Northern England mayors slam UK government's support package
Mayors representing big cities in northern England have slammed the British government’s latest wage support package for employees in companies that may be ordered to close in coming days as part of efforts to suppress local coronavirus outbreaks
11 October 2020, 01:27
3 min read
The Associated Press
A man stacks away chairs outside The Last Drop pub, as temporary restrictions announced by Fir...Read More
LONDON -- Mayors representing big cities in northern England have slammed the British government's latest wage support package for employees in businesses that may be ordered to close as part of efforts to suppress local coronavirus outbreaks.
In a virtual press briefing Saturday, the leaders of the metropolitan areas around Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield warned of the economic hardship that their regions are likely to face if and when lockdown restrictions are tightened, potentially within days.
“The north of England is staring the most dangerous winter for years right in the face,” said Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, a region with a population of more than 2.5 million.
While accepting the need for public health measures, the four leaders, all of whom are members of the main opposition Labour Party, vented their frustration at what they consider to be the Conservative government's top-down approach to decision-making.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on Monday expected to back a new three-tier local lockdown system, which could see pubs and restaurants in coronavirus hotspots in England being temporarily closed.
Johnson’s Conservatives managed to win a convincing election victory last December by appealing to traditional Labour voters across large swathes of northern England on a promise to “level-up” the country.
As elsewhere in Europe, the pandemic in the U.K. is at a crucial point, with infection levels — and deaths — rising at their fastest rate in months. Without action, there are fears that hospitals will be overwhelmed in coming weeks when they are already busy with winter-related afflictions. The U.K. has experienced Europe's deadliest outbreak with over 42,500 deaths.
Though new coronavirus infections are rising throughout England, cities in the north have seen the most acute increases. As a result, national restrictions, such as a 10 p.m, curfew on pubs and restaurants, have been supplemented by local actions, including in some cases banning contact between two households. In Scotland's two biggest cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh, the pubs have already closed for 16 days as part of measures to suppress the outbreak.
Ahead of Monday's announcement, Treasury chief Rishi Sunak outlined a new support package that will see the government pay from Nov. 1 two-thirds of the salaries of workers in companies ordered to close up to a maximum of 2,100 pounds ($2,730) a month.
That is less generous than a nationwide program that will expire at the end of October. At the height of that program, the government paid 80% of the salaries of furloughed workers, or around 30% of the working population, at a cost of nearly 40 billion pounds.
Jamie Driscoll, mayor of the metropolitan area in and around the city of Newcastle, said the new package was “unacceptable,” not least because it doesn't include workers in firms that aren't forced to close but that would still be impacted. He noted that a shuttered pub will hurt everyone from drinks suppliers through to stand-up comedians.
Steve Rotherham, the mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said he expected his area to face the highest level of restrictions from Wednesday and that he was seeking more details from the government.
“We are actually talking about lives and livelihoods," he said. "Imposing new restrictions without also providing adequate funding and support is simply not acceptable.”
Martin Greenhow, who owns the MOJO chain of five bars in northern cities, described the words of northern leaders as a “breath of fresh air."
“Help us or let us serve," he urged the government. "Don’t let us drown.”
State media and officials says wildfires around the Middle East triggered by a heatwave hitting the region have killed three people, forced thousands of people leave their homes and detonated landmines along the Lebanon-Israel border
11 October 2020, 02:04
2 min read
The Associated Press
In this frame grab from video, flames rise at the scene of forest fire in Ras el-Harf village, in the B...Read More
BEIRUT -- Wildfires around the Middle East triggered by a heatwave hitting the region have killed three people, forced thousands of people to leave their homes and detonated landmines along the Lebanon-Israel border, state media and officials said Saturday.
The areas hit by the heatwave are Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories. The fires come amid an intense heatwave that is unusual for this time of the year.
Wildfires spread across different areas of Israel and the West Bank for a second day Saturday, forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
Israeli Police said in a statement firefighters and police forces evacuated 5,000 residents from the city of Nof Hagalil in northern Israel.
One of the hardest hit countries is war-torn Syria where fires have killed three people and left dozens suffering from breathing problems over the past two days. The wildfires also burnt wide areas of forests, mostly in the central province of Homs and the coastal province of Latakia.
With fire fighters overwhelmed, some residents helped them using primitive methods such as carrying water in buckets and pouring them on the fire.
On Saturday, special rain prayers were held in mosques around different parts of Syria imploring God to send rain to ease drought and stop the fires.
Director of the Forestry Department in Latakia Agricultural Department, Bassem Douba, was quoted as saying by state news agency, SANA, that the number of fires reached 85 in different sites.
Also in Latakia province, fires in President Bashar Assad’s hometown of Qardaha heavily damaged a building used as a storage for the state-owned tobacco company, part of which collapsed.
In Lebanon, firefighters backed by army helicopters fought fires in the country’s north, center and south. A big fire in the southern village of Bater burnt hundreds of pine trees and was getting close to homes when it was put under control.
Along the border with Israel, fires were reported by Lebanon’s state news agency in several villages, some of them triggering explosions of land mines placed along the heavily-guarded front.
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