Trump's contrasting avatars: Peace in Korea, World War in West Asia

The president giveth and he taketh away.

Donald Trump is a stern and wrathful leader. He thinks nothing of raining down fire and fury upon the enemies of his “chosen people.” Indeed, he even flirts with ending the world if he doesn’t receive due respect and the requisite number of burnt offerings. But he can also reward his followers, and those who curry his favor, with positions of power and untold riches.

This month, Trump will appear as both of these avatars. By meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump promises to wave his hand and create peace where before there was nothing but strife and dissension. At the same time, Trump the Destroyer has pledged to take the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal and bring the world that much closer to apocalypse.

It’s a peculiarly hypocritical position to take, but strangely consistent for a two-faced leader.

The deal with Iran closed off all possibility of the country going nuclear for a decade or more. A rich country, Iran could create quite a nuclear arsenal if it so wanted. Iran has abided by the terms of the current Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and yet Trump has called the deal “horrible.” Indeed, the president believes that he can “fix” the JCPOA. That’s quite a delusion.

Britain expresses regret to 12 Caribbean nations over 'Windrush' residents

Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday personally apologised to Caribbean leaders after her government threatened to deport people who emigrated to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.

At a meeting in Downing Street, May told representatives of the 12 Caribbean members of the Commonwealth that she took the treatment of the so-called Windrush generation "very seriously".

"I want to apologise to you today. Because we are genuinely sorry for any anxiety that has been caused," she told the hastily-convened gathering.

She added: "I want to dispel any impression that my government is in some sense clamping down on Commonwealth citizens, particularly those from the Caribbean." The government has faced outrage for its treatment of people who came to Britain between 1948, when the ship Windrush brought over the first group of West Indian immigrants, and the early 1970s.

They and their parents were invited to help rebuild Britain after World War II and with many of them legally British -- they were born while their home countries were still colonies -- they were given indefinite leave to remain.

UK's Theresa May sets out vision for frictionless trade after Brexit

British Prime Minister Theresa May called for a deep partnership with the European Union after Brexit, setting out ambitions for a tailor-made deal including financial services but accepting EU regulation of chemicals, medicines and aerospace industries.

In an attempt to add detail to Britain's negotiation on leaving the EU, May mixed concessions with a plea for a deal that would keep trade flowing between the world's biggest trade bloc and Britain's $2.7 trillion economy.

May proposed having either a customs partnership, where Britain would implement EU tariffs on its border for goods intended for the EU but could set different ones for goods going elsewhere, or a streamlined customs arrangement, where jointly implemented measures would minimise frictions to trade.

But she also proposed Britain having access to the EU's financial markets in return for having similar standards to those of the EU, which would in turn keep access to Europe's biggest and deepest markets in London.

Social media corroding civil discourse: Obama tells Prince Harry

Former US President Barack Obama told Britain's Prince Harry he was concerned social media was "corroding civil discourse", in what he said was his first interview since leaving the White House, aired on Wednesday.

"One of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities," he told the prince, who was guest editing BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases. Things aren't as simple as they've been portrayed in whatever chat room you've been in," he added.

"The question has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows a multiplicity of voices, allows a diversity of views, but doesn't lead to a Balkanisation of society and allows ways of finding common ground."

The interview was recorded in Toronto, Canada, in September on the sidelines of the Invictus Games, the athletic tournament created by Harry for wounded former soldiers.

Despite admitting concern over the future of the US, Obama, who did not mention his successor Donald Trump by name, said he felt a sense of "serenity" on leaving the White House.

"There was a sense that we had run a good race," he added.

On his new routine, Obama told the prince: "I wake up later, it's wonderful to be able to control your day."
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Blow to May: UK minister Priti Patel quits over unofficial meets in Israel

Priti Patel, Britain's overseas development secretary, resigned late on Wednesday after meeting Prime Minister Theresa May at 10 Downing Street.

May had ordered Patel to cut short an official visit to Africa and return to London following reports she had held unauthorized meetings with Israeli officials, XInhua reported.

Her resignation was the second major blow within days for May following the resignation of the defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon in the so-called "sex pest" scandal that has currently engulfed British politics.

The fate of May's deputy, First Secretary Damian Green, has yet to be decided with an ongoing investigation into allegations made against him which he denies.

May has also faced calls this week from the main opposition Labor Party to fire Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over his handling of a case involving a British-Iranian national, jailed for allegedly spying in Iran.

Political commentators in London say the troubles surrounding May's front bench team could not have happened at a worst time. She heads a minority government with opinion divided in her own party over Britain's future relationship with the European Union.

