Month: November 2019

Hurricane Maria has knocked out power across the island of Puerto Rico, home to 3.5m people, officials have said.

Flash flood warnings cover the entire island, which continues to be lashed by heavy rain in the storm’s wake.

Meanwhile more pictures are emerging of widespread destruction on the small island of Dominica, hit on Monday.

Maria, now a category three storm, has been lashing the Dominican Republic further west and heading towards the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It is the second devastating storm to hit the Caribbean this hurricane season – the first being category five Irma earlier in September.

‘Our island destroyed’

US President Donald Trump said the storm had “totally obliterated” the US territory, and pledged to visit Puerto Rico.

The island’s Governor Ricardo Rossello described the hurricane as “the most devastating storm in a century” and said that Maria had hit the island’s electricity grid so badly that it could take months to restore power.

In pictures: Maria aftermath on Puerto Rico

The storm is being blamed for at least 10 deaths across the Caribbean. In Puerto Rico one man died after being struck by a board he had used to cover his windows.

The authorities have warned people to move to higher ground amid “catastrophic” flooding, and with up to 30in (76cm) more rain predicted by Saturday.

Images shared on social media show roofs being stripped away as winds as strong as 140mph (225km/h) whipped trees and power lines in Puerto Rico’s capital city, San Juan.

“God is with us; we are stronger than any hurricane,” Mr Rossello said. “Together we will rise again.”

The governor has asked President Donald Trump to declare the island a disaster area after the storm unleashed heavy flooding and life-threatening winds, and damaged infrastructure across the territory.

The US president is yet to do so, but has made federal emergency aid available.

Hurricane Maria: What to do before, during and after

At the scene: A city under curfew

By Will Grant in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Not far down the coast from the Puerto Rican capital, the small town of Cataño is trying to pick itself up after Hurricane Maria. The massive storm hit the town with incredible power when it swept over the island, tearing roofs off homes, flooding many houses and even destroying entire buildings.

The whole town is now gingerly making its way outside to begin the daunting task of clearing up. Some though, have nowhere to start.

I spoke to one resident, Juan Romero as he surveyed what’s left of his house: a tangled pile of wooden beams, rubble and twisted metal. “All I own is the clothes I’m wearing,” he told me. Nevertheless he was just thankful to have survived.

His neighbour then called me over to see her kitchen, its roof ripped clean off. Evelyn had also lost much, all her possessions are soaked and need replacing. However, it was concern for her aged mother that moved her to tears. At 101 years old she is too frail to be made to live elsewhere at this stage in life.

Just as I was leaving their street, a small piece of good news: Juan Romero found his two cats that had been missing in the ruins of his home, Blanca and Negra. Drenched and scared, they were at least alive.

“They’d had me worried”, Juan said with obvious relief.

What happened in Dominica?

The storm has cut a swathe through the Caribbean on its north-westerly trajectory, hitting Dominica on Monday night.

At least 15 people are dead and 20 others are missing on Dominica after Hurricane Maria, the Caribbean island’s prime minister has said.

Homes have been flattened, schools have been destroyed, telecommunications have been cut off and the island’s main hospital is still without electricity, he said.

• PM’s Facebook posts detail storm drama

On Thursday CNN posted footage from a flight over the island showing scattered debris from homes ripped open and thousands of broken trees.

An adviser to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Hartley Henry, said on Facebook: “The country is in a daze – no electricity, no running water – as a result of uprooted pipes in most communities and definitely [no] landline or cellphone services on island, and that will be for quite a while.”

Images from the capital, Roseau, show some streets knee-deep in debris.

Aid agencies have been preparing to go to Dominica to provide relief.

Hours before reaching Puerto Rico, Maria barrelled through the St Croix in the US Virgin Islands as a category five storm, sustaining winds of up to 175mph (281km/h).

