China said UK will ‘bear all consequences’, raising possibility of retaliation
China has responded angrily to a UK promise to offer nearly 3 million residents of Hong Kong with British national overseas status (BNO), the right to settle in the UK.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said Britain would “bear all consequences”, and China’s ambassador to the UK later said that Beijing “reserve[d] the right to take corresponding measures”.
Continue reading...A fast growing mountain of toxic e-waste is polluting the planet and damaging health, says new report
At least $10bn (£7.9bn) worth of gold, platinum and other precious metals are dumped every year in the growing mountain of electronic waste that is polluting the planet, according to a new UN report.
A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.
Continue reading...EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier complained of lack of respect and engagement by UK
The latest negotiations in Brussels on an EU-UK trade and security deal have broken up early, with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, complaining of a lack of respect and engagement by the British government.
The two sides ended the week’s talks – the first held in person since February – a day ahead of the jointly-agreed schedule amid evident frustration at the lack of progress in bridging what both Barnier and his UK counterpart, David Frost, described as “serious” disagreements.
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Meanwhile, there’s breaking news from the Supreme Court, via The Washington Post (added bolds from me):
A lower court had granted a request from the House Judiciary Committee for access to redacted portions of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. But in May, the Supreme Court put a hold on that ruling until the high court could decide whether the issue warranted its intervention.
On the campaign trail and often in public remarks about economic news the president has promised that the final two quarters of 2020 would be a substantial improvement from earlier numbers.
He made that argument again at this press conference.
Continue reading...More than 370 people arrested as result of demonstrations against China’s new powers
Protesters appear to be laying low in Hong Kong the day after the introduction of sweeping draconian national security laws prompted demonstrations, violence, and mass arrests.
More than 370 people were arrested on Wednesday, including 10 under the new laws imposed directly by Beijing and without the involvement of Hong Kong’s semi autonomous legislature.
Continue reading...Maxwell had kept a low profile and her whereabouts were unknown since Epstein’s arrest last July on sex trafficking charges
Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and close friend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested, an FBI spokesman has said.
Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.
Continue reading...Former Swedish settlement of Hunspach, in Alsace, unlikely to remain ‘peaceful’ for long
French people have chosen Hunspach, which was once part of Sweden, as their favourite village of 2020.
The Alsace village of 652 inhabitants, on France’s eastern border with Germany, was selected in a TV poll of 700,000 viewers.
Continue reading...NFL players kneeling in the US and Premier League stars speaking out in the UK is nothing new: sportsmen and women have always been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights
We may never know why Jake Hepple, a now unemployed welder from Burnley, thought it was a good idea to hire a plane and have it trail a banner reading “White Lives Matter Burnley” across the skies over Manchester’s Etihad Stadium. What we are assured is that Hepple – who has been pictured with his arm wrapped round the shoulder of the English Defence League’s former leader Tommy Robinson, and whose girlfriend was sacked from her job last week, accused of posting racist material on social media (her mother has said her daughter did not write the posts) – was not motivated by any form of racism. After all, he told reporters: “I’ve got lots of black and Asian friends.”
The phrase “white lives matter” is, of course, an attack on the phrase “black lives matter” and the movement that coalesced around it. But while one is a plea for equality, the other, along with the phrase “all lives matter”, was created by those who engage in the pantomime of pretending that anyone is suggesting only black lives matter. These people belong to the same demographic as those who think structural racism doesn’t exist, or that black people should “get over” slavery. And to that demographic, top-flight football’s support of Black Lives Matter really rankles.
Continue reading...Decision follows recent revelation country has highest rates of tobacco use in the world
The Jordanian government has banned smoking and vaping in all indoor public spaces a week after a Guardian investigation revealed tobacco use in the country had become the highest in the world.
The country’s health ministry said on Wednesday all enclosed public areas would now be “100% smoke-free environments”, building on an existing but widely flouted ban on smoking inside government buildings, and ending an exemption for hotels, cafes and restaurants provided they separated smokers from non-smokers.
