Category Archives: Foreign policy

EU imposes new economic sanctions on Belarus over ‘hijacked’ flight

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EU’s 27 heads of state call for the immediate release of opposition blogger Roman Protasevich

EU leaders triggered new economic sanctions against Belarus and punitive measures against its national airline as a dissident taken from a “hijacked” Ryanair flight was paraded on the country’s television news apparently confessing to crimes against the state.

In a summit communique swiftly agreed in Brussels on Monday night, the EU’s 27 heads of state and government condemned the forced landing of flight FR4978 in Minsk and called for the immediate release of opposition blogger Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.

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UK expected to offer post-Brexit trade deal to Australia

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Gradual tariff-free deal will be victory for free-trade Brexiters but will likely alarm UK farmers

UK ministers are expected to offer Australia a trade deal which will gradually eliminate all tariffs and quotas, one seen as a victory for free-trade Brexiters in the cabinet but likely to prompt alarm among UK farmers.

Downing Street did not deny reports on Friday that the likely offer to Australia would be a transition to zero quotas and tariffs over 15 years, although insisted discussions were still taking place.

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The Guardian view on post-Brexit trade: only hard choices are left | Editorial

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Boris Johnson likes to pretend that free-trade deals are easy and have no downside. Talks with Australia are proving him wrong

There is agreement across the Conservative party that free trade is a good thing, in theory. Unity is harder to sustain over practical detail, as has become clear through negotiations on a deal with Australia.

The agreement has immense symbolic value. It would be the first substantial post-Brexit deal that was not a rollover of terms that were available under EU membership. The prime minister sees it as the enactment of his “global Britain” rhetoric. The government is determined to have such a trophy ready in time for next month’s G7 summit.

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British tourists to EU may have to quarantine even if vaccinated

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UK could also face travel block due to India variant and own incoming rules if altered EU policy stands

Fully vaccinated Britons could still be told to quarantine at their EU holiday destination due to concerns over the Covid variant first detected in India and a failure to allow Europeans to visit Britain freely, according to a policy agreed in Brussels.

Representatives of the 27 member states on Wednesday provisionally approved a change of the policy under which anyone from a non-EU country could travel if they were able to prove they had been fully vaccinated.

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UK ‘faces labour shortage’ as Covid and Brexit fuel exodus of overseas workers

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Experts say recovery at risk amid sharp fall in EU workers and dwindling interest in UK jobs from abroad

Britain’s employers are struggling to hire staff as lockdown lifts amid an exodus of overseas workers caused by the Covid pandemic and Brexit, industry figures reveal.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the recruitment firm Adecco, employers plan to hire at the fastest rate in eight years, led by the reopening of the hospitality and retail sectors as pandemic restrictions are relaxed in England and Wales on Monday.

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Thirteen arrested in London protest against violence in Gaza

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The Met said nine of its officers were injured while dispersing crowds outside the Israeli embassy

Thirteen people have been arrested after a day of largely peaceful protest in solidarity with the people of Palestine outside the Israel embassy on Saturday.

The Metropolitan police said nine of its officers were injured while dispersing crowds outside the embassy in west London. The force said missiles were thrown at officers during “small pockets of disorder”.

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EU citizens arriving in UK being locked up and expelled

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Europeans with job interviews tell of detentions and expulsions despite rules allowing non-visa holders to attend interviews

EU citizens are being sent to immigration removal centres and held in airport detention rooms as the UK government’s “hostile environment” policy falls on them after Brexit, according to campaigners and travellers interviewed by the Guardian.

Europeans with job interviews are among those being denied entry and locked up. They have spoken of being subjected to the traumatic and humiliating experience of expulsion, despite Home Office rules that explicitly allow non-visa holders to attend interviews.

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Libya’s first female foreign minister pressed to quit

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Najla El-Mangoush subjected to personal abuse after demanding withdrawal of Turkish troops and mercenaries

Libya’s first female foreign minister has come under pressure to resign and been subjected to personal abuse seven weeks into the job, after she called for Turkish troops and mercenaries to leave her country.

Najla El-Mangoush, a lawyer and human rights activist, was appointed foreign minister by the country’s interim prime minister, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, after he faced a backlash for backtracking on promises that 30% of ministerial posts would go to women.

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UK aid cuts will put tens of thousands of children at risk of famine, says charity

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Save the Children’s analysis finds Britain will spend 80% less on nutrition abroad this year, as hunger levels rise around the world

Britain is set to spend 80% less on helping feed children in poorer nations than before the pandemic, according to a charity’s analysis.

Save the Children said the British government will spend less than £26m this year on vital nutrition services in developing countries, a drop of more than three-quarters from 2019. The estimate of aid cuts to nutrition comes after UN agencies called for urgent action to avert famine in 20 countries including Yemen, South Sudan and northern Nigeria.

