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☆ UK, EU inching towards Northern Ireland deal, Irish prime minister says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Momentum has been building for weeks towards a deal to ease checks on trade that were introduced under the Northern Ireland Protocol - the arrangements agreed to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland when Britain exited the EU in 2020. Lawmakers in British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative party have been told to be in parliament on Monday, in a sign that a deal could be imminent. Certainly the deal isn't done yet, but I do think we are inching towards a conclusion," Leo Varadkar told reporters. While an agreement would mark an end to a two-year standoff between Britain and the EU, Sunak could face a battle with pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers and pro-British Northern Irish politicians to make the deal work. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the region's largest pro-British party, has said it will not end its boycott of the assembly unless all checks on goods bound for Northern Ireland from Britain are removed.

☆ UK's Sunak wants to 'get the job done' on Brexit with Northern Ireland deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"There's unfinished business on Brexit and I want to get the job done," Sunak told The Sunday Times newspaper in an interview. Sunak said he would try to resolve the concerns of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which is worried about the EU retaining influence over Northern Ireland. Ireland's prime minister Leo Varadkar told reporters earlier on Saturday that Britain and the EU were inching forwards and an agreement was possible, but not guaranteed, in the coming days. Sunak, in a nod to the DUP's worries, said the Good Friday peace agreement for Northern Ireland had been unbalanced by the Brexit deal for the province's trade rules. He said the shooting of a police officer on Wednesday "reminds us of the delicate situation in Northern Ireland, the fragility of it, and we shouldn’t take it for granted.

[1/3] A road sign at a roundabout on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland with directions to Belfast and Dublin is seen in Carrickcarnan, Ireland, May 19, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File PhotoLONDON/BELFAST, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Britain's foreign minister James Cleverly said London would not sign off on a deal with the European Union over changes to Northern Ireland's post-Brexit trading arrangements without the backing of its biggest unionist party. Cleverly told Times Radio on Friday that Britain's negotiations around the Northern Ireland Protocol were focused on addressing the concerns of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). But London needs the support of the DUP if a deal is to restore Northern Ireland's power sharing government that the DUP is currently boycotting over its opposition to the protocol. Naomi Long, the head of the province's cross-community Alliance Party, told Reuters it was wrong to give any individual party what appeared to be a veto on Northern Ireland's future.

The movement of asylum-seekers into Canada from the United States has picked up since Canada lifted COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in late 2021, a trend mirroring global displacement. More than 39,000 refugees entered Canada last year via unofficial crossings, the vast majority via Roxham Road linking Quebec and New York State. Canada is a signatory to the international Refugee Convention under which Canada must adjudicate most refugee claims with limited exceptions. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trudeau said his government had been trying to "close" Roxham Road for years by rewriting the STCA. Poilievre referenced a COVID-19 policy under which Canada turned back asylum-seekers crossing between ports of entry, a policy that was being challenged in court when it was rescinded.

Power-hungry aluminium producers in Yunnan and neighbouring provinces were already operating at reduced capacity, some of them since September, dragging down China's national output. The latest cuts will impact around 740,000 tonnes of annual production capacity, adding to the million tonnes already offline, according to industry consultancy Mysteel. Aluminium capacity has grown to around 5.25 million tonnes, making it the fourth largest provincial producer after Shandong, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. January's estimated annualised production was 40.50 million tonnes, a drop of almost one million tonnes over the last five months. Registered inventory on both exchanges has risen fast, cushioning the supply chain from the loss of Chinese production momentum.

☆ Explainer: What is the Northern Ireland protocol?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] A truck parked beside a 'money changed' sign is seen on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland near Jonesborough, Northern Ireland, October 13, 2021. WHAT IS THE NORTHERN IRELAND PROTOCOL? Northern Ireland also remains part of the UK's customs territory, effectively creating a customs border in the sea between Britain and Northern Ireland. The protocol specifies those EU regulations and directives with which Northern Ireland must remain aligned, and means new EU acts may be added to those that apply in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Protocol bill, if passed by parliament, would give the British government the power to unilaterally decide to all but renege on the agreement.

☆ Explainer: Talks on post-Brexit Northern Ireland trade edge closer to deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

WHAT IS THE NORTHERN IRELAND PROTOCOL? Northern Ireland also remains part of the UK's customs territory. That effectively created a customs border in the sea between Britain and Northern Ireland, which pro-British communities say erodes their place within the UK. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Northern Ireland's biggest unionist party, also says the province should not have to follow laws without having a say. According to so-called dynamic alignment, this also means that any new EU acts may also be added to those that apply in Northern Ireland.

☆ Britain's Sunak touts EU protocol progress in Northern Ireland, no deal yet
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Amanda Ferguson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

After weeks of intense London-Brussels talks, momentum has been building towards a deal to revise the Northern Ireland Protocol - the arrangements agreed to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland when Britain exited the EU in 2020. "I had positive conversations with political parties in Northern Ireland," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters. In Belfast, Sunak focused his attention on the Democratic Unionist Party, whose opposition to the protocol must be overcome to make any deal work. The other political parties that met Sunak on Friday said detail from the prime minister on a potential deal was "scant". Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the militant Irish Republican Army that wants Northern Ireland to split from the UK and unite with Ireland, became the province's largest party for the first time at elections last year.

