Boris Johnson has been handed an update from Sue Gray's inquiry into Downing Street parties, ahead of its public release later.
The civil servant's investigation has examined gatherings in government buildings during Covid restrictions. But it is not clear what the published report will contain, after police requested "minimal reference" to events it is investigating. Opposition MPs are demanding all findings are released in full. The Cabinet Office, where Ms Gray's team is based, said she had "provided an update on her investigations to the prime minister". The House of Commons has confirmed the prime minister will make a statement to MPs on the report at 15.30 GMT The wait is over, sort of. This morning's Cabinet Office statement was very carefully worded. It said an "update" has been handed to Boris Johnson. Sources have indicated that this means a version of the report has been given to Downing Street but one that takes account of the Met's request for "minimal reference" to be made to certain events. Therefore, this appears to be something of an initial report rather than the full thing. After the long wait for Sue Gray, that may cause some serious frustration. But nevertheless, this whole saga is taking a step forward. But we won't know, until the findings are published, how significant a development this will be. Downing Street said it would "publish what we have received" from Ms Gray's inquiry team on Monday afternoon. The PM's spokesman told reporters it was "not clear" how the police investigation will "interact with any ongoing work". Asked whether a further version would be published after the police probe, he replied: "We will consider what will be appropriate in due course." Speaking earlier, Mr Johnson refused to be drawn on whether Ms Gray's report would be a "whitewash", when answering questions. The process was thrown into confusion last week, when the Metropolitan Police announced their own inquiry into an unspecified number of gatherings. The force has asked for only "minimal reference" to be made to events they are looking at, in order to "avoid any prejudice to our investigation". BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said the Cabinet Office's reference to an "update" suggested Monday's report won't represent Ms Gray's full findings. She added that the prime minister is likely to be asked whether the full findings will be published at a later date. The report is crucial to Mr Johnson's premiership, which has been rocked by weeks of damaging headlines about No 10 parties. Many Conservative MPs have said they are waiting for its findings to decide whether to try to oust him from office. At least 54 of them can set up a vote on his position if they submit letters of no confidence to a backbench committee representing Tory MPs. - BBC News
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Conservative and liberal female figures came to varying conclusions on the validity of Vice President Kamala Harris's reported belief that she's treated worse by the press because of her race and gender. A recent report by The New York Times suggested Harris, who is the first Black, South Asian female vice president, has been privately complaining to her allies that the media's coverage of her would be better if she were any of her 48 White male predecessors. "Ms. Harris has privately told her allies that the news coverage of her would be different if she were any of her 48 predecessors, all of whom were white and male," the report read. Liberal radio host and Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall found truth in those claims, arguing that race and gender likely leave the VP vulnerable to "extra scrutiny." "Yes. I do believe that…Women are definitely held to a different standard," Marshall said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I don’t think it’s whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican though I think it happens whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. So when you have the first woman, and the first woman of color also, who happens to be the vice president, I do think that those things…lead to extra scrutiny." Yet conservative female leaders all pointed to policy. The New York Times report read that Harris had been reaching out to her predecessors about "the difficulties she is facing with the intractable issues in her portfolio, such as voting rights and the root causes of migration." Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., argued it was that latter assignment, as Biden's border czar, that can account for any untoward media representations about the vice president, and less about her background or appearance. Last year, it took Harris 90 days to make a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since being appointed as lead on the border crisis. Tens of thousands of migrants, including thousands of unaccompanied minors, have streamed across the border in recent months. When NBC's Lester Holt pressed Harris about the delay and why she had never been to the border as vice president, Harris laughed and responded, "I haven't been to Europe." "There is nothing sexist or racist stating the fact that Kamala Harris has been an absolute disaster on every policy issue in her portfolio - especially the border crisis," Stefanik told