Category Archives: Brexit

Kate Garraway quizzes John Bercow on Boris Johnson

Mr Bercow, who turns 59 today, was well-known for his shouts of order! as he tried to control MPs during the often-passionate Brexit debates. The former Speaker, who enjoyed 10 years in the role, was replaced by his deputy Sir Lindsay Hoyle in 2019. Mr Bercows tenure has been largely defined by the authority he has wielded over the Governments Brexit agenda.

However, while overseeing the Commons, the former Speaker was accused of trying to block the UKs departure from the EU.

Mr Bercow, who voted Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum and switched allegiances from Conservative to Labour last year, has maintained he was impartial throughout.

Upon announcing his resignation, he said: Throughout my time as Speaker, I have sought to increase the relative authority of this legislature for which I will make absolutely no apology to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Yet, on at least five separate occasions, the Speaker appeared to seek to hinder or delay the Brexit process.

On December 10, 2018, he called on the Government to give MPs a choice on whether a key Brexit vote should have been scrapped.

JUST IN:Brexit LIVE: Global Britain kickstarts 11bn spending spree as imports surge

Then-Prime Minister Theresa May had deferred a Commons vote on her Brexit deal to allow herself more time to negotiate with EU leaders.

Mr Bercow had demanded the Government give MPs a vote to decide if the vote went ahead or not.

However, his request was rejected by Downing Street and he labelled the situation regrettable.

Less than a month later, on January 15, 2019, Mr Bercow again locked horns with Mrs Mays administration when he failed to allow a vote on an amendment to her Brexit deal.

At the time, the Prime Minister was struggling to break through the impasse in her talks with EU leaders.

One amendment tabled by former Northern Ireland Minister Andrew Murrison would have seen the Irish border backstop a measure designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland expire at the end of 2021.

However, the amendment, which had support among MPs, and could have limited the extent of Mrs Mays defeats, was not selected by Mr Bercow for a vote.

On March 19, 2019, the Speaker again clashed with Mrs May as he told her she could not have a third vote on substantially the same motion MPs had voted down for a second time only the week before.

He referenced a parliamentary convention dating back to 1604, as he told the embattled Prime Minister she could not bring her withdrawal deal back for a Commons vote again in the same form.

Mr Bercows intervention was highly controversial at the time, as it came just 11 days before Britain was due to leave the EU, and some ministers warned of a constitutional crisis.

DON'T MISS:'Disgraceful!' Diane Abbott slapped down as 'sonic boom' asylum seeker claim unravels[LATEST]China finds ally in Germany following 'below radar' meeting: 'Let's work together'[ANALYSIS]BBC 'may not exist in 10 years' as licence fee threatened[ANALYSIS]

Months later, Mrs May resigned after failing to convince MPs to back her Brexit deal and was later replaced by Boris Johnson.

However, his Brexit agenda was also derailed by Mr Bercow, who allowed MPs to have a vote on whether to take control of Commons timetable in September 2019.

MPs voted in favour of seizing the Commons agenda in a bid to prevent Mr Johnson pursuing a no-deal Brexit.

In response, Mr Johnson called an early General Election, which the Conservatives won with a landslide majority of 80 seats.

The Speaker also sparked fury in October 2019 when he denied the Governments request for a yes or no vote on Mr Johnsons withdrawal agreement.

Mr Bercow said it would be repetitive and disorderly for the deal to be brought before MPs again after it had only just been debated.

Downing Street had wanted to hold a so-called meaningful vote on the deal, but MPs instead voted for an amendment, which said that could not happen until the necessary legislation had been passed.

More:

John Bercow: Five times former Commons Speaker disrupted Brexit - Daily Express

One year into Brexit, is it reasonable to speculate whether the disrupted trade in goods coming from Britain (imports are down by one-fifth) have been replaced by imports from the North?

The latest trade numbers from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show the value of imports from Britain fell by 3.3 billion or 21 per cent to 12.5 billion in the first 11 months of last year. The chief driver of this was a 39 per cent (1.06 billion) drop in food imports. This reflects what big UK grocers like Marks and Spencer (M&S) say is the administrive burden of bringing goods here post-Brexit. The retailer cut about 800 lines from its shops in the Republic last year, roughly 20 per cent of its total range of goods here.

Coinciding with this fall in British imports has been a surge in goods coming from the North. They jumped by 64 per cent (or 1.4 billion) to 3.7 billion over the same 11-month period. The latter is, however, more dispersed across sectors, driven by increased imports of food and live animals (plus 285 million or 44 per cent), increased imports of chemicals and related products (up 558 million or 203 per cent), and increased imports of mineral fuels and related products (up 167 million or 115 per cent).

