Vote does not compel government to act but marks further decline in relations with China
British MPs voted to declare that China is committing genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province.
The motion passed on Thursday does not compel the government to act but is likely to mark a further decline in relations with China.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary denies that aid organisations are scared to speak out or people are going hungry
The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has told MPs that “no country is immune” from the impending aid cuts, but failed to clarify when specific plans would be made public.
Speaking after the release of the first details of the £4bn cuts to international aid, which have been widely criticised as “draconian” and opaque, the minister confirmed “no stand-alone” impact assessment had been carried out in individual countries but that “we identify risks we see across the board”.
Continue reading...Minister tells MPs that cuts come at ‘terrible’ time, with 16m close to famine as Covid infections double
The UK government has admitted that no assessment has been carried out of how “dire” the impact of the 60% cut in foreign aid to Yemen will be.
Related: UK 'balancing books on backs of Yemen's starving people', says UN diplomat
Continue reading...Downing Street says next week’s visit won’t go ahead ‘in light of the current coronavirus situation’
Boris Johnson’s planned visit to India next week has been cancelled because of the country’s escalating coronavirus crisis, a joint statement by the UK and India has announced.
“In the light of the current coronavirus situation, prime minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week,” said the statement, released by Downing Street.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary hints he believes same Russian cell behind Salisbury poisoning and Czech explosion
The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the UK stood in “full support” of the Czech Republic after the country’s police announced they were hunting two Russians, suspected of carrying out the Salisbury poisonings, in relation to an explosion at an arms depot.
The Czech authorities said on Saturday they were seeking Alexander Petrov, 41, and Ruslan Boshirov, 43, in connection with a previously unexplained 2014 explosion at a munitions dump in Vrbětice, which left two dead.
Continue reading...Brexit minister David Frost says momentum has been established in efforts to ease tensions
Talks between the EU and UK to ease tensions in Northern Ireland have been described as “productive” and “constructive” with momentum now established to achieve a solution to the crisis, the Brexit minister, David Frost, has said.
But the EU used the first face-to-face meeting since lockdown between Lord Frost and the European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, to warn that the outcome needed to be jointly agreed.
Continue reading...Fears of 60% reduction in budget for country where 27.3m said to be experiencing acute food insecurity
A consortium of 19 aid agencies operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo has issued a last-minute appeal to the UK Foreign Office to suspend planned aid cuts to the country, where a third of the population faces acute food insecurity.
The Foreign Office, the second largest provider of aid to the war-torn country, has told aid agencies that cuts are very likely. Although the size of them is not yet agreed, one report has suggested a 60% reduction in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budget for the country. The FCDO’s aid programme for Congo was worth £180m in 2019.
Continue reading...Mohammed bin Salman warned of damage to Saudi-UK relations if Premier League refusal not ‘corrected’
The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, warned Boris Johnson in a text message that UK-Saudi Arabian relations would be damaged if the British government failed to intervene to “correct” the Premier League’s “wrong” decision not to allow a £300m takeover of Newcastle United last year.
Johnson asked Edward Lister, his special envoy for the Gulf, to take up the issue, and Lord Lister reportedly told the prime minister: “I’m on the case. I will investigate.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Kyaw Zwar Minn says he feels unsafe at London residence and family at home fear reprisals
Myanmar’s ousted ambassador to the UK has said that friends and relatives at home have been forced into hiding after the country’s military regime removed him from office for declaring his loyalty to the deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In his first major interview after he was unceremoniously locked out of the embassy by his deputy last week, Kyaw Zwar Minn said he no longer felt safe at his north London residence and had contacted the police after members of his former staff delivered a letter ordering him to move out by Thursday.
Continue reading...Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends
The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.
The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
Continue reading...On 23rd anniversary of Good Friday agreement, Martin says onus on political leaders ‘to step forward’
The Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that political leaders must not allow Northern Ireland to “spiral back to that dark place of sectarian murders and political discord” after the region was marred by another night of disorder.
On the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement 23 years ago, the taoiseach said there was “a particular onus on those of us who currently hold the responsibility of political leadership to step forward and play our part and ensure that this cannot happen”.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson is hoping to improve relations with rising superpower but many roadblocks stand in his way
George Osborne, the former British chancellor, tells the story of how, soon after Narendra Modi had been elected prime minister of India in 2014, he and the then foreign secretary, William Hague, alighted on a plan to fly immediately to India to make sure they were the first through the door to congratulate the new leader of the world’s largest democracy.
