U.S. opens talks with Cook Islands on Pacific seabed minerals
The United States has begun discussions with the Cook Islands to survey and potentially develop seabed minerals in the archipelago’s vast exclusive ...
Migrant returns from Britain to France are expect to start within days, after the ratification of a new deal aimed at curbing small boat crossings, UK officials said.
Under the arrangement, the UK will accept an equal number of asylum seekers from France who have family ties to Britain, according to government officials.
French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had previously endorsed the agreement in a bilateral pilot scheme announced last month. The two leaders announced the "one in, one out" framework at a joint press conference in London on 10 July, 2025.
UK authorities say more than 25,000 individuals have arrived by sea this year. Starmer has vowed to disrupt smuggling operations and has faced mounting pressure from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which currently leads national opinion polls.
Protests have recently taken place near facilities housing new arrivals, drawing both anti- and pro-immigration demonstrators.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the deal aims to dismantle trafficking networks. British Interior Minister Yvette Cooper confirmed the scheme will initially apply only to newly arrived individuals, but declined to give specific figures.Returns will focus on those who arrived via small boats and are not already residing in the UK.
“The numbers will start lower and then build up,” Cooper told Sky News, referring to the scope of returns.
Officials estimate around 50 individuals may be transferred each week, totalling roughly 2,600 annually, a small share of last year’s 35,000 total arrivals. The scheme is expected to run as a pilot until June 2026.
While some critics argue the scale is too limited to act as a deterrent, Cooper emphasised that this is one part of a broader migration control strategy.
The government has also targeted people smugglers with sanctions, clamped down on social media adverts and is working with delivery firms to tackle the illegal work that is often promised to migrants.
The European Commission and EU member states have signalled approval for the UK–France plan, government sources said.
According to the UK Home Office, more than 25,000 people have arrived in the UK by small boat so far in 2025. Since 2018, more 126,000 people have made the crossing in total, UK Home Office reports. Fewer than 5,000 of them have been returned, mostly to Albania, according to the Migration Observatory.
The government hopes the agreement will deter future crossings and ease pressure on asylum system.
The world’s biggest dance music festival faces an unexpected setback as a fire destroys its main stage, prompting a last-minute response from organisers determined to keep the party alive in Boom, Belgium.
According to the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the Oaxaca region of Mexico on Saturday.
Australian researchers have created a groundbreaking “biological AI” platform that could revolutionise drug discovery by rapidly evolving molecules within mammalian cells.
China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will send an upgraded ‘version 3.0’ free-trade agreement to their heads of government for approval in October, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday after regional talks in Kuala Lumpur.
A series of earthquakes have struck Guatemala on Tuesday afternoon, leading authorities to advise residents to evacuate from buildings as a precaution against possible aftershocks.
Most peace talks fail. Some drag on for years. Others collapse in days. But even when they don’t succeed, they can save lives. From backchannel meetings to battlefield truces, here’s how peace talks actually work — and why making peace is often harder than making war.
The United States has begun discussions with the Cook Islands to survey and potentially develop seabed minerals in the archipelago’s vast exclusive economic zone, a step that could reshape strategic competition with China in the South Pacific.
For the first time, President Donald Trump has publicly floated Vice President JD Vance as the potential standard-bearer of the Republican Party for the 2028 election, suggesting he is “most likely” to carry the political torch forward.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected in Moscow on Wednesday for meetings with Russian leadership, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
At a UN Security Council meeting, the UN has warned that a wider Israeli military operation in Gaza could have catastrophic consequences and further endanger hostages.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment