World news in brief: Court fines ant traffickers

Kenyan court fines traffickers of harvester ants

Nairobi — A Kenyan court on Wednesday fined four men $7,700 each for trying to traffic thousands of ants valuable to the country’s ecosystem, in cases experts said signal a shift in biopiracy from trophies such as elephant ivory to lesser-known species.

Authorities arrested two Belgian teenagers, a Vietnamese man and a Kenyan national on April 5, accusing them in two separate cases of trying to smuggle out roughly 5,440 giant African harvester queen ants.

Magistrate Njeri Thuku said the ants would fetch in excess of $900,000 online in Europe, Asia, and parts of North America, where ant keepers maintain colonies in large transparent vessels known as formicariums to observe their co-operative behaviour. Reuters

Starmer defends tax break for Indian workers

London — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday dismissed the idea that he had sold out British workers by giving a tax break to some Indian workers as part of a free-trade agreement with India, calling the claims “incoherent nonsense”.

The trade deal announced on Tuesday, which includes a range of tariff cuts on British imports to India, also exempts some short-term workers from India from paying into Britain’s social security system for three years.

The exemption under the Double Contributions Convention also applies to British workers in India, but while Britain barely made mention of this element of the trade deal, India hailed it as a “huge win”.

British opposition parties accused the government of signing up to a deal that would unfairly benefit India. Reuters

Guinea to withdraw licence for bauxite miner

Conakry — The government of Guinea has initiated a process to withdraw Emirates Global Aluminium’s mining licence in the West African nation, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

Emirates Global Aluminium operates one of the largest bauxite mines in Guinea through its Guinea Alumina Corporation subsidiary.

The company has been in a dispute with the government of Guinea since October last year when its bauxite exports and mining operations were suspended by the authorities, which cited concerns over customs duties. Reuters

Yemen-US ceasefire deal ‘excludes Israel’

Aden — A ceasefire deal between Yemen’s Houthis and the US does not include sparing Israel, the group said on Wednesday, suggesting its shipping attacks that have disrupted global trade and challenged world powers will not come to a complete halt.

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the US would stop bombing the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, saying that the group had agreed to stop attacking US ships.

After Trump made the announcement, Oman said it had mediated the ceasefire deal to halt attacks on US vessels.

There have been no reports of Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea area since January.

“The agreement does not include Israel in any way, shape or form,” Mohammed Abdulsalam, the chief Houthi negotiator, said. Reuters 

EU calls for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza

Brussels — The EU renewed an urgent call on Wednesday for Israel to immediately lift the blockade on Gaza, allowing humanitarian aid to reach those in need, and warned against Israel’s planned new aid delivery mechanism. “As the occupying power, Israel is obliged under international law to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the population in need,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Crisis Management commissioner Hadja Lahbib and commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica in a joint statement.

The statement also urged a ceasefire and the immediate release of hostages, while expressing concern over a new aid delivery system approved by Israel on May 4. The statement said the new system undermined humanitarian principles by outsourcing aid distribution to non-humanitarian actors and private security firms — a move criticised by the UN and aid groups. Reuters

British government sticks with fuel, welfare cuts

London — The British government will not reverse cuts to winter fuel or welfare payments, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday, after a series of bruising losses in English local elections.

Labour Party politicians said the party’s poor performance in the elections was in part because of unhappiness with the government over the cuts to the fuel and disability payments.

“The government has set out its policies and the reasons behind these policies and there is no change to the government policy and there will not be a change to the government’s policy,” a spokesperson for Starmer said.

The Guardian newspaper reported on Monday that the government is rethinking last year’s move that took winter fuel payments away from pensioners. Under plans set out by Labour within weeks of taking office last July, the government cut universal payments worth up to £300 for millions of pensioners unless they were eligible for government benefits. Reuters