So we can say an element of the Brexit-disrupted trade coming from Britain is being replaced by increased imports from the North, but crucially not all of it. Anecdotally, we know some British companies have set up hubs in the North to handle goods from Britain and send them on to the Republic. It may also be the case that some importers in the Republic may have replaced goods formerly imported from Britain with goods imported from other EU countries, where the bureaucracy isnt as burdensome. The CSO is currently looking into this to see if it can identify what sectors and products it might apply to. Irish exports to Britain also remain at risk from additional Brexit customs checks on the British side. These were due to come in at the start of the year but were deferred until June.

See original here:

Brexit and our shifting balance of trade - The Irish Times

Five-and-a-half years have passed since the UK voted to withdraw from the European Union.

Following a drawn-out spell in regulatory limbo, succeeded by an 11-month transition period, challenges and opportunities in labelling are increasingly presenting themselves to UK food operators.

As far as legislation is concerned, on the labelling front we are pretty much ad idem consistent. However, there are going to be changes, according to Jessica Burt, Association of Food Law at British law firm Mills & Reeve, and there are going to be changes of interpretation.

While some, often slight, differences have always existed in food labelling between European Member States, Burt expects these differences to increase particularly in the case of the UK.

The UK courts have no need to follow the EU courts requirements now, she stressed at the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum earlier this month. Although we think that there will be a general push towards consistency.

The food law expert continued: There will be divergence and there may well be associated opportunities for food producers that try to take advantage in different areas. However, those changes might also mean that regulatory requirements tighten up.

One of the big divergences between EU and non-EU food labelling impacting UK food operators lies in country of origin labelling.

From 1 January 2021, EU legislation required that either UK or non-EU labelling be carried on products sold within Europe. In the UK, food operators can continue to list the source as EU until 30 September 2022.

UK retailer Morrisons made headlines recently when it labelled a British chicken product as containing non-EU salt and pepper. Although the label adhered to packaging regulations, Morrisons labelling was criticised for being anti-EU.

Although you can be technically compliant on labels, you should also have a look to the political sensitivities, advised Burt, suggesting Morrisons might have overlooked this aspect.

Another divergence following the UKs withdrawal from the EU is the change of regulatory agencies. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is no longer approving commercial authorisation for UK food businesses, with Defra and the Food Safety Agency (FSA) instead taking control. This will affect a range of logos from organic certification to protected names.

Its just a change of emblem, and youll find youll need to submit parallel applications in order to ensure you can sell in both the UK and EU, Burt advised.

As it stands, legislation concerning health and nutrition claims is the same across both UK and EU jurisdictions. However, Burt warned different application processes for these claims now exist, which could create potential for divergence.

At the same time, there is pressure for consistency. That is really important for the consumer to know where to look on the label, and to have the same sort of set up, we were told.

What other divergences could exist in health and nutrition labelling? The Mills & Reeve lawyer said she is ever hopeful the UK will drop the kilojoules (kj) reference back-of-pack, with calorie (kcal) highlighting energy values only. Youd be hard stretched to find a consumer, or anyone, who understands [kilojoules] in the UK.

Burt is awaiting the results of the European Commissions front-of-pack (FOP) nutritional labelling consultation to see what other potential aspects of divergence may appear. On the one hand, a mandatory FOP label in Europe could create an opportunity for differentiation in the UK which could show products to their best ability, we were told.

Equally, it could lead to increased costs for food makers working to two different manufacturing methods for EU and UK supply.

Brexits impact on new product development in the UK has yet to be fully realised. But in terms of novel foods, the UK is currently following the EUs criteria. There are now two parallel processes for food operators seeking Novel Food authorisation in both jurisdictions.

However, there will be an overriding political aspect thats embedded into the UK process, Burt stressed, where there is a reference to any other legitimate factors relevant to the application.

Elsewhere, increased interest in gene editing has been observed in the UK, with a consultation conducted this year focusing on stopping certain gene edited organisms from being regulated in the same way as genetically modified organisms.

Burt interprets this as a real political push in the UK to seek opportunities in gene editing and novel technologies something it was unable to pursue while a member of the EU.

Read more:

Post-Brexit food labelling: What issues and opportunities face UK operators? - FoodNavigator.com

Negotiations are underway between Britain and the EU on trade and mobility.The Brexit trade agreement signed at the close of 2020 does not apply to the Rock and negotiators are now working towards formalising a proper agreement.

A technical delegation of the European Commission will visit Gibraltar on January 18 and 19, according to website Europa Sur.

It is seeking to procure details about the current situation regarding customs and border controls at the Rocks border.

A draft deal agreed by Spain and the UK on New Years Eve in 2020 said free movement of people to and from Gibraltar would continue while a full agreement was being negotiated.

Nearly 10,000 Spaniards cross the border between Spain and the Rock known as La Verja, that is, The Fence every day for work, according to El Pas, illustrating the significant of border disputes in the region.

The EU sparked fury when it suggested Spanish border authorities would be stationed at Gibraltar.

