Not just a plan, but a 12-point plan for Brexit - soon to be delivered by the Prime Minister at Lancaster House, the seat of historic British diplomacy over Europe and the Commonwealth.
The rough outlines have been signalled - out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, out of the single market, and control of borders.
It will be termed a "clean break" by Brexiteers, and a "hard Brexit" by others - including the markets.
She will say: "We seek a new and equal partnership - not partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out."
Downing Street circulated the four principles driving the 12 points: certainty and clarity; a stronger Britain; a fairer Britain, and a truly global Britain.
But no details were given about these 12 points, and the devil will be in the detail.
:: Brexit terms explained - What you need to know
For starters, an exit from the EU customs union will be implied rather than explicitly stated. Why the need for constructive ambiguity here?
The Irish government is concerned about the impact on the border, and "rules of origin" arrangements are vital to multinational modern manufacturing supply chains for cars and planes.
Then, if the UK and the EU are about to forge a new "partnership", what will be the trade dispute mechanism?
No European Court of Justice is the claim, but what of the EFTA Court around the corner in Luxembourg? Or perhaps a separate EU-UK trade dispute court? Can that be negotiated in less than two years?
:: Ian King: Increasingly clear a 'hard Brexit' is on the cards
A transition deal of some sort will be mentioned to avoid a cliff edge in certain industries. The key is this: how long will this be in force for, and will this transition last into the next Parliament?
The risk is that financial services firms will now conclude that the Government does not want to keep the "passports" that enable trade across the EU, and they will activate their contingency plans immediately.
What is certain is that Mrs May will set out a strategy of reclaiming border control, and subject to that, maximum trade access.
It is also a strategy for a negotiation. Where it all ends up is not just down to the PM.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is called off
The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been called off, nearly three years after the plane disappeared with more than 200 people on board.
Crews have finished their deep-sea search of a stretch of the Indian Ocean without finding a single trace of the Boeing 777, which was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 when it disappeared.
There were 239 people on board, including 12 members of crew. Most of the passengers were from China.
The Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said the £133m search had been officially suspended after crews finished their fruitless search of the 46,000-square mile search zone west of Australia.
The end of the hunt raises the prospect that the world's greatest aviation mystery may never be solved.
In July 2015 part of the aeroplane's wing was found on Reunion Island.
Debris believed to be from the aircraft has also washed ashore in Mauritius, Mozambique, Madagascar and Tanzania.
However, very little of the plane has been found and investigators are still no closer to understanding what happened to it.
Crews have finished their deep-sea search of a stretch of the Indian Ocean without finding a single trace of the Boeing 777, which was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 when it disappeared.
There were 239 people on board, including 12 members of crew. Most of the passengers were from China.
The Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said the £133m search had been officially suspended after crews finished their fruitless search of the 46,000-square mile search zone west of Australia.
The end of the hunt raises the prospect that the world's greatest aviation mystery may never be solved.
In July 2015 part of the aeroplane's wing was found on Reunion Island.
Debris believed to be from the aircraft has also washed ashore in Mauritius, Mozambique, Madagascar and Tanzania.
However, very little of the plane has been found and investigators are still no closer to understanding what happened to it.
How Donald Trump has ripped up the foreign policy playbook
A grim realisation is dawning in the chancelleries of Europe.
Giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt in the run up to his inauguration may have been rather naïve.
Some had assumed that Trump the candidate was taking more extreme positions to win votes.
Sure, he undermined Nato, saying America may not automatically come to the aid of the little countries if they don’t pay their dues.
Sure, he cheered on the chances of Europe breaking up in the wake of Brexit.
And he did not seem to buy into the Pax Americana, the idea that America underpinned a world order that had kept us peaceful secure and prosperous since World War II.
But people say stuff to get elected don’t they? Just wait and see what the prospect of actually being in power would do to him.
Well, as it turns out Trump the President may well be the same if not even more extreme than Trump the campaigner.
