While this shouldn’t impact passengers much, it’s an interesting development nonetheless.
Emirates’ A380 Shower Attendants
Emirates is known for having shower suites on their A380s, which are probably the coolest thing you’ll find on any commercial aircraft. All three cabin A380s have two of these shower suites.
Emirates has a dedicated shower attendant on every A380 flight that is long enough to offer showers. The catch is that these attendants aren’t actually flight attendants, so they don’t have a flying license:
They don’t have to go through the same training as flight attendants
They technically have to be seated when the seatbelt sign is on
They are paid significantly less than Emirates flight attendants
It used to be that there were two shower attendants on ultra long haul flights (they’ve reduced that to one), and when that was the case, shower attendants shared rooms on layovers
Anyway, it looks like the UK is suddenly taking issue with Emirates’ use of shower attendants…
UK Bans Emirates Shower Attendants
Effective immediately, Emirates is no longer rostering shower attendants on UK flights (including to London, Manchester, and Glasgow). As Emirates describes it, they have been informed by UK Border Control that they have a “restriction with entry of non-licensed crew.”
Essentially airline crews have special visa privileges on account of being crew. However, since shower attendants technically aren’t crew and don’t have flying licenses they don’t benefit from that… or at least that’s what the UK has now decided.
Of course go figure Emirates has been flying to the UK with these shower attendants for 10 years, and it has only now become a problem.
Emirates is working on finding a solution. In the meantime, Emirates will be rostering an extra purser or first class crew on all UK flights, which sure seems like an expensive solution.
The extra crew will be responsible for handling the showers. The shower attendants also clean all the bathrooms throughout the plane between cleaning showers, though the extra purser or first class flight attendant won’t be responsible for that — rather the flight attendants in each cabin will be responsible for keeping bathrooms clean.
I’ll be curious to see how this plays out. I wonder if the UK will just accept this, if they’ll have to get special visas, or if this is the start of a bigger issue for Emirates’ non-licensed shower attendants.
Vietnamese police have arrested eight more people in connection to the deaths of 39 immigrants found in the back of a refrigerated truck in Britain, authorities confirmed Monday.
The latest arrests were in Nghe An, a province in central Vietnam from where many of the eight women and 31 men found in the truck last month are believed to have originated.
It brings the total of arrests in Vietnam to 10, with several others busted in the UK and Ireland, including two men charged with 39 counts of manslaughter.
“This was a very painful incident, a humanitarian accident,” said Nguyen Huu Cau, director of Nghe An police, confirming the latest arrests, according to Agence France-Presse.
“Based on what we learn from the suspects, we will actively launch investigations to fight and eradicate these rings which bring people illegally to Britain,” the police chief said. “The best thing to do now is to deal with the consequences of the incident and help family members receive the bodies.”
The official Vietnam News Agency said the eight suspects were detained for “organizing (and) brokering people to go abroad and stay abroad illegally,” AFP said.
Essex Police Assistant Chief Constable Tim Smith has previously confirmed that all 39 dead are believed to be Vietnamese nationals.
Worshippers pray during a Mass and vigil for the 39 victims found dead inside the back of a truck
AP
Pham Van Thin (right) and Nguyen Thi Phong, the parents of Pham Thi Tra My, who is believed to have died in the truck
EPA
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On Sunday, a delegation of Vietnamese diplomats and police left for the UK where they were expected to meet their British counterparts, Vietnam’s official government website said.
The truck’s driver, Maurice Robinson, 25, has been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and faces human trafficking and money laundering charges.
Eamonn Harrison, 22, also faces the same charges and British authorities are trying to get him extradited from Ireland, Essex Police confirmed.
Police are still hunting two men from Northern Ireland, Ronan Hughes, 40 and his brother Christopher Hughes, 34.
“Finding Ronan and Christopher Hughes is crucial to our investigation and the sooner we can make this happen, the sooner we can get on with our inquiries and bring those responsible for these tragic deaths to justice,” Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Stoten said at a press conference Friday.
The deaths of 39 Vietnamese people in the back of a lorry in Essex should act as a "wake-up call for the government" over its migration policy, MPs say.
A report from the Foreign Affairs Select Committee says the UK's policy of closing borders drives migrants into smugglers' hands.
Committee chair and Tory MP Tom Tugendhat said the UK should "lead by example" on the issue.
The government said tackling human trafficking is a "major priority".
The bodies of eight women and 31 men were found in a lorry trailer on an industrial estate in Grays on 23 October.
Mr Tugendhat, the MP for Tonbridge and Malling, said the incident had "shocked us all".
He said: "The full story won't be clear for some time but this tragedy is not alone.
