Foreign
British PM Sunak Announces UK General Election for July, Earlier Than Expected
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called a summer UK general election to take place on Thursday 4 July, months earlier than expected by the country.
He had been widely expected to wait until the autumn before triggering the poll, which does not legally have to be held until January 2025. But in a surprise move, he announced the first July election since 1945.
“Earlier today, I spoke with His Majesty, the king, to request the dissolution of Parliament. The king has granted this request and we will have a general election on the 4th of July.
“This election will take place at a time when the world is more dangerous than it has been since the end of the Cold War. These uncertain times call for a clear plan and bold action to chart a course to a secure future.
“You must choose in this election who has that plan. Who is prepared to take the bold action necessary to secure a better future for our country and our children?,” he said.
Sunak’s call a snap general election threw the fate of his embattled Conservative Party to a restless British public that appears eager for change after 14 years of Conservative government.
He was speaking from a rain-spattered lectern in front of 10 Downing Street, marking the starting gun for six weeks of campaigning that will render a verdict on a party that has led Britain since Barack Obama was America’s president.
But the Tories have discarded four prime ministers in eight years, lurching through the serial chaos of Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis, the New York Times reported. With the opposition Labour Party (LP) ahead in most polls by double digits for the last 18 months, a Conservative defeat has come to assume an air of inevitability, the paper said.
For all that, Sunak is calculating that Britain has had just enough good news in recent days — including glimmers of fresh economic growth and the lowest inflation rate in three years — that his party might be able to cling to power.
“Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future,” Sunak said, as pelting rain drenched his suit jacket. The choice for voters, he said, was to “build on the future you’ve made or risk going back to square one.”
Political analysts, opposition leaders and members of Sunak’s own party agree that the electoral mountain he must climb is Himalayan.
Burdened by a weak economy, a calamitous foray into trickle-down tax policies, and successive scandals, the Tories have seemed exhausted and adrift, split by internal feuds and fatalistic about their future. They face a threat on the right from the anti-immigrant Reform UK party.
“The Conservatives are facing a kind of extinction-level event,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent who has advised Boris Johnson and other party leaders. “They look like they’re going to suffer an even bigger defeat than they did to Tony Blair in 1997,” he added.
Other political analysts were more cautious: Some pointed out that in 1992, the Conservative government of Prime Minister John Major overcame a deep polling deficit to eke out a narrow victory and stay in power.
Still, since the party won by a landslide in the 2019 elections on the slogan “Get Brexit done,” the Tories have bled support among young people, traditional Conservative voters in the England’s south and southwest and, crucially, working-class voters in the industrial Midlands and north of England, whose backing in 2019 was key to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s landmark victory.
Many are disillusioned by the scandals of Johnson’s tenure, including Downing Street social gatherings that breached Covid lockdown rules, and even more so by the fiasco of his successor, Liz Truss, who was toppled after just 44 days, following proposed tax cuts that rattled financial markets, caused the pound to torpedo and fractured the party’s reputation for economic competence.
While Sunak, 44, steadied the markets and has run a more stable government than his predecessors, critics say he never developed a convincing strategy to recharge the country’s growth.
Nor did he fulfil two other promises: to cut waiting times in Britain’s National Health Service and to stop the stream of small boats carrying asylum seekers across the English Channel.
Many voters in the “red wall” districts — so called because of Labour’s campaigning color — appear ready to return to their roots in the party. Under the competent, if uncharismatic, leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour has shaken off the shadow of his left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
Under British law, Sunak was obliged to hold an election by January 2025. Political analysts had expected him to wait until the fall to allow more time for the economy to recover.
But in the wake of an announcement on Wednesday that inflation had fallen to an annual rate of 2.3 per cent — just above the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent — he may have gambled that the news was as good as it is going to get.
Sunak may also be calculating that the government can put a first flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda in the air before the vote. That would allow him to claim progress on another of his priorities, the report said.
The Rwanda policy, which involves deporting asylum seekers to the African nation without first hearing their cases, has been condemned by rights campaigners, the courts and opposition leaders — and it has drawn a raft of legal challenges. But Sunak has made it a centrepiece of his agenda, because it is popular with the Conservative Party’s political base.
