International
Liz Truss to be Britain’s new prime minister, replacing Boris Johnson
- Liz Truss beat Rishi Sunak to become Britain’s new prime minister
- Boris Johnson resigned as prime minister in July
Britain will get its third prime minister in just over three years as the ruling Conservative Party announced Monday it had chosen Liz Truss to be its new leader after an internal party contest.
Truss replaces Boris Johnson, a controversial maverick who defied many of Britain’s political traditions. Johnson resigned in July after senior members of his government turned against him amid a series of scandals connected to breaking his own coronavirus lockdown rules and waning appetite for his brand of populist politics .
Because Britain elects a party, not a specific leader, the party in power has some scope to swap in a new prime minister. Truss was selected by about 172,000 grassroots members of the Conservative Party. That figure represents less than 1% of the U.K.’s 67 million population.
The new prime minister takes office Tuesday and assumes power as household energy bills in the U.K. soar to unaffordable levels for millions of people.
In a brief speech, Truss thanked Johnson.
“Boris, you got Brexit done. You crushed Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the vaccine. And you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You were admired from Kyiv to Carlisle.”
Truss won 81,326 votes to Sunak’s 60,399, or 57% to 43%.
Truss, 47, has sought to portray herself as the political heir to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s “Iron Lady” and first female leader who advocated with zeal for free markets, lower taxes and the privatization of large state enterprises from telecoms to energy. Truss served in Johnson’s government, first as a trade minister and then as foreign secretary. She has taken a hardline stance on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
“The thread that runs through Truss’s career is a belief in small government,” Daniel Hannan, a former Conservative party politician, wrote in an opinion piece published on his website. Hannan is now known as Lord Hannan of Kingsclere in the House of Lords, the unelected upper House of Parliament to which he was appointed by Johnson.
Sunak, 42, served in Johnson’s government as finance minister, where he oversaw a multi-billion dollar coronavirus support package for businesses and workers. His campaign struggled to shake off the perception, anathema to Conservative political ideology, that he presided over a big state intervention during the coronavirus pandemic. It was aimed at warding off mass unemployment and an economic depression.
Political experts say Britain’s new leader is unlikely to usher in major changes to the U.K.’s foreign policy that would upend its close relationship with the White House. But one possible flashpoint that Truss inherits from Johnson is what to do with the border between Northern Ireland, part of the U.K., and Ireland, part of the European Union, as a result of the U.K.’s departure from the European Union, known as Brexit.
This previously open border is now subject to checks on some goods and services and Conservatives want to change the customs and immigrations rules at the risk, say U.S. and European officials, of damaging the fragile peace that’s existed in Northern Ireland since the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Agreement took effect in1998.
“Truss is a full-throated Atlanticist, as is Sunak, who thinks that the U.K. is the keystone NATO partner,” said Matt Beech, director of the Center for British Politics, University of Hull, England, referring to close U.S.-U.K. security cooperation.
The first order of business for Truss will be to reassure the British public that she has a plan to deal with rapidly increasing energy costs and an inflationary spiral caused by the lingering coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine and Britain’s almost two-year-old exit from the EU bloc. All three events have disrupted supply chains and led to higher consumer costs.
The U.K. uses little oil and gas supplied by Russia, but by next month the typical British household is expected to pay around $4,200 a year to heat and power a home, according to Ofgem, Britain’s energy regulator. That’s an 80% annual rise and reflects the way the British government has engineered its energy market to be reliant on wholesale prices, which have skyrocketed amid the war in Ukraine.
Forecasts suggest U.K. energy bills could reach more than $7,700 early next year, more than many U.K. residents pay for rent or a mortgage and threatening to trigger so-called fuel poverty for millions and force many small businesses to close.
“Unless the government steps in there will be a social catastrophe,” independent personal finance expert Martin Lewis told a BBC radio program recently.
“How (Truss) reacts to the energy crisis will not only have a direct impact on the lives of U.K. citizens and the survival of many businesses, but also affect perception of the competence of the administration,” said Antony Froggatt, an environmental policy expert at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
“It is a baptism by fire.”
As part of the hand over of power, Queen Elizabeth will receive Johnson and Truss at Balmoral, her estate in Scotland, on Tuesday, Buckingham Palace said.