:: Donald Trump causing NATO 'anxiety' after saying alliance is 'obsolete'
In just two interviews he took a swipe at the following:
Nato (obsolete), EU (doomed to break up), the Iran deal (the dumbest ever), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, (responsible for a catastrophic policy mistake).
The new leader of the free world has a startling disregard for the foundations of that free world, and for the relationships and institutions that underpin it.
German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier tweeted that Trump’s comments had caused astonishment among foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, "and certainly not only here".
Berlin is making it clear, Donald Trump’s condemnation of Merkel, Nato and the EU, is a threat to western unity.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel tersely responded: "We Europeans have our fate in our own hands. He has presented his positions once more.
"They have been known for a while. My positions are also known."
French President Francois Hollande was indignant.
"Europe will be ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will be based on its interests and values. It does not need outside advice to tell it what to do."
As one American political scientist tweeted:
"The traditional foreign policy playbook is support your friends and throw your adversaries off balance. Not the other way around."
But this incoming president ripped up the playbook a long time ago and America's allies need to get used to it sooner than later.
Giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt in the run up to his inauguration may have been rather naïve.
Some had assumed that Trump the candidate was taking more extreme positions to win votes.
Sure, he undermined Nato, saying America may not automatically come to the aid of the little countries if they don’t pay their dues.
Sure, he cheered on the chances of Europe breaking up in the wake of Brexit.
And he did not seem to buy into the Pax Americana, the idea that America underpinned a world order that had kept us peaceful secure and prosperous since World War II.
But people say stuff to get elected don’t they? Just wait and see what the prospect of actually being in power would do to him.
Well, as it turns out Trump the President may well be the same if not even more extreme than Trump the campaigner.
:: Donald Trump causing NATO 'anxiety' after saying alliance is 'obsolete'
In just two interviews he took a swipe at the following:
Nato (obsolete), EU (doomed to break up), the Iran deal (the dumbest ever), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, (responsible for a catastrophic policy mistake).
The new leader of the free world has a startling disregard for the foundations of that free world, and for the relationships and institutions that underpin it.
German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier tweeted that Trump’s comments had caused astonishment among foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, "and certainly not only here".
Berlin is making it clear, Donald Trump’s condemnation of Merkel, Nato and the EU, is a threat to western unity.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel tersely responded: "We Europeans have our fate in our own hands. He has presented his positions once more.
"They have been known for a while. My positions are also known."
French President Francois Hollande was indignant.
"Europe will be ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will be based on its interests and values. It does not need outside advice to tell it what to do."
As one American political scientist tweeted:
"The traditional foreign policy playbook is support your friends and throw your adversaries off balance. Not the other way around."
But this incoming president ripped up the playbook a long time ago and America's allies need to get used to it sooner than later.
Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, dies aged 82
Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, has died aged 82 in Texas, NASA has announced.
He was the commander of Apollo 17 which went to the Moon in December 1972, joining a select band of American astronauts.
Mr Cernan was the 11th person to walk on the surface of the Moon when he stepped from the lunar module Challenger.
His lunar module pilot, Jack Schmitt, became the 12th, but as commander, Mr Cernan was the last to re-enter the Challenger, so becoming the last man to set foot on the lunar surface.
He wrote the initials of his only child in the dust before climbing back into the module.
"I knew that I had changed in the past three days and that I no longer belonged solely to the Earth," Mr Cernan wrote in a memoir titled The Last Man on the Moon.
"Forever more, I would belong to the universe."
He was the commander of Apollo 17 which went to the Moon in December 1972, joining a select band of American astronauts.
Mr Cernan was the 11th person to walk on the surface of the Moon when he stepped from the lunar module Challenger.
His lunar module pilot, Jack Schmitt, became the 12th, but as commander, Mr Cernan was the last to re-enter the Challenger, so becoming the last man to set foot on the lunar surface.
He wrote the initials of his only child in the dust before climbing back into the module.
"I knew that I had changed in the past three days and that I no longer belonged solely to the Earth," Mr Cernan wrote in a memoir titled The Last Man on the Moon.
"Forever more, I would belong to the universe."
