A junior British foreign office minister has been suspended pending an investigation after grabbing a female demonstrator by the neck and pushing her when a climate-change protest interrupted a speech by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond.
Several women on Thursday evening prevented Hammond from speaking for a few minutes by using loudspeakers to shout slogans at an annual banquet in London’s Mansion House building.
Footage posted online by broadcaster ITV showed British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Mark Field grappling with one of the women and holding her by the back of her neck as he marched her out of the room.
He subsequently apologized, but a spokeswoman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that Field had been suspended from his responsibilities while an investigation takes place.
“The prime minister has seen the footage and she found it very concerning,” she added.
Field told ITV that his response was due to fears over security.
“In the current climate, I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present,” he said in a statement.
The main opposition Labour Party’s spokeswoman for women and equalities Dawn Butler said that Field should be immediately suspended or sacked.
“This is horrific,” she wrote on Twitter.
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said it had organized the protest in the heart of the capital’s banking district, accusing the finance industry of funding climate change and the British Ministry of Finance of trying to water down government action to mitigate it.
“I don’t see any justification for the kind of violent behavior that we saw from him last night. It’s an extremely shocking and concerning state of affairs,” Greenpeace UK head of politics Rebecca Newsom said.
The City of London Corp said it was looking at its procedures.
“We are investigating last night’s breach of security at Mansion House and will be reviewing arrangements for future events,” it said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not