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June
Sri Lanka president's brother, Basil Rajapaksa, resigns from parliament
Written by Nur Yasmin
The brother of Sri Lanka's president and the country's former finance minister, Basil Rajapaksa, said on Thursday he had resigned from parliament, the second from the influential family to step away from government amid a severe economic crisis.
"From today I will not be involved in any government activities but I cannot and will not step away from politics," Rajapaksa said.
"The aim is to allow someone else to be appointed to parliament in my place from the party," he told reporters in Colombo, Sri Lanka's commercial capital.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned as prime minister last month after prolonged protests against the economic crisis turned deadly.
Mahinda remains a member of parliament.
The three Rajapaksa siblings have been key players in Sri Lankan politics for decades, but are blamed by protesters who have taken to the streets in their thousands in recent months for mishandling the island nation's economy.
Infighting between the brothers has also played a part in Sri Lanka's slide into turmoil but Basil Rajapaksa is likely to retain influence, Reuters has reported. read more
The country of 22 million people is suffering its worst economic crisis in seven decades, with shortages of fuel, medicines and cooking gas because a severe lack of foreign exchange has stalled imports.
Sri Lanka's new prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is now leading efforts to find a way out of the crisis, with negotiations underway with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan programme and support from friendly countries, including India and China.
However, with only one seat is parliament, Wickremesinghe is dependent on the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, which Basil Rajapaksa has helped rebuild into a political force.
"BR will continue to remain a force in Sri Lankan politics regardless of not being a MP," said Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher at the Colombo think-tank Centre for Policy Analysis, referring to Basil Rajapaksa by his initials.
"The question is how much influence or control he has over the SLPP," Fonseka said.
The SLPP and its coalition partners have a comfortable majority in the 225-seat legislature, and several sources have previously told Reuters that members of the ruling party remain loyal to Basil Rajapaksa.
The veteran politician, who served as finance minister between July, 2021 and April this year, denied he had failed to slow Sri Lanka's descent into financial turmoil.
""I was the person to send the first letter to the IMF after becoming finance minister. It is the work I started that is now being taken forward," he said.
"I have no regrets." (Reuters)
June
Thailand legalises growing, consumption of marijuana
Written by Nur Yasmin
Thailand legalised the growing of marijuana and its consumption in food and drinks on Thursday, the first Asian country to do so, with the aim of boosting its agriculture and tourism sectors but smoking pot is still against the law.
Shoppers queued up at outlets selling cannabis-infused drinks, sweets and other items as advocates of the plant welcomed the reform in a country that has long had a reputation for strict anti-drug laws.
Among those at the front of the queue at one Bangkok shop was Rittipong Dachkul, 24, waiting since Wednesday evening to buy his first ever legal marijuana.
"I took a bus here after I got off work," Rittipong told Reuters.
"We're now able to find it easily, we don’t have to worry about the source, but I have no idea about the quality," he said, referring to the strength of the products on offer.
Thailand, which has a tradition of using cannabis to relieve pain and fatigue, legalised medicinal marijuana in 2018.
The government, banking on the plant as a cash crop, plans to give away a million plants to encourage farmers to take up its cultivation.
"After COVID, the economy going down the drain, we really do need this," said Chokwan Kitty Chopaka, who owns a shop selling cannabis gum sweets.
But authorities aim to head off an explosion of recreational use by limiting the strength of the products on offer.
The possession and sale of cannabis extracts containing more than 0.2% of its psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is not allowed, which will mean smokers of the drug known as "pot", "weed" and a host of other names, will struggle to get "stoned".
"Buds with 0.2% THC is considered low, so you would need to consume a lot to get high," said Suphamet Hetrakul, co-founder of the Teera Group, which grows cannabis for medical use. THC is concentrated in the plant's flowers, or buds.
Those who break the law can still face jail and fines.
GROWERS' APP
Cannabis growers have to register on a government app called PlookGanja, or grow ganja, another nickname for the spikey-leafed plant. Nearly 100,000 people have signed up to the app, said health ministry official Paisan Dankhum.
Suphamet said he was concerned about quality control among the many new cultivators.
"It will be hard to control the level of THC and other contaminants in their products and that could be dangerous for consumers,” Suphamet said.
