Australia

France is to send Australia the bill for its “brutal” ditching of a £45bn submarine contract as it emerged President Emmanuel Macron is refusing to take calls from his opposite number in Canberra. Mr Macron was said to be in a ‘dark rage’ over Australia reneging on the contract in favour of the Aukus military pact with Britain and the United States, and initially recalled his Australian and American ambassadors. Naval Group, the company that was to make 12 diesel-powered submarines for Australia, on Thursday said it would send a detailed bill for the contract breach in the coming weeks. Its CEO, Pierre Eric Pommellet, said Canberra had sent a letter saying it was happy to proceed with the deal on the same day the contract was cancelled. Describing it as “unprecedented brutality,” Mr Pommellet said that Australia terminated the deal out of “convenience”, meaning “we are not at fault”. France has made no move to rebuild bridges with Australia, which said it had opted for …

[Read more...] about France to send Australia bill for ‘brutal’ £45bn submarine contract breach

England could be set to name a strong squad for this winter’s Ashes tour in Australia after the two boards reportedly agreed favourable conditions surrounding the strict covid-19 restrictions currently in place. Some of England’s stars are reluctant to commit themselves to the two-month long tour Down Under until there are more assurances over the schedule and whether their families are able to come with them. However, Cricket Australia have now shared proposed tour conditions with the ECB and, although the details are yet to be passed onto the players, one source told the Daily Mail that the guidelines are ‘better than expected,’ giving hope that the series will go ahead. The same report says that the players have been emailed telling them that they will be given more information in the next 10 days. Wicketkeeper Jos Buttler, whose wife has just given birth to their second child, is one of several England stars who have threatened to pull out of the tour unless a …

[Read more...] about England’s Ashes tour of Australia given hope after ECB agree ‘better than expected’ conditions

Britain wants to "re-establish cooperation" with France, Boris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron in a bilateral call, after a week of deep freeze in the wake of the submarine crisis. France has furiously protested at being "stabbed in the back" after the US and Britain signed a nuclear submarines deal with Australia, causing Australia to scrap a previous £45 billion French-designed submarine deal. Ongoing Gallic pique prompted the Prime Minister this week to warn his neighbour to "prenez un grip". In a statement, the French President's office stipulated that Friday's call was made "at the request" of Mr Johnson. During their conversation, the Prime Minister is understood to have expressed his desire to repair relations with France after the Aukus pact led to a major rupture between the two countries. According to senior UK sources, the Prime Minister and President Macron discussed restoring cooperation on security matters as well as "shared challenges". These …

[Read more...] about Boris Johnson calls Emmanuel Macron to mend fences in wake of submarine deal fallout

Married At First Sight golden couple Patrick Dwyer and Belinda Vickers are back on, according to a new Instagram post shared on Friday. The pair split in July after nine months together, but now it seems they have quietly reunited. Patrick, 27, shared a photo of their wedding day on MAFS to his Instagram, and hinted at a 'future' together. On? Married At First Sight golden couple Patrick Dwyer and Belinda Vickers are back on, according to a new Instagram post shared on Friday. Patrick, 27, shared a photo of their wedding day on MAFS to his Instagram, and hinted at a 'future' together. Both pictured He wrote: ' On this day last year we got Married on National TV. Bring on the future with you5'. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next It's over! Married At First Sight couple Patrick Dwyer and... Married At First Sight's Belinda Vickers and Patrick Dwyer... Married At First Sight's golden couple Patrick Dwyer and... He's ripped! …

[Read more...] about Married At First Sight’s Patrick Dwyer hints he and Belinda Vickers are back together as he discusses their ‘future’

He rose to fame as the quirky groom on this year's season of Married At First Sight . And Patrick Dwyer proved he was in the best shape of his life on Tuesday when he showed off his recent body transformation. Sharing a before and after photo of his fitness journey to Instagram, the 28-year-old looked almost unrecognisable as he flaunted his buff new physique. He's ripped! Married At First Sight star Patrick Dwyer, 28, (pictured) has shown off his impressive body transformation by sharing a before-and-after photo to his Instagram account In the first frame, Patrick appears noticeably smaller in frame as he prepares to lift a weight off the floor at the gym. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next EXCLUSIVE: 'I didn't realise how bad my teeth were': Married... Married At First Sight star Belinda Vickers shares a sweet... 'It's always been my dream to promote a vacuum cleaner':... Married At First Sight's Patrick Dwyer becomes the …

[Read more...] about He’s ripped! Married At First Sight star Patrick Dwyer shows off his impressive body transformation