It is a break from tradition. Normally the queen would host the departing and new British leaders at her London residence, which she has done 15 times before during her 70-year reign. In recent months the monarch, 96, has participated in fewer royal duties. (USA TODAY)
Thousands of people turned back from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and returned to Morocco’s Fnideq began boarding buses home on Friday, with the operation continuing on Saturday, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
A Moroccan source close to the operation told AFP on condition of anonymity that the people sent back by Spain are to be transported home directly by bus or via the railway station in Tangier, 70 kilometres (45 miles) away.
According to the source, the Fnideq border crossing is now “completely secure”, as are the hills overlooking it, from which hundreds of people, mostly young men, had thrown stones at security forces on Friday.
The Spanish government announced on Friday evening that at least 48,000 of the 60,000 people who entered Ceuta in recent days had returned to Morocco.
Late Friday, AFP journalists saw around twenty 54-person-capacity buses depart, for a total of about a thousand people.
Fnideq is a small town of just 70,000 inhabitants, roughly equivalent to the population of the enclave of Ceuta, one of Spain’s two North African enclaves.
The buses were headed for Tangier, Tetouan, or the economic capital Casablanca, all equipped with rail facilities to redirect people who had come from as far away as Marrakech, more than 500 kilometres to the south.
“I heard that buses had arrived to take us back home. Honestly, I just want to see my children again. I regret having come all the way here,” said Rachid Aouchari, 32, from Ksar el Kebir, 170 kilometres from Fnideq, who was turned back from Ceuta during the night from Thursday to Friday.
Until midday Friday, clashes had pitted the security forces against migrants seeking to cross into Spain, either by swimming or on foot along a narrow wall leading to the Ceuta crossing point.
Police responded with water cannons and tear gas against hundreds of young men, arresting dozens of them, according to an AFP journalist.
AFP
A fighter jet crashed and erupted into flames at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California on Friday, sending smoke billowing into the sky that could be seen from miles away.
The single-seat F-35B Lightning II aircraft from Marine Aircraft Group 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, went down short of the runway just before 10 a.m. PT.
“The pilot ejected (and) was transported to a local medical facility in stable condition for evaluation and treatment of non-life-threatening injuries,” according to a statement from the wing.
Airport fire crews sprayed the wreckage with firefighting foam and worked to extinguish a grass fire surrounding the crash site.
“F-35 short final crash,” the Miramar air traffic control tower told firefighters in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. “It appeared that the parachute did deploy … and a pilot ejected.”
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Military plane crashes are typically investigated by the military as opposed to civilian crashes which are investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Billed as “the most advanced jet fighter in the world” by its manufacturer, the F-35B is a stealth aircraft that can land like a conventional plane, or vertically, similar to a helicopter. The more than 50-foot-long jet is operated by the US Marines, the United Kingdom and the Italian Air Force. The planes cost about $102 million each, according to the manufacturer.
About 15,000 service members from all branches of the military are based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, located in San Diego. (CNN)
India’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned following days of youth-led demonstrations demanding sweeping reforms to the country’s education system.
Thousands of young people had taken to the streets of New Delhi and other parts of the country under the banner of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party, mounting pressure on the government to address their demands and remove Pradhan from office.
The protests, which were largely centred around the Jantar Mantar demonstration site in central New Delhi, intensified during the week as demonstrators attempted to march towards parliament.
Police fired tear gas and used batons against some protesters during the demonstrations.
Announcing his decision, Pradhan said the unrest witnessed over the previous 10 days had caused him concern, stressing that remaining in office was not a matter of personal prestige.
“I am pained to see the events of the past 10 days. This is not a matter of personal prestige for me,” Pradhan said in a statement posted on X.
The minister subsequently confirmed that he had submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister.
“I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister,” he said in the letter written in Hindi.
Pradhan also acknowledged the importance of young people to India’s development, pledging that their concerns should not be ignored.
“India’s youth power is the real strength of this nation. My resolve is that we will not let the country’s youth get trapped in a vicious cycle of confusion,” he added.
The Indian government had opened negotiations with leaders of the CJP in an attempt to end the demonstrations.
Two rounds of talks were held on Monday and Friday, but the initial negotiations reportedly failed to produce significant progress as the youth-led movement insisted that its demands must be addressed.
The protesters had demanded reforms to the education system alongside Pradhan’s resignation.
The minister announced his resignation ahead of a planned third round of negotiations between government representatives and the protest leaders.
Following Pradhan’s resignation, the CJP announced that its demands had been met after another round of discussions with the government.
The group subsequently called off the protests at Jantar Mantar and other locations.
The demonstrations had attracted thousands of young Indians and gained momentum through social media, putting the government under mounting pressure over the country’s education system.
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