UK happenings thread #2 (miscellaneous style)

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Two people found guilty over deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in the United Kingdom
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/two-people-f...ed-kingdom

INTRO: Two people have been found guilty of manslaughter and people smuggling over the horrific death of 39 Vietnamese migrants in the back of a lorry in England last year. The bodies of the men and women were found inside a sealed container near London in October 2019 after suffocating in sweltering temperatures. Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, from Northern Ireland, and Romanian national Gheorghe Nica, 43, were found guilty of 39 counts of manslaughter by a London court on Tuesday. They are expected to be sentenced early in January... (MORE)

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Mutant coronavirus in the United Kingdom sets off alarms, but its importance remains unclear
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/...ns-unclear

EXCERPT: . . . Scientists, meanwhile, are hard at work trying to figure out whether B.1.1.7 is really more adept at human-to-human transmission—not everyone is convinced yet—and if so, why. They’re also wondering how it evolved so fast. B.1.1.7 has acquired 17 mutations all at once, a feat never seen before. “There’s now a frantic push to try and characterize some of these mutations in the lab,” says Andrew Rambaut, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh.

[...] scientists have never seen the virus acquire more than a dozen mutations seemingly at once. They think it happened during a long infection of a single patient that allowed SARS-CoV-2 to go through an extended period of fast evolution, with multiple variants competing for advantage.

[...] A fortunate coincidence helped show that B.1.1.7 (also called VUI-202012/01, for the first “variant under investigation” in December 2020), appears to be spreading faster than other variants in the United Kingdom. ... In a press conference on Saturday, Chief Science Adviser Patrick Vallance said B.1.1.7, which first appeared in a virus isolated on 20 September, accounted for about 26% of cases in mid-November. “By the week commencing the ninth of December, these figures were much higher,” he said. “So, in London, over 60% of all the cases were the new variant.” Johnson added that the slew of mutations may have increased the virus’ transmissibility by 70%.

Christian Drosten, a virologist at Charité University Hospital in Berlin, says that was premature. “There are too many unknowns to say something like that,” he says. For one thing, the rapid spread of B.1.1.7 might be down to chance. Scientists previously worried that a variant that spread rapidly from Spain to the rest of Europe—confusingly called B.1.177—might be more transmissible, but today they think it is not; it just happened to be carried all over Europe by travelers who spent their holidays in Spain. Something similar might be happening with B.1.1.7, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University. Drosten notes that the new mutant also carries a deletion in another viral gene, ORF8, that previous studies suggest might reduce the virus’ ability to spread.

But further reason for concern comes from South Africa, where scientists have sequenced genomes in three provinces where cases are soaring: Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and KwaZulu Natal. They identified a lineage separate from the U.K. variant that also has a N501Y mutation in the spike gene. “We found that this lineage seems to be spreading much faster,” says Tulio de Oliveira, a virologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal whose work first alerted U.K. scientists to the importance of N501Y. (A preprint of their results on the strain, which they are calling 501Y.V2, will be released on Monday, de Oliveira says.)

Another worry is B.1.1.7 could cause more severe disease. There is anecdotal evidence that the South African variant may be doing that in young people and those who are otherwise healthy, says John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s concerning, but we really need more data to be sure.” The African Task Force for Coronavirus will convene an emergency meeting to discuss the issue on Monday, Nkengasong says.

Still, B.1.177, the strain from Spain, offers a cautionary lesson, says virologist Emma Hodcroft of the University of Basel. U.K. scientists initially thought it had a 50% higher mortality rate, but that turned out to be “purely messy, biased data in the early days,” she says.

[...] Getting definitive answers could take months. ... But scientists say B.1.1.7 may already be much more widespread. Researchers in the Netherlands have found it in a sample from one patient taken in early December ... The evolutionary process that led to B.1.1.7 may also occur elsewhere. With vaccines being rolled out, the selective pressure on the virus is going to change ... “Whatever enabled the B.1.1.7 lineage to emerge is likely going on in other parts of the world...” (MORE - details)

RELATED (scivillage): World panicking, going crazy over UK's new coronavirus strain

[stryder]

Brings up the question of Viral "Divergence", whereby organisms (our bodies) are the proverbial riverbank and multiple virus attempts to grow and choke each other out on on the riverbank.

Could a fast moving lesser form of the virus actually make it more difficult to gain the deadly strain?
Is it possible that rather than a vaccination method that it could be possible having a viral strain attempting to overpopulate the wild to reduce the deadly strain?

