The new proposal includes reduced protections for refugees and an end to automatic benefits for asylum seekers, according to Shabana Mahmood
London plans to sharply scale back protections for asylum seekers and make them wait two decades to apply to stay for good as part of a major policy overhaul, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told The Sunday Times. She said the UK is struggling to manage a steady influx of new arrivals.
Under the existing rules introduced in 2005, refugees in Britain receive five years of status before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain, or permanent residence, and eventually citizenship. Mahmood wants to cut that initial period in half and introduce regular reviews to assess whether individuals remain eligible for asylum. Those whose home countries are deemed safe would be instructed to return.
For refugees who arrive illegally, the waiting period to apply for indefinite leave would be quadrupled to 20 years. “Illegal migration is tearing our country apart,” Mahmood said. “If we don’t sort this out, I think our country becomes much more divided.”
Asylum claims in Britain have reached a record high, with about 111,000 applications filed in the year to June 2025, according to government data. The number of claimants has nearly doubled since 2021, a Home Office report found.
Those who arrive legally would face a 10-year wait. The policy would allow skilled refugees to shorten the waiting time by entering “specific” work or study routes. “It will be essentially a system whereby the more you contribute, you can bring forward that period,” Mahmood said.
The overhaul would also end the statutory duty to provide support for asylum seekers. Refugees granted work permits would lose access to housing and weekly allowances, and support would be withdrawn for anyone who breaks the law.
Mahmood described the current system as “broken” and “unfair.” She has previously warned that the UK is losing control of its borders, saying last month that failing to restore order would erode trust in the state.
The move comes as support rises for the anti-immigration and EU-skeptical Reform Party, led by MP Nigel Farage. A September poll showed the party is backed by 35% of Britons, with Labour at 20% and the Conservatives at 17%.
A truce or peace talks could take place by next spring, Alexander Stubb has said
A ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict or renewed peace talks are unlikely to take place this year, Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the Associated Press in an interview published on Sunday.
Kiev has “abandoned” direct peace negotiations with Moscow as they have made “little progress,” Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Kislitsa told The Times last week. The last Turkish-hosted round of talks took place in June.
“I’m not very optimistic about achieving a ceasefire or the beginning of peace negotiations, at least this year,” Stubb told AP.
“If we get something going by February, March, that would be good,” he added, calling on other sponsors of Ukraine to “maximize pressure on Russia.”
He called on Kiev’s backers to increase “financial support to Ukraine,” and to “finance military equipment… give, donate as we best can.”
When asked about the massive $100 million embezzlement scandal that shook the Ukrainian state-owned Energoatom firm earlier this week, Stubb said that he hopes Vladimir Zelensky gets the affair “sorted and cleared.”
“Obviously there’s no place for corruption, especially in a country which is in war,” he said.
The scandal has so far seen two Ukrainian ministers fired and one of Zelensky’s long-time associates, Timur Mindich, flee the country ahead of an anti-graft agency probe.
Kiev’s Western sponsors have long raised concerns about corruption in the country.
Following the scandal, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini argued that foreign aid sent to Ukraine risks just padding corrupt officials’ pockets.
“I would not want the money of Italian workers and pensioners to be used to fuel further corruption,” he said on Friday.
The idea that sending arms to Ukraine could allow it to “regain the lost ground is naïve, to say the least,” he added.
Russian forces have sped up their advance in Kharkov and Donetsk Regions in recent months, taking ground and encircling Ukrainian forces in two key cities.
Despite the military gains, the Kremlin has stressed that it prefers a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
More than 60% of those surveyed have also said that they want Tokyo to boost defense spending
Nearly half of Japan’s population would support military intervention to support Taiwan should the island’s relations with Beijing descend into conflcit, a Kyodo News poll suggests.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told parliament on Friday that any attempt by Beijing to use force to fully reunify with the self-governing island could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” under Tokyo’s security legislation and potentially trigger a military response.
Her remarks have signaled a shift from previous administrations, which generally avoided making affirmative statements on the issue.
