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  • Nicola Sturgeon: ‘No legal basis’ to droop Alex Salmond

    Alex Salmond Symbol copyright AFP Image caption Mr Salmond has defined the lawsuits against him as “patently ridiculous”

    Nicola Sturgeon has mentioned there is “no legal foundation” to droop Alex Salmond from the SNP amid allegations of sexual harassment.

    The SNP leader said the court cases had been being investigated via the Scottish executive – and had now not been shared together with her party.

    Mr Salmond has strenuously denied any claims of harassment or illegal activity, and criticised the court cases process

    He said there had been “sustained leaking” from inside the executive.

    Salmond probe ‘entirely confidential’ Salmond denies sexual misconduct claims Alex Salmond profile

    Ms Sturgeon has faced calls from competition parties to droop Mr Salmond from the SNP since the Daily Record discovered on Thursday that two female government employees had lodged court cases about his behaviour while he used to be first minister.

    Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Ms Sturgeon has said the complaints towards her friend and mentor have created an “incredibly tough situation” for her

    Ms Sturgeon also defended Leslie Evans, the Scottish government’s most sensible civil servant, who has been singled out for criticism via Mr Salmond.

    “The permanent secretary used to be completely proper to make sure that the procedure was once applied on this case and he or she has my complete give a boost to in having done so,” she said.

    The proceedings in opposition to Mr Salmond have additionally been passed to Police Scotland which says it is assessing the information.

    The Scottish Conservatives mentioned Ms Sturgeon’s remark left many questions unanswered.

    Equalities spokeswoman Annie Wells stated: “We’re still none the wiser as to the way the assault used to be handled while it was alleged to have taken place, nor do we understand whilst someone in the SNP or the Scottish government was informed about the incident.”

    The Scottish govt has stated Ms Sturgeon used to be first made aware of the allegations in opposition to Mr Salmond in April this 12 months, and made it clear to him that she would not intervene within the court cases process.

    Scottish Labour had in advance called for “complete transparency” from the Scottish executive.

    Parliamentary industry supervisor and women’s spokesperson Rhoda Furnish mentioned: “It Is understood that Alex Salmond met the first minister on multiple occasions to talk about the research into allegations of sexual attack into him.

    “it would be totally unacceptable if the details of these meetings remained unknown.”

    (more…)

  • Brexit: No-deal ‘risks break-up of UK’ – Herman Van Rompuy

    Herman Van Rompuy Symbol copyright Getty Images Image caption Herman Van Rompuy was Ecu Council president between 2009 and 2014

    A no-deal Brexit could lead to the break-up of the united kingdom, the ex-president of the european Council has warned.

    Herman Van Rompuy advised the Observer leaving the eu with out a deal posed an “existential threat” to the uk.

    He added a no-deal scenario might have a “massive impact” on “areas corresponding to Scotland”.

    First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has prior to now mentioned she will make a decision whether or not to back a 2nd referendum on independence by the top of 2018.

    Lidington: No-deal Brexit ‘no risk to UNITED KINGDOM’ Brexit: Key dates and doable hurdles Euro press views ‘no-deal’ Brexit plan

    Mr Van Rompuy’s comments come after the federal government revealed its first set of documents starting off no-deal advice for UNITED KINGDOM companies and public our bodies.

    Extra documents are expected within the coming weeks – and Downing Street has scheduled a cupboard assembly to co-ordinate planning for the middle of September.

    Currently, mid-October is seen as the most likely cut-off date for an settlement commencing the phrases of UNITED KINGDOM-ECU divorce.

    Speaking last week, UNITED KINGDOM Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said achieving an settlement with the eu used to be still essentially the most most probably outcome – but preparing for other situations used to be the “responsible” factor to do.

    ‘Operation worry’

    Mr Van Rompuy mentioned that dialogue amounted to “nationalist rhetoric that belongs to another generation”.

    The former Belgian top minister introduced that he believed no-deal comments from govt ministers were part of “operation worry”, intended to scare the ecu into compromising on a deal.

    Former UNITED KINGDOM Brexit secretary, David Davis, has also accused the united kingdom govt of scaremongering over the implications of a no-deal Brexit in a tactic which he argues undermines the uk’s negotiating position.

    Writing within the Solar on Sunday newspaper, he stated a caution from Chancellor Philip Hammond that this kind of situation may just hit GDP by way of as much as 10% was “an try to frighten the inhabitants into imagining the most terrible results of leaving the european and not using a deal”.