If that latter question is using a viral strain, it would be more actively open to everyone that otherwise is unwilling to be part of vaccination, using the herd immunity method to attempt to starve out the dangerous strain.

[Syne]

Brings up the question of Viral "Divergence", whereby organisms (our bodies) are the proverbial riverbank and multiple virus attempts to grow  and choke each other out on on the riverbank.

Could a fast moving lesser form of the virus actually make it more difficult to gain the deadly strain? 
Is it possible that rather than a vaccination method that it could be possible having a viral strain attempting to overpopulate the wild to reduce the deadly strain? 

If that latter question is using a viral strain, it would be more actively open to everyone that otherwise is unwilling to be part of vaccination, using the herd immunity method to attempt to starve out the dangerous strain.

Studies have shown that some people exposed to earlier coronaviruses had sufficient antibodies to ward off Covid. The prevalence of Covid could be due, in part, to the prevalence of flu vaccinations, leading to fewer exposures to less danger coronaviruses.

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UK-EU Brexit trade deal expected on Christmas Eve
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/...97225.html

INTRO: The UK and European Union are on the threshold of striking a post-Brexit trade deal. An announcement is expected on Christmas Eve, but talks were continuing through the night on the details of an agreement. The development came as Britain and the EU were believed to have made progress on resolving issues including fishing rights and the “level playing field” measures aimed at preventing unfair competition. The expected deal comes with just days left before the current trading arrangements expire on December 31... (MORE)

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Breakthrough: UK and EU reach post-Brexit trade agreement
https://apnews.com/article/brexit-europe...376c3c3d00

RELEASE: Just a week before the deadline, Britain and the European Union struck a free-trade deal Thursday that should avert economic chaos on New Year’s and bring a measure of certainty for businesses after years of Brexit turmoil. Once ratified by both sides, the agreement will ensure Britain and the 27-nation bloc can continue to trade in goods without tariffs or quotas after the U.K. breaks fully free of the EU on Jan. 1.

Relief was palpable all around that nine months of tense and often testy negotiations had finally produced a positive result. The Christmas Eve breakthrough was doubly welcome amid a coronavirus pandemic that has left some 70,000 people in Britain dead and led the country’s neighbors to shut their borders to the U.K. over a new and seemingly more contagious variant of the virus circulating in England.

“We have taken back control of our laws and our destiny,” declared British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who posted a picture of himself on social media, beaming with thumbs up.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “It was a long and winding road, but we have got a good deal to show for it. It is fair, it is a balanced deal, and it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides,” she said in Brussels.

The EU member countries and the British and European parliaments still need to vote on the agreement, though action by the European body may not happen until after the Jan. 1 breakup. Britain’s Parliament is set to vote Dec. 30.

France, long seen as Britain’s toughest obstacle to a deal, said the uncanny steadfastness among the 27 nations with widely varying interests was a triumph in itself. “European unity and firmness paid off,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.

And German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that unity will now probably result in all the EU nations backing the deal: “I am very optimistic that we can present a good result here.”

It has been 4 1/2 years since Britons voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU and — in the words of the Brexiteers’ campaign slogan — “take back control” of the U.K.’s borders and laws. It took more than three years of wrangling before Britain left the bloc’s political structures last January. Disentangling the two sides’ economies and reconciling Britain’s desire for independence with the EU’s aim of preserving its unity took months longer.

The devil will be in the detail of the 2,000-page agreement, but both sides claimed the deal protects their cherished goals. Britain said it gives the U.K. control over its money, borders, laws and fishing grounds and ensures the country is “no longer in the lunar pull of the EU.”

Von der Leyen said it protects the EU’s single market and contains safeguards to ensure Britain does not unfairly undercut the bloc’s standards. If Britain were to quit the EU with no agreement governing trade, the two sides would reinstate tariffs on each other’s goods.

Johnson’s government acknowledged that a chaotic no-deal exit — or a “crash-out,” as the British call it — would probably cause gridlock at the country’s ports, temporary shortages of some goods and higher food prices. The turmoil could also cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. To avoid that, negotiating sessions alternating between London and Brussels — and sometimes disrupted by the pandemic —- gradually whittled differences between the two sides down to three key issues: fair-competition rules, mechanisms for resolving future disputes, and fishing rights.