The health ministry said it has approved 1,181 products including cosmetics and food, containing cannabis extracts and it expects that the industry will earn as much as 15 billion baht ($435.16 million) by 2026.
Big business is jumping in.
Agro-industrial conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Foods Pcl (CPF.BK) and energy firm Gunkul Engineering (GUNKUL.BK) have teamed up to produce food and drinks infused with the extract. (Reuters)
June
Iran plans to disconnect 20 IAEA cameras, envoys quote Grossi as saying
Written by Nur Yasmin
Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency it plans to disconnect 20 IAEA surveillance cameras and other monitoring equipment, the agency's chief Rafael Grossi told its board on Thursday, according to diplomats at the meeting.
Iran's move appeared to be further retaliation for a resolution from the 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors criticising Tehran for failing to explain uranium particles at undeclared sites, which was passed on Wednesday evening.
Grossi is due to hold a news conference on Iran at 1115 GMT.
Tehran had already said on Wednesday it had begun further expanding its underground uranium enrichment and would switch off two of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's cameras.
Its latest decisions could further damage prospects for rescuing a 2015 nuclear deal. Indirect talks on that between Iran and the United States are already stalled.
Only Russia and China opposed the resolution submitted by the United States, Germany, France and Britain saying the Board of Governors "expresses profound concern" that uranium traces found at three undeclared sites remain unexplained due to insufficient cooperation by Iran.
After the resolution, the four Western powers, all parties to the 2015 accord, called on Tehran to engage with the watchdog "without delay" to avoid further action.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful while the West says Tehran is moving closer to being able to build a bomb. (Reuters)
June
U.S. mission to Palestinians renamed, will report directly to Washington
Written by Nur Yasmin
The U.S. diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem said on Thursday that it had been redesignated and will report directly to Washington "on substantive matters", signalling an upgrade in ties ahead of a planned visit by President Joe Biden.
The former "Palestinian Affairs Unit" (PAU) was renamed the "U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs" (OPA) under the move. Prior to becoming the PAU, it had been the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem and a focus of Palestinian statehood goals in the city.
Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, outraged Palestinians - and delighted Israelis - by formally closing the consulate and redesignating it as the PAU within the U.S. Embassy that was moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018.
"The OPA operates under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, and reports on substantive matters directly to the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau in the State Department," a spokesperson for the mission said.
"The name change was done to better align with State Department nomenclature," the spokesperson said. "The new OPA operating structure is designed to strengthen our diplomatic reporting and public diplomacy engagement."
Palestinian officials had no immediate comment. They were due on Thursday to host State Department envoy Hady Amr in Ramallah, their seat of government in the occupied West Bank.
Under the Trump-era redesignation, the former consulate's staff and functions remained largely identical, but they were subordinate to the embassy rather than on a strict U.S.-Palestinian bilateral track.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and saw Trump's embassy move as undermining that aspiration. Israel, which captured East Jerusalem in 1967, calls Jerusalem its indivisible capital.
The Biden administration has pledged to reopen the consulate, but Israel has said it would not consent to this and proposed that a consulate be opened in Ramallah instead.
Israel's Foreign Ministry declined comment on Thursday's redesignation of the Jerusalem mission. (Reuters)
June
UK confident its plan for N. Ireland does not break international law
Written by Nur Yasmin
Britain is confident it will not break international law with plans to introduce legislation to unilaterally deal with problems caused by the post-Brexit arrangements that cover trade with Northern Ireland, a minister said on Thursday.
The legislation is expected to come to parliament soon as a dispute over how to deal with the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, which governs post-Brexit trade and was agreed as part of Britain's deal to leave the European Union, drags on.
"The government is confident that our actions are lawful under international law and in line with long standing convention we do not set out internal legal deliberations," Europe minister James Cleverly told parliament.
The protocol aims to keep the British-run province, which borders EU member Ireland, in both the United Kingdom's customs territory and the EU's single market for goods.
Britain has criticised the implementation of trade rules under the protocol, which has seen some businesses in Britain unable to send some goods to Northern Ireland.
The government says the situation risks undermining the 1998 Good Friday peace deal for the province, though others, such as the EU and some U.S. politicians, say the protocol is essential to protect that deal. read more
Last month, foreign minister Liz Truss said she would introduce legislation to make changes to the protocol. She said the legislation would involve a dual regulatory regime designed to ensure goods moving to Northern Ireland and staying there would be free of unnecessary administrative burdens.
