Senior UK Commander Warns Of ‘Third Nuclear Age’

 Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Tony Radakin attends a Ceremonial Welcome for the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and his wife Sheikha Jawaher, at Horse Guards Parade in London, on Dec. 3, 2024. (Henry Nicholls via AP, Pool File)

BY DANICA KIRKA

LONDON (AP) — The head of Britain’s armed forces has warned that the world stands at the cusp of a “third nuclear age,’’ defined by multiple simultaneous challenges and weakened safeguards that kept previous threats in check.

Admiral Tony Radakin, chief of the defense staff, said Britain needs to recognize the seriousness of the threats it faces, even if there is only a remote chance of Russia launching a direct nuclear attack on the U.K. or its NATO allies.

While the Cold War saw two superpowers held at bay by nuclear deterrence and the past three decades were characterized by international efforts to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons, the current era is “altogether more complex,” Radakin said Wednesday in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute.

“We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age…’’ he said. “It is defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.”

Challenges faced by the West include Russia’s threat to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, China’s drive to build up its nuclear stockpiles, Iran’s failure to cooperate with international efforts to limit its nuclear program, and “erratic behavior” by North Korea, Radakin said. All of this comes against a backdrop of increasing cyber-attacks, sabotage and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing Western countries.

He described the deployment of North Korean soldiers alongside Russian forces on Ukraine’s border as the year’s “most extraordinary development,’’ and warned that further deployments were possible.





The annual lecture by the chief of Britain’s defense staff is a tradition at RUSI, one of the country’s foremost think tanks on military and strategic issues.

Radakin used the lecture to make the case for continued reforms in the British military so the U.K. is prepared to respond to the changing international landscape. That includes maintaining Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which is “the one part of our inventory of which Russia is most aware and has more impact on Putin than anything else,” he said.

Britain keeps at least one submarine armed with nuclear missiles at sea at all times so that it can respond in the event of a nuclear attack.


The U.K. government is currently conducting a strategic defense review to determine how its armed forces should be staffed and equipped to confront the new challenges. The results are due to be published in the first half of next year.

Britain’s New Prime Minister Has A Chance To Reset Ties With The White House – But A Range Of Thorny Issues And The US Election Make It More Tricky

Keir Starmer

BY GARETT MARLIN

SENIOR [PROFESSIONAL LECTURER,

CO-DIRECTOR TRANSATLANTIC POLICY

CENTER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 

SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL SERVICE

The new U.K. prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, will have just a couple of days to settle into the job before facing his first test on the global stage.

Having presided over a landslide victory for his party on July 4, 2024, Starmer will head to Washington, D.C., for a crucial NATO summit starting July 9. Days later he will host over 50 European leaders for the European Political Community meeting.

Amid many global challenges, Starmer has an opportunity to show that the U.K. is back on the world stage. In particular, with many Western leaders facing serious headwinds at home – think Emmanuel Macron in France or Olaf Scholz in Germany – Starmer has a chance to re-establish the U.K. as the key partner for the U.S. in Europe.

Partnership with the U.S. is a priority for the new U.K. government. The so-called “special relationship” has been strained in recent years, notably by Brexit – the British decision to exit the European Union – which reduced U.K. influence in Europe and put the peace agreement in Northern Ireland at risk. That latter point was particularly grating for President Joe Biden, who is of Irish descent.

But translating a U.K. desire for more engagement into influence on U.S. policy will be a real challenge for Starmer. To be successful, he’ll need to navigate a number of thorny issues, including U.S. electoral politics, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the perceived threat of China and a reset with the EU. In all of these cases, addressing existing differences between London and Washington will not be straightforward.

Waiting for another election

An unavoidable fact for Starmer as he embarks on building a relationship with Washington is that he doesn’t know who he will be dealing with for the bulk of his term.

For the first time since 1992, the U.K. general election took place a mere few months before a presidential election across the Atlantic.

This could stall any significant investment in the transatlantic relationship until American voters have spoken in November.

On the surface, Starmer’s left-leaning Labour Party might welcome a Democratic win in November. Besides not having to deal with a presidential transition, the two parties are more aligned philosophically; and Starmer has expressed his admiration for the presumed Democratic candidate President Joe Biden.

Similarly, David Lammy, the U.K. government’s likely foreign secretary, has openly disparaged Republican Donald Trump in the past, referring to him as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international order.”

Yet, the vitality of the relationship between prime minister and president has often hinged more on personalities than mere ideological affinity. While Labour’s Tony Blair and conservative George W. Bush worked well together, this was hardly the case for Donald Trump and Theresa May – both of whom led the establishment right-wing parties in their countries.

It remains to be seen how Starmer would fare with either of the presumed U.S. presidential contenders. But he will finally get his chance to test the waters with Biden at the NATO summit, after failing to secure a meeting with the president while leader of the U.K. opposition. Lammy, for his part, has been steadily nurturing ties with the MAGA-sphere in case of a Trump win.

Ukraine and defense

Beyond personalities, the fate of the “special relationship” will also depend on whether both sides can converge on some tricky issues.

The U.K. has been at the forefront of supporting Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Beyond providing advanced weapons and training Ukrainian pilots, the U.K. government also signed a security pact with Kyiv in January. Starmer is not expected to deviate from that line.

Yet, that commitment may do little to shift the U.S. on some crucial questions regarding the war. Despite the U.K. actively pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine, the Biden administration is not ready to budge on that issue at this time. And if Trump were to win in November, defense spending could prove yet again a bone of contention. NATO allies are pushing to raise defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product – but Labour would have to balance that goal against competing domestic priorities such as improving the country’s cherished National Health Service and addressing a cost-of-living crisis.

Gaza tightrope

Perhaps an even trickier issue for the new prime minister to reconcile with his counterpart in the White House will be the issue of Gaza.

After taking over as party leader in 2020, Starmer worked tirelessly to undo the legacy of his predecessor, the hard-left and very pro-Palestinian Jeremy Corbyn. This included going out of his way to undo the public perception of Labour as being antisemitic.

But Starmer’s more pro-Israel stance in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks has alienated some of Labour’s traditional voters.

And the pivot hasn’t meant that Labour’s position on Gaza isn’t at times out of step with the White House. In particular, neither Starmer nor Lammy have condemned the International Criminal Court’s hope to seek an arrest warrant for leaders of both Israel and Hamas. Biden, for his part, called this ICC move “outrageous.”

Pressure on China

China will be another very delicate test of friendship with Washington for the new U.K. government. Lammy has promised that Labour will launch a complete audit of the country’s policy toward China to determine “where we will need to compete, where we can cooperate and where we will need to challenge.”

Such an audit could help address internal divisions in the Labour Party, which is torn between supporters of better relations with Beijing and those who see it as a security threat.

