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UK’s upper house votes to delay plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda
The United Kingdom’s upper house of parliament has voted to delay Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s controversial plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The vote by the unelected House of Lords on Monday came despite Sunak urging its members to back his plan, which he has characterised as the will of the people.
The upper house voted 214 to 171 to delay the ratification of a related treaty London signed with Kigali until the government can demonstrate that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers to be sent to.
The chamber does not have the power to block the so-called Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill indefinitely, but could delay the legislation for up to a year.
The move comes after the more powerful House of Commons on Wednesday narrowly passed the bill after some Conservative MPs threatened to vote against the government on the grounds the legislation was not robust enough to survive legal challenges.
Sunak has made the controversial immigration plan a key plank of his bid to return to power in an expected general election this year that the centre-left Labour Party is strongly tipped to win.
Sunak introduced the legislation after the UK Supreme Court last year ruled that the safety of asylum seekers deported to Rwanda could not be guaranteed.
The bill would make it harder for courts to challenge the Rwanda policy by allowing the government to set aside certain provisions of human rights law and asking the House of Commons to declare by majority vote that the African country is safe for asylum seekers.
Sunak has said he wants deportations to begin within months to meet his pledge to “stop the boats” carrying asylum seekers across the English Channel.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson first announced the Rwanda plan in 2022 to deny people arriving by “irregular means” the opportunity to apply for asylum in the UK.
The first Rwanda-bound flight from the UK was halted in June of that year after a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled that one of the asylum seekers on board was at “real risk of irreversible harm” in the East African nation.
(Aljazeera)
(Cricbuzz)
At least seven people have died and more than 80 others are missing after a landslide hit Indonesia’s West Java province, officials said.
The landslide occurred in the West Bandung region, south-east of the capital Jakarta, following days of intense rainfall.
More than thirty homes were destroyed after “landslide material buried residential areas, causing fatalities and affecting local residents”, Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said in a statement.
Flooding, landslide and extreme weather alerts have also been issued for the broader region.
The landslide hit the village of Pasirlangu around 02:30AM on Saturday [24] (19:30 GMT).
Two dozen people were evacuated safely from the affected region, according to Abdul Muhari, communication chief of the National Search Agency.
Images shared by local news outlets showed homes buried under mud and debris.
[BBC]
Ukraine has condemned a fresh wave of Russian strikes overnight which killed one person and injured 23 others, as talks with the US aimed at ending the war are set to resume.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the “brutal” attack had “hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table”.
Delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the US have been meeting in Abu Dhabi for the first trilateral talks since the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022.
A source told the BBC that some progress had been made but the key issue of territory remains unresolved.
The mayor of Ukrainian capital Kyiv said one person had died and four had been wounded while Kharkiv’s mayor reported that 19 people had been hurt during a sustained assault on the city in the early hours of Saturday morning.
On the second day of the three-way talks in Abu Dhabi, Sybiha said the “barbaric” overnight assault proved “that Putin’s place is not at the board of peace, but at the dock of the special tribunal”.
US President Donald Trump said last week that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had accepted an invitation to join his ‘Board of Peace’ – an organisation focused on ending global conflicts. Putin has not confirmed this.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that three of the four people who had been injured had been hospitalised.
He added that the capital’s critical infrastructure had been damaged, leaving 6,000 buildings without heating.
Temperatures in Ukraine are at sub-zero levels and in a statement following the assaults, President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “The main target of the Russians was the energy infrastructure.”
In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 19 people had been injured during the strikes in the early hours of Saturday morning. A maternity hospital and a hostel for displaced people were damaged.
Russia occupies roughly 20% of Ukraine, including parts of the eastern Donbas region. The Kremlin wants Ukraine to hand over large areas of the territory. Ukraine has ruled this out.
Following the first day of talks, Rustem Umerov, who is leading the Ukrainian delegation, said on social media: “The meeting focused on the parameters for ending Russia’s war and the further logic of the negotiation process aimed at advancing toward a dignified and lasting peace.”
[BBC]
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