LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was battling to keep his party together on Thursday a day after unveiling a plan to disregard some human rights law to send migrants to Rwanda, bringing back to the fore deep divisions in his party.
Facing the biggest challenge to his year-long tenure, Sunak is trying to stop lawmakers on the Conservative Party’s right wing from rebelling over their demand that Britain should quit international treaties to set its own migration policy.
His immigration minister quit on Wednesday and he is facing questions as to whether he can get his key policy through a vote in parliament. Some Conservative lawmakers said on Thursday that Sunak could face a leadership challenge.
The prime minister was due to hold a press conference at 1100 GMT.
One Conservative politician, who reluctantly supports the Rwanda plan, said the last year had shown that his colleagues can be ruthless in removing a struggling prime minister.
“I have a feeling of deja vu,” he said.
The draft legislation comes three weeks after Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda was not a safe place to send those arriving in small boats on the southern coast of England, and that the plan would breach British and international law.
The Rwanda scheme is at the center of the government’s strategy to stop illegal migration. The court’s decision was a setback for Sunak who is struggling to revive a weak economy and is heavily trailing the main opposition party ahead of an election expected next year.
Sunak could make the vote in parliament on the new legislation next week a confidence vote — meaning that if he loses, it could trigger a national election — in an attempt to shore up party support.
So far only one Conservative lawmaker has publicly called for a no confidence vote, but she said six of her colleagues have done so privately.
To trigger a leadership challenge, 53 of the 350 Conservative lawmakers in parliament must write letters of no confidence to the chairman of the 1922 Committee.
Sunak suffered his first parliamentary defeat this week as members of parliament voted to establish a compensatory body for victims of the infected blood scandal.
The prime minister has pleaded with his party to get behind the legislation as the best chance to get flights to Rwanda leaving before the next election.
‘IT WON’T WORK’
A poll last month showed immigration was one of the three biggest issues facing the country. Only the economy and National Health Service were seen as more important.
Last year net legal migration hit a record of 745,000 people and around 45,000 arrived illegally.
Rwanda currently only has the capacity to accept a few hundred migrants from Britain, but ministers say the plan will act as a vital deterrent to discourage people from making the crossings.
The new bill will instruct judges to ignore some sections of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and provisions of domestic or international law that might deem that Rwanda was not a safe destination, though appeals by people based on specific circumstances would still be permitted.
The former interior minister Suella Braverman, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and their allies say that does not go far enough, with some wanting Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights altogether.
“I’m very concerned that the bill on the table will allow a merry-go-round of legal claims and litigation,” Braverman told BBC radio, but said no one was talking about changing the party’s leader.
“The reality is, and the solid truth is, that it won’t work and it will not stop the boats.”
UK PM Sunak faces party revolt after unveiling new Rwanda asylum plan
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UK PM Sunak faces party revolt after unveiling new Rwanda asylum plan
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- The Rwanda scheme is at the center of the government’s strategy to stop illegal migration
Venezuela says presidential opposition candidate has left country
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“After taking refuge voluntarily at the Spanish embassy in Caracas a few days ago, (Gonzalez Urrutia) asked the Spanish government for political asylum,” Venezuela’s vice president said on social media, adding that Caracas had agreed to his safe passage and that he had left.
The opposition could not immediately be reached for comment.
Venezuela has been in a political crisis since authorities declared Maduro the victor of the July 28 election. The opposition cried foul, claiming it had evidence Gonzalez Urrutia had won by a comfortable margin.
Numerous nations, including the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries, have refused to recognize Maduro as the winner without Caracas releasing detailed voting data.
After the election, Venezuelan prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Gonzalez Urrutia over his insistence that he is the rightful winner of the election.
Prior to leaving the country, he had been in hiding for a month, ignoring three successive summons to appear before prosecutors.
Post-election violence in Venezuela has claimed 27 lives and left 192 people injured while the government says it has arrested some 2,400 people.
Pope to bring in a ton of humanitarian aid to remote Papua New Guinea as he celebrates periphery
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- n estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital Port Moresby for the morning Mass
- On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families
- He urged the church leaders to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition”
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea: Pope Francis honored the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday as he celebrated Mass in Papua New Guinea before heading to a remote part of the South Pacific nation with a ton of humanitarian aid to deliver to the missionaries and faithful who live there.
An estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital Port Moresby for the morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar.
In his homily, Francis told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.
“You who live on this large island in the Pacific Ocean may sometimes have thought of yourselves as a far away and distant land, situated at the edge of the world,” Francis said. “Yet … today the Lord wants to draw near to you, to break down distances, to let you know that you are at the center of his heart and that each one of you is important to him.”
Francis was himself traveling to a distant land on Sunday, flying into remote Vanimo, on Papua New Guinea’s northwest coast, to meet with the small Catholic community there served by missionaries from his native Argentina.
Francis was being transported by an Australian military aircraft and was bringing with him one ton of humanitarian aid, including medicine, clothes and toys for children, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
Eight suitcases of medicine and other necessities had been prepared by one of the Argentine missionaries, the Rev. Alejandro Diaz, during a recent trip to Rome and left with the Vatican to bring in on the cargo plane, the ANSA news agency reported.
Francis has long prioritized the church on the “peripheries,” saying it is actually more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, Francis has largely shunned foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead far-flung communities where Catholics are often a minority.
Vanimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, the coastal city is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.
Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, has also had a special affinity for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he had hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan, but was prevented from going because of his poor health.
Now as pope, he has often held up missionaries as models for the church, especially those who have sacrificed to bring the faith to far-away places.
There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, according to Vatican statistics, out of a population in the Commonwealth nation believed to be around 10 million. The Catholics practice the faith along with traditional Indigenous beliefs, including animizm and sorcery.
On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the church leaders in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition.”
“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”
Francis’ visit to Vanimo was the highlight of his visit to Papua New Guinea, the second leg of his four-nation tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania. After first stopping in Indonesia, Francis heads on Monday to East Timor and then wraps up his visit in Singapore later in the week.
Multiple people reported hit in latest case of mass shooting in the US
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- The incident comes just days after a mass shooting at a Winder, Georgia high school that saw 4 killed and nine others wounded
LONDON, Kentucky: Multiple people were shot Saturday along Interstate 75 in a rural area of southeastern Kentucky, authorities said.
The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on Facebook that it was an “active shooter situation” and “numerous persons” were shot near the highway.
In a video statement, London Mayor Randall Weddle said was told seven people were hurt, but not all of those were wounded by gunfire. Some of the victims were injured in a vehicle accident, he said.
“There are no deceased at this time. No one was killed from this, thankfully, but we ask that you continue to pray,” Weddle said.
Hospital officials at Saint Joseph London said in a statement that the facility was treating multiple patients, LEX 18 reported. The hospital added that the ones it received had minor injuries.
The sheriff’s office also announced that a “Person of Interest” has been identified in connection with the shooting, saying he should be considered armed and dangerous and people should not approach him. The man’s name was given as Joseph A. Couch, a 32-year-old white male, and anyone with information about his location was urged to call the county 911 center.
State lawmakers from Laurel County urged residents in the area to stay home as police continued to search for the shooter. “Without a doubt, this is an act of senseless violence that does not reflect the values of this community, our Commonwealth, or its people,” they said in a statement.
A “heavy presence of police and fire personnel” was on the scene and “working diligently to address the situation,” the Mount Vernon Fire Department said in a statement. It advised motorists to avoid I-75 and US 25.
The interstate was closed 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of London but later reopened, according to the sheriff’s office.
“I am receiving initial reports from the Kentucky State Police and our Office of Homeland Security — together we are actively monitoring the situation and offering support in any way possible,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a post on the social platform X. “Please pray for everyone involved.”
“We will provide more details once they are available,” Beshear said.
London is a a small city with a population of about 8,000 located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.
Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate
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- Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term
- Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement
- Trump also warned, as he has in previous rallies, that the 2024 election could be the nation’s last
MOSINEE, Wisconsin: With just days to go before his first — and likely only — debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election, which he said would be under intense scrutiny.
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote, again sowing doubt about the integrity of the election, even though cheating is incredibly rare.
“Please beware,” he went on, “that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly.
Just days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had indeed “lost by a whisker.”
