Markus Andrews

Lithuania on Friday recalled its ambassador to China following the Baltic country’s decision in July to allow self-governing Taiwan to open an office in its capital under its own name.The Foreign Ministry said Ambassador Diana Mickeviciene had been recalled from Beijing for consultations “following the Chinese government statement on August 10.” Last month, China recalled its ambassador to Lithuania and told the Baltic nation to “immediately rectify its wrong decision, take concrete measures to undo the damage, and not to move further down the wrong path.”The statement referred to “potential consequences” for Lithuania if it allowed the office to open but gave no details.The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry expressed regret over China’s action and stressed that while respecting the “one China” principle, it stands ready to develop mutually beneficial ties with Taiwan, just as many other countries in the world do.China says Taiwan is part of its territory and doesn’t have the right to diplomatic recognition, although the island maintains informal ties with all major nations through trade offices that act as de facto embassies, including in the United States and Japan. Chinese pressure has reduced Taiwan’s formal diplomatic allies to just 15.Taiwan and Lithuania agreed in July that the office in the capital, Vilnius, set to open this fall, will bear the name Taiwan rather than Chinese Taipei — a term often used in other countries in order not to offend Beijing.On Friday, the Lithuanian ministry said that diplomats from the European Union — of which Lithuania is a member — expressed solidarity with Mickeviciene. The deputy EU ambassador to China, Tim Harrington, shared a joint photo on Twitter on Friday as dozens of EU diplomats gathered to demonstrate solidarity with their Lithuanian counterpart as she left Beijing and wished she could return soon, the ministry said.Lithuania said its embassy in Beijing “continues to operate as usual.” More

A collapse in the numbers of people signing up for transport and warehousing apprenticeships has driven the current delivery crisis, causing empty shelves in supermarkets and shortages at fast-food chains, Labour has claimed.The party released figures showing that entrants on transportation apprenticeships have fallen by almost half (49 per cent) since 2015-16 and by a massive 83 per cent for warehousing and distribution.Shadow minister for green and future transport Kerry McCarthy blamed the government for failing to ensure the supply of new drivers in an industry facing the “ticking time-bomb” of a rapidly ageing workforce, with the average person behind the wheel of an HGV now 55 years old and fewer than 1 per cent aged under 25.With drivers reaching retirement at a rate of 6,000 a year and others leaving the profession early, the current crisis can be expected to worsen unless urgent action is taken to attract more young people onto apprenticeships, she said.Recent weeks have seen major chains including Nando’s, McDonald’s and Greggs blame distribution problems for shortages preventing them from serving popular items to customers, while the boss of Iceland supermarkets has warned that the supply chain crisis could “cancel” Christmas.The Road Haulage Association says the UK is around 100,000 drivers short, with Brexit and Covid blamed for worsening chronic labour shortages in the industry.In July, ministers announced a short-term relaxation to limits on drivers’ working hours and said measures were being taken to increase the throughput of HGV driving tests in response to the crisis, after the pandemic led to a 30,000 fall in the number of drivers getting their heavy goods licences last year.But the government has resisted industry calls for a relaxation of immigration rules to try to attract back some of the thousands of drivers from EU countries who have left the UK since Brexit.On Friday Labour accused the government of failing to ensure adequate supplies of home-grown drivers, pointing to figures showing that numbers of trainees in key apprenticeships were falling long before the impact of the virus and EU withdrawal was felt.Numbers on transportation operation and maintenance courses fell from 16,620 in 2015-16 to 8,430 in 2020-21, while starts on warehousing and distribution roles declined from 14,860 to 2,500 over the same period.“The shortage of drivers is now visible on a daily basis through empty shelves in shops and closures on our high streets,” said Ms McCarthy.“But these stats show things are likely to get even worse, as the government has failed to encourage young people into the industry to replace retiring drivers. This is completely unsustainable.“It is increasingly clear that the government does not have a plan to address a national crisis that is grinding our economy to a halt.”With only 3,000 vocational driving tests being taken a week, she warned it will be months before the huge shortage in drivers is filled. And she said it was dangerous to rely on longer hours for drivers to keep the supply chain moving.Labour has called on the government to work with the Migration Advisory Committee to determine whether HGV driving should be designated a skills-shortage profession under the immigration points system, to allow the recruitment of more foreign drivers. More