The outlet said in an article on Sunday that, according to its telephone poll, which involved more than 1,000 respondents, a total of 48.8% of the public were in favor of Japan exercising its right to self-defense in an event of fighting in the Taiwan Strait.
Even more of those surveyed (60.4%) urged Tokyo to increase its military spending in order to strengthen its defense capabilities.
According to the poll, since Takashi became Japan’s first female prime minister less than a month ago, her government’s approval ratings rose by 5.5%, reaching 69.9%.
Following Takaichi’s remarks, Beijing summoned Japan’s envoy in China to issue a protest over what it called “extremely malicious” comments about Tokyo’s willingness to defend Taiwan.
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian described the Japanese prime minister’s statement as “blatantly provocative,” saying that it violates the One-China principle that recognizes Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan.
Tokyo should “immediately correct its actions and retract its egregious remarks” or “bear all the consequences,” he warned.
The Chinese authorities chose to resolve the Taiwan issue as an internal matter and any attempts by Japan to intervene would constitute “an act of aggression” and prompt China to “retaliate forcefully,” Lin stressed.
Beijing views Taiwan, which has maintained de facto self-rule since 1949 but never officially declared independence, as an integral part of Chinese territory. It vigorously opposes contact and arms deals between Taipei and Japan’s principal ally, the US.
China has said repeatedly that its goal is “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, but has warned that it will not hesitate to use force should Taipei formally declare independence.
NBC’s Seth Meyers is suffering from an incurable case of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’, the US president has claimed
US President Donald Trump has called on NBC to fire late night host Seth Meyers after the leftist comedian attacked the US president on his show.
In the latest episode of the Late Night with Seth Meyers, which aired on Thursday, the host labeled Trump “the most unpopular president of all time.” He cited a poll saying the US leader’s approval was at just 33%, plummeting by 10% since March.
According to Meyers, “a sizable portion” of the president’s supporters in the Republican Party have gotten “frustrated” with Trump due to his defense of H1-B visas for foreign workers in a recent Fox New interview and his reluctance to keep his promise to release the Epstein files.
Trump blasted the NBC host in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, accusing the comedian of “suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).”
According to the president, Meyers was “in an uncontrollable rage, likely due to the fact that his ‘show’ is a Ratings DISASTER.”
“Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote.
Trump has attacked late night hosts who mocked him on many occasions since his return to the White House. In June, he celebrated CBS’ cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show and insisted that ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and NBC’s Jimmy Fallon should be next.
Kimmel’s program got suspended in September after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief, Brendan Carr, warned that ABC could lose its license over the comedian’s comments about the assassination of Conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier that month. Kimmel had accused Trump of a lack of empathy and claimed that Republicans were using Kirk’s death to “score political points.”
Democrats reacted to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! by accusing the president of clamping down on free speech. “Silencing critics through government power is the playbook of authoritarian regimes,” Representative Yassamin Ansari of Arizona said.
The US Department of Justice is reportedly discussing a settlement with former national security adviser Michael Flynn
Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, is seeking $50 million from the American federal government, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing court filings. The case is connected with a prosecution he describes as politically motivated and links to attempts to challenge the 2020 election results, according to the outlet.
The legal cases against Trump’s campaign team were part of a broader crackdown on efforts to contest the election, including probes related to the January 6 Capitol attack. Trump and his allies repeatedly claimed fraud after losing the vote to Joe Biden.
The Department of Justice is reportedly negotiating a settlement of Flynn’s claim in a shift from the previous administration’s approach, when government lawyers fought the case.
Apart from Flynn’s lawsuit, the agency is reportedly trying to settle a case brought by former senior White House lawyer Stefan Passantino, who claims that a government investigation into the 2020 election and January 6 damaged his reputation through leaked private information.
Court filings indicate that no specific financial compensation demands have been publicly disclosed in his case, Bloomberg noted.
Flynn and Passantino filed lawsuits in 2023. Flynn lost the first round of his civil damages suit last year, and the US attorney’s office in Atlanta continued defending a judge’s dismissal of Passantino’s case through June.
