Tory leadership contest: Michael Gove pledge on EU citizenship applications - BBC News

Michael Gove will allow EU nationals living in the UK at the time of the referendum to apply free of charge for citizenship if he becomes PM.

The Brexit-supporting environment secretary, who is running to replace Theresa May, will make an "open and generous" offer, sources said.

A Tory rival, International Development Secretary Rory Stewart, promised a "listening exercise" on Brexit.

So far, 10 Conservative MPs have said they will contest the party leadership.

The official race gets under way in early June, after Theresa May stands down - but jostling between candidates has begun. The winner, expected to be named by late July, will also become prime minister.

• Sajid Javid to run for leadership
• Who's standing?

Sources close to Mr Gove, one of the leaders of the Leave campaign during the 2016 Brexit referendum, have told the BBC he is ready to accept proposals put forward by the Conservative MP Alberto Costa, who quit his government post over ministers' attitude to EU nationals living in the UK.

If chosen as the next Tory leader, it is said he would remove the requirement of EU citizens to provide proof of their right to be in the UK, getting rid of the "settled status" scheme.

Those living in the country would require documentation only for specific purposes, rather than being required to register.

Mr Costa welcomed Mr Gove's proposal, calling it "the morally right thing to do"

A source close to the environment secretary said: "This is simply the right thing to do - honouring the promise of Vote Leave that EU nationals studying, working and living in the UK were welcome to stay."

The leadership contest comes after Mrs May tried and failed three times to get her Brexit withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons.

She announced her resignation last week following an outcry within her party when she proposed a fourth vote by MPs.

The Conservatives suffered heavy losses in Thursday's European elections.

'Getting deal done'

Mr Stewart said: "I would like thousands of conversations up and down the country, co-ordinated on social media with all the results being brought together digitally.

"And then we come back into Parliament and we move very quickly to ban conversation about no deal, ban conversation about second referendum and focus on getting a deal done."

Meanwhile, housing minister Kit Malthouse has become the latest Conservative MP to join the race to become party leader.

Writing in the Sun newspaper on Tuesday, Mr Malthouse said the campaign "cannot be about the same old faces" and described himself as "the new face, with fresh new ideas".

The other declared candidates to replace Mrs May are:

• Home Secretary Sajid Javid
• Health Secretary Matt Hancock
• Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt
• Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson
• Former Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom
• Former Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey
• Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab

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2019-05-28 11:24:40Z
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Trump undercuts his own pomp and circumstance - CNN

He could have stepped away from the perpetually raging Washington storm, especially since Congress is on a recess that could offer a timeout from his separation-of-powers showdown with Democrats.

But asking Trump to avoid controversy is like expecting a moth to avoid a light bulb. So the President made a conscious choice to use his brief trip to Asia to whip up new outrage back home over the 2020 election and his handling of North Korea.

He sided with the official media of vicious dictator Kim Jong Un in an attack on his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden and by extension on the US democratic process. He could easily have sidestepped the issue -- but consistent with his norm-shattering political method, he chose to escalate it.

Then, desperate to preserve the credibility of his failing diplomatic opening with Kim, Trump shrugged off short-range ballistic missile tests by Pyongyang that threaten the Japanese hosts who gave him a staggeringly warm welcome.

Approval rating obsession

The President last week had lashed out at the media, complaining that without its "fake news" and the Mueller investigation, his approval rating would be at 75%.

Yet he spent the weekend piling up unflattering headlines that help to explain why his rating is closer to 40% than the majority of public opinion that ought to ensure a first-term president presiding over a good economy four more years in the Oval Office.

And it's a good bet that the President won't be able to resist injecting himself into Britain's political torment over Europe when he's in London next week as a guest of the Queen.

He's got a history of injecting himself into the Brexit debate, and will arrive in London with Prime Minister Theresa May heading for the exit of 10 Downing Street and the governing Conservative Party searching for a new leader.

It's as if the publicity-hound President can't bear the thought that he might be out of sight, out of mind, for Americans when he is thousands of miles away. In a Sunday tweet, he pointed out that he was still plugged in even though it was "very early in the morning in Japan," as he watched the Indy 500 auto race. CNN reported last week that the President gets angry if his favorite Fox News is not available in foreign hotels.

One of the unique characteristics of the Trump administration is the President's almost limitless energy to wage concurrent political fights at any hour of day or night.