The EU has long feared that Britain would slash social, environmental and state aid rules after Brexit and gain a competitive advantage over the EU. Britain denies planning to institute weaker standards but said that having to follow EU regulations would undermine its sovereignty. A compromise was eventually reached on the tricky “level playing field” issues. That left the economically minor but hugely symbolic issue of fishing rights as the final sticking point, with maritime EU nations seeking to retain access to U.K. waters where they have long fished.

Under the deal, the EU will give up a quarter of the quota it catches in U.K. waters, far less than the 80% Britain initially demanded. The system will be phased in over 5 1/2 years, after which the quotas will be reassessed.

The U.K. has remained part of the EU’s single market and customs union during the 11-month post-Brexit transition period. As a result, many people so far have noticed little impact from Brexit. On Jan. 1, the breakup will start feeling real. Even with a trade deal, goods and people will no longer be able to move freely between the U.K. and its continental neighbors without border restrictions.

EU citizens will no longer be able to live and work in Britain without visas -- though that does not apply to the 4 million already doing so -- and Britons can no longer automatically work or retire in EU nations. Exporters and importers face customs declarations, goods checks and other obstacles.

British manufacturers and traders welcomed the certainty provided by the deal. But economists said other parts of the economy — especially Britain’s huge services sector — would be left out in the cold.

David Henig, a trade expert at the European Center for International Political Economy, said Jan. 1 marked “the end of seamless trade between the U.K. and the EU. And the difference that a trade deal makes is not going to be obvious to most people from that,” he said. “It is the new barriers that people will notice much more.”

The U.K.-EU border is already reeling from new restrictions placed on travelers from Britain into France and other European countries because of the new version of the coronavirus sweeping through London and southern England. Thousands of trucks were stuck in traffic jams near the port of Dover on Wednesday, waiting for their drivers to get virus tests so they could enter the Eurotunnel to France. British supermarkets said the backlog will take days to clear and there could be shortages of some fresh produce over the holiday season.

Despite the deal, there are still unanswered questions about huge areas, including security cooperation between the U.K. and the bloc — with the U.K. set to lose access to real-time information in some EU law-enforcement databases — and access to the EU market for Britain’s huge financial services sector.

Von der Leyen said she felt “quiet satisfaction,” but no joy, now that the torrid Brexit saga that has consumed Britain and the EU for years is finally almost over. “I know this is a difficult day for some, and to our friends in the United Kingdom I want to say parting is such sweet sorrow,” she said.

Johnson, who staked his career and reputation on extracting the country from the EU, said Britain will always be a strong friend and partner to the bloc. “Although we have left the EU, this country will remain, culturally, emotionally, historically, strategically, geologically attached to Europe,” he said.

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Brexit: British government warns of bureaucratic hurdles despite trade deal
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/br...-1.4446116

INTRO: Boris Johnson has expressed confidence that even the most hardline Brexiteers among Conservative MPs will vote for his Brexit deal when it comes before the House of Commons on Wednesday. But his government warned businesses and citizens that they must prepare for new bureaucratic hurdles from January 1st if they are trading with or travelling to the European Union.

[...] The British prime minister acknowledged that the deal did not go as far as he had hoped in offering access to British-based financial services firms to the European market. ... “But this deal also provides reassurance because there’s a stable regulatory co-operative framework mentioned in the deal, which I think will give people that reassurance that we will remain in close dialogue with our European partners when it comes to things like equivalence decisions,” he said.

The British government has urged businesses and citizens to make their final preparations for the end of the post-Brexit transition on December 31st when new customs formalities will be introduced, despite the tariff-free, quota-free trade deal agreed on Christmas Eve. Exporters to the EU will have to make customs declarations and fulfil new marketing requirements and approvals.

Travellers to anywhere in the EU except Ireland have been urged to take out comprehensive travel insurance, check with their vet about pet passports and remember that they could face roaming charges. “The nature of our new relationship with the EU – outside the single market and customs union – means that there are practical and procedural changes that businesses and citizens need to get ready for, and time to make these final preparations is very short. We know that there will be some disruption as we adjust to new ways of doing business with the EU, so it is vital that we all take the necessary action now,” cabinet office minister Michael Gove said... (MORE - details)

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Some of Britain's oldest cheesemakers at risk of closure
https://news.sky.com/story/some-of-brita...e-12170314

INTRO: Some of Britain's oldest cheesemakers are at risk of closure, as COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainty over Brexit take their toll. Rural producers and suppliers are warning that early next year will be the real "make-or-break" moment for many traditional cheesemakers, despite the annual boost from Christmas sales. "I'm a third-generation cheesemaker and to feel like everything is being taken away from you, overnight, it's a really strange feeling," Graham Kirkham, managing director of Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire Cheese, told Sky News... (MORE)

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Scientists call for full lockdown in England as new Covid cases multiply
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/d...in-england

INTRO: Scientists and health bodies are calling for tighter coronavirus restrictions in England as cases continue to rise and hospitals report mounting pressure. Issuing a warning ahead of a government review of the tier system in England on Wednesday, the Independent Sage group of experts said that unless the whole country was immediately put under lockdown, there could be ‘tens of thousands’ of avoidable deaths.