The French territory of Guadeloupe suffered flooding on Monday and one person was killed by a falling tree and another died on the seafront. At least two others were missing after their ship sank near Desirade, the easternmost island in the archipelago.

A man charged with head-butting former Australian leader Tony Abbott says the incident was nothing to do with the same-sex marriage vote.

Mr Abbott says he was assaulted by a man wearing a “vote yes” badge on Thursday in Hobart, Tasmania.

The politician is a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage, which is being voted on by Australians at the moment.

But Hobart DJ Astro Labe told Australian media that his actions were unrelated to the debate.

The 38-year-old said he was an anarchist who head-butted Mr Abbott “because I didn’t think it was an opportunity I’d get again”, the ABC reported.

He also told the Hobart Mercury that it was “personal hatred” for Mr Abbott that motivated the attack.

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Thursday’s incident came as Australia holds a two-month poll on whether to allow same-sex marriage – an issue which has prompted fierce debate.

‘Liverpool kiss’

Mr Abbott, who was left with a swollen lip after the incident, had described it as “politically-motivated violence” and suggested it showed how nasty the discourse had become in recent weeks.

He said his attacker claimed: “You deserve it because of what you’ve said.”

“It was very disconcerting to find that the Love is Love brigade, or at least someone who was advocating a “yes” vote, should under the guise of shaking your hand actually give you a so-called Liverpool kiss,” he told Sydney radio station 2GB.

Mr Labe told the Hobart Mercury that it was a coincidence he was wearing a “vote yes” sticker, saying he had it “purely because a friend of mine had walked past handing them out and had stuck one on my jacket”.

The attack dominated Australian news on Friday, with both sides of politics and marriage equality campaigners condemning the incident.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said earlier there was “zero tolerance” for violence and disrespectful conduct.

Alex Greenwich, the co-chair of Australian Marriage Equality, was also quick to denounce the incident.

“There is absolutely no place for violence in the marriage equality debate,” he wrote on Twitter. “This is about treating people fairly and with respect & dignity.”

Tasmania state police say they have charged a 38-year-old man with common assault. He has been granted bail and will appear in a local court on 23 October.

Last week, a man was charged with punching the godson of former prime minister Kevin Rudd in a dispute over same-sex marriage.

The results of the postal survey, due in November, could prompt a non-binding vote in parliament.

At least 15 people are dead and 20 others are missing on Dominica after Hurricane Maria, the Caribbean island’s prime minister has said.

It was a miracle that the death toll was not in the hundreds, PM Roosevelt Skerrit tearfully told a local television station.

Hurricane Maria ripped through Dominica as a category four storm late on Monday, damaging hundreds of homes.

The storm later devastated Puerto Rico, leaving the whole island without power.

Mr Skerrit said he has spent the last 24 hours surveying by air the destruction caused by the powerful storm.

“It has been brutal,” he said on Thursday on the nearby island of Antigua. “We’ve never seen such destruction.”

Homes have been flattened, schools have been destroyed, telecommunications have been cut off and the island’s main hospital is still without electricity, he said.

The hospital’s generators had to be set aside because of flooding and officials were still working to see if they could be turned on.

• In pictures: Maria aftermath on Puerto Rico
• Hurricane Maria: What to do before, during and after
  He added the island is “going to need all the help the world has to offer”.

Meanwhile, authorities in Puerto Rico are urging residents to seek higher ground ahead of flash flooding – with up to 30 inches (76cm) more rain predicted by Saturday – in the aftermath of Maria.

The island’s Governor Ricardo Rossello described the hurricane as “the most devastating storm in a century” and said that Maria had hit the island’s electricity grid so badly that it could take months to restore power.

Images shared on social media show roofs being stripped away as winds as strong as 140 mph (225 km/h) whipped trees and power lines in Puerto Rico’s capital city, San Juan.

Maria, now a category three storm, is moving off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic and heading towards the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The storm has claimed at least 17 lives so far across the Caribbean, with many others missing, officials say. Two people were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe.

