SRINAGAR: Department of Hospitality and Protocol has stated that no transportation was provided, nor any amount spent by them on alleged conman from Gujarat, Patel Kiran Bhai during his visits to the Kashmir Valley prior to his arrest in March this year.
A Srinagar-based lawyer, Aamir Masoodi, filed an application under RTI, seeking the total amount spent on accommodation, transportation, and other expenses on the alleged conman.
In response, the Department’s Manager-cum-Protocol Officer replied “nil” to the details of the total amount spent on accommodation, transportation, and other expenses, as well as details of the concerned department which paid the whole amount on behalf of Patel. The officer also denied the name of the government officials posted in Kashmir who had meetings with Patel Kiran Bhai on his last two visits to the Valley.
In the application, addressed to Division Commissioner Kashmir, the advocate also sought details of the concerned department that paid the whole amount on behalf of Patel Kiran Bhai on his last two visits to the Kashmir valley prior to his arrest.
Patel was on his third visit to the Kashmir Valley when he was apprehended by security officials from a five-star hotel in Nishat area of Srinagar on March 2.
As per the police report, Patel forged and manufactured documents, including some visiting cards, on the basis of which he defrauded not only a single or group of people but an extremely elevated class of society, including high officials of the civil administration and police authorities. At the end of the day, the police said, Patel succeeded in getting Z-Category Security, bulletproof vehicle and enjoyed five-star protocol “brazenly” for a considerable period of time. (GNS)
The European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom finally reached an agreement on the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol, as reported by British government sources on Monday.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are meeting in Windsor, near London, for what they say are the “final” discussions of this dossier.
Later, they are scheduled to offer a joint press conference in Windsor, the city west of London. The head of the European Commission will also meet King Carlos III.
The leaders met in the town of Windsor (east London).
What is the protocol?
The Northern Irish protocol, signed in January 2020, is the main issue of contention between London and Brussels three years after the United Kingdom left the European Union.
This text regulates the movement of goods between the rest of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, the only land border with the European Union.
The protocol was intended to prevent a land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland from undermining the peace agreed in 1998 after three bloody decades, while protecting the single European market.
(Furthermore: UK announces plan to change Northern Ireland protocol)
The protocol was intended to prevent a land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland from undermining peace
But it raises practical problems by imposing customs controls on goods from Britain arriving in Northern Ireland, even if they remain in the British province.
The protocol has generated tensions between the EU and the UK, but it has also become an internal problem for Rishi Sunak, which faces opposition from staunch Brexit supporters and from unionists in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who oppose any questioning of Northern Ireland’s membership of the United Kingdom.
The latter reject any de facto application of European legislation in the British province and have blocked the functioning of the local executive for a year.
The Northern Irish protocol was signed in January 2020 as part of Brexit.
The new proposal
According to the media, the negotiated agreement establishes a system of green and red lanes between Great Britain and the province.
(You can read: Russia responds to China’s proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine)
Goods destined for Northern Ireland would go through the green lane without routine controls, while those exported to the Republic of Ireland -in the EU- would go through the red lanes, for which reason they would undergo customs procedures in Northern Irish ports.
In addition, the European Court of Justice would remain as the final arbitrator in the event of a dispute over the single market rules that apply in Northern Ireland, something unionists opposed.
The negotiated agreement establishes a system of green and red lanes between Great Britain and the province
To appease unionists, London last spring threatened to withdraw unilaterally from the deal, sparking anger in Dublin and Brussels, which raised the specter of a trade war.
Sunak is scheduled to meet with his top ministers before the press conference with von der Leyen in mid-afternoon.
Subsequently, the British Prime Minister will return to London to address the deputies in the House of Commons.
AFP AND EFE
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( With inputs from : pledgetimes.com )
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will meet this Monday with the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to fulfill the final stretch of an agreement on the application of the Irish Protocol, which has blocked relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union after Brexit and has caused the collapse of home rule in Northern Ireland.
