LONDON: Prime Minister Keir Starmer will set out plans on Thursday to deliver on his priorities to raise living standards and rebuild Britain in a speech he hopes will draw a line under what even some of his supporters say has been a bumpy start to government.
Five months since his Labour Party swept back to power with a landslide win, Starmer wants to turn the page on criticism of his government on everything from its use of campaign donations to a tax-raising budget which prompted an outcry from businesses and farmers.
He will use Thursday’s speech to plot out when Britain can expect to start seeing progress his government has promised in a range of areas, including hospital backlogs, increasing police numbers, improving education and securing home-grown energy.
Called the government’s ‘plan for change’, he is expected to set out a reform program for Britain’s overly stretched public services to try to restore trust in politics, eroded by years of chaos and scandal under the Conservatives and further deepened by Labour’s missteps in its first few months in power.
“My government was elected to deliver change, and today marks the next step. People are tired of being promised the world, but short-term sticking plaster politics letting them down,” Starmer will say, according to excerpts of his speech provided by his office.
“My mission-led government will deliver.”
Labour campaigned before the July 4 election on five missions — boosting economic growth, accelerating steps toward reaching net zero, reducing waiting times in the state-run health service, tackling crime and improving education.
His first measures on Thursday will include a move to give communities a named, contactable police officer to deal with local issues, his office said, part of a pledge to add a further 13,000 police in neighborhood roles.
“This marks a return to the founding principles of British policing — where officers are part of the communities they serve,” interior minister Yvette Cooper said in a statement.
“Through this visible, responsive police presence in every neighborhood, we will restore the trust and partnership that lies at the heart of keeping our communities safe.”
Under pressure, UK’s Starmer sets out plans to deliver on election pledges
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Under pressure, UK’s Starmer sets out plans to deliver on election pledges
UK minister defends 2013 vote against Syria military action
- Downfall of Bashar Assad reawakens debate over Western inaction
- Britain’s decision not to intervene derailed Obama’s chemical weapons ‘red line’ response
LONDON: The former leader of the UK’s Labour Party has defended his 2013 decision not to support the government in taking military action against Bashar Assad in Syria.
The British Parliament voted against attacking Syrian government targets after it used chemical weapons against a rebel-held Damascus suburb.
Labour were in opposition at the time and its MPs were directed by Ed Miliband not to support Prime Minister David Cameron’s motion in favor of striking Assad.
The UK vote derailed the US military’s response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria — something President Barack Obama had declared a “red line.”
Without the support of its main Western ally, Washington held back. Many observers believe the decision emboldened Assad and opened the way for Russia to enter the conflict in support of his government.
The downfall of Assad last weekend has reawakened the debate over whether the UK should have taken action, with Labour cabinet ministers openly disagreeing over the course taken more than 10 years ago.
On Thursday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who was not an MP at the time, told a BBC politics TV show that “if the West had acted faster, Assad would have been gone.”
He added: “The hesitation of this country and the US created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer.”
Miliband, who is now energy secretary, said on Friday that his cabinet colleague was wrong.
Miliband said the decision not to support military strikes against Assad was grounded in the lessons learned from the 2003 Iraq invasion.
“The decision I was confronted with in 2013 was whether we did a bombing of President Assad without any clear plan for British military engagement, where it would lead and what it would mean,” Miliband told Times Radio.
“And I believe then, and I do now, that one of the most important lessons of the Iraq War is we shouldn’t go into military intervention without a clear plan, including an exit strategy.”
Miliband said that when President Donald Trump ordered bombing raids on Syria in 2017 in response to another chemical weapons attack, it did not lead to the downfall of Assad.
“So when people say that somehow if we bombed President Assad in 2013 he would have toppled over, frankly, it’s just wrong,” he said.
The fall of the Assad government after a lightning offensive by opposition militants has further revealed the extent of the suffering in Syria under his rule, leading to soul-searching in capitals around the world.
The Syrian War, which started in 2011 as anti-government protests, killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million.
Somalia, Ethiopia urged to swiftly implement agreement
- Mogadishu and Addis Ababa have been at loggerheads over Somaliland region
ADDIS ABABA: The African Union has urged Ethiopia and Somalia to implement “without delay” an agreement aimed at ending tensions between the neighbors over Ethiopia’s access to the sea, calling the deal an “important act.”
The two countries have been at loggerheads since landlocked Ethiopia struck a deal in January with Somalia’s breakaway region Somaliland to lease a stretch of coastline for a port and military base.
In return, Somaliland — which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 in a move not recognized by Mogadishu — said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition, although this was never confirmed by Addis Ababa.
Somalia branded the deal a violation of its sovereignty, setting international alarm bells ringing over the risk of renewed conflict in the volatile region.
Following hours of Turkish-brokered talks, Ankara announced late Wednesday that an “historic” agreement had been reached between Somalia and Ethiopia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he believed the agreement would help Ethiopia gain its long-desired access to the sea. Technical talks are set for next year.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had flown into Ankara for the talks following two previous rounds that made little progress.
Speaking in the Turkish capital after the agreement, Mohamud said the neighbors had “mutual interests in cooperating together.”
“We belong to a region where peace and stability is first priority for our people’s lives,” he said.
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat stressed the “important act” taken by the leaders to find a deal but emphasized the urgency to “implement, without delay, the relevant measures adopted.”
He did not give any indication in the statement, posted on social media platform X, of what measures had been agreed.
East Africa’s regional bloc IGAD (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development) also welcomed the agreement as an “important step.”
It “demonstrates a commitment to resolving bilateral
issues amicably,” IGAD Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu said.