Fox News Digital. "There is nothing sexist or racist about the fact that if you put Kamala Harris on the congressional ballot in any district across America, she would lose because she can’t conduct a basic interview without embarrassing herself and Joe Biden." Harris has also faced historic low approval ratings in recent months, numbers which liberal late night host Jimmy Kimmel first and foremost blamed on "sexism and racism." But like Stefanik, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., evoked Harris's failure to secure the border as a likely reason for any negative coverage or poor approval ratings. "Conservative women trailblazers have been mocked and maligned by the liberal press for years," Blackburn said. "You learn to deal with it and not make excuses. When Vice President Kamala Harris took office, she knew she was charting a new path and would have to prove herself at every step along the way. She could have used her platform to protect the women and girls in Afghanistan, secure the southern border, or reduce crime in our cities. Instead, she tossed aside the historic opportunity she had been given to criticize the tough media environment conservative women have been successfully navigating for decades." Her gender, Blackburn added, "is no excuse for her disastrous performance." Felecia Killings, founder and CEO of FeleciaKillings.org and the Conscious Conservative Movement, also expressed her disappointment in how Harris has responded to any perceived challenges. Killings said it would be "reckless" to think that women from all backgrounds do not experience hardships throughout their careers - something she says she knows from personal experience. But it's how women respond to those challenges, she suggested, that matters just as much. "Many women have taken these challenges and converted these obstacles into stepping stones towards greatness," Killings told Fox News Digital. "In other words, our results speak for themselves. Vice President Harris, like any other politician, has something to prove to the American people. She is not exempt from any scrutiny. Her work must align with the bill of goods she sold to her voters." "Citizens have every right to hold her accountable," she added. "If she's not doing her job, it has nothing to do with her race or gender. It has everything to do with her ineptitude. Other critics have taken issue with Harris's reported complaint to argue that she has received much better media treatment than some of her predecessors or conservative female lawmakers. She been placed on the cover of Vogue Magazine and sometimes enjoyed an assist from the press in fueling the narrative that Harris's naysayers are sexist and racist. NBC's Peter Alexander was criticized for asking Harris's husband Doug Emhoff if race and gender had played into criticism of the vice president. "You’re a husband. When you see the attacks, when you see the criticism, what do you think?" Alexander asked. "As the first woman, black, South Asian vice president, do you think that your wife is treated differently because she’s a woman and a woman of color?" he asked in a follow-up. Journalist Anushay Hossain penned a USA Today piece defending Harris, writing, "as the first black and first Asian and first woman to hold the second most powerful job in the country, she can't keep anybody happy. It's not possible." She expanded on that assumption during an appearance on MSNBC.
"Women and men aren't assessed through the same lens, and that's one thing we have to keep in mind whenever we're talking about the vice president," Houssain said, later adding, "But because she is a woman and a woman of color, the level of scrutiny that she is getting from both the left and the right is really off the charts." Harris' political allies have also suggested she's been victim to a double standard. "I know, and we all knew, that she would have a difficult time because anytime you’re a ‘first,’ you do,’" Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said. "And to be the first woman vice president, to be the first Black, Asian woman, that’s a triple. So we knew it was going to be rough, but it has been relentless, and I think extremely unfair." Harris has not only been burdened with poor polling numbers. In recent weeks, high profile members of her staff have announced their departures, fueling speculation that the vice president oversees a toxic work environment. - Fox News Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized on Monday with an intestinal blockage and may need to undergo surgery in the latest complication from a 2018 stabbing. Bolsonaro said he started feeling unwell on Sunday afternoon after lunch, and doctors have inserted a nasogastric tube. "More tests will be conducted for a potential surgery on an internal obstruction in the abdominal region," Bolsonaro posted on Twitter, along with a photo of himself giving a thumbs-up in his hospital bed. Bolsonaro said it was the second hospitalization "with the same symptoms" since he was stabbed during a September 2018 campaign event and underwent a series of emergency operations. President in 'stable condition'Vila Nova Star hospital confirmed in a medical note that Bolsonaro has been admitted to the hospital in the early hours of Monday with an intestinal blockage.