Von der Leyemn will arrive at the Prime Minister’s residence, at 10 Downing Street, “at lunchtime” and both will leave for Windsor Castle to sign it and appear at a press conference. The agreement is likely to be signed in the presence of King Carlos III. Later, Sunak will present a statement in the House of Commons, which will be followed by a debate.
The Ireland and Northern Ireland Protocol is part of the Withdrawal Agreement of the United Kingdom from the Union signed by the two parties on January 24, 2020. It contains the legislative procedures that prevent the creation of a border between the two Irelands, making it possible that Northern Ireland remains in the common market at the same time as it remains in the British internal market.
The document lists the regulations and directives that must apply to goods that are produced in Northern Ireland or arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, so that non-compliant goods do not enter the Republic of Ireland. community rules. It also establishes the supremacy of the Court of Justice of the EU to resolve disputes.
The then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, celebrated the signing of the Protocol and assured, despite the contrary opinion of other politicians and experts, that it would not lead to the establishment of customs controls. The reality is that border requirements have become a source of complaints about the cost of the bureaucratic burden, leading to the temporary non-application of some controls.
For the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which was the majority in the province until the May 2022 elections, the Protocol weakens its position in the United Kingdom. And the obligation to apply without voice or vote the modifications of regulations and directives decided by the EU, and the role of the community court, are in his opinion a loss of sovereignty and a democratic deficit.
Seal
The DUP boycotts the autonomous institutions created in 1998 as an essential element of the peace agreement to protest the maintenance of the Protocol. The radical ‘brexiters’ deputies and Johnson himself demand that Sunak complete the processing of a bill from the former prime minister, which would give the British government the power to unilaterally annul the agreed obligations.
This context of British politics calls into question the viability of Sunak’s commitment, which seems determined to sign an agreement with Von der Leyen that does not modify the Protocol – Brussels’ persistent position – but would soften aspects of its application. The benefit would be the opening of negotiations on British participation in the Horizon scientific collaboration program, access to the financial market and other blocked issues.
The conservative leader, who took over as head of government in October – the third prime minister in four months – undertakes the biggest challenge of his tenure. Regarded as a meticulous and hard-working politician, he is portrayed by the Labor opposition as weak in the face of a scrambled parliamentary caucus and a party angry at him for his part in ousting Johnson.
He is now criticized for not having informed the unionists about the details of the negotiation until two weeks ago and for keeping secret the progress of his pacts with Brussels. He seems determined to “get Brexit done” and to challenge his critics. The polls say that Sunak, before sealing this inherited mess with his authority, is twenty points behind Labor in voting intentions.
LONDON — The U.K. and the EU finally reached a deal after months of talks over contentious post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland.
Already, both sides are pitching it as a major reset in frayed relations — but U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak still has to sell it to skeptics in his own party and beyond.
The so-called “Windsor Framework” comes after a final day of talks between Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Windsor.
In key developments Monday:
— Sunak and von der Leyen talked up the deal as a “new chapter” in EU-U.K. ties at a Windsor press conference.
— The U.K. PM urged his MPs to get behind him in a Commons statement, as key Brexiteers gave supportive early comments.
— Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) vowed to study the text closely before deciding whether or not to back it.
— And Brexiteers in the U.K. hit out at No. 10 Downing Street over a meeting between King Charles III and von der Leyen on the same day a deal was struck.
‘New chapter’
Details of the new agreement are now being pored over by lawmakers on both sides of the English Channel, but the plan is aimed at easing customs red-tape, equalizing some tax rules across the United Kingdom, and giving Northern Ireland’s lawmakers more of a say over the future of the arrangement.
“The United Kingdom and European Union may have had our differences in the past, but we are allies, trading partners and friends, something that we’ve seen clearly in the past year as we joined with others to support Ukraine,” Sunak said at the joint press conference. “This is the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship.”
That line was echoed by von der Leyen, who said the plan would allow the two sides “to begin a new chapter,” and offer up “long-lasting solutions that both of us are confident will work for all people and businesses in Northern Ireland.”
