LONDON: A group of British ex-servicemen — including the son of a Conservative lawmaker — have arrived in Ukraine bent on fighting Russians, despite UK government warnings against joining the war.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss appeared to give Britons license to join up when she said on February 27: “Absolutely, if that’s what they wanted to do.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and the head of the armed forces have all disowned Truss’s comment, and she reversed herself Wednesday.
Foreign Office advice warns against all travel to Ukraine, and Britons wanting to help should rather donate money to a national fundraising appeal, she told a news conference in Washington.
“What I said the other week was expressing support for the Ukrainian cause. They are fighting a just war, and we are doing all we can to support them,” Truss said.
But Ben Grant, 30, who served for five years as a Royal Marines commando, is among seven British former soldiers who arrived in Ukraine over the weekend, The Guardian reported.
His mother, Helen Grant, is a Conservative lawmaker and former minister who is Johnson’s special envoy on girls’ education.
Ben Grant, a father of three, said he had not informed his mother before going, following a stint working in Iraq as a private security contractor.
Speaking to The Guardian in Lviv railway station before boarding a train for Kyiv, he said he chose to go after viewing television footage of a bombed house in Ukraine where a child could be heard screaming.
“In total we have another 100 people coming, so this will be really good when they all get here — different backgrounds, some of them are very, very specialist,” Grant said.
He said he was undeterred by Russia’s warnings that “foreign mercenaries” taken captive by its forces in Ukraine would not be treated as prisoners of war.
“If it comes to me being able to end my life before getting captured, I probably would do that,” he said. “I mentally prepared myself for that, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
While Grant’s group are ex-servicemen, The Sun newspaper reported that a 19-year-old member of the Coldstream Guards was among up to four missing British soldiers believed to have gone to Ukraine.
Among its duties, the elite regiment provides protection for Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, west of London.
The Coldstreams are the oldest continuously serving regiment in the British Army, and fought against Russia in the 1853-56 Crimean War.
In parliament on Wednesday, Wallace said any serving personnel who have gone to Ukraine “will be breaking the law and they will be prosecuted when they return for going absent without leave or deserting.”
For other Britons, the defense secretary said: “We strongly discourage them from joining these forces.
“The Ukrainians are very clear: you turn up, you are in it for the whole game. You are not in it for a selfie and six weeks, you are in it for real,” added Wallace, who is a former Scots Guard officer.
UK Conservative’s son joins Ukraine war despite warnings
https://arab.news/mqyf9
UK Conservative’s son joins Ukraine war despite warnings
- Ben Grant is among seven British former soldiers who arrived in Ukraine over the weekend — his mother, Helen Grant, is a Conservative lawmaker
- Grant, 30, a father of three, said he had not informed his mother before going, following a stint working in Iraq as a private security contractor
UK’s Sunak hurt and angry over Reform volunteer’s racial slur
“My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing Paki,” Sunak told broadcasters
STOCKTON-ON-TEES, England: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was hurt and angry that a supporter of Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party had been recorded making a racial slur about him, saying it was too important for him not to speak out.
Sunak, Britain’s first ethnic-minority prime minister, was responding to comments broadcast by Channel 4 News, by a man named as Andrew Parker calling Sunak a “f… Paki” — a British racial slur for people of South Asian descent.
Sunak was born in the southern English port city of Southampton in 1980 to Hindu parents of Punjabi Indian descent.
“My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing Paki. It hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer,” Sunak told broadcasters on Friday.
“I don’t repeat those words lightly, I do so deliberately because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is.”
Parker provided a statement to Channel 4 News, in response to them saying they would broadcast the video that was taken without his knowledge, saying that no one at Reform was aware of his personal views on immigration.
“I would therefore like to apologize profusely to Nigel Farage and the Reform Party if my personal views have reflected badly on them and brought them into disrepute as this was not my intention,” he said.
“I offered to help the Reform Party on their canvassing as I believe that they are the only party that offer the UK voter a practical solution to the illegal immigration problem that we have in the UK.”
In the Channel 4’s video, Parker says: “I’ve always been a Tory (Conservative) voter but what annoys me is that f… Paki we’ve got in. What good is he? You tell me, you know. He’s just wet. F… useless.”