But the audit could be even more crucial considering the likely pressures the U.K. will face from Washington, where members of both parties strongly support geopolitical competition with Beijing. The U.K. and U.S. already have areas of disagreement when it comes to China, such as over welcoming Chinese electric vehicles production or whether Beijing has committed a genocide in Xinjiang.

Ultimately, as foreign policy analyst Sophia Gaston put it, “The big question for Labour is whether it believes that strategic competition is a U.S.-China story, or whether it’s something that Britain has a role to play in.”

Resetting EU relations

Finally, the strength of the special relationship will also come down to how well Labour can manage its planned reset with the EU.

Building closer ties with its European counterparts could strengthen the U.K.’s influence, and it could serve as a hedging strategy in case Trump wins and takes the U.S. in a more isolationist direction.

Yet Labour shouldn’t automatically assume it’ll find receptive partners in Europe. The scars of the Brexit negotiations, the rise of the far-right in Europe and the major crises in Ukraine and the Middle East might limit European bandwidth to dedicate much effort in building ties with the new Labour government.

Starmer and his government will have an opportunity to repair the special relationship with the U.S. – but the path ahead will likely be anything but smooth. American electoral politics, and misalignment over any number of thorny challenges, could easily knock the new prime minister off course. What’s more, the fragile state of the U.K. economy will severely limit what the new government can do in foreign policy. It also means that, at least at first, Starmer will likely focus on issues at home, not abroad.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

New UK Prime Minister Starmer Says Controversial Rwanda Deportation Plan Is ‘Dead And Buried’

New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with his Cabinet for the first time on Saturday inside Downing Street. Starmer told his ministers it had been the “honour of his life” to be asked by King Charles III to form a government on Friday following the Labour Party’s election win.

BY JILL LAWLESS AND BRIAN MELLEY

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that he is scrapping his predecessor’s controversial policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda as he vowed to deliver on voters’ mandate for change, though he warned it will not happen quickly.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference since the Labour Party swept Conservatives from power after 14 years. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.”

Starmer told reporters in a wood-paneled room at 10 Downing St. that he was “restless for change,” but would not commit to how soon Britons would feel improvements in their standards of living or public services.

The 30-minute question-and-answer session followed his first Cabinet meeting as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.

“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work,” Starmer told them.

Starmer’s Cabinet features a record number of women — 11 of 25 ministers. Nearly all members went to public schools, another record that is a sharp break from Conservative ministers who have historically come with private school pedigrees.

“I’m proud of the fact that we have people around the Cabinet table who didn’t have the easiest of starts in life,” Starmer said.

Among a raft of problems they must tackle are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing an ailing health care system, and restoring trust in government.

“Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced has gone away,” said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.

Starmer in his first remarks as prime minister Friday singled out several of the big items, such as fixing the revered but hobbled National Health Service and securing the U.K.'s borders, a reference to a larger global problem of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty as well as drought, heat waves and floods attributed to climate change.

Conservatives struggled to stem the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to live up to ex-Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats.”

The controversial Rwanda plan was billed as a solution that would deter migrants from risking their lives on a journey that could end up with them being deported to East Africa. So far, it has cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars and never taken flight.

Starmer denounced it as a “gimmick,” though it’s unclear what he will do differently as a record number of people have come ashore in the first six months of the year.

“Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel,” Bale said. “It’s going to ditch the Rwanda scheme, but it’s going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem.”

Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, criticized Starmer’s plan to end the Rwanda pact.

“Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be, I’m afraid, caused by Keir Starmer.”

Starmer will have a busy schedule following the six-week campaign. He heads out Sunday to visit each of the four nations of the U.K. — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. He plans to meet with metropolitan mayors, regardless of party, saying he’s not a “tribal politician.”

He will then travel to Washington for a NATO meeting Tuesday and will host the European Political Community summit July 18, the day after the state opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech, which sets out the new government’s agenda.

Starmer has had phone calls with several world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

He sent Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Saturday to Germany, Poland and Sweden.

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he would open new negotiations next week with NHS doctors at the start of their career who have staged a series of multi-day strikes. The pay dispute has exacerbated the long wait for appointments that have become a hallmark of the NHS’s problems.

In starker language than he’s used before, Starmer echoed Streeting’s description of the NHS as “broken.”

“Everybody who uses it and works in it knows that it is broken,” he said. “We’re not going to operate under the pretense or language that doesn’t express the problem as it is because otherwise we won’t be able to fix the problem as quickly as we need to.”

Keir Starmer: What We Know About Britain’s New Prime Minister And How He Will Lead

Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Wikipedia)

AUTHORS:

MARK BENNISTER

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICS,

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

BEN WORTHY

LECTURER IN POLITICS, BIRKBECK.

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

All prime ministers bring their own personality and approach to the job. Each has a different style of leadership, which can shape how things work and what gets done. Herbert Asquith famously summed it up when he said being prime minister is all about “what the holder chooses and is able to make of it”.

When searching for clues as to how Keir Starmer will choose to be Britain’s prime minister, there isn’t too much to go on. When asked directly on a recent podcast, he declared “an inclusive, determined prime minister who will look out for everyone in the country”. This only takes us so far, as it’s rather hard to imagine anyone saying the opposite (except, perhaps, Nigel Farage). But sifting through what we know, we can at least make a start at piecing together the puzzle.

In terms of his personality and approach, Starmer has been described as “methodical, professional, good on detail but lacking in flair”. He is very likely to be what the late MP and historian David Marquand called a “pragmatic operator”. Not for Starmer the visionary appeal or oratory fireworks of a Tony Blair or Harold Wilson. But nor is he simply a “machine politician”.

Starmer comes across as a quiet, experienced man, who speaks of values and of being a socialist (though the public are unsure if he is, or if that’s a good or bad thing). He can justifiably say he has a more authentic working-class background than many of his predecessors.

We do know that Starmer only became a member of parliament in 2015, so, at 52, was a relative latecomer to politics. He has spent the entirety of his political career in opposition. His predecessors, going back to Theresa May, came to the role with substantial experience of being a government minister (though, you may point out, it didn’t do them much good).

Yet Starmer’s time in parliament has been more intense than most. He was deeply involved in Brexit, and then led his party during the pandemic. As leader of the opposition, he saw two prime ministers removed in quick succession (and played a large role in removing at least one, with his methodical lawyer’s approach). Now, he has taken down a third.

Man on a mission

Importantly, Starmer has led what is effectively a large government department. His five years as director of public prosecutions (DPP) means he comes into Number 10 as an experienced leader having, rather unusually, run a state organisation before his political career had even begun.