Gibraltan First Minister Fabin Picardo maintained that, whatever the outcome of ongoing talks, the Rock would always be considered exclusively British.

Disagreement is also bound to flow from Gibraltars insistence that it will not be a part of the EUs Customs Union.

Sir Joe Bossano, Minister for Economic Development, told GBC news that the Rock was not a member of the Union before Brexit and it will not be after it.

READ MORE: Boris labelled 'clown' and urged to resign

He added that Gibraltars position was centred on the Rock being a territory of free traders.

Sir Joe said: We buy from the world and therefore we need to remain [as free traders].

Some have raised concerns that lengthy talks between UK and EU negotiators over the post-Brexit situation in Northern Ireland could distract away from matters relating to Gibraltar.

But Spains Foreign Minister Jos Manuel Albares insisted late last year that these talks should in no way impact the outcome for the Rock.

He said: They are two different issues that have absolutely nothing to do with each other; whats more, they are two different negotiations.

Additional reporting by Maria Ortega.

Originally posted here:

EU ups the pressure with team sent to Gibraltar days after Brexit warning - Daily Express

The Foreign Secretary - who took over Lord Frosts Brexit brief when he stepped down last month - was widely commended for ushering in a new period of relations with the EU. Unlike her predecessor, Ms Truss has adopted a more measured approach sparking hopes that a satisfactory solution can be found to the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol.

Express reader WidowSon said: The future of the Cons rests with you Liz, never mind Boris having a few drinks.

Another with the username Cazza wrote: Think it's time for the backbenchers to put their letters in of no confidence in Boris.

They added: Clear out needed and Liz Truss for PM.

WhyAyeMan wrote: "Project Fear was always based on utter tripe aimed at stalling our exit and in their Remainiac minds, preventing us ever leaving the disgusting PONZI scheme - that we never voted to join in the first place."

READ MORE:Boris Johnson tears apart Cummings' claims over Number 10 partygate

She said she held constructive talks with Maro efovi - the Vice-President of the EU Commission last week.

In a joint EU-UK statement, the pair said intensive talks would begin this week to deal with the outstanding issues relating to the protocol.

Speaking to the BBC afterwards, Ms Truss Weve had constructive talks with the EU.

Were now going to go into intensive negotiations to work towards a negotiated solution to sort out these very real issues for the people of Northern Ireland.

What I want is a negotiated solution. I think there is a deal to be done. We have had constructive talks over the last day.

Of course there is more work to do, and that is why we are intensifying the discussions.

I will be seeing the vice-president again in a weeks time, and I do want to make progress.

Clearly if we dont make sufficient progress we will have to look at the alternatives, but my absolute desire is to get a deal that works for the people of Northern Ireland.

Read the original:

'Future of the Tories' Liz Truss backed to replace Boris after another Brexit breakthrough - Daily Express

A French woman experiencing grief and stress caused by Brexit has become very sick and unable to adapt back in France after she left the UK.

Murielle Stentzel, who lived in the UK for almost a decade, left the country in 2018 because of Brexit.

The 60-year-old woman worked as a translator for a company subcontracting an electronics giant. She made the difficult decision to leave her daughter and granddaughter behind and move to La Rochelle in southwestern France.

She moved to Kent after getting fed up with the French mentality and because she admired England because of its tolerance and open-mindedness. It was these qualities she admired that made her not worry too much when David Cameron announced the referendum.

She told The London Economic: So when I started to see the posters on the windows, when I started to hear Farage demonising the foreigners,the hatred and racism that was now in plain sight, I started to feel uncomfortable.

And then, obviously, very frustrated that we could not vote on something that could potentially have a huge impact on us, EU citizens.

I will never forget 24 June, because I woke up , turned on my phone, saw the results and I cried. I couldnt believe that this country I loved so much had voted out of the EU and I realised immediately that my life was about to change drastically.

Soon after, the European company she worked for decided to quit Britain for good, noticing xenophobia and nationalism, Stentzel recalled.

I was without a job, at the worst time possible, in a country that just voted out to get rid of the foreigners, because, lets not kid ourselves, the main reason for Brexit was to get rid of the foreigners. Farage and his likes made this very clear, she said.

Stentzel was sending 30 job applications out every week and could not get a single interview. When on occasion she obtained one, she recalled being asked to prove her right to stay in the UK, which was illegal at the time since the UK was still in the EU.

She also remembers being asked by the DWP to pass a residency test, despite her insistence that he had been living in the UK for seven years, never left the country, even briefly, and that the government should have all per payslips to prove this.

The advisor told me, its gonna be more and more difficult for you, we have to follow orders, she said.

She added: Then, I received a letter from the DWP saying I lost the right to reside in the UK , therefore I should start to make plans to return to my country. Of course, this letter was illegal, and with the help of my MP, we replied and they apologised.