"He is in stable condition, undergoing treatment and will be re-evaluated this morning by Doctor Antonio Luiz de Vasconcellos Macedo's team. At the moment, there is no forecast for him being discharged," it said. TV network Globo showed images of Bolsonaro, who had been vacationing in the southern state of Santa Catarina, walking down the stairs of the presidential plane after landing in Sao Paulo around 1:30 a.m. local time. In July 2021, he was taken to the Vila Nova Star hospital in Sao Paulo due to an intestinal blockage after suffering from chronic hiccups. The far-right politician has been in power since 2019 and plans to stand for re-election as president in a vote scheduled for October of this year. - CBC Wilmington, Delaware — President Joe Biden reiterated his statements that the U.S. and allies will act "decisively" if Russia further invades Ukraine to President Volodymyr Zelensky in a call Sunday, as Russia masses troops along the border between the nations.
It's the second call on the subject within a week for Mr. Biden, who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Mr. Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky's call came as the U.S. and Western allies prepared for a series of diplomatic meetings to try to de-escalate a crisis that Moscow said could rupture ties with Washington. "President Biden made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement following the call. Psaki added that Biden underscored his commitment to the principle of "nothing about you without you," the tenet that it won't negotiate policy that impacts Europe without its allies' input. Biden has spoken of hitting Russia with economy-jarring sanctions if it moves on Ukraine's territory, but he said last month that U.S. military action is not on the table. The Kremlin has demanded that any further expansion of NATO exclude Ukraine and other former Soviet countries. The Russians have also demanded that the military alliance remove offensive weaponry from countries in the region. "If the obviously aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate, retaliatory military-technical measures [and] react toughly to unfriendly steps," Putin told senior military officials during a meeting in remarks carried by Russian state TV last week. "I want to emphasize that we have every right to do so." The White House has dismissed Russia's demands on NATO as a non-starter. A key principle of the NATO alliance is that membership is open to any qualifying country. And no outsider has membership veto power. While there's little prospect that Ukraine would be invited into the alliance anytime soon, the U.S. and its allies won't rule it out. Zelensky said in a Twitter posting after Sunday's call that "keeping peace in Europe, preventing further escalation, reforms, deoligarchization were discussed." "We appreciate the unwavering support," Zelensky said. Senior U.S. and Russian officials are scheduled to meet January 9-10 in Geneva to discuss the situation. Those talks are to be followed by meetings at the NATO-Russia Council, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Biden spoke with Putin for nearly an hour on Thursday. He told reporters the next day that he warned Putin that his economy would pay a "heavy price" if Russia, which has massed some 100,000 troops near the border, made further moves against Ukraine. "I'm not going to negotiate here in public, but we made it clear that he cannot — I emphasize cannot — move on Ukraine," Biden said Friday. Biden said he told Putin it was important for the Russians to take steps before those meetings toward easing the crisis. Putin's foreign affairs adviser, in describing the presidents' conversation this past week, said Biden's pursuit of sanctions "could lead to a complete rupture of relations between our countries and Russia-West relations will be severely damaged." U.S. intelligence findings indicate Russia has made preparations for a potential invasion in early 2022. But White House officials say it remains unclear whether Putin has already made a decision to move forward with military action. Still, Biden said he remained hopeful for the upcoming talks. White House officials say they will consult closely with Western allies. "I always expect if you negotiate you make progress, but we'll see," he said Friday. "We'll see." Past military incursions by Putin loom large as Mr. Biden weighs his next steps. In 2014, Russian troops marched into the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and seized the territory from Ukraine. Russia's annexation of Crimea was one of the darker moments for President Barack Obama on the international stage. The U.S.-Russia relationship was badly damaged near the end of President George W. Bush's administration after Russia's 2008 invasion of its neighbor Georgia after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered his troops into the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he feared that Putin was intent on invading Ukraine and "nothing other than a level of sanctions that Russia has never seen will deter him." "Russia needs to understand we are united in this," Schiff told "Face the Nation" on CBS. "I also think that a powerful deterrent is the understanding that if they do invade, it is going to bring (NATO) closer to Russia, not push it farther away. - CBS News |
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July 2022
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