PM Ordered To Walk Away From Brexit Talks As The EU Ignores Negotiation Deadline

Last month, the Prime Minister gave the EU until October 15th to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK.

If a pact was agreed, it would have allowed time for both parliaments to ratify an agreement before the end of the transition period in December.

But the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier appeared to snub the PM's October 15th deadline when he vowed to work on a trade deal over the "coming days and weeks”.

An Express.co.uk poll asked whether the Prime Minister should walk away from talks.

The poll received a staggering 13,052 votes with 98 percent (12,685) ordering the Prime Minister quit the negotiations.

Just two percent (327) said no while only 40 said they didn’t know.

One reader said: “The EU are deliberately dragging out negotiations both to see if the UK will start making concessions as they now know the UK does not want to leave without an FTA and also to see if a change in US Presidency with its possible implications for a UK-US trade deal will happen in early November.”

A second person said the EU will not take the UK “seriously” until we walk away.

They said: “The EU will not take us seriously until we do what we say and walk away they might then wake up.

“If you say it you have got to mean it and you have got to do it.”

A third said Britain must not give “in to their dominating and bullying antics”.

They said: “Boris might as well walk away now as at the end of the month and save a bit of time that can be used to prepare ourselves.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1347897/brexit-news-boris-Johnson-European-Union-trade-deal-negotiation-deadline

Mysterious mass die-off on Russia's eastern coast has scientists searching for answers

Thousands of dead sea creatures have washed up in Kamchatka.

Russian scientists are struggling to determine the reason for a mysterious mass die-off of marine life on the Russian Pacific coast. Russia officials have so far insisted that the damage could not be human-induced, but no final explanation has been offered.

Photos of thousands of dead sea creatures on a beach in Kamchatka, a peninsula across the ocean from Alaska, went viral in the beginning of October.

The pictures showed stretches of the Khalaktyrsky Beach, a popular surfing destination, covered in dead octopuses, muscles, crabs, sea urchins and other sea animals.

Data released by Russian environmental officials earlier this week showed excess amounts of phosphate ion, iron and phenol in the areas where the poisoned animals were found. The source of the pollution remains an enigma.

MORE: The Earth is warming. Here are the top warning signs, according to experts

The full extent of the damage is yet to be determined, but worrying signs have been found further north from the beach, Greenpeace's Elena Sakirko told ABC News on Saturday.

The area worst hit by the pollution is between the Avacha Bay in the south and Cape Nalychev in the north, which are 40 kilometers apart.

Scientists from a local nature reserve who examined the waters of the bay said 95% of sea life to the depth of 10 to 15 meters was dead.

Environmental experts cited on the website of the Kamchatka government said that the incident is more likely to be a natural, not man-made disaster.

One of the theories suggests that sea life could have been poisoned by a toxin produced by blooming algae. Another theory says the animals could have died because of seismic activity, which is not uncommon in what is one of the world's most volcanic regions.

But Sakirko believes that it is too early to rule out any explanation, including anthropogenic ones.

"For now, none of the theories has been confirmed," Sakirko told ABC News.

Today, Kamchatka is famous for its scenic landscapes, good surf and abundant wildlife. But the region only opened to the public after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the days of the USSR, the area was a militarized zone, and foreigners were banned from visiting it.

Some of the military infrastructure is still being used today. The Russian Pacific Naval Fleet has its base in the Avacha Bay, and segments of the Khalaktyrsky Beach were closed for military drills in the middle of August.

A rocket fuel leak from one of the Defence Ministry's storing facilities in the region was among the first theories circulating in the Russian media. However, checks carried out this week disproved this theory, environmental officials said.

MORE: Researchers tie massive Pacific seabird die-off to heat wave

Another possible source of the contamination could be the Kozelsky dumping ground, where the fencing was found to be breached. The site was built in the Soviet era and stores over 100 tons of toxic chemicals and pesticides. However, later this week, officials said that no signs of leaking chemicals have been detected.

Sakirko believed a more thorough check was needed. "We think the checks are insufficient," she said. "They should have probed for pesticides."

Greenpeace has called the situation an "environmental disaster," but Russian officials seem to have a milder attitude.

Dmitry Sharomov/Greenpeace Russia via Reuters

Dead sea life is seen washed up on the shore due to unexplained water pollution in Kamchatka region, Russia, on Oct. 8, 2020.

"We don't see a catastrophic event; no humans have died, no one has been injured," Natural Resources Minister Dmitry Kobylkin said on Tuesday.

He added that the injuries of eight surfers who sustained corneal burns were not serious.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe over the pollution incident and the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said President Vladimir Putin found the situation "really worrying."

Source: abc

China Has Deployed 60,000 Soldiers to Border with India

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has “stacked 60,000 soldiers against the Indians in the north” of India, along the two countries’ Himalayan border, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Friday.

Pompeo’s statement came shortly after he completed a trip to Japan last week to meet with members of a new coalition of countries, including India, aimed at countering Chinese influence. He elaborated on the alliance in a separate interview with the Guy Benson Show on Friday.

“I was in Japan on Tuesday [October 6]. … I was with my foreign minister counterparts from India, Australia, and Japan – a format that we call the Quad, four big democracies, four powerful economies, four nations, each of whom have real risk associated with the threats imposed – attempting to be imposed by the Chinese Communist Party. And they see it in their home countries too,” he explained. “The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border,” Pompeo stated as an example. Pompeo said that the Quad was working to draft a set of policies to push back against China’s growing influence on other countries. “The tide has turned, and I think both ordinary people and leaders all across the world now are coalescing around and understanding that … we need to take seriously the threat from General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, and we’re no longer going to allow them to run around cost-free and impose their vision for the future upon the West,” the secretary of state asserted. India and China have been engaged in an ongoing border conflict along their western Himalayan boundary since June 15, when their respective border regiments clashed in the Galwan Valley of India’s northern Ladakh territory. The skirmish killed 20 Indian soldiers and an estimated 40 Chinese troops. It was the deadliest border conflict between the two nations in at least 45 years.

Source: Breitbart