Category: Foreign

The EU is preparing to sign off on a Brexit extension to 31 January 2020 with an option for the UK to leave earlier if a deal is ratified, according to a leaked draft of the agreement seen by the Guardian.

Despite objections raised by the French government, a paper to be agreed on Monday circulated among member states suggests the EU will accede to the UK’s request for a further delay.

The UK would be able to leave on the first day of the month after a deal is ratified, according to the paper.

The draft paper suggests a no-deal Brexit on 31 October is off the table as demanded by opposition party leaders as a prerequisite for a general election.

Until there is official signoff on the agreement, there remains the possibility that the terms could change, but it is the first time firm dates have been written into an official document.

“The period provided for in article 50 (3) TEU as extended by the European council decision (EU) 2019/584 is hereby further extended until 31 January 2020,” the draft agreement says.

“In the event that the parties to that agreement complete their respective ratification procedures and notify the depositary of the completion of these procedures in November 2019, in December 2019 or in January 2020, the withdrawal agreement will enter into into force respectively on [the first of the month of the relevant month].”

The potential date of 15 November for the UK to leave the EU – an idea raised by France – is not included in the draft paper.

An EU declaration attached to the draft agreement stipulates that the bloc will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement. It is also says the UK has “an obligation” to nominate a candidate to join the European commission. The prime minister has previously said he will not put forward a nominee.

The European council president, Donald Tusk, has been in intensive discussions with EU leaders over the weekend. Ambassadors for the EU27 are meeting on Monday morning.

Tusk had said he wanted to avoid calling leaders to a summit in Brussels to discuss the issue and would seek to find unanimous agreement to allow sign-off via a “written procedure”.

The Guardian view on general election calls: stay and finish the Brexit job
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The circulation of the draft agreement suggests Tusk has been successful in convincing France, in particular, that a three-month extension avoids the EU being dragged into the domestic row in the UK.

A source close to Emmanuel Macron said an agreement between the EU27 on the new Brexit extension would “very probably” be announced on Monday morning following political discussions with London over the weekend, notably a conversation between the French president and Boris Johnson.

Among weekend developments that had persuaded Paris to drop its objections to a new delay lasting up to three months was “the significantly more likely prospect of fresh elections, now backed by several parties including the Liberal Democrats and the SNP”, the source said.

The conditions attached to the extension had also been “further specified and reinforced” on Saturday and Sunday, the source added, in particular the “non-renegotiability” of the deal and the fact that the 27 will be able to work on the bloc’s future plans without the UK.

While wishing to preserve the unity of the 27 that had been their guiding principle throughout the negotiations, the source said, Paris had “insisted on these conditions as necessary”.

The terms in the draft agreement are in line with those stipulated under the Benn act that forced Boris Johnson to make a request to the EU for a further delay.

The extension had been due to be signed off on Friday. But the French ambassador had stood alone at a meeting of EU diplomats in arguing it was not the right time.

It was suggested by France’s ambassador that only after the vote on Monday should the EU decide to “go short, to push for ratification, or long to accommodate a general election”. Only France insisted the EU wait on agreeing to an extension.

Since then, Johnson told the cabinet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had informed him he was too isolated to insist on a shorter extension.

Developments over the weekend, in which the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party agreed to table a one-line bill in which they would back a general election on 9 December, have convinced many EU officials the UK will soon go to the polls.

Downing Street has let it be known that if Labour does not support its plan for an short extra period of scrutiny of the withdrawal agreement bill up to 6 November, and then a general election on 12 December, it will look at the joint proposal.

Hong Kong has fallen into recession, hit by five months of anti-government protests that erupted in flames at the weekend, and is unlikely to achieve any growth this year, the city’s Financial Secretary said.

Black-clad and masked demonstrators set fire to shops and hurled petrol bombs at police on Sunday following a now-familiar pattern, with police responding with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

TV footage showed protesters, who streamed into the Kowloon hotel and shopping artery of Nathan Road on Sunday, setting fires to street barricades and squirting petrol from plastic bottles on to fires at subway entrances.