Britain's Antarctic base Halley VI to shut over ice crack concerns
A British research base in Antarctica is being shut down for eight months because it is perched on an ice shelf which is cracking.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is withdrawing all staff from its space-age Halley VI base from March to November.
BAS says a new crack in the floating Brunt ice shelf presents "a complex glaciological picture" and scientists are unable to predict what will happen during the Antarctic winter.
"As a precautionary measure BAS will remove its people before the Antarctic winter begins," the organisation said.
Halley VI is in the final stages of being moved 14 miles (23km) to a new location upstream of a previously dormant ice chasm.
In October 2016 a second crack appeared around 10 miles (17km) to the north of the research station.
Glaciologists have been monitoring the growth of the crack using a network of GPS instruments that measure the change in the ice, together with European Space Agency satellite imagery, ground penetrating radar and drone footage.
"There is no immediate risk to the people currently at the station, or to the station itself," said BAS.
"However, there is sufficient uncertainty about what could happen to the ice during the coming Antarctic winter for BAS to change its operational plans."
There are currently 88 people on Halley VI, including summer-only staff working on the relocation project and 16 who were scheduled to stay during the winter.
BAS says the base is an "internationally important platform for global earth, atmospheric and space weather observation in a climate-sensitive zone".
Director of Operations Captain Tim Stockings said: "We want to do the right thing for our people.
"Bringing them home for winter is a prudent precaution given the changes that our glaciologists have seen in the ice shelf in recent months."
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is withdrawing all staff from its space-age Halley VI base from March to November.
BAS says a new crack in the floating Brunt ice shelf presents "a complex glaciological picture" and scientists are unable to predict what will happen during the Antarctic winter.
"As a precautionary measure BAS will remove its people before the Antarctic winter begins," the organisation said.
Halley VI is in the final stages of being moved 14 miles (23km) to a new location upstream of a previously dormant ice chasm.
In October 2016 a second crack appeared around 10 miles (17km) to the north of the research station.
Glaciologists have been monitoring the growth of the crack using a network of GPS instruments that measure the change in the ice, together with European Space Agency satellite imagery, ground penetrating radar and drone footage.
"There is no immediate risk to the people currently at the station, or to the station itself," said BAS.
"However, there is sufficient uncertainty about what could happen to the ice during the coming Antarctic winter for BAS to change its operational plans."
There are currently 88 people on Halley VI, including summer-only staff working on the relocation project and 16 who were scheduled to stay during the winter.
BAS says the base is an "internationally important platform for global earth, atmospheric and space weather observation in a climate-sensitive zone".
Director of Operations Captain Tim Stockings said: "We want to do the right thing for our people.
"Bringing them home for winter is a prudent precaution given the changes that our glaciologists have seen in the ice shelf in recent months."
Jeremy Hunt to get £15m payout from Hotcourses sale amid NHS crisis
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, is to land more than £15m from an education business he helped set up, as he fights an increasingly intense political battle over the NHS’s latest winter crisis.
Sky News has learnt that Hotcourses, a listings service set up by Mr Hunt and his business partner Mike Elms in 1996, is expected to announce this week that it has been sold for between £30m and £35m.
A deal was said by a legal source to be close to being signed on Sunday evening.
Filings at Companies House suggest that Mr Hunt owns approximately 48% of the shares in Hotcourses, meaning a takeover worth £35m would yield a payday for the cabinet minister worth £16.8m.
The latest register of MPs' interests says only that he holds more than 15% of the business.
The prospective buyer of Hotcourses, which recently set up an international advisory group to accelerate its overseas expansion, is understood to be an Australasian company with operations in the education sector.
It is not the first time that Mr Hunt has closed in on a big windfall from Hotcourses' sale.
In 2013, the company's shareholders – excluding Mr Hunt – held detailed talks with Inflexion Private Equity about a takeover, but abandoned the discussions after failing to agree terms.
The Health Secretary, who was expected to lose his job in Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle last summer but was instead retained in the post, has had no active role in the running of Hotcourses since becoming the MP for South West Surrey in 2005.
His shares are held at arm's length, according to previous reports.