Sunak — under pressure to hold a House of Commons vote on the agreement — told MPs Monday evening that the arrangement would end “burdensome customs bureaucracy” and “routine checks” on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and claimed he had “delivered what the people of Northern Ireland asked for … We have removed the border in the Irish Sea.”
He now faces the sizable task of convicing Brexiteer lawmakers on his own Conservative benches, many of whom will be closely watching the verdict of Northern Ireland’s fiercely anti-protocol DUP, to get on board.
“Our judgment and our principled position in opposing the protocol in Parliament and at Stormont has been vindicated,” said DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson Monday night. “Undoubtedly it is now recognized that the protocol does not work. When others said there would be no renegotiation and no change, our determination has proved what can be achieved.”
Stormont brake
The protocol has been a long-running source of tension between the U.K. and the EU, and the two sides have been locked in months of talks to try to ease the way it works.
Under the arrangement, the EU requires checks on trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in order to preserve the integrity of its single market and avoid such checks taking place at the sensitive land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The DUP has been boycotting the region’s power-sharing government while it pushes for major changes to a set-up it sees as driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
Speaking at the press conference, Sunak and von der Leyen talked up a host of changes to the protocol that they hope will be enough to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
Under the revised plan, goods moving from Great Britain but destined only for Northern Ireland will travel through a new “green lane” with fewer checks, while a separate, more stringent, “red lane” for goods at risk of moving on to the Republic of Ireland — and thereby entering the EU’s single market — will now operate.
Sunak said food retailers would “no longer need hundreds of certificates for every lorry” entering Northern Ireland, while food made to U.K. standards will be able to be freely sent to and sold in Northern Ireland. He also vowed that the new pact would scrap customs paperwork for people sending parcels to family or friends or shopping online.
UK PM Rishi Sunak and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen hope that the host of changes to the Brexit protocol announced today will be enough to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland | Dan Kitwood/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
The two sides have also amended the text of the protocol, Sunak said, to allow U.K. VAT and excise changes to apply in Northern Ireland — while a “landmark” settlement on medicines will mean drugs approved for use by the U.K. medicines regulator will be “automatically available in every pharmacy and hospital in Northern Ireland.”
And London and Brussels are now jointly pitching a new “Stormont brake,” claiming this will allow the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland — currently on ice amid a DUP boycott over the protocl — to prevent changes to EU goods rules “that would have significant and lasting effects on everyday lives” from applying in the region.
“This gives the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland a powerful new safeguard based on cross-community consent,” Sunak promised.
DUP’s next move
As he departed for London, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said he and senior party colleagues would “take time to look at the deal” – a process likely to run at least through the weekend and to involve specially-commissioned analysis by constitutional lawyers. Early word from some Conservative Brexiteers was positive, with David Davis — who quit Theresa May’s government over her own EU deal-making — hailed it as a “a formidable negotiating success.”
Before flying out of Belfast, Donaldson briefed his party’s 25 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly about the expected key points. The DUP lawmakers met at Stormont, the seat of the power-sharing legislature that the DUP has blocked since May.
Donaldson said the DUP’s legal counsel would produce a detailed analysis for consideration by the party’s executive officers.
“It is vital that Northern Ireland’s place within the U.K. and its internal market is restored. We will have lawyers assess the legal text to ensure that this [is] in fact the case,” Donaldson told the Belfast News Letter, the main unionist newspaper in Northern Ireland.
Later, Donaldson told the BBC he was “neither positive nor negative” when assessing whether the DUP should accept the compromise package on offer.
“We need to take time to look at the deal, what’s available, and how does that match our seven tests,” he said, referring to the DUP’s July 2021 list of demands for “replacing” the protocol.
Other DUP officials said the party’s senior leadership would convene at party headquarters in Belfast, possibly on Saturday, to review the party’s legal verdict on the deal – and whether concessions won by the U.K. government were sufficient to end the DUP’s obstruction of power-sharing at Stormont.
