Starmer to press Trump on Gaza ceasefire, trade at Scotland meeting
The talks will come a day after the US and the European Union reached a landmark deal to end a transatlantic standoff over tariffs and avert a full-blown trade war.
Starmer is expected to push Trump on urging a revival of stalled ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas as a hunger crisis deepens in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The meeting at Turnberry, south-western Scotland, comes as European countries express growing alarm at the situation in Gaza, and as Starmer faces domestic pressure to follow France's lead and recognise a Palestinian state.
The leaders will also discuss implementing a recent UK-US trade deal, as well as efforts to end Russia's war against Ukraine, according to a British government statement issued late Sunday.
But it is the growing threat of starvation faced by Palestinians in Gaza that is set to dominate the talks, on the third full day of Trump's trip to the land where his mother was born.
Starmer is expected to 'welcome the president's administration working with partners in Qatar and Egypt to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza,' a Downing Street spokesperson said.
'He will discuss further with him what more can be done to secure the ceasefire urgently, bring an end to the unspeakable suffering and starvation in Gaza and free the hostages who have been held so cruelly for so long.'
Trump told reporters Sunday that the US would give more aid to Gaza but he wanted other countries to step up as well.
'It's not a US problem. It's an international problem,' he said, before embarking on crunch trade talks with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen at the resort south of Glasgow.
Starmer and Trump's meeting comes after the UK PM backed efforts by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to air drop aid to Gaza. Humanitarian chiefs remain sceptical such deliveries can deliver enough food safely for the area's more than two million inhabitants.
On Sunday, Israel declared a 'tactical pause' in fighting in parts of Gaza and said it would allow the UN and aid agencies to open secure land routes to tackle the hunger crisis.
Tariffs
Last week, the United States and Israel withdrew from Gaza truce talks, with US envoy Steve Witkoff accusing Hamas of blocking a deal — a claim rejected by the Palestinian militant group.
Starmer held talks with French and German counterparts on Saturday, after which the UK government said they agreed 'it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently-needed ceasefire into lasting peace'.
But the Downing Street statement made no mention of Palestinian statehood, which French President Emmanuel Macron has announced his country will recognise in September.
More than 220 MPs in Britain's 650-seat parliament, including dozens from Starmer's own ruling Labour party, have demanded that he too recognise Palestinian statehood.
Number 10 said Starmer and Trump would also discuss 'progress on implementing the UK-US trade deal', which was signed on May 8 and lowered tariffs for certain UK exports but has yet to come into force.
Trump said Sunday the agreement was 'great' for both sides and that Starmer was doing 'a very good job'.
After their meeting they will travel together to Aberdeen in Scotland's northeast, where the US president is expected to formally open a new golf course at his resort on Tuesday.
Trump played golf at Turnberry on Saturday and Sunday on his five-day visit that has mixed leisure with diplomacy, and also further blurred the lines between the presidency and his business interests. — AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
3 hours ago
- New Straits Times
NST Leader: 'AI is too important not to regulate'
TECH titans have finally got what they were clambering for: a free pass to artificial intelligence (AI) development, thanks to United States President Donald Trump's AI Action Plan unveiled on Wednesday in Washington, at a tech summit attended by the elites of the industry. Calling it "Winning the AI Race", he said his action plan is designed to put the US ahead of other nations. "America must once again be a country where innovators are rewarded with green light, not strangled with red tape", the media quoted him as saying. There is only one way to read Trump's "green light" message: whatever regulations that stand in the way of AI "innovation" will be removed. First to go will be whatever that remains of the former administration's regulations. Is this the right path to take on AI? While tech titans will say yes, there are others who say no because AI comes with so many unknowns. Not even the AI entrepreneurs know where the technology is taking us. Certainly, AI has promises of benefits, but they come clothed with known and unknown risks. Alphabet and Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai writing an opinion piece in the Financial Times on May 23, 2023 said that "AI is too important not to regulate and too important to regulate well", meaning regulating in a way that balances innovation and potential harms. But a race to be first will certainly not strike the right balance. Google's promise is to develop AI responsibly, but