While in Japan, the indefatigable Trump weighed in, mostly on Twitter, on post-election Israeli politics, slammed Democrats for getting "NOTHING" done, demanded a change in libel laws and called for a prolongation of the annual Rolling Thunder Vietnam veterans event in Washington, which is expected to wrap up this year.

He demanded an apology from the press for the "Russian collusion delusion," gave shout-outs to his favorite conservative pundits and promoted Fox News shows.

Trump might have been 13 time zones to the east, but he was burning up everyone's social media timelines and cable television, and demanding as much attention as ever. It was as if he were holed up in the White House or at one of his golf resorts like he is every other weekend.

Such ubiquity is vital for a President who has bet his second term squarely on an impassioned turnout from his political base, which he seeks to keep in a constant state of anger.

Yet another norm shattered

Even for Trump, who took Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials of election interference at face value at a notorious Helsinki news conference, his willingness to embrace Pyongyang's assessment of the Democratic front-runner was daring.

"Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record," Trump said alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The comment did not just infringe conventions that once precluded American presidents from waging domestic politics overseas -- which Trump has long since dumped after they were eroded by his recent predecessors.

But by aligning himself with a murderous tyrant who leads a hostile power against a political rival, the President also seemed to be inviting other foreign leaders to do what they can to help his re-election, whatever the consequences for American democracy.

The President also refused to accept the assessment of his own national security adviser, John Bolton, that North Korea's recent ballistic missile launches infringed UN Security Council resolutions.

"My people think it could have been a violation, as you know. I view it differently," Trump said, referring to the tests, which even his own top aides believed infringed UN resolutions.

The most charitable interpretation of the President's comment is that he was trying to keep open his dialogue channel with Kim and to avoid reacting to provocations that could put the US and North Korea back on a dangerous path to confrontation -- an outcome no sane person wants.

But Trump's critics suggested his motives were more personal.

"President Trump regards North Korea, of course, as his signature issue He's not going to admit that the fundamental cause of this problem with North Korea is their nuclear weapons," said Joseph Yun, who served as US special representative on policy toward the isolated state in the Barack Obama and Trump administrations.

"He's not going to admit that there has been no progress towards getting rid of North Korean weapons. We must remember the electoral cycle is now with us in the United States," Yun told CNN's Brooke Baldwin.

And the President's construction of a more convenient personal reality on North Korea begs another question.

"At this point, what else is President Trump going to let Kim Jong Un get away with?" Samantha Vinograd, who was a senior national security aide in the Obama administration, said on CNN.

It was an odd way to pay back Japan for its lavish hospitality, which saw Trump become the first foreign leader to meet the new Emperor, Naruhito, and attend a sumo wrestling tournament with Abe.

The President's comments also opened new divisions between Bolton and him, which raised fresh questions about the national security adviser's position and the true nature of US foreign policy with several crises, including with Iran, escalating.

North Korea was quick to try to widen the rift with a vitriolic dispatch from its official news agency, KCNA, branding Bolton a "war maniac" with a "different mental structure from ordinary people."

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2019-05-28 11:08:00Z
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Japan bus stop stabbing wounds 17, kills at least 2 - The Boston Globe

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Witnesses described a hellish scene: children and adults falling to the ground, some with their shirts soaked with blood, dozens of children running and screaming for help, and school bags and books scattered on the ground.

‘‘I heard a scream so I stopped and turned around to see what happened. It was not a normal tone of voice,’’ said Yasuko Atsukata. She said she saw one person collapse, and then another. ‘‘The color of their white shirts turned red after they collapsed, then I understood they got stabbed.’’

In a nearby parking lot, a frightened-looking boy was in shock with scratches on his face, hands and legs, apparently from falling to the ground as he ran for his life.

Police wouldn’t confirm specifics about the attacker except that he died. His identity and motive weren’t immediately known.

Kawasaki city official Masami Arai said most of the injured were students at Caritas Gakuen, a local Catholic school founded by Soeurs de la Charite de Quebec, an organization of Catholic nuns in Quebec City in Canada. Arai said three of the injuries were serious.

‘‘We have sad news that one of our students was killed in the attack,’’ school director Hiroaki Takamatsu said at a news conference, choked with emotion. ‘‘I don’t know what to say to our students and their parents.’’

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Kanagawa prefectural police confirmed 17 people were injured and three others had died, including a man ‘‘who is not a victim but linked to the case.’’ Police identified two of the dead as 11-year-old Hanako Kuribayashi and Satoshi Oyama, a 39-year-old government employee who was taking his child to the bus stop.

Hospital officials said both had been slashed in the head, chest and face.

