LONDON: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair will say on Friday that Britain and the European Union should prepare for a second Brexit referendum because parliament will probably fail to agree on a divorce deal and the public will need to break the deadlock.
Less than four months before Britain is due to leave the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May called off a parliamentary vote on her deal with Brussels this week after admitting it would be heavily defeated.
Addressing EU leaders meeting in Brussels, Blair said they should offer to reform the bloc to make it more attractive for Britain to remain.
“Now should be the time of preparation – parliament to make sure it can canvass the options in (a) sensible manner, one by one, to reach agreement on an option or a referendum; Europe to ensure that if Britain is ready to think again, Europe is ready also to think again,” Blair, who was Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007, will say in a speech in London.
Blair’s office released extracts of the speech in advance.
An offer by the EU to reform would show “that the political leadership of Europe and Britain had listened to the underlying concerns of those who voted (for) Brexit, not disrespecting the concerns but meeting them in a way which is not damaging.”
Blair has repeatedly called for reversing Brexit since the 2016 referendum, echoing other critics, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who have suggested Britain could still change its mind.
Blair will say it is perverse that the Britain and the EU are preparing for a potentially economically damaging Brexit without any deal, but not another referendum.
“We know the options for Brexit. Parliament will have to decide on one of them. If Parliament can’t then it should decide to go back to the people.”
Britain and EU should prepare for second Brexit referendum: Former UK PM
Britain and EU should prepare for second Brexit referendum: Former UK PM
- Former UK PM told EU leaders they should offer to reform the bloc to make it more attractive for Britain to remain
- He said if parliament can't come up with a deal, the people will need to break the deadlock
South Korea hopes new speed train links will help boost birthrate
- Officials are now pinning their hopes on the Great Train eXpress or GTX, a 134 trillion won ($99.5 billion) underground speed train project that will provide six lines linking Seoul to several outlying areas by 2035
SEOUL: South Korea is launching a high-speed train service that will reduce the travel time between central Seoul and its outskirts, a project officials hope will encourage more youth to consider homes outside the city, and start having babies.
South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, and its youth have often cited long commutes and cramped, expensive housing in greater Seoul, home to about half the population, as the main reasons for not getting married and starting a family.
The birth rate in Seoul is even lower than the national average, and the government has tried to boost the number of newborns through subsidies, with little success.
Officials are now pinning their hopes on the Great Train eXpress or GTX, a 134 trillion won ($99.5 billion) underground speed train project that will provide six lines linking Seoul to several outlying areas by 2035.
On Friday, President Yoon Suk Yeol inaugurated a section of the first line, which will cut the commute time from Suseo in the capital to the satellite city of Dongtan to 19 minutes from 80 minutes now on a bus.
He added that the shorter commute “will enable people to spend more time with their family in the mornings and evenings.”
The line is due to go into service on Saturday, and once fully operational, the GTX will be one of the fastest underground systems in the world, with trains traveling at speeds of up to 180 km per hour, officials said.
Owning a home in South Korea is costly, with median prices hitting a peak in June 2021 after rising 45 percent over five years.
Analysts say Seoul is particularly expensive, offering some of the worst value for money per square foot of any advanced economy.
Land Minister Park Sang-woo said the GTX would allow young people to consider homes far away from the capital without spending hours commuting.
He added that when they get back, they can go toward their families.
“With a two-hour commute on the way home, for example, how can anyone make time for babies? The idea is to give people more leisure time after work,” he said.
Some analysts, however, said the GTX could contribute to the decline of rural South Korea by sucking more people into the already overcrowded capital.
“To revive regional towns facing extinction, the most important thing is to equip other areas with a similar kind of public infrastructure too,” said Kim Jin-yoo, professor of Urban Planning & Transportation Engineering at Kyonggi University.
Former South African leader Zuma survives car crash, party accuses ANC
- Zuma’s party said two incidents in which supposedly ‘drunk drivers’ drove into his motorcade looks like an assassination attempt
- Thursday's “car accident” happened just hours after electoral officials barred Zuma from standing in the May 29 general election
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma survived a car accident overnight when his vehicle was struck by a drunk driver, but his newly created opposition group accused the ruling ANC party of being involved in the incident.
“Two car accidents in a space of a year and a half, both accidents committed by purported ‘drunk drivers’ who manage to drive directly into President Zuma’s motorcade,” a spokesman for Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party said in a statement.
“This looks like a deliberate attempt to assassinate President Zuma,” said the spokesman, Nhlamulo Ndhlela.
Ndhlela said the party had “been monitoring and observing a sequence of inter-related events” that have happened to Zuma under the “Cyril Ramaphosa government,” after Zuma announced in December that he would be campaigning for the MK party in bid to relaunch his political career.
Zuma, a former veteran of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), was forced out of office in 2018 under a cloud of corruption allegations but still wields political clout.
The car accident happened on Thursday just hours after electoral officials barred Zuma from standing in the May 29 general election, further stoking tensions ahead of the vote.
