The difference I see in China now, is that China is much less insular and is looking for commercial relationships worldwide. I don't think they will take this for granted. Too heavy handed on HK, and years of PR work by Xi and his lieutenants will have been wasted. I expect to see a gradual tightening of law and order, not a repeat of Tianimum Square
Irish farmers furious over EU-South American deal to cut tariffs Mercosur agreement reached after 20 years of talks criticised on environmental grounds Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 21:25 Updated: Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 21:26 Mark Hilliard please log in to view this image IFA president Joe Healy leads IFA national officers and members in a protest at the EU Commission offices in Dublin on Friday, depicting the Mercosur trade deal as a ‘sell out’. Photograph: Finbarr O’Rourke AddThis Sharing Buttons Mercosur - a regional alliance of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay - announced the trade breakthrough following two decades of on-off negotiations. It will slash tariffs on everything from Argentine steaks to German car parts, a considerable achievement in a global trading environment consumed by ongoing US-Chinese tensions. However, while the accord makes the EU the first major economy to strike a comprehensive trade deal with Mercosur since its foundation in the early 1990s, it drew furious reaction from Irish agriculture on Friday. “This is a bad deal for Ireland and for Irish farmers, it’s a bad deal for the environment and it’s a bad deal for EU standards and consumers,” said Joe Healy, president of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). “This represents a backroom deal with big business and kowtows to the likes of Mercedes and BMW in their drive to get cars into South America. It is a disgraceful and feeble sell out of a large part of our most valuable beef market to Latin American ranchers and factory farm units.” In a statement after the deal was announced, Phil Hogan, the EU’s Commissioner for Agriculture conceded it would present “some challenges” to European farmers. “The European Commission will be available to help farmers meet these challenges. For this agreement to be a win-win, we will only open up to agricultural products from Mercosur with carefully managed quotas that will ensure that there is no risk that any product will flood the EU market and thereby threaten the livelihood of EU farmers,” he said. Brussels has estimated the deal will wipe out about €4 billion in annual customs duties on EU exports, securing preferential access for European goods and services to a region of more than 260 million people. Mr Healy said the IFA’s priority concern was domestic beef production, a €3 billion sector which he said was more important to Ireland than any other EU member state. He added that Irish and European farmers held up the highest safety and environmental standards, something that could not be said for competitors in Brazil. The association’s national livestock chairman Angus Woods said Ireland could not allow the sector to be “ruined by Brazilian beef imports”. There was a similar backlash from the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) which said a substantial increase in beef imports to the EU would constitute “a massive blow to the Irish beef sector and will destroy forever the EU’s credibility on putting forward measures to combat climate change”. Its president Pat McCormack said the consequent economic damage to Ireland’s multi-billion euro industry from “cheap lower standard South American imports must mean that the Government was content to see Irish beef production fall into terminal decline”. “Everyone knows that increasing the amount of South American beef that can be imported into the EU will have immediate and irreversible consequences for the global climate,” he said.
We will see. The noises coming from Beijing this morning, phrases like ‘trample on the rule of law’ ‘serious illegal actions’ and ‘criminal responsibility of violent offenders’, together with a Communist Party newspaper already saying that it means the end of one country two systems, are not promising. Whatever actions the authorities take will be big in scale, as these demonstrations quite deliberately do not have ‘leaders’. It’s a true mass movement. They can’t be stopped by taking a dozen people out.
Laura Smith MP, a shadow Cabinet Office Minister, on the today programme to talk about Corbyn’s fitness to lead. All claims, understandably denied, then conflated into the civil service being a threat to democracy. Initially refused to answer any other questions. Then claimed that Trumps comments about NHS services being on the table for trade discussions has pushed her into wanting a second referendum on the EU (she’s in a leave constituency and is so loyal to Corbyn that I assume she’s a Leaver too) because it’s a ‘fact’. I remember very clearly that Trump very explicitly took the NHS off the trade table the next day, but obviously that isn’t a useful ‘fact’. The fact that the Brexit Party is now more popular than Labour and Theresa May, for ****s sake, is still seen as a better PM than Corbyn would be, brushed aside as ‘just polls’. It’s pitiful. Meanwhile Hunt and Johnson promise everyone everything they want and everybody (rightly) ignores the Lib Dem leadership campaign, which is apparently a real thing. Death throes of parliamentary democracy? We can dream.
I see that the opening of the EU. Parliament was marked by all the Brexit Party MEPs turning their backs on the EU hymn. A childish, futile gesture considering that recognising a national hymn is simply a mark of respect which footballers, and fans, do the World over, and which does not necessarily imply acceptance of the regime in question. It is high time that the EU had a constitution and demanded that those who sit in such an official function are signed up to it - as is the case in most national parliaments. Apparently the electorate were prepared to vote for representatives who have no intention of doing anything other than simply to knock up their expenses, and drag the name of Britain further through the dirt than it is already.
Meanwhile, over in Strasbourg, today is the first day of the new EU parliament and there is a demonstration by Catalan Nationalist parties as three of their elected MEP's (Oriol Junqueras, Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comin) have been excluded from taking up their seats in the parliament by Spain. The reason they have been excluded by Spain is because they failed to attend an accreditation session in Madrid, sign accreditation documents and swear allegiance to Spain. As two of them are in exile in Belgium and one has been jailed over 600 days pending the result of a trail, they sent lawyers with power of attorney to sign on their behalf the accreditation documents. This was rejected by Spain and they have been prevented from entering the Parliament in Strasbourg. The three of them received over 2.5 million votes in Catalonia. Is this democracy? Do the votes of 2.5 million people mean nothing in modern day Europe? Would love to know what people feel about this. Thanks.
A very disrespectful gesture but not in the least bit surprised. I dread to think what the reaction would be if EU politicians done similar for the playing of the British national anthem. All anthems should be respected.
These are exactly the kind of ****s who call black American footballers who take the knee during the anthem ‘disrespectful’ ‘Disgraceful’ and ‘traitors’. Childish twats, a national embarrassment. It’s stupid and doubtless counterproductive by the Spanish government, the way they have handled all of this will only strengthen the Catalan independence movement. And bin flags while we’re at it.
A more effective statement would to turn their backs on their EU salaries, pensions and expense accounts. Not happening, is it. Especially for Farage, who calculated, on camera, that being an MEP was worth £250k a year to him if he exploited all the expenses etc. This was in 1999, when he still had his posh accent and employed his wife as a secretary. So even without salary and expenses rises he’s has £5m of EU taxpayers money on his own, and that’s before his pension is factored in. In 1999 he said it was a ‘good job’ and has defended his consistent taking of cash by saying ‘why should my family suffer’. ****er.
People knocking the Brexit Party for the pathetic ‘turn backs in the EU anthem’ stunt shouldn’t forget to shout out the equally puerile ‘t-shirt’ protest by the Lib Dems...... And we’re meant to respect our political representatives ? Bunch of ****s the lot of them.
