Journalist and Duterte Critic Arrested for Second Time in Philippines - The Daily Beast

The head of a Philippine online news site that is among the few media agencies critical of President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Friday in a second legal complaint about her journalism in two months. Police served an arrest warrant to Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa after she arrived at Manila’s international airport. Ressa was returning from a trip to the U.S. after securing a travel bond allowing her to leave the country while other criminal cases against her are pending. “Every action takes us farther into a descent into tyranny,” Ressa told reporters. “This is the weaponization of the law.” She later posted bail at a regional trial court. The Philippine journalist was honored as one of Time’s 2018 Person of the Year winners and her reporting on Duterte has been praised by human-rights advocates. She was arrested last month and freed on bail in a libel complaint filed by a businessman, who accused Rappler of linking him to illegal drugs, human trafficking, and murder in a news report without getting his side or any evidence.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/maria-ressa-journalist-and-duterte-critic-arrested-for-second-time-in-philippines

2019-03-29 09:43:00Z
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Britain's Brexit was meant to happen today. Instead everyone's confused. - NBC News

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March 29, 2019, 10:50 AM GMT

By Alexander Smith

LONDON — Friday was meant to be the day when Britain's Brexit mayhem finally reached a moment of certainty.

For exactly two years, March 29, 2019, has been seared into British minds as the date their country would finally leave the European Union.

Instead, that milestone has been postponed. British lawmakers continue to disagree and dither, failing time and again to reach an agreement on how exactly this divorce should work. And in Europe — the other side of this dysfunctional relationship — the mood among many is bleak.

On Friday, having suffered two crushing defeats already, Prime Minister Theresa May is set to ask Parliament for a third time to support at least part of the plan she has negotiated with the E.U.

She will ask them to support just the withdrawal agreement element of her plan, which sets out the terms of divorce. If it passes, the new Brexit deadline will be May 22. If not, there will be an extension until April 12 that could morph into a lengthy delay, raising the possibility of a general election, a second referendum or even no Brexit at all.

Unless there is some sort of intervention, Britain will crash out of Europe without a deal — something many consider a nightmare scenario.

Feb. 7, 201909:58

Each day in London seems to bring a new vote or an increasingly complex proposal, championed by its backers as a possible key to the deadlock. So far none have succeeded.

Larissa Brunner, a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, said many in the E.U.'s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, were "completely dismayed at the political process in the U.K."

"They have no idea how this is going to end. Many have given up making predictions," she said.

The E.U. announced this week that it believes it is "increasingly likely" the U.K. will fail to reach any deal at all.

"They don't trust the U.K. political class not to screw up," Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank, tweeted Thursday.

'A lose-lose situation'

A "no-deal Brexit" — as this outcome is known — does have its supporters. However most experts predict it would be a hammer blow for the British economy, and even threaten to destabilize some of the basic aspects of day-to-day life.

Before the U.K. voted to leave in June 2016, it was bound to the E.U. by more than four decades of shared laws and regulations. The relationship has become so close that Britain and the other 27 member states operate almost like a single country in many respects.

Crashing out without a deal would see these myriad agreements torn up overnight.

Some of the predictions are terrifying: shortages of food, medicine, and basic supplies such as toilet paper; suggestions farmers might be forced to slaughter and burn 10 million lambs because they can no longer sell them to Europe; and miles of tailbacks as haulage trucks encounter their first port checks for years.

The military has put 3,500 troops on standby and it already has a crisis team operating out of a subterranean nuclear bunker below the Ministry of Defense.

Perhaps more alarmingly, a no-deal Brexit could mean some form what is known as a "hard border" between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Irish Republic, which is a separate country and will remain in the E.U. after Brexit.

At the moment the border is all but invisible. Many fear a physical boundary would become a target for sectarian agitators, risking a return to violence rarely seen since The Troubles, a 30-year conflict that plagued the U.K. until 1998.

Protesters on either side have been camped outside Parliament for weeks.Peter Nicholls / Reuters

Hard-line Brexit supporters have argued that under this scenario the U.K. would be within its rights not to pay its divorce bill of around 39 billion pounds (around $51 billion). Legal experts say the E.U. could respond by simply suing the U.K. in an international court.

In all, the British economy could be 9 percent weaker over 15 years under no-deal than if it had stayed in the U.K., according to the government's own estimates.

The damaging ripples would likely not stop there.

No-deal could have dire implications for the economy of the Irish Republic, whose second largest export market is the U.K. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, it would mean devoting large amounts of money, resources and personnel to check all goods coming from Britain.