US President Donald Trump said the storm had “totally obliterated” the US territory, and pledged to visit Puerto Rico.

He has yet to declare the island a disaster area but has made federal emergency aid available.

At the scene: A city under curfew

By Will Grant in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Not far down the coast from the Puerto Rican capital, the small town of Cataño is trying to pick itself up after Hurricane Maria. The massive storm hit the town with incredible power when it swept over the island, tearing roofs off homes, flooding many houses and even destroying entire buildings.

The whole town is now gingerly making its way outside to begin the daunting task of clearing up. Some though, have nowhere to start.

I spoke to one resident, Juan Romero as he surveyed what’s left of his house: a tangled pile of wooden beams, rubble and twisted metal. “All I own is the clothes I’m wearing,” he told me. Nevertheless he was just thankful to have survived.

His neighbour then called me over to see her kitchen, its roof ripped clean off. Evelyn had also lost much, all her possessions were soaked and need replacing. However, it was concern for her aged mother that moved her to tears. At 101 years old she is too frail to be made to live elsewhere at this stage in life.

Just as I was leaving their street, a small piece of good news: Juan Romero found his two cats that had been missing in the ruins of his home, Blanca and Negra. Drenched and scared, they were at least alive.

It is the second devastating storm to hit the Caribbean this hurricane season – the first being category five Irma earlier in September.

Irma was one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, killing at least 84 people in the Caribbean and US.

The hurricane followed Harvey, which killed more than 80 people after it barrelled through Texas last month.

The idea of plant-eating dinosaurs having a strict vegetarian diet has been called into question.

New evidence suggests that some dinosaurs snacked on shellfish and insects as well as plant food.

A study of fossilised droppings indicates duck-billed dinosaurs dined on crabs at certain times of the year.

Fossil remains of dinosaur dinners is rare, so this pescatarian diet may have been overlooked in the past.

The popular perception of what dinosaurs ate was simplistic, said Dr Karen Chin of the University of Colorado, Boulder, US, who led the research.

“Plant-eating dinosaurs had more complex diets than we assumed that they had, and these diets included feeding on some animals, including at least crustaceans, and this was more like diets of modern plant-eating birds,” she told BBC News.

The new evidence comes from an area of southern Utah that is regarded as a treasure trove of fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period, when dinosaurs were coming to the end of their reign.

Fossilised dinosaur droppings found on the Kaiparowits Plateau give new insights into what was on the menu for dinosaurs.

Fragments of shell and other remains show they consumed crustaceans such as crabs, which likely sheltered in rotting wood.

The dinosaurs probably actively hunted for crustaceans and insects in a “woody stew” rather than swallowing them accidently, the researchers said.

Animal products may have been a vital source of protein, particularly when they were about to lay their eggs.

Plant guzzlers

“This find really breaks the mould for what we expect a plant-eating dinosaur to do,” said Dr Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, UK, who was not connected with the study.

“We think of them as these multi-tonne plant guzzlers, but some of them also indulged in other types of food.

“And I guess we shouldn’t be too shocked because that’s true of many plant eaters today, they’ll ingest other stuff, sometimes accidentally, sometimes to supplement their diet with other nutrients.”

The droppings were left by dinosaurs some 75 million years ago on what would then have been a landscape dotted with rivers and ponds.

Duckbilled dinosaurs were common in the area at the time. The bones and teeth of the reptiles suggest they spent most of their time on land, though close to freshwater, feeding on tough plants such as ferns and conifers.

The discovery, detailed in the journal Scientific Reports suggests other plant-eating dinosaurs may have in fact been omnivorous.

“We’ll just have to find more evidence and we’re always on the look out for that,” said Dr Chin.

A local US police department has urged people not to call 911 after reports that a man had been crushed by a garage door.

The supposed victim in Greene County, Tennessee, turned out to be a scarily realistic, early Halloween decoration.