While Trump’s campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump in recent days has veered far off course.
On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.
Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.
“The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail — they want me in jail — for the crime of exposing their corruption,” Trump claimed at an outdoor rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bullet-proof glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.
There’s no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris have had any influence over decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to indict the former president.
Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparation, choosing to holding rallies and events while Harris has been cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, working with aides since Thursday.
Harris has agreed so far to a single debate, which will be hosted by ABC.
At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to “Drain the swamp” — a throwback to his winning 2016 campaign message as he ran as an outsider challenging the status quo. Though Trump spent four years in the Oval Office, he vowed anew to “cast out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “cut the fat out of our government for the first time, meaningfully, in 60 years.”
As part of that effort, he repeated his plan, announced Thursday, to create a new “Government Efficiency Commission” headed by Elon Musk that will be charged with conducting “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” to root out waste.
After again maligning the Congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s capitol by his supporters after his election loss in 2020, Trump told the crowd of thousands that he would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.
Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement.
And he said he would “completely overhaul” what he labeled “Kamala’s corrupt Department of Injustice.”
“Instead of persecuting Republicans, they will focus on taking down bloodthirsty cartels, transnational gangs, and radical Islamic terrorists,” he said.
Harris honored by support from disgruntled Republicans
Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will “use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6.”
Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.
Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win “blue wall” states. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.
As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly weeping as Harris hugged her and said, “We’re going to be fine. We’re all in this together.”
Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman.
“People are exhausted, about the division and the attempts to kind of divide us as Americans,” she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be that the country wants to be united.
“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said. “It’s time to bring our country together, to chart a new way forward.”
Trump held his rally in the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.
Senseless ramblings
During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic” ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”
Trump also railed against the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of having “imported murderers, child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet.”
Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the US dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.
He dismissed warnings from US officials about ongoing Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of November’s election, including an indictment this past week that alleged a media company linked to six conservative influencers was secretly funded by Russian state media employees.
“The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd. “And, you know, the whole world laughed at it this time.”
Among those in the crowd was Dale Osuldsen, who was celebrating his 68th birthday Saturday at his first ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump administration will take on “cancel culture” and bring the country back to its “foundational past.
“We’ve had past administrations say they want to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”
Many supporters embarked on hours-long drives from across Wisconsin to see Trump speak. Some came from even further.
Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA-themed rap music under the stage name, “King Bullethead,” blasted his songs from a truck in the event parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies approximate the experience of a raucous concert.
“Trump is a rockstar,” Moon said. “He’s incredible. People see he represents them and the deep state trying to kill him and take him out. But he’s standing strong, and he stands for the normal person.”
Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must win the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance of cutting into the Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.
Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.
Blinken to head to UK for talks on Ukraine, Mideast
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- Britain and the US have cooperated in lockstep on most global issues, but PM Starmer has taken a harder line on Israel since taking office
- Starmer has also dropped his predecessor’s plans to challenge the ICC's moves to seek the arrest of Israeli PM Netanyahu over war crimes raps
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to London next week to discuss the Middle East and Ukraine, the State Department announced Saturday, ahead of a US visit by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Blinken’s visit to London on Monday and Tuesday will be the senior-most by a US official since Starmer’s Labour Party won July elections, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.
Blinken will take part in a strategic dialogue “reaffirming our special relationship,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
He will discuss Asia as well as the Middle East and “our collective efforts to support Ukraine,” Miller said in a statement.
The White House earlier announced that Starmer will visit next Friday, his second trip to Washington since his election.
He met President Joe Biden at the White House on July 10, days after taking office, as Starmer attended a NATO summit in Washington.
Britain and the United States have cooperated in lockstep on most global issues, and Biden’s Democrats historically have been seen as closer to the Labour Party than the Conservatives.
Starmer, however, has taken a harder line on Israel since taking office, with his government announcing a suspension of some arms shipments, citing the risk that they could be used to violate humanitarian law.
The Labour government has also dropped its Conservative predecessor’s plans to challenge the right of the International Criminal Court to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and has opposed the bid to target Netanyahu, arguing that Israel has its own systems for accountability.
But the United States, Israel’s primary weapons supplier, did not criticize the arms decision, saying that Britain had its own process to make assessments.