Then, one day, Stentzel was on a Kent bus from Folkestone to Canterbury and she was about to experience her first xenophobic abuse.

It was freezing in the bus,and as the windows were opened, I kindly asked a guy if he could shut the windows. Noticing my strong French accent, he told me: you know what, b*tch, if you are not happy, return to frogland.

I was taken aback by the verbal violence against me, but what hurt me more is that the bus was packed and no one told him that he couldnt talk to me like this.

On another occasion, she was in Canterburytalking on the phone with her daughter in English and, noticing her French accent, a few youngsters spat on her and shouted abuse.

That was the moment where I took my decision to leave this country, before I [could have] started to despise it, because I never wanted to tar everybody with the same brush. I still have wonderful friends in the UK.

Since she left in 2018, a lot of EU citizens followed suit in a Brexodus which Stentzel thinks is making the UK poorer.

As for me, she said, I still grieve and will never cease to be sad, because England was my country, the one I chose, the one I loved with all my heart. I didnt choose to be born in France, but I did choose England as my home. Leaving was the hardest decision of my life, but staying wasnt an option anymore.

Since her return to la Rochelle in France in 2018, she feels she cannot adapt because she doesnt share the French mentality.

The grief and stress made her very sick and she feels unable to work full-time, instead continuing her translation work on a freelance basis.

Was it the right decision to leave Kent?

At the time, it was the only decisionI could see as I was depressed, without a job,and was aware that finding one would bevery difficult in Kent. If Brexit were to be cancelled, I would be back, in a heartbeat, Stentzel admits.

Whilst in France, she has often felt people do not believe her when she talks about Brexit or think she is exaggerating because they lack the first-hand knowledge and experience of what exiting the EU means for the lives of people like her.

Despite not feeling understood, she is still fighting. I will never stop to talk about Brexit, especially at a time where in France, a few far-right politicians want Frexit, saying that Brexit is a great thing for the UK, Stentzel concluded.

The DWP has been contacted for comment.

Ready: Italian who held top university rank explains why he left UK after Brexit

Read more:

Woman who left UK sick from Brexit grief is unable to adapt in native France - The London Economic

Jayne Adye, director of the pro-Brexit campaign group Get Britain Out, was speaking after the Africa and the Zeeland, two of the largest fishing vessels in the world, were spotted just 15 miles off the Cornwall coast on several days this week. Ms Adye said: Both are registered in the Netherlands, and for some obscure reason, have been given licences to fish in UK waters. They are both well over 100 meters long and use nets which can be the size of six football pitches.

She added: Such large vessels indiscriminately catch huge numbers of fish at one time, whatever their species and size, with no regard for the damage this must do to the fish stocks of this country as well as the general biodiversity of UK waters.

Despite what Ms Adye called this serious threat to the United Kingdoms fishing industry, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), headed by Environment Secretary George Eustice, had given permission for both vessels to fish here, she pointed out.

In addition, seven other supertrawlers registered in the European Union were operating with the blessing of the UK Government, which had also rolled more than 1,500 fishing licences for EU vessels.

A Defra spokesperson said: As an independent coastal state we can now review which vessels, including supertrawlers, can access and fish our waters.

The new licensing framework within the Fisheries Act allows us to apply conditions to the activities of all fishing vessels in our waters - regardless of their nationality and will need to abide by UK rules around sustainability and access to our Blue Belt of protected waters.

THIS LIVE BLOG IS NOW FINISHED - CLICK HERE FOR REGULAR UPDATES

View original post here:

Boris drops the ball on fishing and hands licences to NINE EU supertrawlers - Daily Express

The tech world is rattled by shock political swings and EU crackdowns while science celebrates a major discovery and Pokmon Go proves that mobile game players can be a major nuisance.

David Bowie died at the start of 2016, and it was all downhill from there. The UK voted itself out of the EU, setting the course for a complicated split we are still navigating today, and Donald Trump was elected president of the US, resulting in rising rifts and rancour across the US.

Brexit was a chaotic mess from the get-go, but for all the doom and gloom talk and the immediate disruption for the STEM sectors, Apple, Google and Facebook held strong on their UK investments.

In terms of tech advances, Google celebrated a major win for its AlphaGo artificial intelligence. First, it beat European Go champion Fan Hui at the abstract strategy board game. It then took on Lee Sedol, arguably the GOAT of Go, and won.

Microsoft was less fortunate in its experimentation with AI. It had to pull Tay, its AI chatbot, from Twitter after it learned to spout incredibly racist and misogynistic comments.

As always, the latest iPhone captured headlines, but not for the usual reasons. The iPhone 7s lack of a headphone jack should have driven sales of Apples new wireless earbuds, but unfortunately the delay in getting AirPods to market resulted in frustration.

But at least the Apple phone wasnt exploding like the Note 7. The new Samsung phablet was recalled, issued with a battery-limiting software update and eventually discontinued as devices continued to dangerously overheat.

