Category: Foreign

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the whole country will want to wish the Duke and Duchess of Sussex well for the future as they give up royal duties.

It came as the Queen went to church near Sandringham in her first public appearance since it was announced the couple were giving up their HRH titles.

In her statement on Sunday, she wished them “a happy and peaceful new life”.

But Thomas Markle, Meghan’s father, accused them of “cheapening” the Royal Family.

Speaking briefly to reporters at a summit in Berlin, Johnson said he had been confident the Royal Family would find a way forward for Prince Harry and Meghan, adding: “I think the whole country will want to join in wishing them the very best for the future.”

The Queen was met by about 100 well-wishers outside St Mary the Virgin Church in Hillington, Norfolk, where she arrived with the Duke of York.

Announcing the decision over the duke and duchess in a statement on Saturday, she said she was “particularly proud” of how quickly Meghan became one of the family and said she, Harry and Archie would always be “much loved”.

Read Also; Queen agrees ‘transition’ for Harry, Meghan

Prince Harry and Meghan said they wanted to “step back” from their role as senior royals after both spoke about the media scrutiny.

The duchess is suing the Mail on Sunday for publishing what she says was a private letter to her father, raising the prospect of him testifying against her in court.

In comments for a forthcoming Channel 5 documentary which emerged yesterday, Thomas Markle said the Royal Family is “one of the greatest long-living institutions ever” and accused the couple of “destroying it, they are cheapening it, making it shabby”.

“Every young girl wants to become a princess and she got that and now she’s tossing that away,” he said. “It looks like she’s tossing that away for money.”

The announcement about the couple’s future comes after they held talks with the Queen on Monday.

UNITED States (U.S.) President Donald Trump’s legal team has issued its first formal response to the impeachment charges against him, describing them as a “dangerous attack” on democracy.

The document said the impeachment articles failed to allege any crime and were a “brazen” attempt to interfere with the 2020 presidential elections.

The response came as the Democrats filed their brief for the proceedings.

Opening statements in the trial will begin next week.

Trump is only the third U.S. president in history to face an impeachment trial. He is accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He has denied wrongdoing and branded the case against him as a “hoax”.

The House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, impeached the president last month. The Senate, controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, will decide whether to convict and remove him from office.

A two-thirds majority of 67 votes in the 100-seat Senate is required to convict and oust Trump. But because there are only 45 Democrats (along with 53 Republicans and two Independents), the president is widely expected to be cleared.

In their brief filed earlier on Saturday, House Democrats laid out their arguments for why Trump should be removed from office.

They said the president had “abandoned his oath to faithfully execute the laws and betrayed his public trust”, and called his conduct the “worst nightmare” of the country’s founding fathers.

READ ALSO: U.S. Senate prepares for Trump impeachment trial

The six-page response outlines the defence the president’s legal team expects to use in the upcoming impeachment trial.

The team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, said they were challenging the impeachment on both procedural and constitutional grounds, claiming that the president did nothing wrong and had not been treated fairly.

They said the president should be convicted and removed from office “to avoid serious and long term damage to our democratic values and the nation’s security.”

“The case against the president of the United States is simple, the facts are indisputable, and the evidence is overwhelming,” they said.

“The only remaining question is whether the members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their constitutional Oaths,” they added.

MISSILE attack on a military training camp in Yemen has killed no fewer than 80 soldiers, according to media reports.

Dozens of others were wounded in the strike in the central province of Marib on Saturday.

The camp, about 170km (105 miles) east of the capital, Sanaa, targeted a mosque as people gathered for prayer, military sources told Reuters.

Yemen’s government has blamed Houthi rebels for the attack, but there has been no claim of responsibility.

Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.

Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi condemned the “cowardly” attack in a statement carried by Saba, a state news agency.

Yemen’s government has blamed Houthi rebels for the attack.

Read Also: US tried to kill Iranian commander in Yemen same night as Soleimani strike – Officials

The attack “confirms without doubt that the Houthis have no desire for peace”, Hadi was quoted as saying.

In August last year, Houthi rebels launched a missile attack on a Yemen government forces military parade in the southern port city of Aden, killing no fewer than 32 people.

Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in March 2015, when Houthi rebels seized control of much of the west of the country and forced President Hadi to flee abroad.

EVERY traveller who wants to enter Egypt must have a visa, the only exception being visa-exempt nationalities who are eligible for an Egypt visa on arrival. However, the requirements imposed by the Government of Egypt are pretty much the same for everyone. Whether you apply for an Egypt e-Visa or a consular visa, you are still required to meet some criteria.

The truth is that if you apply online for this visa, it’ll be much easier than choosing to obtain it through an Embassy. We will give you more details about it through this article.

e-Visa

The e-Visa is an official document that allows foreigner visitors to enter Egypt.

The following countries are eligible to get an electronic visa to enter Egypt: All European Union citizens (including the UK), Albania, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine, The United States and Vatican City.

