WORLD
7
Tuesday July 30, 2019Spectacular sight
A member of
the Guardia di
Finanza alpine
rescue team
looks on as
Mount Etna,
Europe’s highest
and most active
volcano, erupts
in Sicily, Italy
on Sunday.
Spectacular
eruptions from
Etna lit up the
sky on Saturday
and rivers of
smoking red
lava streamed
down the slope
of the new
southeast crater.
Photo: VCGUK ‘turbo-charging’ no-deal Brexit
A British warship dispatched to
the Gulf to escort UK-flagged
ships amid heightened ten-
sions with Iran has arrived in
the region, the defence minis-
try said.
HMS Duncan was sent
to help accompany vessels
through the Strait of Hormuz
after Iran seized a British-
flagged tanker there earlier this
month, in what London called
an act of “state piracy.”
The destroyer joins frigate
HMS Montrose which is due to
undergo maintenance in near-
by Bahrain in late August. It
will be replaced by another frig-
ate, HMS Kent, later this year.
Britain has said it wants
to establish a European-led
maritime protection force in
the Gulf to protect vulnerable
shipping, while emphasizing it
is not seeking a confrontation
with Iran.
It has asked UK-flagged
ships to give it notice when
they plan to pass through the
Strait of Hormuz, with HMS
Montrose already having ac-
companied 35 merchant vessels
during 20 separate transits, ac-
cording to the Royal Navy.
“I’m pleased that HMS
Duncan will continue HMS
Montrose’s fine work in help-
ing to secure this essential
route,” Defence Secretary Ben
Wallace said in a statement on
Sunday.
“While we continue to push
for a diplomatic resolution that
will make this possible again
without military accompani-
ment, the Royal Navy will con-
tinue to provide a safeguard
for UK vessels until this is the
reality.”AFPJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is
unlikely to meet South Korean President
Moon Jae-in during the United Nations
General Assembly in September, the
Sankei newspaper said on Monday, the
latest sign of strained ties between the
key US allies.
Abe will not hold talks with Moon un-
less Seoul takes constructive steps over
World War II era forced labor and other
issues, the paper said.
He will also forgo meeting Moon at
an October meeting of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations and an Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering
in November, the paper added.The leaders did not meet during
June’s Group of 20 summit in Japan’s
western city of Osaka.
Separately, Korean Air Lines said
it would suspend flights between the
South Korean city of Busan and Sapporo
in northern Japan from September 3 be-
cause of falling demand amid the wors-
ening diplomatic row that has spurred
boycotts of Japanese goods and services,
from beer to travel.
Relations between the Asian neigh-
bors are arguably at their lowest ebb
since they normalized ties in 1965.
Japan tightened restrictions on ex-
ports to South Korea of key high-techmaterials in making memory chips and
display panels, accusing its neighbor of
inadequate management of sensitive
items.
But the curbs were also seen as re-
taliation against last year’s ruling by the
South Korean Supreme Court for Japa-
nese companies to compensate Korean
wartime forced labor.
Japan says the court’s decisions vio-
late international law because compen-
sation was settled under the 1965 treaty.
At a briefing on Monday after return-
ing from a US trip, South Korean Trade
Minister Yoo Myung-hee said she told
American officials that Japan’s movesset a very dangerous precedent for using
trade measures as a tool to resolve politi-
cal issues.
Adding to the export curbs, Japan is
preparing for cabinet approval as early
as Aug. 2 to drop South Korea from a so-
called white list of countries with mini-
mum trade restrictions, Japanese media
have said.
South Korea has protested against
the plan, saying it would undermine the
neighbors’ decades-old economic and
security cooperation and threaten free
trade.ReutersBritain is turbo-charging its
no-deal Brexit preparations and
will be ready to leave the Eu-
ropean Union with or without
a deal on October 31, Foreign
Secretary Dominic Raab said
on Monday.
Raab, an avowed Brexiteer,
said the “undemocratic” Irish
backstop had to go from the
Withdrawal Agreement.
“We want a good deal with
EU partners and friends but
that must involve the abolition
of the undemocratic backstop,”
Raab told the BBC. “What the
prime minister has instructed
and the cabinet has accepted is
a turbo-charging of those prep-
arations.”
Ministers said on Sunday
the government assumed the
EU will not renegotiate the
Brexit deal that it agreed withformer prime minister Theresa
May but which is opposed by
her successor Boris Johnson,
and was ramping up prepara-
tions to leave the bloc on Octo-
ber 31 without an agreement.
Conservative lawmaker Oli-
ver Letwin, who is opposed to
leaving the EU without a transi-
tion agreement, told BBC radio
that lawmakers would seek to
stop a no-deal Brexit but that
it was not clear whether parlia-
ment could prevent such a sce-
nario. “I am accepting that we
may well not be able to (stop a
no-deal Brexit),” he said.
“Nobody can tell whether
we will be able to get a major-
ity in parliament for some way
of doing something other than
having a no-deal exit at the last
minute, if it turns out that this
government hasn’t got a deal,”Letwin said.
New British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson was set to make
his first official visit to Scotland
on Monday in an attempt to
bolster the union in the face of
warnings over a no-deal Brexit.
Scottish First Minister Nico-
la Sturgeon said last week that
Scotland, which voted to re-
main in the EU in the 2016 ref-
erendum, needed an “alterna-
tive option” to Johnson’s Brexit
strategy.
Sturgeon, who leads the sep-
aratist Scottish National Party
(SNP), told Johnson that the
devolved Scottish Parliament
would consider legislation in
the coming months for another
vote on seceding from the Unit-
ed Kingdom.
Irish prime minister Leo
Varadkar has also said that a no-deal Brexit would make more
people in Northern Ireland
“come to question the union”
with Britain.
Many MPs are opposed to
leaving the EU without a deal,
and could try and topple the
government in an attempt to
prevent it, potentially triggering
a vote.
Johnson has made a busy
start to his premiership as he
attempts win over public opin-
ion for his Brexit plans and put
pressure on those who could
bring him down.
But the EU has already said
his demands to renegotiate the
deal struck by his predecessor
Theresa May, but which was
three times rejected by parlia-
ment, are “unacceptable.”AgenciesBritish warship
arrives in Gulf
region to
escort tankers
Japan’s Abe unlikely to meet South Korea’s Moon at UN in September: report
Ready to leave EU with or without agreement: FM
Page Editor:
wangbozun@
globaltimes.com.cn