But the most contentious phone of 2016 was an iPhone 5C at the centre of a mass shooting investigation in the US. Apple faced off with the FBI, refusing to unlock the San Bernardino shooters iPhone, concerned that it would set a dangerous precedent. Google CEO Sundar Pichai agreed, as did Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and many more US tech companies. Apples own employees even threatened a walkout if the company complied.

Edward Snowden didnt believe the FBI even needed Apples help to hack into the phone and, sure enough, the saga ended when the investigators found a way in without Apples help. But by close of the year, the US Congress had agreed that encryption backdoors are a security threat.

At the height of the Apple-FBI dispute, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called on consumers to boycott the iPhone maker. Ahead of the November election, Silicon Valley leaders warned that he would be a disaster for innovation. After his shock win, some investors even wanted California to secede and the Canadian immigration website crashed as others contemplated an exit.

A few days later, sitting US president Barack Obama warned Mark Zuckerberg about the fake news epidemic after the Facebook CEO rejected claims that content on his platform had influenced the election result. In the face of his denial, a splinter group formed within Facebook to tackle the problem.

Eventually, Facebook revealed a seven-point plan to fight fake news, including the introduction of warning labels. Another site that underwent significant post-Trump changes was Reddit, which promised an aggressive campaign against the sites most toxic users.

There were also fears that Russia had influenced the US election, which the FBI was investigating. And in a final act of his presidency, Obama ordered a full review of cyberattacks and foreign interventions that may have taken place.

Across the Atlantic, the EU was busy investigating Big Tech.

Following a three-year investigation, the European Commission ruled that Ireland had granted illegal tax benefits of up to 13bn to Apple and the country was ordered to recover them. Apple denied that there had been any special agreement regarding the companys tax affairs here, and the EU decision was appealed.

Next, the EU turned the heat up on Facebook, accusing the social media giant of misleading the Commission during its 2014 merger with WhatsApp. Facebook countered that accurate information had been provided and that a review would prove it had acted in good faith. (The same week, German lawmakers declared the country would fine Facebook and others up to 500,000 for publishing fake news in a bid to clamp down on the problem.)

Meanwhile, decisions on a number of antitrust cases against Google were believed to be imminent.

As Facebook, HTC, Intel and Sony made moves with VR hardware in 2016, Apple and Microsoft were betting on augmented reality. True, Microsoft added its own VR headset to the mix, but CEO Satya Nadella made clear that the future lay with AR. Perhaps this was because of the Pokmon Go gaming phenomenon.

Released in July, AR-enabled Pokmon Go immediately broke records in sales and revenue, raking in $10m a day within its first month.

While users awaited the gradual global roll-out of the much-anticipated release, mirror versions appeared as Android application packages (APKs). Bad actors took advantage of this desperation and at least one APK provided a backdoor for hackers and another fake bombarded users with porn ads.

Panic also ensued when fervent users disrespect of reverent public spaces and disregard for public safety came to pass. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum was forced to ban players and Bosnian Go fans were warned not to stray into minefields.

The apps runaway success even drew the attention of the US House of Representatives, which questioned creator Niantic Labs on whether it was exhausting data limits among users.

Elon Musks plans to transform transport raced ahead in 2016 but not without some pitstops.

In May, a Tesla car crashed while its beta-phase autonomous driving technology was active, killing the occupant and leading to an SEC investigation. Regardless, Tesla continued unabashed with plans to include its Autopilot tech in every new car, not to mention the trucks and buses it now planned to produce.

Musk also saw his 2012 revival of the Hyperloop concept gain traction when Slovakia agreed to explore the idea. First conceived in the 1900s, Musk gave the name Hyperloop to the concept of using large vacuum tubes for high-speed train travel. Slovakia planned to work with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies to bring the technology to mainland Europe, while rival company Hyperloop One raised $80m in seed funding and entered early-stage talks to bring Hyperloop to the UK.

Soft robotics, where robots are able to change form, had a mainstream moment in 2016.

In March, the Soft Robotics Toolkit designed by engineers from Trinity College Dublin and Harvard University was taking off. Dr Dnal Holland from the toolkits development team attributed the growing interest to easier access to equipment such as laser cutters and 3D printers.

Many new prototypes were showcased throughout the year, from soft grippers and squishy motors to 3D-printed robotic sea slugs and the almighty Octobot, a completely autonomous soft robot with no electronic parts.

In a major moment for science, the first direct observation of gravitational waves was announced in February 2016 (although the actual discovery had been made on 14 September 2015).

The monumental breakthrough revealed by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Italys Virgo interferometer proved part of Einsteins theory of relativity from more than 100 years earlier. (Sidebar: Doctor Who fans should check out David Tennants brief explanation of Einsteins famous theory here.)

