Brexit
Telegraph
Boris Johnson has warned that the post-Brexit issues with Northern Ireland “can’t go on forever” as he claimed the Dutch Prime Minister has offered to mediate on the issue.
Brexit minister Lord Frost has argued that the threshold of triggering Article 16 of the protocol, which would effectively tear up parts of the deal he negotiated, has been met.
So far the Government has resisted taking what amounts to a nuclear option, but Mr Johnson was asked if he could make the move in the days after meeting the US president, Joe Biden.
“I hope everybody knows this isn’t something that the UK Government is trying to stoke up for our own political purposes,” he told reporters travelling with him to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
“On the contrary, we want to fix this, we want common sense. We want no barriers in the UK for trading in our country and it’s crazy at the moment that we’ve got the protocol being enforced or being used in the way that it is.
Speaking to reporters during his trip to Washington, Mr Johnson said the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had come to the UK last week to “see if he could mediate on the issue”.
AUKUS
Express
BORIS JOHNSON’s pioneering trilateral defence deal has left both the European Union and France looking weak in comparison with the “bigger, tougher” UK and US, a former British diplomat has said.
And Adrian Hill has hailed the agreement, whereby Australia will begin building nuclear submarines using technology supplied by the other two countries, as a masterstroke – stressing: “The EU is no match for the United States.” Mr Hill was commenting after details were confirmed last week, with Australia pulling the plug on a $90billion dollar deal with France to build conventional submarines, much to the anger of both French President Emmanuel Macron and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
France went so far as to recall its envoys from Australia and the US in protest but Mr Hill – a former officer in the Royal Engineers who among other diplomatic posts worked as a member of the Channel Tunnel team at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the COBRA Committee of the Cabinet Office – suggested the reaction was largely the result of sour grapes.
He told Express.co.uk: “There is a row and a lot of silly things are being squawked by the usual parakeets.
“France simply is no substitute for the United States. Europe is no replacement for the United States.
Mail
Beijing’s tantrum over Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine deal with the United States and Britain has escalated even further, with a top Chinese academic in Beijing warning the nation is now a target for ‘nuclear war’.
Victor Gao, who was once communist leader Deng Xiaoping’s translator, made a thinly-veiled threat that the AUKUS pact announced last week was a ‘gross violation of international law’ that will have ‘profound consequences’ for ‘brainless’ Aussies.
His comments have followed several days of dummy spits by Communist Party bureaucrats crying foul that their ambitions of dominating the seas of the Indo-Pacific have been met with pushback from democratic adversaries.
Trade
Telegraph
Boris Johnson appears to have given up hope of securing a UK-US free trade deal any time soon, saying that Joe Biden, the US president, has other “fish to fry”.
In comments underscoring how many steps remain until a final agreement is struck, Mr Johnson said he would rather wait for a “great” deal than hurry talks.
His official spokesman declined to say he believed a deal could be done and got through Congress before the US midterm elections next November. It means that, more than five years after the Brexit vote, it remains unclear how, when and in what form a UK-US deal – much touted in by eurosceptics – will happen.
Mr Johnson will on Tuesday visit the White House for the first time since becoming Prime Minister more than two years ago, holding face-to-face talks with Mr Biden in the Oval Office. He will also meet Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, and congressional leaders.
Speaking to reporters on his flight to New York, Mr Johnson played down hopes of a speedy breakthrough on free trade talks.
“On the FTA [free trade agreement], the reality is that Joe has a lot of fish to fry. He’s got a huge infrastructure package, he’s got a ‘build back better’ package,” he said.
The Guardian and the Independent also have the story.
Finance
Express
MINISTERS have vowed to strike a financial services deal with the US as the EU continues to show a lack of willingness to grant “equivalence” to UK markets.
The UK is hoping to strike a deal over the British financial sector’s role in Europe, which would allow for mutual recognition of financial service rules between London and Brussels. But despite a “memorandum of understanding” being provisionally agreed in March this year allowing for engagement on financial industry matters, no “equivalence” deal for the sector has been signed.
John Glen, who works under Chancellor Rishi Sunak, said there was no sign of any movement by the European Commission on a finance deal stressing that was “a matter for them”.
But speaking ahead of a visit to the US today, the Treasury Minister said the financial service sector in London was “booming” now the UK had left the EU.
Because of a lack of movement from Brussels, Mr Glen said he wanted to agree on greater “regulatory co-operation” on financial services with US chiefs branding them the “UK’s most important bilateral partner.”
The Minister, who survived Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle last week said the UK wanted to “step up the ambition” with the US and develop “a like-minded approach to regulation”.
GPs
Mail
Boris Johnson last night piled pressure on GPs to offer more in-person consultations.
His spokesman said every patient had the right to a face-to-face appointment if they wanted one.
A day after the Mail launched a campaign to improve access to family doctors, Downing Street said: ‘The public rightly may choose to want to see their GP face to face – and GP practices should be making that facility available to their patients.’
Charities and politicians have been clamouring for the Prime Minister to act amid fears that cancers and other serious health conditions are being missed in remote consultations.
Just 57 per cent of GP appointments are now in person compared with 80 per cent before the pandemic.
