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177/2018 • 04 AUGUST, 2018 WEEKEND ISSUE

DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH

Brexit: Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron meet for ʼinformalʼ talks May is seeking European support for her plan on future UK relations with the EU

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May are interrupting their summer holidays for talks on Brexit.

British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron took a break from their summer holidays on Friday to discuss Mayʼs proposal on how Britain can maintain economic ties with the European Union after it leaves the bloc at the end of March next year. The planned meeting, which France insists is no substitute for official negotiations with the EU, comes as pressure grows on May to come up with a plan that isaccepted both by negotiators in Brusselsandboth sides of her divided Conservative partyahead of an EU summit in mid-October. The two leaders met for talks at the 17th-century fort of Bregancon on the French Riviera, which has long been used by French presidents as a summer retreat. Read more:Is the Brexit hard-liner European Research Group running the UK? The sticking points May is seeking European support for her plan laying out her vision of future British-EU relations.The plan has so far convinced neither Brussels negotiators nor euroskeptics at home.London has warned that all sides will suffer if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal in place. A French presidency official said the meeting was "not a negotiation; it is not a substitute for the negotiations led by Michel Barnier." Macron fully backed Barnierʼs reserved response to Mayʼs plan, he said. "There is absolutely no intention to speak in place of Michel Barnier," he added. Barnier, the EUʼs chief Brexit negotiator, on July 26 rejected several elements in the trade pro-

posal put forward by May, including Britainʼs offer to collect customs duties for the EU to avoid a "hard border" between the UK and EU member Ireland. Barnier himself said last week that there was not a "sliver of difference" between him and the remaining 27 EU leaders regarding the blocʼs stance on Brexit. Fridayʼs meeting is being viewed in some quarters as part of a UK attempt to circumvent Barnier by appealing directly to individual EU governments. Last-ditch offensive: May has recently held discussions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and with the Austrian and Czech leaders as she tries to sell her plan for continued close economic ties with the EU without many of the obligations imposed by membership in the bloc. The diplomatic offensive comes after her foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, on Tuesday warned of the dangers of Britain crashing out of the EU with no deal, saying that "for every job lost in the UK, there will be jobs lost in Europe as well if Brexit goes wrong." Whatʼs in the British proposal? The deal proposed by May would see Britain pulling out of most parts of the EUʼs single market and customs union for goods and services. It would also remove Britain from the EUʼs legal jurisdiction. The proposal, however, foresees replacing Britainʼs membership in the single market and customs union with a deal on tariff-free trade in goods and agricultural products. The UK would also commit to guaranteeing that British goods are made to EU standards.

China vows $60 billion counter-tariffs in response to latest US threat

Iraqʼs Yazidis mourn the loss of their homeland

Majority of Germans consider racism a ʼbig problem,ʼ poll finds

Is Spain facing a new wave of xenophobia over migrants?

The Chinese government saysit will respond to the latest US tariff threat with fresh tariffs of its owntotaling $60 billion (€51.78 billion), the countryʼs finance ministry announced on Friday. Earlier this week, the Trump administration proposed tariff rates of 25 percent, rather than the previously touted 10 percent, on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods — the latest round in the ongoing trade conflict between the countries.

Itʼs as if someone had taken a huge sledgehammer and beaten the hell out of it. Ruins and yet more ruins. Pulverized concrete and smashed bricks as far as the eye can see. There is hardly anything left of Sinjar which used to be the largest city in the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq that bears the same name. With the backing of massive US airstrikes Kurdish fighters managed to free Sinjar city from "Islamic State" (IS) tyranny in November 2015.

German society is stillstruggling with racism. Thatʼs one of the major conclusions from the Infratest-Dimap "Germany Trend" poll for August, which was released on Thursday evening. When asked their opinion on the issue, 64 percent of people said that racism was either a "very big problem" (17 percent) or a "big problem" (47 percent). Some 35 percent of respondents said that racism was either a minor problem or not a problem at all.

Not even two months after taking office, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is facing his first significant political crisis. Last week, dramatic images of hundreds of African migrants jumping over the Ceuta border fence rocked public opinion. According to the Spanish Association of Civil Guards (AEGC), 22 police officers were injured in the assault, which ended with 602 people successfully reaching the Spanish exclave in Northern Africa.


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