☆ Equatorial Guinea confirms country's first Marburg virus disease outbreak -WHO
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea has confirmed its first outbreak of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious and deadly disease similar to Ebola, following the deaths of at least nine people, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. The small Central African country quarantined more than 200 people and restricted movement last week in its Kie-Ntem province after detecting an unknown hemorrhagic fever. In addition to the nine deaths, Equatorial Guinea has reported 16 suspected cases of Marburg virus with symptoms including fever, fatigue and blood-stained vomit and diarrhea, the WHO said. Marburg virus disease can have a fatality rate of up to 88%, according to the WHO. The deaths have been preliminarily linked to a funeral ceremony in the Kie-Ntem province's Nsok Nsomo district, Equatorial Guinea Health Minister Mitoha Ondo'o Ayekaba said on Friday.

☆ Equatorial Guinea quarantines 200 after unknown hemorrhagic fever deaths
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Amindeh Blaise Atabong | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] People wait to cross the border into Equatorial Guinea by car and by foot in Kye-Ossi, Cameroon, May 23, 2015. Authorities have restricted movement around the two villages that are directly linked, he said, and contact tracing was ongoing. Equatorial Guinea's neighbour Cameroon on Friday restricted movement along its border after the "unexplained deaths", its Health Minister Malachie Manaouda said in a statement. Equatorial Guinea said on Wednesday that it had registered the "unusual epidemiological situation" over the past weeks in Kie-Ntem province's Nsok Nsomo district that caused nine deaths in two adjacent communities over a short period. A Cameroon district health official near the border area said around 20 deaths had been recorded on Wednesday in villages in Kie-Ntem province, which borders Cameroon's Olamze district.

☆ Fears grow for untold numbers buried by Turkey earthquake
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

But there was also widespread despair and growing anger at the slow pace of rescue efforts in some areas. People sitting on the rubble react in the aftermath of an earthquake, in rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria February 7, 2023. Muhammet Ruzgar, 5, is carried out by rescuers from the site of a damaged building, following an earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, February 7, 2023. Vice President Fuat Oktoy said at least 5,894 people have died from the earthquake in Turkey, with another 34,810 injured. An aerial view shows damaged and collapsed buildings following an earthquake, in Hatay, Turkey February 7, 2023.

It is planning to develop a CCS hub in northern Alberta, expected to cost C$16.5 billion ($12.3 billion) by 2030. Trudeau told Reuters in an interview earlier this month Alberta was "hesitating around investing in anything related to climate change". Canada is the world's fourth-largest producer of crude, most of which comes from Alberta's oil sands. The oil and gas sector is the country's highest-polluting industry and needs to drastically cut emissions if Canada is to achieve its climate commitments. 'NO TIME TO SLIP'The Pathways Alliance has already said Ottawa's goal of cutting oil and gas emissions 42% by 2030, equivalent to a 35-megatonne reduction, is impossible.

Ontario has some private healthcare providers but they are a small part of the health system and provide relatively few public surgeries. Critics worry sharply expanding their footprint will take staff from the pool of public health workers. In 2021, the Commonwealth Fund ranked Canada's health system tenth out of 11 rich countries. Ontario's government said it is following the lead of provinces such as Alberta, which contracts with private providers and said last fall it will fund more surgeries in private clinics. No one disputes Ontario's health system faces serious challenges.

TORONTO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Canada's most populous province, Ontario, plans to significantly expand its use of private providers to perform public health services, the premier said on Monday, in a bid to deal with backlogs and delays in a healthcare system strained by the coronavirus pandemic. Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told Global News on Sunday that Canada’s healthcare system is "on the ropes." Canada's publicly-funded healthcare system has in the past been seen by some as a model system. But critics and public health advocates have argued expanding the use of private providers is a step towards privatizing the public health system and risks cannibalizing a healthcare workforce already facing a shortage. The Ford government has said it has no plans to privatize the healthcare system.

[1/4] LNG Canada site construction activities are held, in Kitimat, Canada, September 2022. LNG Canada, in which Japan's Mitsubishi Corp (8058.T) owns a 15% stake, is set to be Canada's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal. LNG Canada has previously described this approach as only one of the options it was considering. LNG Canada has full environmental permits from both governments to use natural gas turbines for Phase 2, making it unclear what leverage governments have to force electrification. But buyers may pay more for LNG produced with lower emissions, Klein said, noting that some buyers already purchase carbon offsets for LNG cargoes.

☆ Canada's Trudeau urges Alberta to contribute to carbon-capture incentives
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Steve Scherer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"We've seen for a while Alberta hesitating around investing in anything related to climate change. But CCUS is one of those tangible things," Trudeau told Reuters in an interview. The Canadian oil and gas industry wants a level playing field as Ottawa targets net zero emissions by 2050, the same goal set by U.S. President Joe Biden. "One of the challenges is there is a political class in Alberta that has decided that anything to do with climate change is going to be bad for them or for Alberta," Trudeau said. In the interview, Trudeau also took aim at his main rival, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, for casting Canada as "broken".

