Pro-EU Brits aim to keep UK ‘in’
LONDON: British pro-Europeans yesterday launched their campaign to keep their country inside the EU, cautioning that turning away from the world’s biggest economic bloc would hurt jobs and torpedo London’s global financial clout.
“Leaving Europe is a leap in the dark and I don’t believe that is a risk worth us taking,” said Stuart Rose, a former boss of Marks & Spencer who chairs the new “Britain Stronger in Europe” campaign.
“Do we continue to lead the world by leading in Europe, or risk diminishing our influence on the world stage by turning our backs on Europe?”
Crises
Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the bloc it joined in 1973 as the “in” and “out” campaigns prepare for battle in a referendum on membership due before the end of 2017.
Opinion polls suggest voters are split, and that crises in the EU over Greek debt and a surge of migrants may be turning some Britons against staying in the 28-nation bloc.
Launching the pro-EU campaign, Rose, who led Marks & Spencer for six years, said he wanted reform of Europe but did not want to risk leaving.
In a speech pitched towards stressing the economic and political pragmatism of staying inside the EU, Rose said the referendum would define Britain’s future prosperity.
“The choice facing us in this referendum is the biggest choice we have had in perhaps a generation: Do we remain part of the largest free trade market on the planet or do we walk away, perhaps risking jobs, creating uncertainty in our economy?” he said. – Reuters
Bodies recovered
KATHMANDU: Nepalese rescue workers have pulled out 21 bodies that were buried when a devastating earthquake triggered a landslide along a popular trekking route almost six months ago.
Efforts to recover the bodies of about 100 foreign trekkers and locals hit by the April landslide in Langtang village and surrounding areas have been delayed by fresh avalanches and thick layers of ice and rock. – Reuters
Verdict by end of year
BANGKOK: A Thai judge would announce a verdict in the trial of two Myanmar migrant workers accused of killing two British tourists at the end of the year, a defence lawyer said yesterday.
Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, were found bludgeoned to death on the southern island of Koh Tao. Witheridge had been raped. – Reuters
Stabbing foiled
JERUSALEM: Israeli police shot dead a man who tried to stab one of them in East Jerusalem yesterday in what appeared to be the latest in a spate of Palestinian street attacks, police said.
Police described the alleged attacker as a terrorist.
A police spokeswoman said he attacked an Israeli trooper who had tried to search him. – Reuters
Polio resurfaces
GENEVA: Laos has suffered a case of vaccine-derived polio, the World Health Organisation said yesterday, in a new setback to hopes of eradicating the disease after the virus resurfaced in Ukraine and Mali.
The organisation said an 8-year-old boy died of the disease on September 11. – Reuters