when the profit chase becomes hot would the pledge still hold? Pichai must know AI is fast becoming a crowded space, with every company racing to shape the technology according to its business needs. In other words, profit before people and planet. Our bad old free market economic model — the myth that markets perform best when they are free of regulations — has followed us into the digital world. Myth-busting economist Ha-Joon Chang has made it crystal clear that the free market doesn't exist anywhere in the world. With this "free-to-choose" mindset, nothing can be developed responsibly, let alone AI. We have long been witnesses of irresponsible capitalism, at times victims even. Hence the call for "compassionate capitalism", a sign that the free-to-choose market model has hit the lowest of low. Innovative AI development is only possible in a regulation-free space is a similar myth by another name. This is why the European Union has opted for the AI Act, one of whose aims is to make the technology "work for people and is a force for good in society". It came into effect on Aug 1 last year, claiming the honour of being the first-ever legislation to address the risks of AI. Whether or not such a goal is enforced is a question of political will, not the fault of the law. The EU model isn't the only way to tame AI. A better approach is a global AI treaty. But this will only work in a rules-based world order. Ours isn't. The Paris Treaty on climate change is in a bit of a shambles. So are the Rome Statute and the Law of the Sea. Regional or national approach may be inevitable.
New Straits Times
4 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Netherlands bars two hardline Israeli ministers
AMSTERDAM: The Netherlands has declared Israel's finance and national security ministers persona non grata for inciting violence and urging ethnic cleansing in Gaza. In June, the Netherlands backed a failed Swedish proposal to impose EU sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. "They repeatedly incited settler violence against Palestinians, promoted illegal settlement expansion, and called for ethnic cleansing in Gaza," Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told parliament in a letter released late Monday. Smotrich responded on X, saying European leaders had succumbed to "the lies of radical Islam that is taking over" and "rising antisemitism." Ben-Gvir said he would continue to act for Israel, even if he was banned from entering "all of Europe." "In a place where terrorism is tolerated and terrorists are welcomed, a Jewish minister from Israel is unwanted, terrorists are free, and Jews are boycotted," he wrote on X. Veldkamp said the Netherlands wanted to "relieve the suffering of the population in Gaza" and was exploring further ways to contribute to humanitarian aid. "Airdrops of food are relatively expensive and risky," he said. "This is why the Netherlands is also taking steps to further support land-based aid delivery." Aid drops resumed in Gaza on Sunday as Israel announced temporary humanitarian pauses in parts of the besieged territory. Around 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza are facing what UN aid agencies have warned is a deadly wave of starvation and malnutrition. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said on Tuesday that famine is unfolding across much of Gaza, with thresholds breached and over 20,000 children treated for acute malnutrition since April. Veldkamp said the Netherlands would push to suspend the trade element of the EU-Israel Association Agreement if Israel fails to meet its humanitarian obligations. "The summons will also be used to remind Israel to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law," he said. After speaking by phone with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said the government's position was "crystal clear." "The people of Gaza must be given immediate, unfettered, safe access to humanitarian aid," he said. Israel's foreign ministry said Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa'ar had summoned the Dutch ambassador Marriët Schuurman to Jerusalem for a formal reprimand on Tuesday afternoon. "The conversation will take place in light of the Dutch government's decisions to take measures against Israel, including against its right to defend itself and against ministers in its government," the ministry said in a statement. The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 59,921 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The Star
5 hours ago
- The Star
Analysis-World Court climate opinion turns up the legal heat on governments
