Wednesday, March 27, 2019
The Trump Administration – What If This IS Who We Are?
Jamal Khashoggi: The Silencing of a Journalist | Al Jazeera World
On the same day, a 15-man Saudi hit squad had allegedly flown to Istanbul. All the evidence points to Khashoggi's murder, suggesting that his body was first dismembered and then disposed of.
The killing of the well-known journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has resonated around the world, both as an attack on media freedom and as a shocking insight into the workings of a secretive and repressive regime.
The horrific story has been well documented in the media but there are still pieces missing and serious questions remaining unanswered: What happened to the body? Why did two weeks pass before Turkish investigators were allowed into the consulate to examine forensic evidence? And who was ultimately responsible for the killing?
Al Jazeera Arabic's Tamer Almisshal goes to Istanbul to try and find answers. He has pieced together the chronology of events - and examined the theories as to what may have happened to Khashoggi's body.
In mid-March, Saudi Arabia announced it had started court proceedings against those it believes were involved. The Kingdom still refuses to agree to a UN-led investigation, and despite the volume of powerful evidence, we still don't know whether those ultimately responsible for Khashoggi's death will ever be openly held to account.
Bomben auf die Schweiz - «Luftschutzmässiges Verhalten hätte Menschenleben gerettet.»
Guy Verhofstadt Compares Nigel Farage to Blackadder Character
Fears of No Brexit Drive Hardliners to May's Side
George Osborne 'I’ve Sat Down and Had a Drink with Theresa May Since All of This' | British GQ
OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Pay $270 Million Legal Settlement That Will Fund Addiction Center
Opinion: I’m Glad I Left Brexit Britain. My EU Friends Who Didn’t Are Stuck In Limbo
Almost every Brexit lie has been debunked over the past two years for the British population, and now it’s EU citizens’ turn. Surprise, surprise: your rights will likely not be protected as the government once promised. For the very few who still had hope that Brexit would not affect them this may come as a shock and cause serious concern about their future in the UK. For me, it is reassurance that I did the right thing in leaving the UK last September.
From the beginning I had zero trust in a government made up of vicious liars and buffoons. After the leave campaign pushed racist stereotypes and blamed all the country’s problems on the EU, how could I believe they really cared about people from the continent? So last year I did the only logical thing, packed my bag and bought a one-way ticket to Madrid where life is good and the weather is sunny. Ever since, I have been watching the Brexit chaos from a safe distance and can only say that I am shocked. The impossibility of striking a deal acceptable to every side, because of the backstop issue, the EU’s constant overstepping of so-called red lines and the Tory government’s obvious incompetence – if the fate of the country I enjoyed living in wasn’t so sad, it would be entertaining. » | Oliver Imhof | Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Opinion: Amoral and Venal: Britain’s Governing Class Has Lost All Sense of Duty
Even as doodlebugs smashed into the surrounding streets, George Orwell consoled himself with this thought: “One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed.” Present those who governed us with an existential crisis, he argued in his essay England Your England, and they would do what they believed to be right for the country.
Almost eight decades later, the UK stands on the verge of a calamity as great as any since the war. Whatever the protestations in parliament, we could within days crash-land into a world of medicine shortages and food riots. And where are our political classes? According to the lobby correspondents, Monday’s cabinet meeting was spent war-gaming general election strategiesand thinking how to timetable voting so as to “scare” Labour. Wherever the national interest actually featured, it was buried under a thick dollop of party interest.
Sunday afternoon was Theresa May’s crisis summit at Chequers, to which Iain Duncan Smith came as Toad of Toad Hall, complete with open-top vintage sports car and cloth cap. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s chosen passenger was his 12-year-old son, Peter, because a national crisis evidently created the perfect occasion for bring-your-child-to-work day. Boris Johnson rocked up in his Spaffmobile before chuntering back to London to publish a columndumping all over the woman with whom he’d just been talking, dubbing her “chicken” and saying she had “bottled it”. (One of the columns, if it’s not too unseemly to mention, for which the Telegraph pays him £275,000 a year.) The BBC reports that these men refer to themselves as the Grand Wizards. Since that is an honorific used by the Ku Klux Klan, the best can be said is they have put as much thought into their nicknames as they ever did into the Irish backstop.
This is how today’s governing classes comport themselves, while the country teeters on the edge of a cliff: they behave with neither care nor caution, let alone concern for the welfare of the nation. These people are laughing at us, even as they take our money to go about their daily business. » | Aditya Chakrabortty | Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Could Banning Menthol Cigarettes Have Deadly, Unintended Consequences?
EU Cannot Betray 'Increasing Majority' Who Want UK to Remain, Says Tusk
Donald Tusk has issued a rallying call to the “increasing majority” of British people who want to cancel Brexit and stay in the EU.
In a stirring intervention, the European council president has praised those who marched on the streets of London and the millions who are petitioning the government to revoke article 50.
Speaking to the European parliament, Tusk reprimanded those who voiced concerns about a potential lengthy extension to article 50 in the event of the Commons rejecting the withdrawal agreement again this week.