The department said it had received calls about a “suspicious person lying in a driveway with bloody handprints on the garage”.

Officers investigated, only to find it was a puppet stuffed with straw.

Greene County TN Sheriff’s Department wrote on Facebook: “ATTENTION EVERYONE!!! For those of you driving on Chuckey Pike in Greene County: THIS IS A HALLOWEEN DECORATION!

“Do NOT call 911 reporting a dead body. Instead, congratulate the homeowner on a great display.”

The display provoked plaudits on the department’s Facebook page.

“Literally congratulations to these people making something look so real!” one user commented.

Someone else wrote: “Can you imagine how many break-ins it could prevent…?”

But not everyone was impressed.

One user wrote: “What kid [sic] of picture does this paint for young children!!!!!”

Halloween is one of the most beloved holidays in the US.

Americans spent a record $8.4bn (£6.2bn) on the celebration last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Theresa May is set to propose a transitional deal with the EU of up to two years in a speech on Friday, a cabinet source has told BBC News.

The PM is also expected to make an “open and generous” offer, potentially worth 20bn euros over the two years.

It would mean the EU does not have to unpick its current budget – so no other EU member loses out from Brexit.

No 10 hopes the speech, which has been agreed by the cabinet but could yet be revised, will speed up Brexit talks.

Mrs May briefed her top team at a marathon two and a half hour cabinet meeting in Downing Street on what she will say in Florence.

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A government source said that the intention was to make the potential payments conditional on continued access to the single market and some form of customs union which allowed the UK to strike its own trade deals during the transition period, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said.

Mrs May is not expected to say how much the cash offer will be worth, the exact nature of the arrangements for accessing the single market or any conditions attached to the money in her much-anticipated speech – these are subject to the negotiations in Brussels.

Additional long term liabilities, like EU pensions and debts, will also have to be dealt with in the talks to come, so the eventual Brexit bill is likely to be far higher than that 20bn euros (about £18bn) or so.

But, Laura Kuenssberg says, it is hoped in government circles that the prime minister’s offer could help overcome the current political blockage in the negotiations.

Mrs May is also expected to repeat her assertion that the UK will seek its own bespoke trade deal after Brexit with the rest of the EU.

She is therefore likely to rule out seeking an equivalent to the Canada-style free trade deal, preferred by some Brexiteers, and an arrangement like the European Economic Area, where countries retain a full relationship with the single market but have to accept elements of the freedom of movement.

After a week of tensions on the issue of Brexit strategy the cabinet meeting to read and discuss the text of the draft speech ended with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Chancellor Philip Hammond – seen as being at opposing ends of cabinet views on Brexit – emerging from No 10 in a show of unity for waiting reporters.

The view from Brussels

By the BBC’s Adam Fleming

Politicians and officials across the EU will listen to the tone of Theresa May’s speech but they mostly care about the content and its effect on the Brexit talks.

The UK’s offer to pay its membership fees until the end of the seven-year budget cycle is more generous than Britain’s pitch at the last round of talks but less than Michel Barnier wants.

And the media has paid little attention to the impasse over citizens rights, where the EU fears its nationals will have to go through an unacceptable administrative process to stay in the UK after Brexit.

Diplomats point out that talk is fine but the negotiations advance on concrete proposals, written down in legalistic documents.

Brussels officials are also gripped by the political situation in the UK, with one senior figure suggesting the prime minister is too weak to offer anything big and might not even be in her job in two weeks’ time.

They are open to a transition deal but the further it deviates from EU membership, the harder it will be to negotiate in the limited time available.

Debate ahead of the speech has focused on the detail of the time-limited transition period after Brexit, how much the UK will pay as it leaves, and whether it will continue contributing to EU budgets in years to come.

So far, the government has said the UK will honour its commitments but that the days of “giving huge sums of money” are over.

