Sumon Admin – Page 23

29Nov

By Sumon AdminNo Comments

Featured, United Kingdom

Evidence needed for tiers, PM told

Conservative rebels have warned Boris Johnson he must provide good evidence for his controversial new Covid-19 tiers or face a backbench revolt this week, despite an eleventh hour climb-down. In a dramatic about turn, Mr Johnson told MPs the new system could last just nine weeks and offered them another vote on the restrictions at the start of February. But Tory MPs warned the shift has yet to quell the rebellion. Pauline Latham, the Conservative MP for Mid-Derbyshire, said she might support the government in this week’s vote on the tiered measures if more evidence was laid out. She told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday: I think it will depend very much on what Boris does between now and Tuesday. If he produces that evidence and he can prove to us that he's got good evi...

28Nov

By Sumon AdminNo Comments

Featured, United Kingdom

Zahawi appointed vaccine minister

Boris Johnson has appointed Nadhim Zahawi as a health minister responsible for the deployment of the coronavirus vaccine, Downing Street has announced. The temporary position will last until at least next summer with Mr Zahawi temporarily relinquishing responsibility for most areas of his brief at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The duration of Mr Zahawi's appointment suggests it could take up to six months for the vaccine to be fully rolled out across the UK. Mr Zahawi said he was delighted to be appointed to the role, vowing to ensure vaccines are rolled out quickly to save lives and livelihoods. On Friday, he said that he was extremely disappointed and sad that Warwickshire, where he serves as MP for Stratford-on-Avon, will be movi...

27Nov

By Sumon AdminNo Comments

Arab world, Featured

Iran’s top nuclear scientist shot dead

Iran has vowed retaliation after the architect of its nuclear programme was assassinated on a highway near Tehran, in a major escalation of tensions that risks placing the Middle East on a new war footing. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed with explosives and machine gun fire in the town of Absard, 70km (44 miles) east of Tehran. Efforts to resuscitate him in hospital failed. His bodyguard and family members were also wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said Israel was likely to blame, and an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed retaliation. We will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action, tweeted Hossein Dehgh...

26Nov

By Sumon AdminNo Comments

Featured, United Kingdom

Thousands in UK face benefits cut

Tens of thousands of struggling families on universal credit will be told in the run-up to Christmas their benefit payments are to be capped leaving them potentially hundreds of pounds a month worse off and at risk of destitution. Many claimants who lost their jobs in March under the first coronavirus lockdown and have been unemployed since will be informed in December by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that their benefits will be slashed unless they find work. If they are capped, these households face benefit income losses averaging about £250 a month from January. For some families living in high rent areas such as London, being capped could leave them several hundred pounds a month out of pocket. Official figures published on Thursday show 170,000 hou...

26Nov

By Sumon AdminNo Comments

Featured, United Kingdom

PM appoints new chief of staff

Boris Johnson has appointed former Treasury official Dan Rosenfield as his new chief of staff. Mr Rosenfield, who is currently the head of corporate clients and UK business at strategic advisory firm Hakluyt, will begin work at Downing Street on December 7. His appointment comes two weeks after a power struggle erupted in Number 10 over plans to make former aide Lee Cain the new chief of staff. Lord Udny-Lister is set continue to serve as acting chief of staff until January 1, 2021, when Mr Rosenfield will formally take over, Number 10 said. Mr Rosenfield, from Manchester, was previously a managing director in investment banking at Bank Of America. Before than, he worked for more than decade in the Treasury, including four years as principal private secretary to C...

25Nov

By Sumon AdminNo Comments

America, Featured

Legend Maradona dies aged 60

Diego Maradona, regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, has died aged 60. The Argentinian, who had brain surgery this month, inspired his country to World Cup glory in 1986 when as captain he displayed a level of skill, creativity, strength and desire arguably not seen before or since. In the 2-1 quarter-final victory over England he also scored perhaps the greatest goal of all time, a match in which the forward also showed his darker, mischievous side with the infamous ‘Hand of God’. Maradona also achieved success at club level, most notably with Napoli, whom he led to their first Serie A title in 1987. A second followed in 1990, alongside an Italian Cup in 1987 and a Uefa Cup in 1991, and such was the player’s impact at a club which previously had...

24Nov

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Featured, United Kingdom

Sunak to set out £4.3bn jobs plan

Rishi Sunak will on Wednesday set out a £4.3bn plan to tackle the spectre of mass unemployment, as the chancellor braces Britain for the brutal economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis. Mr Sunak will tell MPs in his spending review that his number one priority is to protect jobs and livelihoods. The chancellor is due to say that now is not the right time to start a fiscal consolidation, even as he publishes what government officials admitted were scary new forecasts showing the economic destruction caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts are expected to show much higher unemployment and unsustainable public finances. Britain’s fiscal watchdog is set to warn that after the Covid-19 slump in output this year, with huge exp...

24Nov

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America, Featured

Biden unveils first cabinet members

President-elect Joe Biden formally announced his first appointments to his incoming cabinet and senior White House leadership, a national security and foreign policy team that reflects the fact that America is back and ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. In remarks from Delaware on Tuesday, Mr Biden said his appointments will confront our adversaries and not reject our allies. His appointments include Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Alejandro Mayorkas to run the Department of Homeland Security, Avril Haines as director of National Intelligence, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as the US ambassador to the United Nations, and Jake Sullivan as his national security adviser. Former secretary of state John Kerry has been tapped for a new role as a “climate envoy”...

Priti Patel probe: PM tried to interfere

21Nov

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Featured, United Kingdom

Priti Patel probe: PM tried to interfere

Boris Johnson has been accused of trying and failing to interfere with the official inquiry into allegations of bullying by home secretary Priti Patel. After refusing to sack Patel, despite a summary of the report released on Friday finding that her conduct amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying, the PM is now facing allegations that he attempted to pressure his standards adviser into watering down his conclusion. Downing Street has not denied suggestions that Johnson had approached Sir Alex Allan in a bid to tone down the report. The adviser quit on Friday when the Johnson overruled his conclusion that Patel breached the ministerial code with her behaviour towards staff, which Allan said included shouting and swearing. Offering what she described ...

20Nov

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Featured, United Kingdom

Brexit deal close to being finalised

A trade and security agreement with Britain is close to being finalised but the risk remains of an accidental no-deal Brexit in six weeks, with gaps on the contentious issues slowly shrinking, EU ambassadors have been told. With Michel Barnier in self-isolation after an EU negotiator tested positive for coronavirus, the talks will be conducted almost entirely online over the next few days. The European commission’s most senior official, Ilze Juhansone, told representatives of the 27 member states in Brussels that the majority of the 11 key negotiation issues now had joint legal texts with fewer and fewer outstanding points. The two sides are also zoning in on agreements on EU access to UK fishing waters and the design of a mechanism to ensure neither side can disto...

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