Headline

UK PM Truss Unveils Non-white Top Cabinet Members

Published

3 years ago

September 6, 2022

Liz Truss

Liz Truss on Tuesday unveiled her new top team as she formally took over from Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, with no place for white men in any of the three senior-most cabinet posts for the first time ever.

As expected, she rewarded allies to her during her victorious Conservative leadership campaign, promoting Kwasi Kwarteng to finance, James Cleverly to foreign affairs and Suella Braverman to interior.

The son of Ghanaian immigrants, Kwarteng is the country’s first black chancellor of the exchequer. His immediate focus will be turning round Britain’s dire economic fortunes.

Cleverly is a mixed-race army reservist who served under Truss at the foreign office, while Braverman, whose parents are of Indian origin from Kenya and Mauritius, inherits a tricky brief from Priti Patel.

Cigar-smoking Truss loyalist, Therese Coffey, was made health secretary and deputy prime minister, Downing Street said in a slew of announcements.

Ben Wallace retained the defence ministry, with Truss vowing to extend Johnson’s staunch support for Ukraine.

– Storm clouds –
Truss – Britain’s third female prime minister and the fourth Tory premier in just six years – earlier promised sunnier days ahead despite the current economic gloom.

Heavy rain and thunder forced her supporters to scramble for cover as they waited for her to arrive in Downing Street to make her inaugural speech.

But the clouds lifted as the 47-year-old former foreign secretary’s motorcade swept in, and she vowed that the country would “ride out the storm” of double-digit inflation and soaring energy prices.

“I will take action this week to deal with energy bills and to secure our future energy supply,” she said.

“As strong as the storm may be, I know that the British people are stronger,” she added, outlining her priorities as the economy, energy and health.

Truss became Tory leader on Monday after a summer-long campaign sparked by a rebellion against Johnson in July after a series of scandals.

She arrived in Downing Street after a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometre) round trip from London to see Queen Elizabeth II in the Scottish Highlands, where she accepted the invitation to form a government.

As soon as Thursday, Truss is expected to sanction a freeze on household energy bills to prevent steep hikes this winter, and possibly beyond, at a cost of tens of billions of pounds.

– Energy crisis –
Hard-pressed households facing 80-per cent increases in electricity and gas bills from October have demanded immediate action to prevent millions being forced to choose between heating and eating this winter.

Businesses have also warned they could be forced to close because of even steeper hikes in energy costs.

Truss, who touts herself as a free-market liberal, has promised tax cuts to stimulate growth, despite warnings that greater borrowing could make inflation worse.

The contrast to her beaten leadership rival Rishi Sunak’s more cautious approach has opened another rift in the Conservative party that was already divided by Johnson’s departure.

Recent opinion polls suggest a sizeable chunk of the British public have no faith in her ability to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

A new poll by YouGov said only 14 percent expect Truss to do a better job than Johnson.

– Comeback? –
Johnson, whose tenure was dominated by Brexit and Covid, and cut short by the succession of scandals, earlier promised Truss his unswerving support as he made a farewell speech in Downing Street.

“I will be supporting Liz Truss and the new government every step of the way,” he said, before leaving for Balmoral to tender his resignation to the queen.

He urged the Tories to put aside their ideological differences which have seen the party fight like Downing Street’s cats and dogs over how best to tackle the energy crisis.

But the former newspaper polemicist failed to dampen speculation that he is eyeing a potential return to the political front line.

“Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plough,” Johnson said. Latin scholars were quick to point out that the Roman statesman eventually returned to politics.

Johnson, 58, remains popular among grassroots Tories as a charismatic election winner who took the country out of the European Union.

Despite repeated accusations of corruption and cronyism during his tenure, and an unprecedented police fine for breaking his own lockdown rules, Johnson is said to be smarting at having to leave.

Speculation has swirled that he could bide his time for a comeback, particularly if Truss struggles to overcome the country’s many problems.

Truss has ruled out seeking her own mandate at an early general election, promising to extend the Tories’ 12 years in power from 2024.

AFP.

Headline

Kimmel’s Suspension: Obama Slams Trump For ‘Dangerous’ Attack On Free Speech

Published

8 minutes ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Former United States President Barack Obama has condemned the suspension of the late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel following remarks he made about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In a post on X on Thursday, Obama described the suspension of the show as a dangerous attack on free speech led by President Donald Trump.

He wrote, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”

Obama’s comments came after ABC, owned by Walt Disney, announced on Wednesday that Jimmy Kimmel Live had been suspended indefinitely.

The decision followed threats of a federal investigation into Kimmel’s remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a close Trump ally who was shot and killed on September 10 while debating students at a Utah university.

During Monday’s broadcast, Kimmel accused Kirk’s supporters of using his assassination to “score political points.” At least one local ABC affiliate had already announced plans to stop airing the program before the network’s decision.

