UK election result: How the world reacted

The result of the UK election, with the ruling Conservatives unexpectedly losing their overall majority, has sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond.
Politicians across the Continent have been questioning the impact on the Brexit talks.
Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Commission, said he wanted discussions to proceed without delay.
"As far as the Commission is concerned we can open negotiations tomorrow morning at half past nine," he said.
"First we have to agree on the divorce and exit modalities, and then we have to envisage the architecture of our future relations. I do hope that the result of the elections will have no major impact on the negotiations we are desperately waiting for."
Sweden's former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who now chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, called the outcome "messy".
"One mess risks following another. Price to be paid for lack of true leadership," he tweeted.

'Another own goal'

Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, who is president of the Alliance of Liberals & Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament, had caustic words for Mrs May.
"Yet another own goal, after Cameron now May, will make already complex negotiations even more complicated," he tweeted.
Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator for Brexit, had a more conciliatory message. "#Brexit negotiations should start when UK is ready; timetable and EU positions are clear. Let's put our minds together on striking a deal," he said.
European Council President Donald Tusk alluded to the March 2019 deadline for Brexit talks.
"We don't know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end. Do your best to avoid a 'no deal' as result of 'no negotiations'," he wrote.


The EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said it was uncertain when Britain would have a clear Brexit strategy.
"One year after their referendum, we still don't know the British position in the negotiations on Brexit and it seems difficult to predict when we will, because democracy often requires time," she observed.
A spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would not comment on the election result out of "politeness and respect" while the process of forming a new government was ongoing.
Meanwhile Irish Prime Minister-elect Leo Varadkar was positive about the outcome.
"The results of the UK election indicate to me that there is no strong mandate to proceed with a hard Brexit, which represents an opportunity for Ireland," he said.
He also described the result as an opportunity to re-engage in talks to restore Northern Ireland's devolved power-sharing administration, which collapsed in January.
Mrs May is expected to form a government with the backing of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionists.

World media notes May setback

European newspapers have been focusing on the uncertainty about Mrs May's future and the anger among Britain's voters.
There has been no official reaction yet from the US, but the Washington Post newspaper noted the unpredictable nature of recent British politics.
"The results mark the second time in as many years that the British body politic has defied predictions, scrambled the country's direction and bucked the will of a prime minister who had gambled by calling a vote when none had been required," it said.
"But unlike last year's EU referendum - which delivered a clear if close verdict to get out of the bloc - the will of the voters who cast ballots Thursday was not nearly as easy to decipher."

Looking east from London, the Chinese press offered largely factual reports, with little comment except to say the result would have a "huge" impact on Brexit discussions.
In Hong Kong, independent outlets said the Tories had made a "grave miscalculation".
Shi Zhiqin, a professor from Tsinghua University in Beijing, said China might no longer see the need to keep Britain as a strong ally in the EU.
"But I think Britain's main concern is to keep China as a trade partner after it lost the EU market," he told the South China Morning Post.
In Russia, state-owned news agency RIA Novosti is claiming the Conservatives will not forgive Theresa May for the result, and predicts a new prime minister.
On the morning of 9 June, state-run rolling news channel Rossiya 24 called it "Theresa May's devastating defeat."
A correspondent for Qatar-funded Al Jazeera TV, which ran a special segment on the polls, said the opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn had led a "fierce campaign that the Conservative Party did not expect".
The results were covered prominently on some Lebanese newspaper websites, with the front page of left-wing Al Akhbar newspaper reading: "Britain: Corbyn brings down the hopes of the Conservatives."
In India, newspapers are taking an interest in Preet Gill, who has become the UK's first Sikh woman MP, and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the first turban-wearing Sikh winner.
Indian headlines also concluded that the result was a setback for Theresa May, with the Hindustan Times calling it a "stunning blow" for the prime minister.

Congratulations to Corbyn

Labour boosted its number of seats by 29 overnight, exciting Corbyn supporters abroad.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, the former Democratic presidential candidate, told the Washington Post he was thrilled.
"I am delighted to see Labour do so well. All over the world people are rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality.
"People in the UK, the US and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%. I congratulate Jeremy Corbyn for running a very positive and effective campaign."
Image copyright Le Monde
 
 

Bill Shorten, leader of the Australian Labor Party, made similar observations, telling reporters:
"One of the things which my counterpart, the Labour leader in the United Kingdom, did is he campaigned and his slogan was 'For the many, not the few.'
"I think Mr Turnbull [Australia's prime minister] would be well advised to look at the popularity of that message."

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Germany fears huge losses in massive tax scandal

It is reckoned to be the biggest tax scandal in German post-war history.
An international group of bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers - reportedly with links to the City of London - appears to have fiddled the tax system, employing practices which were at best unethical, at worst illegal.
Ultimately they may have deprived the state of nearly €32bn (£28bn; $36bn). As the German broadcaster ARD wryly noted, that would have paid for repairs to a lot of schools and bridges.
The newspaper Die Zeit adds that the sum would more than cover the cost of the refugee influx for a year.
Prosecutors have been investigating for some time. And gradually it is emerging that large-scale tax avoidance was taking place right under the noses of the authorities.
And that - in some cases - they turned a blind eye to practices employed, not just by individuals out to make a fortune, but by some of the country's biggest banks and respected businesses.