The driver’s car “collided with former president Mr.Jacob Zuma’s official armored state vehicle,” the South African Police Service (SAPS) said.
A 51-year-old man was arrested in KwaZulu Natal province “for drunken driving, as well as on a charge of reckless and negligent driving,” SAPS said.
Zuma, 81, and his bodyguards escaped uninjured and he was taken to his place of residence.
On Wednesday, the ANC filed a new court application against MK after losing an initial bid to have the party disqualified.
The ANC says that MK’s name and logo are similar to those of the now disbanded apartheid-era military wing of the ANC once led by Nelson Mandela, and that this could deceive or confuse voters.
Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma took to X to allege that the car collision was not a coincidence.
“Please don’t insult our intelligence, we are not supporters of Ramaphosa,” she wrote.
“The police minister who is responsible for the former president’s protection unit has not upgraded his vehicle for eight years and he is the same person that has previously uttered messages around burying Zuma,” the party spokesman Ndhlela told AFP.
He also noted what he called “dangerous and reckless statements” made by ANC politicians toward Zuma, including a provincial official saying that “Zuma will be in hospital before elections.”
As the May election approaches, the ANC is at risk of dropping below 50 percent of the vote for the first time since it came to power at the end of apartheid in 1994.
The party is bleeding support amid a weak economy and allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
The driver of the other vehicle in Zuma’s crash is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail in June 2021 after refusing to testify to a panel probing financial corruption and cronyism under his presidency.
He was freed on medical parole just two months into his term.
But his jailing sparked protests, riots and looting that left more than 350 dead in South Africa’s worst violence since the advent of democracy.
When asked about Zuma’s condition since the crash, Ndhlela told AFP: “He is in high spirits as always and was in laughter this morning about the accident.”
“But it does not mean he took it lightly (or that) he is not aware of what’s happening.”
“Mr Zuma is in church today praying that the devil does not come into MK,” he said, referring to the ANC.
Zelensky says without US aid, Ukraine forces will have to retreat
- Ukraine was making up for shortages of missiles with home-produced weaponry and air defense systems, “but it is not enough,” Zelensky told Washington Post
- US military aid for Ukraine had been stalled in the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on Friday that if Ukraine does not get promised US military aid blocked by disputes in Congress, its forces will have to retreat “in small steps.”
“If there is no US support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-milimeter artillery rounds,” Zelensky told the Washington Post.
“It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps,” he said. “We are trying to find some way not to retreat.”
Shortages of munitions, he said, meant “you have to do with less. How? Of course, to go back. Make the front line shorter. If it breaks, the Russians could go to the big cities.”
Democratic President Joe Biden has urged the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives to endorse the military and financial aid package, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has held up the matter for months, citing domestic priorities.
Zelensky told Johnson in a telephone conversation on Thursday that approval of the package was vital.
Russian forces captured the eastern town of Avdiivka last month and have made small gains since, but the front lines have changed little in months.
In his interview, the Ukrainian president said Ukraine was making up for shortages of missiles with home-produced weaponry and air defense systems, “but it is not enough.”
More than two years into the war, Russia has intensified attacks on energy and other infrastructure in recent weeks. Ukrainian troops have been unable to advance, and Zelensky said Kyiv intended to pursue attacks on targets in Russia, including oil refineries.
He said Washington’s reaction to the wave of Ukrainian attacks was “not positive,” but Kyiv was using its own drones.
“We used our drones. Nobody can say to us you can’t,” he told the newspaper. If there is no air defense to protect our energy system and Russians attack it, my question is: Why can’t we answer them?” he said.
“Their society has to learn to live without petrol, without diesel, without electricity. When Russia will stop these steps, we will stop.”
Biden acknowledges ‘pain’ of Arab Americans over war in Gaza
- Many Muslims and Arabs in the United States have urged the Democratic president to call for a permanent ceasefire
- “We must also pause to reflect on the pain being felt by so many in the Arab American community with the war in Gaza,” Biden said
WASHINGTON: Joe Biden on Friday acknowledged “the pain being felt” by many Arab Americans over the war in Gaza and over US support of Israel and its military offensive that has left Arabs, Muslims and anti-war activists angry and disappointed.
Many Muslims and Arabs in the United States have urged the Democratic president to call for a permanent ceasefire, stop the sale of weapons to Israel and use more leverage to protect civilian lives as a humanitarian crisis unfolds in Gaza.
“We must also pause to reflect on the pain being felt by so many in the Arab American community with the war in Gaza,” Biden said in a proclamation on Arab American Heritage Month released by the White House, adding he was “devastated” by the suffering.
However, hours after Biden’s Friday statement, the Washington Post reported that his government had signed off on additional bombs and warplanes for Israel in recent days worth billions of dollars.
Israel is the leading recipient of US foreign aid, and the US vetoed multiple votes at the United Nations calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza assault, before abstaining from a vote in late March.