‘The relationship between the GP and his or her patient really depends on face-to-face consultation,’ said Tory former health secretary Kenneth Clarke.
‘I find it difficult to see how anyone can diagnose totally accurately symptoms described over the telephone.
‘I think face-to-face appointments should go back to pre-pandemic levels and I don’t see why they can’t.’
Further details are in the Sun.
Energy
Express
THE UK and Norway have signed a bilateral treaty to formalise power trading between the two countries in a major boost for Brexit Britain.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said the agreement comes ahead of the start of commercial testing operations in October of the North Sea Link, the first electricity interconnector between the two countries. UK ministers said the North Sea Link would help reduce wholesale electricity prices, and cited an estimate from regulator Ofgem which said savings for customers’ annual energy bills could total £3.5 billion over the next 25 years.
The 1,400 megawatt (MW) cable’s start-up comes as electricity prices in both countries are at multi-year highs, albeit UK prices at a steep premium, suggesting it will initially export power from Norway to Britain.
The UK will also benefit from Norway’s vast hydropower resources to help balance intermittent wind power.
Meanwhile, Norway can import cheap surplus renewable energy to save water in its hydropower reservoirs.
Several other media have the story including Mail, Evening Standard, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, BBC News
Independent
A harsh winter could force the UK to restrict business’ energy supplies shutting down factories in a throw-back to the three-day week of the 1970s, according to sector experts.
A spike in natural gas prices forced the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng into crisis talks with energy providers over the weekend. It has thrown the security of the country’s energy supplies into the spotlight, revealing vulnerabilities which government advisors claim to have repeatedly raised with government to no avail.
The business secretary emphasised the UK’s ability to produce nearly 50 per cent of the gas it needed last year in a statement to parliament on Monday and also suggested that key energy ally Norway could help meet shortfalls from elsewhere. He dismissed suggestions that there could be any supply shortages in the months ahead.
Order-order has a similar story.
Dementia
Mail
For decades it has been used to treat divers with the ‘bends’ — potentially deadly nitrogen bubbles that can form in the blood when surfacing quickly from deep water.
But pressurised chambers that deliver 100 per cent oxygen to the body can also bump-start the healing process, and they are now being used for a wide range of conditions from diabetic ulcers to damage caused by cancer radiation treatment.
It’s even being investigated as a way to reverse ageing.
Singer Justin Bieber has used it to ‘de-stress’, while Sky news presenter Jacquie Beltrao revealed on Twitter last month that she had included it in her treatment for advanced breast cancer. One theory is that cancer may struggle to thrive when the body is flooded with oxygen, although this is not proven.
However, research this month suggests that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), as it is medically known, could be a treatment for dementia.
The study, published in the journal Aging, found that when elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment — an early sign of dementia — had 90-minute sessions of the therapy five days a week for three months, they had improved memory and brain function.
Although the study was small, with just six patients, scientists from Tel Aviv University in Israel who carried out the research, say it could become a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, delaying or even reversing the condition. It is thought to help by improving blood flow to the brain.
HBOT allows more oxygen to be absorbed into the bloodstream and tissues. This helps to reduce inflammation and encourages new blood vessels to grow, stimulating the body’s healing response.
Read more in the Telegraph.
Cancer
Telegraph
The Covid pandemic is likely to fuel an extra 10,000 cancer deaths, according to a major study which raises concerns about lack of access to face-to-face care.
The report, by University College London, said a lack of emergency referrals made by GPs since the first lockdown is likely to result in around 40,000 late diagnoses.
Researchers said such delays, and longer waits for treatment, would mean 10,000 people would die of cancer “significantly earlier” than would otherwise have been the case. Their study, which polled more than 2,000 adults, found almost two in three people were worried about bothering their GP about “minor health problems”.
It follows concern that the government message to “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives“ has meant many symptoms that should have been checked were never investigated.
A video showing Police being chased away by protesters in Melbourne.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1440190279542132739
Time for the police to realise that they are of the people and need to act in the interests of the people, not support corrupt politicians.
Good news re Norway energy link anyway. Obvious they have much Hydro electricity just loo at the geography.
look, I meant.
So The idiot Boris tells us the bloody Dutch PM will mediate— just like “ my Brother is a liar. Not on your nelly Boris the bastard, end it all now . Next he will tell us Macron is to be his deputy.
Finish. Sink the eu and hang Von da liar
From Project Veritas, the first in a series of videos about Covid vaccines that are going to get ever more damning over the coming days, I will post them here as they become available.
‘PART 1: Federal Govt HHS Whistleblower Goes Public With Secret Recordings “Vaccine is Full of Sh*t”‘
https://rumble.com/vmrs34-part-1-federal-govt-hhs-whistleblower-goes-public-with-secret-recordings-va.html
The above video is already very damning and apparently already has gone viral; please share this and make it go even more viral. We have a very serious problem with governments, Pharma and big corporations alike.
flyer – Ta for the info. Link does not open for me.
From Title, I dont doubt it has gone viral, and I shall distribute text/link.
Biscotte – try this link, I reposted it in case it got taken down from Youtube but it appears that it’s still there.
Ta that works.
Important and not unexpected. Not much meat in the repeated, repeated sandwich – I understood the message first time.
Not surprised by this.