Starmer’s experience as DPP implies an emphasis on delivering. We can expect him to focus on fixing problems, finding solutions, and getting things done. We can also perhaps expect more emphasis on outcomes and an end to the politicisation and battles with the bureaucratic machinery of government that characterised the previous administration.

It has been suggested that Starmer’s will be a mission-led government, organised around a set of guiding, longer-term missions with the goal of delivering certainty and sustained change. This idea is not new or particularly radical but it may appear so after the seeming chaos and short-termism of recent years.

How, and how swiftly, decisions are made – or not made – will be the crucial test. Starmer’s apparent indecision over the net zero agenda could be the shape of things to come. Being methodical and interested in detail can be shorthand for delay and indecision.

He has hinted at being a consultative leader: “The best decisions I’ve made in my life were those held up to the light and that survived scrutiny. The worst were when nobody said ‘boo’”. However his penchant for “undersharing”, as noted by his deputy Angela Rayner, may mean he keeps decision-making concentrated in a small group of confidants.

Man of mystery

A Starmer-led government is likely, especially with a large parliamentary majority, to be empowered to make changes. As a self-described socialist and progressive, Starmer can hardly avoid it. But how radical will he be? One former Labour minister spoke of how “he is very impressive, but he never strays too far beyond the boundaries. Even when he was a radical lawyer, he was one of a conventional sort.”

Where exactly Starmer sits remains a mystery or “a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in something sensible and beige”. A supporter explained how “one of Keir’s greatest strengths is that he’s never been from, or beholden to, a particular faction of the Labour party”.

But one truism of political leadership is that what begins as a strength ends as a weakness. Lots of the fault lines within the Labour party are already visible, from child poverty to Gaza. Other issues are bubbling away. Starmer’s ability to float above the fray can’t last, and there are likely to be plots and challenges (especially if a large majority means underemployed backbenchers).

Here, Starmer sits within perhaps another classic dilemma of the Labour party and of Labour prime ministers: what David Marquand called the “progressive dilemma”, namely how far can you, and do you, push change, without stretching the support of the broad coalition who put you in the job? The approach has so far been caution, supported by a disciplined shadow cabinet, but a large majority may transform the situation.

Yet other leaders have made huge changes quietly. Theresa May, for example, pushed through a net zero law so silently that “nobody even noticed the Tories’ biggest legacy”.

However, to revisit the warning of Asquith, being prime minister is about what a leader is “able” to do. Events blow all governments off course, and plenty have been overwhelmed by crises. Starmer would do well to heed the warning of boxer Mike Tyson that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.

After his win, there is a weight of expectation on Starmer. But trust in all politicians is low and damaged. There will be pressing domestic issues over migration, public service funding, and the NHS. Abroad, as one Labour advisor warned, there is a “stormy world” from Gaza and Ukraine to the US election. The true test of what Prime Minister Starmer may be is when his methodical approach meets a messy world.

WikiLeaks Founder Assange Wins Right To Appeal Against An Extradition Order To The US

A protester reads the newspaper outside the High Court in London, Monday, May 20, 2024. (Image: AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

 

BY BRIAN MELLEY AND JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal against extradition to the United States on espionage charges, a London court ruled Monday — a decision likely to further drag out an already long legal saga.

High Court judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson ruled for Assange after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.

Assange, 52, has been indicted on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago.

Hundreds of supporters cheered and applauded outside court as news of the ruling reached them from inside the Royal Courts of Justice.

Assange’s wife, Stella, said the U.S. had tried to put “lipstick on a pig — but the judges did not buy it.” She said the U.S. should “read the situation” and drop the case.

“As a family we are relieved but how long can this go on?” she said. “This case is shameful and it is taking an enormous toll on Julian.”




The Australian computer expert has spent the last five years in a British high-security prison after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years. Assange was not in court to hear the ruling because of health reasons, his lawyer said.

American prosecutors allege that Assange encouraged and helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published.





Assange’s lawyers have argued he was a journalist who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sending him to the U.S., they said, would expose him to a politically motivated prosecution and risk a “flagrant denial of justice.”

The U.S. government says Assange’s actions went way beyond those of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents.

The brief ruling from the bench followed arguments over Assange’s claim that by releasing the trove of confidential documents he was essentially a publisher and due the free press protections guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The hearing was a follow-up to a provisional ruling in March that said he could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen.

The U.S. provided those assurances but Assange’s lawyers only accepted that he would not face the prospect of capital punishment.

They said the assurance that Assange could “raise and seek to rely upon” the First Amendment fell short of the protections he deserved. Further, they argued that the prosecutor refused to say he would not challenge Assange’s right to use such a defense.

“The real issue is whether an adequate assurance has been provided to remove the real risk identified by the court,” Fitzgerald said. “It is submitted that no adequate assurance has been made.”

The court previously said that without the right to a First Amendment defense, Assange’s extradition could be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which also provides free speech and media protections.

Attorney James Lewis, representing the U.S., said Assange’s conduct was “simply unprotected” by the First Amendment.

“No one, neither U.S. citizens nor foreign citizens, are entitled to rely on the First Amendment in relation to publication of illegally obtained national defense information giving the names of innocent sources, to their grave and imminent risk of harm,” Lewis said.

Assange’s lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, though American authorities have said any sentence would likely be much shorter.

Assange’s family and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, which includes seven years spent inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London from 2012 until 2019. He has spent the past five years in a British high-security prison.

Commuters emerging from a Tube stop near the courthouse couldn’t miss a large sign bearing Assange’s photo and the words, “Publishing is not a crime. War crimes are.”

Scores of supporters gathered outside the neo-Gothic Royal Courts of Justice chanting “Free Julian Assange” and “Press freedom, Assange freedom.” Some held white flags aimed at President Joe Biden, exhorting: “Let him go Joe.”

Biden said last month that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case and let Assange return to his home country.

Officials provided no other details but Assange’s wife said it was “a good sign” and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the comment was encouraging.

UK Top Court Says A Plan To Send Migrants To Rwanda Is Illegal. The Government Still Wants To Do It

Protesters stand outside the Supreme Court in London, Wednesday, November 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

BY JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — The British government said Wednesday it will still try to send some migrants on a one-way trip to Rwanda, despite the U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the contentious plan is unlawful because asylum-seekers would not be safe in the African country.

In a major blow to one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ‘s key policies, the country’s top court ruled that asylum-seekers sent to Rwanda would be “at real risk of ill-treatment” because they could be returned to the conflict-wracked home countries they’d fled.

Sunak, who has pledged to stop migrants reaching Britain in small boats across the English Channel, said the ruling “was not the outcome we wanted” but vowed to press on with the plan and send the first deportation flights to Rwanda by next spring.

