Article 16
Telegraph
Lord Frost on Monday warned the EU that it had until early November to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol or the UK would trigger Article 16 to suspend parts of the Brexit treaty.
He said he would soon share legal texts with Brussels setting out how the UK intended to overwrite the protocol with new arrangements – and could unilaterally suspend the existing deal if it does not respond.
“Will it be over by Christmas? I think something will be,” Lord Frost said at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. “I personally believe there comes a decision point, probably in early November, when we know whether an agreement can be reached or not.”
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson was told in a face-to-face meeting with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, that he had until the end of the month to fix the Protocol or the party would collapse the Stormont power-sharing agreement.
iNews also has the story.
Express
BRUSSELS has dismissed threats by Lord Frost to trigger a safeguard clause in the Brexit deal governing trade in Northern Ireland.
Article 16 allows either the UK or the EU to take drastic action to mitigate the impact of the Protocol if they believe the conditions have been met – effectively tearing up parts of the deal negotiated by both sides. But Lord Frost told the Tory party conference on Monday the threshold for triggering Article 16 to effectively tear up parts of the deal has been met.
The Brexit minister said on Monday that full legal texts have been drafted to override the protocol, which came into effect 10 months ago.
The Express understands these plans will be presented to the European Commission later this week.
The European Commission was urged to be more “ambitious” in their approach by Lord Frost with the minister stressing that “tinkering at the edges” will not fix the fundamental problems with the post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland.
However, on Sunday night, European Commission sources insisted the UK Government was just making “unhelpful political threats”.
Times
The head of Northern Ireland’s main unionist party has told ministers that they must resolve problems with the Brexit deal within weeks or risk the collapse of power-sharing in the province.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the DUP, told Lord Frost, the Brexit secretary, at the Conservative Party conference that time was running out to reach an acceptable deal with the EU on the Northern Ireland protocol.
The protocol keeps Northern Ireland inside the single market and customs union and has infuriated unionists in the province by imposing checks and restrictions on goods crossing the Irish Sea. “We need to see action taken by the government within weeks,” he said at a fringe event in Manchester.
WFH
Mail
Boris Johnson is to urge office workers to get back to their desks.
Amid growing confidence that Covid will not spark further lockdowns, the Prime Minister will use his Tory conference speech tomorrow to encourage a return to the workplace.
‘He believes very strongly in the value of face-to-face working,’ a senior source said. ‘It is critical for the training and development of young people. How can you learn a new job on Zoom?’
Meanwhile Home Secretary Priti Patel will today announce plans to hit eco-warriors with a new type of Asbo in an attempt to halt their motorway protests.
And Justice Secretary Dominic Raab will a unveil a deal to force criminals in ‘chain gangs’ to clear rubbish from waterways.
Mr Johnson launched an ill-fated attempt to get office staff back to their desks last year, which was wrecked by the emergence of the second wave of Covid.
Scientific advisers have pressed him not to repeat the exercise this year because working from home is one of the most effective ways of slowing the spread of the virus.
The Sun also covers working from home.
Eco protesters
Mail
Eco-fanatics will be hit with a new type of Asbo in a fresh attempt to bring their chaotic road protests to an end, Priti Patel will announce today.
The Home Secretary will reveal plans for measures to make it an offence to repeatedly obstruct roads or cause other delays.
The Criminal Disruption Prevention Orders – dubbed ‘Asbos for crusties’ – are intended to be quicker to enforce than the Government’s current approach, which has been based on High Court injunctions.
It will be made a crime to ‘interfere with critical national infrastructure’, including major roads, railways, seaports, power stations and newspaper printing presses.
The new crime will carry up to six months’ imprisonment and will be dealt with at magistrates’ courts only – after sympathetic juries acquitted a series of XR activists in the Crown courts.
It will give police new options when arresting offenders who block motorways or other sites, and make it more likely that protesters will face jail.
The media with the same story include the Sun, Breitbart, BBC News.
Telegraph
Nearly $50bn (£36.7bn) was wiped off Facebook’s value after its social media platforms went down for several hours due to a “faulty configuration change”.
Facebook and Instagram were partially reconnected to users around the world around 10.45pm on Monday, nearly six hours into a global outage.
Facebook issued an apology for the outage which impacted the social media giant, along with Instagram and WhatsApp, which Facebook also owns.
Facebook Engineering said in a statement on Twitter late on Monday: “To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry., “We’ve been working hard to restore access to , ur apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”
Most of the media run this story including Mail, Express, Times, Sun, ITV News, Guardian, iNews, Huffington Post.
