Lammy says UK will go further in measures against Israel if situation in Gaza continues
"We have to get the ceasefire," he told a parliamentary committee of MPs. Asked if he would take further measures against Israel if the situation in Gaza continued, he said: "Yes. Yes, we will."
Reporting by Reuters
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gulf Today
7 hours ago
- Gulf Today
More than two dozen critics of Pakistani government face YouTube ban
Alphabet-owned YouTube has told more than two dozen critics of the Pakistani government that it is considering blocking their channels after a local court sought to ban them for being "anti-state." The channels that could be blocked in Pakistan include that of the main opposition party and also its leader, jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, as well as journalists critical of the government, according to the June 24 court order seen by Reuters. The judicial magistrate court in Islamabad said it was seeking the ban after the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) criticised the channels in a June 2 report for "sharing highly intimidating, provocative and derogatory contents against state institutions and officials of the state of Pakistan." Digital rights campaigners say that any ban would further undermine free speech in Pakistan, where the authorities are accused of stifling newspapers and television and social media is seen as one of the few outlets for dissent. YouTube told the 27 content creators that their channels could be taken down if they did not comply with the court orders. "If you fail to do so, as per our local law obligations, we may comply with the request without further notice," the popular video sharing platform said in emails this week to the channel owners, according to a notice seen by Reuters. YouTube's regional communications manager did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a comment. Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. One of the content creators, Asad Toor, who has more than 333,000 YouTube subscribers, said the move was aimed at undermining fundamental and constitutional rights of the people, political parties and other dissident groups. "It is not about me. It is about these people who are on the left side of the state," he told Reuters. "I have dedicated my platform for these underdogs who have no place to go to and raise their voices against the state oppression." MIGRATION TO YOUTUBE After the government clamped down on traditional media, many independent-minded reporters migrated to YouTube, as did journalists and commentators sympathetic to Imran Khan, who was removed from office in 2022. "It's not only about anchors getting fired or YouTube channels getting banned. It's what they are not allowing to be told and the human rights abuse they are trying to hide from the world," said Zulfikar Bukhari, a spokesman for Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party. "In this day and age you can't suppress digital media," said Bukhari. The order is the latest in a series of laws and regulations from Islamabad that have enabled the authorities to crack down on critics and dissidents. It has blocked social media platforms like X, Facebook and TikTok on several occasions. In January, Pakistan's parliament introduced a new amendment in the Electronic Crimes Act to further regulate cyber content, which included a new social media regulatory authority with its own investigation agency and tribunals. Such tribunals will be able to try and punish alleged offenders with prison sentences of as long as three years and fines of two million rupees ($7,200) for dissemination of information deemed "false or fake". Similar laws to order the removal of disputed content have also been introduced in neighbouring India, which has had disagreements with X and Google over such directives. In recent years, India has banned dozens of YouTube channels citing national security. Digital rights activist Usama Khilji said the Pakistani court did not fulfil due process. "What is jarring is the complete lack of legal process," he said. Toor said neither the court nor the cyber crime agency gave him a chance to respond to the allegations, and that he would be taking legal action against the court order. "It is a dictatorial move. It can't silence me," he said. Reuters
Middle East Eye
8 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Hamas agrees to release 10 Israeli captives
Hamas announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to release 10 Israeli captives towards reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, even if the talks were "tough" due to Israel's "intransigence". The group added that there are multiple sticking points, including access to humanitarian aid, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and "genuine guarantees for a permanent ceasefire". - with reporting from Reuters
Gulf Today
10 hours ago
- Gulf Today
France has become less attractive to foreign investors
Yoruk Bahceli and Leigh Thomas, Reuters France is missing out on the investor optimism that has defined Europe's markets this year, hamstrung by its strained public finances and political volatility that threatens to paralyse policy until at least 2027. Global investors and French executives cite the risk that budget negotiations could trigger another government collapse in the autumn, while pessimism among French households is dragging on consumer spending and economic growth. Centrist Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has faced eight no-confidence motions in parliament since taking office in December and his minority government is now struggling to find 40 billion euros ($47 billion) in spending cuts for the 2026 budget. The contrast with neighbouring Germany, whose new government is preparing to loosen historically tight purse strings and pump billions into the economy through defence and infrastructure spending, could hardly be starker. "While all the other highly indebted European countries — Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy — have taken advantage of years of inflation to reduce their public debt ratio, France — whose deficit is now the highest in the euro zone — is increasingly diverging," said Pierre Moscovici, head of the Cour des Comptes public audit office and a former finance minister. To narrow the budget gap, Bayrou will have to convince opposition parties to stomach spending cuts only slightly smaller than those proposed in the 2025 budget that brought down his predecessor. Germany's historic embrace of looser fiscal policy and the impact of President Donald Trump's sometimes erratic policymaking on confidence in US assets have given a boost to European financial markets and other investments this year. A key beneficiary has been Italy, which has seen the risk premium paid on its 10-year debt compared to that of safe-haven Germany drop towards where it traded in 2010, before the euro zone debt crisis escalated. But the 10-year risk premium paid by French debt over German is still at 70 basis points, well above levels of around 50 bps seen before French President Emmanuel Macron called a shock snap election last summer. The French-Italian yield gap is meanwhile near all-time lows, even though Italy has a bigger debt pile. Candriam's chief investment officer Nicolas Forest said he favoured German, Italian and Spanish bonds and was underweight France, a situation he called "completely unusual". French stocks are missing out, too. The blue-chip CAC 40 index trades below where it was before the election was called and is lagging Europe's STOXX 600 aggregate. The Paris index has returned just 5% this year, four times less than Germany's DAX. Simon Blundell, co-head of fundamental European fixed income at BlackRock, the world's biggest investor, said he had no big positions in French debt and favoured Italian bonds, encouraged by political stability in Rome and declining volatility. Even if France's government survives the autumn, investors expect the budget squeeze to underwhelm as a fix for fiscal strains and so fail to increase the appeal of French assets. "Any compromise political parties find will be really temporary in terms of measures, and not great for debt reduction and deficit improvement," said Candriam's Forest. And even presidential and parliamentary elections in 2027 may not fully dispel the political uncertainty, if no party emerges dominant. To prod opposition parties to back Bayrou's budget, Public Finances Minister Amélie de Montchalin has suggested France could turn to an IMF bailout if it does not decisively grip its finances. Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard said such doomy talk only caused the French to save more, jeopardising a consumer spending recovery that he said was more fragile than in the supermarket giant's other European markets. "If we have 5 percentage points more savings than other European countries, it's because we have an extraordinarily high level of political and fiscal uncertainty," Bompard told an economics conference in Aix-en-Provence on Friday. With consumers hesitant to spend, French business activity has consistently lagged European peers this year, even though the private sector is less exposed to US trade tensions than Germany or Italy's more export-focused economies. Brushing aside any prospect of IMF intervention to prop up France's public finances, the Fund's French chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas insisted Paris could no longer put off getting its fiscal house in order. "France is not exempt from the laws of gravity, so we're going to have to adapt," Gourinchas said in Aix-en-Provence. "We can't fly, we're going to have to plan our landing and make spending cuts."