Nevertheless, the intense political debate about the NHS will make the timing of the sale awkward for Mr Hunt.
He is far from the only Cabinet minister facing questions about their private wealth, even after a purge of ministers with close ties to Mrs May's predecessor, David Cameron.
Mrs May herself has been urged to disclose the contents of a blind trust held in her name, which was created when she became PM last summer.
In recent days, the Prime Minister has denied suggestions by the British Red Cross that the NHS's problems amount to "a humanitarian crisis".
This weekend, Mr Hunt was plunged into a deepening row over the alleged "scapegoating" of GPs after Mrs May signalled that doctors' surgeries should extend their opening hours.
Hotcourses was set up to provide listings information about evening, training, university and other courses.
Now employing more than 200 people, Mr Hunt established the business when he returned to the UK after two years in Japan teaching English and learning Japanese.
It now claims to be the world's largest course database, and last year's accounts filed at Companies House show that it acquired the UK's leading university ranking website, The Complete University Guide, and made more than £2m in profit in the year to July 2015.
The Health Secretary has received several million pounds in dividends since Hotcourses was founded, including almost £1m last year.
An adviser to Mr Hunt refused to comment on the deal on Sunday evening.
Sky News has learnt that Hotcourses, a listings service set up by Mr Hunt and his business partner Mike Elms in 1996, is expected to announce this week that it has been sold for between £30m and £35m.
A deal was said by a legal source to be close to being signed on Sunday evening.
Filings at Companies House suggest that Mr Hunt owns approximately 48% of the shares in Hotcourses, meaning a takeover worth £35m would yield a payday for the cabinet minister worth £16.8m.
The latest register of MPs' interests says only that he holds more than 15% of the business.
The prospective buyer of Hotcourses, which recently set up an international advisory group to accelerate its overseas expansion, is understood to be an Australasian company with operations in the education sector.
It is not the first time that Mr Hunt has closed in on a big windfall from Hotcourses' sale.
In 2013, the company's shareholders – excluding Mr Hunt – held detailed talks with Inflexion Private Equity about a takeover, but abandoned the discussions after failing to agree terms.
The Health Secretary, who was expected to lose his job in Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle last summer but was instead retained in the post, has had no active role in the running of Hotcourses since becoming the MP for South West Surrey in 2005.
His shares are held at arm's length, according to previous reports.
Nevertheless, the intense political debate about the NHS will make the timing of the sale awkward for Mr Hunt.
He is far from the only Cabinet minister facing questions about their private wealth, even after a purge of ministers with close ties to Mrs May's predecessor, David Cameron.
Mrs May herself has been urged to disclose the contents of a blind trust held in her name, which was created when she became PM last summer.
In recent days, the Prime Minister has denied suggestions by the British Red Cross that the NHS's problems amount to "a humanitarian crisis".
This weekend, Mr Hunt was plunged into a deepening row over the alleged "scapegoating" of GPs after Mrs May signalled that doctors' surgeries should extend their opening hours.
Hotcourses was set up to provide listings information about evening, training, university and other courses.
Now employing more than 200 people, Mr Hunt established the business when he returned to the UK after two years in Japan teaching English and learning Japanese.
It now claims to be the world's largest course database, and last year's accounts filed at Companies House show that it acquired the UK's leading university ranking website, The Complete University Guide, and made more than £2m in profit in the year to July 2015.
The Health Secretary has received several million pounds in dividends since Hotcourses was founded, including almost £1m last year.
An adviser to Mr Hunt refused to comment on the deal on Sunday evening.
Istanbul New Year nightclub attacker 'caught'
A man suspected of killing 39 people in a New Year's Day attack on a popular Istanbul nightclub has been caught by police, according to Turkish news media.
The alleged shooter, identified as Abdulgadir Masharipov, was captured in an apartment in Istanbul's Esenyurt district during a massive police operation late on Monday, security sources told state-run Anadolu Agency.
Four other people, including a man of Kyrgyz origin and three women, were reportedly detained along with Masharipov.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Reina nightclub, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.
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