Farage said in a statement late on Thursday, when the comments were first broadcast, that he was dismayed by the language. On Friday he said on Twitter: “We now learn that he is an actor by profession.
“This whole episode does not add up.”
Reuters could not immediately reach Parker for comment. Channel 4 News said in a statement that they covertly filmed Parker and did not know him before they met him as a Reform volunteer.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was hurt and angry that a supporter of Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party had been recorded making a racial slur about him, saying it was too important for him not to speak out. (AFP/File)
Russian military says it took control of settlement of Rozdolivka in eastern Ukraine
- Russia’s “Southern” military grouping had taken up what it called more favorable positions
MOSCOW: Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Rozdolivka in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said on Friday.
The ministry said in a statement that Russia’s “Southern” military grouping had taken up what it called more favorable positions after pushing Ukrainian forces out of the settlement, which is located in the Donetsk region.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield report and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
‘Turn mosques into pubs’: UK campaigner airs Islamophobic views in secret recording
- Canvasser for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party: Migrants should be used for ‘target practice’
- ‘If you don’t know about Islam, it is the most disgusting cult out,’ he tells undercover reporter
London: A campaigner for Nigel Farage, the Reform Party leader in the UK, has called for mosques to be “turned into Wetherspoons pubs,” The Times reported on Friday.
The comments add to wider controversy over the behavior of Reform candidates and officials.
An undercover reporter from Channel 4 filmed the canvasser, Andrew Parker, in Clacton, the seat Farage is targeting at next week’s general election.
Parker gives advice to the reporter ahead of meeting voters in the coastal town. “Use the word ‘illegal.’ Emphasise ‘illegal’ especially if you open the door and there’s a bunch of P***s,” he said.
Parker added: “I tell you what, if you don’t know about Islam, it is the most disgusting cult out. We’re kicking all the Muslims out of the mosques and turning them into Wetherspoons.”
In one conversation with a resident on a doorstep, he called for the army to use migrants for “target practice” as a method to end illegal immigration.
“You’ve got Deal (barracks), haven’t you. The place near Dover. Army recruitment. Get the young recruits there, yeah, with guns on the beach, target practice … just shoot them,” he said.
Parker also referred to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as a “f***ing P***” in the footage aired by Channel 4.
Farage described the comments as “appalling” and said Reform will end its association with Parker.
The sentiments “expressed by some in these exchanges bear no relation to my own views, those of the vast majority of our supporters or Reform UK policy,” Farage added.
Parker told Channel 4: “I would like to make it clear that neither Nigel Farage personally or the Reform Party are aware of my personal views on immigration.
“I have never discussed immigration with either Nigel Farage or the Reform Party and any comments made by me during those recordings are my own personal views on any subject I commented on.
“At no time before I was sent out to canvass did I discuss my personal views with any representative of the Reform Party or Nigel Farage.”
Bangladesh prepares to send 1,300 drivers to Dubai this year
- Plan is to employ 2,000 Bangladeshi drivers annually from next year
- UAE is main source of remittance inflows to Bangladesh
DHAKA: Bangladesh is preparing to send 1,300 taxi and motorcycle drivers to Dubai by the end of 2024, the government has said, as the UAE plans to recruit hundreds more in subsequent years.
More than 1.2 million Bangladeshi nationals live and work in the UAE, which has the second-highest base of workers from Bangladesh after Saudi Arabia. Most of them are employed in the construction, manufacturing and service sectors, including transportation.
State Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury and the UAE’s ambassador to Dhaka, Abdulla Ali Al-Hamoudi, discussed the employment of drivers on Thursday, following the minister’s talks with Dubai transportation stakeholders last month.
“One of them was a meeting with Dubai Taxi. As a result of that meeting, Dubai Taxi Corp. has already started recruiting skilled workers,” Chowdhury said.
“The United Arab Emirates will hire 1,300 taxi and motorcycle drivers from Bangladesh this year. Among them, there are 1,000 motorcycle drivers and 300 taxi drivers.”
The number is going to increase in subsequent years.
“(The UAE) will hire at least 2,000 taxi and motorcycle drivers from next year,” Chowdhury said.
Shariful Hasan, associate director of the Migration Program at BRAC — Bangladesh’s largest development organization — told Arab News that the new recruitment plan was a “positive” development.