Patel, seen as a rising star in Conservative politics and a future leader, caused anger at Westminster over a series of unauthorized meetings with officials of the Israeli government, including a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Britain better fix its identity crisis fast - or risk a disastrous Brexit

There are lots of productive ways to analyse Brexit – why it happened, how it’s developing, and how it might turn out. One of the most interesting is to use the idea of an identity to understand both why the process is proving so painful for the UK, and also why the rest of Europe still seems so confused about why the UK is engaging in this process at all.

Identity is one of those concepts that we’re all familiar with on the surface, but would probably struggle to define. Here, we’re going to define it broadly as the image an actor has of themselves. We all imagine ourselves to be a certain person – an image we make up of lots of individual components. We are English, we are a Grimsby Town fan, a gamer, and so on. Those components are what we call roles, and together they create our identity.

Countries, such as the UK, have identities too. They imagine themselves to be some things, and tell themselves and others that they are those things. Comb through the speeches of any British politician and you’ll find an argument as to what the UK is, and what it can be, based on that imagined self. For example, see Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech in January 2017, where she laid out her plan for Brexit. She argued that the UK’s “history and culture is profoundly internationalist”, and that that positioned it very well to build a “truly global Britain”.
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Jihadi jails: To curb radicalisation, UK opens new prisons for extremists

The UK has begun moving its most extremist prisoners, including those who have been involved in planning terrorism, to special cells dubbed "jihadi jails" to tackle growing radicalisation within the country's prison system.

The first such specialist centre has been set up at HMP Frankland near Durham in north-east England.

Two other centres, which are expected to be at HMP Full Sutton near York and at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire, are due to open in the coming months and the three centres together will hold up to 28 of the most subversive extremist prisoners.

"Any form of extremism must be defeated wherever it is found, and it is right that we separate those who pose the greatest risk in order to limit their influence over other prisoners," said UK's Prison Minister Sam Gyimah.

"These centres are a crucial part of our wider strategy to help tackle extremism in prisons and ensure the safety and security of both our prisons and the wider public," he said.

The mental health of the inmates being considered for referral to the units must be examined and each will have a care and management plan, and their placement will be reviewed every three months.

The UK's Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said those selected for separation in the specialist centres include those who have been involved in planning terrorism or are considered to pose a risk to national security.
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Can a minority Conservative government survive? Let's look at the maths

Following the unexpected failure of the Conservatives to secure a majority in Theresa May’s snap general election, the UK has its second hung parliament in seven years. With 318 seats, the Conservatives fell eight seats short of a majority, though in reality, they are four short, given the abstentionist policy of Sinn Féin, which won seven seats. Labour, with 262 seats, fell short by 60. Attention naturally focused first on whether the Conservatives could form a government.

The available options were a formal coalition with another party or a Conservative minority government. The prospects of a Conservative-led coalition were limited. After the damage inflicted on the Liberal Democrats by their coalition deal with the Conservatives in 2010-15, the centrist party ruled out any reprise. There was also no chance of a Conservative deal with the Scottish National Party (SNP), which won 35 seats but which is resolutely opposed to the Tories on both constitutional and economic questions. It appears that no one has even contemplated a grand coalition between Labour and the Conservatives, an arrangement that works in Germany but which is alien to the UK other than in wartime.

That left one coalition option for the Conservatives – involving Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which won ten seats. While that would have locked in the DUP to unpopular decisions, it appears to have been opposed by many Conservatives. It would have been a particularly difficult pill to swallow for those critical of the DUP’s socially conservative stance on same-sex marriage and abortion.

Theresa May, the prime minister, has therefore sought to form a minority government, relying on support from the DUP. If it entails a “supply-and-confidence” agreement, then the DUP would support the government in confidence votes, including the Queen’s speech (which sets out the government’s legislative programme), and on financial votes, particularly the budget. All other votes would be decided on a case-by-case basis. In return, the DUP would hope to extract some policy concessions, probably on public spending and welfare.
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French President Macron says 'door always open' for UK to stay in EU

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that the door was "always open" for Britain to remain in the European Union after Prime Minister Theresa May said Brexit talks would begin next week.

"Of course the door is always open as long as the negotiations on Brexit have not finished," Macron said in a press conference.

But he also stressed that he respected the sovereign decision of the British people to leave the EU in their referendum a year ago, adding that the start of talks was an important milestone.

"We need to be clear and organised and once it (the Brexit process) has started we need to be collectively clear that it's more difficult to reverse course," he said at the Elysee Palace.