At one station, activists rolled a flaming metal barrel down a long staircase towards police below.

Police fired 88 volleys of tear gas and 27 rubber bullets on Sunday, they said.

“The blow (from the protests) to our economy is comprehensive,” Paul Chan said in a blog post, adding that a preliminary estimate for third-quarter GDP on Thursday would show two successive quarters of contraction – the technical definition of a recession.

He also said it would be “extremely difficult” to achieve the government’s pre-protest forecast of 0-1 % annual economic growth.

The rallying cry of Sunday’s protests was to fight perceived police brutality and defend Muslims and journalists. Police last weekend fired water cannon at a group of people standing outside a mosque and journalists have been wounded in the clashes.

The programming staff union of public broadcaster RTHK said on Monday it had called on police to identify officers who “attacked and ripped the face mask” off one of its journalists on Sunday. It said she was wearing a reflective vest clearly identifying herself as a journalist.

It was not immediately clear if she was wearing a gas mask to protect against tear gas and pepper spray. Ordinary face masks were banned this month under a resurrected colonial-era emergency law.

Hong Kong Free Press, an online news service, called for the release of a freelance photographer arrested on Sunday.

The city’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club condemned the arrest in a statement on Monday calling for an independent investigation into “police violence against journalists and interference with the media’s right to cover the protests under Hong Kong law”.

The police, who deny using excessive force in life-threatening situations, held a news conference on Monday which ended in chaos when some journalists started yelling at police, shining bright lights in their eyes “just like you do to us”

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg testifies before U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, on Oct. 29, 2019.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg acknowledged mistakes as he testified before the U.S. Congress for the first time since two deadly air crashes of its 737 Max planes that killed 346 people, but he deflected tough questions such as why the company withheld details about its flawed new automated system. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

Greek authorities, already overwhelmed by the number of asylum seekers and migrants, on Tuesday reported that more people arrived from Turkey by sea and land.

Just in the morning hours, a total of 118 people were intercepted or had arrived on boats at Alexandropouli on the mainland and the islands of Samos and Farmakonisi.

According to UNHCR figures, 42,010 people arrived across the Aegean between the start of the year and October 20.

The number of sea arrivals is by far the highest since an EU-Turkey agreement seeking to shut down the Balkan route in March 2016.

In 2018 there were 32,494 arrivals and in 2017, 29,718.

Under the Brussels Ankara deal, those who arrived since it came into effect are kept on Lesbos, Chios, Kos, Samos and Leros until they are granted asylum or returned to Turkey.

But arrivals have outpaced processing even before the inflow spiked since April, leading to massive overcrowding as the population more than doubled over the past six months.

The government has already started relocating people to the mainland just in order to be able to manage the situation.

Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis initially said 10,000, but later that 20,000 would be moved.

Mr Blackson Bayewumi, Country Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society in Nigeria, has underscored the need for constant dialogue between Nigerian citizens and their elected officials to engender national growth.
Bayewumi, also Chairman of Nigeria Conversation, a non-governmental organisation, gave the advice in his address at the 2019 national edition of the “Nigeria Conversation” in Abuja.
Nigeria Conversation is a citizenship mainstreaming initiative which engages Nigerians both at home and abroad in discussion on nation building processes and the need for all-round development of the country.
Bayewumi said, “The present democracy we are practicing is the representative type.

“After electing leaders we must not abandon them. We must be part of the decision-making and governance processes to achieve targets.

“We can achieve that through constructive engagement using dialogue not hate speeches.

“We must engage ourselves because we know our challenges, and we must find ways to address them.”

Speaking, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, said that the conversation initiative was in line with the ministry’s philosophy on exchange of ideas on achievements in Nigeria.

Mohammed, who was represented by Mrs Priscilla Ihuoma, Director of Public Communication and National Orientation in the ministry, described as apt, the theme of the event entitled “Towards a peaceful, united, secured and prosperous nation”.