The proof that gravitational waves actually exist heralded in a new era of understanding on the formation of the universe, and the team who made the 2015 discovery would go on to win the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Chief researcher Lawrence M Krauss called it a new window on the universe and new research was instantly put into action. A week after the announcement, China launched three separate gravitational waves studies with plans to construct a new land-based monitoring system and to launch satellites to learn more about the waves.

11 January: The Elephant in the Valley study reports that 60pc of 200-plus women working in Silicon Valley surveyed had been sexually harassed.

20 January: Spotify acquires Dublin music discovery start-up Soundwave.

24 January: Astronaut Tim Peake receives a Stargazer Lottie doll, designed by a six-year-old girl and manufactured by Irish company Arklu, while aboard the International Space Station.

1 February: A UK researcher is given approval to modify human embryos using CRISPR.

26 February: A Google Doodle reminds Irish citizens to votil inniu as polls open for a general election.

2 March: Astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko return to Earth after spending a year in space. Kellys identical twin Mark provides an ideal comparison to determine the impact of long-term spaceflight.

14 March: The ESA and Roscosmos launch the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on a six-year mission to Mars.

5 April: WhatsApp introduces end-to-end encryption for its 1bn users.

18 April: Joanne Dolan and Niambh Scullion launch Teen-Turn, a STEM work placement programme for teen girls in Ireland.

6 May: The European Commission reveals its 16-point Digital Single Market strategy.

7-11 May: Portugal runs entirely on renewable energy for four straight days.

1 June: Forbes drops its estimate of Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes net worth from $4.5bn to nothing following allegations that the companys blood-testing technology doesnt work.

13 June: Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26bn.

1 July: DCU researcher Shauna Flynn wins the first edition of Researchfest, the science communication contest hosted at Inspirefest.

5 July: The Irish Government approves the ownership model for the National Broadband Plan affirming that the winner of the vital contract, not the State, will own the network upon completion.

21 July: During a visit from French president Franois Hollande, the Irish Government reveals plans for the 1bn Celtic Interconnector, a subsea electricity cable linking Ireland and France.

25 July: The EU Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers, a four-point plan aiming to change how scientific research is conducted from the grassroots level, is submitted to the ministers for science and research across all 28 EU member states.

26 July: The electric-powered Solar Impulse 2 aircraft completes its historic round-the-world trip.

11 August: Apples Athenry data centre gets the green light from An Bord Pleanla.

27 August: Juno successfully completes its first orbit of Jupiter, sending back a stunning close-up of the giant planet.

5 September: Intel announces its plan to acquire Irish machine-vision chipmaker Movidius in a deal thought to be worth at least 300m.

24 September: Snapchat rebrands as Snap and reveals its Spectacles smart glasses.

7 October: Researchers from the Berkeley Lab reveal how they created a working 1nm transistor, giving hope for the continuation of Moores Law.

13 October: Silicon Republic reveals that Cork start-up InfiniLED has rebranded as Oculus, having been acquired by the Facebook-owned VR company.

20 October: Ordnance Survey Ireland makes the countrys geospatial data available in Minecraft.

21 October: Millions of internet users lose access to sites such as Twitter, Spotify and Reddit when Mirai malware is used to turn unsecured IoT devices into a botnet for a massive DDoS attack.

27 October: Twitter announces plans to shutter Vine, the mobile video app it acquired in 2012. Vine co-founder Rus Yusupov tweets: Dont sell your company!

22 November: SolarCity reveals that it powered an entire Pacific island using its solar energy generation and storage technology.

1 December: Word gets out that Fitbit intends to acquire smartwatch-maker Pebble for a fraction of the $740m offer made for the company in 2015.

14 December: Yahoo discloses that more than 1bn accounts may have been accessed by unauthorised third parties. This follows a previous disclosure of a breach impacting 500m users and threatens to derail a $4.5bn acquisition by Verizon.

Dont miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republics digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Read more:

2016: Brexit, Trump and a fake news epidemic - Siliconrepublic.com

Covid, compulsory vaccination for care home staff, Brexit and unaffordable homes have been blamed for the adult social care crisis gripping Cornwall.

One of the largest care home companies in the Duchy believes that while adult social care in Cornwall has been under immense pressure throughout the pandemic the crisis that is being felt at present is the result of years of compounding issues affecting the sector nationally.

Leah Marsh, the managing director of Swallowcourt, which manages six care homes in Cornwall, believes staffing pressures are the main cause of concern for her industry, an issue which will not be resolved soon without a holistic approach that would tackle low wages and high housing prices.

Read more: Cornwall Council declares social care critical incident but didn't tell its own councillors

She said: Fundamentally, staffing pressures as a result of mandatory Covid vaccinations, the impact of Brexit on reducing European workers and a lack of affordable housing to attract new staff to the area present a very real and very serious problem.