The Biden administration has issued proclamations since 2021 ahead of April, which is observed as Arab American Heritage Month. This year’s proclamation was longer than previous ones due to Biden’s comments on Gaza.
Protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza have occurred in many US cities in recent months, including near airports and bridges in New York City and Los Angeles, vigils outside the White House and marches in Washington.
Demonstrators have regularly interrupted Biden’s campaign events and speeches, including a high profile fundraiser in New York City on Thursday.
They have asked Biden to meet their demands or risk losing their support in November’s election. Arab and Muslim Americans are unlikely to back Biden’s rival, Republican former President Donald Trump, but observers note they could sit out the election and deny Biden crucial votes. They had overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020.
Biden said on Friday he was working to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza, free hostages taken by Hamas and establish an immediate ceasefire lasting at least six weeks.
Biden also said Arab Americans have been a target of hate crimes while noting the fatal October stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois, the November shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont, and the February stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas.
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has killed over 32,000 people, according to the local health ministry, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million population, put the enclave on the brink of starvation and led to accusations of genocide that Israel denies.
Karachi charity distributes sahoor food to over 20,000 people daily
- Together We Can, a registered charity, was founded in 2020 as a ration drive by friends from Pakistan and Dubai
- Initiative started out by preparing 200 packets for distribution at sahoor, now it can go up to 35,000 daily
KARACHI: With a team of over 80 volunteers, the Together We Can charity in Karachi is pulling off the impressive feat of delivering free sahoor meals to at least 20,000 people daily in this southern Pakistani city, with generous donations and support from family and friends, the founder of the organization said.
The TWC, a registered charity, was set up in 2020 as a ration drive by a group of friends from Pakistan and Dubai to help the needy at a time when income streams had dried up due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Besides the delivery of free food, the TWC has also set up 380 water pumps, over 30 solar-powered water tanks, and built 12 mosques in the impoverished Thar desert region in Sindh. The organization also provides medical assistance in far-flung areas of the province.
“TWC’s Ramadan journey started in 2020. People mostly focus on (providing) iftar meals and no one focuses on sahoor,” the charity’s president, Nurain Sheikh, told Arab News.
When it started, the initiative prepared 200 packets for distribution at sahoor.
“By the end of the first 30 days, (the number) went up to 5,000. The next year, we started with 5,000 only, and it ended at around 16,000 (to) 17,000 people. Now, as you see, we start with 20,000 only and it goes up to 35,000 (to) 38,000 (by the end of Ramadan). Last year, we roughly closed at 35,000.”
FASTFACTS
• Together We Can, a registered charity, was founded in 2020 as a ration drive by friends from Pakistan and Dubai.
• Initiative started out by preparing 200 packets for distribution at sahoor and it now goes up to 35,000 daily.
The number of food packets delivered depends on both demand and how many vans can be arranged to collect and drop off the meals in different neighborhoods of Karachi, Sheikh said. There is a focus on poor areas including Ibrahim Hyderi and Machar Colony.
“The areas have been chosen based on the circumstances of people residing there,” Sheikh said.
“Our own staff and other people we know tell us about the conditions they live in. Believe me, there is an area where when we distributed burgers or bun kabab, the children said, ‘What is this? Is this something to eat? We haven’t seen a burger before.’”
The charity drive is made possible by a network of friends, family and loyal staff.
“All of this work is done by our staff, their relatives, and the house help of our friends and families. All of our donors are also friends and family, friends of friends and friends of family,” Sheikh said.
Eighty volunteers, who form the backbone of the service, start working at 8 p.m. to prepare and pack the meals, and end at 4 a.m. which is around the time for morning Fajr prayers.
Though the volunteers are not paid for their work, Sheikh said they are rewarded daily “with a lavish dinner or some token of love and appreciation.”
The menu for sahoor includes biryani rice, water, fruit juices and bun kebab sandwiches, which comprise a shallow-fried spicy patty called shami kebab, omelet, onions and chutney served inside a bun.
“Every parcel has either water or juice, with compulsory nimco and either biryani or a bun kabab,” Sheikh said.
He said around 830 cartons of juice or water, with 24 bottles in each, are distributed daily.
“For biryani, around 75 kg of rice make 1,000 packets. A total of 1,500 kg of rice is used every day to make 20,000 packets of 300 grams each. In addition, we make 5,000 bun kebabs.”
Volunteers who have been working with the charity since its launch said the quantity of packs distributed has increased over the years.
“Earlier, the quantity for sahoor packs was small but it kept increasing with each year,” 30-year-old volunteer Mohammad Usman said.
“Now the setup has become huge. We really enjoy doing it. We distribute as well, we pack (it) and we don’t take any salary for this.”
“When I come back from my Taraweeh prayers, I come here and make bun kababs,” said Shahnaz Danial, a middle-aged community worker.
“Then we go to distribute them. I usually go to Civil Hospital or Jinnah Hospital where the people are quite poor … when I went to Civil (hospital) I was shocked to see that all the people were sleeping on the floor or footpath.”