In his remarks, Sunak tried to paint Labour as lacking an agenda. “I don’t know what they offer — and in truth, I don’t think you do either,” he said.
But his message was occasionally drowned out by the sound of Labour’s 1997 campaign anthem, “Things Can Only Get Better,” which blared from a demonstrator’s loudspeaker in a nearby street.
For Mr. Sunak, the son of parents of Indian heritage who emigrated from British colonial East Africa six decades ago, the decision to go to the voters earlier than expected is not completely out of character.
In July 2022, he broke with Johnson by resigning as chancellor of the Exchequer, triggering the loss of cabinet support that ultimately forced Mr. Johnson out of power.
Mr. Sunak then mounted a spirited bid for party leader, losing out to Truss in a vote of the party’s 170,000 or so members. After Truss’s economic policies backfired and she was forced to resign, Sunak re-emerged to win the next contest, this time held only among members of Parliament from the Conservative Party.
Sunak inherited a forbidding set of problems: double-digit inflation, a stagnant economy and rising interest rates, which stung people in the form of higher rates on their home mortgages. Waiting times at the National Health Service, which is depleted after years of fiscal austerity, stretched into months.
Sunak had some early successes, including an agreement with the European Union that largely defused a trade impasse over Northern Ireland. He exceeded his goal of halving the inflation rate, which was 11.1 percent when he took over in October 2022. And there are signs that the economy is starting to turn.
Britain had an unexpectedly strong exit from a shallow recession at the start of this year, with the economy growing 0.6 percent. The International Monetary Fund upgraded its growth forecast for the country this year, while praising the actions of the government and the central bank.
But the good news could be fleeting. Inflation is expected to bounce back up again in the second half of this year, and April’s number was not as low as economists expected. That has led investors to rethink how soon the Bank of England might cut rates, almost ruling out that they will be lowered next month. Even expectations that rates will come down in August have diminished.
At the same time, the scope for further tax cuts before the election has narrowed. Data published on Wednesday showed that public borrowing was up.
It will see the Conservatives try to win a fifth consecutive term in office, taking on Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which is ahead in opinion polls.
Parliament will be suspended on Friday, before being formally shut down on Thursday next week, in advance of the official five-week election campaign, said the BBC.
Sunak had been expected to call the poll in October or November, to give his party a better chance of closing its polling gap with Labour.
His announcement, following hours of speculation in Westminster, came after it was confirmed inflation in the year to April fell to 2.3 per cent, the lowest annual figure in almost three years.
Souce: This Day
China will slap port fees on U.S.-owned, operated, built, or flagged vessels on Tuesday as a countermeasure to U.S. port fees on China-linked ships starting the same day, China’s transport ministry said on Friday.
The move came shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump said there is no reason to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping in two weeks in South Korea as planned, adding on social media that the U.S. is calculating a massive increase in tariffs on imports from China. Trump said China has been sending letters to countries saying it planned to impose export controls on rare earths production.
There are relatively few U.S.-built or U.S.-flagged vessels conducting international trade, but China will ensnare more ships by applying levies to companies with 25 percent or more of their shares or board seats held by U.S.-domiciled investment funds, analysts said.
‘Quite an impact’
U.S.-based shipping company Matson told customers on Friday it is subject to the new China port fees and has no plans to change its service schedule.
Also likely affected are CMA-CGM’s U.S.-based American President Lines and Israel-based Zim, which appears to have more than 25 percent of its shares owned by U.S. entities, Lars Jensen, CEO of consultancy Vespucci Maritime, said on LinkedIn.
The China fees also could apply to vessels owned by Poseidon’s Seaspan, said Jensen, an expert on container shipping.
“This could be quite an impact as it means that the more than 100 vessels owned by Seaspan, and chartered by a variety of major container lines, would now be subject to fees in China in addition to the fees in the U.S. for their Chinese-built vessels,” Jensen said. Also starting on Tuesday, ships built in China – or operated or owned by Chinese entities – will need to pay a fee at their first port of call in the United States.