    ‘Good deal’ confidence

    A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “we’ve always said the United Kingdom would continue to thrive within the event of a no-deal Brexit.

    “However we’re confident of having an even deal – one that grants for each a part of the United Kingdom and takes back control of our cash, rules and our borders. that may be what this govt will ship.”

    Scotland’s Brexit secretary, Michael Russell, said Mr Van Rompuy’s comments underlined the Scottish govt’s personal warnings about the “catastrophic” implications for jobs, funding and residing standards of a no-deal Brexit.

    He said: “the uk executive must instead commit to staying throughout the customs union and unmarried marketplace – the biggest such market in the global, that’s around eight times the scale of the united kingdom marketplace alone.

    “it is extremely relating to – and irresponsible of the united kingdom executive – that the entire basis of our financial dating with the eu Union and demanding issues comparable to customs preparations haven’t been agreed, with the clock ticking towards an european go out in March subsequent year.

    “it is also deeply relating to that the possible chaos of a no-deal Brexit is now observed clearly by with reference to everyone concerned – including the former president of the ecu Council – apart from the united kingdom government.”

  • Neil Simon: Celebrated US playwright dies elderly 91

    Screenwriter Neil Simon at the Paramount Studios lot in Hollywood, California 6 April 1998 Symbol copyright Reuters Image caption Simon is noticed here in Hollywood in 1998

    Celebrated US playwright Neil Simon has died elderly NINETY ONE in his native Ny City of complications from pneumonia, representatives announced.

    Simon won international fame in the nineteen sixties for level and reveal comedies together with The Ordinary Couple and Barefoot Within The Park.

    In 1991 he won the Pulitzer Prize For Drama with Misplaced in Yonkers.

    “Some say he’s the most a hit playwright for the reason that Shakespeare,” Barefoot big name Robert Redford as soon as stated.

    Simon was a prolific writer. averaging no less than one play a yr for much of his career, and his work incorporated the hit musicals Sweet Charity And They Are Taking Part In Our Tune.

    His wife, Elaine Joyce Simon, was at his deathbed at the side of his daughters, Ellen Simon and Nancy Simon, in Big Apple-Presbyterian Health Facility, his representatives mentioned.

  • German town evacuated over WW2 bomb

    The World War II aerial bomb before it was defused in Ludwigshafen, western Germany on 26 August 2018. Image copyright AFP Image caption The bomb is believed to had been dropped by means of US forces

    A German the town used to be evacuated for six hours to allow an international Battle Two bomb found out there in advance in the week to be defused and disposed of.

    Some 18,500 people have been moved from Ludwigshafen in relevant Germany from 08:00 native time (06:00 GMT) to 14:00.

    The aerial bomb, weighing 500 kg (1,100lbs), was found out by means of development employees.

    Germany is still littered with unexploded bombs from the Allied bombing marketing campaign against the Nazis.

    The city’s government published a photograph of the corroded bomb on Twitter.

    It is assumed to were dropped via US forces right through WW2.

    In September 2017, Frankfurt evacuated 70,000 other people after a British WW2 bomb was once discovered in the city.

    The primary educate station in the capital Berlin had to be evacuated in April after a 500kg bomb was once uncovered by means of development staff.

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  • Refugees risking the whole lot to reach Australia

    Ali in Brisbane Symbol caption Ali risked his life to sail across the Indian Ocean

    The overloaded, decrepit fishing boat had defied the Indian Ocean for 5 punishing days whilst increasingly more turbulent seas close to the Australian territory of Ashmore Reef slowly began to swamp the tiny vessel.

    Its panic-bothered cargo of approximately 60 asylum-seekers had, like lots of others in recent years, risked the whole lot sailing from Indonesia in seek of a brand new existence past the horizon.

    “All lets do was pray that we’d get to Australia,” said Ali, a 26-12 months vintage Iraqi refugee who won’t ever fail to remember that fraught adventure in December 2009.

    The Web Site fashion designer had escaped violence in Iraq, and travelled thru Iran and Malaysia before arriving in Indonesia, where trafficking gangs lie in wait for the determined and inclined.

    “whilst you are in the middle of the sea all you’ll see is purely the sky and the water. No-one may know about you if something came about,” Ali advised the BBC from his new home in Brisbane.