THE HAGUE (Reuters) -A landmark opinion delivered by the United Nations' highest court last week that governments must protect the climate is already being cited in courtrooms, as lawyers say it strengthens the legal arguments in suits against countries and companies. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, last Wednesday laid out the duty of states to limit harm from greenhouse gases and to regulate private industry. It said failure to reduce emissions could be an internationally wrongful act and, found that treaties such as the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change should be considered legally binding. While not specifically naming the United States, the court said countries that were not part of the United Nations climate treaty must still protect the climate as a matter of human rights law and customary international law. Only a day after the World Court opinion, lawyers for a windfarm distributed copies of it to the seven judges of the Irish Supreme Court on the final day of hearings ona case about whether planning permits for turbines should prioritise climate concerns over rural vistas. It is not clear when the Irish court will deliver its ruling. Lawyer Alan Roberts, for Coolglass Wind Farm, said the opinion would boost his client's argument that Ireland's climate obligations must be taken into account when considering domestic law. Although also not legally binding, the ICJ's opinion has legal weight, provided that national courts accept as a legal benchmark for their deliberations, which U.N. states typically do. The United States, where nearly two-thirds of all climate litigation cases are ongoing, is increasingly likely to be an exception as it has always been ambivalent about the significance of ICJ opinions for domestic courts. Compounding that, under U.S. President Donald Trump, the country has been tearing up all climate regulations. Not all U.S. states are sceptical about climate change, however, and lawyers said they still expected the opinion to be cited in U.S. cases. In Europe, where lawyers say the ICJ opinion is likely to have its greatest impact on upcoming climate cases, recent instances of governments respecting the court's rulings include Britain's decision late last year to reopen negotiations to return the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. That followed a 2019 ICJ opinion that London should cede control. BONAIRE VERSUS THE NETHERLANDS Turning to environmental cases, in a Dutch civil case due to be heard in October - Bonaire versus The Netherlands - Greenpeace Netherlands and eight people from the Dutch territory of Bonaire, a low-lying island in the Caribbean, will argue that the Netherlands' climate plan is insufficient to protect the island against rising sea levels. The World Court said countries' national climate plans must be "stringent" and aligned to the Paris Agreement aim to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average. The court also said countries must take responsibility for a country's fair share of historical emissions. In hearings last December at the ICJ that led to last week's opinion, many wealthy countries, including Norway, Saudi Arabia, and The United States argued national climate plans were non-binding. "The court has said (...) that's not correct," said Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network. In the Bonaire case, the Dutch government is arguing that having a climate plan is sufficient. The plaintiffs argue it would not meet the 1.5C threshold and the Netherlands must do its fair share to keep global warming below that, Louise Fournier, legal counsel for Greenpeace International, said. "This is definitely going to help there," Fourniersaid of the ICJ opinion in the Bonaire case. 'URGENT AND EXISTENTIAL THREAT' The ICJ opinion said climate change was an "urgent and existential threat," citing decades of peer-reviewed research, even as scepticism has mounted in some quarters, led by the United States. A document seen by Reuters shows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may question the research behind mainstream climate science and is poised to revoke its scientific determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. Jonathan Martel of the U.S. law firm Arnold and Porter represents industry clients on environmental issues. He raised the prospect of possible legal challenges to the EPA's regulatory changes given that an international court has treated the science of climate change as unequivocal and settled. "This might create a further obstacle for those who would advocate against regulatory action based on scientific uncertainty regarding the existence of climate change caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases," he said. The U.S. EPA changes would affect the agency's regulations on tailpipe emissions from vehicles that run on fossil fuel. Legal teams are reviewing the impact of the ruling on litigation against the companies that produce fossil fuel, as well as on the governments that regulate them. TheWorld Courtsaid that states could be held liable for the activities of private actors under their control, specifically mentioning the licensing and subsidising of fossil fuel production. Notre Affaire à Tous, a French NGO whose case against TotalEnergies is due to be heard in January 2026, expected the advisory opinion to strengthen its arguments. "This opinion will strongly reinforce our case because it mentions (...) that providing new licences to new oil and gas projects may be a constitutional and international wrongful act," said Paul Mougeolle, senior counsel for Notre Affaire à Tous. TotalEnergies did not respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Alison Withers, additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici from Washington; editing by Barbara Lewis)