Vessels owned or operated by a Chinese entity will face a flat fee of $50 per net tonnage per voyage to the U.S. China-owned carrier COSCO, including its OOCL fleet, is the most exposed with fees of around $2 billion in 2026, analysts said.
Maersk Line Limited, APL, Zim, Seaspan, and COSCO did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the fees.
China calls U.S. fees discriminatory
The U.S. fees on China-linked vessels, following a probe by the U.S. Trade Representative, are part of a broader U.S. effort to revive domestic shipbuilding and blunt China’s naval and commercial shipping power.
“It is clearly discriminatory and severely damages the legitimate interests of China’s shipping industry, seriously disrupts the stability of the global supply chain, and seriously undermines the international economic and trade order,” the Chinese ministry said.
The USTR’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a separate statement released later on Friday, Beijing’s commerce ministry said the Chinese countermeasures were in “justified” self-defence aimed at safeguarding fairness in the global shipping and shipbuilding markets.
Over the past two decades, China has catapulted itself to the No. 1 position in the shipbuilding world, with its biggest shipyards handling both commercial and military projects.
Last year, Chinese shipyards built more than 1,000 commercial vessels, while the U.S. constructed fewer than 10, according to military and industry analysts.
The Chinese fees on U.S. vessels could hurt the U.S. less than the U.S. fees might harm the legion of Chinese ships.
The fees announced by China, like those put in place by the U.S., “add further complexity and cost to the global network that keeps goods moving and economies connected, and risk harming their exporters, producers, and consumers at a time when global trade is already under pressure,” said Joe Kramek, president and CEO of the World Shipping Association.
Rates rise over three years
For U.S.-linked vessels berthing at Chinese ports starting Tuesday, the rate will be 400 yuan ($56.13) per net metric ton, the Chinese transport ministry said.
That will increase to 640 yuan ($89.81) from April 17, 2026, and to 880 yuan ($123.52) from April 17, 2027.
For vessels calling at Chinese ports from April 17, 2028, the charge will be 1,120 yuan ($157.16) per net metric ton.
Tensions between China and the United States have deepened since September, with the two superpowers struggling to move beyond their trade tariff truce — a 90-day pause from August 11 that ends around November 9.
Retaliatory tariffs in the U.S.-China trade war this year have sharply curtailed Chinese imports of U.S. agriculture and energy products.
Korea Times
The White House lashed out at the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday (US time) after it awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and overlooked US President Donald Trump.
“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said on X.
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.”
Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump had repeatedly insisted that he deserved the Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts – a claim observers say is broadly exaggerated.
Trump restated his claim on the eve of the peace prize announcement, saying that his brokering of the first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza this week was the eighth war he had ended.
But he added on Thursday: “Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that, I did it because I’ve saved a lot of lives.”
Nobel Prize experts in Oslo had insisted in the run-up to Friday’s announcement that Trump had no chance, noting that his ‘America First’ policies run counter to the ideals of the Peace Prize as laid out in Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will creating the award.
An Ebola outbreak that has plagued southern Congo in recent weeks is starting to be contained, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, with no new cases reported since the U.N. health agency’s last update on Oct. 1.
“As of Oct. 5, 2025, 10 days have passed without any newly reported cases, indicating potential control of transmission in the affected areas,” the agency said during a news conference.
The agency said a total of 64 cases, including 53 confirmed and 11 probable, have been reported in Congo’s Kasai Province as of Oct. 5. The WHO also reported 43 deaths, including 32 confirmed and 11 probable.
Congolese authorities announced an Ebola outbreak in Congo’s southern Kasai province on Sept. 4, the first in 18 years in the remote part of the country located more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the capital of Kinshasa.
Health authorities and organizations had recently sounded the alarm, warning they lack the funds and resources to mount an effective response to the crisis.
The WHO said improved logistics and field operations, including helicopter and ground deliveries of medical supplies and the decontamination of three health facilities, have helped contain the outbreak over the last week.
“This steady decline in transmission and improved case management reflect the impact of coordinated interventions led by the Ministry of Health with support from WHO and partners,” the agency said.
