UK crime agency makes arrests over migrant Channel crossings

Police officers stand at the end of a tram platform following a stabbing at Victoria Station in Manchester, Britain, January 1, 2019. (Reuters)
Updated 03 January 2019
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UK crime agency makes arrests over migrant Channel crossings

  • More than 200 migrants had made attempts to cross one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in December

LONDON: The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said it has made two arrests on suspicion of arranging illegal movement of migrants across the English Channel into Britain.
A 33-year-old Iranian national and a 24-year-old British man were arrested in Manchester, the NCA said in a statement late on Wednesday. The statement did not give further details.
British interior minister Sajid Javid said recently that there had been an increase in the number of migrants crossing the English Channel from France. Last week he declared the situation a “major incident.”
More than 200 migrants had made attempts to cross one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in December, although nearly half were stopped from leaving France, Javid said on Monday.
The number is a tiny fraction of those regularly attempting to reach European Union territory by crossing the Mediterranean from northern Africa and Turkey. Many of them are fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
The attempts to cross into Britain have attracted extensive domestic scrutiny amid a highly charged political atmosphere less than three months before Britain is due to leave the EU in the aftermath of a referendum in which immigration was a major theme.
Britain is deploying extra patrol boats to help deal with the situation, the interior minister said earlier this week.
Javid has also written to British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson requesting aerial surveillance, dozens of sailors and a military patrol vessel for help, the Telegraph newspaper reported http://bit.ly/2R1Fna9 earlier on Wednesday. 


Trump to remove Vietnam from restricted tech list: Hanoi

Updated 5 sec ago
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Trump to remove Vietnam from restricted tech list: Hanoi

HANOI: US President Donald Trump told Vietnam’s top leader To Lam he would “instruct the relevant agencies” to remove the country from a list restricted from accessing advanced US technologies, Vietnam’s government announced Saturday.
The two leaders met in person for the first time at the White House on Friday, after Lam attended the inaugural meeting of Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Washington.
“Donald Trump said he would instruct the relevant agencies to soon remove Vietnam from the strategic export control list,” Hanoi’s Government News website said.
The two countries were locked in protracted trade negotiations when the US Supreme Court ruled many of Trump’s sweeping tariffs were illegal.
Three Vietnamese airlines announced nearly $37 billion in purchases this week, in a series of contracts signed with US aerospace companies.
Fledgling airline Sun PhuQuoc Airways placed an order for 40 of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners, a long-haul aircraft, with an estimated total value of $22.5 billion, while national carrier Vietnam Airlines placed an $8.1 billion order for around 50 Boeing 737-8 aircraft.
When Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, Vietnam had the third-largest trade surplus with the US of any country after China and Mexico, and was targeted with one of the highest rates in Trump’s tariff blitz.
But in July, Hanoi secured a minimum 20 percent tariff with Washington, down from more than 40 percent, in return for opening its market to US products including cars.
Trump signed off on a global 10-percent tariff on Friday on all countries hours after the Supreme Court ruled many of his levies on imports were illegal.