NHS Providers, which represents members within NHS hospitals, mental health, community and ambulance services in England, also called for tier 4 restrictions to be further extended across the country. The calls come in the same week that the number of patients in hospital with Covid in England surpassed the peak in the first wave, with 20,426 people in hospital with the disease on the 28 December, and numbers expected to rise further as cases climb.

On Tuesday, coronavirus cases reached a new record high, with 53,135 cases reported in the UK and 47,164 cases in England. The seven-day average rate for London as a whole to the 24 December was 807.6 per 100,000 population, twice that of the rate for England, while Thurrock, in Essex, had more than 1,300 cases per 100,000 population for the same period.

Christina Pagel, professor of operational research at University College London and a member of Independent Sage, said things were as bad as they had ever been. “The frightening thing is that they are going to continue to get worse,” she said. “Action is needed now to avoid the collapse of the NHS in a few weeks. It is that serious.”

The group warns that with the emergence of a new UK variant of the virus, which is estimated to be 56% more transmissible than previous variants, the situation has taken a turn for the worse and that the current tier system is not sufficient even in places where the new variant is rare... (MORE)

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From bat to bugs and squirrels to swans, the British wildlife that's bounced back this year
https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/bat...TO=newsnow

ITEMS COVERED: Deep sea thriving ..... Bats bouncing out of the belfry ..... Saving Scotland’s squirrels ..... Seal of approval ..... Stork success ..... Darting upwards ..... Project pine marten ..... A bug’s guide to the UK ..... Stand for swans

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More than 1,500 hens and cockerels bought during lockdown have been dumped and abandoned amid fears over return of bird flu, RSPCA warns
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...doned.html

EXCERPTS: Cockerels and hens that were bought during the lockdown are being dumped in large numbers as owners try to tackle a return of bird flu. The RSPCA has dealt with 1,562 abandoned birds in the UK this year as new owners struggle to comply with the Government's new biosecurity advice following the outbreak of the H5N8 strain - which has not infected any humans to date.

The charity has also taken 280 chickens into its centres for rehoming and has warned that rescue centres could soon become overrun with the abandoned birds as more people get rid of their pets. It comes after hen producers reported a surge in demand for chicks this spring following a shortage of eggs in supermarkets. However bird keepers are now required to keep their birds contained indoors or netted and must follow the strict biosecurity advice that was issued last month amid fears of a return of bird flu.

An RSPCA spokesperson said: "Concerns were raised during lockdown about the increase in pet acquisition and ownership and we feared that people would soon lose interest and start to hand their animals over once life started to return to normal. In the spring, many hen producers reported huge surges in demand for chicks and we believe this may be because people panic bought birds due to shortages of eggs in the supermarkets but, due to the shops being better stocked, are now 'surplus to requirement'. There are also concerns that some families may have taken on unsexed chicks which have grown into noisy cockerels so are now being abandoned."

[...] Dozens of hens and cockerels have been dumped in recent weeks, sparking fears that charities and rescue centres will soon be overrun with unwanted chickens... (MORE - details)

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UK lawmakers approve Brexit trade deal
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/28/uk-lawma...-deal.html

INTRO: U.K. lawmakers voted to approve the historic Brexit trade agreement, which will be implemented on New Year's Day. The House of Commons, as expected, voted in favor of the agreement, and the country will emerge from its Brexit transition period with the EU at 11 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Members of Parliament backed the deal by 521 votes to 73 ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline. That's a majority of 448. The bill will now move to the House of Lords, which is also expected to support it, before receiving royal assent. The opposition Labour Party backed the deal despite concerns, but there were some rebel lawmakers in Labour and the ruling Conservative Party.