He said the court had “confirmed that the principle of removing asylum-seekers to a safe third country is lawful,” even as it ruled Rwanda unsafe.

Sunak said the government would seal a legally binding treaty with Rwanda that would address the court’s concerns, and would then pass a law declaring Rwanda a safe country.

Sunak suggested that if legal challenges to the plan continued, he was prepared to consider leaving international human rights treaties — a move that would draw strong opposition and international criticism.

Britain and Rwanda signed a deal in April 2022 to send migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.

Britain’s government argues that the policy will deter people from risking their lives crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and would break the business model of people-smuggling gangs. No one has yet been sent to the country as the plan was challenged in the courts.

Opposition politicians, refugee groups and human rights organizations say the plan is unethical and unworkable. Charity ActionAid U.K. called the Supreme Court ruling a vindication of “British values of compassion and dignity.” Amnesty International said the government should “draw a line under a disgraceful chapter in the U.K.’s political history.”

Announcing the unanimous decision, President of the Supreme Court Robert Reed said Rwanda had a history of misunderstanding its obligations toward refugees and of “refoulement” — sending claimants back to the country they had sought protection from.

The judges concluded “there is a real risk that asylum claims will not be determined properly, and that asylum-seekers will in consequence be at risk of being returned directly or indirectly to their country of origin.”

“In that event, genuine refugees will face a real risk of ill-treatment,” they said.

The U.K. government has argued that while Rwanda was the site of a genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 1994, the country has since built a reputation for stability and economic progress.

Critics say that stability comes at the cost of political repression. The court’s judgment noted human rights breaches including political killings that had led U.K. police “to warn Rwandan nationals living in Britain of credible plans to kill them on the part of that state.” They said Rwanda has a 100% rejection record for asylum-seekers from war-torn countries including Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

The Rwandan government insisted the country is a safe place for refugees.

“Given Rwanda’s welcoming policy and our record of caring for refugees, the political judgments made today were unjustified,” it said in a statement.

Rwandan opposition leader Frank Habineza, however, said Britain shouldn’t try to offshore its migration obligations to the small African country.

“The U.K. should keep the migrants or send them to another European country, not to a poor country like Rwanda. I really think it’s not right (for) a country like the U.K. to run away from their obligations,” Habineza told the AP in Kigali.

Much of Europe and the U.S. is struggling with how best to cope with migrants seeking refuge from war, violence, oppression and a warming planet that has brought devastating drought and floods.

Though Britain receives fewer asylum applications than countries such as Italy, France or Germany, thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in hopes of crossing the English Channel.

More than 27,300 have done that this year, a decline on the 46,000 who made the journey in all of 2022. The government says that shows its tough approach is working, though others cite factors including the weather.

The Rwanda plan has cost the British government at least 140 million pounds ($175 million) in payments to Rwanda before a single plane has taken off. The first deportation flight was stopped at the last minute in June 2022, when the European Court of Human Rights intervened.

The case went to the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the plan was unlawful because Rwanda is not a “safe third country.” The government unsuccessfully challenged that decision at the Supreme Court.

Sunak took comfort from the court’s ruling that “the structural changes and capacity-building needed” to make Rwanda safe “may be delivered in the future.” The U.K. government says its legally binding treaty will compel Rwanda not to send any migrants deported from the U.K back to their home countries.

The prime minister is under pressure from the right wing of the governing Conservative Party to take even more dramatic action to “stop the boats.” Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who was fired by Sunak on Monday, has said the U.K. should leave the European Convention on Human Rights if the Rwanda plan was blocked.

Sunak said at a news conference he was prepared to “revisit those international relationships to remove the obstacles in our way.”

“I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights,” he said.

Legal experts said leaving or ignoring international treaties would be an extreme move. Joelle Grogan, a senior researcher at the U.K. in a Changing Europe think tank, said leaving the European Convention would make Britain “an outlier in terms of its standards and its reputation for human rights protection.”

“The only reason in which you would leave the ECHR is if you wanted to start sending asylum-seekers to unsafe countries where they face threats to their life,” she said.

Associated Press writer Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda contributed to this report.

Europe, US Urged To Investigate The Type Of AI That Powers Systems Like ChatGPT

FILE - The ChatGPT app is seen on an iPhone in New York, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Authorities worldwide are racing to rein in artificial intelligence, including in the European Union, where groundbreaking legislation is set to pass a key hurdle. European Parliament lawmakers are due to vote Wednesday, June 14 on the proposal, along with controversial facial recognition amendments. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, file)

LONDON (AP) — European Union consumer protection groups urged regulators on Tuesday to investigate the type of artificial intelligence underpinning systems like ChatGPT, citing risks that leave people vulnerable and the delay before the bloc’s groundbreaking AI regulations take effect.

In a coordinated effort, 13 watchdog groups wrote to their national consumer, data protection, competition and product safety authorities warning them about a range of concerns around generative artificial intelligence.

A transatlantic coalition of consumer groups also wrote to U.S. President Joe Biden asking him to take action to protect consumers from possible harms caused by generative AI.

Europe has led the world in efforts to regulate artificial intelligence, which gained urgency with the rise of a new breed of artificial intelligence that gives AI chatbots like ChatGPT the power to generate text, images, video and audio that resemble human work.

The EU is putting the finishing touches on the world’s first set of comprehensive rules for the technology, but they are not expected to take effect for two years.

The groups called for European and U.S. leaders to use both existing laws and bring in new legislation to address the harms that generative AI can cause.

They cited a report by the Norwegian Consumer Council outlining dangers that AI chatbots pose, including providing incorrect medical information, manipulating people, making up news articles and illegally using vast amounts of personal data scraped off the internet.

The consumer groups, in countries including Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece and Denmark, warn that while the EU’s AI Act addresses some of the concerns, they won’t start applying for several years, “leaving consumers unprotected from a technology which is insufficiently regulated in the meantime, and developing at great pace.”

Some authorities have already acted. Italy’s privacy watchdog ordered ChatGPT maker OpenAI to temporarily stop processing user’s personal information while it investigated a possible data breach. France, Spain and Canada also have been looking into OpenAI and ChatGPT.

Human Rights Watch Condemns UK, US Actions On Chagos Islands

FILE - Protesters hold banners outside the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, on Sept. 3, 2018, where judges listen to arguments in a case on whether Britain illegally maintains sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Britain and the United States committed crimes against humanity when they forced the people of the Chagos Islands to leave their homes five decades ago to make way for a U.S. Navy base, a human rights group said Wednesday Feb. 15, 2023 as it called on the two governments to allow the Chagossians to return. (AP Photo/Mike Corder, File)

BY DANICA KIRKA

LONDON (AP) — Britain and the United States committed crimes against humanity when they forced the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to leave their homes five decades ago to make way for a U.S. Navy base, a rights group charged Wednesday, calling on the two governments to let the Chagossians return.

