Urged to seek wider consensus

UK PRIME Minister Theresa May sought to strike a deal with a Northern Irish Protestant party to save her premiership yesterday as she came under intense pressure to soften her approach to Brexit days before formal EU divorce talks.

May’s botched election gamble, which saw her lose her parliamentary majority, left her so weakened that supporters of closer ties with the EU publicly demanded she take a more consensual and business-friendly approach to Brexit.

In an attempt to avoid a second election that could deepen the worst political turmoil in Britain since last June’s shock vote to leave the EU, May apologised to her Conservative Party MPs, who said they would leave her in power – for now.

“She said: ‘I’m the person who got us into this mess and I’m the one who is going to get us out of it’,” said one Conservative MP who attended Monday’s meeting.

“She said she will serve us as long as we want her.”

To stay in government, May must strike a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a small eurosceptic Northern Irish party with 10 parliamentary seats.

DUP leader Arlene Foster arrived for talks with May. She waved but did not say anything as she went into Downing Street. She looked at her watch and ignored a question from a reporter who asked: “What is your price?”

“The deal will be done,” said Jon Tonge, professor of politics at Liverpool University. “Basically, it will be Theresa May signing cheques for the foreseeable future or a monthly direct debit, as it were, into Northern Ireland’s coffers.

“The DUP may never have the political arithmetic so favourable again so like the Conservatives, the DUP will want to avoid another election and will want to keep drinking in the political free bar that is available to it,” Tonge said.

But a deal with the DUP would risk destabilising the political balance HARARE: Nine adult elephants and a calf have been poisoned with cyanide around Zimbabwe’s largest wildlife area, the government’s Hwange National Park.

Four of the poisoned elephants died near the south of the park and their tusks were taken. The others, including a mother and her calf, were found further north. Poachers had not yet returned to hack out their tusks. in Northern Ireland by increasing the influence of pro-British unionists who have struggled for years with Irish Catholic nationalists who want Northern Ireland to join a united Ireland.

While the DUP are deeply eurosceptic, they have objected to some of the practical implications of a so-call hard Brexit – including a potential loss of a “frictionless border” with the Republic of Ireland – and talks will touch on efforts to minimise the potential damage to Northern Ireland.

With formal EU divorce talks due next week, May was to head to France to meet Emmanuel Macron, who last month swept to victory in the presidential election.

During the campaign, May cast herself as the only leader competent enough to navigate the tortuous Brexit negotiations that will shape the future of the UK and its $2.5 trillion (R32 trillion) economy.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, which saw its number of parliamentary seats and share of the vote increase, said there could be another election this year or early in 2018 after Thursday’s vote produced no clear winner.

May, who ahead of last June’s referendum supported remaining in the EU, has promised to start the formal Brexit talks next week.

But opponents of a sharp break with the EU took her woes as a chance to push back against her strategy.

Before the election, May proposed a clean break from the EU, involving withdrawal from Europe’s single market, limits on immigration and a bespoke customs deal with the EU.

Brexit Minister David Davis has insisted the approach to the EU divorce had not changed, but at the meeting with MPs on Monday, May recognised that a broader consensus needed to be built for Brexit and made clear she would listen to all wings of the party on the issue.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the government should put economic growth at the heart of its Brexit strategy, while some senior ministers have pushed for less focus on immigration and more on jobs.

Trevor Lane from the Bhejane Trust, which monitors wildlife activity, said yesterday that government rangers were following up.

“The poachers left buckets with cyanide mixed with salt which have been recovered,” he said.

“Some vultures will have been poisoned as well. We should expect more poaching this year because people are so poor in this bad economic situation.” – Peta Thornycroft NAIROBI: About 5 people were missing after a seven-storey building collapsed in a residential area of Nairobi, rescue services said yesterday,

The city’s governor appealed to its owner to come forward and provide architectural plans to help rescuers. Governor Evans Kidero, speaking at the scene, said at least 30 000 to 40 000 buildings constructed without approval in the Kenyan capital were at risk.

Officials said the tenants had been asked to leave on Monday after reporting cracks in the walls.

“People evacuated but some might have been left behind,” said Pius Masai, deputy director of the National Disaster Management Unit.

Kenya has seen similar tragedies in the past. A total of 49 people died in the middle of last year when another building collapsed during a heavy, night-time downpour in a poor neighbourhood after whichthe government ordered the demolition of many other buildings.

“We hadn’t got to a point where we were going to demolish it,” Kidero said of the collapsed building.

The structure had been listed for demolition. Residents said they had noticed cracks a week earlier and that they were plastered over with cement by its owners, before re-emerging again on Monday morning, prompting the call to leave.

The advice to leave spared some who might have been trapped when the building came down.

“Some came from work late and tried to go in and collect their goods,” said Dennis Mosoti, a tenant in the building.

Rescuers drawn from various government departments, including the youth service, dug through the rubble with bare hands, pulling out items like broken beds, mattresses and television sets.

This was after a specialist unit from the military cut through walls and floors at the top.

Distraught relatives stood nearby and watched.

They included David Kisa, who said he got a call at work on Monday night about the collapse. His wife and three children were still missing at lunchtime yesterday.

Most of the risky buildings are usually in the poorer sections of the city. Attempts to deal with the problem in the past have been stymied by owners of the buildings, who rush to court to stop demolition or other actions.

Kidero asked magistrates and judges to consider the human cost of unsafe buildings before issuing court orders against demolition.

“They should not come in our way because the result is what we have seen here,”Kidero went on to say. – Reuters BERLIN: Two panda bears would be transported at the end of the month from Beijing to Berlin on a special direct cargo flight that allowed the animals to skip having to make a stressful stopover in Frankfurt, veterinarian Andreas Ochs said yesterday.

The pandas, which will be on loan to the Berlin zoo for a period of 15 years, will spend the 12-hour flight in a cage with a water supply, bamboo and a special device that serves as a toilet.

Ochs will join the pandas on the June 24 flight alongside several Chinese animal attendants.

Giant pandas are often loaned to other countries as a sign of good diplomatic relations. – dpa TOKYO: The US Navy has identified an American sailor who went missing from a warship last week in Japan’s southern waters.

The Navy said yesterday that Peter Mims of Interlachen, Florida, is believed to have fallen into the sea from the guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh during routine operations on Thursday about 290km east of Okinawa. The search was suspended on Sunday after the US and Japanese navies and Japan’s coast guard failed to find him after searching more than 50 hours.

The Navy said an investigation is under way. Mims enlisted in 2014 and reported to the Shiloh in August that year. – AP