Witnesses said that as the attack unfolded, the bus driver shouted at the attacker, and as he was running away he cut his own neck, collapsing in a pool of blood as police seized him.

Japanese media including public broadcaster NHK said he was a 51-year-old resident of the city and that police found two more knives in his knapsack in addition to the two he was holding.

Television footage showed emergency workers giving first aid to people inside an orange tent set up on the street, and police and other officials carrying the injured to ambulances.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he was outraged by the attack.

‘‘Many small children were victimized, and I feel strong resentment,’’ Abe said as he was hosting President Donald Trump on a four-day state visit, which ended Tuesday. ‘‘I will take all possible measures to protect the safety of children.’’

Although Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, it has had a series of high-profile killings, including in 2016 when a former employee at a home for the disabled allegedly killed 19 people and injured more than 20 others.

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Also in 2016, a man stabbed four people at a library in northeastern Japan, allegedly for mishandling his questions. No one was killed. In 2008, seven people were killed by a man who slammed a truck into a crowd of people in central Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and then stabbed passers-by.

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2019-05-28 10:52:30Z
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China rages against Bolton meeting with Taiwan as anti-invasion drills begin on the island - CNN

In May, US national security adviser John Bolton met with one of Taiwan's top defense officials, National Security Council Secretary-General David Lee, who was visiting the US. Taiwan's official news agency CNA said it was the first meeting between the top security advisers of both governments since 1979, when Washington severed formal ties with Taipei.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Monday that Beijing "deplored and strongly objected" to the meeting and urged the US to stop "having official exchanges or upgrading substantive relations with Taiwan."

Taiwan and China were separated at the end of a bloody civil war in 1949 and officially the US only has official diplomatic relations with Beijing.

"The one-China principle is the political basis for China-US relations," Lu said. "We are firmly against the US engaging in any official contact with Taiwan in whatever form and under whatever pretext.

"We also stand resolutely against any attempt to create 'two Chinas' or 'one China, one Taiwan.' This is our clear and consistent position."

As the China and US engage in a tense trade war, however, Washington has been building closer ties with Taiwan, the island that China views as a renegade province.

On Saturday, Taiwan announced it had renamed its unofficial embassy in Washington from the Coordination Council for North American Affairs to the Taiwan Council for US Affairs, after discussions with Washington. That marked the first time a Taiwan government organization had been renamed to include the words "Taiwan" and "US."

"Really got to love the new name," Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said on the ministry's official Twitter.

And in March, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen announced she wanted to purchase advanced new weapons from US President Donald Trump's administration.

Beijing's comments came as Taiwan began its annual Han Kuang Exercise on Tuesday. The military drills are aimed at ensuring the island's readiness for an invasion by communist China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

President Tsai watched as the air force landed F-16V aircraft on a highway in eastern Changhua county, an exercise designed to test the military's refueling and rearming capacity if major airfields on the island were occupied or destroyed by the PLA.

Hundreds of Taiwanese flocked to the roadside to watch the drill, waving flags and displaying banners showing their support for the island's airforce.

When asked about the future of US-Taiwan defense relations -- and whether the Bolton meeting was the new normal -- Taiwan military spokesman Maj. Gen. Chen Chung-Chi said the two governments would continue to work together.

"In the Asia Pacific region, we are just like the US, who share common core values including freedom of democracy and human rights (with)," he said.

"We also hope that we can play the role of defender of peace in the region. This is to serve the common interests of Taiwan and the US."

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2019-05-28 08:54:00Z
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Japan stabbings: Children among DEAD after knifeman kills three in park RAMPAGE - Express.co.uk

According to reports, the attacker stabbed at least 15 children at a bus station near a park in Kawasaki. A suspect has been arrested following the attack local media have reported. The attack took place at 07.44am local time (10.44pm BST).

As of yet, it is unclear as to the motive of the attacker on Tuesday morning.

A witness told Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK): "I heard screaming, then I saw a man standing with a knife in each hand

"Then he crumbled to the ground."

According to local news outlet NHK, the attacker stabbed himself in the shoulder before being detained and subsequently died at the scene. 

READ MORE: Japan earthquake: Scientists warn of an IMMINENT megaquake to strike

Officials have confirmed that at least 15 people have been injured with some of victims being children aged around six or seven. 

Police also confirmed that they discovered two knives and that one of the fatalities was a child. 

Moreover, roads around the area have been closed as emergency services have rushed to the scene.

Images from local broadcasters have shown emergency services setting up a crime scene and blocking off all surrounding roads.