Creative accounting

We may never really know the full extent of those practices; largely because they involved fiendishly complex transactions, which German media broadly divide into two kinds.
In the first type, German banks and stockbrokers bought and sold shares for foreign investors in a way which allowed them to claim a tax refund for which they were not eligible. Many question the legality of the practice.


In the second (a more complicated variation), investors and banks bought and sold shares just before and just after dividends were paid. With a bit of imaginative paperwork, and by exploiting a procedure which allows more than one person or institution to simultaneously own a share, they were able to claim numerous tax refunds. The practice was outlawed in 2012.

Whistleblowers

German prosecutors are investigating a number of banks - among them institutions which were bailed out by the state - and individuals.
But in the meantime, a group of German journalists has been researching too, working alongside an expert from the University of Mannheim.
Their investigations, broadcast on Thursday night, reveal that, despite a warning from State Commissioner August Schäfer in 1992 and the testimony of five whistleblowers, the practices continued and were widespread.
They involved 40 German banks and scores of other financial institutions around the world.
And, as those German reporters reveal, in the end it wasn't a national authority, a finance minister or the justice system who finally exposed the practice.
It was a young administrative assistant in Germany's central tax office, who noticed that she was receiving claims for huge tax rebates from a single US pension fund.
Anna Schablonski (a pseudonym) dug further and, despite threats, began to uncover other cases. She is modest about her role - even though 30 colleagues are now dedicated to trying to recover some of the money, and prosecutors are building their cases against some of those involved.
She does not want to be cast as a hero, she says. She was just doing her job. 

BBC NEWS

Islamic State claims it killed two Chinese in Pakistan

The so-called Islamic State says it has killed two Chinese nationals who were abducted from south-west Pakistan by armed men in late May.
The IS-linked Amaq news agency made the claim in an Arabic statement on the Telegram messaging app.
China's foreign ministry said it was "gravely concerned" and working to verify the information.
The pair are said to have been studying Urdu at a language centre in the city of Quetta when they were abducted.
According to local media reports at the time of the abduction, armed men took the couple as they left the centre. Another Chinese woman just managed to escape during the confrontation.
At the time, neither IS nor any other militant group said they had kidnapped the pair. Balochistan has seen kidnappings of foreign nationals in recent years by armed Islamist or separatist groups, sometimes for a ransom.
Islamic State controls some territory in Afghanistan and has been seeking to strengthen its hold in Pakistan since 2015 when it carried out its first attack in the country.
China is one of Pakistan's major allies, investing heavily in infrastructure projects including nuclear power plants, roads and dams.
Under China's One Belt One Road initiative which will see the construction of an economic corridor, Pakistanis likely to see massively increased investment as ever closer links are forged between the countries. Balochistan is the heart of the proposed infrastructure investment.
A recent report from the Pentagon also predicts that China will expand its military reach and suggests that it could construct military bases in Pakistan. 

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Election results 2017: Pictures of the election counts

















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Juncker: EU needs stronger defence arm

EU nations must step up their military co-operation as they cannot simply rely on the US to defend them, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says.
"Our deference to Nato can no longer be used as a convenient alibi to argue against greater European efforts.
"We have no other choice than to defend our own interests in the Middle East, in climate change, in our trade agreements," he said in Prague.
US President Donald Trump has urged Nato allies to boost defence spending.
Last month German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe could no longer "completely depend" on the US and UK, following the election of President Trump and the triggering of Brexit.
The UK and France are by far the strongest military powers in the EU, so UK withdrawal potentially weakens Europe's collective military muscle.

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Melbourne siege: Police raid homes over gunman's weapons

More than 150 Australian police officers have raided three homes after this week's deadly siege in Melbourne.
On Monday, gunman Yacqub Khayre was shot dead at an apartment building after he killed a man, took a woman hostage and wounded three policemen.
A 32-year-old man was arrested on Friday, but police said he was not "of national security interest".
The raids related to how Khayre had obtained weapons before the suspected terrorism incident, authorities said.
Police have said Khayre, 29, made comments referencing so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda during the siege.
Two adult men, a father and son, were also questioned on Friday.
"I want to make perfectly clear, we have not yet uncovered anybody with links to terrorism who are associated with the offender," said Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton.
"They are not persons of national security interest, but they are persons who are known to us through their criminal history."


Mr Patton said authorities were investigating how Khayre obtained a shotgun and a sawn-off shotgun.
Police also seized an imitation firearm on Friday.
The siege victim, 36-year-old Kai Hao, was remembered this week as a loving son who was married only weeks ago.

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Softbank buys robot-maker Boston Dynamics from Alphabet

Shares of Japan's Softbank have surged to their highest in nearly two decades after the firm bought robot-maker Boston Dynamics from Google's Alphabet.
Boston Dynamics, known for its robots such as Atlas and BigDog, has struggled to commercialise its inventions and was put up for sale more than a year ago.
Softbank also announced it is buying robotics group Schaft.
The terms of the deals were not disclosed. Softbank shares rose by more than 7% in Tokyo.
Softbank began as a Japanese telecoms company but moved into robotics and developed the human-like Pepper in 2014.
Founder Masayoshi Son has since built the Japanese firm into a massive technology conglomerate through some big deals.

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Apple to scan iPhones for child sex abuse images

  Apple has announced details of a system to find child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on customers' devices. Before an image is stored on...