"We'll be setting out further detail about our legal position when we put the bill forwards," Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said on Thursday, adding the bill was in the final stages of drafting.
"The relevant committee met and agreed this yesterday." (Reuters)
June
Russia says no agreement reached with Turkey on Ukrainian grain exports
Written by Nur Yasmin
The Kremlin said on Thursday that no agreement had been reached with Turkey on exporting Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that work was continuing.
Turkey has been pushing for an agreement between Russia and Ukraine on a plan to resume grain exports from Ukrainian ports, although prospects for a deal look dim, with each side blaming the other for disrupting global food supplies. (Reuters)
June
China COVID jitters flare up as parts of Shanghai resume lockdown
Written by Nur Yasmin
Shanghai and Beijing went back on fresh COVID-19 alert on Thursday after parts of China's largest economic hub imposed new lockdown restriction and the city announced a round of mass testing for millions of residents.
The most populous district in the Chinese capital, meanwhile, announced the shutdown of entertainment venues, while news of the lockdown of Shanghai's Minhang district, home to more than 2 million people, pulled down Chinese stocks.
Both cities had recently eased heavy COVID curbs, but the country has stuck with a "dynamic zero-COVID" policy aimed at shutting down transmission chains as soon as possible.
Shanghai residents in particular are on edge as new cases flare up after the city's grinding two-month lockdown ended, with officials on Thursday tracing three infections to the Red Rose, a popular beauty salon in the city centre that reopened when the city did on June 1.
The shop had served 502 customers from 15 of Shanghai's 16 districts in the past eight days, a local media outlet, The Paper, reported.
"When is this ever going to end?," a user of the Twitter-like Weibo commented on the Red Rose, which is in the trendy former French Concession area of the Xuhui district. "I just want to have a normal life."
Authorities said a preliminary investigation found that some of the salon's 16 employees did not undergo daily COVID testing as required, and that 90,000 people linked to Red Rose staff or customers had been tested.
While China's infection rate is low by global standards, President Xi Jinping has doubled down on a zero-COVID policy that authorities say is needed to protect the elderly and the country's medical system, even as other countries try to live with the coronavirus.
Shanghai's two-month lockdown, the shuttering of many malls and venues across Beijing and movement curbs imposed in many cities in recent months have battered the Chinese economy, disrupted supply chains and slowed international trade.
Authorities have been keen to revive business and started to relax some curbs in May which helped China's exports that month to grow at a double-digit pace, beating expectations, but residents, businesses and investors are wary. China's blue-chip CSI300 index (.CSI300) ended 1.1% lower. read more
"The business climate is not positive because despite the fact that the cities opened, there is still the problem of the zero-COVID policy," Christophe Lauras, president of the French Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters.
"That is to say that every morning people don't know if they’ll be locked down," he said.
LOCKDOWNS AND TESTS
Shanghai's Minhang district said it will conduct nucleic acid tests for the entire population on Saturday and ordered residents to stay home in the meantime. Six other Shanghai districts, including some of its largest, also announced a round of mass testing for the weekend.
Several local-level authorities in Shanghai, which is home to 25 million people,have also issued notices saying residents will be subject to two days of confinement and another 12 days of rigorous testing starting Thursday.
Many of the notices were in the central Xuhui district, where green fences and red wooden boards have sprung up in the past week, barricading residents in and triggering fresh public anger.
In Beijing, authorities in Chaoyang district, home to more than 3 million people, ordered entertainment venues and internet cafes to shut on Thursday, while patrons of four bars were told to identify themselves and self-isolate.
China reported 240 new coronavirus cases on June 8, of which 70 were symptomatic and 170 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Thursday. (reuters)
June
Spain vows to defend its interests after Algeria halts trade, except gas flow
Written by Nur Yasmin
The Spanish government will "firmly defend" its national interests in the wake of Algeria's decision to suspend a 20-year-old treaty of friendship and cooperation and ban all non-gas trade with Spain, the foreign minister said on Thursday.
