World
EU relaunches legal action against UK over unilateral Brexit changes
The European Union introduced on Wednesday that it’ll relaunch authorized motion towards the UK over a draft legislation London unveiled that will override components of the Brexit treaty.
The Fee first started “an infringement process” towards the UK in March 2021 however put it on maintain in July that 12 months to create house for extra discussions over the important thing Brexit settlement which leaves Northern Eire inside the bloc’s Single Market, making a de-facto border within the Irish Sea.
The UK authorities, which negotiated and agreed to the settlement — referred to as the Northern Eire Protocol — is now saying it endangers the Good Friday Settlement which ended many years of bloody sectarian violence in Eire.
They are saying that it’s resulting in political instability since Unionists, who wish to retain sturdy hyperlinks with Nice Britain, are refusing to affix a devolved authorities till their issues over the Protocol are addressed.
The draft legislation unveiled on Monday afternoon by UK Overseas Secretary Liz Truss overrides components of the settlement by creating so-called inexperienced and crimson channels to waive customs checks for items travelling between Nice Britain and Northern Eire and are meant for the Northern Irish market solely.
It additionally needs to “guarantee Northern Eire can profit from the identical tax breaks and spending insurance policies as the remainder of the UK, together with VAT” and bypass the European Court docket of Justice in case of disputes and use “unbiased arbitration” as an alternative.
The EU’s Brexit negotiator, Maroš Šefčovič advised reporters that “there is no such thing as a authorized nor political justification in any way for unilaterally altering a global settlement.”
“Let’s name a spade a spade: that is unlawful,” he mentioned.
What’s the EU doing?
The infringement process — or authorized motion — that the EU first launched final 12 months and that it’s now restarting is over the UK’s resolution to unilaterally implement after which prolong grace intervals waving checks on sanitary and phytosanitary merchandise similar to agri-foods.
Additionally it is now launching two new procedures associated to the continued lack of infrastructure and staffing to hold out customs checks within the UK and on London’s failure to share buying and selling knowledge as required underneath the Protocol.
The UK now has two months to reply the EU’s issues.
Failure to supply a solution or if Brussels deems that reply unsatisfactory would outcome within the European Fee referring the matter to the European Court docket of Justice.
This might see the UK fined by the EU’s high court docket, stoking fears of a commerce struggle.
“Regardless of at present’s authorized motion, our door stays open to dialogue. We wish to focus on these options with the UK authorities,” Šefčovič mentioned throughout a press convention.
“Provided that the UK hasn’t sat down on the desk with us since February, I feel it is excessive time to indicate some political will to seek out joint options,” he argued.
The place are the strain factors?
An EU official confused that the bloc proposed an “categorical lane” in October 2021 to simplify and speed up customs procedures for items going to Northern Eire, much like the so-called “inexperienced lane” the UK now needs to introduce, though the EU rejects London’s proposal as a result of it might create a twin regulatory system.
The EU can also be now fleshing out a few of its proposals from October and says it’s keen to “drastically broaden” the scope of a Trusted Dealer Scheme that would scale back checks and controls by greater than 80% and reduce paperwork by greater than half. It could allow companies to fill out a single three-page certificates for a truck crammed with completely different items.
The official additionally mentioned that the UK’s proposal doesn’t present sufficient safeguards for the safety of the Single Market as a result of underneath “the mannequin that the UK has in thoughts, the quantity of information we’d get shouldn’t be adequate for us to hold out danger assessments” essential to find out whether or not items might journey past Northern Eire and into the Republic of Eire.
“We don’t have the IT entry that we had been presupposed to have for customs,” a second EU official confused. Below the Protocol, the UK was meant to start out rolling out real-time knowledge sharing with the EU throughout the transition interval with the system anticipated to be absolutely up-and-running on the finish of the transition however in accordance with the official “we’re nonetheless ready for the UK to offer us real-time IT entry”.
For the EU, the issue is actual.
“There’s smuggling happening for certain,” the official emphasised with customs and police authorities having seized smartphones, cigarettes and medical merchandise amongst others.
Lastly, the EU official reiterated that the position of the ECJ is non-negotiable.