"Today, hundreds of families across the world are losing loved ones who felt driven to take the fatal gamble to entrust their lives to smugglers.
"This case should serve as a wake-up call to the Foreign Office and to government."
Meanwhile, police investigating the lorry deaths in Nghe An province said eight people have been arrested in connection with people smuggling.
'Return to EU meetings'
The committee's report says the human cost of so-called "irregular" migration - which takes place outside laws, regulations, and agreements - made international partnerships, including with the EU, "essential".
It found UK representatives "have already ceased to attend EU-level meetings where irregular migration is discussed".
The committee called on the government to "urgently resume" its attendance at the meetings during the delay to Brexit and to seek to attend them afterwards "wherever it is possible".
During the 2015 refugee crisis, the UK received asylum applications from just 2% of the 1.4m people on the move.
The UK used two EU deals to keep numbers down: it opted out of an agreement to redistribute refugees and used another rule to send people to other states.
It has a seat in the EU's European Migrant Smuggling Centre, dedicated to gathering intelligence and catching the gangs - and has taken part in naval operations.
But after Brexit, nobody knows if the UK will be allowed to take part in any joint initiatives.
When Helen Wheeler, a foreign office minister, was quizzed by MPs alongside her chief official on Mediterranean migration, she couldn't say if the UK had been at the EU's last key meeting on tackling illegal migration - it hadn't - or whether it would attend the next.
The report finds government agreements to limit irregular migration from certain countries, including Libya, Niger and Sudan, risk "fuelling human rights abuses, and endorsing authoritarian regimes".
The committee adds it is concerned by evidence of "dire conditions" for migrants in northern France, where many of those intending to reach the UK gather.
It says the government's focus on security at ports there "has pushed migrants to take more dangerous routes" to the UK.
One witness tells the committee that enhanced security had led to an increase in people trying to get to Britain on small boats across the English Channel.
The committee also says the government should consider "wider, interlinked factors" driving irregular migration "including climate change, conflict, repressive governance and corruption - rather than focusing narrowly on reducing the numbers reaching Europe's borders in the short term".
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Other recommendations include the expansion of legal pathways to apply for asylum outside Europe.
A government spokesperson said: "Tackling the scourge of human trafficking at every stage of the migrant journey - overseas, at our borders and in the UK - is a major priority.
"The UK does this by addressing irregular migration, from reducing factors driving migration - conflict, instability and poverty - to strengthening border security and counter-trafficking operations.
"The UK government and law enforcement agencies work extensively with international partners, key transit countries, and the nations of origin to stand up to this global criminal industry that perpetuates human suffering."
Much of Brexit is the application of logic to decisions that have already been made.
Thus: British voters decided in 2016 that they wanted to end the right of European Union citizens to live and work in Britain, and to repatriate trade policy to Westminster, therefore the country has to leave the EU’s single economic market and customs union, which are not compatible with either goal. If Britain leaves the EU’s single market and customs union, there must therefore be an economic border between it and the EU. If there is an economic border between Britain and the EU, there has to therefore be one on the island of Ireland, between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU, unless special arrangements are made. And on and on it goes.
All of this is simple logic. And yet at every turn, there is a public outcry when the logical consequence of a decision is confirmed.
This is not only a British disease when it comes to Brexit; it applies to the foreign-policy implications of Britain’s departure as well. Last month, standing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said something that caused a sensation here in London, even though it was, in many respects, a statement of fact. "With the departure of Great Britain, a potential competitor will of course emerge for us,” Merkel declared. “That is to say, in addition to China and the United States of America, there will be Great Britain as well.”
One does not need to have a view on who will win this competition—or even on whether creating a competition among European powers is a clever idea at all—to acknowledge that at one level, Merkel’s remarks are just the inescapable consequence of Brexit. At its heart, Brexit is a question of whose law applies in whose territory, and of who gets to set that law. Leaving the EU is, by definition, an attempt to exert more control over the laws that apply in the U.K., and this, by logical extension, makes sense only if the U.K. wants different laws from the ones that apply in the EU, which, in turn, means competition where it did not exist before.
The important point, though, is not whether Britain will emerge as an economic competitor with the EU, but what this will mean for the U.K. and the Continent more generally, particularly in an era of American isolationism, Russian aggression, and Chinese economic expansion. Could this economic competition spill over into other fields, such as security and defense? At a recent dinner party hosted by the London embassy of a major European power, attended by senior British government officials, diplomats, politicians, and journalists (including myself), the host ambassador was warned that he could not expect his country’s defense relationship with Britain to be left unchanged if Britain felt unfairly treated, economically, in the fallout from Brexit. “You can’t say, ‘We’ll take your bankers and your Chinooks,’” the ambassador was told by one figure in attendance, referring to British military equipment.