The suspension has sparked backlash from free speech advocates, who argue that the administration’s actions amount to political censorship.

Headline

Ghana To Take More West African Deportees From US

Published

27 minutes ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Ghana will receive another 40 West Africans deported from the United States in the coming days, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said, after the government revealed last week a deal had been struck with Washington.

Deporting people to third countries instead of their home nations has been a hallmark of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, notably by sending hundreds to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Ghana President John Mahama announced last week that 14 deportees from the region had been sent to the country, sparking questions over their current whereabouts and pushback from the political opposition.

“On humanitarian grounds, pan-African solidarity, let us accept our fellow West Africans. And let’s make the point that Ghana is your home,” Ablakwa told Ghanaian broadcaster Channel1 TV late Wednesday.

He said the deportees, who are vetted before arrival, will be allowed to remain in Ghana temporarily, per regional visa-free travel rules, or return to their home countries.

The Ghanaian government previously said that many of the deported west Africans had already returned to their home countries — though lawyers in the United States say at least some of them are being held in military detention in Ghana in “cruel conditions”.

Five Nigerians and Gambians deported to Ghana were granted protection from deportation by immigration authorities in the United States, their lawyers said in a Tuesday statement.

If they continue on to their countries of origin, they risk “torture, persecution or death”, said Lee Gelernt, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In an unprecedented move, Trump has overseen the deportation of hundreds of people to Panama, including some who were sent away before they could have their asylum applications processed.

Hundreds have also been sent to El Salvador, with the US administration invoking an 18th-century law to remove people it has accused of being Venezuelan gang members.

Some were sent despite US judges ordering the planes carrying them to turn around.

The deportation agreement with Ghana comes as Washington has hiked tariffs on Ghanaian goods and restricted visas issued to its nationals.

Headline

Putin Has ‘Let Me Down’, Trump Laments As UK State Visit Ends

Published

38 minutes ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Donald Trump warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “really let me down” as he met Prime Minister Keir Starmer for wide-ranging talks on Thursday, the final day of the US president’s historic UK state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, the Republican flew to Starmer’s Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Starmer has positioned himself as a bridge between Trump and European allies, particularly on the war in Ukraine, in a bid to secure more commitments for Kyiv from the US leader.

And his calls, repeated again on Thursday, for more international pressure on Putin appear to be gaining more traction with Trump, who slammed the Russian leader for continuing the war despite his efforts to stop the fighting.

Trump told a post-talks press conference that he had thought the Ukraine conflict would be the “easiest” to end “because of my relationship with President Putin, but he’s let me down. He’s really let me down.”

He urged European nations to stop buying Russian oil, saying that “if the price of oil comes down, Putin’s going to drop out of that war.”

– ‘Unbreakable bond’ –

Starmer’s warm tone with the 79-year-old Trump has won some leniency in the president’s tariff war, with the British leader saying Thursday the trade deal the two countries signed in May was the first by the US and also “the best”.

But Trump said that the pair had “one of our few disagreements” about the UK’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

The US leader also offered strong thoughts on illegal migration in the UK, revealing that “I told the Prime Minister I would stop it”, even if it meant calling in the military.

Earlier in the day, Trump hailed America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain as he and Starmer signed a huge tech deal, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were “leaders who genuinely like each other.”

The deal comes on the back of pledges of £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google and Blackstone.

Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a “great gentleman and a great king” as he left the castle heading to Chequers.

Appealing to Trump’s admiration for British wartime leader Winston Churchill, Starmer led the US president on a tour of Churchill artifacts at Chequers.

Starmer is facing political troubles at home after sacking his ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his connections to disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Sex offender Epstein has also haunted Trump over recent weeks, with further revelations about the pair’s relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

– ‘Highest honours’ –

Having negotiated the potentially perilous press conference relatively unscathed, Starmer can claim some justification for granting Trump an unprecedented second state visit, with investment deals and deepening alignment on Ukraine to show for the diplomatic effort.

Trump was Wednesday lavished with the full pomp and circumstance of the British state — the second time it has done so, after his first visit in 2019.

“This is truly one of the highest honours of my life,” Trump said at the state banquet.

The king meanwhile hailed Trump’s peace efforts and support of Ukraine, after a day featuring gun salutes, soldiers on horseback, and bagpipes, all designed to appeal to the US president’s fascination with royalty.

But he also stressed to Trump the need to protect the environment for “our children, grandchildren, and those who come after them”.

Melania Trump remained in Windsor on Thursday morning, where she met scouts with Princess Catherine, and viewed Queen Mary’s Doll’s House with Queen Camilla.

The US first lady’s husband was kept far from the British public, with an estimated 5,000 people marching through central London Wednesday to protest against his visit.

Trump was due to return to Washington later Thursday.