Donaldson will seek maximum support at that meeting before committing to any policy pivot on the protocol. Other senior officials, including former deputy leader Lord Dodds, have explicitly rejected the idea of reviving Stormont if the revised protocol agreement retains any oversight role for the CJEU. Both Donaldson and the DUP’s “seven tests” have stopped short of drawing this red line.
Ever since narrowly losing May’s assembly elections to the Irish republicans of Sinn Féin, the DUP has refused not only to form a new cross-community government – the assembly’s central function under terms of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord – but also has blocked the election of a neutral speaker for the assembly, preventing it from sitting.
This developing story is being updated. Annabelle Dickson and Noah Keate contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Rishi Sunak arrived in Belfast on Thursday night, in a sign that a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol is imminent.
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will also travel to Brussels on Friday for talks with the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič.
The movements suggest that an announcement of a negotiated solution between the UK and EU could come as early as Friday. Sunak is being accompanied by the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, Downing Street said. Security is already in place at a central Belfast hotel.
A No 10 spokesperson said: “Whilst talks with the EU are ongoing, ministers continue to engage with relevant stakeholders to ensure any solution fixes the practical problems on the ground, meets our overarching objectives and safeguards Northern Ireland’s place in the UK’s internal market.
“The prime minister and secretary of state for Northern Ireland are travelling to Northern Ireland this evening to speak to political parties as part of this engagement process.”
EU Diplomats have reportedly been summoned to a briefing on Friday, with speculation that a draft deal is about to be shared and road tested both in Belfast and Brussels.
A UK government spokesperson confirmed Cleverly’s meetings in Brussels but played down the prospect of a deal being unveiled on Friday.
“This is part of their ongoing engagement and constructive dialogue with the EU to find practical solutions that work for the people of Northern Ireland,” they said.
A deal would conclude four months of negotiations to end a row that has caused fissures in the Tory party for the past three years and led to the suspension of power-sharing in Belfast.
An agreement has been on the cards for the last four weeks and is expected to include a settlement on an elimination of some checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and a new dispute resolution mechanism not involving the European court of justice in the first instance.
Checks and governance were sources of tension in the Conservative party and with the Democratic Unionist party. The government is expected to say its new deal complies with the strict seven tests the DUP set in exchange for its support.
Earlier this week, Nigel Dodds, a former deputy leader of the DUP, indicated that the DUP would not be supporting any deal that continued regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, claiming this would continue the “colonisation” of Northern Ireland by the EU.
A government source said: “The DUP have published in black and white what their seven tests are. We believe this meets them, otherwise we wouldn’t have brought the negotiation team home nearly a week ago.”
Sunak is meeting all political parties on Friday morning but the focus will be on the DUP, which has insisted it will not return to power-sharing unless its seven conditions for reform of the protocol are met. Few expect the DUP to support the deal unless it eliminates the application of EU law in Northern Ireland, which is one of their seven demands of negotiators.
A breakthrough has already been made on reducing checks on goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland, however, with a “green lane” involving no customs declarations being proposed for food and farm produce destined for Northern Irish supermarkets, corner shops, hospitals, schools and prisons and other public settings.
Negotiators have agreed that products for retail should go through this “green” lane, with discussions continuing on how to deal with wholesalers who supply to independent shops and hospitality.
Talks have also been continuing on how to deal with “intermediary” goods, including components that may end up in finished products destined for sale in the EU’s single market.
A new path has been agreed in principle on governance and the role of the European court of justice in dispute resolution, a source of considerable political problems for Sunak with the DUP and hardline Brexiters in the European Research Group of Tory MPs.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Rishi Sunak is to meet the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, over the weekend, raising hopes of an imminent deal to end the protracted Northern Ireland protocol dispute.
They are expected to meet on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich that will also be attended by EU leaders including the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
Talks to solve the dispute over the Brexit trading arrangements have intensified over the past week and it is thought an agreement in principle is at the closing stages.