The problem over the past three years has been that the reality of Brexit is obfuscated by Britain’s internal divisions over the type of Brexit it wants. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, sought to blur the essential choice: between close legal alignment with the EU (and less of an economic shock) and loose regulatory alignment (and more of an economic shock). She demanded U.K. sovereign control over trade policy and immigration, yet fought against the inevitable realities of what this meant, particularly in relation to Northern Ireland. Eventually forced to choose, May tried to maintain as close an economic relationship with the EU as possible while protecting her ultimate red line: control over immigration.
Johnson has torn up this approach, stripping out the bits of May’s withdrawal agreement that sought to bind Britain to certain European standards and rules. In doing so, he has clarified the reality of Brexit: legal divergence. Merkel’s remarks are the public acknowledgment of Johnson’s radical break from May. Yet, in another way, these are all shades of the same Brexit gray, which is, by definition, about “taking back control” in order to do things differently from the EU.
One European ambassador to Brussels told me that Merkel was not alone in her concern, even if few set out the reality of Brexit in such straightforward terms. The diplomat, who asked for anonymity to more freely discuss deliberations in the EU’s de facto capital, said that Johnson had, if nothing else, clarified the stakes of Brexit, something May had tried to hide. Still, the ambassador said, this nevertheless causes significant challenges for the EU, which will have to be “extremely vigilant” in how it negotiates any future free-trade deal with the U.K., wary of a Britain that could look to undercut EU standards while seeking market access to the economies of the bloc’s 27 other member states. (The EU has also diverged over how a future relationship with Britain should look: Whereas Ireland, the Netherlands, and other countries with close trading relationships with Britain are likely to push for close economic ties out of self-interest, France has made it known that it will take a hard-line stance in any future free-trade negotiations.)
In an interview with The Guardian and seven other European newspapers, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said that the U.K. would see its market access reduced in proportion to how far it sought to diverge from European standards. The EU’s position ensures that the Brexit dilemma will never go away: How much of a limit should the U.K. place on its sovereignty in exchange for market access?
Merkel’s comments in October were not her first warning about the threat of British competition. In Berlin a month earlier, addressing German lawmakers, she said that the U.K. after Brexit would become “an economic competitor on our own doorstep.” She said this would be the case “even if we want to keep close economic, foreign, and security cooperation and friendly relations.” Implicit in Merkel’s observation was the acceptance that economic, foreign, and security policy cannot be entirely quarantined from one another—that each affects the others.
At the time she made those remarks, it still looked possible that the U.K. could crash out of the EU without agreeing on a divorce deal, and there was a feeling in 10 Downing Street that European intransigence was forcing the U.K. into a corner where it would be left with little choice but a radical change of direction in the economy, including huge cuts to corporate taxes. Indeed, certain EU countries are already bracing for British economic radicalism after Brexit. Ireland, for example, is studying the prospect of severe British tax cuts, which could lure away companies based in Ireland, already a low-tax economy, one Irish official told me.
Thorsten Benner, the director of the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute, told me that Merkel was right to be concerned about the “inevitable” reality of the U.K. seeking competitive advantages wherever it can find them. “Merkel is taking it seriously,” he said, arguing that her intervention was largely a message to Europe not to be complacent about the threat, despite the bloc dwarfing Britain in economic size. Benner said that one area Europe was concerned about was in relation to China, with the prospect that, once out of the EU, the U.K. might feel compelled to put immediate economic interests over traditional security and defense concerns, offering Beijing closer trade and business ties that could cause friction with Washington and other European capitals.
In Brussels, there is optimism that the security relationship among the U.K. and its European allies, principally France, can be kept separate from any cross-channel economic competition. “We cannot make trade-offs with security,” the ambassador who spoke with me said. He predicted that mechanisms would be found to maintain close security cooperation between the U.K. and the EU after Brexit, whatever economic path Britain takes.
Such a relationship has some precedents. In the 1980s, Japan and the United States were rival economic superpowers, competing with each other for global dominance without ever challenging the security umbrella of American hegemony placed over the relationship. After Brexit, Britain alone cannot be a geopolitical rival to the EU or a military hegemon. It can, however, be an economic nuisance, whether that is good for Britain or not.
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The government has called a halt to shale gas extraction - or fracking - in England amid fears about earthquakes.
It comes after a report by the Oil and Gas Authority said it was not possible to predict the probability or size of tremors caused by the practice.
Fracking has been suspended since a tremor in Lancashire in August.
Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said shale gas had "huge potential" but the government was "no longer convinced" it could be extracted safely.