Flynn initially pleaded guilty to making false statements acknowledging that he had misrepresented his contacts with a Russian official. He later reversed his position and challenged the charges. Trump pardoned him in late 2020, bringing the case to a close.
The extensive legal action against Trump’s team has affected numerous allies, including figures involved in the post-election unrest and protests at Capitol Hill. Many of them were pardoned either recently or at the end of Trump’s first term.
The bloc is wasting money on Kiev despite it having “no chance” of winning against Moscow, the Hungarian PM has said
The EU must look for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict because the continued financing of Kiev is destroying the bloc’s economy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
It is “just crazy” to keep sending more money to Ukraine after the has EU already “burnt” €185 billion (around $215 billion) on supporting the government of Vladimir Zelensky since the confrontation between Moscow and Kiev escalated in February 2022, Orban told German journalist Mathias Dopfner on his MDMEETS podcast on Sunday.
“The point is that this war kills the EU economically… We finance a country [Ukraine] which has no chance to win the war, but at the same time there is a high level of corruption, and we do not have money for the EU to make a new boost for our economy, which is suffering a lot because of the lack of competitiveness,” he said.
The leaders of the bloc’s nations are “totally wrong” when they insist on the continuation of the conflict in the hopes that “the situation will improve on the front line and we will have better circumstances or preconditions for negotiation,” the prime minister insisted. “The situation and the time is better for the Russian than for us,” he added.
Orban, whose government was one of the few in the EU that refused to provide military assistance to Ukraine, again urged the bloc to engage in diplomacy with Russia.
Peace might be “very close” if Brussels joins the efforts of US President Donald Trump to stop the fighting between Moscow and Kiev, he suggested.
“Let us open an independent communication channel to Russia… Let the Americans negotiate with the Russians and then the Europeans should also negotiate with the Russians and then see whether we can unify the position of the Americans and Europeans,” he said.
Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict, but insists that any deal must address the root causes of the crisis and include guarantees that Ukraine will never join NATO, along with the country’s demilitarization, denazification, and recognition of the territorial realities on the ground.
However, Moscow warns that in the absence of reasonable proposals from Kiev and the West, it has no other choice but to continue pursuing its goals using military means.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partner Itamar Ben-Gvir has claimed that the Levantine Arab ethnonational group was “artificially invented”
The Palestinian people do not exist, Israel’s hardline security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said ahead of the UN Security Council vote on implementing the next stage of the US-brokered peace plan for Gaza.
The Security Council will vote Monday on a resolution drafted by the US and backed by several Arab and Muslim countries, which they said “offers a pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
In a lengthy X post on Saturday, Ben-Gvir, who is also the leader of the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, claimed that “there is no such thing as ‘Palestinian people,’” arguing that the nation was “an invention without any historical, archaeological, or factual basis.”
“The collection of immigrants from Arab countries to the Land of Israel does not constitute a nation, and they certainly do not deserve a reward for the terrorism, murder, and atrocities they have spread everywhere, especially in Gaza,” he wrote, adding that the only “real” solution to the conflict was “encouraging voluntary emigration.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a similar appeal, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “make it clear to the entire world” that a Palestinian state “will never be established.”
The State of Palestine is currently recognized by 157 countries, including four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Although Netanyahu said in September that “there will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” he had previously distanced himself from Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, both of whom were reportedly excluded from the prime minister’s war cabinet.
Russia has stressed that the future resolutions on Gaza must reaffirm the two-state solution and a path to a viable Palestinian statehood.
Donald Tusk said that the new bombshell corruption scandal makes it harder to rally support for Kiev
The huge corruption scandal implicating Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle has made it harder to muster support for Ukraine, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
Tusk joined many EU leaders who expressed concern after Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies announced Monday that they had uncovered a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector involving several businessmen and officials, including Timur Mindich, Zelensky’s close associate and former longtime business partner.