"A no-deal Brexit would be a lose-lose situation for everybody," said Brunner at the European Policy Centre.

'Now we need a yes'

So much damage, psychologically at least, has already been done. Brexit has paralyzed large aspects of public and private life, carving unprecedented rifts within the major political parties, saturating news media, and sparking bitter arguments between family and friends the country over.

Many analysts feel that a general election — reshuffling the U.K.'s knife-edge parliamentary arithmetic — is now a real possibility in the coming months.

Accompanying the dismay emanating from Europe, there has also been a deep sense of frustration at what they see as Britain's chronic indecision.

E.U. negotiators spent years thrashing out a deal with May and her team, forging a hard-fought compromise that both parties found acceptable.

Aedis publishing house in Lempdes, France, has already begun printing maps showing Britain outside the E.U.Thierry Zoccolan / AFP - Getty Images

As well as the withdrawal agreement being voted on Friday, it also contains a short, non-binding document known as the political declaration, which sets out an outline of the future relationship.

As far as Europe is concerned, it has done its part. But British lawmakers have rejected May's deal twice — crushing it in the heaviest and fourth heaviest defeats in parliamentary history. On Wednesday they also rejected eight other alternatives ranging from an extreme no-deal Brexit to canceling Brexit altogether.

"We counted eight 'nos' last night," an exasperated European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters they next day. "Now we need a yes on the way forward."

Alexander Smith

Alexander Smith is a London-based senior reporter for NBC News Digital.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/brexit-referendum/britain-s-brexit-was-meant-happen-today-instead-everyone-s-n988731

2019-03-29 10:50:00Z
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Theresa May in last-gasp Brexit push as lawmakers vote on diluted deal - CNBC

British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold an all-important vote on a watered-down version of her Brexit deal on Friday, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a major delay to the country's departure from the European Union.

May's template to leave the bloc has already been comprehensively rejected twice, but this time it is set to be slightly different.

That's because U.K. lawmakers will only be asked to vote on the withdrawal agreement — rather than the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration, which sets out the future relationship between the U.K. and the EU.

The split means Parliament will not be able to ratify the entire withdrawal package, as the law requires the passage of a so-called "meaningful vote" on both parts of the deal.

The vote, which comes on the day the country had long been expected to leave the bloc, is expected to take place at around 2:30 p.m. London time.

Sterling was trading up 0.6 percent at $1.3120 at around 11:10 a.m.

The government has said a successful vote on the withdrawal agreement alone would be enough to satisfy EU leaders and secure a postponement of Brexit to May 22.

Earlier this week, May told Conservative MPs (Members of Parliament) that she would resign as party leader after May 22 if her deal was passed. The move was designed to encourage some rebel party lawmakers to get behind her Brexit deal.

May needs to win over 75 rebels to overturn the 149-vote rejection of her EU divorce deal when it was last voted on earlier this month.

However, it is widely thought that May has not been able to secure enough support for her deal.

Some Conservative MPs are expected to rebel against the embattled prime minister once again, Labour and other opposition parties are also set to vote against the agreement and, crucially, the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — which props up May's government — has said it cannot get behind the deal.

"The result of a failed vote is likely to be a general election," Peter Chatwell, a rates strategist at Mizuho, said in a research note published on Friday.

A general election "would pose long-term upside risks to gilt yields, as fiscal easing is likely to be a large component of any future government," Chatwell said. Britain has until May 22 to leave the bloc if politicians agree to May's deal, or April 12 if they do not.

If Britain wants to stay longer, it will have to participate in European Parliamentary elections that start on May 23.

A longer delay to Brexit and a leadership battle means more uncertainty for British businesses that have repeatedly criticized the government for having no clear strategy when it comes to Brexit.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/brexit-vote-theresa-may-in-focus-as-lawmakers-vote-on-diluted-deal.html

2019-03-29 09:28:04Z
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Struggling May puts stripped-down Brexit deal to a vote in parliament - Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May puts a stripped-down version of her Brexit divorce deal to a vote in parliament on Friday in an attempt to break the impasse over the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

Anti-Brexit protesters stand outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

The vote, on the day the country was originally due to exit the European Union, illustrates the depth of the three-year Brexit crisis that has left it uncertain how, when or even if it will ever leave.

Lawmakers will vote on May’s 585-page EU Withdrawal Agreement at a special sitting but not on the 26-page Political Declaration for future relations she negotiated at the same time, a maneuver which led to confusion among lawmakers.

