Cameron calls for airstrikes against IS in Syria
Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs on Thursday it was time to join airstrikes by other nations against Islamic State militants in Syria, saying Britain cannot ‘subcontract its security to other countries’. He needs to persuade several MPs in his own Conservative Party and some in the opposition Labour Party to back his cause if he is to win Parliament's backing for military action. Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee criticised extending airstrikes into Syria earlier this month, saying that without a clear strategy to defeat the militants and end the civil war such action was ‘incoherent’. However since IS claimed to have killed 130 people in Paris, some MPs who had been reluctant to launch new strikes in Syria have increasingly felt action was needed to protect Britain from such attacks. Cameron’s response to the committee's objections was, ‘We do not have the luxury of being able to wait until the Syrian conflict is resolved before tackling IS’. See also this week’s Prayer Alert World article, for a different opinion.
MEPs strongly criticise Bahrain's human rights record
Following the release of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report assessing the human rights situation in Bahrain, MEPs are calling for an urgent rethink of relations between the EU and the Gulf states. Ten detainees interviewed by HRW had been subjected to electric shocks, suspension in painful positions, forced standing, extreme cold, and sexual abuse. They reported that government interrogators boasted of their reputation for inflicting pain on detainees. MEPs said that given the unrest and violence in the Middle East, it is key that Bahraini authorities accept their responsibilities and work on democratic reform, calling on the Bahraini government to investigate all allegations immediately. All of the EU's ‘international partners’ must adhere to the same high standards of human rights as the EU, and any accusations of torture must be taken seriously. HRW said there is still a ‘culture of impunity’ among security forces, which has not yet been tackled.
Climate Change Summit in Paris
The twenty-first session of the Conference of the Kyoto Protocol will take place from 30 November to 11 December 2015, in Paris. The preliminary list of speakers (139) includes all the leaders who have registered to deliver a statement at the Leaders’ Event on Monday, the first day of the summit. Due to the number of speakers, two meeting rooms will be available for delivery of these statements, and the list is divided into two segments - morning and afternoon. Even then, it will be necessary to limit the duration of each statement to three minutes. An alliance of Catholic development agencies advocating protection for the world and its people from the impact of climate change will also meet in Paris, even though the French government has cancelled public rallies in association with the summit, citing security concerns. See: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/11/24/catholic-groups-to-attend-climate-summit-despite-paris-attacks/
UK spending review - tax credits protected and no police budget cuts
Chancellor George Osborne has surprised critics by doing a U-turn on tax credit cuts and also vowing to protect police budgets in his spending review. Millions of low paid families will not now see their benefits cut in April. Rather than phasing the cuts in, as he had been expected to do, he decided the ‘simplest thing’ was ‘to avoid them altogether’, even though it would mean missing his own target for overall welfare spending in the early years of this Parliament. This announcement was followed by the surprise decision not to cut police budgets, amid security concerns sparked by the terror attack in Paris. This declaration was met with disbelief and ‘euphoria’ among senior police officers, according to the BBC's Danny Shaw.
