United Kingdom

Demand for fuel has pushed gas prices up – but peace in Ukraine could flood the market and change everything

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29556998

UK-based lawyers have spoken out about being targeted by the Chinese state and its supporters in a campaign of intimidation including surveillance, hacking of bank accounts and rape threats.

The barristers, from Doughty Street Chambers in London, say there has been a coordinated and concerted campaign against them since they began acting for the jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media mogul, Jimmy Lai, three years ago.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC said she had received threats via email and social media of dismemberment, rape and death, which have extended to her family in recent months.

“I had a threat to rape one of my children because of my work,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s just an individual or if that’s someone who’s state-linked. What I do know is that if you have a campaign which is led by state authorities to say this lawyer is not to be trusted and they’re undermining the Chinese state by engaging in legal work with the United Nations, it sends a green light to [its supporters] to send material like that.”

As the leader of Lai’s international legal team, Gallagher has been targeted the most, including “hundreds” of attempts to hack her bank account. There has also been so-called “privilege phishing” – attempts to seek to persuade those who are targeted to divulge sensitive information, which the Bar Council has also warned about. Sometimes it is through emails created to appear to have been sent by Gallagher, or her contacts or colleagues.

The new UK Government’s plan to decarbonise the electricity system brings with it the lofty aim of tripling total solar capacity by the end of the decade. Although much of this will be driven by large-scale installations, ministers are also hoping for a “rooftop revolution” that could see millions more homes topped with solar panels by 2030.

As well as providing carbon-free electricity, domestic solar can deliver significant reductions in energy spending – an average of £440 per year – to the households that get them. This means policy makers should think about rooftop solar like other ways of permanently reducing household energy spending, such as improving insulation. So in this briefing note we take a closer look at the case for installing more solar panels, discuss progress so far, and consider what, if any, policy might be needed to maximise the benefits.

The study's main points:

• While rooftop solar can make a small contribution to Clean Power, it can cut household bills by an estimated £440 a year on average, equivalent to almost a quarter of energy spending for the poorest fifth of households.
• Measured by savings per pound spent, solar panels compare well with other bill-cutting measures, yielding 7p-a-year per pound spent, a third more than cavity-wall insulation. Importantly, solar panels have had relatively low uptake compared to many other measures, having been installed on only 8 per cent of roofs.
• Poorer households have the most to gain from lower bills but are least able to access solar panels without policy support, due to prohibitive up-front costs. Changes to policy support in the past decade has shifted the distribution of solar panels towards richer areas – in 2015 there were more solar panels installed in the poorest third of LSOAs than the richest (35 to 31 per cent), but by 2023 more than twice as many went to the richest places (45 to 21 per cent).
• With a well-target package of support, solar panels could help to significantly reduce fuel poverty. We estimate that up to one-in-three fuel-poor households could be taken out of fuel poverty by typical solar savings, subject to the suitability of their homes.
• Though most consumers seem to be paid relatively well for the electricity they generate, the Smart Export Guarantee isn’t doing enough to prevent some solar panel owners being paid very little for their generation, with 20 per cent of Smart Export Guarantee tariffs being “unbundled” tariffs that pay just 4p/kwh on average.
• The government should consider more means-tested support with up-front costs, including both grants and subsidised loans targeted at low-to-middle income households.

As calls by UK’s top leaders for the release of British-Egyptian blogger, coder, and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah from prison in Cairo continue, Alaa’s mother, math professor Laila Soueif, grows weaker four months into a hunger strike she began in September to keep attention focused on her son and protest the lack of progress in obtaining his release.

She has consumed only water, coffee, tea and rehydration salts for more than 135 days. She is 68 years old, and her condition is becoming dire.

EFF and six international partner organizations in December called on Starmer to take immediate action to secure Alaa’s release. We told him that Alaa’s case is a litmus test of the UK’s commitment to human rights. Soueif’s future, and Alaa’s, rests in the UK government’s hands, and it must act now. Starmer needs to pick up the phone and call al-Sisi.

If you’re based in the UK, here are some actions you can take to support the calls for Alaa’s release:

• Write to your MP (external link): https://freealaa.net/message-mp
• Join Laila Soueif outside the Foreign Office in London daily between 10-11am
• Share Alaa’s plight on social media using the hashtag #freealaa

Three years into Russia’s war against Ukraine, refugees in the UK face uncertainty, displacement and separation

Ahead of the highly anticipated visit from China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is due to visit Britain today (Thursday 13 February) to hold talks with his British counterpart David Lammy in what is being seen as a sign that relations between the countries are ‘normalising’, said Felix Jakens, Amnesty’s UK Head of Campaigns.