A parliamentary committee has launched an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s government policy for Afghanistan after the “catastrophic” fall of Kabul.A cross-party group of MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee will grill ministers and top officials on evacuation efforts and planning carried out for the Taliban takeover.Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has come under pressure over his recent holiday in Crete, and an intelligence warning from July which suggested the Taliban could advance rapidly across Afghanistan.Committee chair Tom Tugendhat thanked Mr Raab for his appearance in parliament earlier this week – but said “big questions remain” about the government’s handling of the crisis.“The fall of Kabul is a catastrophe for the Afghan people and for the reputation of those nations that were committed to its success – our hasty withdrawal leaves a country in an acute humanitarian and human rights crisis,” said the Conservative MP.Mr Tugendhat added: “While I thank the foreign secretary for appearing in front of the committee at late notice, big questions remain, and this inquiry hopes to provide some much-needed clarity. Lessons need to be learnt and the decisions the UK makes in the coming months will be crucial.”The parliamentary inquiry – expected to last for several months – will scrutinise the nature of the government’s engagement with the Taliban and what ministers are doing to stop the country becoming a safe haven for terrorist groups.MPs will also examine the humanitarian and human rights impact of the Taliban takeover, probing ministers on plans to support those most at risk inside Afghanistan – particularly women and girls.As part of our Refugees Welcome campaign, The Independent has launched a petition urging the UK government to be more ambitious in its plans to take in Afghan refugees.Influential Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the defence select committee, has called for a full public inquiry in British involvement in Afghanistan – saying the time was right to examine the entire mission as well as “what went wrong” with the withdrawal.Stewart McDonald, the SNP’s defence spokesperson, backed Mr Ellwood’s call for an inquiry along the lines of the one carried by John Chilcot into Britain’s role in Iraq. “If we are all committed to getting this right, that’s the kind of thing that surely needs to happen,” he said.Grilled by MPs on the committee on Wednesday, Mr Raab said UK intelligence predicted a “steady deterioration” after the troop withdrawal – but the assessment was that it was “unlikely” Kabul would fall this year.But Mr Tugendhat pointed to a 22 July document from Mr Raab’s own department called a principal risk register – which appeared to warn Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban much sooner than the UK had previously predicted.The Foreign Office said it was “wrong and misleading” to suggest the document was “at odds with our detailed assessments of the situation in Afghanistan or our public position throughout the crisis”.The foreign secretary also claimed on Friday that the speed at which the Afghan government fell “surprised” the Taliban. Speaking in Pakistan, Mr Raab said: “I suspect the Taliban and ordinary Afghans were taken by surprise. I think there was a common widespread surprise.”Meanwhile, Mr Tugendhat has warned that the end of the evacuation operation in Afghanistan was “only the beginning of a new stage of chaos” which could see the US and China drawn into conflict.He said Beijing could use the American withdrawal as an opportunity to “flex its muscles” militarily, leading to the danger of confrontation in a flashpoint like Taiwan and the South China Sea. More

Millions of pounds worth of British arms exported to Afghanistan could end up in the hands of Taliban and terrorist groups in the region, campaigners have warned.Figures collated by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) show the UK has sent weapons, ammunition and other military equipment worth £151m to Afghanistan since the beginning of 2008.Despite the drawdown of UK forces over the past decade, arms have continued to be exported for use by Afghan soldiers, Afghan police and British troops who remained in the country until the final withdrawal at the end of August.The UK approved £22m in munitions export licenses to Afghanistan during 2020, despite US government signing a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban last February.Katie Fallon, a coordinator for CAAT, said the UK’s “short-sighted approach to arms export licensing will leave a brutal scar on the lives of Afghan civilians, women, and children in particular, for decades to come”.The anti-arms campaigner added: “The government needs to urgently investigate which end users now have control over these military goods, and why the arms export licensing criteria in place have utterly failed to account for what was clearly a very high risk.”Labour also pointed to the risk that British-made weapons could end up being sold on to terrorist groups, as military leaders warn that the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, Isis-K, poses a threat to Britain.“There is a clear risk of high-tech equipment falling into the hands of the Taliban, or worse, Isis-K and other terror groups,” said shadow defence secretary John Healey – adding that the prevention of illegal arms sales would have to be part of the strategy in dealing with Afghanistan.The Labour MP added: “While they may not have the technical skills to operate many of these weapons systems, the black market value could be a significant source of income to fuel their operations.”Some £72m worth of explosives were licensed for export to Afghanistan since 2008, along with £24m-worth of armoured vehicles, guns worth £4.4m and ammunition worth £2.8m.Trevor Taylor, expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told Politico that UK and US weapons in Afghanistan could boost the Taliban – but said Islamist militant groups may struggle to use more technical items. “The Taliban have obviously got their hands on a chunk of material,” he said.CAAT claimed the government had not been careful enough with export licensing risk assessments for Afghanistan in recent years.“Either the government is incapable of applying their own regulations and accurately evaluating risk, or the criteria as written do not allow for even the most modest consideration of the long-term consequences of exporting weapons to a deeply unstable country,” said Ms Fallon.A government spokesperson said the Department for International Trade had revoked all relevant arms export licenses “to remove Afghanistan as a permitted destination”.“The UK takes its export control responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust and transparent export regimes in the world,” the spokesperson added. “We continue to monitor the situation closely and keep our licenses under constant review.”A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson added: “As part of our withdrawal we have been recovering equipment but at all times have prioritised the safe evacuation of people over equipment. The Ministry of Defence did not leave any weapons, ammunition or sensitive IT in Kabul following [the evacuation operation].”Meanwhile, as part of our Refugees Welcome campaign, The Independent has launched a petition urging the UK government to be more ambitious in its plans to take in Afghan refugees. More