Continue reading...UK has ‘unequivocally recognised’ rival Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president, ruling says
A British court has refused to give Nicolás Maduro control of $1bn (£799m) of gold bullion held by Venezuela in the vaults of the Bank of England, ruling the UK government has “unequivocally recognised” his rival Juan Guaidó as president.
The Venezuelan central bank (BCV) – whose board is appointed by Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chávez – took the legal action after its request to release the gold to pass the proceeds to the UN to help combat coronavirus in the country was rejected by the Bank of England on the basis the UK had recognised Guaidó.
Continue reading...More than 140 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine
Researchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 140 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Continue reading...Troops were deployed in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, ahead of the funeral of the popular musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, who was shot dead in a targeted killing earlier this week.
His death sparked protests that have spread from Addis Ababa to the surrounding Oromiya region and claimed more than 80 lives.
The singer's killing tapped into grievances fuelled by decades of government repression and what the Oromo, Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, describe as their historic exclusion from political power
Continue reading...After the resignation of Thomas Thabane the small south African nation could have addressed its huge political gender imbalance. What happened?
Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa, has always been dwarfed in size and achievements by its neighbour South Africa.
Many people around the world were not even aware of Lesotho’s existence until the beginning of this year when then prime minister Thomas Thabane and his third wife, Maesaiah Thabane, were accused of murdering Thabane’s estranged second wife, Lipolelo, in 2017.
Continue reading...Therapy is helping some of the thousands forced over the border to Uganda to cope, but funding shortfalls mean resources are becoming scarcer
As darkness fell, Rebecca closed the door to her makeshift home. The day was over.
The 29-year-old, who had been uprooted from South Sudan to a north Ugandan refugee settlement, sat on the bed where her four children slept and, at around 10pm, tried to take her own life. “By then I didn’t care about anything – not myself, not even my kids. The pain was too extreme,” she says. Her children awoke and their cries brought help from neighbours.
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Donald Trump is criticizing New York City’s plan to paint “Black Lives Matter” on 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower — calling it a “symbol of hate.”
NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue. This will further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the....
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has said that both the CIA and Pentagon did pursue intelligence assessments that suggested Russia had offered bounties for killing US troops in Afghanistan, and that US intelligence briefed international allies, as the administration steps up its defense of the handling of the military bounty scandal.
“We had options ready to go,” O’Brien said on a Fox news show. But added: “It may be impossible to get to the bottom of it.”
American servicemembers are being targeted with Russian bounties. As a Marine, I'm disgusted that nothing's been done about it. Mitch, you get regular security briefings. What did you know and when did you know it?
Man up and tell the truth. #MoscowMitch
Analysis: The only people dismissing the Russia bounties intel: The Taliban, Russia and Trump https://t.co/hbWx8PitRX
Continue reading...Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn
The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.
A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.
Continue reading...Residents await Israel’s next move, concerned they could be isolated from the rest of the West Bank
The future of Palestinians in the city of Jericho is suspended in uncertainty and fear as they wait for Israel to decide when and how it will annex vast swathes of the land that surrounding them, a step outlined in a US peace initiative which could leave residents isolated from other parts of the West Bank.
“Annexation will suffocate us,” said Aisha Subeh, selling grape leaves on a street in Jericho.
Continue reading...International pressure on Israel escalates as Netanyahu misses self-imposed target date
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has missed his self-imposed target date for annexation of occupied Palestinian territories, as France warned of “consequences” and Boris Johnson made an appeal to Israel to reconsider the move in an article in the Hebrew media.
Johnson, who described himself in the opinion piece as a “passionate defender of Israel”, said any annexation would be a “violation of international law”, adding the UK would not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders in the West Bank that were not agreed by both Israelis and Palestinians.
Continue reading...Demonstrators have clashed with police during protests over a national security law imposed by China, on the 23rd anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain
Continue reading...Police in Italy have seized more than 84m fenethylline tablets, weighing 14 tonnes, at the port of Salerno, in what they say is the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world. Fenethylline is known by some as the 'Isis drug' after investigations found it was used by Islamic State fighters during battles and sold by the group for profit
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