“David Lammy should be drawing serious red lines, rather than rolling out the red carpet when Wang Yi visits this week," Jakens adds.

“We need to hear a public and strong condemnation of the brutal suppression of human rights activists, which is not only limited to mainland China or Hong Kong but has also spread to the UK through the transnational targeting of students and activists who speak out here. Hong Kong’s recent issuing of ‘Wild West’-style bounties on activists’ heads in the UK indicates the authorities believe they can intimidate and silence their critics overseas with impunity. It is completely unacceptable to see this sort of international witch hunt on UK soil and the most high-level visit in years must be a time to publicly vocalise UK Government outrage."

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Archive link: https://archive.is/j116K

Monsoon boss Nick Stowe has urged the UK to follow in the footsteps of the US by removing the tax loopholes used by Chinese fast fashion giant Shein.

Over the past few days, US president Donald Trump has implemented tariffs on Chinese imports into the country, and scrapped “de mininis” exemptions which enabled products worth under $800 to be imported without paying certain taxes.

Small packages sent directly to US home addresses had previously been exempt from import taxes, which allowed businesses like Shein to avoid paying customs duties by shipping small, low-value orders directly to customers in the US.

The move has caused the US Postal Service to stop accepting parcels from Hong Kong and China until further notice.

Although the executive did not think the UK should bring in all the measures Trump has, he argued the government should address the tax loophole used by Shein.

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A computer expert who has battled for a decade to recover a £600m bitcoin fortune he believes is buried in a council dump in south Wales is considering buying the site so he can hunt for the missing fortune.

James Howells lost a high court case last month to force Newport city council to allow him to search the tip to retrieve a hard drive he says contains the bitcoins.

The council has since announced plans to close and cap the site, which would almost certainly spell the end of any lingering hopes of reaching the bitcoins. The authority has secured planning permission for a solar farm on part of the land.

Howells, 39, said on Monday it had been “quite a surprise” to hear of the closure plan. He said: “It [the council] claimed at the high court that closing the landfill to allow me to search would have a huge detrimental impact on the people of Newport, whilst at the same time they were planning to close the landfill anyway.

“I expected it would be closed in the coming years because it’s 80/90% full – but didn’t expect its closure so soon. If Newport city council would be willing, I would potentially be interested in purchasing the landfill site ‘as is’ and have discussed this option with investment partners and it is something that is very much on the table.”

Archived

On Wednesday, 12 February, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, will meet British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in London when the two co-chair the China-UK Strategic Dialogue, the first such strategy dialogue between the two countries since 2018. The London meeting follows British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ January mission to China to resume the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, stalled since 2019. The concluding policy paper made only two weak references to human rights. The resumption of such strategic dialogues between the UK and China sends a concerning message, in particular at a time of deteriorating human rights in China and mounting transnational repression in the UK. ARTICLE 19 reiterates calls for the UK to prioritise human rights in its engagement with China.

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Demand an immediate end to the arbitrary detention of British citizens

First detained under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law in August 2020, media magnate and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, 77, who is a British citizen, has remained in solitary confinement for over 1,400 days. He faces trial for serious charges under the NSL, which carry a potential maximum life sentence, yet Hong Kong has denied him consular support.

In 2015 British citizen Lee Bo vanished along with several Hong Kong bookseller colleagues in a coordinated attack for selling titles critical of Chinese Communist Party elites. He was ‘involuntarily removed to the mainland without any due process’ in December of that year in a ‘serious breach’ of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as stated by the UK government at the time. In late February 2016, he on Chinese state-owned Phoenix Television claiming to have returned to China of his own accord and renouncing his British citizenship. It has all the hallmarks of a forced confession. Throughout the ordeal, Lee Bo was also denied consular access. reappeared on Chinese state-owned Phoenix Television claiming to have returned to China of his own accord and renouncing his British citizenship. The appearance had all the hallmarks of a forced confession. Throughout the ordeal, Lee Bo was also denied consular access.

In meeting with Wang Yi, the UK should call for the immediate and unconditional release of Jimmy Lai and other British citizens and dual nationals arbitrarily detained in China and Hong Kong. Recognising the right under international law, David Lammy should furthermore demand full consular access for Jimmy Lai and other detained British citizens.

Transnational repression in the UK must end

David Lammy has an obligation to speak for the estimated 150,000 Hong Kongers and other minority and Chinese groups living in the UK, many of whom increasingly live in fear of transnational repression.