According to him, it is expected that this will enhance partnership for sustainable national development.

“As a philosophical plank of constructive engagement with Nigerians and significant stakeholders, the Nigeria conversation forum should project the positive image of Nigerians.

“It should draw goodwill to the country from the international community.

“As laudable as it is, it must be an added mileage to the building story of our nation,” Mohammed said.

Also speaking, Nigeria’s representative in ECOWAS, Amb. Babatunde Nurudeen, described peace as panacea not just for driving development, but for sustaining Nigeria’s democracy.

According to Nurudeen, who was also represented by Mr Adeyemi Adewale, a staff of the ECOWAS Commission, peace and unity are important concepts linked together to achieve security and development in the society.

“Therefore, considering efforts of Nigeria in strengthening security capacity, there is also need to ensure human security by providing comprehensive security approaches for the citizens of the country.

“This will complement other laudable frameworks, to achieve peace in our society,” he said.

The event featured panel discussions on peace and security, youth and women development, trade and investment, job and wealth creation. (NAN)

The remains of Francisco Franco, Spain’s former right-wing dictator, will be exhumed on Oct. 24.

The government in Madrid said on Monday, after a legal and political battle that raised divisive questions over his legacy.

The plan is to move Franco’s body from a massive mausoleum in the so-called “Valley of the Fallen”, north-west of Madrid, to a cemetery north of the city.

“Both exhumation and re-inhumation will be carried out in privacy, in the presence of Franco’s family,’’ the government said in a statement on Twitter.

Spain’s acting Socialist Government decided on the move as part of a bid to transform the “Valley of the Fallen” into a place of national reconciliation.

The exhumation will take place at a time of heightened political tension, with general elections just weeks away on Nov 10.

Originally a memorial erected by Franco himself in honour of those who died on his side of the Spanish Civil War, the site has become a pilgrimage site for Franco followers and right-wing extremists.

Franco’s family lost a legal battle to keep the dictator’s remains in the Valley of the Fallen or have them taken to a family burial site in the Almudena Cathedral in central Madrid.

Franco ruled Spain from 1939, when his forces won the Spanish Civil War, until his death in 1975.

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) Downing Street has dismissed reports of disagreements within Boris Johnson’s government over how to move forward with the Brexit process.

No 10 has indicated the PM will seek a snap poll if the EU proposes delaying the Brexit deadline until January.

However, some ministers are understood to want to focus on getting the PM’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament instead.

No 10 sources insisted there were no splits in the cabinet’s strategy.

The question of how to move forward with Brexit follows Tuesday’s key Commons votes, where MPs backed the prime minister’s deal at its first Parliamentary hurdle but rejected his plans to fast-track the legislation.

That defeat effectively ended any realistic prospect of the UK leaving the bloc by 31 October – something Mr Johnson has repeatedly insisted would happen under his premiership.

In response, the prime minister announced he would pause the progress of his Withdrawal Agreement Bill while he waited to hear from the EU on whether they would grant a delay to Brexit and what length it should be.

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) Traditionally conservative Northern Ireland is about to legalize both abortion and same-sex marriage, a head-snapping about-face that was imposed on the territory by the British Parliament.

The changes, bitterly resisted by anti-abortion and church groups, were mandated in an amendment to a routine bill on governance of Northern Ireland that Parliament passed in July amid a power vacuum created by the collapse of the region’s governing assembly nearly three years ago.

The amendment will go into effect at midnight on Monday, weeks after the High Court in Belfast rebuffed a legal challenge, ruling that Northern Ireland’s 158-year-old abortion laws are incompatible with the United Kingdom’s human rights commitments.

The judgment was a major victory for women’s rights activists, who had felt left behind after the Republic of Ireland voted to legalize abortion last year.

Although Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, and the majority of its people say they would like abortion to be made available, the regional power-sharing government had blocked abortion reform before collapsing in 2017 over sectarian divides.