“The one court docket which is competent to rule on the interpretation of these legal guidelines, for the good thing about operators within the EU, in addition to Northern Eire, is the Court docket of Justice so eradicating the position of the ECJ is out of the query and, in actual fact, will probably be discovered unlawful by the court docket itself, so it’s pointless to attempt,” they mentioned.
World
Arson at karaoke bar in Vietnam’s Hanoi kills 11, police say
Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security says suspected perpetrator confessed to starting blaze after dispute with staff.
A suspected arson attack at a cafe and karaoke bar in Vietnam’s Hanoi has killed 11 people and injured two others, police have said.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday that it had arrested a man who confessed to starting the blaze on the ground floor of the building following a dispute with staff.
Rescue workers who rushed to the scene brought seven people out of the building alive, two of whom were rushed to hospital, police said.
Footage that circulated on social media showed a multistorey building engulfed in flames as firefighters worked at the scene while surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.
“At that time, we saw many people screaming for help but could not approach because the fire spread very quickly, and even with a ladder, we could not climb up,” the Lao Dong newspaper quoted a witness as saying.
The Tien Phong newspaper quoted a witness as saying there was a strong smell of petrol at the scene.
“Everyone shouted for those inside to run outside, but no one called for help,” the witness said.
CCTV footage published by the VnExpress news site appeared to show a man carrying a bucket towards the cafe seconds before the blaze began shortly after 11pm (16:00 GMT) on Wednesday.
Fires are a common hazard in Vietnam’s tightly packed urban centres.
Between 2017 and 2022, 433 people were killed in some 17,000 house fires in the country, most of them in urban areas, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
In September last year, 56 people, including four children, were killed and dozens injured in a fire at an apartment block in Hanoi.
This October, a court in southern Binh Duong province jailed six people, including four police officers, over safety lapses related to a fire at a karaoke complex that killed 32 people in 2022.
World
The Year in Pictures 2024: Far From Ordinary
When shots were fired at a campaign rally for former President Donald J. Trump on a July evening in Butler, Pa., the veteran New York Times photographer Doug Mills was just a few feet from him. As the Secret Service rushed toward Mr. Trump, Mr. Mills’s heart pounded when he realized what was happening.
Then instinct took over. Mr. Mills kept taking pictures, at an extremely fast shutter speed of one eight-thousandth of a second, capturing an image that illustrates the magnitude of that moment: Mr. Trump, his face streaked with blood, his fist raised in defiance.
This year was made up of such extraordinary moments. And Times photographers captured them in extraordinary images. The Year in Pictures brings you the most powerful, evocative and history-making of those images — and allows you to see the biggest stories of 2024 through our photographers’ eyes.
The presidential campaign — full of twists and turns — provided some of our most memorable photos. Kenny Holston captured a shaky President Biden struggling to find his footing in what turned out to be his only debate of the 2024 election. Erin Schaff conveyed the exhilaration surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris in the short sprint of her campaign. And Todd Heisler brought home the excitement of an 8-year-old girl in pigtails, Ms. Harris’s great-niece, who watched with pride as Ms. Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president.
Yet even as the American political campaign intensified, wars ground on overseas, creating new dangers and obstacles for our photojournalists determined to document the fighting. The war between Hamas and Israel escalated into a regional conflict, and our photographers depicted the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, the families forced to flee their homes and the neighborhoods reduced to rubble.
When Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza, our photographers revealed the pain of the captives’ families as they cried out at their loved ones’ funerals after 11 months of anguished waiting. And last month, Samar Abu Elouf, a Palestinian photographer for The Times, delivered some of the most indelible images of the year: a series of portraits of Gazans horribly injured in the war, including children who had lost arms, legs or eyes.
Children were also central to the work of Lynsey Addario, a veteran photographer who has been chronicling the war in Ukraine since Russia first invaded in 2022. Ms. Addario’s images tell the stories of young Ukrainians with cancer whose treatment was disrupted by the war, often with devastating results. One, a 5-year-old girl whose chemotherapy was upended by the Russian invasion, ultimately lost her life.