The 1,246-page document, whose details are published on the U.K. government's website, and the fraught last-minute negotiations left little time for any proper scrutiny ahead of the deadline... (MORE)

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The UK approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. The US might not get it until April.
https://www.vox.com/22206498/uk-approves...oronavirus

INTRO: The United Kingdom on Wednesday authorized its second Covid-19 vaccine for distribution. Developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, the newly approved vaccine costs less and is easier to store than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that received similar approval in the UK on December 2.

Officials said the advantages of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could accelerate the vaccination effort as the UK contends with a new, more transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. “This approval means more people can be protected against this virus and will help save lives,” June Raine, chief executive of the UK’s health regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said in a statement.

The UK aims to vaccinate 1 million people per week and is shifting to a more aggressive vaccination schedule, according to the New York Times. The country will administer the first vaccine dose to “as many people as possible,” rather than try to keep supplies in reserve to ensure everyone receives a second dose, as other countries, including the United States, have done so far.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine’s high stability and low cost could also be a boon to less wealthy nations. If its efficacy is high — and if the vaccine is distributed quickly — it could save countless lives. However, some lingering questions about the results of clinical trials for this vaccine are holding it back from approval in the US, which is conducting its own trials of the vaccine’s effectiveness... (MORE)

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UK-EU research deal at a glance
https://sciencebusiness.net/framework-pr...eal-glance

INTRO: The post-Brexit agreement between the EU and the UK has set off a scramble to work out what it means for individuals, businesses, research labs and universities. The treaty, 1,246 pages long, says that the UK can continue to pay into and participate in five EU funding programmes – including the big Horizon Europe research scheme, a seven-year, €95.5 billion plan to succeed the current programme, Horizon 2020.

The UK has a strong track record in EU research competitions. From 2007-2013, the country participated in over 10,000 projects with over 18,000 participants. In total, the UK secured around €7 billion in funding (15% of total awarded funding) over that period – the second greatest share of participations and of EU funding, behind Germany in both cases. Overall, the UK has secured around €5.9 billion in funding from Horizon 2020, according to June 2019 figures (13.5% of the total, second again to Germany).

Brexit pumped the brakes on UK success. The country's annual share of EU research funding has fallen by nearly a third since 2015, according to the Royal Society.

The Christmas Eve deal ends uncertainty around the UK’s eligibility for EU competitions, but it also changes the rules of the game for UK access, making life more complicated than when Britain was a member of the bloc. The accord commits the UK to further negotiations with Brussels to formally “associate” with the programme, meaning London will contribute some funding and its researchers can bid for Horizon money alongside Europeans. With the Brexit-induced policy logjam out of the way, Commission officials can now also start association negotiations with distant non-EU countries like Canada and Japan.

Here’s some of the main features of the new relationship in more detail... (MORE - details)

COVERED: The money ..... The negotiation continues ..... ‘Emergency brake’ ..... Suspension and termination ..... Student exchange ends

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Big Ben rings out as UK's divorce from EU is finalised
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/brexit-big-be...finalised/

INTRO: Big Ben rang out across London at 11pm as the UK's divorce from the European Union was finalised, four-and-a-half years after the referendum result. After intense negotiations finally led to a last-minute deal, Britain has finally left the EU following the June 2016 membership referendum. The historic moment puts an end to the current Brexit transition period - during which the country continued to follow EU rules... (MORE)

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UK officially exits the European Union
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/uk-o...56r68.html

INTRO: Britain’s long and sometimes acrimonious divorce from the European Union ended on Thursday, local time, with an economic split that leaves the EU smaller and the UK freer but more isolated in a turbulent world. Britain left the European bloc’s vast single market for people, goods and services at 11pm London time, midnight in Brussels, completing the biggest single economic change the country has experienced since World War II.

People raise a glass and celebrate in Parliament Square as the bell known as Big Ben strikes 2300, and Britain ends its transition period and formally leaves the European Union in London. A different UK-EU trade deal will bring new restrictions and red tape, but for British Brexit supporters, it means reclaiming national independence from the EU and its web of rules.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose support for Brexit helped push the country out of the EU, called it “an amazing moment for this country. We have our freedom in our hands, and it is up to us to make the most of it,” he said in a New Year’s video message.

The break comes 11 months after a political Brexit that left the two sides in the limbo of a “transition period” - like a separated couple still living together, wrangling and wondering whether they can remain friends. Now the UK has finally moved out... (MORE)

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How Johnson let Europe take us to the cleaners
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-...-cleaners/

INTRO: Boris Johnson is not experienced at negotiations. He shows no talent for it, he has no nerves. He should have left Dave Frost in charge right to the end. Instead he fell for the EU ploy – playing on his simpleton side, his vanity – and they methodically took our fishing and coastal communities to the cleaners. Dave was in the House of Lords and therefore answerable to Parliament. In effect, he was a minister, and he should have been allowed to do his job.