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‘We’re piggy in the middle’: Brexit has made life impossible, say Jersey fishers

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Their families have been fishing here for decades but despite promises of frictionless trade, the market for their fish is disappearing

Steph Noel, who has been fishing the waters off Jersey for almost four decades, could not see the point of chugging out to sea in his 8.5-metre boat, Belle Bird, this weekend.

“There’s no value in it for me,” he said. “It’ll cost me in bait and diesel but even if I have a good day there’s no market there for what I bring back.”

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French fishers’ protest over Jersey rights is over but the dispute will go on

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New restrictions and deep cuts to allowances mean both French and Jersey boat owners feel betrayed by Brexit

Dawn was still four hours away and the small Normandy port of Carteret was alive, some boats hurriedly unloading their catch for a rapid turnaround, others turning on their lights and firing up their engines for the first time that night.

Minutes after 3am on Thursday they had left the quayside and, in pitch darkness and a gentle swell, were pushing smartly out to sea to join a growing armada of 60-odd boats from Cherbourg right the way round to St-Malo.

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UK sends navy vessels to Jersey amid post-Brexit fishing row with France

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Boris Johnson dispatches two gunboats to protect island from feared blockade

Boris Johnson has dispatched two Royal Navy patrol boats to protect Jersey from a feared blockade by French fishing vessels, in an escalation of a dispute over post-Brexit access to waters around the Channel island.

The move followed talks on Wednesday evening between the prime minister and the chief minister of the British crown dependency, John Le Fondré, who had warned Downing Street of imminent movements by French fishing boats to cut off the island’s main port.

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Jersey hits back at ‘disproportionate’ French threat to cut electricity

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Paris threatens to take retaliatory measures in row over post-Brexit licences for French fishing boats

Jersey has accused France of making “disproportionate” threats after Paris warned it could cut off electricity to the island in a row over post-Brexit fishing rights.

The maritime minister, Annick Girardin, warned on Tuesday France was ready to take “retaliatory measures” after accusing the Channel Island of dragging its feet over issuing new licences to French boats.

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Tory quarrels determined UK’s post-Brexit future, says Barnier

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Revealed: EU chief negotiator’s diaries, The Great Illusion, give blow-by-blow account of moves behind UK’s departure

Britain’s post-Brexit future was determined by “the quarrels, low blows, multiple betrayals and thwarted ambitions of a certain number of Tory MPs”, the EU’s chief negotiator has said in his long-awaited diaries.

The UK’s early problem, writes Michel Barnier in The Great Illusion, his 500-page account, was that they began by “talking to themselves. And they underestimate the legal complexity of this divorce, and many of its consequences.”

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EU ‘suspends’ ratification of China investment deal after sanctions

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Massive trade agreement stalls after tit-for-tat sanctions prompted by Chinese policy in Xinjiang

The European Commission has said that efforts to ratify a massive investment deal with China have been in effect suspended after tit-for-tat sanctions were imposed over China’s treatment of its Uyghur population in March.

“We now in a sense have suspended … political outreach activities from the European Commission side,” said the commission’s executive vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, on Tuesday. He said that the current state of relations between Brussels and Beijing was “not conducive” for the ratification of the deal, which is known as EU-China comprehensive agreement on investment.

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France threatens to cut off power to Jersey in post-Brexit fishing row

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French minister raises electricity supply as point of leverage in dispute over access to UK waters

The French government could cut off the electricity supply to Jersey in an escalating row over post-Brexit fishing rights, a French minister has suggested.

Responding to questions in the national assembly, Annick Girardin, the minister for maritime affairs, said she was “revolted” by the UK government’s behaviour over its waters and France was ready to retaliate.

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Iran’s treatment of Zaghari-Ratcliffe amounts to torture, says Raab

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Foreign secretary says it is ‘difficult to argue against’ suggestion the dual national is being held state hostage

Iran’s treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe amounts to torture, the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said, as the Foreign Office downplayed an Iranian state TV report saying Britain would pay a £400m debt to secure her release.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said the family had “heard nothing” about a deal to secure her release, as hopes were raised by the suggestion that the long-running dispute had been resolved.

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Two pandemics: as we ease up, virus sweeps the world’s poor

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Latin America and Africa face new wave as politicians and scientists urge rescue packages

World leaders have been warned that unless they act with extreme urgency, the Covid-19 pandemic will overwhelm health services in many nations in South America, Asia, and Africa over the next few weeks.

Only billions of pounds of aid and massive exports of vaccines can halt a humanitarian catastrophe that is now unfolding rapidly across the planet, scientists and world health experts said.

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UK’s aid cuts hit vital coronavirus research around world

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Leading UK expert says loss of funding certain to damage attempts to tackle virus and variants

Vital coronavirus research, including a project tracking variants in India, has had its funding reduced by up to 70% under swingeing cuts to the UK overseas aid budget.

One of Britain’s leading infectious disease experts said the UK government cuts were certain to damage attempts to tackle the virus and track new variants.

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Biden’s world: how key countries have reacted to the US president’s first 100 days

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The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?

At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.”

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