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World News
May 25-31, 2019
TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
Brexit: Theresa May’s withdrawal bill delayed THERESA May’s Brexit withdrawal bill will not be published or debated until early June, the government says. The prime minister is under pressure to resign following a backlash from her own MPs against her pledged “new deal” on Brexit. Andrea Leadsom quit as Commons Leader, saying she could not announce the bill which had “new elements that I fundamentally oppose”. She has been replaced by Treasury minister Mel Stride. Theresa May had told the Commons that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill - the legislation needed to implement the agreement between the UK and EU - would be published on Friday so MPs would have “the maximum possible time to study its detail”. Mrs Leadsom had been due to announce when it would be introduced to Parliament on Thursday, but resigned on Wednesday night. Standing in for her, government whip Mark Spencer told MPs: “We will update the House on the publication and introduction of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill on our return from the Whitsun recess.” He added that the government planned to publish the bill in the first week of June. “We had hoped to hold second reading on Friday 7 June,” he added.
One of the Chagos Islands - Diego Garcia - is home to a US military base/
Chagos Islands dispute: UN backs end to UK control Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote of Conservative MPs in December. Under existing rules, she cannot be challenged again until December this year.
“At the moment, we have not secured agreement to this in the usual channels. Of course we will update the House when we return from recess.” Second reading is when MPs get a first chance to debate legislation, before deciding whether it should proceed to detailed scrutiny. Responding, Shadow Commons Leader Valerie Vaz said: “The prime minister has once again put her own political survival ahead of the national interest. “It is clear that the prime minister does not command a majority in her approach to Brexit and she has failed to accept this political reality.” US President Donald Trump is
due to make a three-day state visit to the UK from 3 to 5 June. Asked who the prime minister would be when he arrives, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Theresa May will be prime minister to welcome him and rightly so”. It is possible for Mrs May to quit as Conservative leader before Mr Trump’s visit, but continue as prime minister on a caretaker basis. Mrs Leadsom said on Thursday she had “no doubts that I made the right decision” adding: “I felt I couldn’t, in all conscience, stand up and deliver the business statement today with a Withdrawal Agreement Bill in it that I couldn’t support elements of.”
Billionaire Robert F Smith to pay entire US class’s student debt A BILLIONAIRE technology investor has shocked graduating students in Atlanta, Georgia, by telling them he will pay off all of their student loans. Robert F Smith, one of America’s most prominent black philanthropists, was giving an address at Morehouse College, a historically all-male black college. Nearly 400 students will benefit at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. The class of 2019 and their teachers were stunned at the news before breaking into applause. Mr Smith, 56, founded private equity firm Vista Equity Partners in 2000 to invest in software companies, and has a personal net worth of $5bn, according to Forbes. “On behalf of the eight generations of my family that have been in this country, we’re gonna put a little fuel in your bus,” Mr Smith told the graduates on Sunday. “This is my class, 2019. And my family is making a grant to eliminate
THE UN has passed a resolution demanding the UK return control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. In the non-binding vote in the General Assembly in New York, 116 states were in favour and only six against, a major diplomatic blow to the UK. Fifty-six states, including France and Germany, abstained. Mauritius says it was forced to give up the Indian Ocean group now a British overseas territory - in 1965 in exchange for independence. In a statement to the BBC, the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said Britain did not recognise Mauritius’ claim to sovereignty, but would stand by an earlier commitment to hand over control of the islands to Mauritius when they were no longer needed for defence purposes. The US, Hungary, Israel, Australia and the Maldives were the states voting with the UK against the resolution. It comes months after the UN’s high court advised that the UK should leave the islands “as rapidly
as possible”. Britain purchased the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 for £3m, creating a region known as the British Indian Ocean Territory. Between 1967 and 1973, it evicted the islands’ entire population to make way for a joint military base with the US, which is still in place on Diego Garcia. US planes have been sent from the base to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq. The facility was also reportedly used as a “black site” by the CIA to interrogate terrorism suspects. In 2016, the lease for the base was extended until 2036. “The joint UK-US defence facility on the British Indian Ocean Territory helps to keep people in Britain and around the world safe from terrorism, organised crime and piracy,” the FCO said. Before Wednesday’s vote, Mauritian Prime Minister Pravid Kumar Jug-Nauth told the General Assembly the forcible eviction of Chagossians was akin to a crime against humanity.
Sam Little denied that MMS causes illness and said he was acting out of the “kindness of my heart” in distributing MMS in Uganda.
Robert F Smith is one of America’s most prominent black philanthropists.
their student loans.” The billionaire was at the college to receive an honorary doctorate and had already announced a donation of $1.5m to Morehouse. The exact cost of Mr Smith’s
latest act of generosity is unclear, as the college has yet to calculate the total debt of the students who will benefit, but it is estimated to be at least $10m (£7.7m) and could be significantly higher.
British man arrested in Uganda after promoting ‘MMS’ bleach as a cure for HIV and malaria BRITISH man Sam Little has been arrested for allegedly distributing a type of toxic bleach he said could cure illnesses including malaria and HIV, Ugandan police told Business Insider. Little, 25, from Arlesey in Bedfordshire, England, was in
Uganda to promote so-called Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), which proponents claim can cure almost any medical condition. Officers said Little had been detained, along with two local men, on suspicion of “intoxicating the public” with MMS.