Brexit: UK ‘concedes on Ireland border’
BRUSSELS: The British government appears to have bowed to the Republic of Ireland’s demand that Northern Ireland will stay aligned with key EU laws and regulations after Brexit so as to ensure that a hard border does not return to the island.
MEPS were told by the chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, that Prime Minister Theresa May had conceded after days of intense talks that the province would be treated as a special case.
A draft of the text of a 15-page joint statement between the European commission and the British government is said to include a commitment in paragraph 48 that “in the absence of agreed solutions the UK will ensure that there continues to be continued regulatory alignment” with the internal market and customs union. Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, told RTE News that Ireland had been reassured that there would be no re-emergence of a hard border. WASHINGTON: Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has come under racist attacks for his plan to rollback Obama-era regulation of Internet called “net neutrality”, and a lot of it from fellow Indianamericans who have unleashed a string of barbs tied to his Indian origins.
“Ajit Pai is the type of Indian guy who eats dosa with a fork,” wrote Hari Kondabolu, an Indian-american comedian, on Twitter just days after Pai announced his plan.
Similar tweets by others called Pai the type of Indian who calls “chai … chai tea”, who “thinks Lassi is a dog (from Lassie the female star dog of a novel and a TV series)”, who says “Naan bread”, and whose favorite Amitabh Bachchan movie is the Great Gatsby (in which the Bollywood superstar had a short role)”.
On Sunday, after Indiaspora, an organisation of Indian Americans condemned the slight campaign “led by an Indian American comedian”, Kondabolu retaliated with another tweet. “Dear @Ajaypaifcc , I apologize for my tweets questioning your ‘Brown-ness’. You are not a disappointment to Indian Americans...but to all Americans. You can eat a pakora while destroying #Netneutrality. You can wear a kurta while catering to corporate interests, #Ajitpaisucks”
Net neutrality, as enforced by the FCC under the Obama administration in 2015, prevents internet service providers from slowing down, blocking or speeding up net connection; every website enjoys equal access and speed. Undoing it, critics argue, will allow ISPS to regulate net access.