The WHO still advised caution, as almost 2,000 contacts — people who may have been exposed to the disease — are being monitored and a “single missed contact could reignite transmission chains, especially in areas with high population movement or limited community surveillance.”
Israeli hostages may be released as early as Saturday under a U.S. plan to end the war in Gaza and the country’s military will complete the first part of a partial withdrawal from the enclave within 24 hours of the deal being signed, said a source briefed on details of the agreement.
The signing of the agreement on the first stage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative for Gaza is expected to take place at noon Israel time (0900 GMT) on Thursday.
Israelis and Palestinians rejoiced after Trump announced that a ceasefire and hostage deal was reached under the first phase of his plan to end a war in Gaza that has killed more than 67,000 people and reshaped the Middle East.
Just a day after the second anniversary of Hamas militants’ cross-border attack that triggered Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza, indirect talks in Egypt yielded an agreement on the initial stage of Trump’s 20-point framework to bring peace to the Palestinian enclave.
The signing of the ceasefire is expected at 12 p.m. Israel time (0900 GMT), said the source briefed on the details of the agreement. The accord, if fully implemented, would bring the two sides closer than any previous effort to halt a war that had evolved into a regional conflict, drawing in countries such as Iran, Yemen and Lebanon.
“Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing,” said Abdul Majeed abd Rabbo, a man in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
“I am not the only one happy, all of the Gaza Strip is happy, all the Arab people, all of the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed.”
But the agreement announced by Trump late on Wednesday was short on detail and left many unresolved questions that could yet lead to its collapse, as has happened with previous peace efforts. “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump added.
Successful completion of the deal would mark a significant foreign policy achievement for the Republican president, who had campaigned on bringing peace to major world conflicts but has struggled to swiftly deliver, both in Gaza and on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would convene his government on Thursday to approve the agreement.
“With the approval of the first phase of the plan, ALL our hostages will be brought home,” he said in a statement. “This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel.”
The conflict upended the Middle East in Israel’s favour after it assassinated the leaders of Tehran-backed Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah and killed top Iranian commanders and pounded Yemen’s Houthis.
But global outrage has mounted against Israel’s assault. Multiple rights experts, scholars and a U.N. inquiry say it amounts to genocide. Israel calls its actions self-defence after the 2023 Hamas attack.
Hamas confirmed it had reached an agreement to end the war, saying the deal includes an Israeli withdrawal from the enclave and a hostage-prisoner exchange.
“We affirm that the sacrifices of our people will not be in vain, and that we will remain true to our pledge – never abandoning our people’s national rights until freedom, independence, and self-determination are achieved,” Hamas said. Gaza authorities say more than 67,000 people have been killed and much of the enclave has been flattened since Israel began its military response to the Hamas cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage back to Gaza, according to Israeli officials, with 20 of the 48 hostages still held believed to be alive.
“These are moments that are considered historic moments, long awaited by Palestinian citizens after two years of killing and genocide that was committed with arrogance against the Palestinian people,” said Palestinian Khaled Shaat in the city of Khan Younis in Gaza. Despite the hopes raised for ending the war, crucial details are yet to be spelled out, including the timing, a post-war administration for the Gaza Strip and the fate of Hamas.
Families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza gathered in what has come to be known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv after the announcement.
“President Trump, thank you very much. We thank him, our children will not have returned home without him,” said Hatan Angrest, whose son Matan is among the hostages.
A Hamas source said the living hostages would be handed over within 72 hours of the Israeli government approving the deal. Hamas officials have insisted it will take longer to recover the bodies of dead hostages, believed to number about 28, from Gaza’s rubble.
Trump told Fox News’ ‘Hannity’ program on Wednesday that the hostages will probably be released on Monday.
Netanyahu and Trump spoke by phone and congratulated each other on an “historic achievement,” and the Israeli prime minister invited the U.S. president to address Israel’s parliament, according to Netanyahu’s office. Hamas said earlier on Wednesday it had handed over its lists of the hostages it held and the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel that it wanted to be exchanged.
The Islamist group has so far refused to discuss Israel’s demand that Hamas give up its arms, which the Palestinian source said Hamas would reject as long as Israeli troops occupy Palestinian land.
