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Shock and recriminations as Chinese spy scandal rocks UK parliament

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak has spent most of his brief premiership treading a delicate balance on relations with China. So the last thing the British prime minister needed as he enters a careful autumn of diplomacy was a Chinese spy scandal erupting in his midst.Westminster is this week reeling from the news that a British citizen working as a parliamentary researcher for MPs is under arrest on suspicion of spying for Beijing. Two men, one in his 20s and another in his 30s, were arrested under the Official Secrets Act in March, police confirmed, after the news was reported in the Sunday Times. One of the men is a well-known figure at Westminster who was involved in international affairs and had close links to senior Conservatives.One parliamentary aide who knows the man — granted anonymity to speak freely for this article — said: “Everyone who had come into contact with him is feeling angry and exposed.”Another person involved in Westminster’s China policy circle added: “It’s ...

Macron’s slow but bold U-turn on Ukraine

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron missed the boat on Ukraine.Faced with Russia’s military build-up and subsequent invasion of its neighbor, Macron dove down a rabbit hole of fruitless talks with Vladimir Putin. At a moment when he could have taken the helm as the leader of Europe, he miscalculated and failed to seize the political initiative. Instead, in Europe, it was the likes of the Euroskeptic British premier Boris Johnson who took the lead on rallying support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and providing arms. While Johnson was a hero in Kyiv, Macron infuriated the Ukrainians by insisting that Putin should not be humiliated and suggesting that Moscow deserved “security guarantees.” Ukraine, the French president said, was “in all likelihood decades” from joining the EU. But a sea change has taken place in Paris since. The French president has now picked up the mantle as one of Ukraine’s strongest allies, pledging support “until...

Grand bargain for Bretton Woods

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

Rabah Arezki is the former vice president and chief economist at the African Development Bank and former chief economist for the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region. He is currently a director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research, and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.The Bretton Woods system arose out of the ashes of World War II.Emerging from the famous Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the agreement set out rules and institutions to govern the modern monetary system, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and what is now known as the World Bank Group — two institutions that have become mainstays of the global system of economic governance.Historically, this system has been centered on the United States and Europe giving weight to economic power. An informal and enduring arrangement between them ensures the head of the IMF is Eur...

Von der Leyen’s non-campaign kicks off

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

BRUSSELS — Make no mistake about it: Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the European Union speech is the kickoff of her campaign to lead the next European Commission. On Wednesday, von der Leyen will bask in the trappings of incumbency in the Strasbourg Parliament hemicycle when she delivers her annual address. She’s already been boasting that her Commission has implemented 92 percent of its pledges. Yet the reality is that her topsy-turvy coalition of frenemies could easily crumble.An accidental Commission president who lucked into the job through rounds of horse-trading, von der Leyen has been mum on her plans about running for real this time. But no one really believes she’s ruled it out, and she now has less than a year before the next European election to convince power brokers on both the left and the right that sticking with her is better than gambling on an alternative who might be a better ideological fit.“There will be different ears from different political famili...

First responders rescue residents at flooded Leominster mobile home community

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

First responders were seen pulling people to safety on rafts at a mobile home community in Leominster Monday night as crews made rescues around the city amid severe flooding.Floodwaters rose through the Meadowbrook Acres community after officials said rain started falling on the area around 4:15 p.m. Around 10 p.m., crews could be seen going door-to-door and working to rescue residents. Many of the residents at Meadowbrook Acres appeared to be older people. Some people were able to get out on their own and were seen carrying belongings toward dry land. Others needed to be helped using inflatable yellow rafts, with emergency crews pulling the rafts through the water. First responders were seen rescuing at least one dog Monday night.Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella said several people needed rescues in multiple spots around the city after flooding started. A state of emergency was in effect for Leominster Monday night and a larger flash flood emergency was dec...

Chinatown stabbing suspect was on day release after killing daughter in 2006

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

VANCOUVER — Carol Lee, chairwoman of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, says the neighbourhood is all about resilience.But Lee broke down in tears as she described the impact of a triple stabbing at a festival on Sunday that had been intended to “bring the community together to celebrate the progress” made in a neighbourhood where crime, street disorder and economic decay have been concerns. “(We) thought things were normal, but it’s a good reminder that there are a lot of things that are in play in Chinatown,” said Lee, whose group co-organizes the annual Light Up Chinatown! festival.Lee was speaking at a news conference on Monday with Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer, who said the 64-year-old suspect had been on release during the day from a forensic psychiatric hospital.A B.C. Supreme Court decision from January 2008 shows the same man was found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder in the stabbing death of his 16-year-old-daugher in K...

California fast food and health care workers poised to win major salary increases

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Nearly 1 million California workers are poised to win major salary increases after labor unions flexed their collective muscle in the state’s Democratic-led Legislature on Monday following a summer of high-profile strikes in the entertainment and hospitality industries.Most of the state’s 500,000 fast food workers would be paid at least $20 per hour next year under a new bill aimed at ending a standoff between the industry and labor unions over wages and working conditions. About 455,000 health care workers — not doctors and nurses, but the people who do everything else at hospitals, dialysis clinics and other facilities — will see their salaries rise to at least $25 per hour over the next 10 years in a separate bill.Both proposals must first pass the state Legislature and be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But the proposals have the blessing of both labor unions and industry groups, clearing the path for passage this week before lawmakers...

Ukraine claims to recapture Black Sea oil platforms seized during Crimea’s annexation

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian military said Monday that it recaptured strategic gas and oil drilling platforms from Russia in the Black Sea and claimed gains in occupied areas near Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine left in ruins after the war’s longest and deadliest fighting. The recapture of the so-called Boyko Towers platforms provides an energy source and takes back an asset that Russia seized in 2015 and used to launch helicopters, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said.“Russia has been deprived of the ability to fully control the waters of the Black Sea, and this makes Ukraine many steps closer to regaining Crimea,” the Main Intelligence Directorate said.The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t make any immediate comment on the Ukrainian claim, but it has previously reported that Russian warplanes destroyed several Ukrainian speedboats in the area.Russian military bloggers posted that the platforms had been uninhabited for more than a year and a Ukrainian operation to ...

Over 100 VIPs attend UN screening of documentary on Russia’s siege of Ukrainian city of Mariupol

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than a hundred ambassadors, journalists and representatives of a broad spectrum of society watched a U.N. screening Monday evening of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” which follows a trio of Associated Press journalists during Russia’s relentless siege of the Ukrainian port city in the early days of the war.U.K. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, who co-hosted the screening, said the film is important because “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens what the U.N. stands for: an international order where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries is fundamental.”“We want to reaffirm our commitment to U.N. values, and that’s why we’ve chosen to show this very important documentary,” she said in welcoming the the audience at U.N. headquarters in New York.The screening comes at the start of the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly and a week before world leaders arrive for their annual meeting, where the more than 18-month war...

Kim Jong Un heads to Russia. What do Pyongyang and Moscow want from each other?

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:30:43 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia on Tuesday for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that is likely to focus on Russia’s desire to buy ammunition to refill reserves drained by its war in Ukraine. The meeting will also underscore deepening cooperation as the two isolated leaders are locked in separate confrontations with the U.S. In return for providing ammunition, North Korea will likely want shipments of food and energy and transfers of sophisticated weapons technologies.A meeting with Putin would be Kim’s first with a foreign leader since North Korea closed its borders in January 2020. They met for the first time in April 2019, two months after Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed.Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, in July and asked Kim to send more ammunition to Russia, according to U.S. officials. Shoigu said Moscow and Pyongyang were con...