LONDON: Britain and Canada are to set up joint diplomatic missions and share embassy offices overseas, British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced yesterday. The arrangement will see Britain and Canada share consular services in countries where one of them does not have an embassy, a spokesman for Britain’s Foreign Office said. Reports said that the deal could also eventually involve embassy-sharing with Australia and New Zealand. “As the prime minister said when addressing the Canadian parliament last year: ‘We are two nations, but under one Queen and united by one set of values’,” Hague said. “We have stood shoulder to shoulder from the great wars of the last century to fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and supporting Arab Spring nations like Libya and Syria. We are first cousins. “So it is natural that we look to link up our embassies with Canada’s in places where that suits both countries. It will give us a bigger reach abroad for our businesses and people for less cost.” Queen Elizabeth II is head of state in Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as 12 other Commonwealth realms and Britain itself.
35 Mexican cops linked to drug cartel detained
XALAPA, Mexico: The Mexican navy has detained 35 police officers from the eastern state of Veracruz over their suspected ties to the powerful Zetas drug cartel, the navy said yesterday.
The state police officers were arrested in operations in the Veracruz capital of Xalapa and in San Luis Potosi, the navy said in a statement.
“They were all police officers in the Veracruz public security department and allegedly collaborated with the Zetas criminal organization,” the statement said. A navy source said the officers were being taken to Mexico City, where they will be presented in front of news cameras. Mexican authorities regularly parade suspects after their arrest.
Mexico’s state and local police forces are often accused of corruption and working hand-in-hand with drug cartels. The Gulf of Mexico coast state of Veracruz has become a central hub of activity of the Zetas, a gang formed in the 1990s by military special forces deserters. The federal government deployed 4,000 troops and federal police to the eastern state last year in a bid to curb violence between the Zetas and rival groups.
Britain to hand over Abu Hamza to US soon
LONDON: Britain vowed yesterday to hand over radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza to the United States as soon as possible after the European Court of Human Rights ruled he could be extradited.
“We will work to ensure that the individuals are handed over to the US authorities as quickly as possible,” an interior ministry spokesman said following the ruling on Hamza and four other terror suspects.
UK police hunt teen who fled with teacher
LONDON: British police were liaising with French colleagues yesterday in a bid to track down a missing 15-year-old girl believed to have fled across the Channel with a married teacher twice her age. Megan Stammers, 15, was last seen on Friday. Police believe the teenager, from Eastbourne in Sussex, southeast England, ran away to France with her 30-year-old maths teacher Jeremy Forrest.Agencies