“They love it when I talk French,” Boris Johnson was caught on film telling the FCO’s then-Europe Director Caroline Wilson on a trip to Brussels in 2018. So, it seems, does he; and having spent some of his childhood at a mixed-language school in Brussels, the PM can speak French fluently if he wants to. There again, he doesn’t always want to. This week he announced with regard to the Aukus submarine debacle that: “It’s time for some of our dearest friends around the world to, y’know, prenez un grip about this and donnez moi un break...” At once, the forlorn partisans of pro-EU social media were buzzing with outrage that a supposed statesman should be dismissing the solemn anger of a great power, should be patronising a supposed ally and, what’s more, should be doing so in Franglais. But this was not the act of bumbling crassness it may have appeared. It was a very un-bumbling crassness. Consider the diplomatic context. The French, with Talleyrand-like subtlety, broke diplomatic …

[Read more...] about Parlez-vous Franglais? Why Boris Johnson’s hilariously annoying habit is a calculated move

Denmark's prime minister has pledged to resist Emmanuel Macron's proposals for an EU military force , stating that she will "go up against those who try to undermine transatlantic cooperation". Mette Frederiksen warned that plans for a "stronger Europe" must not come "at the expense of strong transatlantic cooperation”. Her intervention came after France attempted to use the fallout over the Aukus defence pact between Australia, Britain and the US to bolster its demands for a new EU military force. Prominent EU figures are calling for a unit of up to 20,000 troops able to deploy quickly across the globe, with officials expected to present a draft proposal for a "first-entry force" in November. Mr Macron has previously said that Europe had to be able "to defend itself better alone". But, earlier this month, Jens Stoltenberg, Nato's secretary general, warned in an interview with this newspaper that the proposals risked overstretching the "scarce resources" of Nato allies, …

[Read more...] about Denmark vows to resist Emmanuel Macron’s EU army plans

Health advisers in Jersey have expressed concerns over the UK-based British and Irish Lions players returning to the island following their tour of South Africa given the potential spread of Covid-19. In a variation from the usual rules for red list countries, which South Africa is on, the Lions who are double vaccinated will only have to supply a negative test on their return to the island, where they will be reunited with their families, with all non-vaccinated players and staff required to isolate for five days from arrival. Usually, people returning from red list countries must isolate for 10 days. Discussing the Lions' return to the island at a meeting around the end of June, Jersey's Scientific and Technical Advisory Cell (STAC) said it could set a "dangerous travel precedent". "Whilst noting the proposal's intentions to assist the BIL [Lions], Dr Muscat [Dr Ivan Muscat, consultant microbiologist] remained concerned that the cell would be setting a dangerous travel …

[Read more...] about Jersey health advisers express ‘unease’ at Lions using island as ‘back door’ for UK return

The two leading candidates to be Germany’s next chancellor both backed Emmanuel Macron’s plans to bolster EU defence in a final televised debate before Sunday’s knife-edge election. The support for a “sovereign Europe” from the two men likely to succeed Angela Merkel after 16 years will add more impetus behind EU moves to create a joint 5,000-strong rapid reaction force. Measures to pool intelligence and equipment interoperability between national armies are seen by some as a stepping stone to an eventual European army in the distant future. “We must ensure that we have a strong and sovereign Europe,” said Olaf Scholz , the frontrunner to succeed Mrs Merkel and the centre-Left SDP’s candidate. Armin Laschet, the centre-Right CDU candidate and Mrs Merkel’s chosen successor, said, “We need to start projects together, also arms projects to be able to act together." Mr Scholz also offered France, the EU’s major military power, support in its row with the US, Australia and …

[Read more...] about Candidates to succeed Angela Merkel back calls for joint EU defence

A "game-changing" new cancer drug developed by Australian researchers has dramatically improved the odds of survival for patients with two types of blood cancer, according to the results of two new trials published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug, known as venetoclax, could replace chemotherapy and change the way physicians treat blood cancers, according to lead researcher on one of the trials, John Seymour from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (PMCC) in Victoria, Australia. In this large-scale trial , 389 patients across 20 countries with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) who had previously been treated and relapsed were either given venetoclax in combination with a standard immunotherapy drug known as rituximab, or rituximab on its own. CLL is currently untreatable when a patient relapses. But after two years, nearly 85% of patients in the trial who were given venetoclax in combination with rituximab had very few or almost no detectable leukaemia cancer …

[Read more...] about A “game-changing” new drug has been shown to melt away blood cancer