Headline News 02/01/2021

Headlines:

• Brexit: New Era for UK as it Completes Separation from European Union

• Egypt Summons Ethiopian Diplomat over Dam Comments

• NSG Assailed for Treating Pakistan, India Differently on Membership

Details:

Brexit: New Era for UK as it Completes Separation from European Union

A new era has begun for the United Kingdom after it completed its formal separation from the European Union. The UK stopped following EU rules at 23:00 GMT, as replacement arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation came into force. Boris Johnson said the UK had "freedom in our hands" and the ability to do things "differently and better" now the long Brexit process was over. But opponents of leaving the EU maintain the country will be worse off. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whose ambition it is to take an independent Scotland back into the EU, tweeted: "Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on." BBC Europe editor Katya Adler said there was a sense of relief in Brussels that the Brexit process was over, "but there is regret still at Brexit itself". The first lorries arriving at the borders entered the UK and EU without delay. On Friday evening, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tweeted that border traffic had been "low due to [the] bank holiday" but there had been no disruption in Kent as "hundreds" of lorries crossed the Channel with a "small" number turned back. UK ministers have warned there will be some disruption in the coming days and weeks, as new rules bed in and British firms come to terms with the changes. But officials have insisted new border systems are "ready to go". As the first customs checks were completed after midnight, Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe said: "It all went fine, everything's running just as it was before 11pm." Northern Ireland has different arrangements from other parts of the UK, meaning there will be some customs checks on goods moving between Great Britain and the province. A treaty was finally agreed on Christmas Eve, and became law in the UK on Wednesday. Under the new arrangements, UK manufacturers will have tariff-free access to the EU's internal market, meaning there will be no import taxes on goods crossing between Britain and the continent. But it does mean more paperwork for businesses and people travelling to EU countries, while there is still uncertainty about what will happen to banking and services. The UK and Spain have also reached an agreement meaning the border between Gibraltar and Spain will remain open. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he added that the combination of the Brexit deal and rollout of the Oxford vaccine means "we are creating the potential trampoline for the national bounceback". Lord Frost, the UK's chief negotiator, tweeted that Britain had become a "fully independent country again". And the deputy chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory backbench MPs, David Jones, told the BBC: "We can now say clearly Britain is a sovereign and independent state." [Source: BBC]

Britain's separation from the EU has begun a new chapter. It will likely spell the end of the "Long Peace" as Britain will never tolerate a strong Europe driven by the Franco-German alliance. Historically, the officially UK policy has been to keep Europe divided.

Egypt Summons Ethiopian Diplomat over Dam Comments

Egypt's foreign ministry said it has summoned Ethiopia's top diplomat in Cairo over comments by an Addis Ababa official regarding a controversial dam on the Nile. The Egyptian ministry "summoned the Ethiopian Charge d'Affaires in Cairo to explain comments by the spokesperson for the Ethiopian Ministry for Foreign Affairs regarding domestic Egyptian affairs," it said late Wednesday. The statement did not cite specific comments but followed a statement by the Ethiopian official on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Africa's biggest hydroelectric project, which has raised fears for vital water supplies downstream in Egypt and Sudan. "They know the GERD won't harm them, it's a diversion from internal problems," Dina Mufti, the Ethiopian ministry's spokesman and a former ambassador to Egypt, said Tuesday. Mufti contended that without this "distraction", Egypt and Sudan would "have to deal with many local issues waiting to explode, especially up there (in Egypt)." The three countries have been in talks since 2011 but have failed to reach a deal on filling the dam. The negotiations have been stalled since August. The Nile, the world's longest river at 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles), is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to 10 countries. Ethiopia views the dam as essential for its growing power needs, and insists that the flow of water downstream will not be affected. But Egypt, a country of more than 100 million people who depend on the Nile for 97 percent of their water needs, opposes unilateral moves by Ethiopia. Along with Sudan, it has called for a legally binding political solution to the dispute. [Source: Arab News]

Since Sisi’s ascendency to office, Egypt has struggled to deal with internal mounting problems as well as foreign challenges. Given Egypt’s strength, Sisi should able to reach an equitable agreement on how the water is to be shared amongst the three countries, but like with every other issue Sisi’s failure is palpable.

NSG Assailed for Treating Pakistan, India Differently on Membership

A senior foreign ministry official, while criticising the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for differently treating Pakistani and Indian applications for membership, has regretted that the multilateral export control regime is politicised.

According to a media statement issued on Friday by the Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), which hosted a webinar on “The politics of NSG: The current dimensions”, the director general of the foreign ministry’s Arms Control and Disarmament Division, Kamran Akhtar, said: “NSG very much epitomises the politics of non-proliferation at the global level.” He accused the NSG of according “precedence to the interests of the nuclear supplier states”.Indian and Pakistani applications for membership have been held up at the NSG since 2016 because of their non-NPT status and differences between members over the admission criteria. According to Mr Akhtar, Pakistan is better qualified than India, even going by the formula proposed by Ambassador Rafael Grossi in 2016, as it does not have a mix of safeguarded and unsafeguarded facilities and has been more forthcoming in accepting legally binding commitments. Speaking about India, he said: “If there was an argument that mainstreaming of India would benefit the non-proliferation regime, the Indian behaviour since joining Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) belies that argument.” Mr Akhtar said there should not be two different standards for judging the membership applications from India and Pakistan. “Unfortunately, that’s what is happening now,” he added. A former official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr Tariq Rauf, identified major problems and deficiencies in the export control regimes. He said the regimes did not adapt to the changing international situations and there was a lack of universality and legitimacy in them, besides having inconsistent internal implementation. A former permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament and the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Zamir Akram, also noted that the working of NSG was driven by geopolitics. [Source: The Dawn]

It is disappointing to see Pakistani officials unable to understand geopolitics and still long for equitable treatment. The reality is that America has sacrificed Pakistan to make India its principal agent in the Sub-Continent and an adversary of China.