UK parliament dissolves ahead of election

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Updated 30 May 2024
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UK parliament dissolves ahead of election

  • Five weeks of campaigning officially began as 650 seats of MPs became vacant at 2301 GMT
  • Prime Minister Sunak set the election for July 4, instead of later in the year as had been widely expected

LONDON: The British parliament dissolved on Thursday ahead of a July 4 general election, which looks set to bring Labour to power after 14 years of Conservative rule.

Five weeks of campaigning officially began as 650 seats of members of parliament (MPs) became vacant at one minute past midnight (2301 GMT) in line with the electoral schedule.
The first week of campaigning has seen a shaky start following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s rain-drenched election announcement, with many observers taking the downpour as a bad omen.
Sunak set the election for July 4, instead of later in the year as had been widely expected, in what observers said was an attempt to regain momentum as his party slides in opinion polls.
After 14 years in opposition, the Labour party now has the chance to win back power with its leader Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, at the helm.

Trailing double digits behind Labour in polls, the ruling party also faced a mass exodus of parliamentarians, some throwing in the towel in the face of bleak chances of victory.
Some 129 MPs have so far announced that they will not be standing for re-election. Among them are 77 Conservatives, an unprecedented exodus for a governing party.
Among the Tories standing for re-election, some have made no secret of their annoyance at having been caught off guard by the July election date.
Steve Baker, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, stood by his decision to continue his vacation in Greece, saying that he would be preparing his campaign there.
Signs of infighting also spilled into the open with one Tory MP backing a candidate from the right-wing populist Reform UK party in her constituency, before being promptly suspended by the Conservatives.

After the election announcement, Sunak traveled across the country, promoting Conservatives as the “safe” option.
His campaign met with some early snags, including a visit to the site where the Titanic was built drawing comparisons between his leadership and captaining a sinking ship.
Doubling down on older voters and right-wing supporters, Sunak’s campaign has seen pledges to bring back national service and what is billed as a £2.4 billion ($3 billion) tax break for pensioners.
However, Sunak’s week of intense campaigning and bid to surprise the country have done little to boost favor.
Polls put Labour on average at 45 percent of voting intentions, against 23 percent for the Tories, suggesting that, given the simple-majority voting system, Labour will enjoy a very large win.
In a bid to turn things around, Sunak is hoping to win points in the scheduled debates with Keir Starmer, the first of which is set to take place next Tuesday on ITV.

Meanwhile, Labour is seeking to capitalize on the public’s weariness with the Conservatives, who have seen five prime ministers since 2016 alongside a slew of scandals and economic woes.
It has tried to focus on its shift to the “natural party of business” after winning the backing of 120 industry leaders this week.
After a resounding defeat under left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, Starmer has pushed the party to the center in a bid to win back voters, including by purging Corbyn and making moves to root out anti-Semitism.
However, the past week has exposed the long-standing factional splits within the party, with MP Diane Abbott expressing her dismay at the party’s desire to bar her from candidacy.
Starmer has insisted that the fate of Abbott, who was suspended last year for comments on racism, had not yet been decided. But the treatment meted out to the highly respected 70-year-old, who has spent 37 years as a member of parliament, has provoked fierce criticism.
Starmer has also faced condemnation from leftist voters who accuse him of rolling back promises he made during his successful leadership campaign.
 


Britain plans at least six new weapons factories in defense review

Updated 5 sec ago
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Britain plans at least six new weapons factories in defense review

  • The 1.5 billion-pound ($2.0 billion) investment will be included in the Strategic Defense Review, a 10-year plan for military equipment and services

MANCHESTER, England: Britain will build at least six new factories producing weapons and explosives as part of a major review of its defense capabilities, the government said on Saturday.
The 1.5 billion-pound ($2.0 billion) investment will be included in the Strategic Defense Review, a 10-year plan for military equipment and services. The SDR is expected to be published on Monday.
The Ministry of Defense added that it planned to procure up to 7,000 long-range weapons built in Britain. Together, the measures announced on Saturday will create around 1,800 jobs, the MoD said.
“The hard-fought lessons from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine show a military is only as strong as the industry that stands behind them,” Defense Secretary John Healey said in a statement.
“We are strengthening the UK’s industrial base to better deter our adversaries and make the UK secure at home and strong abroad.”
The extra investment will mean Britain will spend around 6 billion pounds on munitions in the current parliament, the MoD said.
Earlier on Saturday, the MoD said it would spend an extra 1.5 billion pounds to tackle the poor state of housing for the country’s armed forces.