As May tries to salvage its twice-defeated exit deal, thousands of people opposed to delaying Brexit are expected to protest in central London with a “Brexit Betrayal” march led by prominent Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage ending outside parliament.

Amid the chaos, May agreed with the EU to delay Brexit from the originally planned March 29 until April 12, with a further delay until May 22 on offer if May could get her divorce package ratified by lawmakers this week.

“It is in fact really the last chance we have to vote for Brexit as we understood it,” said Liam Fox, May’s Brexit-supporting trade minister.

May on Wednesday pledged to quit if her deal was passed but even that failed to immediately win over many Brexit supporters in her party. They say her deal leaves the United Kingdom tied far too close to the EU.

The uncertainty around Brexit, the United Kingdom’s most significant political and economic move since World War Two, has left allies and investors aghast.

Opponents fear Brexit will make Britain poorer and divide the West as it grapples with both the unconventional U.S. presidency of Donald Trump and growing assertiveness from Russia and China.

Supporters of Brexit say while the divorce might bring some short-term instability, in the longer term it will allow the United Kingdom to thrive if cut free from what they cast as a doomed attempt in European unity.

If the government wins the vote, it believes it will have satisfied the conditions set by the EU in order to delay Britain’s exit from the bloc until May 22. These conditions were set out at a European Council summit on March 21.

However, the result will not meet the criteria in British law for the exit package to be formally ratified. The government acknowledges this in its motion.

So to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement, the government is required to have parliamentary approval for both the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration on future relations. This would therefore require another vote.

Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Editing by Angus MacSwan

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu/struggling-may-puts-stripped-down-brexit-deal-to-a-vote-in-parliament-idUSKCN1RA0T9

2019-03-29 08:56:00Z
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Brexit day is here but Britain isn't leaving the EU, at least not yet - CNN

March 29, 2019 had been slated as a landmark moment in the country's history, to be at the same time both celebrated by pro-Brexit politicians and voters and mourned by those who wanted to remain in the EU.

Lavish parties had been organized to mark what some had called the UK's own "independence day."

Now, thanks to a failure of Theresa May to get Parliament to back her Brexit deal, today has turned out to be slightly more chaotic than planned.

The only thing clear is that Brexit is not happening Friday -- and it may not even come next month or in May, but in a year's time.

Deadlock and delay

On Friday, supporters of Brexit are planning to mark this one-time landmark day with demonstrations outside Parliament in protest that their prize has, for now, eluded them.

Under the terms of an extension agreed by Brussels last week and approved by parliament on Wednesday, Britain's departure will not now happen until April 12, if there is no deal, and May 22 if there is.

Yet, depending on what happens in the House of Commons today, there is a possibility that the delay could stretch to a year if there is no break to the deadlock.

If this threat was supposed to focus minds and persuade more lawmakers to back the Prime Minister's Brexit deal, it has, so far, not worked.

Without the backing of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), or the opposition Labour Party, May simply cannot get her deal over the line. Instead, the government has broken down the deal into two parts in the hope of picking up more support.

Lawmakers will vote on the withdrawal agreement -- which will enable the technical process of leaving the bloc -- while the second half, the political declaration setting a framework for the next steps, will be presented to parliament at a later date.

This maneuver, announced by ministers yesterday, serves two purposes: Firstly, to get around a block imposed by the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, on trying to get MPs (members of Parliament) to vote on the deal for a third time -- after two previous parliamentary defeats; and secondly, to make supporting the deal more palatable for its critics.

If the withdrawal agreement vote passes Friday, Brexit is extended to May 22, when the UK leaves the EU with a deal. If it fails, the April 12 deadline is looming -- and a no deal on that day is still on the table.

Yet as of late last night, both the DUP and Labour remained strongly opposed to voting for the withdrawal agreement in its current form.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said offering his party's support would be akin to backing a "blindfold Brexit" because there would be no opportunity to influence the nature of the UK's future relationship with the EU.

Why go ahead with the vote?

It seems like a last-ditch attempt by the Prime Minister to finally deliver Brexit could backfire.

Which begs the question, why is May going ahead with the vote at all? Well, without a vote today the April 12 timetable would kick in anyway -- and Britain would be preparing to leave the EU without a deal in two weeks' time, unless an alternative option miraculously emerged.

This alternative option could still materialize -- regardless of the outcome of today's vote -- if and when lawmakers have a second round of indicative votes on Monday, which could signal support, potentially, for a softer Brexit plan.

This would still need to be accepted by the government, as well as approved by Brussels -- two very high bars.