Mrs Marsh said that all adult social care providers like Swallowcourt and others have their hands tied by Governments regulations and ever-changing rules in term of what they can do in responding to the Covid pandemic.

Get the best stories about the things you love most curated by us and delivered to your inbox every day. Choose what you love here

The current guidance for infection prevention is designed to cope with 'outbreaks'," said Mrs Marsh. "Those as clearly defined within a setting where infection has been passed from one person to another and 'clusters' where there are more than two cases, but where these are not related to each other.

However, neither of these scenarios account for widespread community transmission impacting on a service. The guidance to close any home for 14 days following more than two cases has resulted in the majority of care services being closed to admissions and this is set to stay in place as the closure period extends with each new case identified.

This has the knock-on effect of being unable to support hospital discharges.

The call for holistic approach to health and social care is not new and even Kate Shields, the former chief executive officer of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, who is now the accountable officer for NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group (KCCG) and the chief executive designate for NHS Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board, announced last week that it was better to focus on having a better integrated health and social care system so people who do not need to be in hospital can be cared for at home for as long as possible or in community hospitals, rather than take up ward and theatre beds at Treliske, Truro.

The NHS boss said there was no need for a second hospital to be built in Cornwall because of the current crisis impacting both the health service and social care providers.

Cornwall Council has now announced that it is joining the NHS in declaring a critical incident in adult social care as a means to help alleviate pressure on the countys hospitals, reduce ambulance waiting times and allow more patients who no longer require hospital care to be discharged back into the community. You can read about how councillors complained that they were not told about it until they saw a press release here.

The council said it will work with its 70 commissioned homecare providers and 222 care homes to provide support for around 180 people who have finished their hospital treatment, as well as helping support others in the community who are waiting for care packages.

The local authority announced it will also be drawing on its own workforce, potentially redeploying staff into different roles to support social care, as well as asking the voluntary sector to mobilise all its available resources to support efforts to free up 100 beds within two weeks.

Councillor Andy Virr, A&E consultant and Cornwall Council Cabinet member for care and wellbeing, said: These extraordinary circumstances require a different level of response in our care system, which is currently unable to meet demand - particularly for hospital discharges. This approach will see us work as one system, sharing risk in order to meet these increased demands, and Id like to say a big thank you to those families and service users who are helping support us in this.

Mrs Marsh said Swallowcourt, which is a Foundation Living Wage employer, will be part of that team effort and would continue to work collaboratively with the wider system to ensure the minimisation of risk that community transmission has on our homes and its impact for us to safely and effectively support timely hospital discharges.

She added: Decisions need to be made by central Government in respect of providers receiving a fair cost of care via local authorities and health trusts, ensuring the social care system promotes fairness for the individual, the taxpayer, the local authority, the NHS and the provider.

"While of course this needs to be a long term commitment, the pressures being faced are immediate and decisive action needs to be taken now and not in three years time when the Health and Social Care Tax Levy filters down.

Get the best stories about the things you love most curated by us and delivered to your inbox every day. Choose what you love here

Link:

Covid, Brexit and housing prices blamed for staffing problems and adult social care crisis - Cornwall Live

Jason Isaacs is a searing presence in his new film, Mass. The camera zeroes in remorselessly on his piercing blue eyes as his character slowly but surely breaks down. Playing Jay, the father of a boy killed by a classmate in a school shooting, Isaacs delivers a brutally raw performance full of rage and loss.

The film focuses with unerring intensity on a face-to-face meeting in a sparsely furnished Episcopal church hall between two sets of parents: Jay and Gail (Martha Plimpton), whose son Evan was shot six years earlier by Hayden, the son of Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd).

There was a real worry going in, Isaacs says. I thought: Well, this is going to be a very powerful experience for the actors, but will it be a piece of self-indulgence where we all get to do lots of crying and emoting?

He neednt have worried. While Mass is undoubtedly grief-stricken, it is also gripping. Encompassing elements of God of Carnage, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Huis Clos, the film is lets not beat about the bush here a gruelling experience. For all that, it would be wrong to say it is unremittingly bleak. By the end, there are glimmers of hope for both couples.

I think the film is very therapeutic because its inspired by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission meetings, Isaacs says.

Its true. Mass has a perhaps unlikely inspiration: Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The work of the late cleric and human rights activist, who won the 1984 Nobel Prize for his campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa and died on Boxing Day at the age of 90, proved inspirational to writer-director Fran Kranz.

In 1996, Tutu chaired the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a restorative justice body set up to help the country move on from the horrors of apartheid by promoting the idea of forgiveness. The TRC was charged with trying to ensure, in the words of President Cyril Ramaphosa, that justice would prevail over iniquity, and that reconciliation would prevail over revenge and recrimination. It changed the way the world thought about conflict resolution.