READ MORE: Japan emperor abdication: Why has Emperor Akihito abdicated?

US President Donald Trump offered "prayers and sympathy" to the victims of the horrific attack. 

Trump also added: "All Americans stand with the people of Japan and grieve for the victims and for their families.”

In 2010 there was another attack in a Tokyo suburb.

The attack injured more than a dozen spree following a rampage on a school and commuter bus.

Two days before the attack, a 28-year-old man drove a truck in a pedestrian crossing.

As a result, three people died before another four were fatally stabbed.

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2019-05-28 08:05:35Z
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European Parliament Election Results: 4 Key Takeaways - NPR

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A woman exits a voting booth with curtains depicting the European Union flag in Baleni, Romania, on Sunday. Andreea Alexandru/AP hide caption

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Europe's traditional centrist coalition lost its majority in the European Union's parliamentary elections Sunday, with far-right populist parties and liberal, pro-European Union parties both gaining ground. The results suggest a complicated future for the EU, as voters look for new ways forward.

More than 50 percent of European voters turned out last week to vote in the parliamentary elections, the highest turnout in two decades and a sharp increase from the last election in 2014.

Here's what you need to know from the results.

The center-left, center-right coalition lost its majority

The center-right group known as the European People's Party (EPP) and the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) held 54 percent of the seats before the vote. Now they're down to 43 percent, according to Sunday's results. The two blocs together lost more than 70 seats, along with the majority they held for decades, according to NPR's Sylvia Poggioli.

The results suggest that European centrists will have to reach out to and unite more broadly with liberal coalitions in order to affect change — and maintain authority — in the EU.

The far-right gained ground — but not as much as expected

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Populist, euroskeptic parties across Europe saw gains, but less than what some pre-election polls had predicted — and what pro-EU forces had feared. And the various nationalist parties' differences over issues like migration and attitudes toward Russia could cloud prospects for a united right.

"What happened was not really what a lot of people were fearing, that there would be a surge of the far-right populists," former Swedish Prime Minister and now co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations Carl Bildt told NPR on Monday. "There was an increase by the far-right, but fairly marginal and far less than what people had predicted."

Because the gains were smaller than expected, the far-right likely won't be able to reshape the future of Europe by itself, says NPR's Poggioli, but it may be able to obstruct the legislative process. Many attribute the victories on the far-right to high unemployment rates, security concerns after several terrorist attacks and tensions over migration.

In France, the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen narrowly beat French President Emmanuel Macron's party coalition. Though Le Pen's party won by less than 1 percent, with 23 percent of the vote, she dubbed it a "victory for the people" on Twitter.

The League, Italy's far-right populist party led by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, saw a sweeping victory, garnering more than 34 percent of the country's vote.

"Not only is the League the top party in Italy, Marine Le Pen is the top party in France, Nigel Farage is the top party in the U.K. So Italy, France, the U.K., it's a sign of a Europe that's changing," Salvini said at a press conference after the victory.

In Hungary, the nationalist Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took more than 52 percent of the vote.

In Austria, conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's Austrian People's Party won the election Sunday, but Kurz was ousted Monday when he lost a no-confidence vote stemming from a scandal that erupted last week over its coalition partner, the far-right Freedom Party. That party fared worse than it had in the previous European election.

Though many of the far-right parties of Europe share the goal of weakening the European Union, they clash on other pressing issues. In Italy, for instance, Salvini, though anti-immigration, has advocated for the relocation of asylum seekers across the EU. Hungary's Orbán has pushed to close borders.

"We reject migration; and we would like to see leaders in position in the European Union who reject migration, who would like to stop it and not manage it," Orbán wrote in a statement after casting his vote Sunday.

Europeans are concerned about the environment

The Greens, a party coalition focusing on environmental issues, went from 52 seats in the European Parliament in 2014 to 69 in 2019, making them the fourth largest voting bloc in the EU.

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Members and supporters of the Greens coalition celebrate in Berlin after the announcement of the first forecast for the European elections. Kay Nietfeld/Picture Alliance Via Getty Images hide caption

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The results, the strongest ever for the Greens, indicate that many Europeans are growing increasingly concerned about climate change and the environment. Recently, across northern Europe, young people have been protesting what they see as governmental inaction on combating climate change.

In Germany, the Greens took 21 percent of the vote, second only to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, part of the center-right EPP European parliamentary bloc. Since the last election in 2014, Merkel's party lost 6 percentage points, while the Greens gained nearly 10 points.