UK sources say an announcement has been pencilled in for next week, possibly Tuesday, if the remaining issues can be resolved.
If loose ends cannot be tied up over the weekend, the schedule will be moved back. Sources say both sides are keen to present a “voluntary agreement” and avoid slipping back into the era of threats and counter-threats.
A breakthrough has already been made on reducing checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, with a “green lane” involving no customs declarations being proposed for food and farm produce destined for Northern Irish supermarkets, corner shops, hospitals, schools and prisons and other public settings.
Negotiators have agreed that products for retail should go through this “green” lane, with discussions continuing on how to deal with wholesalers who supply to independent shops and hospitality.
Talks are also continuing on how to deal with “intermediary” goods, including components which may end up in finished products destined for sale in the EU’s single market.
A new path has also been agreed in principle on governance and the role of the European court of justice (ECJ) in dispute resolution, a source of considerable political problems for Sunak with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and hardline Brexiters in the European Research Group (ERG) of MPs.
It is thought this path includes the creation of a new arbitration panel and the involvement of Northern Ireland courts in devolved matters, including food and agriculture health standards.
One of Sunak’s biggest challenges is how to quell any potential rebellion headed by the ERG, which wants the protocol scrapped altogether and folded into the wider trade and cooperation agreement with the EU.
The Irish former foreign minister Simon Coveney has said the best deal is a “nil-all draw” where nobody has won and nobody has lost.
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Insiders say they hope the creation of the panel will address ERG concerns, particularly as this was mooted in a confidential paper by the group’s former chair, the Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker.
It is also notable that the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, another former leader of the ERG, has been involved in the negotiations from the start, accompanying the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, in all talks with the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič.
The panel would involve legal representatives from the EU and the UK, and include a mechanism to give the ECJ a role in advising on matters of EU law.
It is not known if the key question over the continued application of EU law in Northern Ireland will be resolved to the satisfaction of the ERG or the DUP. The DUP has set out seven tests for agreeing to any new deal, including an assurance of “no new regulatory borders” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Two top Tennessee officials have been fired by the corrections department after an independent report revealed striking errors in the state’s lethal injection execution protocol.
According to official documents reviewed by the Tennessean newspaper, the deputy commissioner and general counsel, Debra Inglis, was fired, as well as inspector general Kelly Young, on 27 December.
The firings came a day before Governor Bill Lee publicized the report, which found that multiple executions were carried out in recent years without proper testing of the drugs used in the lethal injection death penalty process.
Specifically, the report revealed that when Tennessee revised its lethal injection protocol in 2018, there was no evidence of the state ever providing the pharmacy in charge of testing the drugs with a copy of its lethal injection protocol.
The report also found that the three drugs used in the state’s protocol – midazolam to sedate the person, vecuronium bromide to paralyze the person and potassium chloride to stop their heart – were not properly tested for endotoxins, a type of contaminant.
Since 2018, seven prisoners have been executed in Tennessee following a nearly decade-long hiatus in executions. Five chose to die in the electric chair while two were administered lethal injections.
Last April the state called off the execution of inmate Oscar Smith an hour before his scheduled execution after Lee acknowledged the state’s failure to properly adhere to its lethal injection protocol.
According to the report released in December, in all seven executions since 2018, none of the lethal injections – some of which were prepared in case the person to be put to death changed their mind and opted to be executed by lethal injection instead of electrocution – were tested for endotoxins.
In the case of one person who was executed by lethal injection, the report also found that the midazolam used during his execution was not tested for potency. The report revealed that in 2017, a pharmacist warned state correction officials that midazolam “‘does not elicit strong analgesic effects’, meaning ‘[t]he subjects may be able to feel pain from the administration of the second and third drugs’”.
According to inmates’ expert witnesses, midazolam has been said to cause sensations of doom, panic, drowning and asphyxiation.
Some US states, especially Alabama, are embroiled in scandal over botched executions by lethal injection.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