Allowing mass infection of children is “reckless” and all over-12s should be offered a coronavirus vaccine, a group of scientists has warned.Experts from across the globe, alongside parents, carers and educational staff, have written to education secretary Gavin Williamsonto raise their concerns about the impact of the pandemic on education.They argue policies in England mean there will soon be a large population “susceptible” to the virus mixing in crowded spaces with “hardly any mitigations”.Earlier school reopenings in Scotland and the US have shown a lack of “adequate mitigations” is likely to lead to the virus spreading among children, which could further disrupt learning with significant absences due to student and staff illness, they said.In an open letter published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), they warn: “England’s policies mean that we will soon have a large susceptible population with high prevalence of infection mixing in crowded environments with hardly any mitigations.”They said children have suffered “significant harms” in the pandemic, including from long Covid, adding: “Allowing mass infection of children is therefore reckless.”Research led by University College London and Public Health England and published this week found as many as one in seven children who get coronavirus could have symptoms almost four months later.People who tested positive were twice as likely to report three or more symptoms 15 weeks later than those who tested negative, the study suggested.But lead author Professor Sir Terence Stephenson said he felt “reassured” by the data, which he believes shows it is “nowhere near what people thought in the worst-case scenario”.The group behind the letter to Mr Williamson called for vaccines to be offered “to all 12 to 15-year-olds, with rollout in schools to maximise access and uptake”.They also called for rules on face coverings for secondary school students and staff in classrooms and for bubbles to be reinstated, as well as more investment in building ventilation.The signatories included scientists from UK, US, Germany, India and Norway.Members of Independent Sage, the Parent SafeEdForAll group and the National Education Union were among those who added their names to the list.The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is yet to give a recommendation on extending the jabs rollout to all healthy 12 to 15-year-olds.Mr Williamson said this week he hoped a decision would be made “very, very soon”, and indicated his support for a widening of the programme by saying a lot of people “very much hope that we’re in a position of being able to roll out vaccinations for those who are under the age of 16”.Additional reporting by Press Association More

Dominic Raab has begun a two-day visit to Pakistan in an effort to secure safe passage for Britons and Afghans with ties to the UK who remain stuck in Afghanistan.The foreign secretary insisted there was “common widespread surprise” – even among the Taliban – at the speed in which the militants took over the country.Speaking in Islamabad, Mr Raab said: “I suspect the Taliban and ordinary Afghans were taken by surprise. I think there was a common widespread surprise at the speed with which the consolidation of power happened.”Mr Raab is under pressure over a Foreign Office document from 22 July – issued weeks before his recent holiday in Crete – which suggested that the Taliban could advance rapidly across Afghanistan.The foreign secretary also insisted that UK aid funding aimed at reaching people in Afghanistan will not go directly to the Taliban.“We would be willing not to fund aid via the Taliban, but through the humanitarian organisations that operate inside Afghanistan – for that to happen there needs to be a safe and secure environment,” said Mr Raab.The Foreign Office announced a £30m UK aid package for Afghan refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries – with £10m going to relief efforts co-ordinated by groups such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).Countries predicted to experience a significant increase in refugees will also receive £20m to help with processing new arrivals and to provide essential services and supplies.Mr Raab said Pakistan and the UK have a “shared interest” in creating a stable and peaceful future for Afghanistan – and spoke again about forming a coalition to act as a “moderating” force on the group.He said it would not have been possible to evacuate 15,000 people from Kabul without some co-operation with the Taliban. “We do see the importance of being able to engage and having a direct line of communication,” he said.The foreign secretary has said evacuations may be able to resume from Kabul airport “in the near future” as he expressed a need for direct engagement with the Taliban.More than 8,000 former Afghan staff and their family members eligible under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) were among the 15,000-plus people evacuated by the UK since August 13.But thousands of Afghans who helped British efforts in the nation and their relatives, as well as other vulnerable civilians, are feared to have been left behind.As part of our Refugees Welcome campaign, The Independent has launched a petition urging the UK government to be more ambitious in its plans to take in Afghan refugees following the Taliban seizing power.It comes as former cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill has warned that the UK and its allies still have no coherent plan to deal with the looming refugee crisis.Sir Mark said the emergency airlift over the past two weeks “can’t and shouldn’t conceal that overall, we do not yet have a coherent policy and plan in place to deal with refugee flows out of Afghanistan”.Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that the end of the evacuation operation in Afghanistan was “only the beginning of a new stage of chaos”.Justice secretary Robert Buckland said he was working to help more female judges in Afghanistan get out of the country. “So far we have managed to get nine female judges here to the UK,” he told Sky News on Friday.Mr Buckland said: “A lot of these judges were responsible for administering the rule of law and quite rightly they are fearful for the consequences from the rise of the Taliban.”The cabinet minister added: “I’m making sure that my officials are working hand in glove with the Foreign Office to identify as many as possible … and communicate with them to establish how to get safe passage for these very vulnerable people.”But councils have said they have been “left in the dark” about how they can help, as thousands of Afghans evacuated to Britain in recent weeks are set to be placed in temporary hotel accommodation for an indefinite period.Cllr David Touane, of South Oxfordshire District Council, said: “Many councils are ready to help but we are in the dark about what it is precisely that government wants us to provide. More

