A report has exposed how certain Arab states have continued to shower British politicians with luxury gifts in an attempt to curry favor and buy their support.

Those states include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, and Oman, the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal reported on Saturday, citing newly released UK government data.

Prime Minister Theresa May, whom Saudi Arabia has conferred with the Order of King Abdulaziz Al Saud, has received several gifts from the kingdom, including an ornament, a clock, and a medal, the report said.

Saudi Arabia “has splashed out on 20 luxury Christmas hampers for Conservative Party ministers since 2010,” the MEE further reported.

The United Arab Emirates has also been providing British ministers with various gifts.

The emirates has offered luxury Christmas hampers, rugs, and a $2,600 designer briefcase to Tobias Ellwood, Britain’s defense minister. In December 2012, the country’s government bought former British foreign secretary William Hague a rug and Alistair Burt, the UK’s Middle East minister, both a hamper and an Ipad.

In July, the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry gave Burt a Rolex watch worth nearly $8,000.

Incumbent Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was also once given a $400 box of Wagyu meat by the King Abdullah II of Jordan. Another Arab ruler gave the British minister tins of Caspian caviar, worth more than $1,000 in total, when they met the same month.

Since 2015, Britain has been providing state-of-the-art weaponry and logistical support to Saudi bombardment of Yemen, which also enlists the Emirati military. More than 12,000 have died since the bombing started.

The MEE went on to cite rights campaigners as blasting the trend of the Arab showering of the politicians with gifts as a means of influence peddling by governments, some of whom have incurred huge international outcry over the human rights abuses at home and abroad.

“These gifts aren’t being given out of any sense of generosity. They are being given to buy friends and increase influence,” said Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). “If repressive regimes and brutal dictatorships are giving gifts to MPs, then it is time for those politicians to think about the messages they’re sending out, and to stop offering such intimate political support to human rights abusers,” he added.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said, “Many of these regimes have consistently repressed democracy and violated human rights. These lavish gifts are a transparent ploy to influence the UK’s foreign policy so that it favors the regimes rather than the people of the [Persian] Gulf.”

Culled from Presstv

African migrants attempted to scale a 6-meter fence that separates Morocco from Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, early on Saturday morning.

According to local reports, the refugees tried to scale the two barriers located at a halfway point along the 8.2 km (5 mile) perimeter fence at 06:00.

Moroccan border police managed to stop the majority of the refugees, apart from a small group of 33 who could be stuck on the barbed wire barrier between the countries.

Once the Spanish Civil Guards were aware of their presence, the group were forced to retreat to the Moroccan side.

This was the third attempt at forced entry in the past 24 hours, after 700 and 300 migrants made separate attempts at the northernmost part of the border.

The genocide being committed against Southern Cameroonians has been described by religious leaders as a systematic policy but the international community has remained silent on the plight of the persecuted Anglophone minority. It is a deliberately created crisis to force Southern Cameroonians to flee from their homeland and its implementation involves all structures of the so-called democratic government of President Paul Biya, the Cameroon armed forces and the extremist French Cameroun political elites.

The ongoing crackdown against Anglophones in Manyu Division is another ethnic cleansing campaign, targeting a whole group of people, who are even being denied of their right to participate in any political process in Cameroon. The President Biya scorch-the-earth policy is succeeding as thousands and thousands of Southern Cameroonians are being driven out of their homes due to the butchering of innocent people.

The sufferings of the Manyu population who have managed to flee to neighboring Nigeria is nothing in comparison to those who have been left behind, who are unable to move [since] they’re too old or don’t have the finances to foot the transportation bills.

The United Nations, African Union and the European Union including Ecowas and the Commonwealth are all dragging their feet while people are dying in large numbers in Mamfe, Akwaya and Eyumojock Sub Divisions. Yet another Rwanda in the making

A Roman Catholic Bishop has been quoted as saying that what is going on in Southern Cameroons is a massive, state-sponsored genocide. The President Buhari administration in the Federal Republic of Nigeria has denied protecting Southern Cameroonians at the borders in Ikom and Obudu and the Nigerian government has also denied Southern Cameroonians the right of defending themselves…

It is evidently clear that the Commonwealth have received standing instructions from Paris that everyone should wait for the Biya regime to finish up the job and completely, ethnically cleanse and commit the genocide and finish it in Southern Cameroons.

The Cameroonian army recently launched yet another heavy-handed crackdown against Southern Cameroonians in Kembong village, using an armed attack on a military posts as the pretext.

Over that past one year, Cameroon government troops, apart from raping, have been committing killings, making arbitrary arrests, and carrying out mass arson attacks to destroy houses in predominantly-Anglophone villages in West Cameroon

More than 30,000 Southern Cameroonians have so far fled to neighboring Nigeria.

Source: Cameroon Intelligence Report

President Donald Trump says the United States has “foolishly spent $7 trillion in the Middle East,” stressing it was time to work “in a bipartisan fashion” instead to “rebuild our country.”

“At some point, and for the good of the country, I predict we will start working with the Democrats in a Bipartisan fashion,” Trump tweeted Friday. “Infrastructure would be a perfect place to start.”

Trump had threatened before the vote that Washington would cut foreign aid to countries that voted against his decision at the General Assembly.

Countries “take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us,” the president said Wednesday, adding “we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us, we’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley had echoed the same sentiment ahead of the vote, saying the US would “remember” the nations that voted “yes” at the General Assembly.

Haley noted that the US was the “single largest contributor” to the world body but the latest anti-Israeli measure could alter that.

Defying the threats, the UN voted 128-9 to make Trump’s decision “null and void.” Thirty five countries abstained and 21 were no-shows.

Trump appears to be turning the snub into an opportunity at home by stressing the need to spend more on America’s aging infrastructure.

He is expected to unveil his much-awaited 70-page infrastructure proposal next month, relying on a mix of federal, local and private spending.

Trump has also used Monday’s deadly train derailment in Washington state to call for more spending on infrastructure.

“The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly,” he tweeted after the accident.

“Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble! Not for long!”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had promised to deliver a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to improve rebuild roads, bridges, airports and other public works in the country.

Source: Presstv