Fracking was suspended after activity by Cuadrilla Resources - the only company licensed to carry out the process - at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire caused a magnitude 2.9 earthquake.
Mrs Leadsom said: "After reviewing the OGA's report into recent seismic activity at Preston New Road, it is clear that we cannot rule out future unacceptable impacts on the local community.
For this reason, she said, she had concluded the government should put a moratorium on fracking "with immediate effect".
The government says it will "take a presumption against issuing any further Hydraulic Fracturing Consents" and this will continue unless compelling new evidence is provided.
However, it has stopped short of an outright ban.
Fracking is a process in which liquid is pumped deep underground at high pressure to fracture shale rock and release gas or oil trapped within it.
Assessment by the British Geological Survey in 2013 suggested there were enough resources in the Bowland Shale across northern England to potentially provide up to 50 years of current gas demand.
The UK's fracking industry, which has said the process could contribute significantly to future energy needs and create thousands of jobs, dismissed the report's findings.
Fierce opposition
Fracking must be halted for 18 hours if it causes a tremor measuring 0.5 magnitude or above.
The government announcement is the second time it has placed a moratorium on fracking.
The first suspension, which lasted a year, was in November 2011 during the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Ms Leadsom said: "Shale gas offers huge potential in the UK, there's no doubt about that"
"There's also no doubt that in our determination to decarbonise, the continued use of gas will be very important for the next several decades so there's no doubt that extracting more natural gas in the UK would be very attractive.
"But we've always been clear we can only do that if it can be done safely and on the advice from the Oil and Gas Authority we're no longer convinced that is the case."
The fracking industry has faced fierce opposition from both communities and environmental groups.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has in the past supported fracking, writing in the Daily Telegraph that the discovery of shale gas in the UK was "glorious news for humanity".
A recent report by the National Audit Office found the UK had spent at least £32.7m supporting fracking since 2011.
Labour has promised to stop the technique if elected in the general election on 12 December.
Labour's shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long Bailey, said: "The next Labour government will ban fracking - whereas the Tories will only call a temporary halt to it.
"You can't trust a word the prime minister says."
Both the Liberal Democrats and Green Party also support a ban on fracking.
The Welsh Government has also opposed fracking for several years, with a "moratorium" in place since 2015, while there is a planning presumption against fracking in Northern Ireland.
The suspension in England will put pressure on Cuadrilla Resources which has so far invested £270m in the country's shale gas industry.
Cuadrilla Resources has 30 full-time workers but also employs a number of contractors.
A spokeswoman for Cuadrilla Resources declined to comment.
Analysis
By Judy Hobson, environment correspondent, North West Tonight
The government decision will be a blow to Cuadrilla which has been exploring for shale gas in Lancashire for almost a decade. The industry said fracking had the potential to help the country become self-sufficient in gas, creating thousands of jobs.
But fracking causes earthquakes.
To limit the risk, a "traffic light system" was introduced that required fracking to stop following a tremor of 0.5 or more.
This happened several times. But when it triggered a quake of 2.9 in the summer, fracking was halted indefinitely.
Cuadrilla's chief executive Francis Egan said last year if the 0.5 limit wasn't lifted, the industry would be "strangled at birth".
The question for the prime minister is, what happens now? Tens of millions have been spent looking for shale gas.
But opposition to fracking has doubled over the past six years while demand for renewable sources has grown.
Is this a genuine change in policy? Or will shale gas be back on the agenda in the future?
Ken Cronin, chief executive of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, which represents fracking companies, said: "Going forward, we are fully committed to working closely with the Oil and Gas Authority and other relevant regulators to demonstrate that we can operate safely and environmentally responsibly."
But Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK said: "If the government reads the science and listens to the strong public opposition then fracking has no future.
"This lesson now needs to be applied to unlock onshore wind and solar, and significantly ramp up offshore wind."
Amelia Bambridge was last seen on Police Beach on Koh Rong island in the early hours of October 24.
On Thursday, the Lucie Blackman Trust confirmed to CNN that a body found by police in the ocean close to Thai waters was hers. The group had been in contact with Bambridge's family, its chief executive Matthew Searle said.
Provincial Police Chief Chuon Narin also confirmed to CNN that the body recovered belonged to Bambridge.
On Friday, Cambodian National Police told CNN that they had completed an autopsy overseen by a British consular official. Police found that Bambridge died by drowning and said there were no signs of foul play.
The Bambridge family is now working to bring her body back to the United Kingdom, police said.
Police launched a large-scale search after Bambridge, from Worthing, West Sussex, failed to check out of the hostel she had been staying at.