Above all, by having a vote on the withdrawal agreement today, the Prime Minister is showing EU leaders that she is trying all means necessary to make Brexit happen with a deal.

If, as expected, today's vote fails, then the UK is on course to leave the EU on April 12.

Except there is growing speculation that the EU could offer May's government a take-it-or-leave-it option of either crashing out with no deal on April 12 or accepting a longer delay of up to a year.

A year's delay would mean the UK taking part in European elections on May 23, as well as triggering anger among Brexiteers.

Will this threat be enough to concentrate the minds of pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers and the DUP who are together still holding out on supporting the government in today's vote?

Given nothing has worked previously to break Britain's parliamentary deadlock, don't count on it.

Yesterday, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier reportedly told diplomats that a no deal Brexit is now "the most plausible outcome" -- and it is easy to see why.

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https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/29/uk/brexit-day-arrives-intl-gbr/index.html

2019-03-29 06:18:46Z
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Brexit: MPs asked to vote on withdrawal agreement only - BBC News

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MPs will be asked to vote again on Brexit on Friday but only on part of the deal negotiated with the EU.

They will vote on the withdrawal agreement - covering the "divorce bill", citizens' rights and the controversial Irish "backstop".

But the political declaration covering the UK's future relationship with the EU will not be put to the vote.

Amid anger from MPs, Andrea Leadsom said it was "crucial" if the UK wanted to secure a Brexit delay until 22 May.

"If we don't agree the Withdrawal Agreement tomorrow then we will not, so that leaves in doubt the future for the arrangements with the European Council," she said.

The PM's deal includes a withdrawal agreement - setting out how much money the UK must pay to the EU as a settlement, details of the transition period, and the backstop arrangements - and a political declaration on the way the future EU-UK relationship will work.

The vote would not allow Parliament to ratify the withdrawal package, because Brexit legislation allows this only after the passage of a "meaningful vote" on both the Withdrawal Agreement and a Political Declaration on the future relationship.

And some MPs questioned its legality, with Labour's Valerie Vaz saying "on the face of it breaks the law".

"This is no way to run a government," she told MPs.

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Commons Speaker John Bercow said it was a "new" motion and complied with his ruling that he would not allow a third "meaningful vote" on "substantially the same" motion as MPs had already rejected by historic margins twice.

Commons Leader Mrs Leadsom told MPs that the European Council would only agree to extend Article 50 - delaying Brexit - until 22 May if MPs approved the withdrawal agreement by 2300 GMT on Friday.

"It's crucial therefore that we make every effort to give effect to the Council's decision and tomorrow's motion gives Parliament the opportunity to secure that extension," she said.

"I think we can all agree that we don't want to be in the situation of asking for another extension and facing the potential requirement of participating in European Parliament elections."

But she faced anger from MPs. Labour's Mary Creagh described it as an "extraordinary and unprecedented reverse ferret of the commitments that have been made..that we should have our say on both items together".

Her fellow Labour MP Stephen Doughty described it as "trickery of the highest order".

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47740158

2019-03-28 17:29:42Z
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Brexit news: the last 24 hours of Brexit, explained - Vox.com

The British Parliament still can’t agree on what kind of Brexit it wants.

Members of Parliament (MPs) held “indicative votes” on Wednesday, casting ballots for eight different options on how the United Kingdom should break up with the European Union. The goal of the process was to reveal what kind of Brexit plan might win a majority in the House of Commons, after MPs twice rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

There’s just one problem — no option won a clear majority.

A plan for a second referendum, in which any Brexit deal approved by Parliament would go back to the public for a vote, received the most “aye” votes. A customs union arrangement, where the UK would follow the same customs rules as the EU, came in second.

Earlier that day, the prime minister had announced that she would resign if Parliament backed her Brexit plan, which has twice been defeated in Parliament by very large margins. May is still planning to bring her deal for a third vote, possibly Friday, though nothing is decided yet.

The failure of the indicative votes to break the logjam in Parliament could boost her deal somewhat, as May can make the case that Parliament tried and failed to come up with an alternative. But even with May’s promise to sacrifice her premiership, her deal still might not win enough support.

MPs are expected Monday to debate and vote on the options that got the most votes, to see if it’s possible to win a majority for something. There will probably be a few more twists along the way, but here’s a breakdown of the action on Wednesday and what might happen next.

MPs were given a ballot on Wednesday, which contained eight different Brexit options. They could mark “aye” or “no” next to each, and from there, the ballots were collected and tallied. They looked like this:

Here’s a summary of the eight options and the results.

