Senior EU figures have have hit back at Liam Fox’s “ignorant and indigestible” claim that lowering UK food standards to allow the import of chlorinated chicken from the US is an insignificant detail.Fox accused the media on Monday of being obsessed with concerns about chlorine-washed chicken being sold in Britain as part of a potential trade deal with the US after Brexit.

During his visit to Washington, he suggested it was a minor matter, which would be settled at the end of lengthy talks, adding that “Americans have been eating it perfectly safely for years”. In Brussels, his comments were met with withering contempt from officials and politicians alike, who accused Fox of failing to understand the implications should the UK lower its standards compared with the EU, where chlorinated chicken is banned.(theguardian)…[+]

Shinzo Abe is fighting for his future as Japan’s prime minister as scandals drag his government’s popularity close to what political observers describe as “death zone” levels. Apart from clouding Abe’s hopes of winning another term as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) when a vote is held next year, the polling slump also undermines his long-running push to revise Japan’s war-renouncing constitution.

Abe, who returned to the prime ministership four and a half years ago, was long seen as a steady hand whose position appeared unassailable – so much so that the LDP changed its rules to allow Abe the freedom to seek a third consecutive three-year term at the helm of the party. “He is no longer invincible and the reason why he is no longer invincible is he served his personal friends not the party,” said Michael Thomas Cucek, an adjunct professor at Temple University Japan.(theguardian)…[+]

Poland’s president has signed into law one of three contested bills that organises the judiciary in a way that critics say limits their independence. President Andrzej Duda announced on Monday after days of protests that he would veto two of the bills. On Tuesday, his office said he had signed the third bill, despite demonstrations late on Monday in several cities urging him to also block that one. The law allows the justice minister, who is also the prosecutor general, to name the heads of all lower courts.

Critics say it is unconstitutional, but welcomed the president’s rejection of the other bills. One of them would have allowed the justice minister to immediately fire all supreme court justices and choose their replacements. Duda said the law on the supreme court gave excessive powers to the prosecutor general. Commentators were shocked at the move, interpreting it as a major setback for the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), which has made a big issue out of controlling Poland’s independent institutions, particularly the judiciary, since it came into power in 2015, and hailing it as a victory for demonstrators.(theguardian)…[+]