For example, on 16 October 2022 when a group of Hong Kongers gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate in Manchester to protest China’s human rights abuses, the demonstration quickly turned violent as consulate officials attacked the protesters. Bob Chan, one of the protesters and a British National Overseas (BNO) passport holder, was violently dragged by masked men into the consulate grounds and beaten up. He was pulled out to safety by British police. Chan was later treated at a hospital for his injuries.

China’s Consul General in Manchester, Zheng Xiyuan, the second highest diplomat in the UK, later admitted to participating in the attack, telling Sky News that Chan ‘was abusing my country, my leader, I think it’s my duty’. There is no record of Wang Yi having expressed disapproval of these actions.

Bob Chan is one of several hundred thousand British National Overseas passport holders. The BNO was created as part of the 1997 British handover of Hong Kong, but applications surged following the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020. In January 2021 China and Hong Kong announced they were refusing to recognise BNO passports, which prevents BNO passport holders residing in the UK from accessing their retirement savings in Hong Kong.

Perhaps starkest of China’s transnational repression against Hong Kongers residing in the UK has been the Hong Kong National Security Police issuing international arrest warrants and $1 million HKD ($128,361 USD) bounties on nine Hong Kongers in the UK in July and December 2023 and December 2024.

This transnational repression of dissidents abroad has been compounded by the harassment and targeting of their family members still in China, such as London-based member of Hong Kong Democracy Council Carmen Lau.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/1927777

Large crowds gathered outside the proposed site of a new Chinese “mega-embassy” in London on Saturday, as politicians and protesters expressed concerns it could be used to “control” dissidents.

More than 1,000 people congregated outside the Royal Mint Court, the former headquarters of the UK’s coin maker, near the Tower of London. The site could soon be turned into a Chinese embassy.

China bought the site and has proposed turning the two hectares (five acres) of land into the largest embassy in Europe.

Tower Hamlets council refused planning permission in 2022, citing a range of concerns including the impact of large protests at the site. The Conservative government declined to intervene.

Beijing resubmitted the application after Labour came to power and the government called it in after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, raised it directly with Keir Starmer. Cabinet ministers Yvette Cooper and David Lammy have signalled their support for the proposal and a local inquiry hearing will begin next week.

The final decision rests with Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary.

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Tai, 50, a carer, said: “We come from Hong Kong. We are afraid that China will use this place to look over us, against us. In Hong Kong, we have many experience of China, the CPP, controlling the freedom and democracy and against the Hong Kong people. We all face this.”

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Another protester, who gave her name as Mitochondria, 20, expressed similar concerns. “It’s very possible that this building could be used for holding Chinese dissidents who are on British soil to be arrested in a non-legal way,” she said. “A mega-embassy would enable that to happen.”

She held a blue and white Uyghur flag. “The Chinese government has imperialist interest where they occupy the land of East Turkestan,” she said.

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A number of high-profile politicians including Iain Duncan Smith, Tom Tugendhat and Labour MP Blair McDougall also spoke to protesters. Tugendhat, the former security minister, said allowing the embassy to go ahead would be a “grave mistake”.

“It would be a very clear statement that our government had chosen the wrong side and not the side that was for the defence and protection of the British people and our economic future.”

He said letting the plans go ahead would send a message to the world that the British government “hasn’t learned the lessons of the last decade” and “just hasn’t been listening”.

Tugendhat told reporters: “The reality is some people made decisions in 2010, 2013, you can understand at the time. You can see the hopefulness and the optimism with which they approached it.

“To have that same optimism in 2025? It’s not optimism any more, that’s just a wilful ignorance.”

Archived

The Duke of York planned to create a royal institute to develop closer ties with Beijing, an alleged Chinese spy has claimed.

Prince Andrew has faced intense scrutiny over his links with Yang Tengbo, who has been banned from returning to the UK because their relationship is considered a risk to national security.

Yang denies being a Chinese agent and made an unsuccessful application to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission to overturn the ban.

Andrew’s alleged plans to develop a relationship with the Communist regime were revealed in a statement by Yang to the commission last year, which was made public on Thursday.

“I believe the St James’ Palace Institute was an idea first brought up by the Duke of York in either late 2018 or early 2019, in a meeting I attended with him, Amanda Thirsk [then Andrew’s private secretary] and probably other members of his team,” he said.

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Documents released by the immigration tribunal reveal that Zheng Zeguang, China’s ambassador to the UK, regarded Andrew as a “valuable communication channel”.

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A briefing found on Yang’s mobile telephone showed the embassy was told Andrew would help raise $3 billion of international financing by using the royal family’s international reputation.

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