They decided to take the only British politician who seemed to know Modi well, Priti Patel, now home secretary, then recently appointed the government’s “India diaspora champion”. There was a pushback in the Whitehall system due to Modi’s record of stirring up inter-community violence in Gujarat – a Republican president in 2005 even banned him from travelling to the US – but the pair decided that the Anglo-Indian relationship was finally ready to shed the layers of imperial legacy. “If we are not going to engage with India, who are we going to engage with?” Osborne asked.
Continue reading...The west needs to make a credible case that its opposition to China’s policies is not geopolitical manoeuvring
“Wholly counterproductive”, was how Newcastle academic Joanne Smith Finley described China’s sanctions on her, along with a series of British politicians and lawyers, as punishment for their advocacy for the Uyghurs. That was putting it mildly. But is it the case that western sanctions on China will be, by contrast, productive? Sadly, that seems unlikely.
International outrage at China’s policies of incarceration and social coercion in Xinjiang continues to grow. As someone who has been engaged with the region for two decades, I see that as much needed. But it’s crucial the energy being generated is put to good use. The gloves may be off, but what is the strategy?
Continue reading...A new survey of UK and Netherlands firms shows two-thirds think our departure from the single market has had a negative effect
It is now three months since Boris Johnson declared that his Brexit deal would be unalloyed good news for UK businesses and consumers alike. But the true picture is graphically illustrated by a new survey of 125 UK and Dutch firms that do business between the two old and close trading nations.
Whether it be trade in chocolate bars, electric bicycles or malt whisky distilled in Scotland, the reality for exporters, importers and customers infuriated by orders being delayed is mostly negative.
Continue reading...Reduced £205m offer at UN pledging conference comes with 90% of Syrians living in poverty
Syrians and aid organisations have warned that “lives will be lost” as a result of the UK’s decision to cut aid funding to the conflict-stricken country.
The UN hoped to raise $10bn (£7.3bn) from governments and donors at a virtual two-day pledging conference for Syria – the biggest appeal yet to help both people inside and those displaced outside the country.
Continue reading...Beijing wants to silence critics of its treatment of Uighurs. But the impact will be broader
China’s response to criticisms of horrifying human rights violations in Xinjiang is clear and calculated. Its aims are threefold. First, the sanctions imposed upon individuals and institutions in the EU and UK are direct retaliation for those imposed upon China over its treatment of Uighurs. That does not mean they are like-for-like: the EU and UK measures targeted officials responsible for human rights abuses, while these target non-state actors – elected politicians, thinktanks, lawyers and academics – simply for criticising those abuses.
Second, they seek more broadly to deter any criticism over Xinjiang, where Beijing denies any rights violations. Third, they appear to be intended to send a message to the EU, UK and others not to fall in line with the harsher US approach towards China generally. Beijing sees human rights concerns as a pretext for defending western hegemony, pointing to historic and current abuses committed by its critics. But mostly it believes it no longer needs to tolerate challenges.
Continue reading...China has imposed sanctions on 10 UK organisations and individuals, including the former leader of the Conservative party Iain Duncan Smith, over what it called the spreading of 'lies and disinformation' about human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said the government stands 'in total solidarity' and it will not stop it addressing 'industrial-scale human rights abuses'
Continue reading...Tussles over supplies could last months despite commitment in public to work together
Tussles with the EU over vaccine supplies could continue for months, UK government insiders fear, despite a joint statement in which both sides committed to working together.
From Boris Johnson’s phone calls to EU leaders to the foreign secretary Dominic Raab’s discreet lobbying on the fringes of this week’s Nato meeting, a significant amount of senior government time and energy is being invested in trying to resolve the issue.
Continue reading...It is the first time for three decades UK or EU has punished China for human rights abuses
Britain and the EU have taken joint action with the US and Canada to impose parallel sanctions on a senior Chinese officials involved in the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province in the first such western action against Beijing since Joe Biden took office.
The move also marked the first time for three decades the UK or the EU had punished China for human rights abuses, and both will now be working hard to contain the potential political and economic fallout. China hit back immediately, blacklisting MEPs, European diplomats and thinktanks.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Halting distribution would hit Britain badly but not significantly help EU, analysis finds
Britain’s Covid vaccine programme faces a two-month delay in the event of an EU export ban, derailing the government’s plans to reopen the economy this summer, an analysis for the Guardian reveals.
A ban, due to be debated by leaders of the 27 EU member states on Thursday, would badly stall the UK vaccination effort, and would be likely to force the government to extend restrictions on people’s lives.
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