Speaking at a press conference in the Polish city of Retkow on Friday, Tusk said he had long warned Zelensky that the fight against corruption was “crucial for his reputation.”
Although Tusk pledged Poland’s continued support for Kiev, he added that the corruption scandal would make it “increasingly difficult to convince various partners to show solidarity” with Ukraine.
“Today, pro-Ukrainian enthusiasm is much lower in Poland and around the world. People are tired of the war and the associated spending, making it harder to sustain support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia,” he said.
Tusk made his comments as Polish officials have been voicing concerns over welfare payouts to Ukrainian refugees.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki, who took office in August, hinted this week that Ukrainian nationals could lose preferential treatment.
The corruption affair has been especially damaging to Ukraine’s reputation because the alleged kickbacks covered contracts to protect the power grid against Russian airstrikes. The resilience of the country’s critical infrastructure relies heavily on EU financial aid.
Zelensky has supported the investigation and imposed sanctions on Mindich, who fled Ukraine shortly before his house was searched.
The leaders discussed the implementation of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Kremlin said
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken over the phone ahead of the UN Security Council vote on the deployment of peacekeepers in Gaza.
The Kremlin said on Saturday that “a thorough exchange of views took place on the situation in the Middle East region, including developments in the Gaza Strip in the context of implementing the ceasefire agreement and the exchange of detainees.” The leaders also discussed Iran’s nuclear program and the situation in Syria.
Netanyahu’s office released a shorter statement, saying that the Israeli prime minister and the Russian president had discussed “regional issues.”
Earlier this month, the US circulated a proposed resolution authorizing the deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza for a period of at least two years and calling for the establishment of the so-called Board of Peace as a transitional governing body. On Friday, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Indonesia released a joint statement backing the American proposal.
Moscow has submitted an alternative proposal tasking the UN secretary general with drawing up options for implementing US President Donald Trump’s peace plan. The Russian mission criticized the American plan for lacking “instruments of oversight and control” over the stabilization force and not mentioning the two-state solution. It said that “only a truly equal and inclusive approach” can guarantee peace.
Both proposals are expected to be put to a vote on Monday.
Police used tear gas to disperse the rally outside the presidential palace on Saturday
Masked rioters clashed with police outside the presidential palace in Mexico City during the anti-government ‘Generation Z’ protest on Saturday.
Thousands of demonstrators marched from the Angel of Independence monument to Constitution Square, where they gathered outside the National Palace, which hosts the president’s office.
Although the rally began peacefully, a group of masked rioters described by local media as Black Bloc broke through security barriers, hurled stones, and fought with officers.
Videos from the scene show protesters hitting officers, as well as police kicking a protester lying on the ground.
🚨🇲🇽 | #URGENTE COBARDES: La Policía del narcogobierno de Claudia Sheinbaum le rompió las costillas y le pateó la cabeza en el suelo a un joven patriota en la manifestación de la generación Z. pic.twitter.com/oQWa65ZqHc
The skirmishes lasted about an hour, after which police used tear gas to clear the square, newspaper La Jornada reported.
🚨🇲🇽 | #URGENTE Manifestantes atraparon a un policía del narcogobierno de Sheinbaum y lo lincharon en el suelo a puños, patadas en la cabeza y hasta golpeándolo con herramientas. pic.twitter.com/SaBKWXN0U3
🚨🇲🇽 | #URGENTE COBARDES: La Policía del narcogobierno de Sheinbaum reprime y lanza piedras contra el pueblo mexicano, y una impactó a un reportero en la masiva manifestación de la generación Z. pic.twitter.com/gUNi3mCQ3v
The activists say they are protesting corruption, abuse of power, and impunity for violent crime. Many chanted slogans denouncing the ruling left-wing Morena party.
President Claudia Sheinbaum responded by condemning the violence. “If people disagree, they should express their views through peaceful demonstration. Violence must never be used as a means of achieving change,” she said.
Sheinbaum had previously claimed that the protests were driven by “bots and fake accounts on social media” coordinated by “right-wing groups.”