Barnier played with his phone because his job only came back when they screwed us over the quotas for individual catches of fish. Channel cod says it all – a 1 per cent increase in the British quota. In other words, our coastal waters and EEZ have been given away for another five and a half years.

We must get back to Cabinet government where ministers run their departments and the Prime Minister is chairman, like Maggie’s governments and Jim Callaghan’s governments. At the moment we have a series of Tony Blair kitchen cabinets where decisions are made on the hoof and no record of Cabinet agreement exists to show that his line for dealing with Ursula was agreed beforehand.

If such a record does exist, the ERG members should ask for it to be laid before Parliament. They should also demand sight of Boris’s plan to build a new and much larger fishing fleet within the next five years. I’m sorry to spoil the party, but this trap was so obvious that I fear Johnson is yet another of these people who have enjoyed the best education money can buy yet are devoid of common sense... (MORE)

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Surrender of the conservatives
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/surr...ervatives/

INTRO: Where have all the conservatives gone? They’ve abandoned their posts faster than a French soldier who’s just heard his favourite mistress has rolled into town. This is par for the course, however, and you certainly shouldn’t be surprised. By and large, so-called ‘conservatives’ are the useful idiots of the Left. Present company excluded, of course. When examining the beliefs of many conservative commentators, it quickly emerges that they are being led by the nose by their supposed political foes. What’s worse is that they are almost entirely unaware of it.

With the world for decades sliding down the unstoppable toboggan ride of progressivism, our CCHQ-approved conservatives have no idea where the ride even started, let alone where it is heading. This blue rosette is nice, but what, exactly, am I conserving? they may wonder. In fact, they operate in a world entirely defined by their opponents. They stand ready to oppose only the next innovation demanded by their adversaries. It’s as if the world until that point was just right. This is the extent of modern conservatism – a brake on the madness of the Left.

Each time, of course, they lose their chosen fight. Is there a single major issue in recent history that has not seen a Right-wing rout? Conservatism’s defences against progressivism have proved as robust as a de Pfeffel marriage vow. Thus the leftward slide continues. We’re even struggling to maintain the concept of man and woman: how much more humiliating can it get? Without conservatives actually believing in anything concrete, such a result is naturally a foregone conclusion... (MORE)

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Boris Johnson's father to apply for French citizenship
https://www.dw.com/en/boris-johnsons-fat...a-56106774

INTRO: The father of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday said he would apply to become a French citizen, despite being in favor of Britain leaving the 27-member bloc. Stanley Johnson, who voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 Brexit referendum but has since changed his mind, told the French radio station RTL that he was "already French" and claiming what was rightfully his.

Johnson told the station his grandmother was French and his mother was born in France. "I will always be European, that's for sure, said Johnson. "You can't say to the English 'you are not European.' Having a link with the European Union is important."

The 80-year-old previously worked as a member of the European Parliament. However, in an interview with The Times newspaper last December, Johnson said he had changed his mind since the referendum result and was now in favor of leaving... (MORE)

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UK to feed 430,000 Nigerians with £7m
https://thenationonlineng.net/uk-to-feed...s-with-7m/

INTRO: The United Kingdom (UK) has pledged to spend £7 million aid in Nigeria through the World Food Programme to reach 430,000 Nigerians, especially in the Northeast, with unconditional food assistance and nutrition support for 108 days. The amount is part of an extra £47 million aid to immediately provide food, nutrition, water and shelter for vulnerable families in nine countries and regions.

A statement issued by Press & Public Affairs Officer, British Deputy High Commission, Lagos Ndidiamaka Eze indicated that the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Northeast is increasing, having risen to 8.9 million people as the world enter 2021. The statement said over 3.4 million are living in acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels in Northeast Nigeria, including 1.2 million living in areas that are inaccessible areas due to insecurity.

This, it said, is set to increase to five million people in the next lean season (June–August 2021), if immediate mitigating actions are not taken. The UK is the second-largest humanitarian donor to Nigeria, providing £85 million in life-saving assistance in the financial year 2020/21 alone, as part of an overall £258 million of UK development funding in Nigeria. However, the UN Humanitarian Response Plan remains significantly underfunded and access remains a major obstacle... (MORE - details)