LONDON: Government plans to slash Britain’s foreign aid budget could be stopped in Parliament following a rebellion by dozens of MPs from the ruling Conservative Party.
Last year, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced that the UK would cut its spending on foreign aid from 0.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 0.5 — representing a real-term cut of around $5 billion.
A group of high-profile Conservatives led by former Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell tabled an amendment on Wednesday that would prevent the cuts, citing their “devastating” impact on people’s lives.
Among the worst affected by the cuts are some of the Arab world’s poorest and most unstable countries.
UK aid to Yemen, which is experiencing one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises, was reduced from the £197 million ($279.5 million) pledged in 2020 to £87 million this year.
Mark Lowcock, former head civil servant at Britain’s Department for International Development, said the aid cut to Yemen would “cause many more deaths” and “damage the international reputation of the UK.”
Humanitarian aid programs in Libya and Syria faced cuts of nearly two-thirds, despite warnings from international bodies that the latter in particular faces acute and compounding health, economic and humanitarian crises.
Lebanon, despite an implosion of its financial system and warnings of collapse into chaos, is faced with the prospect of an 88 percent reduction in aid — a move that the Norwegian Refugee Council warned would leave tens of thousands of refugees currently living in Lebanon facing “utter destitution.”
The amendment tabled by MPs, if voted for in Parliament, would make a technical change that would force the government to comply with the 2015 International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act, which obliges the government to meet the 0.7 percent of GDP spending target in 2022.
According to The Guardian, rebel MPs believe they have enough support to have a realistic prospect of defeating the government and preserving British aid.
Mitchell said: “Every single member of the House of Commons was elected on a very clear manifesto promise to stand by this commitment. We have repeatedly urged the government to obey the law and implored ministers to reconsider breaking this commitment.
He added: “The cuts are now having a devastating impact on the ground and are leading to unnecessary loss of life. We urge the government to think again, or we shall be asking Parliament to reaffirm the law as it stands so as to oblige the government to meet its legal commitment, keep its very clear pledge to British voters and uphold Britain’s promise to the rest of the world.”
Officials have said the coronavirus pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis mean the aid cuts are necessary to balance British books.
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said the cuts are a “temporary measure” and the pandemic has “forced us to take tough” decisions.
Parliament vote could undo plan to slash UK foreign aid budget
https://arab.news/buwtu
Parliament vote could undo plan to slash UK foreign aid budget
- High-profile Conservative MPs have rebelled against government plans for “devastating” cuts
- Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Libya among countries worst affected
After nearly 7 weeks and many rumors, Bolivia’s ex-leader reappears in his stronghold
- Morales was Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who served from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster and subsequent self-exile
- He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fanned by social media that he would try to flee the country
LA PAZ: Bolivia’s long-serving socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared Thursday in his political stronghold of the tropics after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumors he had fled the country in the wake of the US seizure of his ally, Venezuela’s ex-President Nicolás Maduro.
The weeks of hand-wringing over Morales’ fate showed how little the Andean country knows about what’s happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges, and how vulnerable it is to fears about US President Donald Trump’s potential future foreign escapades.
The media outlet of Morales’ coca-growing union, Radio Kawsachun Coca, released footage of Morales smiling in dark sunglasses as he arrived via tractor at a stadium in the central Bolivian town of Chimoré to address his supporters.
Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who served from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster and subsequent self-exile, explained that he had come down with chikungunya, a mosquito-borne ailment with no treatment that causes fever and severe joint pain, and suffered complications that “caught me by surprise.”
“Take care of yourselves against chikungunya — it is serious,” the 66-year-old Morales said, appearing markedly more frail than in past appearances.
He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fanned by social media that he would try to flee the country, vowing to remain in Bolivia despite the threat of arrest under conservative President Rodrigo Paz, whose election last October ended nearly two decades of rule by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party.
“Some media said, ‘Evo is going to leave, Evo is going to flee.’ I said clearly: I am not going to leave. I will stay with the people to defend the homeland,” he said.
Paz’s revival of diplomatic ties with the US and recent efforts to bring back the Drug Enforcement Administration — some 17 years after Morales expelled American anti-drug agents from the Andean country while cozying up to China, Russia, Cuba and Iran — have rattled the coca-growing region that serves as Morales’ bastion of support.
Paz on Thursday confirmed that he would meet Trump in Miami on March 7 for a summit convening politically aligned Latin American leaders as the Trump administration seeks to counter Chinese influence and assert US dominance in the region.
Before proclaiming the candidates he would endorse in Bolivia’s municipal and regional elections next month, Morales launched into a lengthy speech reminiscent of his once-frequent diatribes against US imperialism.
“This is geopolitical propaganda on an international scale,” he said of Trump’s bid to revive the Monroe Doctrine from 1823 in order to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. “They want to eliminate every left-wing party in Latin America.”