The Greens also saw gains in France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Denmark and Belgium, among others.

"The Greens and the Liberals were the winners of the day," Sweden's Carl Bildt told NPR.

The U.K. doubles down on Brexit

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Voters in the United Kingdom weren't initially even supposed to participate in this election; they were supposed to have left the EU by the end of March. But with several delays — and plans for leaving now set for October — U.K. voters had to take part, and gave the new Brexit Party, led by populist Nigel Farage, more than 30 percent of the vote.

In contrast, Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party ended up in fifth place, with 8.7 percent of the vote. "This is the worst showing by the Conservative Party since the 1830s," says NPR's Frank Langfitt.

The Labour Party also fared poorly, down 10 percentage points since 2014. Both the Labour and Conservative parties wavered on finding a clear position on Brexit, and the vote seems to indicate, Langfitt says, that voters rewarded clarity on the issue of leaving the EU. Liberal Democrats and other pro-EU parties did well.

"Never before in British politics has a new party, launched just six weeks ago, topped the polls in a national election," Farage said after his election as a member of the European Parliament. "There's a huge message here, a massive message here."

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2019-05-27 18:42:00Z
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The mystique of Mount Everest is fueled by a lot of myths - CNN

It seems like a record number of climbers are attempting to do so this year. That's led to traffic jams at the summit, with hundreds of people waiting in line to reach Everest's top.

So far, at least 11 people have died during this spring's climbing season. Last year, five climbers died, while six died in both 2017 and 2016.

People are still drawn to try to climb the mountain. However, Everest's mystique, while a huge lure for climbers, is based on a number of myths.

MYTH: It's the tallest mountain in the world

Yes, we've all been taught that Mount Everest, standing at an elevation of 29,035 feet, is the highest above sea level. But actually the world's tallest mountain is half a world away, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That's where you'll find Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii. Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano, rises 13,796 feet above sea level, but if you measure it from ocean floor to its summit, its total height is nearly 33,500 feet.

And Everest isn't even the highest point above Earth's center. That honor belongs to Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. Chimborazo's summit is 20,564 feet above sea level, but because the planet is a little thicker at the equator (thanks to centrifugal force caused by Earth's constant rotation) Chimborazo's peak is more than 6,800 feet farther from the center of the Earth than Everest's summit.

MYTH: Only a select few get to climb

Climbing Everest is no walk in the park. Icy temperatures, fierce winds and limited oxygen make it a dangerous climb. More than 200 people have died on the mountain since 1922, when the first climbers' deaths on Everest were recorded. The success rate of Mount Everest climbers is only 29%.

Despite all that, hundreds of people get permission to climb Everest every year. Would-be climbers must obtain a permit, which cost about $11,000. For this year's spring climbing season, Nepal's tourism board has issued 381 permits so far.

There were about 11,000 attempts to reach the summit between 1922 and 2006, the website Adventurestats.com reports. And the age range of climbers is wider that you'd expect. The oldest person to successfully reach Everest's peak was 80-year-old Yuichiro Miura of Japan in 2013. The youngest? A 13-year-old American teen named Jordan Romero. He conquered Everest, accompanied by his father and stepmother, in 2010.

MYTH: You're required to endure years of preparation

Not true. The Nepalese government doesn't require a certain number of training hours that climbers must complete before attempting to summit Everest.

Several of the trekking agencies in Nepal that help facilitate adventurers' climb to the top will charge thousands of dollars for training to prepare climbers. The kinds of training offered by the different trekking agencies varies.

And even before going to Nepal, people who want to climb Everest are encouraged to commit to a heightened exercise schedule several months before their climb to try to achieve optimum fitness.

One of the first steps for anyone considering an Everest trek should be consulting with a physician to evaluate physical health. It's also a way to discover any pre-existing conditions that might be amplified by high altitude, Jon Kedrowski, a geographer and climber who summited Mount Everest in 2012, told CNN in 2016.

If Kedrowski is leading a peak expedition, he screens his clients and designs training programs to help them prepare for the journey. When altitude is a consideration, cardio is the emphasis, rather than strength, he said.

MYTH: It's a way to be one with nature

That may have been the case once. But the enormous increase in visitors in recent decades has had a severe impact on the mountain's sensitive environment, the Everest Summiteers Association says. A clean-up effort last month collected more than 6,613 pounds garbage in just the first two weeks: empty cans, bottles, plastic and discarded climbing gear.

CNN's Ashley Strickland and Rob Picheta contributed to this report.

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2019-05-27 18:15:09Z
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