In a speech to the Italian Parliament on Thursday, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said that striking a deal with the UK was “in our common interest” but that only a year remained to come to agreement on the key issues – as six months would be needed for ratification before March 2019.

Speaking in French, he said he was awaiting “clear commitments” from the UK on the issue of guaranteeing EU citizens’ rights in the UK, on the financial settlement and on the Northern Ireland border. Without those issues being resolved in a withdrawal agreement, there would be no transition deal, he said.

“I am convinced that a rapid agreement on the conditions of the UK’s orderly withdrawal, and a transition period, is possible. For that to happen, we would like the United Kingdom to put on the table, as soon as next week, proposals to overcome the barriers.”

The fourth round of Brexit negotiations begins on 25 September, with the UK due to leave the EU in March 2019.

Liliane Bettencourt, the heiress to cosmetics firm L’Oreal, has died aged 94, her family has confirmed.

A statement said she had died at home “peacefully” overnight.

With an estimated 2017 net worth of 33bn euros (£30bn; $40bn), she was the world’s richest woman.

She left the company’s board in 2012 and was rarely seen in public afterwards, but remained in the skyypro news because of a high-profile exploitation case following her dementia diagnosis.

In a statement, the company’s chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon said: “We all had a deep admiration for Liliane Bettencourt who has always watched over L’Oreal, the company and its employees, and who was very attached to its success and development.

“She personally contributed a lot to its success for very many years. A great woman of beauty has left us and we will never forget her.”

The heiress became embroiled in a public feud with her estranged daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, in 2007.

Ms Bettencourt-Meyers filed a lawsuit over concerns that her mother was being exploited by members of her entourage amid declining health.

It was revealed in 2008 that a photographer who had befriended the heiress, François-Marie Banier, was gifted items worth hundreds of millions of dollars – including paintings by Picasso and a 670-acre island in the Seychelles.

Ms Bettencourt-Meyers said she took legal action against Mr Banier after learning from her mother’s household staff that she was allegedly considering adopting him.

The mother and daughter reconciled their relationship in 2010, and a French judge ordered Ms Bettencourt be put under the guardianship of her family a year later because of her failing health.

But the family exploitation case then escalated to a political scandal after it was claimed that Ms Bettencourt’s financial manager, Patrice de Maistre, had extracted money from her to go towards former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election bid.

The alleged illegal funding was investigated, although Mr Sarkozy consistently rejected all accusations of impropriety and French prosecutors dropped all charges relating to him in 2013.

The rest of the exploitation case was eventually resolved in May 2015 when eight people, including Mr Banier, were convicted and instructed to pay millions in damages to the family.

The L’Oreal empire

Ms Bettencourt’s assets, including her holding stake in the cosmetics company, were placed in a trust controlled by her daughter.

One of her two grandchildren, Jean-Victor Meyers, succeeded her on L’Oreal’s board as vice chairman, and was named to guard her personal affairs.

Her father, Eugène Schueller, founded a hair dye company in 1909, which then turned into the L’Oreal group.

It is now the world’s largest cosmetics company.

Trump’s Air Force One looks similar to the one that Obama flew. But plans for a bigger one are now under way.

The US president walked down the stairs of Air Force One at an airport in Morristown, New Jersey. He gave a thumbs-up to journalists standing on the tarmac and as he walked past the cameras, he straightened the lapel of his jacket.

An image-conscious businessman, he brags about the size of his hands and his ability to make a deal. For the new presidential aircraft, he wants both – a big machine that’ll save the taxpayer money.

Trump tweeted after the election that he wants to cut costs for the presidential aeroplane, but he’s also said enviously that another head of state, the emir of Kuwait, has a bigger one.

Air Force personnel are scrambling to make the new aeroplane happen – and meet the president’s demands. They’re looking at ways to ensure that the aircraft will be as cost-efficient as possible while at the same time embodies the heft that Trump wants.