According to the text of the accord published by Turkiye, the parties agreed “to put aside differences of opinion and contentious issues, and to move resolutely forward in cooperation toward common prosperity.”
They agreed to work closely together on commercial arrangements and bilateral agreements that would ensure Ethiopia’s “reliable, safe and sustainable access” to the sea “under the sovereign authority of the Federal Republic of Somalia.”
To that end, it said they would start technical talks no later than the end of February which would be completed “within four months,” with any differences to be dealt with “through dialogue, where necessary with Turkiye’s support.”
Both top US diplomat Antony Blinken and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in separate statements, looked ahead to negotiations to finalize the accord.
Blinken said the agreement reaffirms “each country’s sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity.”
Guterres thanked Erdogan for his role and looked forward to “a positive outcome to the process,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
There was no detail in the text published by Turkiye on how the agreement might impact the controversial memorandum of understanding between Somaliland and Ethiopia, which has never been made public.
Ethiopian authorities did not immediately respond to AFP’s requests for comment about the future of the agreement with Somaliland.
A source close to the Somaliland government said nothing had changed regarding the agreement with Ethiopia, noting: “Agreeing to work together to resolve their dispute is not the same as walking away from the MOU.”
While Abiy has repeatedly insisted that his country must have coastal access, he told parliament earlier this year that Ethiopia had “no interest in getting involved in a war” over access to the sea.
In response, Mogadishu has strengthened its ties with Egypt, Ethiopia’s longtime rival.
Somalia expelled Ethiopia’s ambassador in April and said Ethiopian troops would be excluded from a new African Union peacekeeping force against Islamist Al-Shabab insurgents that is due to be deployed on January 1.
Unidentified drones spotted over German military, industrial sites
- Police did not say who they thought had launched the unmanned aerial vehicles.
- “In recent days, several drone flights have been detected over critical infrastructure in Rhineland-Palatinate state,” a regional police spokesman said
BERLIN: German authorities said Friday that unidentified drones had been spotted flying over sensitive military and industrial sites including the US Ramstein air base.
The reports come after German officials have repeatedly voiced alarm about the threat of Russian spying as the Ukraine war heightens tensions between Moscow and NATO.
However, police did not say who they thought had launched the unmanned aerial vehicles.
“In recent days, several drone flights have been detected over critical infrastructure in Rhineland-Palatinate state,” a regional police spokesman told AFP.
The UAVs were first sighted at German company BASF’s plant in Ludwigshafen, known as the world’s biggest chemicals complex, the spokesman said.
“This was followed in the course of this week by drone overflights over the US air base in Ramstein,” he added.
The drones were detected at dusk and were “larger than the usual commercial hobby drones,” the spokesman said.
Police in Rhineland-Palatinate have set up a special investigative unit to look into the incidents.
There is “no concrete danger to the facilities concerned,” the spokesman said.
The sightings in Ramstein were on December 3 and 4, according to Der Spiegel magazine.
Unidentified drones have also been sighted over facilities belonging to German arms maker Rheinmetall, Der Spiegel reported, citing security services.
A source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to AFP that suspicious drones had been spotted near Rheinmetall’s largest ammunition production site at Unterluess, Lower Saxony.
Unidentified drones were also reported in August over the Bruensbuettel industrial area in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the time said the devices were surely “not there to observe the beautiful local landscape, but because there is a chemical park there and a... storage facility for nuclear waste nearby.”
Media reports said officials believed those drones were Russian reconnaissance devices.
However, investigations into the Bruensbuettel sightings have so far shown no indications of espionage, according to a report from the ARD broadcaster on Friday.
German officials have repeatedly raised the alarm in recent months about Russian spying and “hybrid warfare,” including acts of sabotage and disinformation in the campaign toward February general elections.
Top Indian actor arrested after death of fan at film premiere
- Allu Arjun appeared at the film premiere in the Indian city of Hyderabad on December 4
- As fans clamoured to meet him, a 39-year-old woman died and her son was critically injured
HYDERABAD: A top movie actor in southern India was arrested on Friday, a week after a woman died and her son was seriously injured in the crush of fans that his surprise appearance at the premiere of his film provoked, police said.
Allu Arjun, prominent in the Telugu film industry, based in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where film stars are revered by die-hard fans, appeared at the film premiere in Hyderabad on Dec. 4.
As fans clamoured to meet him, a 39-year-old woman died and her nine-year-old son was critically injured. Police earlier this week arrested the owner of the theater where the incident took place, and on Friday they arrested Arjun at his residence.
He was granted bail by a local court a few hours after his arrest and he was expected to be released from prison shortly, his counsel said.
Arjun, 41, was named in the initial police complaint, which alleged that his personal security detail had tried to clear the crowd near him, causing the death of the woman who had become breathless, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.
Arjun’s counsel has denied any wrongdoing on his part, and he has publicly apologized for the incident.
Actors in southern India, which has a thriving film industry independent of Bollywood, are larger than life figures, with fan clubs who often build temples to their idols, and bathe their posters in milk during premieres.
Ukraine’s Zelensky to meet European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday
- Zelensky and some of his European allies have called for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine
- “It won’t be a meeting that has concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” said a source
BRUSSELS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a meeting with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, NATO and the EU in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss support for his country in its war with Russia, sources familiar with the plan told Reuters.
The meeting comes as European countries face the possibility of the US, Ukraine’s largest source of support, changing its approach to the conflict when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.
Zelensky and some of his European allies have called for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine to act as a deterrent to further military action by Russia after any ceasefire.
“It won’t be a meeting that has concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” said a source familiar with the meeting.
The gathering, hosted by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, will be held on the day leaders were already due to meet for the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels, and involve a joint meeting and several bilateral meetings with Zelensky.