Covid
Telegraph
Covid was spreading “virulently” in Wuhan as early as summer 2019 – far sooner than previously thought, according to an intelligence analysis of spending on PCR testing equipment.
A new report claims to have uncovered “notable, significant and abnormal” purchases of PCR lab equipment in the second half of that year.
Analysts trawled through PCR procurement contracts in Hubei Province, of which Wuhan is the capital, and found spending had almost doubled on the previous year.
The study by Internet 2.0, a cyber security consultancy that specialises in examining data from China, says: “We have come to the conclusion that, based on the data analysed, it suggests the virus was highly likely to be spreading virulently in Wuhan, China, as early as the summer of 2019 and definitely by the autumn.”
The data and findings have been passed to US government officials amid growing speculation that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan and its existence was covered up for months.
Covid vaccine
Mail
Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine remains effective at preventing hospitalizations for at least six months, a new study suggests..
Researchers at Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) gathered data from the company’s health care network to discover how often fully vaccinated people were either testing positive for the virus or being hospitalized because of it.
They found the Pfizer vaccine was 90 percent effective at preventing hospitalizations for the first six months after becoming fully vaccinated.
Existing variants also seem to have little ability to bypass the vaccines, including the highly transmissible Delta variant, which is now responsible for nearly all cases in the U.S.
The vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing infection does significantly wane over time, though, falling as low as 47 percent after five months.
Previous studies have had similar findings regarding the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines at preventing infection and hospitalization.
Fuel
Express
BRITISH TROOPS have officially been trained and deployed to drive fuel tankers, with 150 military crews expected to be delivering fuel across the UK by the end of the week.
For now, the military forces have been focused on London and South-England regions as they “have been recovering at slightly slower rates than other parts of the UK”, according to a government spokesperson. “We are working closely with industry to help increase fuel stocks and there are signs of improvement in average forecourt stocks across the UK with demand continuing to stabilise,” the representative added.
“More than half of those who have completed training to make fuel deliveries are being deployed to terminals serving London and the southeast of England, demonstrating that the sector is allocating drivers to areas most affected in this first phase from Monday.”
Their impact on the nationwide shortages has already been seen by The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) who welcomed the help and noticed a “marked improvement” across the nearly 5,500 independent filling stations that it represents.
Cancer
Mail
Six in 10 patients with ‘red flag’ cancer symptoms in England are not referred to a specialist by their GP quickly enough, a report has found.
Nearly one in 25 of those who were not given an urgent referral in the crucial two-week window went on to develop cancer within a year.
The report by the University of Exeter and University College London said it raises questions about whether GPs’ ‘clinical judgement is good enough’.
Experts fear the problem is being ‘exacerbated by the lack of face-to-face appointments’ during the pandemic, with many GPs switching to virtual consultations by telephone or Zoom.
Early diagnosis of cancer is known to be a major factor in saving lives. ‘Red flag’ symptoms include difficulties swallowing, iron deficiency, lumps and bleeding.
Clinical guidelines introduced in England in 2000 state GPs should refer patients with possible cancer to a specialist within 14 days for tests and scans.
See also the Guardian, ITV News, Independent
Cataracts
Mail
Scientists have developed a ‘pellet’ implant that’s injected into the eye to prevent cataracts forming — and might even reverse the growth of existing cataracts without surgery.
The implant, thought to work by lowering calcium levels in the eye, is being tested in the first clinical trial.
About 350,000 cataract operations are performed in the UK each year, and it’s estimated one in three people aged 65 has a cataract in one or both eyes.
Cataracts are cloudy patches on the lens in the eye, which cause blurred vision and eventual blindness if left untreated.
Most cataracts develop as a result of age-related changes in the lens, specifically oxidative stress. This occurs when there is an imbalance between free radicals (unstable atoms that damage cells) and antioxidants (which keep free radicals in check).
Cells in the body produce both, though factors such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol and exposure to chemicals can speed up production of free radicals.
Social media blackout – good it should happen more often.
New Asbos. Typical knee jerk reaction from the idiots in charge of us.
Sounds like a good idea doesn’t it. But hang on, these protesters now but what protests will be more efficiently cleared next?
Fuel crisis. labour crisis . just in time management theory.
Its clear we need reserves resilience redundancy in many spheres.
We dont need management consultants boosting short term profits by cutting to the bone .
Cut the crap to fund some stability to the consumer its a no cost choice