Category Archives: Foreign policy

World’s poorest bear brunt of climate crisis: 10 underreported emergencies

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Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress

From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.

Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.

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A treasured letter to Uncle Bob in Malta | Brief letters

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Postal wonder | Corruption | Sacklers | Platinum pudding | Polar prayers

As a five-year-old in the 1950s, I wrote a letter with my Toytown writing set to my favourite uncle, who was in the navy. Before posting, I chose the shade of Noddy stamp to best complement the matching paper and envelope, then addressed it to “Uncle Bob, Malta” (Letters, 11 January). He received it, along with a hefty excess postage fee, but carried it with him in his wallet long afterwards as a cherished memory of home.
Andrea Clarkson
Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria

• You report that “the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, insists the UK has some of the toughest anti-corruption laws in the world” (MPs to re-examine UK response to dirty money from Russia, 10 January). But laws and acts of parliament are just pieces of paper until their implementation is monitored.
Marika Sherwood
Oare, Kent

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Russia’s belief in Nato ‘betrayal’ – and why it matters today

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The idea that the Soviet Union was tricked in 1989-90 is at the heart of Russia’s confrontation with the west

The current confrontation between Russia and the west is fuelled by many grievances, but the greatest is the belief in Moscow that the west tricked the former Soviet Union by breaking promises made at the end of the cold war in 1989-1990 that Nato would not expand to the east. In his now famous 2007 speech to the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin accused the west of forgetting and breaking assurances, leaving international law in ruins.

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France to push for EU-wide UK migration treaty over Channel crossings

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French government wants whole bloc to act despite warnings other member states have no appetite

France will press the EU to negotiate an asylum and migration treaty with the UK in an attempt to deter people from making the dangerous Channel crossing.

The French government, which last week took up the six-month rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers, wants the whole bloc to act, despite warnings that other member states have no appetite for a migration treaty with Britain.

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Brexit changes will add to soaring costs in 2022, warn UK manufacturers

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Make UK says two-thirds of companies fear customs delays and red tape from new rules will further hamper supply chains

Manufacturers have warned that Brexit will add to soaring costs facing British industry, amid concerns that customs delays and red tape will rank among the biggest challenges for firms this year.

Make UK, the industry body representing 20,000 manufacturing firms of all sizes from across the country, said that while optimism among its members had grown, it was being undermined by the after-effects of the UK’s departure from the EU.

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UK and Irish foreign secretaries meet over Northern Ireland Brexit impasse

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Liz Truss and Simon Coveney meetup comes before talks on protocol with EU Brexit negotiator

The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and her Irish counterpart, Simon Coveney, have had a “good and friendly” first meeting over the vexed issue of the Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland, Irish government sources have said.

They met for the first time over dinner in London on Thursday night and discussed the Northern Ireland protocol, the wider relationship with the EU, and UN security matters including the crisis in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

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Top EU diplomat offers full support to Ukraine on visit to conflict frontline

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Josep Borrell warns ‘severe costs’ would follow any aggression against Kyiv by Russian-backed separatists

The European Union’s top diplomat has pledged “full support” to Ukraine on a visit to the frontline of the country’s war with Moscow-backed separatists.

Josep Borrell is the first EU high representative for foreign policy to have visited the Donbass region since war broke out nearly eight years ago.

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Italy returns Parthenon fragment to Greece amid UK row over marbles

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Loan deal could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate ancient Parthenon marbles to Athens

Italy is returning a fragment belonging to the Parthenon’s eastern frieze to Greece in a breakthrough deal that could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate the 2,500-year-old Parthenon marbles removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.

The marble fragment, which depicts the foot of a goddess, either Peitho or Artemis, peeking out from beneath an elaborate tunic, is currently held at the Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Sicily. It was originally bought by the University of Palermo from the widow of Robert Fagan, the British consul for Sicily and Malta, after his death in 1816.

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British Council launches inquiry after Kenyan staff allege racism

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Senior white executives are accused of discriminating against BAME Kenyan-born staff

The British Council has launched an inquiry into allegations from black current and former staff members in Kenya who claim they were subjected to systemic racism.

Senior white executives at the organisation, which is the British government’s cultural arm abroad, have been accused of discriminating against BAME Kenyan-born staff, particularly as they were selected and assessed for redundancy.

A programme manager who worked at the British Council from August 2014 to 2019 who claimed they were put at risk of redundancy without adequate explanation.

Another complainant claimed they resigned as a senior official of the Kenyan office’s welfare association after a white executive frustrated efforts to channel staff concerns to the senior leadership team. “Staff have no confidence raising concerns through HR … for fear of being victimised,” the complainant said.

A manager for the professional skills centre in Kenya who claimed they were among a number of black employees who were unfairly targeted for redundancy.

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NI peace architect accuses Boris Johnson of ‘casual political vandalism’

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Jonathan Powell says PM and Brexit ministers risking fragile peace in Northern Ireland and ‘don’t seem to care’

One of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace deal has said Boris Johnson and the former Brexit minister Lord Frost have risked “all the work” the previous generation of politicians put into the Belfast Good Friday agreement by putting their hard ideological beliefs ahead of people.

Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff and chief negotiator on Northern Ireland, said he was concerned that neither the prime minister nor the recently resigned Brexit minister seemed to understand or care about the fragility of the political settlement in Northern Ireland in 1998.

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Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster

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Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis

The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.

Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.

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Brexit: ‘the biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated’

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Exclusive: British cheesemaker says Brexit and subsequent trade deals have cost his firm £270,000

A British cheesemaker who predicted Brexit would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in exports has called the UK’s departure from the EU single market a disaster, after losing his entire wholesale and retail business in the bloc over the past year. Simon Spurrell, the co-founder of the Cheshire Cheese Company, said personal advice from a government minister to pursue non-EU markets to compensate for his losses had proved to be “an expensive joke”.

“It turns out our greatest competitor on the planet is the UK government because every time they do a fantastic deal, they kick us out of that market – starting with the Brexit deal,” he said.

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‘Turn the planes around’: Māori leader says New Zealand should block Australian deportations

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Chair of National Māori Authority says country should adopt John Howard’s playbook or risk sparking local gangland wars between deported criminals

A prominent Māori leader has called for a dramatic response to what he labels Australia’s attempts to turn New Zealand into a “dumping ground” for criminals, suggesting Jacinda Ardern’s government should “turn the planes around”.

The executive chairman of the National Māori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, also raised concerns about a potential increase in gun violence in Auckland, saying the city “could see gangland wars similar to those that occurred in both Sydney and Melbourne in the early 2000s if we are not careful”.

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UK’s ambassador drawn into Libyan political crisis after elections called off

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Parliamentary committee accuses ambassador of interference over tweet in support of recognising interim government

Libya’s political crisis has taken on an increasingly international dimension after the UK was accused of defending corruption and interfering in internal processes by calling for the interim government to remain in power pending the rescheduling of delayed elections.

The country’s first presidential elections, scheduled for 24 December, were indefinitely postponed at the last minute, largely because fierce disagreements over who should be allowed to stand had not been resolved.

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‘Almost unsaleable’: slump in school trips to UK blamed on Brexit

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Groups from the continent are going elsewhere, tour operators say, deterred more by passport and visa rules than the pandemic

Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.

While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.

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Johnson’s pig-headed reign approaches its tragicomic climax | William Keegan

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Events in the run-up to Christmas have conspired like twists in a novel to reveal the true character of Tory Brexiters

There was a moment last year when Boris Johnson was reported to have gone awol (absent without leave) from governing the country in order to work on a book about Shakespeare.

At the time, many commentators blamed his absence for a crucial delay in decision-making which contributed to thousands of avoidable, Covid-related deaths. Be that as it may, or was, he returned to the helm of state, brushed off many a criticism, and managed to persuade gullible members of the media and electorate that he possessed Teflon qualities and was invincible.

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One year on, most voters say Brexit has gone badly

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An Opinium poll also found that 42% of people who voted Leave in 2016 had a negative view of how it had turned out

More than six out of 10 voters believe Brexit has either gone badly or worse than they expected – a year after the UK left the EU, according to an anniversary poll for the Observer.

The Opinium survey – coming a week after the minister in charge of Brexit, Lord Frost, resigned from Boris Johnson’s government – also found that 42% of people who voted Leave in 2016 had a negative view of how Brexit had turned out so far.

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Brexit one year on: so how’s it going?

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Those promised rewards for Britain of leaving the EU should surely be with us by now. What have been the costs and gains of ‘taking our country back’?

• UK and the EU set to remain best of enemies as 2022 dawns

On New Year’s Day the UK will have been fully out of the European Union for a year: out of its political and legal structures, out of its single market, out of its customs union.

This was what Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – who led the Leave campaign – had wanted. No awkward halfway house like Theresa May had negotiated. No Brexit light. Out completely. Gone. Brexit well and truly done.

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UK accused of abandoning world’s poor as aid turned into ‘colonial’ investment

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Rebrand of Foreign Office’s development arm, seen as effort to rival China’s loans, will shift aid to private sector, warn NGOs and unions

The British government has been accused by NGOs and trade unions of “chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies” at the expense of the world’s poorest as they urge Liz Truss to keep aid focused on poverty reduction rather than geopolitical manoeuvring.

In a joint letter to the foreign secretary, the group criticises the rebranding of the UK’s development investment arm, which will see the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) become British International Investment (BII) next year.

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Liz Truss to hold Brexit talks with EU over NI protocol

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The foreign secretary, now chief negotiator with the EU, wants ‘a comprehensive solution’

The UK’s newly appointed chief post-Brexit negotiator, Liz Truss, said she would speak to her EU counterpart, Maroš Šefčovič, on Tuesday amid renewed calls to rip up the controversial Northern Ireland protocol.

The cabinet minister, who is also the foreign secretary, said she wanted to negotiate “a comprehensive solution” to the agreement, which requires post-Brexit checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

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