    Image caption the government used to be taking into consideration re-commencing the loo Howard-technology detention centre on Nauru island In 2010, there have been 6,535 Irregular Maritime Arrivals (IMAs – other folks coming by means of sea) in 134 vessels In 2011, FOUR,565 IMAs arrived in 69 vessels As of 27 June 2012, 4,662 IMAs had arrived in SIXTY THREE boats to this point, June has been the busiest month, with 1,269 IMAs Such A Lot of the IMAs from 2009-2011 got here from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iran Some asylum-seekers arrive via plane. Among July 2010 and June 2011, 6,316 people implemented in this means

    Supply: Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship

    Most unauthorised sea arrivals are ultimately categorised as genuine refugees, while the majority of those looking for Australia’s coverage step off schedule carriers, not leaky boats.

    Sayad Kasim, a Rohingya Muslim who fled Burma, paid traffickers $THREE,000 (£1,914) for a place on a rickety vessel that left Indonesia in January 2010.

    “There Have Been very large waves and now we have a very small boat. All of the folk have been praying and crying, and idea we’d die,” he stated.

    “i am on the lookout for a better existence in Australia for my kids, no longer for me.”

    After six months in detention on Christmas Island, Sayad was once granted refugee status but his spouse and four kids remain caught in Malaysia, where the family sought sanctuary after leaving behind Burma.

    it’s unclear, on the other hand, if Australia will permit them in.

    “they’re not secure in Malaysia however i do not need my wife and young children to return here by boat,” defined Sayad, who suffers from despair as he fights to reunite his family.

    More asylum seekers will proceed to dice with the Indian Ocean to succeed in Australia, so much pushed from their fatherland via persecution and conflict.

    Ali, the younger Iraqi laptop technology graduate, says he was prepared to lose everything at sea for an opportunity to finally escape the cruelty of the past.

    “the explanation why we came to Australia was once to stick alive, not anything else,” Ali stated bluntly.

  • Australia asylum: Why is it controversial?

    Boat of asylum seekers off Christmas Island (June 2012)Image copyright Reuters Image caption Masses have died trying to reach Australia in inadequate and overcrowded boats

    Australia’s policy on asylum seekers has come underneath severe scrutiny. The BBC explains why.

    Does Australia get so much of asylum seekers?

    Australia’s humanitarian intake has remained quite steady over the closing twenty years, with round 12,000 to 13,000 other people in most cases ordinary yearly.

    In 2015-16, Australia conventional 13,750 other people thru its humanitarian programme and has devoted to accepting an extra 12,000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq.

    Asylum seekers have attempted to reach Australia on boats from Indonesia, frequently paying huge sums of money to folks smugglers. Loads have died making the damaging adventure.

    At its top, 18,000 other folks arrived in Australia illegally through sea. however the numbers plummeted after the federal government offered tough new policies to “forestall the boats”.

    Symbol copyright AFP Image caption Asylum seekers were sent again in lifeboats

    So why does Australia have tough asylum insurance policies?

    Australia’s two leading political events, the ruling Liberal-National coalition and the Labor competition, both improve tough asylum policies.

    They say the adventure the asylum seekers make is unhealthy and regulated by way of prison gangs, they usually have a duty to prevent it.

    The coalition executive made Australia’s asylum policy even more difficult when it took power in 2013, introducing Operation Sovereign Borders, which placed the army in control of asylum operations.

    Under this policy army vessels patrol Australian waters and intercept migrant boats, towing them again to Indonesia or sending asylum seekers back in inflatable dinghies or lifeboats.

    The executive says its insurance policies have restored the integrity of its borders, and helped prevent deaths at sea.

    Then Again, critics say competition to asylum is normally racially stimulated and is harmful Australia’s reputation.

    what’s the deal with offshore processing?

    Image copyright Handout Symbol caption The camps on PNG and Nauru are arguable, with activists condemning living stipulations

    While asylum seekers succeed in Australia by boat, they’re not held in Australia whilst their claims are processed.

    As An Alternative, they’re despatched to an offshore processing centre. Recently Australia has one such centre at the Pacific island nation of Nauru and some other on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

    Even if those asylum seekers are discovered to be refugees, they are not allowed to be settled in Australia. they’ll be settled in Nauru or Papua New Guinea, and four were settled in Cambodia at a stated cost of A$55m (£28m, $42m).

    Rights workforce say conditions within the PNG and Nauru camps are totally insufficient, citing negative hygiene, cramped stipulations, unrelenting heat and a scarcity of amenities.

    Manus Island closure: What occurs subsequent?

    Symbol copyright Getty Photographs Symbol caption Sri Lanka charged asylum seekers sent back by Australia with leaving the country illegally

    Papua New Guinea’s Excellent Court dominated in April that limiting the movement of asylum seekers who’ve committed no crime was unconstitutional.

