’ for December Brexit deal
EU warns May ‘clock ticking’ for December Brexit deal
Afghanistan’s only female diplomat resigns in India after gold smuggling allegations
According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s diplomat in India, who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and said she was the only woman in the country’s diplomatic service, has resigned after reports emerged of her being detained for allegedly smuggling gold.
Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X on Saturday after Indian media reported last week that she was briefly detained at the city’s airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai.
According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity.
In a statement, Wardak made no mention of her reported detention or gold smuggling allegations but said, “I am deeply sorry that as the only woman present in Afghanistan’s diplomatic apparatus, instead of receiving constructive support to maintain this position, I faced waves of organized attacks aimed at destroying me.”
“Over the past year, I have encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation not only directed toward myself but also toward her close family and extended relatives,” she added.
Wardak said the attacks have “severely impacted my ability to effectively operate in my role and have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society.”
The Taliban Foreign Ministry did not immediately return calls for comment on Wardak’s resignation. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm whether she was the country’s only female diplomat.
She was appointed consul-general of Afghanistan in Mumbai during the former government and was the first Afghan female diplomat to collaborate with the Taliban.
The Taliban — who took over Afghanistan in 2021 during the final weeks of US and NATO withdrawal from the country — have barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed despite initial promises of a more moderate rule.
They are also restricting women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, and arresting those who don’t comply with the Taliban’s interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.
Russia puts Ukraine's Zelensky on wanted list, TASS reports
- Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians
MOSCOW: Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.
The entry it cited gave no further details.
Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian police in February put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments.
Russia also issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who last year prepared a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
- Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger
- His wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation
BEIJING: A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Wang Xiangnan was driving Wednesday along the highway in Guangdong province, a vital economic hub in southern China. At around 2 a.m., Wang saw several vehicles moving in the opposite direction of the four-lane highway and a fellow driver soon informed him about the collapse, local media reported.
Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger, Jiupai News quoted Wang as saying. Meanwhile, his wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation, it said.
“I didn’t think too much. I just wanted to stop the vehicles,” Wang told the Chinese news outlet.
Wang’s courageous actions not only garnered praise from Chinese social media users but also recognition from the China Worker Development Foundation.
The foundation announced Friday that in partnership with a car company it had awarded Wang 10,000 yuan ($1,414). A charity project linked to tech giant Alibaba Group Holding also gave an equal amount to Wang, newspaper Dahe Daily reported. Wang told the newspaper he would donate the money to the families of the collapse victims.
Local media also reported that another man had knelt down to prevent cars from proceeding on the highway.
The accident came after a month of heavy rains in Guangdong. Some of the 23 vehicles that plunged into the deep ravine burst in flames, sending up thick clouds of smoke.
About 30 people were hospitalized. On Saturday, one was discharged from the hospital, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The others were improving, but one remains in serious condition.
On Saturday, the Meizhou city government in Guangdong said in a statement that authorities would conduct citywide checks on expressways, railways and roads in mountainous areas. A team led by the provincial governor is investigating the cause of the collapse, Southcn.com reported.
The Chinese government had sent a vice premier to oversee recovery efforts and urged better safety measures following calls by President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party’s No. 2 official, Premier Li Qiang, to swiftly handle the tragedy.
The dispatch of Zhang Guoqing, who is also a member of one of the ruling Communist Party’s leading bodies, illustrates the concern over a possible public backlash over the disaster, the latest in a series of deadly infrastructure failures.
Russia says it shot down four US-made long range missiles over Crimea
- The ATACMS missiles, with a range up to 300km were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17
MOSCOW: The Russian defense ministry said on Saturday its air defense forces shot down four US-produced long-range missiles over the Crimea peninsular, weapons known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that Washington has shipped to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The ministry said later that Russian aircraft and air defense systems had downed a total of 15 ATACMS in the past week.
On Tuesday, Russian officials said Ukraine had attacked Crimea with ATACMS in an attempt to pierce Russian air defenses of the annexed peninsula but that six had been shot down.
A US official said in Washington last month that the United States secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The ATACMS missiles, with a range up to 300km were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, the official said.
The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, concerned that taking the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt US military readiness.
There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia, a step which could lead to an escalation of the war toward a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Separately on Saturday, the Russian defense ministry said that in the last week its forces had destroyed a military train carrying equipment and arms produced in the West and supplied to Ukraine by NATO.
The scale of the damage, exact date and location were not disclosed.
Reuters is not immediately able to corroborate battlefield accounts from either side.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron promised 3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) of annual military aid for Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” adding that London had no objection to its weapons being used inside Russia, drawing a strong rebuke from Moscow.
South Sudan removes newly imposed taxes that had triggered suspension of UN food airdrops
- The UN earlier this week urged South Sudanese authorities to remove the new taxes, introduced in February
- There was no immediate comment from the UN on when the airdrops could resume
JUNA, South Sudan: Following an appeal from the United Nations, South Sudan removed recently imposed taxes and fees that had triggered suspension of UN food airdrops. Thousands of people in the country depend on aid from the outside.
The UN earlier this week urged South Sudanese authorities to remove the new taxes, introduced in February. The measures applied to charges for electronic cargo tracking, security escort fees and fuel.
In its announcement on Friday, the government said it was keeping charges on services rendered by firms contracted by the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
“These companies are profiting ... (and) are subjected to applicable tax,” Finance Minister Awow Daniel Chuang said.
There was no immediate comment from the UN on when the airdrops could resume.
Earlier, the UN Humanitarian Affairs Agency said the pausing of airdrops had deprived 60,000 people who live in areas inaccessible by road of desperately needed food in March, and that their number is expected to rise to 135,000 by the end of May.
The UN said the new measures would have increased the mission’s monthly operational costs to $339,000. The UN food air drops feed over 16,300 people every month.
At the United Nations in New York, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said the taxes and charges would also impact the nearly 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, “which is reviewing all of its activities, including patrols, the construction of police stations, schools and health care centers, as well as educational support.”
An estimated 9 million people out of 12.5 million people in South Sudan need protection and humanitarian assistance, according to the UN The country has also seen an increase in the number of people fleeing the war in neighboring Sudan between the rival military and paramilitary forces, further complicating humanitarian assistance to those affected by the internal conflict.