Macron's comments echoed others by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

"If they wanted to change their decision, of course, they would find open doors, but I think it's not very likely," Schaeuble told Bloomberg Television.

May repeated her plans to stick to her timetable of starting discussions next week despite ongoing negotiations to form a government.
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Brexit talks 'on course' and will begin next week : Theresa May

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday that the timetable for Brexit remained "on course" and talks would begin next week.

Speaking at a press conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, May said that despite her ongoing negotiations to form a government "the timetable for the Brexit negotiations remains on course and will begin next week.
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From shouting it out to staying at home: a brief history of UK elctions

Most of the voters who had cast their ballots in the general election on Thursday June 8, would have taken their right to do so for granted, unaware of the contested history of this now familiar action. It’s actually less than 100 years since all adult males in the UK were awarded the franchise for parliamentary elections, in 1918, in the wake of World War I. That right wasn’t extended to all adult women for a further ten years after that.

Even today, it might be argued, the democratic principle of “one person, one vote” has not been fully implemented, since the royal family and members of the House of Lords are not allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. And even after the mass enfranchisement of the early 20th century, university graduates and owners of businesses retained a double vote, the former in their university constituencies as well as where they lived. These privileges were only abolished in 1948, in face of overwhelming Conservative opposition.

How Britain votes today is also a relatively late development in electoral history. Until 1872, parliamentary electors cast their votes orally, sometimes in front of a crowd, and these choices were then published in a poll book. Public voting was often a festive, even riotous affair. Problems of intimidation were widespread, and sanctions might be applied by landlords and employers if voters failed to follow their wishes, though this was widely accepted at the time as the “natural” state of affairs.

Open voting even had its defenders, notably the political radical John Stuart Mill, who regarded it as a manly mark of independence.

But as the franchise was partially extended in the 19th century, the campaign for secrecy grew. The method that was eventually adopted was borrowed from Australia, where the use of polling booths and uniform ballot papers marked with an “X” was pioneered in the 1850s.

More recent reforms took place in 1969, when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. Party emblems were also allowed on the ballot paper for the first time that year. It’s this kind of paper that will be used on June 8.
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UK general elections 2017: All you need to know as Britain goes to polls

It’s going to be a long night as the UK goes to the polls for its snap 2017 general election. So should you stay up all night or take a democracy nap? Here are the key moments to look out for and the seats which might indicate early on whether Theresa May has secured the thumping majority she originally envisaged.

The polls close at 10pm

The doors will shut and ballot boxes will be sealed up and transported to one of the counting centres across the UK. In some places, this involves travelling a significant distance, so delays can occur. In Scotland, helicopters have been used to transfer boxes from remote islands to the mainland.

Counting clerks will then work through the night to count the votes in most cases. If you’re feeling tired by this point, remember that many of these officials will have begun work at 6.30am (or earlier) setting up the poll.

Will there be an exit poll and will it be reliable?

IPSOS-Mori’s exit poll will be reported on the BBC and Sky News at 10pm as soon as polls close.

At the last election, the exit poll caused quite a stir. Announced on the BBC at 10pm, it forecast that the Conservatives would be the largest party. It took an immediate bashing with Paddy Ashdown infamously stating that he would “eat his hat” if it was correct. He had to eat his hat.

As it turned out, that poll was much closer to the eventual reality than polls that took place before the election. The exit poll is therefore a crucial clue as to how things will unfold.

We should nevertheless take exit polls with a pinch of salt. They’ve been wrong before, as they were in 1992. They are based on samples which may not be representative of the whole population, but exit polls do have the advantage of asking people what they really did, rather than what they intend to do at some point in the future.
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Vijay Mallya row: India asks UK to ensure early extradition

India on Thursday asked the United Kingdom to ensure early extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya who is facing cases of bank loan default to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore by his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi raised the issue of early completion of the extradition process of Mallya, during his talks here with his UK counterpart Patsy Wilkinson, the second permanent secretary in the the British Home Office.

The issue of presence of certain Sikh militant elements in the UK, sharing of intelligence inputs on a real-time basis particularly with regard to the ISIS - both from ISIS-held territories, and modules being busted in the UK and Europe, were also discussed at the two-hour-long meeting, official sources said.

Counter-terror cooperation between India and Britain besides a host of other issues figured in the parleys.

Matters relating to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, strengthening of the intelligence-sharing mechanism and visa- related issues were also deliberated upon, the sources said.

61-year-old Mallya, who has been living in Britain since last year, was arrested by Scotland Yard last month on India's extradition request.

Within hours of his arrest, Mallya, who is accused of cheating and fraud, was released on bail by a London court.

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