    The u . s .’s top minister has since demanded that Australia shut down the centre.

    But Australia is not prepared to simply accept the 850 males held within the centre and it is not clear the place they are going to be taken

    What next for Manus Island asylum seekers?

    The likely closure of Manus Island means that asylum seekers could be relocated to Nauru, which says it has additional room.

    Or they may well be taken to the Australian territory of Christmas Island, the place there is an current detention centre.

    Alternatively, Australia’s exhausting line on immigration is not going to change.

  • Afghanistan Islamic State leader ‘killed in air strike’

    A line of IS members in front of weapons Image copyright Reuters Symbol caption Approximately 150 participants of the gang surrendered in north-western Afghanistan this month

    The leader of the Islamic State (IS) workforce in Afghanistan was once killed in an air strike on Saturday, Afghan officers say.

    Abu Saad Erhabi and 10 different participants are said to have died in an operation within the jap province of Nangarhar, close to the border with Pakistan.

    He is the fourth Afghan chief of the crowd to be killed in contemporary years.

    The IS affiliate has been lively there because 2014, claiming a bunch of fatal up to date attacks.

    it’s occasionally referred to as Islamic State Khorasan after a historical identify for Afghanistan and surrounding areas.

    How a success has IS been in Afghanistan? Afghanistan u . s . profile

    The National Directorate of Security in Kabul said the moves that killed Erhabi were a part of a joint air and flooring operation carried out along US-led coalition forces.

    US officials didn’t ensure his dying however stated they’d performed a strike within the space focused on “a senior chief of a delegated terrorist employer”.

    The earlier chief of Islamic State Khorasan, Abu Sayed, was killed in a US strike on the group’s headquarters in Kunar province in July 2017.

    the group has been blamed for a bunch of assaults in Afghanistan this yr – together with a suicide bombing at a Kabul education centre that killed dozens of individuals.

    the crowd has no longer commented on the reviews of Erhabi’s loss of life.

  • New regulations could see non-MP lead Lib Dems

    Sir Vince Cable Symbol copyright PA

    The Liberal Democrat’s Sir Vince Cable is to announce a shake-up of the party’s laws, in a transfer that could see somebody who’s not an MP grow to be chief.

    As smartly as starting up the function to candidates outdoor of the party’s 12 MPs, Sir Vince wants to involve extra supporters within the variety process.

    A Lib Dem spokesman played down studies within the Sunday Occasions that Sir Vince used to be making plans to stand down.

    They mentioned he had no plans to go away “any time quickly”.

    In a speech on 7 September, Sir Vince will unveil proposals to create a registered supporters scheme similar to the one that allowed A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY,000 people to vote in the Labour leadership elections.

    He additionally plans to rewrite the principles in order that supporters want to be enrolled for one year earlier than vote casting, to stop infiltration by rival parties.

    Sir Vince hopes to emulate the luck of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Birthday Celebration in Canada, which leaped from 3rd place to victory in 2015.

    The Lib Dem chief stated attractive individuals and a wider frame of supporters in selecting their leader and candidates had been a very powerful to their rise.

    In his spring conference speech this yr, he mentioned: “i’m determined that we Liberal Democrats should lead a new groundswell for political renewal.”

    A session at the adjustments is expected to final a few months.

  • Australia: Illegal boat runs aground in Queensland crocodile swamp

    A saltwater crocodile Image copyright PA Image caption The local mayor said the ones on board were “hanging themselves in peril in known crocodile habitat”

    An illegal fishing boat has run aground and been discovered abandoned in crocodile-infested waters in northern Queensland, Australia.

    Authorities have discovered 11 other folks and assume extra are hiding in mangroves close to Daintree, north of Cairns.

    It is unknown if the ones on board were illegally fishing or in the event that they are refugees, but border drive officials are on the scene.

    About 40 individuals are idea to were on board, reviews say.

    The Dep. of Home Affairs mentioned the first priority used to be to confirm all those at the boat have been secure.

    Image copyright AFP Image caption Australia also holds asylum-seekers in a arguable facility in the Pacific nation of Nauru

    Despite The Fact That discovered to be genuine refugees, they are already blocked from being resettled in Australia.

    they can either go back house, be resettled on Manus or Nauru, or visit a third us of a.

    Australia sent five Chinese males house in 2017 after authorities intercepted an alleged other folks-smuggling boat within the Torres Strait south of Papua New Guinea.

    The Rustic mooted plans in 2016 to bar any asylum seekers who attempt to succeed in the rustic through boat from ever being able to go into.