England

LONDON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under mounting pressure to lift all COVID-19 lockdowns in two and a half months as lockdown-sceptic Tories called on him to commit to a timetable for easing the restrictions with a complete end to controls by the end of April.

In a letter to the prime minister, leaders of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) said the "tremendous pace" of the vaccination rollout means restrictions in England should begin easing from early March, the London-based Evening Standard newspaper reported on Sunday.

LONDON (Reuters) - British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday he shared concerns about the level of access given to a World Health Organization COVID-19 fact-finding mission to China, echoing criticism from the United States.

The White House on Saturday called on China to make available data from the earliest days of the novel coronavirus outbreak, saying it had “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the WHO’s COVID-19 report were communicated.

LONDON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders Friday to discuss efforts to ensure an equal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and prevent future pandemics.

Johnson will call for a new global approach to pandemics, drawing on lessons from the divisions that characterised the initial international response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a press statement released Saturday night by Downing Street.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to appeal to leaders of the world’s richest nations to unite in a “colossal mission” to get COVID-19 vaccines to every country and to lead a sustainable recovery from the pandemic, according to remarks released Saturday.

Johnson is set to chair a virtual meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Friday. It will be the first session led by Johnson since the U.K. took over the G-7′s presidency in January.

LONDON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The British economy shrunk faster than at any point in 100 years in 2020, as headline gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 9.9 percent, according to new data from the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday.

The last quarter of 2020 saw a rise of 1.0 percent in GDP but was sharply down on the 16.1 percent growth seen in the previous three months, said the ONS.

LONDON (Reuters) - The UK Supreme Court on Friday allowed a group of 42,500 Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) in English courts after years of oil spills in the Niger Delta contaminated land and groundwater.

Senior judges said UK-domiciled Shell, one of the world’s biggest energy companies, did have a common law duty of care, in the latest case to test whether multinationals can be held to account for the acts of overseas subsidiaries.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Thursday, paring recent gains, as renewed lockdowns and the emergence of new coronavirus variants weighed on the prospects for a swift demand recovery.

Brent crude fell 44 cents, or 0.7%, to $61.03 a barrel by 1321 GMT and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude lost 42 cents, or 0.7%, to $58.26.

The Brent benchmark had risen in the previous nine sessions, its longest sustained period of gains since January 2019. Wednesday had marked the eighth daily gain for U.S. crude.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish support for independence has fallen four percentage points, probably due to divisions among Scottish nationalists, but 47% of Scots still support breaking up the United Kingdom by going it alone, a poll indicated on Thursday.

A Savanta ComRes poll for The Scotsman showed 47% would vote for independence and 42% would vote against, up 4 percentage points, with 10% still undecided.

LONDON (AP) — When army generals in Myanmar staged a coup last week, they briefly cut internet access in an apparent attempt to stymie protests. In Uganda, residents couldn’t use Facebook, Twitter and other social media for weeks after a recent election. And in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, the internet has been down for months amid a wider conflict.

LONDON, Feb 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Britain will require passengers arriving from countries where worrying coronavirus variants are spreading to pay for 10 days of quarantine in hotels, while rule-breakers will face heavy fines or jail terms, under tighter restrictions from next week.

The new travel rules add to restrictions that already ban travel abroad for holidays. The government said the stronger measures were needed to prevent new variants of the virus from thwarting Britain’s rapid vaccination programme.