A tax rise in national insurance could be used for a post-Covid boost for the NHS and to address long-term social care funding, according to reports.MPs are due to return to Westminster after their summer recess on Monday amid a cabinet split over how to pay for the government’s long-awaited social care reforms.Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick said the government would announce details of the social care plan “very soon” – but insisted no decision had yet been made on particular tax rises.“We will work as quickly as possible to get that certainty that people have been looking at for so long,” the justice secretary told Sky News on Friday. “Any reforms will be resilient for the long term. This isn’t just a change for a parliament – this has got be a generational change.”Any rise in national insurance is expected to face criticism as it is likely to disproportionately hit millions of working-age younger people, many of whom are unable to buy a home, in order to pay for a scheme designed to ensure that non-working elderly people are not forced to sell their homes.The move would also be a clear breach of the 2019 Conservative election manifesto pledge on tax.Health Secretary Sajid Javid has pushed for a two percent increase, saying the £10 billion raised from a mooted one percent rise is not enough, according to The Times.Meanwhile, the Treasury is seeking a 1.25 percent increase that would affect 25 million people according to the Daily Telegraph, which said an announcement could come as soon as next week.Senior figures from No 10, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) are expected to meet in crunch talks on Friday, the Guardian reports, with health service leaders concerned that the final figure could be just half the £10bn they are demanding.One NHS source told the Guardian: “From what we can see the government is preparing to announce that it’s going to increase the NHS’s budget by about £5bn next year. If they do, that’s £5bn less than we’ve told them the service needs and thus they’ll be leaving the service £5bn short.”At the 2019 election, the Conservatives pledged in their manifesto not to raise the rate of income tax, VAT or national insurance.But the idea of increasing national insurance was floated earlier this year and the PM looks prepared to break the pledge.When asked if there could be no national insurance hike, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News in July: “That’s what it says in the manifesto, I don’t see how we could increase national insurance.“But you know things have been very flexible over the last 18 months, we’ve lived through an unprecedented time, we’ve been spending huge amounts of money that we never thought was possible and it’s up to the Chancellor and the Treasury, and the wider Government, to decide a budget.” More

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his decision to call an election during the pandemic in first debate of the campaign for this month’s election. Trudeau is facing a tough re-election battle against his Conservative Party rival, Erin O’Toole. The vote is Sept. 20. “Why did you trigger an election in the middle of a fourth wave?” O’Toole asked Trudeau at the French-language debate in Montreal Trudeau said he needs a mandate from voters. “We must give Canadians the choice,” he said. He criticized O’Toole for not requiring his candidates to be vaccinated. O’Toole said he believes the country can find reasonable accommodations for those who are unvaccinated, like rapid testing and social distancing. Four provinces including Quebec and Ontario, Canada’s largest, are bringing in vaccine passports that require citizens to be vaccinated to enter places like restaurants and gyms.Trudeau called the election last month seeking to win the majority of seats in Parliament but polls show that is unlikely and that he might even lose power to O’Toole and the Conservative party. Trudeau had wanted to capitalize on the fact that Canada is now one of the most fully vaccinated countries in the world, but the country is now in a fourth wave driven by the delta variant.The 49-year-old Trudeau, the son of the late Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, became the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history when he was first elected with a majority of seats in Parliament in 2015. He reasserted liberalism in 2015 after almost 10 years of Conservative Party government in Canada, but scandals combined with high expectations damaged his brand. His father served as prime minister from 1968 to 1984 with a short interruption and remains one of the few Canadian politicians known in other countries. More