Tusk said: “Let me make one personal remark to the members of this parliament. Before the European council, I said that we should be open to a long extension if the UK wishes to rethink its Brexit strategy, which would of course mean the UK’s participation in the European parliament elections. And then there were voices saying that this would be harmful or inconvenient to some of you.
“Let me be clear: such thinking is unacceptable. You cannot betray the 6 million people who signed the petition to revoke article 50, the 1 million people who marched for a people’s vote, or the increasing majority of people who want to remain in the European Union.”
To heckling from Ukip MEPs, Tusk went on: “They may feel that they are not sufficiently represented by the UK parliament, but they must feel that they are represented by you in this chamber. Because they are Europeans.” » | Daniel Boffey in Brussels | Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
The $16m New York Penthouse Fit for a UK Civil Servant
The government has bought a $15.9m (£12m) seven bedroom luxury New York apartment for a senior British civil servant charged with signing fresh trade deals in a post-Brexit world, the Guardian can reveal.
The foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt oversaw the purchase of a 5,893 sq ft (574 sq metre) apartment as the official residence for Antony Phillipson, the UK trade commissioner for North America and consul general in New York. The apartment occupies the whole of the 38th floor of 50 United Nations Plaza, a 42-storey luxury tower near the UN headquarters in Manhattan.
The 167 metre tower, designed by the firm of celebrated British architect Norman Foster is described as “the ultimate global address”, and was also home to Nikki Haley when she served as the US ambassador to the UN until December 2018. » | Rupert Neate, Wealth correspondent | Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Theresa May Is Effectively Gone. She Is a Leader in Name Only
Brexit is the biggest peacetime crisis we have faced and a no-deal Brexit could provoke a national emergency. The depth and scale of the divisions and the narrowness of the majority in favour of leaving the EU mean that the most sensible step would be to put the issue on hold, complete the negotiations and then hold a referendum. Sadly, that option is not available.
But it is in the next phase of negotiations that the details of the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be fleshed out. Depending on what happens in those negotiations, either we will see virtually no change to our current status – in which case, what is the point of leaving? Or, as is much more likely, the Brexiteers will demand significant changes to reflect their own views – views that will appal and frighten much of the electorate when they realise the enormity of what is being done. In essence, Brexiteers want to dismantle much of what we regard as the underpinning of civilised life in the modern world.
A referendum now would at least give people the chance to react to the realisation that the easy and facile promises of three years ago have evaporated. £350m a week for the NHS has become a £39bn severance cost to leave the EU, every penny of it to be borrowed by the current political generation, but to be repaid by the young people coming after them. » | Michael Heseltine | Monday, March 25, 2019
Is Trump Changing US Policy in the Middle East? | Inside Story
Israel captured the territory in 1967 and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally. So is Trump helping or hindering peace in the Middle East?
Presenter: Nick Clark | Guests: Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy at the American University of Beirut; Guillaume Charron, director of the advisory firm Independent Diplomat; Eugene Kontorovich, international law professor at the Kohelet Policy Forum who advised both the Israeli and American governments on the Occupied Golan Heights
Russia Obsession Let Trump Abandon Nuclear Treaties—Wilkerson and Jay
Monday, March 25, 2019
Has Mueller Investigation Vindicated Trump? | Inside Story
No he didn't. That's the result of the two-year investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But investigators can't give a definitive answer on whether the President obstructed justice or not.
Trump was quick to tweet: No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT! But leading Democrats say the summary of the report - by Attorney General William Barr - ‘raises as many questions as it answers’. They're demanding full access to what else the report says. But will that report be released?
Presenter: Hazem Sika | Guests: J-D Gordon, National Security Director on Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential Campaign; Jeannie Zaino, professor at Iona College; David Goodfriend, lawyer who previously served as Deputy Staff Secretary to President Bill Clinton
Brussels Confirms Return of Border Checks under No-deal Brexit
British travellers will get a stamp in their passport every time they enter and leave the European Union in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the European commission has confirmed.
The announcement on border checks was revealed days after the British government secured a short extension that shifts the Brexit deadline to 12 April.
“The risk of a no-deal scenario is becoming increasingly likely,” an EU official said. The EU’s Brexit no-deal plans “cannot replicate the benefits of being an EU member” and were not “mini-deals or a negotiated no deal”, but unilateral measures to avoid disruption for the EU side, the official said.
In an information notice, the commission confirmed that in the event of a no-deal UK nationals would have the right to visa-free travel for short stays in the EU (90 days in any 180-day period), if the UK grants the same arrangement to citizens of all EU member states. “Your passport will be stamped both when you enter the EU and when you leave it, so that this period of 90 days, which is visa-free, can be calculated.”
British travellers would also lose access to the EU lane at border crossings, meaning longer queues.
In another return to the past, British travellers may be asked by border guards to provide information on the purpose of their visit and means of subsistence during their stay. Luggage would be subject to customs checks. » | Jennifer Rankin in Brussels | Monday, March 25, 2019
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