Experts say the elderly in rural areas may be particularly vulnerable because of their vaccine hesitancy and inadequate medical resources. Most patients have the same symptoms suggesting a COVID infection, and most are elderly, she said. "Many elderly people have underlying diseases such as chronic bronchitis and this virus can easily lead to a lung infection." Paxlovid, the Pfizer-made COVID medicine, is in particularly high demand, with many Chinese attempting to get the drug abroad and have it shipped to China. In Lezhi county, Liao, a farmer with two children whose husband is working in a faraway province, bought an oxygen concentrator online to help with her mother's breathing.

[1/3] An empty road is pictured at Shanghai Central Business District (CBD) as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Shanghai, China, December 23, 2022. Subway trains in Beijing and Shanghai were packed, while some major traffic arteries in the two cities jammed with slow-moving cars on Monday as residents commuted to work. An annual Christmas market held at the Bund, a commercial area in Shanghai, was also crowded over the weekend. Crowds thronged the winter festive season at Shanghai Disneyland and Beijing's Universal Studios on Sunday, queuing up for rides in Christmas-themed outfits. The city of Qingdao, in the eastern Shandong province, has estimated that up to 530,000 residents were being infected each day.

China's health authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment on infections among medical staff. A few nurses at the fever clinic were tested positive, there aren’t any special protective measures for hospital staff and I believe many of us will soon get infected," Li added. A post on the Weibo social media platform recounted a recent experience at the emergency ward at Beijing Hospital. "Those who have not been to the emergency department of Beijing Hospital don't know what a mess it has become," wrote a Weibo user called Moshang. Beijing Hospital did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment.

☆ As China moves away from zero-Covid, health experts warn of dark days ahead
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Across the country, however, some parts of residential communities and buildings designated high risk by authorities are still locked down. A QR code for Covid-19 contact tracing displayed at the entrance to a subway station in Shanghai, China, on Monday. Top health officials on November 28 announced a new plan to bolster elderly vaccination rates, but such measures will take time, as will other preparations for a surge. Minimizing the worst outcomes in a transition out of zero-Covid depends on that preparation, according to Cowling. From that perspective, he said, “it doesn’t look like it would be a good time to relax the policies.”

☆ Inside China's fight over the future of zero-COVID
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( David Stanway | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +10 min

After nearly three years, a significant loosening of zero-COVID measures has been signalled by senior government officials and public health experts. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said on Thursday that China's health system had "withstood the test" of COVID, allowing further adjustments to state policies. "You can have zero-COVID, but you can't have a healthy economy, and you can have a healthy economy, but you can't have zero-COVID." Laura Yasaitis, a public health expert at the Eurasia Group think-tank who follows China's zero-COVID policies, said fear of the virus likely varied widely across the country, as well as within cities or provinces. Officials have repeatedly said that China's health system would be unable to cope with a surge in cases, with medical resources unevenly distributed across the country.

☆ Quebec party wants vote to end mandatory oath to King Charles
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Allison Lampert | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MONTREAL, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A Quebec political party opposed to swearing an oath to Britain's King Charles said it expects to introduce legislation on Thursday that would make such fealty optional. Left-leaning Quebec solidaire, whose members grudgingly took the oath that is required for elected officials, plans to introduce a bill in the Canadian province's national assembly, a party spokesperson said on Wednesday. It's not clear whether the party which represents just 11 ridings in the 125 seat assembly would have widespread support. It comes after the death of Queen Elizabeth in September revived debate among Canadians on whether the country should continue with the decades-old system of British monarchy. "It is, I think, a relic from the past," Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a co-spokesperson for Quebec solidaire, said in an interview.

Conservative-led governments in oil-producing Alberta and Saskatchewan are demanding Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government cede more power on issues from climate policy to gun control. Provinces already manage non-renewable natural resources, while the federal government has some jurisdiction over the environment. Alberta's proposed legislation "undermines the authority and duty of the sovereign nations that entered into treaty," Treaty 8 First Nations Grand Chief Arthur Noskey said in the statement. First Nations only agreed in treaties to share their land to "the depth of a plow," said Chief Bobby Cameron of Saskatchewan's Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, meaning agreements did not cover oil or minerals deeper underground. The backlash against Alberta and Saskatchewan sovereignty mirrors Indigenous opposition to Quebec's attempt to secede from Canada in a 1995 referendum which it narrowly lost.

☆ UK minister does not recognise report government wants Swiss-style ties with EU
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - British health minister Steve Barclay said on Sunday he does not recognise a report that the government wants to move towards a Swiss-style relationship with the European Union. Switzerland has negotiated access to the European single market, but in return has to accept conditions including allowing freedom movement of workers from EU countries and payments into the bloc's budget. Simon Clarke, a former minister, was among those to criticise any suggestion that Britain could pursue a Swiss-style deal. Britain is currently locked in talks with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol, the part of the Brexit deal that mandated checks on some goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom due to the province's open land border with EU member Ireland. Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Angus MacSwanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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