If you decide to travel to Egypt, you should know that there’s only one type of e-Visa, which is The Egypt e-Visa made for tourism purposes only.

One of the first things you should be aware of is the validity of your passport. If you do not have a passport, you need to get that fixed. If you already have a passport, look at the expiry date. You need to make sure that it will not expire for at least another six months from your arrival date in Egypt.

State officials want to make sure that your passport does not expire before your visa. Even so, your e-visa application will be denied if the passport requirement is not met. Since visa fees are not refundable, iVisa recommends that you cross this requirement off your list before submitting your application.

The next requirement applies to all travellers except the citizens from the EU and the United States.

iVisa

If you are eligible for an Egypt e-Visa, you must also meet the requirements imposed by iVisa.

They will ask very few things about you so that they can expedite your application. There is nothing out of the ordinary, and the entire process should not last more than 20 minutes. Here is what you need to get started:

A scan of the information page of your passport – they need all the info since your visa will be attached to your passport electronically.

Means of payment – you will be required to make the payment before you submit the application. You can do that using a credit/debit card, and if you have a PayPal account, you can use that as well.

Answer a set of personal questions – during your application process, you will be asked to answer a personal questionnaire. It should take only five minutes, and the questions are not complicated.

The process is pretty straightforward, and if you need any help, iVisa provides customer support 24/7. As you can see, none of the requirements are challenging to meet, and iVisa makes all that easier by providing guidance every step of the way.

FORCES loyal to eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar have shut off production at all Libya’s major oil fields, an escalation that threatened to strangle the country’s finances and overshadowed an international peace summit in Berlin yesterday.

Haftar, whose self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) is bearing down on the capital, Tripoli, with the backing of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russian mercenaries and African troops, attended the one-day summit in Berlin despite having abandoned talks over a truce last week.

Turkey has rushed troops to Tripoli to help an internationally recognised government resist Haftar’s assault. Up to 2,000 fighters from Syria’s civil war have also joined the battle, a UN official said on Saturday.

Libya has had no stable central authority since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by NATO-backed rebels in 2011. For more than five years it has had two rival governments in the east and the west, with streets controlled by armed groups.

Haftar, the east’s most powerful figure, has won backing from a range of foreign allies for an assault to capture Tripoli in the west, while Turkish support for Tripoli’s effort to repel him has turned the conflict into a proxy war. More than 150,000 people have been displaced by fighting for the capital.

He quit a Turkish-Russian summit a week ago and escalated the conflict on Friday when eastern oil ports were shut down. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) said the shutdown was directly ordered by Haftar’s forces and would cut oil production by 800,000 barrels a day.

On Sunday, as international leaders were gathering in the German capital, the NOC said the major southwestern fields of El Sharara and El Feel were closing after forces loyal to Haftar shut a pipeline.

Any lasting closure could hit Tripoli hard since the government relies on oil revenues to fund its budget.

“We call on all parties concerned to redouble their efforts for a sustained suspension of hostilities, de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire,” said a draft of a communique to be discussed at the summit, reviewed in advance by Reuters.

Diplomats said a joint military commission would monitor the truce, but details were unclear. The draft did not say whether the LNA needed to pull back, stating only: “We call for the redeployment of heavy weapons, artillery and aerial vehicles and their cantonment.”

Agency Reporter

THE United States and China have announced an initial trade deal that will roll back some tariffs and boost Chinese purchases of U.S. goods and services.

It was also aimed at defusing an 18-month conflict between the world’s two largest economies.

Beijing and Washington have portrayed their “Phase 1” agreement as a momentous step after months of start-stop talks punctuated by tit-for-tat tariffs that uprooted supply chains and stoked fears of a further slowdown in the global economy.

“Together we are righting the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for American workers, farmers and families,” U.S. President Donald Trump said as he touted the deal in rambling, partisan remarks at the White House alongside Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and other officials.

The centerpiece of the deal is a pledge by China to purchase at least an additional $200 billion worth of U.S. farm products and other goods and services over two years, over a baseline of $186 billion in purchases in 2017.

The deal would include $50 billion in additional orders for U.S. agricultural products, Trump said, adding he was confident that U.S. farmers would be able to meet the greater demand. He also said China would buy $40 billion to $50 billion in additional U.S. services, $75 billion more in manufacturing goods, and $50 billion more worth of energy supplies.

Read Also: U.S.-Iran Tension: China urges U.S. not to abuse force

Officials from both countries have touted the deal as ushering in a new era for U.S.-Sino relations, but it fails to address many of the structural differences that led the Trump administration to start the trade war in the first place.

They include Beijing’s long-standing practice of propping up state-owned companies, and flooding international markets with low-priced goods.

Trump, who has embraced an “America First” policy aimed at rebalancing global trade in favour of U.S. companies and workers, said China had pledged action to confront the problem of pirated or counterfeited goods, and that the deal included strong protection of intellectual property rights.