Kranz says Mass is about the path forward made possible by the firm belief in the healing power of forgiveness, adding: It has become hard now to imagine how the film could have ever been made without the Archbishop and his profound voice The film is a tribute to him. Id like to believe he would have recognised where it came from and known my endless gratitude.

The point of Mass is to offer some hope in a human-sized bucket, Isaacs agrees. It doesnt have any Hollywood redemption. There are no easy answers to things. But, as they did in those meetings in South Africa, people can take away something positive.

People go into those meetings because their souls have calcified. They are consumed with blame and hatred, or guilt and shame. But by the end, everybody gets something from it, although often not in ways that they expected. They go in with this prescribed list of things that they need to say, but nothing is that neat.

Mass will also strike a chord because it paints a vivid, and all-too-recognisable portrait of a society rent asunder by seemingly unbridgeable splits.

When I first read Mass in 2018 or 2019, Trump was dividing the world, using blame as this extraordinarily divisive tool of hatred, he says. You could feel society becoming increasingly Balkanised, and you could see Trump using division as a weapon to entrench his own power. Whether its abortion or God or immigration, or Brexit for us, there are so many reasons why people are incensed.

Sadly, little has changed since Kranz wrote his script. Families are still divided by all kinds of resentments over vaccines, for example, says Isaacs. And so many people wake up and are filled with hatred and rage for people theyve never met.

Isaacs, 58, has described himself as profoundly Jewish, but not in a religious way. Originally from Liverpool, he moved to London as a child, where his family faced anti-Semitism from the National Front. A longtime Labour supporter, he has been outspoken about allegations of anti-Semitism in the party, and at the last general election he campaigned for former Labour MP Luciana Berger as she attempted to become a Liberal Democrat MP.

He tells me he has fears about how polarised the UK has become. Even before the pandemic and the isolation that brought, the lack of human connection allowed poison and hatred to fester, he says. Ive seen it myself. Ive done some charity work with the Red Cross around refugees and asylum seekers, and Ive come across supposedly progressive, left-leaning friends of mine, lovely actors, with some of the most reactionary attitudes based on lies and ignorance.

They dont know any refugees. They havent met any of the people that Ive been privileged enough to meet who have been held as slaves in Yemen for a year and fled slaughter and only want to work and give back to the country that has sheltered them and provided them with a port in a storm.

If those friends of mine met those refugees, they would never think those things. People make judgements based on things theyve read or fill in the gaps with the worst parts of their own imagination.

Isaacs is keen to stress that Mass is not a worthy film: It all sounds very virtuous, but it is actually delivered as a kind of psychological thriller. Four people are going into a room what the hell is going to happen next?

What distinguishes Mass, in Isaacs eyes, is the skill of the writing. What makes us recognisably human is that we dont know ourselves very well. My character, for instance, arrives in the room expecting to manage the meeting. He thinks hes there as some kind of puppet master. Layers are peeled off in the room, and people are revealed to themselves in ways that are ultimately cathartic and offer some hope.In the end, Isaacs thinks, Mass is a powerful plea for human connection. That plea has probably been magnified by the isolation weve all felt during the pandemic. If Mass bleeds over into anywhere else in your life, the film is suggesting we should try not to pre-judge other people.

The only way we can heal and be reconciled is if we see each other as human beings and dont rush to pre-judgement. Its how peace in Northern Ireland was eventually established by grassroots organisations making contact and seeing each other as people.

Fran is saying: Let me imagine the worst possible situation for a parent. If I was in that situation, would I ever be able to forgive? What is the possibility and the power of forgiveness? Thats what this film is talking about.

Isaacs himself has two daughters with his wife, the documentary maker Emma Hewitt. As a parent, Isaacs admits that the role demanded that he go to some tough places. I was scared to take the job on in the first place. I didnt know if Id be up to it. We needed to trust the other people to be as vulnerable as possible and to risk revealing ourselves.

Isaacs stayed in his impeccable American accent throughout the two-week shoot. His is a riveting performance in an already impressively diverse CV. The actor has played roles from the shouty General Georgy Zhukov in The Death of Stalin to the increasingly defeated Harry H Corbett in The Curse of Steptoe (for which he won a Bafta nomination).

He is still best known, however, as the villainous Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films. He had a whale of a time. It was such a joy to play Lucius, he says. It was a blessed relief to be able to be such an unalloyed and deliciously evil character, to get on that blond wig and snarl and mince around and be filled with unqualified bile.

Recently, he appeared in the reunion film, Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. Being part of the Potter-verse, he says, continues to be a joy, because there are new generations constantly discovering and loving the books and films.

Still, he never gets recognised. The actors who do look like their characters in Harry Potter get stopped in the street every day. But that wig has been the best possible thing. I dont look like Malfoy thank God!

Mass is released on Sky Cinema and in cinemas on Thursday

More here:

Jason Isaacs on Mass: Abortion, God, immigration or Brexit, people are incensed - iNews