England

LONDON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc’s main UK subsidiary, Amazon UK Services Ltd., paid just 6.3 million pounds ($8 million) in corporation tax in 2019 despite the group reporting over $17.5 billion in sales in Britain, accounts published on Wednesday show.

Amazon said the low figure reflected the underlying condition of its UK business.

“Corporation tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits have remained low given retail is a highly-competitive, low margin business and we continue to invest heavily,” the company said in a statement.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s minister for Northern Ireland said on Wednesday he was optimistic the government could find a way through its latest standoff with Brussels by using the joint committee set up to tackle issues with the divorce agreement.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has introduced an Internal Market Bill which it says is needed in case the European Union makes a “material breach” of the divorce agreement. The EU has said Britain’s bill could collapse trade talks and must be scrapped.

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government sees a ‘way through’ the parliamentary maze for his bill that would break the Brexit divorce treaty as it talks with rebels in the Conservative Party, a minister said on Wednesday.

Johnson’s Internal Market Bill, which the EU has demanded he scrap by the end of September, is currently being debated in parliament, though he is facing a rebellion by some members of his Conservative Party.

SINGAPORE/LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Major oil industry producers and traders are forecasting a bleak future for worldwide fuel demand, due to the coronavirus pandemic’s ongoing assault on the global economy.

The novel coronavirus hammered fuel demand in the spring, causing consumption to drop by more than one-third as billions of people worldwide restricted their movements. Consumption rebounded in the summer, but some countries where infections were under control are seeing a resurgence in the deadly virus, sparking waves of lockdowns that could hamper the recovery.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday defended his plan to unilaterally rewrite Britain’s divorce deal with the European Union as an insurance policy against the bloc’s unreasonable behavior — even as his former attorney general joined the ranks of once-loyal lawmakers condemning the contentious move.

Johnson said a planned law designed to override portions of the Brexit withdrawal agreement was needed because the EU might “go to extreme and unreasonable lengths” in its treatment of former member Britain.

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will try to persuade rebellious lawmakers in his party to vote on Monday for a bill that will break international law by breaching parts of the Brexit divorce deal and which has enraged Brussels.

The House of Commons will debate the Internal Market Bill, which the EU has demanded Johnson scrap by the end of September in the latest brinkmanship of a four-year saga since Britain voted narrowly to leave the bloc.

LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Monday they charged a man with attempting to cause an explosion after a suspicious package was sent to an address in London.

Ovidijus Margelis, 26, who was arrested by counter-terrorism officers in Cambridge on Saturday, will appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court later on Monday accused of three counts of attempting to cause an explosion as well as other fraud offences.

LONDON (Reuters) - Fossil fuel consumption is set to shrink for the first time in modern history as climate policies boost renewable energy while the coronavirus epidemic leaves a lasting effect on global energy demand, BP said in a forecast.

BP’s 2020 benchmark Energy Outlook underpins Chief Executive Bernard Looney’s new strategy to “reinvent” the 111-year old oil and gas company by shifting renewables and power.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major on Sunday said Britain must drop a “shocking” plan to pass legislation that breaks its divorce treaty with the European Union, in a breach of international law.

The British government said explicitly last week that it plans to break international law by breaching parts of the Withdrawal Agreement treaty that it signed in January, when it formally left the EU.

LONDON, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Almost 8 million Britons will be subjected to tighter lockdown restrictions next week after fresh measures were imposed in the West Midlands and Scotland, local media reported Saturday.

From Tuesday, households in Birmingham, Sandwell and Solihull will be banned from mixing after the region reported a surge in coronavirus cases, according to the Evening Standard newspaper.

Further north, Lanarkshire joins areas around Glasgow subject to tougher controls, with the new rules in force as of midnight on Friday.