Human Rights Watch also said Britain and the U.S. should pay compensation to the Chagossians and apologize for their treatment of the islanders.

“The forced displacement of the Chagossians and ongoing abuses amount to crimes against humanity committed by a colonial power against an indigenous people,” the rights group said. “U.K. colonial rule in the Chagos Archipelago, unlike in most of its other colonies in Africa, did not end in the 1960s, and it has continued at extraordinary cost to the people of Chagos.”

The Chagos Islands are the heart of the British Indian Ocean Territory, some 6,000 miles southeast of London and home to the U.S. Navy base at Diego Garcia. The base was built in the 1970s and provides what American authorities have described as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.


But Diego Garcia has been the source of controversy for decades because the islands were home to about 1,500 people when discussions about the base began in the 1960s. In addition, the islands historically had been administered as a dependency of Mauritius, a U.K. territory that was then moving toward independence.

Those facts were a problem because the U.S. wanted the freedom to build the base on Diego Garcia without facing local political opposition.

As a result, Britain decided to separate the archipelago from Mauritius before it became independent and removed the Chagossians from the islands between 1967 and 1973.

There are now about 10,000 Chagossians who live primarily in Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The consulting firm KPMG, which conducted a feasibility study for the government, said in 2014 that everyone who took part in consultation meetings wanted to return to the islands permanently.

The government in 2016 refused to allow the Chagossians to return to their homeland, citing “feasibility, defense and security interests, and cost to the British taxpayer.”

But it also acknowledged that the original removal of the islanders was wrong, granted them citizenship and set aside 40 million pounds ($49 million) to improve the lives of Chagossians around the world.

“The manner in which the Chagossian community was removed from the Territory in the 1960s and 1970s, and the way they were treated, was wrong and we look back with deep regret,” the government said at the time.

Court: UK Plan To Send Asylum-Seekers To Rwanda Is Legal

Stickers are covered in rain drops outside the High Court in London, Monday, Dec. 19, 2022. Judges at Britain’s High Court say the U.K. government’s controversial plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda is legal. But two judges also ruled that the government failed to consider the circumstances of the individuals it tried to deport. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

BY JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s High Court ruled Monday that a plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda is legal but the government must consider the circumstances of each case before deporting anyone, a judgment that sets the controversial policy up for further legal battles.

Several asylum-seekers, aid groups and a border officials’ union filed lawsuits to stop the Conservative government acting on a deportation agreement with Rwanda that is intended to deter migrants from trying to reach the U.K. on risky journeys across the English Channel.

The U.K. plans to send some migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in small boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed. Those granted asylum would stay in Rwanda rather than returning to the U.K.

“The court has concluded that it is lawful for the government to make arrangements for relocating asylum-seekers to Rwanda and for their asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda rather than in the United Kingdom,” said Clive Lewis, one of two justices who made the ruling.

The judges said the policy did not breach Britain’s obligations under the U.N. Refugee Convention or other international agreements. But they added that the government “must decide if there is anything about each person’s particular circumstances” which meant they should not be sent to Rwanda, and had failed to do that for the eight claimants in the case.

U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who has called the Channel crossings an “invasion of our southern coast,” responded to the ruling by saying it “thoroughly vindicates the Rwanda partnership.”

“The sooner it is up and running, the sooner we will break the business model of the evil gangs” of people-smugglers, Braverman told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

The immigration spokesperson for the opposition Labour Party, Yvette Cooper, slammed the plan as “unworkable, unethical (and) extremely expensive.”

Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said the court ruling was “a positive step in our quest to contribute innovative, long-term solutions to the global migration crisis.”

But Rwandan opposition lawmaker Frank Habineza said it was wrong to send migrants to Rwanda, a densely populated nation with limited resources.

“This is not sustainable,” Habineza told The Associated Press.

Refugee groups said they would consult their lawyers about challenging the ruling. The judges set another hearing in the case for Jan. 16.

Enver Solomon, head of the charity Refugee Council, said the Rwanda plan was “a cruel policy that will cause great human suffering.”

Paul O’Connor of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents border staff, called the government’s policy “morally reprehensible.”

More than 44,000 people who crossed the Channel in small boats have arrived in Britain this year, and several have died in the attempt, including four last week when a boat capsized in freezing weather.

The British government argues that its deportation policy will deter criminal gangs that ferry migrants on hazardous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Human rights groups say it is immoral and inhumane to send people more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) to a country they don’t want to live in. They also cite Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including allegations of torture and killings of government opponents.

The U.K. government has argued that while Rwanda was the site of a genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 1994, the country has since built a reputation for stability and economic progress. Critics say that stability comes at the cost of political repression.

Britain has already paid Rwanda 140 million pounds ($170 million) under the deal struck in April, but no one has yet been sent to the country. The U.K. was forced to cancel the first deportation flight at the last minute in June after the European Court of Human Rights ruled the plan carried “a real risk of irreversible harm.”

The U.K. receives fewer asylum-seekers than many European nations, including Germany, France and Italy, but thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in hopes of crossing the Channel, and the number has grown rapidly in the past few years.

A surge in arrivals and a U.K. bureaucratic backlog, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, has led to many Channel migrants languishing in overcrowded processing centers, where there have been outbreaks of diphtheria and other diseases.

The government wants to deport all migrants who arrive by unauthorized routes, and aims to strike Rwanda-style deals with other countries. Critics point out there are few authorized routes for seeking asylum in the U.K., other than those set up for people from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.

Christina Marriott, director of policy at the British Red Cross, said “the offshoring of human beings” would “do little to prevent people from risking their lives to reach safety.”

“The government should instead take action to provide safe routes, ensure timely and correct decisions are made once people are in system, and that people are treated with dignity and respect throughout the process,” she said.

Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda contributed to this story.

Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Nigeria’s $11 Billion London Trial Will Expose Corruption, Court Hears

BY ESTELLE SHIRBON

LONDON (REUTERS) – A British lawyer representing Nigeria in a London court case in which $11 billion are at stake said on Friday the trial would reveal corruption “on an industrial scale”, not only of Nigerian officials but also of British lawyers.

The case stems from a contract for a gas project awarded by Nigeria in 2010 to a company called Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID). The gas processing facility never materialised, for reasons that are disputed.

After years of legal wrangling, a London-based arbitration tribunal said in 2017 that Nigeria had not fulfilled its side of the contract and should pay P&ID $6.6 billion in compensation. With interest, the award is now worth $11 billion.

That sum represents close to 30% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves, which stood at $37 billion at the end of November.