“There is a good demand for Bangladeshi drivers in the Middle Eastern countries. A significant number of Bangladeshis are already working in Dubai with much goodwill,” he said.
“As we have plenty of skilled drivers, Bangladesh can meet this demand easily … I believe that in the coming days, Bangladeshi drivers will be recruited in more numbers in the Middle Eastern countries.”
The UAE is the leading source of remittance inflows to Bangladesh, with $3.65 billion remitted between July 2023 and April 2024, 52 percent more than in the equivalent period a year earlier.
Since 2013, the UAE has been recruiting only skilled workers from Bangladesh, which according to Hasan was the right approach.
“Instead of sending 1.3-1.4 million unskilled laborers annually, it’s much better to send 150,000-200,000 skilled workers,” he said.
“These skilled workforces will earn a better salary and build a better image for the country.”
War of words rages at UN over women, gender rights
- UN rights chief Volker Turk has long warned of “systematic” efforts to strip women of their hard-won rights.
- A range of African countries also figure among those taking part in efforts to remove language on gender rights from UN texts
Geneva: After warning of increasing attacks on women and gender rights around the world, the UN finds itself a key arena for a war of words over how those rights are defined.
UN rights chief Volker Turk has long warned of “systematic” efforts to strip women of their hard-won rights.
Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council last week, he highlighted extreme cases like Afghanistan and Iran, but warned the pushback was happening worldwide.
“No country is immune from regression in women’s rights,” he said, also decrying “ongoing discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”
The UN itself has meanwhile become a key battleground in the fight.
Diplomats describe growing efforts to remove references to women’s rights or to sexual orientation and gender identity that had long gone uncontested in resolutions and texts across the UN system.
“What we’re seeing is a concerted effort to push back on issues related to gender and sexual orientation and gender identity in ... the work of international organizations in Geneva broadly,” said a woman diplomat based in Geneva, who asked not to be named.
Gurchaten Sandhu, program director at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), described “coordinated efforts” of various actors “to push back on equality.”
“There is a heightened sense of paranoia” around any gender-related terms used in UN texts, he told AFP.
The United Nations working group on discrimination against women and girls presented a report to the rights council this week highlighting an “escalating gender backlash” and a clear “resurgence of a conservative and retrogressive narrative in international fora.”
Reacting to the report, Russian representative Ilia Barmin told the council Thursday that his country regretted that the text contained “controversial concepts,” including on the right to reproductive and sexual health.
“There is no such right in international law,” he insisted, adding that Russia also opposed the inclusion of “new categories of human rights” in the report, like “the right to bodily autonomy.”
The rights council is not the only UN forum where words are being hotly debated.
The World Health Organization’s decision-making assembly last month was for instance forced for the first time to take a resolution to a vote instead of adopting it by consensus due to opposition over gender-related terminology.
A conservative alliance of countries, including Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia, balked at the term “gender-responsive” in the text, although they ultimately failed in their bid to change it.
And last year, the UN labor agency’s budget barely passed amid a dramatic standoff over references — which had gone uncontested in previous budgets — to discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The tensions have especially pitted mainly Western countries against conservative, largely Muslim states.
But Sandhu warned it would be “a mistake to think it’s coming from one direction.”
A range of African countries also figure among those taking part in efforts to remove language on gender rights from UN texts.
So too do Russia and China, although observers suggested their motivations are less about conviction than a desire to build alliances and to upset Western opponents.
Others highlight the Vatican’s role.
“The earliest reference to ‘gender ideology’ as a dangerous, subversive phenomenon that needed to be stopped came from the Vatican,” said Erin Kilbride, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.
Pope Francis earlier this year doubled down on the issue, publishing a document listing gender theory among the world’s “grave violations of human dignity.”
Lobbying by “anti-rights groups” is also on the rise at the UN, the woman diplomat said.
The groups, typically funded by Gulf states, Russia and influential US religious movements, had become “increasingly vocal and coordinated,” she warned.
They were pushing talking points on traditional gender roles, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ rights on countries, which then use them in UN debates, she added.
A Western diplomat, who asked not to be named, decried “a very strong offensive.”
There is a group of countries, he warned, “intent on felling a whole host of social rights gained over the past 30 years.”
