UK top lawyers and business leaders ask PM May for another vote on Brexit, and Sri Lanka’s President reconvenes Parliament for trust vote.
Trump, Obama lock horns in the last leg of campaigning
The last leg of the campaigning for the US midterm elections became more intense with President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama locking horns on the issue of migrants Sunday, reports The Guardian. Trump, who visited Georgia and Tennessee, used his strategy of instilling fear among the voters about what would happen if the Democrats took over Congress.
He claimed that immigration from the US-Mexico border was one of the potential threats. “You saw that barbed wire going up. That barbed wire — yes sir, we have barbed wire going up. Because you know what? We’re not letting these people invade our country,” he said in Georgia.
Meanwhile, Obama responded to Trump’s rhetoric in Gary, Indiana saying that the voters shouldn’t be bamboozled — “because while they are trying to distract you with all this stuff, they are robbing you blind.”
“They’ll be like: ‘Look, look, look! Caravan, caravan!’ Then they’re giving tax cuts to their billionaire friends. ‘Look, look, look! Whatever is the thing scary.’ And then they’re sabotaging your health care. You can’t fall for it,” the former President said.
Anxious UK lawyers, businessmen demand second Brexit vote
Amid the growing anxiety and concerns about United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, heavyweight lawyers and businessmen from the country are reaching out to Prime Minister Theresa May, asking for another “people’s vote”.
Around 60 British business leaders, including James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones book store and Wahaca restaurant co-founder Mark Selby signed a letter calling for a re-vote on Brexit, reports CNN. The letter said, “The uncertainty over the past two years has already led to a slump in investment, which will make our country poorer.”
Meanwhile, 1,500 top notch lawyers from the UK have urged the prime minister and other MPs to go for a second Brexit referendum, saying that “democratic government is not frozen in time”, reports The Guardian.
Their letter to May suggested that the Parliament shouldn’t go by the 2016 referendum, rather the 1975 one, which took Britain into the EU. In the letter they wrote, “voters are entitled to know what they are voting for”. They further added, “there was a key difference between 1975 and 2016. The earlier referendum was held after negotiations were complete, so voters knew what they were voting for.
Both Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, had earlier said that the original result should be respected, as the people of the UK have already voted.
Sri Lankan President reconvenes Parliament
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena ordered to reconvene Parliament on 14 November, to hold a confidence vote on his decision to sack Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last month and replace him with wartime nationalist, Mahinda Rajapaksa, reports The Washington Post.
Parliament was suspended earlier because Sirisena wanted to give Rajapaksa time to gather support in his favour for the no-confidence vote.
The move is seen as a constitutional crisis in the country, and has instilled fear that this could hinder the national reconciliation process. Wickremesinghe told Reuters Sunday that the sudden dismissal raised doubts about the stability of the democracy in the country, which also made United States and Japan freeze more than a billion dollars of development aid, after the move.
Egyptian security forces kill 19 militants involved in attack on Christians
The Egyptian interior ministry announced Sunday that 19 militants, who were involved in the attack on Coptic Christian worshippers, were killed by security forces, reports CNN.
The militants had opened fire on a bus with Coptic Christians who were on their way to a monastery Friday, and killed seven of them. The ministry said that its forces tracked these men to a mountainous area where they were killed in a shootout.
ISIS had claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement issued, the terror group said “the ambush that targeted a bus carrying Coptic Christians, on the road to the Monastery of Saint Samuel in Minya, was carried out by Islamic state fighters”.