She had been last seen at a beach party, and her handbag -- containing her wallet, phone and bank cards -- was discovered on a nearby beach, while her passport was found at the hostel, according to the UK's PA news agency.
Around 150 people were involved in the search for her, and about 100 people had been questioned over her disappearance, Narin told CNN on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Bambridge's sister Georgie Bambridge said her sister wanted to live life to the fullest. It was Amelia's first time traveling alone, and she was "excited to go but had a little bit of nerves," Georgie said.
The last time they spoke was on October 23, when Amelia messaged her sister to say how amazing her trip was.
"She wanted to explore the world, to live a full life with no regrets," Georgie said.
Journalist Yuthana Kim contributed to this story from Phnom Penh.
LONDON — For Americans, there was nothing particularly unusual about President Trump calling in to a London radio show on Thursday for a freewheeling conversation about British politics, Queen Elizabeth II and impeachment. Mr. Trump does that kind of thing regularly on “Fox & Friends.”
But when the president did it on the second day of campaigning for Britain’s general election, and the radio show in question is hosted by Nigel Farage, an insurgent political figure who is seeking to be a major player in that election, his intervention was bound to raise hackles in Britain’s political establishment.
“Donald Trump is trying to interfere in Britain’s election to get his friend Boris Johnson elected,” the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Twitter.
Mr. Trump heaped praise on Mr. Johnson, the prime minister, while disparaging Mr. Corbyn. Yet the biggest beneficiary was Mr. Farage, who has been uncharacteristically quiet during the recent weeks of upheaval in British politics and abruptly inserted himself back in the national conversation.
Mr. Trump’s remarks were arguably a boon to Mr. Corbyn. He has set out to portray Mr. Johnson as a handmaiden of the American president. Even Mr. Trump’s praise for the prime minister came with a stinging caveat.
While Mr. Trump called Mr. Johnson a “fantastic guy,” with whom he had a “great friendship,” the president claimed that the agreement Mr. Johnson recently negotiated with the European Union for Britain to depart the bloc could hamper a future trade agreement between the United States and Britain.
“We want to do trade with the U.K. but to be honest with you, this deal, under certain aspects of the deal, you can’t do it.” Mr. Trump said to Mr. Farage, who is also the leader of the Brexit Party and favors leaving the European Union without any deal. “You can’t trade. We can’t make a trade deal with the U.K.”
Mr. Johnson has promoted Brexit by saying it would open the door to a lucrative new deal with the United States — one that he would be well-placed to negotiate because of his warm relationship with Mr. Trump.
The president did not explain why Mr. Johnson’s deal with Brussels would hinder one with Washington. It apparently has to do with technical provisions known as Geographical Indications. Trade experts split on how much of a hurdle they pose, but the details mattered less than the theatrics.
As Mr. Johnson and Mr. Corbyn took to the campaign trail to begin framing their messages, Mr. Trump threw the spotlight on Mr. Farage, whose party could inflict damage on both Labour and Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives.
“I’d like to see you and Boris get together because you would have some real numbers,” Mr. Trump said to Mr. Farage, who has proposed aligning with the Conservatives but has been rebuffed by Mr. Johnson.
“I have enough to do over here without having to worry about the psychology of two brilliant people over there, frankly,” Mr. Trump added. “I wish you two guys could get together. I think it would be a great thing.”
Mr. Trump saved most of his vitriol for Mr. Corbyn, who has painted the president as a predatory rival, eager to use trade negotiations to gain access for American companies to Britain’s National Health Service.
“He’d be so bad, he’d take you in such a bad way,” Mr. Trump said, “He’d take you into such bad places.” Noting that he had never met Mr. Corbyn, he added, “I’m sure he’s a lovely man, but he’s of a different persuasion.”
Mr. Corbyn said Mr. Trump has long had designs on the National Health Service and “knows if Labour wins, U.S. corporations won’t get their hands on it.”
Mr. Trump was generous to Mr. Johnson, praising his efforts to take Britain out of the European Union as quickly as possible. “He’s willing to do what no one else would do,” the president said.
Still his biggest gift was to Mr. Farage, whose Brexit party has been casting around for ways to influence the election. Mr. Johnson had hoped to neutralize the party by negotiating Britain’s departure from the European Union by Oct. 31.
When he failed to win approval in Parliament for the deal with Brussels, he was forced to ask European leaders for a three-month extension, which has exposed him to attacks from Mr. Farage.
Mr. Johnson plans to campaign on that deal as the swiftest route to Brexit. Mr. Farage has called on the prime minister to drop the deal and leave the European Union with what he calls a “clean break.” The Brexit Party is debating how many candidates to field and how aggressively to go after Conservative-held seats.