Paris Holocaust memorial, synagogues hit with paint

Updated 31 May 2025
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Paris Holocaust memorial, synagogues hit with paint

  • “I am deeply disgusted by these heinous acts targeting the Jewish community,” Retailleau said
  • No arrests have been made

PARIS: France’s Holocaust memorial, two synagogues and a restaurant in central Paris were vandalized with green paint overnight, according to police sources on Saturday, prompting condemnation from government and city officials.

“I am deeply disgusted by these heinous acts targeting the Jewish community,” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X.

No arrests have been made.

Retailleau last week called for “visible and dissuasive” security measures at Jewish-linked sites amid concerns over possible anti-Semitic acts.

In a separate message seen by AFP, the interior minister on Friday had again ordered heightened surveillance ahead of the upcoming Jewish Shavuot holiday.

The French Jewish community, one of the largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023.

“Anti-Semitic acts account for more than 60 percent of anti-religious acts, and the Jewish community is particularly vulnerable,” Retailleau said in the message seen by AFP.

Paris authorities would be lodging a complaint over the paint incident, said the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo.

“I condemn these acts of intimidation in the strongest possible terms. Anti-Semitism has no place in our city or in our Republic,” she said.

In May 2024, red hand graffiti was painted beneath the wall at the memorial in central Paris honoring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the 1940-44 Nazi occupation of France.


US judge prevents Trump from invalidating 5,000 Venezuelans’ legal documents

Updated 31 May 2025
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US judge prevents Trump from invalidating 5,000 Venezuelans’ legal documents

  • The US Supreme Court on May 19 lifted an earlier order Chen issued
  • TPS is available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster

NEW YORK: A federal judge prevented the Trump administration from invalidating work permits and other documents granting lawful status to about 5,000 Venezuelans, a subset of the nearly 350,000 whose temporary legal protections the US Supreme Court last week allowed to be terminated.

US District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco in a Friday night ruling concluded that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem likely exceeded her authority when she in February invalidated those documents while more broadly ending the temporary protected status granted to the Venezuelans.

The US Supreme Court on May 19 lifted an earlier order Chen issued that prevented the administration as part of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda from terminating deportation protection conferred to Venezuelans under the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, program.

But the high court stated specifically it was not preventing any Venezuelans from still challenging Noem’s related decision to invalidate documents they were issued pursuant to that program that allowed them to work and live in the United States.

Such documents were issued after the US Department of Homeland Security in the final days of Democratic President Joe Biden’s tenure extended the TPS program for the Venezuelans by 18 months to October 2026, an action Noem then moved to reverse.

TPS is available to people whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event.

Lawyers for several Venezuelans and the advocacy group National TPS Alliance asked Chen to recognize the continuing validity of those documents, saying without them thousands of migrants could lose their jobs or be deported.

Chen in siding with them said nothing in the statute that authorized the Temporary Protected Status program allowed Noem to invalidate the documents.

Chen, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, noted the administration estimated only about 5,000 of the 350,000 Venezuelans held such documents. “This smaller number cuts against any contention that the continued presence of these TPS holders who were granted TPS-related documents by the Secretary would be a toll on the national or local economies or a threat to national security,” Chen wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Chen ruled hours after the US Supreme Court in a different case allowed Trump’s administration to end the temporary immigration “parole” granted to 532,000 Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants under a different Biden-era program.