Our photographers embrace their calling of bearing witness to history, showing readers the atrocities and the suffering that might otherwise be overlooked. But they also see their mission more broadly, and aim to depict the richness and color of life by regularly bringing us pictures that delight and surprise.
Take the photo by Hiroko Masuike from the ticker-tape parade in October for the New York Liberty women’s basketball team. The young fans pictured radiate a kind of awe-struck joy, screaming to the players by name. Or the photographs that show the sense of wonder on the faces of people at Niagara Falls as they bask in the magic of a solar eclipse in April.
We hope you can spend some time with these pictures, and take in our photographers’ reflections on them. This collection of images is a way to remember the year, but it is also, we hope, an opportunity to better understand their craft and their devotion to producing the world’s best photojournalism.
Curation
Tanner Curtis, Jeffrey Henson Scales
Interviews
Dionne Searcey
Editing
Natasha King
Digital Design
Matt Ruby
Print Design
Mary Jane Callister, Felicia Vasquez
Production
Peter Blair, Eric Dyer, Wendy Lu, Nancy Ramsey, Jessica Schnall, Hannah Wulkan
Additional Production
Anna Diamond
New York Times Director of Photography
Meaghan Looram
World
French high court upholds ex-president's corruption conviction
France’s highest court has upheld an appeal court decision which had found former President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country’s head of state.
Sarkozy, 69, faces a year in prison, but is expected to ask to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet — as is the case for any sentence of two years or less.
He was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated.
“The convictions and sentences are therefore final,” a Court of Cassation statement on Wednesday said.
FRANCE’S MACRON NAMES CENTRIST ALLY BAYROU AS NEXT PRIME MINISTER
Sarkozy, who was France’s president from 2007 to 2012, retired from public life in 2017 though still plays an influential role in French conservative politics. He was among the guests who attended the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral earlier this month.
Sarkozy, in a statement posted on X, said “I will assume my responsibilities and face all the consequences.”
He added: “I have no intention of complaining. But I am not prepared to accept the profound injustice done to me.”
Sarkozy said he will seek to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights, and hopes those proceedings will result in “France being condemned.”
He reiterated his “full innocence.”
“My determination is total in this case as in all others,” he concluded.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, said his client “will comply” with the ruling. This means the former president will have to wear an electronic bracelet, Spinosi said.
It is the first time in France’s modern history that a former president has been convicted and sentenced to a prison term for actions during his term.
Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty in 2011 of misuse of public money during his time as Paris mayor and was given a two-year suspended prison sentence.
Sarkozy has been involved in several other legal cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.
He faces another trial next month in Paris over accusations he took millions of dollars from then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to illegally finance his successful 2007 campaign.
The corruption case that led to Wednesday’s ruling focused on phone conversations that took place in February 2014.
At the time, investigative judges had launched an inquiry into the financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign. During the inquiry, they discovered that Sarkozy and his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, were communicating via secret mobile phones registered to the alias “Paul Bismuth.”
Wiretapped conversations on those phones led prosecutors to suspect Sarkozy and Herzog of promising magistrate Gilbert Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about another legal case involving Sarkozy. Azibert never got the post and legal proceedings against Sarkozy have been dropped in the case he was seeking information about.
Prosecutors had concluded, however, that the proposal still constitutes corruption under French law, even if the promise wasn’t fulfilled. Sarkozy vigorously denied any malicious intention in his offer to help Azibert.
Azibert and Herzog have also been found guilty in the case.
-
Business1 week ago
OpenAI's controversial Sora is finally launching today. Will it truly disrupt Hollywood?
-
Politics5 days ago
Canadian premier threatens to cut off energy imports to US if Trump imposes tariff on country
-
Technology7 days ago
Inside the launch — and future — of ChatGPT
-
Technology5 days ago
OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever says the way AI is built is about to change
-
Politics5 days ago
U.S. Supreme Court will decide if oil industry may sue to block California's zero-emissions goal
-
Technology5 days ago
Meta asks the US government to block OpenAI’s switch to a for-profit
-
Politics6 days ago
Conservative group debuts major ad buy in key senators' states as 'soft appeal' for Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel
-
Business3 days ago
Freddie Freeman's World Series walk-off grand slam baseball sells at auction for $1.56 million