Jose Manuel Albares told reporters Spain was also monitoring gas flows from Algeria, which account for nearly half of Spain's gas imports, and said these were unaffected by the diplomatic row over Madrid's stance on the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Algeria's banking association said on Wednesday payments to and from Spain were stopping because the treaty was suspended, which, according to Algerian sources, affects all trade except for gas supplies.
"We are analysing the reach and the national and European consequences of that measure in a serene, constructive way, but also with firmness in the defence of Spain and the interests of Spaniards and Spanish companies," Albares told reporters.
Spanish exports to Algeria include iron and steel, machinery, paper products, fuel and plastics, while service exports include construction, banking and insurance business.
Spanish energy firms Naturgy (NTGY.MC), Repsol (REP.MC) and Cepsa have contracts with Algerian state-owned gas company Sonatrach.
Spain's Energy Minister Teresa Ribera was confident Sonatrach would respect its commercial contracts, but acknowledged that the spat between the two nations comes at a delicate time as the prices of the 10-year supply contracts are now being revised by the companies involved.
North African gas supplies to Europe have grown increasingly important this year in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Algeria was angered when Spain said in March it supported a Moroccan plan to offer autonomy to Western Sahara. Algeria backs the Polisario Front movement seeking full independence for the territory, which Morocco regards as its own and mostly controls.
Algeria broke off diplomatic ties with Morocco last year after the Western Sahara conflict flared again in 2020, nearly three decades after a ceasefire took effect.
Also last year, Algeria decided not to extend a deal to export gas through a pipeline running through Morocco to Spain that made up nearly all of Morocco's gas supply. It supplies Spain through a direct subsea pipeline and by vessel.
Its treaty with Spain also committed both sides to cooperate in controlling migration flows, so its suspension could become a potential problem for Spain, the European Union and even NATO.
Spain, as host of an upcoming NATO summit, will push for the inclusion of "hybrid threats" such as irregular migration, especially on the southern flank, in the military alliance's new policy roadmap, Albares told Reuters on Wednesday. read more
Spain's shift towards Morocco's stance on Western Sahara ended a dispute between Madrid and Rabat last year involving both the disputed territory and mass migration. (Reuters)
June
Tunisian union says it being targeted by authorities after rebuffing constitution talks
Written by Nur Yasmin
The leader of Tunisia's powerful UGTT union said on Thursday it was being "targeted" by authorities after it refused to participate in talks on a new constitution called by President Kais Saied last month.
UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi gave no details but sources close to the union said there were fears that Saied would use the judiciary to target the union after he sacked dozens of judges last week in a move seen as aimed at consolidating his one-man rule. (Reuters)
June
China hails "iron-clad" Cambodia ties as work begins on naval base
Written by Nur Yasmin
A Chinese official said on Wednesday an "iron-clad partnership" with Cambodia was bolstered by military cooperation, as work began on a China-funded upgrade of Cambodia's biggest naval base that has raised U.S. concern about China's growing influence.
Cambodian Minister of Defence Tea Banh dismissed fears that Cambodia would let China build a military base on its soil, saying any country could use the facilities at the Ream naval base, while Cambodia was open to accepting military assistance from anyone.
"As a strong pillar of the iron-clad partnership, China Cambodia military cooperation is in the fundamental interests of our two nations and two peoples," China's ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wentian, said in a speech at a ground-breaking ceremony at the base on the Gulf of Thailand.
The United States has raised "serious concerns" about China's involvement with the base saying it undermines regional security.
Last year, the United States accused Cambodia of not being transparent about China's role in upgrading the facility. read more
Cambodia-U.S. ties have been frayed for years over U.S. accusations that long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling party have stifled democracy through the persecution of the opposition.
Hun Sen, dismissing such concerns, has moved close to China, which is by far the biggest investor in Cambodia.
The new port, near important shipping lanes and the contested South China Sea, will be deepened to allow larger military ships to dock, and will include a maintenance facility, drydock slipway and pier. read more
Underlining Cambodia's warm ties with China, Tea Banh this week posted pictures on social media of him taking a dip in the sea with Wang near the base.
But Tea Banh was also keen to allay fears in the United States and the region that Cambodia might open the door to China's military.
"The Kingdom of Cambodia will not allow a foreign military base on its own territory," he said in a speech on Wednesday. (Reuters)