• Brexit: as more detail has been released about the EU deals reached with PM May the resistance has grown in the UK. Politically sensitive topics like fishing rights have been treated in a highly unsensitive way (from a British perspective). With the Northern-Irish DUP ready to stop providing May with a majority in the commons anything is possible. The support level of MPs is hard to gauge but there is no easy way out. • Spain: the Spanish foreign minister attempted to halt the adoption of the Brexit withdrawal deal, objecting to how Gibraltar was treated. He unwisely claimed that if Scotland voted legally for independence then it could rejoin the EU after Brexit. This has the potential to revisit the Catalonia problem, where Madrid has prevented a legal vote and suppressed a non-binding one. Many Europeans are uncomfortable with this. • APEC: the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit did not find compromise language, to issue a closing statement. China is reported to have disagreed with wording referring to unfair trade practices. U.S. vice president Pence targeted China for its opaque infrastructure loans to governments in the region, claiming that it is the U.S. which really practices non-interference – not compromising states’ independence.
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