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Author Archives: GovWorldMag

Allies, friends and trade partners

A country needs good allies, some friendly countries and many trade partners.

A country cannot run its allies or control their governments. It can try to influence them, and work to common standards. I think the USA is a strong enough democracy to sort out the concerns about the temporary travel ban. It has already been modified following court and political action. The Vice President himself called the original version unconstitutional.

It is   not feasible for a country to provide a permanent running commentary on all the decisions and views of all its allies and certainly not of all its trading partners. There are many features of undemocratic regimes we do not like, yet we carry on trading with them. Some of us  did not like the USA’s use of Guantanamo Bay for detention without charge or trial, but we kept our stance as an ally of Mr Obama’s USA. A UK company has recently signed a contract to supply arms to Turkey, a NATO ally. Are we happy with all Turkey’s policies?  The EU has been helping Turkey build frontier walls . Are we content with that? That after all is being done our money and in our name as an EU member.

Today many say we have to take a further view on Mr Trump’s policies. What do you think the UK should say and do?

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John Redwood MP • • •

Toddler rescued 15 hours after abduction prior to NYE

A boy is seen taken away by a woman in this surveillance video. [Photo/Weibo] 

A three-year-old boy was rescued by police just 15 hours after he was kidnapped by a woman on Thursday, two days before the Spring Festival.

A Shenzhen resident surnamed Zhao reported shortly after 17:00 on Thursday that his son had gone missing while playing near home. The family searched for him for over an hour but could not find him.

The local police found via surveillance video that shortly after 15:40 the boy was taken away in a taxi by a middle-aged woman, whom the family did not know.

The police identified the woman as 34-year-old migrant worker from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. She was unemployed and lived in a hotel in Shenzhen. When the police arrived at her hotel, they found that the woman surnamed Wei took the boy to the hotel but had checked out and left.

Police found that Wei appeared at the Luohu Railway Station in Shenzhen shortly after 17:00 and they concluded that she had left Shenzhen by train. With help from railway police, they found that Wei boarded a train with the boy to Wuchang, Huhan province, at 18:00.

Wei was spotted on the train. When the train arrived in Wuchang shortly after 6 am Friday, the police arrested the woman and rescued the boy.

Wei said she took the boy to fake as her own son to repair the relationship with her former boyfriend. Wei gave birth to a boy in 2015 in Shenzhen, who died shortly after. Wei broke up with her boyfriend soon after the birth however the boyfriend was unaware of the baby’s death. This year she wanted to meet her ex-boyfriend in Hubei for Spring Festival.

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East Asia • •

Press release: Presidential executive order on inbound migration to US

Foreign Office statement on what the Presidential executive order on inbound migration to US means to British nationals and dual nationals.

The Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has today held conversations with the US Government and as a result we can clarify that:

  • The Presidential executive order only applies to individuals travelling from one of the seven named countries.

  • If you are travelling to the US from anywhere other than one of those countries (for instance, the UK) the executive order does not apply to you and you will experience no extra checks regardless of your nationality or your place of birth.

  • If you are a UK national who happens to be travelling from one of those countries to the US, then the order does not apply to you – even if you were born in one of those countries.

  • If you are a dual citizen of one of those countries travelling to the US from OUTSIDE those countries then the order does not apply to you.

The only dual nationals who might have extra checks are those coming from one of the seven countries themselves – for example a UK-Libya dual national coming from Libya to the US.

The US has reaffirmed its strong commitment to the expeditious processing of all travellers from the United Kingdom.

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