“I am shocked by this horrific and
cruel attack in Finsbury Park, which is being treated as an act of terror.

“I offer my condolences to the
family and friends of the man who has died, and our thoughts are with the
people who have been injured, their family and friends.

“As the local MP, I have met with
Muslim community leaders at the Muslim Welfare House alongside Islington
Council Leader Richard Watts, the council’s Chief Executive Lesley Seary and
the Metropolitan Police.

“Richard and I will attend prayers
at Finsbury Park mosque later today.

“I appeal for people and the media
to remain calm and respectful of those affected.

“In the meantime, I call on everyone
to stand together against those who seek to divide us.”

China International Publishing Group (CIPG) is seeking to extend its influence in the international cultural arena in partnership with Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), one of China’s most prestigious linguistic schools.

The two sides, hoping to develop a close relationship designed to enhance China’s voice in the international community, signed an agreement in Beijing on July 16.

According to Zhang Fuhai, president of CIPG, the two organizations may have more to cooperate.

He said that CIPG is the oldest and largest professional cross-cultural communication institute in the country, while BFSU is an eminent school with a long history and rich language resources among domestic universities.

“Despite their different functions, the two organizations should make full use of their advantages to jointly assume responsibility to present China’s stories, voices and images and enhance China’s discourse power and influence in the international community,” Zhang said.

With courses covering 84 foreign languages, BFSU enjoys high prestige rarely surpassed by domestic universities in terms of size and diversity of linguistic education, particularly those of less-widely used languages, said Peng Long, president of BFSU.

Regarding cooperation with CIPG, Peng said, “It is an historic moment [in which] we are both inspired and encouraged.”

In addition to conventional language education, BFSU has explored multi-disciplinary majors, such as international journalism, business and law. Besides, it has set up 22 Confucius Institutes abroad.

CIPG Vice President Wang Gangyi said, “We are confident in pressing ahead with cooperative programs one after another through a pragmatic approach.” Wang is also one of the initiators of the cooperation.

The two sides are dedicated to building personnel pools of those with a good command of foreign languages as well as competent in journalism and new media technologies.

The exchange, focusing on faculty, students and CIPG staff in the form of internships, continued education and symposiums, such as research for handling diverse cultures under the Belt and Road Initiative, will complement the first-hand experience of translation via the China Academy of Translation.

At last today the UK will start negotiating with the rest of the EU. Some in politics and the media have been making our country look stupid by persisting in having a negotiation amongst ourselves over how weak a negotiating stance we should adopt in Brussels. Some do this because they do want to wreck our negotiation proper. Others do so because they do not understand how a serious negotiation is best handled, and doubt the underlying strength and fairness of the UK position.

We have heard siren voices tell us we need to pay large and maybe continuing sums of money into the EU. Of course not. There is no legal requirement to do so. The rest of the world trades happily with the EU without paying budget contributions or one off payments.

Some say we have to stay in the single market and or Customs Union. Of course not. Most countries that trade with the EU are in neither. We do need to leave both bodies, as the Manifesto of both Labour and Conservative made clear in the recent election, in order to negotiate better trade deals with the rest of the world. The rest of the EU stated categorically we cannot stay in the single market without accepting the laws, freedom of movement and budget contributions that go with it. In other words to be in the single market we would need to be in the EU.

Some say the UK cannot expect to get a free trade deal with the rest of the EU when we walk out. Why not? We have a comprehensive free trade deal with them at the moment, and the UK is happy to offer continued easy access to our market. The rest of the EU sells us so  much more than we sell them. Why would they want to lose some of that?

Some say you cannot negotiate a  free trade deal in 20 months. That is probably true, but we don’t need to negotiate one. We merely need to renew one that exists already.

Of course it is possible the rest of the EU will want to harm their trade with us. In that case the negotiations will take the form of the EU proposing barriers to their trade with us and ours with them, whilst we urge them not to. We will also of course be pointing out they cannot do so against WTO rules, which will greatly limit their scope to do damage. It will mainly come down to them imposing large tariffs on agriculture where WTO does allow such practises, and us retaliating. The UK can once out also remove tariffs on agricultural products from the rest of the world that we cannot produce for ourselves.

Tomorrow I will talk about a new range of stories the media could pursue on this topic, to get us away from the boring and repetitious “Lets water down and undermine the UK position” pieces that they all have been running for a year.

Six people were confirmed dead after a fire broke out in a factory in north China’s Hebei Province Sunday afternoon.

The fire ripped through a plastic factory in Huanghua City at about 5:40 p.m. while seven workers were in the factory, the city government said on Monday.

Two of them were killed at the scene, while four others died in the hospital. The seventh worker was receiving medical treatment and his condition was described as serious.

No environmental pollution was reported following the accident.

The factory was ordered to suspend production in April for failing to meet pollution-control requirements. But it resumed operations against the order.

The head of the factory has been detained while the cause of the accident is being investigated.