• No-deal Brexit

This means crashing out of the EU without any agreement or transition period in place, and is the default option on April 12 if the UK can’t approve a deal. Parliament has already rejected leaving the EU without a deal, so, no surprise, this was defeated 160-400.

• Common Market 2.0

Also known as “Norway Plus.” Not to get super in the weeds, but this is a very soft Brexit proposal, meaning the UK and the EU would have very close economic ties. The model for this is Norway, which is not an EU member but has access to the EU single market, which broadly means free movement of goods, capital, services, and people. The “plus” here is because this would also mean joining a customs union. This went down, 188-283.

• Norway option

The same as the plan above — but without the plus, which means no customs arrangement. This lost 65-377.

• Customs union

This would allow for membership in the customs union post-Brexit, which means the UK would follow all the EU customs rules. This plan was actually the most popular — it got 264 yes votes, and only 272 no votes — so it only lost by eight votes.

• Labour plan

This is Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal, which focuses on a future relationship that would involve customs union membership, but with the ability for the UK to make its own trade deals. It would also allow for alignment with the single-market rules and close cooperation on issues like security and with certain EU institutions. It’s not clear the EU would go for this plan because it might involve the UK cherry-picking which EU rules it would follow, but it doesn’t matter, for now, because it lost 237 to 307.

• Revoke Article 50, sort of

This basically called for the prime minister to stop Brexit if the UK doesn’t have a deal two days before the deadline and if Parliament agrees it does not want to leave the EU without a deal. (Article 50 is the mechanism in the EU’s Lisbon Treaty that the UK is using to leave the bloc.) This one lost 184 to 293.

• Second referendum

This says that any Brexit deal approved by Parliament has to go back to the public for a vote. This got the most “aye” votes, with 268, but 295 people voted against it, so it was defeated by a greater margin than the customs union.

• A “managed no-deal”

This is similar to a plan that the EU has already rejected, which would basically involve the UK leaving the EU without a deal. There would still be a transition period whereby the two sides would negotiate some free trade agreements. It was defeated 139 to 422.

Not one Brexit plan has received support from a majority of MPs in tonight's #indicativevotes

The closest to get a majority were Clarke's Customs Union plan (49.2%) and Beckett's confirmatory public vote plan (47.6%) pic.twitter.com/afXqKYaETU

— Ashley Kirk (@Ashley_J_Kirk) March 27, 2019

Okay, so what does this all mean?

Oliver Letwin, the Conservative MP who put forward the indicative votes motion, insisted that lawmakers should debate again Monday, knocking out the biggest losers (no-deal, etc.) and debating and casting ballots again on Wednesday’s top vote-getters, likely the top four or so, but that’s still unclear. Those still might not secure a majority, but some of these plans such as the second referendum and customs union lost got more votes than May’s deal has — so it might be possible to convert a few MPs to support one of these alternative plans.

Oh, and there’s still May’s deal.

Her announcement that she would resign if Parliament backed her deal on a third vote has convinced a slew of hardliners to support her, but she still doesn’t have the votes to pass it yet. May’s key allies in Northern Island — the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — have said they will still vote against the deal, meaning it’s unlikely that it will pass on a third go-round.

Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow also repeated Wednesday he would not allow a third Brexit deal vote without a substantially changed deal. May’s government is reportedly trying to get around this by bringing forward one part of the Brexit deal — the 585-withdrawal agreement — for a vote on Friday, and leaving off the second part, which is the short political declaration that says the EU and UK will negotiate a future economic partnership. That political declaration would be voted on separately at another time.

The point of this is to lock in a Brexit deadline of May 22. The EU said it would grant the UK an extension until that date if Parliament passed a withdrawal agreement by this week. This would make it less likely that the UK would ask for a longer, indefinite Brexit delay, which would require it to participate in European parliamentary elections, on May 23.

This gambit by May’s government might also be doomed, as some MPs will not want to take a vote without that political declaration attached. Plus, the holdouts on her deal, specifically some Brexiteers and the DUP, still object to the withdrawal agreement.

So, after a day of high drama, the UK is still deadlocked over Brexit.

Parliament did, at least, officially change the Brexit date from March 29 to April 12 on Wednesday with overwhelming support. The UK has an two extra weeks to come up with a plan — though no one knows what the heck that might be.

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https://www.vox.com/2019/3/28/18284470/brexit-parliament-indicative-votes-theresa-may-deal

2019-03-28 16:10:00Z
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