by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Home Secretary Amber Rudd
By Naresh Kaushik,
London : One of Britains most senior cabinet ministers has resigned after growing pressure over her handling of targets to deport illegal immigrants. The resignation of Home Secretary Amber Rudd came after documents leaked in the British press showed that she set a target to increase the number of deportations by 10 per cent, despite her denials.
Rudd has been forced to quit after weeks of criticism of the British government’s treatment of long-term migrants from the Caribbean, known as the Windrush generation. They were threatened with deportation and some were even denied medical treatment because they didn’t have documents to prove that they had been living in the UK for decades.
But ironically, and perhaps unfairly, for Rudd, leaked documents also indicate that the policy of forced removal of illegal immigrants was aimed at recent arrivals, mainly from India and Pakistan, and not for the Windrush generation, though some were affected by it.
The letter she wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May in January last year, which was published in the Guardian on Sunday, mentioned her forthcoming visit to Pakistan to finalise an agreement on biometric returns which would make it easier to deport illegal immigrants to that country. And she did visit Pakistan three months later. A leading think tank, Migration Watch, has estimated that there are about 200,000 Pakistanis living illegally in the UK.
There are no such estimates available for illegal immigrants from India but another recent study by Oxford University’s The Migration Observatory has said that 6,580 Indian were deported in 2016, the top country of enforced removals or voluntary departures from Britain. Pakistan, with 3,857, stood at second place. Both countries together made it 27 per cent of such removals. No wonder illegal immigration from these two countries is a major cause for concern in Britain.
In January, India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, signed an agreement with Britain on the swift return of Indian illegal immigrants from the UK, an issue that has been repeatedly raised by British government officials to their Indian counterparts.
Rudd has only followed her predecessor and the current Prime Minister May’s policy of creating a “hostile environment for illegal immigrants”. Her departure now puts May in the firing line because the opposition in Britain is unlikely to keep quiet on the issue after Rudd’s resignation.
(Naresh Kaushik is a senior journalist based in London. He can be contacted at uknaresh@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Uncategorized, World
By Gokhan Kurtaran,
London: The U.K.’s government borrowing (excluding public sector banks) decreased by £3.5 billion ($4.9 billion) to £42.6 billion ($59.4 billion) in the 2017-18, financial year, compared with the previous financial year.
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) data released on Friday, it is the lowest net borrowing since the financial year ending March 2007.
The U.K public sector net debt (excluding public sector banks) was £1.798 trillion at the end of March 2018, equivalent to 86.3 percent of gross domestic product, the ONS said.
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
United Nation : Expressing solidarity with the UK, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has warned that if concrete measures were not initiated, “Russia will use chemical weapons here in New York or in cities of any country that sits on this Council”.
Haley said the Donald Trump administration “stands in absolute solidarity with Great Britain” following a nerve agent attack against a Russian double agent and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury last week, the CNN reported.
In the strongest statement yet from the US administration on the affair, Haley said Washington shared the UK’s assessment that the Russian state was behind the poisoning and demanded a firm international response.
“The US believes that Russia is responsible for the attack on two people in the UK using a military-grade nerve agent,” Haley said in her remarks at a UN Security Council emergency session on Wednesday, blasting the Russian government for flouting international law, the CNN report said.
“If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used,” said Haley.
“They could be used here in New York or in cities of any country that sits on this council.”
Russia, however, has dismissed the accusations as “fairy tales” and denied any involvement in the attack which landed the Skripals, along with a British police officer, in the hospital.
The UK believes Russia was behind the attempted murders of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia because of the nerve agent used. Novichok, was developed in the Soviet Union and could not be replicated by non-state actors, CNN quoted UK officials as saying.
London on Wednesday announced it would expel 23 Russian diplomats after Moscow failed to meet a UK deadline to give a “credible response”.
Moscow’s Ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, even suggested the UK might have been responsible for the attack in an attempt to smear Russia. “In the Russian Federation, no scientific research or development work under the title Novichok were carried out,” he told the Security Council.
Laying the blame firmly at Russia’s door and highlighting Moscow’s support of the Assad regime in Syria following that government’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, Haley told fellow diplomats the world had reached “a defining moment”.
“Time and time again, members states say they oppose the use of chemical weapons under any circumstance,” said Haley. “Now one member stands accused of using chemical weapons on the sovereign soil of another member.
“The credibility of this Council will not survive if we fail to hold Russia accountable,” she said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Investing, Muslim World, SMEs
Sudan’s Minister of Investment Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi
Khartoum : Sudanese Minister of Investment Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi welcomed the British investors to come forward to pump their investments into the country, Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported.
Al-Mahdi, who is also the deputy prime minister, made the remarks in his address to the opening session of the British-Sudanese Business Forum in Khartoum on Sunday. He drew attention to numerous investment opportunities for Britain’s investors in Sudan, stressing the government’s desire to establish strong economic relations with the UK, to take advantage of its industrial and technical advancement.
The minister confirmed that investment opportunities are available for the British Business Council to establish partnerships and joint projects with their counterparts in Sudan.
During the forum, held under the auspices of the UK embassy in Khartoum, a number of British businessmen voiced their willingness to invest in the country in the fields of alternative energy and agro-industrial projects, especially after the United States has lifted long-standing economic sanctions on Sudan. They noted that Sudan has promising investment opportunities.
For his part, Director of UK Trade and Investment for East Africa Daniel Rathwell said the forum is aimed at creating a platform for exchanging information and experiences with the public and the private sectors.
British Chargé d’Affaires David Lelliott said the forum comes within the framework of the strategic dialogue with the Sudanese government, and as part of the UK’s commitment to contribute to Sudan’s economic growth.
It is noteworthy that a number of experts from the British Chamber of Commerce Kenya (BCCK) and the International Chamber of Commerce UK participated in the forum.
—AB/UNA-OIC
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Kiren Rijiju
New Delhi : India has signed an MoU with the United Kingdom to enable the return of illegal Indian migrants within a month of their detection by authorities abroad.
Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Friday confirmed that the pact was signed by him and UK Minister of State for Immigration Caroline Nokes in Britain on Wednesday during his visit along with an Indian delegation for a week.
“We finalised long-pending India-UK MoU on the returns of illegal migrants and sharing of criminal records,” Rijiju tweeted.
The Memorandum of Understanding, which would affect hundreds of Indians, comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to the UK in March. The UK has consistently raised the issue of return of illegal migrants with India.
Rijiju said he also discussed “issues of visas for dependents and students, social security, distressed Indian women and extradition”.
A Home Ministry official said: “The process was not streamlined yet. The British authorities will first identify the illegal migrants, inform the Indian authorities, followed by police verification back home.
“If the claims of the British authorities are found to be correct, then the travel documents of the person concerned will be readied and he/she deported by the UK authorities. This process will have a timeline of one month,” said the official.
While the UK claims that the number of illegal migrants is in thousands, Indian agencies have found only 2,000 Indians are overstaying.
The Minister on Thursday also thanked the UK government for its cooperation in the ongoing extradition case of liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya.
He had also held talks with the Britain’s Minister of State for Security at the UK Home Office, Ben Wallace, on broad security issues.
“As part of the discussions, the Minister thanked the UK government for cooperation in the Mallya extradition case,” a senior official present at the meeting said.
Mallya, 62, is wanted in India to stand trial on charges of not repaying loans of around Rs 9,000 crore to various banks.
Besides the extradition case, issues such as the rise of fundamentalism and Sikh extremism were discussed during Rijiju’s meeting with the UK Minister.
—IANS