Oil prices fell as the prospects of a ceasefire lessened one potential disruption to world supplies.
The next phase of Trump’s plan calls for an international body led by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to play a role in Gaza’s post-war administration.
Indian police have arrested the owner of Sresan Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, the cough syrup company linked to the deaths of at least 17 children in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, a senior police officer from the region told Reuters on Thursday, as reported by Trt World.
The children, all under five years of age, died in the past month after consuming cough medicine containing toxic diethylene glycol in quantities nearly 500 times the permissible limit.
The deaths were all linked to Sresan Pharma’s ‘Coldrif’ syrup, which has been banned in several parts of India after a test confirmed the presence of the chemical last Thursday.
S Ranganathan, the owner of the Tamil Nadu state-based company that manufactured the syrup, was arrested on Wednesday in Chennai and will be produced in court, said a senior police officer.
After his court appearance, Ranganathan will be moved from his home state to the city of Chhindhwara in Madhya Pradesh, Chhindhwara Superintendent of Police Ajay Pandey told Reuters.
By law, Indian drugmakers must test each batch of raw materials and the final product.
Exports of cough syrup require another layer of tests at government-mandated laboratories since 2023, after the deaths of over ten children in Gambia, Uzbekistan, and Cameroon were linked to Indian syrups.
The World Health Organisation has also said that the recent case highlights a “regulatory gap” in India’s screening of medicines being sold domestically, and warned that some exports could have taken place unofficially.
Indian authorities have this week also asked people to avoid two other locally sold syrups, Respifresh and RELIFE, made by Gujarat state-based Shape Pharma and Rednex Pharmaceuticals, after tests found they too contained the same toxic chemical.
Shape and Rednex did not respond to requests for comment.
Known as the ‘pharmacy of the world’, India is the world’s third-largest drug producer by volume after the US and China.
The country supplies 40 percent of generic medicines used in the US, and more than 90 percent of all medicines in many African nations.
Afghanistan’s interim foreign minister arrived in India on Thursday, the first visit by a top Taliban leader since they returned to power in 2021 following the withdrawal of US-led forces.
Amir Khan Muttaqi’s trip is expected to be closely watched by India’s arch-rival Pakistan, as New Delhi deepens its engagement with the Taliban administration.
“We look forward to engaging discussions with him on bilateral relations and regional issues,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement, offering Muttaqi a “warm welcome”.
Muttaqi, who met with India’s top career diplomat Vikram Misri in January in Dubai, is set to hold talks with Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Neither side has disclosed the agenda, but analysts say trade and security are likely to be at the forefront — though India is unlikely, for now, to extend formal recognition to the Taliban interim government.
“New Delhi is eager to establish its influence in Kabul… and not be left behind by its arch-rivals, China and Pakistan,” International Crisis Group analyst Praveen Donthi told AFP.
But while the Taliban are “seeking diplomatic recognition and legitimacy”, Donthi said, others noted that was some way off.
“India is not in a hurry to provide diplomatic recognition to the Taliban,” Rakesh Sood, India’s former ambassador to Kabul, told AFP.
India has long hosted tens of thousands of Afghans, many of whom fled the country after the Taliban returned to power.
Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi closed in 2023, although its consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad continue to offer limited services.
India says its mission in Kabul is limited to coordinating humanitarian aid.
The Taliban governance may appear an unlikely match for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, but India has sought to seize the opening.
Diplomatic dynamics in South Asia are driven by long-running distrust between India and Pakistan, with New Delhi seeking to exploit divisions between Islamabad and Kabul.
“Kabul will be walking the tightrope between Islamabad and New Delhi, with the latter trying to get the most from the engagement without offering formal recognition,” Donthi added.
Islamabad accuses neighbouring Afghanistan of failing to expel militants using Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation that authorities in Kabul deny.
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan fought a brief but deadly clash in May, their worst confrontation in decades.
“The visit would certainly make Pakistan angrier and more suspicious,” Faqiri said.
“Moreover, it would strengthen India’s position in Afghanistan and India would try to drive a wedge between Taliban and Pakistan.”
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