India’s military chief admits jets downed in recent clashes with Pakistan

Updated 31 May 2025
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India’s military chief admits jets downed in recent clashes with Pakistan

  • Islamabad previously claimed to have shot down 6 Indian jets in early May
  • Indian Air Force may have underestimated its Pakistani counterpart, says expert

NEW DELHI: India’s military chief Gen. Anil Chauhan has confirmed for the first time that the Indian Air Force lost jets in clashes with Pakistan in May.

Earlier this month, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country shot down six Indian jets, an assertion that Delhi had refrained from commenting on.

Chauhan, chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, is the first Indian official to make the most direct admission over the fate of the country’s fighter jets during the conflict that erupted on May 7.

“What is important is that, not the jet being downed, but why they were being downed,” Chauhan told Bloomberg TV in an interview on Saturday, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“The good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it and then implement it again after two days and fly all our jets again, targeting at long range.”

Pakistan’s claims of shooting down six Indian combat aircraft were “absolutely incorrect,” Chauhan said, without specifying how many jets India lost.

India and Pakistan recently saw their worst clashes in half a century, during which both sides traded air, drone and missile strikes, as well as artillery and small arms fire along their shared border.

It was triggered by a gruesome attack on tourists near the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 people — 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen — were killed.

Bharat Karnad, an emeritus professor for National Security Studies at the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, said that the Indian Air Force may have underestimated its Pakistani counterpart.

“Initially, Indians were surprised. Maybe they underestimated the capacity of the Pakistani Air Force,” Karnad told Arab News on Saturday.

“I think what was surprising was that India did not use the airborne early warning (and) control system, the NETRA, which Pakistan has used very well,” he said. “I’m not sure how much the Indian Air Force expected this kind of tactical innovation. So, this is something that the Indian Air Force realized very quickly.”

According to Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, a retired officer of the Indian Air Force, Pakistan benefited from its Chinese-made weapons during the early May conflict.

“This brings us to the lessons which underscore that India was not fighting Pakistan on one front but two countries: Pakistan and China,” Kak told Arab News.

“Every single superior technology, capability, operationally and tactically, or in strategic terms, are made available to Pakistan. That must concern us: What kind of force structure we must have and what kind of capabilities we must build against the combo.”


Death toll rises to 17 in Indonesia quarry collapse as search continues

Updated 31 May 2025
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Death toll rises to 17 in Indonesia quarry collapse as search continues

  • The victims were trapped in the rubble when the Gunung Kuda quarry in Cirebon district collapsed
  • By Saturday afternoon, rescuers had retrieved 16 bodies

CIREBON, Indonesia: The death toll from the collapse of a stone quarry in Indonesia’s West Java province has risen to at least 17, with eight people still missing, officials said Saturday.

The victims were trapped in the rubble when the Gunung Kuda quarry in Cirebon district collapsed on Friday. A dozen survivors were found by rescuers.

By Saturday afternoon, rescuers had retrieved 16 bodies, while one of the survivors died in the hospital, said local police chief Sumarni. She said rescuers are searching for eight people still believed to be trapped

“The search operation has been hampered by bad weather, unstable soil and rugged terrain,” said Sumarni who goes by a single name like many Indonesians.

She said the cause of the collapse is still under investigation, and police have been questioning six people, including the owner of the quarry.

Local television reports showed emergency personnel, along with police, soldiers and volunteers, digging desperately in the quarry in a steep limestone cliff, supported by five excavators, early Saturday.

West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi said in a video statement on Instagram that he visited the quarry before he was elected in February and considered it dangerous.

“It did not meet the safety standard elements for its workers,” Mulyadi said, adding that at that time, “I didn’t have any capacity to stop it.”

On Friday, Mulyadi said that he had ordered the quarry shut, as well as four other similar sites in West Java.

Illegal or informal resource extraction operations are common in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to those who labor in conditions with a high risk of injury or death.

Landslides, flooding and tunnel collapses are just some of the hazards associated with them. Much of the processing of sand, rocks or gold ore also involves the use of highly toxic mercury and cyanide by workers using little or no protection.

Last year, a landslide triggered by torrential rains struck an unauthorized gold mining operation on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, killing at least 15 people.