Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Former Australian PM wants Boris Johnson to make ‘ambitious pledge’ to support girls at Kenyan summit
The former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has called for Britain to return its aid budget to pre-cuts levels “as soon as possible”.
Gillard, who now campaigns for education in lower-income countries as chair of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), said she wanted the British government to step up with an “ambitious pledge” for global education when it co-hosts the G7 summit next month.
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.
Dominic Raab urged people to keep their resolve in tackling coronavirus, saying there is only a little bit more time until all legal restrictions on social interactions are removed. Speaking on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the foreign secretary said a careful approach to easing Covid restrictions was still necessary, despite people desperately wanting to hug family members
Foreign secretary says he has ‘no idea’ if claim is true and he will not comment on ‘tittle-tattle’
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has said he does not know if a Conservative donor was asked to pay for Boris Johnson’s childcare costs, amid new allegations of undeclared donations and loans to fund the prime minister’s lifestyle.
Following reports that Johnson sought payments from a donor to help pay for his one-year-old son’s care, Raab told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “I have no idea, you don’t have conversations like that with the PM. I can’t comment on every little bit of gossip that’s in the newspapers. The last thing you asked me about, I think, is an example of tittle-tattle.”
Former minister Lady Sugg also accuses Foreign Office of cutting key sexual health programmes
Lady Sugg, a former Foreign Office minister, has challenged her onetime boss Dominic Raab to admit he is cutting the UK aid budget for girls’ education by more than 40% as the foreign secretary also suggested UK bilateral aid to Africa would be reduced to a third of what it was two years ago.
She also claimed the government was planning to close its flagship Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme and impose cuts of about 70-80% to spending on the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition.
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”.
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.
Norwegian Refugee Council says move to pull funding for its legal support programme will leave many in ‘destitution’
Tens of thousands of Syrians will no longer receive legal support, leaving many “in utter destitution” without documents they need to work, travel or return home, after the British government pulled £4m in funding from a charity programme, according to its director.
News of the cut to a Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) project supporting refugees and internally displaced Syrians, comes amid reports of a planned 67% aid reduction in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) budget for Syria, which would place hundreds of thousands of lives at risk.
The army’s increased deployability and technological advantage will mean that greater effect can be delivered by fewer people. I’ve therefore taken the decision to reduce the size of the army from today’s current strength of 76,500 trade trained personnel to 72,500 by 2025.
The army has not been at its established strength of 82,000 since the middle of last decade.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, has said that Nicola Sturgeon is not “free and clear”, despite being exonerated by the independent adviser on the ministerial code, because the Scottish parliament’s committee has not yet published its report on her. In a statement he said:
The first minister has been given a pass because it has been judged her ‘failure of recollection’ was ‘not deliberate’.
I respect Mr Hamilton and his judgment but we cannot agree with that assessment. Nicola Sturgeon did not suddenly turn forgetful.
Analysis: Foreign secretary’s robust response to the EU contrasted with the PM’s emollience towards India
Boris Johnson went out of his way this week not to blame Delhi for the later-than-expected arrival of 5m doses of the Oxford vaccine from India, which is contributing to a significant dip in supplies in April.
“No, no, no,” he said, when asked by a reporter whether Delhi had blocked the export of the vaccines, as the country battles a resurgence in Covid cases.
European vice-president Maroš Šefčovič says claim about Brussels trying to erect barrier down Irish Sea undermines UK’s reputation
Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has been accused by Brussels of displaying a “total misunderstanding” of the Brexit deal after claiming the EU was trying to erect a barrier between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Maroš Šefčovič, the European commission’s vice-president, said Raab’s comments raised major questions, and warned that Britain was tarnishing its global reputation by ignoring the terms of its agreements with Brussels.
The UK's foreign secretary said the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, needed to explain herself after she threatened to ban exports of Covid-19 vaccines to the UK. Raab said such a move would cut across previous assurances. 'Frankly, I'm surprised we're having this conversation,' Raab said. 'It's normally the UK and the EU [who] team up to object when other countries with less democratic regimes than our own engage in that kind of brinkmanship'
Beijing guilty of ‘ongoing non-compliance’ with 1984 deal, says foreign secretary Dominic Raab
Dominic Raab has accused China of breaching the legal deal over the governance of Hong Kong, amid criticisms of Beijing’s attempts to tighten its control over the territory.
In a major escalation of diplomatic tensions, the foreign secretary said the UK considered China to be in a “state of ongoing non-compliance” with the Sino-British joint declaration as he condemned Beijing’s decision to reduce the role of the public in picking Hong Kong’s leaders. China has instead handed power to a pro-Beijing committee, which will appoint more council members.
Downing Street is pushing back against pressure from Conservative MPs to set a swift timetable to end the lockdown in England after meeting its first major vaccination target, saying any hastiness in reopening could risk undoing the progress made in combating the coronavirus pandemic.
In a sign of the likely battle ahead in the coming weeks, ministers and officials flatly ruled out a demand from Tory backbenchers for all Covid restrictions to be over by the start of May, saying any plan needed to be both more cautious and decided step by step.
Desperate to return to pre-pandemic normality, many countries where vaccination campaigns for Covid-19 are in full swing are considering endorsing “vaccine passports” to reignite international travel and reopen economies.
A week ago, the UK government ruled out plans for such passports – with vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi calling them “discriminatory” – but on Sunday, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the documents were “under consideration”. Labour politicians have advocated their introduction, with the former prime minister Tony Blair making the case for domestic vaccine passports in this week’s Mail on Sunday. So what are the pros and cons of such “immunity certificates”?
Foreign secretary talks up global growth opportunities and says Brussels ‘imposing obstacles’ to trade
Potential losses in UK trade with the EU because of Brexit will be more than made up by more opportunities in developing markets, Dominic Raab has claimed, saying people should take a “10-year view” of the current troubles faced by companies.
Questioned about warnings from a number of firms that bureaucracy and duties means they will go out of business, or have to relocate operations inside the EU, the foreign secretary also appeared to blame Brussels, saying it was “imposing” obstacles to trade.
Reacting to the news that diplomats had been ordered to cut billions in aid over the next six weeks, experts warned that many lives would be lost and the UK stood to lose its reputation as a global “force for good”.
Officials have just weeks to slash costs, prompting fears that speed of cuts could cost lives
British diplomats have been instructed to find at least 50% cuts in UK overseas bilateral aid in the next few weeks in advance of the next financial year, the Labour party has said.
Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of parliament’s international development select committee, said: “Our ambassadors have today been instructed by the Foreign Office to cut 50-70% from the aid budget.”
Dealing with the deadly second wave of Covid has left the NHS in the most precarious position in its 72-year history, chief executive Sir Simon Stevens has warned, as ministers said they were aiming to get all adults in the UK vaccinated by September.
The over-70s and clinically extremely vulnerable, who number more than 5.5 million nationwide, will be invited to receive the vaccine from Monday in areas where most of the first priority groups of care home residents and the over-80s have now had the jab.
David Perry is giving China a PR coup by acting against pro-democracy activists, foreign secretary says
David Perry QC, the barrister acting for the Hong Kong government in its efforts to jail pro-democracy activists, is behaving in “a pretty mercenary way” and providing the Chinese government with a PR coup, the foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday.
Perry has agreed to represent the Hong Kong government in prosecuting nine activists, including the media proprietor Jimmy Lai, arising from demonstrations in August 2019. The trial is due to begin next month.