Nigeria has gone to court in London arguing that P&ID obtained the original contract through bribery and used the arbitration proceedings as a means of extorting a huge sum of money from Nigerian public coffers.

P&ID denies this and says Nigeria is trying to get out of paying what it owes.

An eight-week trial is due to start in January at the High Court in London, with witnesses appearing in person as well as remotely from Ireland and from Nigeria.

At a pre-trial review on Friday, lawyer Mark Howard, representing Nigeria, told the court that evidence of “widespread corruption and bribery on an industrial scale” would be put forward.

“Our case is it was bribery to get the contract, ongoing bribery to keep everyone on board, bribery of lawyers,” he said, alleging that two London-based British lawyers previously involved in the case had committed “serious misconduct”.

P&ID was originally established by two Irish nationals. Ownership of the firm has since passed to two Cayman Islands-based entities.

The case has become a cause celebre for the Nigerian government, with President Muhammadu Buhari denouncing it during a speech to the United Nations in 2019 as a scam designed to cheat Nigeria out of billions of dollars.

Buhari was in opposition at the time the contract was awarded.

The party then in power, the People’s Democratic Party, remains a major force in Nigerian politics and will be contesting the presidency as well as other elected offices in elections in February, while the London trial will be going on.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Mark Potter)

2 Images Of Britain, Taken 7 Weeks Apart, That Speak Volumes

In this two-picture combo, photo at left; Britain's Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022, and Britain's King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak, newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, to become Prime Minister and form a new government, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (Jane Barlow,Aaron Chown/Pool photos via AP)

BY TAMER FAKAHANY

LONDON (AP) — They are two photos taken exactly seven weeks apart, capturing the traditional and ceremonial rites of the monarch meeting the British prime minister-in-waiting to ask them to form a new government.

They are also bookends.

Between the taking of the first and of the second, much elapsed, throwing a nation into mourning and then into an acute, turbulent economic crisis — tectonic shifts, one after the other, that many in the country had never experienced.

Queen Elizabeth II met incoming prime minister Liz Truss on Sept. 6. It was the last time the monarch was seen in an image by the public after her 70 years on the throne. Her reign had straddled two centuries, post-colonialism, Brexit and a pandemic.

For Truss, it was a new start, capping weeks of bruising battle for the Conservative party leadership with Rishi Sunak (more on him later) and handing her the keys to 10 Downing Street. Her predecessor, Boris Johnson, had been forced to resign amid a haze of ethics scandals.

The queen, using a walking cane after prolonged mobility issues, is seen smiling. Truss, too, from the side angle can be seen smiling as they shake hands. The queen died two days later.

For many, the meeting was probably the high point of Truss’ premiership. After that, it sped downhill, crashed and burned in 45 days. Her libertarian economic policies caused convulsions in the markets and saw the pound crater to its lowest ebb against the dollar in nearly 40 years.

And now, this week, another photo: former Treasury chief Sunak, now prime minister, pictured Tuesday shaking hands with King Charles III. The same Sunak who said Truss’ economic plan was a “fairy tale.” He may have gotten the last word with his predecessor, but he has huge obstacles ahead — one of Britain’s most severe economic crises in modern history.

Britain is on its third leader this year, and the two most recent ones took the post without a direct mandate from the British people — they were elected leader of the Conservative Party and became prime minister automatically. There is a clamor among the opposition and beyond for a general election. By law, that doesn’t have to be until 2024, and Sunak has said he won’t call one — after the recent turmoil, the Tories face possible obliteration at the polls as it stands now.

Charles III is secure in his position and almost certain to outlast the government. His mother met 15 prime ministers in her 70 years on the throne; Charles is on his second after less than two months. But he is nevertheless the oldest person ever to ascend to the British throne.

In the middle of such chaos, who knows what the next photograph might show?

EXPLAINER: Why The British Public Is Not Choosing Its Leader

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rishi Sunak leaves the Conservative Campaign Headquarters in London, Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. Rishi Sunak will become the next Prime Minister after winning the Conservative Party leadership contest. (AP Photo/Aberto Pezzali)

LONDON (AP) — Observers of British politics can be forgiven for scratching their heads in recent weeks as they watch the country reel through prime ministers without holding an election.

While the opposition Labour Party is demanding an election, the governing Conservatives have just chosen another leader from within their own ranks — Rishi Sunak, the third prime minister since September. They have the right to do so because of the way Britain’s parliamentary democracy works.

BRITONS NEVER ACTUALLY VOTE FOR THEIR PRIME MINISTER

Britain is divided into 650 local constituencies, and during an election voters tick a box for the representative they want to become their local member of Parliament. In most cases, this will be a member of one of the country’s major political parties: the Conservatives, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

The party that wins the majority of seats in the House of Commons gets to form a government, and that party’s leader automatically becomes the prime minister. While coalitions are possible, Britain’s voting system favors the two largest parties — the Conservatives or Labour. In most cases a single party will take an absolute majority of seats, as is the case for the Conservatives in the current Parliament.

The party of government can change leader according to its own rules, and that person becomes prime minister without the need for a national election.

WILL THERE BE A GENERAL ELECTION SOON? The last general election in Britain was in 2019 and constitutionally another is not required until 2024.

But with the selection of a third prime minister by just a tiny proportion of the population, a lot of Britons are beginning to wonder why they are not getting a chance to influence who their next leader is. The clamor for a general election in the near future is only likely to get louder.

The prime minister has the power to call an election earlier, but with the Conservative Party trailing well behind the opposition Labour Party in the latest polls, Sunak is unlikely to do so.

Lawmakers can also trigger an election by winning a vote of no-confidence in the government in the House of Commons, but that would require many Conservatives to vote against their own party’s government.

___

Follow all AP’s reporting on British politics at






https://apnews.com/hub/british-politics

Queen's Death Is A Reminder Of Disappearing WWII Generation

                                                                                   

FILE - Air raid damage scene near London Bridge, in the City of London on Sept. 9, 1940. (AP Photo, File)

BY DANICA KIRKA

LONDON (AP) — The long good-bye for Queen Elizabeth II is a reminder of a broader truth playing out with little fanfare across Britain: The nation is bidding farewell to the men and women who fought the country’s battles during World War II.

The queen, who served as a mechanic and truck driver in the last months of the war, was a tangible link to the sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines and others who signed up to do their bit in a conflict that killed 384,000 service personnel and 70,000 British civilians.

But like the queen, even the youngest veterans of the war are now nearing their 100th birthdays, and a steady stream of obituaries tells the story of a disappearing generation.

“It’s extraordinary how that sense of the passing of time is felt very keenly at the moment,″ said Charles Byrne, director general of the Royal British Legion, the nation’s largest armed services charity.