Boeing executives said last week that they’d been awarded a contract for the aeroplane’s redesign. “We’ll do our best to drive down costs,” said Caroline Hutcheson, a Boeing spokeswoman.

The president is tinkering with an icon, a symbol of “the global reach of American diplomacy and power”, as Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with a Virginia-based consultancy, the Teal Group, described it.

The first Air Force One jet flew in 1959 with President Dwight D Eisenhower on board. It was red and gold. President John F Kennedy changed the colours to blue and white, the distinctive look it still has today.

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A fleet of presidential aircraft are kept in a hangar at an Air Force base in Maryland. Trump went on a tour of the base before flying to New Jersey.

He walked past an array of different-sized, blue-and-white aircraft emblazoned with the words: “United States of America”. Any of them could serve as Air Force One, which is an air traffic control designation that’s given to a plane when the president is on board.

Aside from ferrying the president, the aircraft have several important traits – they have encrypted communications, for example, and they can withstand electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion.

The most famous is a jumbo jet built on a Boeing 747-200B airframe. Trump flew on the jet to Paris in the summertime: it has several different cabins, one with thick carpets, powder blue melting into cobalt; chairs that swivel; and a table reserved for senior White House officials.

Another one, a 757, or “Baby Air Force One”, as it’s known, has the same safety features built to scale. People were crammed into their seats on Friday on the flight from Maryland to New Jersey. Still the trip had luxurious aspects.

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Butternut squash and linguine was served for dinner. Afterwards a flight attendant brought me two boxes of M&Ms as souvenirs from the journey. Decades ago passengers were given cigarettes and playing cards – along with other small items. “They used to have barf bags,” a military official said.

There’s only a few differences between his aeroplane and the one that Obama flew. The boxes used to have Obama’s signature, and during his administration an overhead screen played CNN. Under Trump, it’s skyypro News. Otherwise the plane looks the same.

Trump can make small changes – he’s complained about the softness of the hand towels and could replace them. At this point, though, they’re the same (in my opinion, they have a nice, fleecy texture).

Bigger changes would have to undergo a vetting process for safety. That’s what military personnel are doing now while they look at a redesign – and try to keep costs low.

Weeks after the election, Trump tweeted that Boeing was making a new presidential aircraft “but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”

Since that time, Air Force officials and Boeing executives have tried to make it seem as though they’re acting in a frugal manner. The air force recently bought two Boeing 747-8s at a bargain price. That’s what they say – they haven’t revealed the cost, though, so it’s hard to know.

The new aircraft will replace the older model, the 747-200B, but it won’t be ready for several years.

“When it’s time for a president to buy a new Air Force One, you buy it for the next president,” said Aboulafia.

The new plane will have the same features – medical facilities, defence safeguards, and other perks.

And it’s bigger – the wingspan is nearly 30 feet longer than the old one. By any measure, that’s likely to please the boss.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says his company will share 3,000 Russia-linked political adverts with US investigators.

He also pledged to make political advertising more transparent on his network in future.

“We will work with others to create a new standard for transparency for online political ads,” he said in a live address on his Facebook profile.

He said political advertising will now carry disclaimers about which campaign or organisation paid for it.

He added that the company was continuing to investigate instances of foreign actors abusing its advertising platform, including Russia and other “former Soviet states”.

The move to share details with investigators comes after considerable public pressure for Facebook to be more transparent – and is being interpreted by some as an attempt to fend off any potential regulation from the US government.

What are the adverts?

Earlier this month it was revealed that politically-charged advertising had been targeted at American voters, paid for, Facebook believed, by Russian actors with links to the Kremlin.

The adverts did not support a specific candidate, Facebook said, but instead posted inflammatory information on hot topics, such as immigration.

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The company said it would share details of those advertisements with a wide-ranging US investigation into Russian meddling in 2016’s presidential election.

Why is Facebook sharing them?