“The queen was a personification of that generation … and with her passing, it just drives home the sense that time is moving relentlessly, as it does.”

That loss is, perhaps, felt more widely in the United Kingdom than a country like the United States, because the U.K.’s very existence was threatened during the war. Bombs fell on cities from London to Belfast, women were conscripted into war work and wartime rationing didn’t end until 1954.

Elizabeth, who famously saved ration coupons to make her wedding dress in 1947, led a ceremony of remembrance for all the nation’s fallen service personnel each year on the anniversary of the end of World War I.

“She is the epitome of that sense of service and stoic contribution,″ Byrne said. “And that is treasured more than ever.”

British authorities don’t know exactly how many World War II veterans are left because the nation’s census takers didn’t track military service until last year. Those figures are due to be released next month.

The Royal Air Force says it knows of only one surviving Battle of Britain pilot, the men Winston Churchill immortalized as “the few” who helped turn the tide of the war. Group Captain John Hemingway celebrated his 103rd birthday in July.

But the number of survivors is dwindling.

Among those who died this year were Henriette Hanotte, who ferried downed Allied pilots across the French border as they made their way home. And Harry Billinge, who was just 18 when he joined the first wave of troops to land on Gold Beach in Normandy on D-Day, as well as Douglas Newham, who survived 60 bombing raids as a Royal Air Force navigator, but was haunted by those who didn’t return.

It was a time of shared sacrifice. Then Princess Elizabeth, like many teenagers, had to persuade her father to let her join the army in 1945.

When Elizabeth turned 18, King George VI exempted her from mandatory military service because he said her training as the heir to the throne took precedence over the wartime need for manpower.

But the princess, who began her war work at the age of 14 with a broadcast to displaced children and later tended a vegetable garden as part of the government’s “Dig for Victory” program, got her way.

She enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in February 1945 and trained to become a military truck driver and mechanic. The ATS was the largest of the auxiliary services deploying women to non-combat rolls such as clerks, drivers and dispatch riders to free up men for front line duties.

The first female member of the royal family to serve in the armed forces, Elizabeth was promoted to honorary junior commander, the equivalent of an army captain, after completing five months of training. But the war ended before she could be assigned to active duty.

On May 8, 1945, Princess Elizabeth appeared in uniform on the balcony of Buckingham Palace as the royal family greeted the crowds celebrating Germany’s surrender. That night, she and her sister, Princess Margaret, slipped out of the palace to take part in the festivities.

“We cheered the king and queen on the balcony and then walked miles through the streets,” she later recalled. “I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief.”

Many of those who took part in that joy are now gone.

Among them is Frank Baugh, a Royal Marine who helped guide a landing craft to Sword Beach during the June 6, 1944, D-Day landings. He later campaigned for a memorial to be built to commemorate the 22,442 men and women who died under British command during the Battle of Normandy.

A few months before his death in June at the age of 98, Baugh toured the British Normandy Memorial, which overlooks the beach where he fought.

“I would like to see children coming all of the time,″ he said. “Because they’re the people we need to tell what’s happened, and those lads that didn’t get back — to remember them.”

Cloud Of Colonialism Hangs Over Queen Elizabeth's Legacy In Africa

Queen Elizabeth II inspects men of the newly-renamed Queen's Own Nigeria Regiment, Royal West African Frontier Force, at Kaduna Airport, Nigeria, during her Commonwealth Tour, on February 2, 1956.

BY STEPHANIE BUSARI

LAGOS, NIGERIA (CNN)The death of Queen Elizabeth II has prompted an outpouring of reflection and reaction online. But not all was grief -- some young Africans instead are sharing images and stories of their own elders, who endured a brutal period of British colonial history during the Queen's long reign.
"I cannot mourn," one wrote on Twitter, posting an image of what she said was her grandmother's "movement pass" -- a colonial document which prevented free travel for Kenyans under British rule in the east African country.
Another wrote that her grandmother "used to narrate to us how they were beaten & how their husbands were taken away from them & left to look after their kids," during colonial times. "May we never forget them. They are our heroes," she added.
Their refusal to mourn highlights the complexity of the legacy of the Queen, who despite widespread popularity was also seen as a symbol of oppression in parts of the world where the British Empire once extended.
Kenya, which had been under British rule since 1895, was named an official colony in 1920 and remained that way until it won independence in 1963. Among the worst atrocities under British rule occurred during the Mau Mau uprising, which started in 1952 -- the year Queen Elizabeth took the throne.
The colonial administration at the time carried out extreme acts of torture, including castration and sexual assault, in detainment camps where as many as 150,000 Kenyans were held. Elderly Kenyans who sued for compensation in 2011 were ultimately awarded £19.9 million by a British court, to be split between more than 5,000 claimants.
The UK Foreign Secretary at the time, William Hague, said: "The British Government recognises that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill treatment at the hands of the colonial administration. The British government sincerely regrets that these abuses took place, and that they marred Kenya's progress towards independence."
Africa's memory of the Queen cannot be separated from that colonial past, professor of communication Farooq Kperogi at Kennesaw State University told CNN.
"The Queen's legacy started in colonialism and is still wrapped in it. It used to be said that the sun did not set over the British empire. No amount of compassion or sympathy that her death has generated can wipe that away," he told CNN.

'Tragic period'
While many African leaders have mourned her passing -- including Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, who described her reign as "unique and wonderful" -- other prominent voices in regional politics have not.
In South Africa, one opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), was unequivocal. "We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth, because to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa's history," the EFF said in a statement.
"Our interaction with Britain has been one of pain, ... death and dispossession, and of the dehumanisation of the African people," it added.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip wave to a crowd of schoolchildren at a rally held at a racecourse in Ibadan, Nigeria, February 15, 1956.

Others recalled Britain's role in the Nigerian civil war, where arms were secretly supplied to the government for use against Biafrans who wanted to form a breakaway republic. Between 1 million and 3 million people died in that war. British musician John Lennon returned his MBE, an honorary title, to the Queen in protest over Britain's role in the war.
Still, many on the continent remember the Queen as a stabilizing force who brought about positive change during her reign.
Ayodele Modupe Obayelu from Nigeria told CNN: "Her reign saw the end of the British Empire and the African countries ... became a Republic. She doesn't really deserve any award or standing ovation for it, but it was a step in the right direction."
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip wave to a crowd of schoolchildren at a rally held at a racecourse in Ibadan, Nigeria, February 15, 1956.

Others recalled Britain's role in the Nigerian civil war, where arms were secretly supplied to the government for use against Biafrans who wanted to form a breakaway republic. Between 1 million and 3 million people died in that war. British musician John Lennon returned his MBE, an honorary title, to the Queen in protest over Britain's role in the war.
Still, many on the continent remember the Queen as a stabilizing force who brought about positive change during her reign.
Ayodele Modupe Obayelu from Nigeria told CNN: "Her reign saw the end of the British Empire and the African countries ... became a Republic. She doesn't really deserve any award or standing ovation for it, but it was a step in the right direction."
And media publisher Dele Momodu was full of praise, recounting meeting her in 2003 in Abuja while covering her visit to Nigeria. He added that he had fled Nigeria for the UK in 1995, during the dictator Sani Abacha's regime.
"I told her I was a refugee and now the publisher of a magazine. She told me 'congratulations,' and moved on to the other people on the line. I salute her. She worked to the very end and was never tired of working for her country. She did her best for her country and that is a lesson in leadership," he told CNN.
Momodu believes that the Queen did try to "atone" for the brutality of the British Empire. "She came to Nigeria during our independence and some of the artifacts were returned under her reign. That is why the Commonwealth continues to thrive. I feel very sad that the world has lost a great human being."
Adekunbi Rowland, also from Nigeria, said: "The Queen's passing represents the end of an era. As a woman, I'm intrigued by her story. This young woman had an unprecedented accession to the throne, and with much grace and dignity did everything in her power to protect the country and Commonwealth she loved no matter what it took."

Commonwealth Queen
The Queen once declared, "I think I have seen more of Africa than almost anybody."
She made her first official overseas visit to South Africa in 1947, as a princess and would go on to visit more than 120 countries during her reign, many of them on the continent.
Elizabeth, then a princess, and Prince Philip step from their plane in Nairobi, Kenya, on the first stage of their Commonwealth tour in 1952.

It was while visiting Kenya in 1952 that she learned that she had become Queen. Her father George passed away while she was there with Prince Phillip and she immediately ascended the throne.
As colonialism later crumbled and gave way to independence and self-rule in what had been British overseas territories, the former colonies became part of a Commonwealth group of nations with the Queen at its head and she worked tirelessly to keep the group together over the years.
She forged strong bonds with African leaders, including Nelson Mandela, whom she visited twice in South Africa, and Kwame Nkrumah, with whom she was famously pictured dancing during her visit to Ghana in 1961.
However, there is now a growing clamor for independence and accountability over Britain's past crimes such as slavery. In November 2021, Barbados removed the Queen as its head of state, 55 years after it declared independence from Britain, and other Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica, have indicated they intend to do the same.
Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, visited Jamaica in March but they faced protests and calls for reparations during the trip. There were also calls for a formal apology for the royal family's links to slavery.
"During her 70 years on the throne, your grandmother has done nothing to redress and atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and/or during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement, indentureship and colonization," wrote members of a protest group, the Advocates Network Jamaica.
In June, Prince Charles became the first UK royal to visit Rwanda, where he was representing the Queen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Following his mother's death, he now heads the Commonwealth, and will embark on a new relationship with its members, about a third of which are in Africa.
Some are asking whether he will be as effective in building the organization as his mother, and above all, how relevant it still is, given its roots in Empire.

Queen Elizabeth II's 'Continued Colonialism' Criticized Across Social Media

Queen Elizabeth II in London with the Secretary General Of The Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, meeting members of the Nigerian business community in March 2000. Image: Tim Graham

BY JAMIE BURTON

As people around the world mourn the loss of Queen Elizabeth II, her death has incited academics and writers to debate her role in "continued colonialism" in Africa.

Britain's longest-reigning monarch passed away at the age of 96 on Thursday, September 8, 2022, and while tributes are being paid far and wide, it has brought up troubling aspects of British history involving the Queen.

While the debate rages on Twitter, many people are voicing their opinions on Queen Elizabeth II's perceived "longstanding relationship" with Africa, which some claim is a way of "rebranding colonialism."

Those bringing up discussions of colonialism and Britain's past actions in African nations were initially criticized, but others, including author Jemele Hill, argue that now is exactly the time to discuss the topic.

"Journalists are tasked with putting legacies into full context, so it is entirely appropriate to examine the queen and her role in the devastating impact of continued colonialism," Hill wrote on Twitter, inciting debate from that statement alone.

Though the timing of the colonialism debate upset many, Washington Post writer Eugene Scott asked earnestly, "When is the appropriate time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism?"

Political scientist and author David Moscrop inadvertently offered up an answer to this question, stating that now is exactly the time to discuss colonialism, "its impact, and the future of the monarchy," in the wake of the royal passing.

"The monarchy as an institution, whatever else it is and whatever virtues you may believe it has, is a source and symbol of past and present colonialism." Moscrop continued, "as a news event this has implications for how we govern ourselves now and in the future. So it's not too soon to have these conversations."

Whilst the debate of timing raged, others stated their blunt opinions on colonialism and the British monarchy's role in it.

"People wish me dead because I mourn not the death of the queen but the dead victims of colonialism," Afro-German comedian and author Jasmina Kuhnke wrote on Twitter, "This must be the famous German humor that everyone is talking about."

Nigerian training consultant Dr Dípò Awójídé stated that the past actions of British colonialism didn't lie with the monarchy, and called for their own country to "take responsibility." He said, "Colonialism and neocolonialism are both repugnant. But Nigerians caused the civil war. Nigerians fought the civil war, with the help of trainers or mercenaries on both sides."

Nigerian international development expert Dr. Joe Abah also refused to blame the British solely for the repercussions of colonialism in his country. "Colonialism was bad but, as Wangari Maathai said, after 62 years since Nigeria's independence, you can't blame Colonialism for the lack of investment in Education, lack of Power or the mindless looting of public funds." He also called for Africans to move past colonialism.

The British Empire still ruled many African countries in the 20th century, only fully granting independence to African nations (except Rhodesia) by 1968. Other Western European nations including France, Belgium and Germany also colonized Africa.

Queen Elizabeth II was sovereign to a number of African countries during her reign, though she did not hold that title over any African nations at the time of her death.

Weighing in on the debate, YouTuber James Welsh added, "The British saying how now isn't the time to talk about Colonialism...like they have every intention to at a later date."

Journalist Ben Norton raised a controversial moment from the monarchy's past, with a British tabloid front page featuring the Queen, then aged about 7, and the Queen mother giving a Nazi salute in 1933. "People really need to stop whitewashing the British royal family. They oversaw genocidal colonialism around the world, killing millions. They loved fascism. As a child, Queen Elizabeth was taught to Nazi salute," Norton wrote. His comment section was filled with people criticizing him for the timing of his tweet and his call to "abolish the monarchy."

Continuing the debate on colonialism, other verified Twitter users such as writers and academics suggested that the rule of colonialism and the decisions made were down to the British government, not the ruling monarchy.

SOURCE: Newsweek