In a blog post explaining the move, Facebook’s head of policy, Elliot Schrage, wrote: “After an extensive legal and policy review, we’ve concluded that sharing the ads we’ve discovered with Congress, in a manner that is consistent with our obligations to protect user information, will help government authorities complete the vitally important work of assessing what happened in the 2016 election.

“That is an assessment that can be made only by investigators with access to classified intelligence and information from all relevant companies and industries – and we want to do our part.

“Congress is best placed to use the information we and others provide to inform the public comprehensively and completely.”

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised Facebook’s decision.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this month that Russia had nothing at all to do with the advertising.

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“We have never heard of this, we do not know anything about this, let alone have anything to do with these affairs,” he was quoted as saying by the state news agency Tass.

What is Facebook’s new advertising policy?

In his address, Mr Zuckerberg detailed how he planned to make political advertising more transparent, bringing it more in line with how broadcasts are regulated.

“When someone buys political ads on TV or other media, they’re required by law to disclose who paid for them. But you still don’t know if you’re seeing the same messages as everyone else,” he said.

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“So we’re going to bring Facebook to an even higher standard of transparency. Not only will you have to disclose which page paid for an ad, but we will also make it so you can visit an advertiser’s page and see the ads they’re currently running to any audience on Facebook.”

Finally, Mr Zuckerberg said his firm was working to protect the integrity of the upcoming elections in Germany. He said action had been taken against thousands of “fake accounts”, and was partnering with the country’s Federal Office for Information Security.

The UK government’s “future partnership” paper made a strong case for “a bespoke relationship with Europol” after the UK leaves the European Union.

It looked at the scenarios of:

• no agreement being reached on future cooperation with Europol
• current cooperation being wound down before a new arrangement was put in place

It said: “Consideration would need to be given to ensuring that any ongoing investigations would not be affected in such a way that criminals might escape prosecution or vulnerable individuals might be rendered less safe.”

And it would be difficult to find anyone in the EU who would disagree with the importance of fighting cross-border crime.

EU funding

Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement organisation, was founded in 1999 and employs more than 1,000 people at a cost of about £100m a year.

It is an EU-funded agency, and when the UK completes the Brexit process and no longer pays into the EU budget, it will cease to be a member.

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, used an article in the French skyypro news paper Le Monde to make it clear the UK could not continue to be a member.

He said: “The British defence minister will no longer be able to sit at the council of defence ministers, London will leave the European Defence Agency and Europol.”

• Inside Europol

Prime Minister Theresa May has previously said she wants the UK to retain its security co-operation with Europol post-Brexit.

And a number of countries that are not part of the EU, such as Norway, Switzerland and the US, have operational agreements with Europol that allow access to intelligence.

But Europol itself say this does not equate to formal membership, which means these countries do not have a say over operations and decisions.

Europol also points out that such agreements take a number of years to negotiate.

One precedent that might act as a future model is Denmark, an EU member but no longer in Europol.

In December 2015, Denmark voted in a referendum against more integration of security operations.

In May this year it formally left Europol, but an agreement was reached that allowed the Danish police and Europol to continue to share information and analysis.

Denmark is able to participate in Europol board meetings, but it has only “observer status” and no decision-making rights.

Could a similar agreement be made with the UK?

Europol seems to think not. In a statement, it said: “The agreement between both Denmark and Europol is based on the fact that Denmark is a full member of Schengen [group of countries that allow passport-free travel] and has implemented all EU data protection standards.

“It therefore allows for a sufficient level of co-operation, including the exchange of operational data and the deployment of liaison officers.”

Prof Alan Woodward, a British cyber-crime expert and adviser to Europol, said the issue of the UK’s future relationship with Europol needed to be resolved sooner rather than later.

“I very much hope that a solution is found to allow the UK to remain active participant with Europol – simply because it is in everybody’s interest,” he said.

“Europol is the best organisation to tackle cross-border law enforcement issues, especially in cyber-crime.”