England

LONDON, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- British lawmakers started a three-day Brexit debate Tuesday on their first House of Commons sitting of the new year.

MPs debated details of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit Withdrawal Bill which was passed last month with an overwhelming majority.

Opposition MPs tabled a long list of amendments to the bill, with a series of votes scheduled at Westminster over the coming days.

LONDON, Jan 07 (APP): Pakistan High Commissioner to United Kingdom (UK), Mohammad Nafees Zakaria has called upon the United Nations Security Council to fulfill its responsibility and commitment of granting the right to self-determination to the Kashmiris according to its resolutions.

He also urged them of taking punitive action against India and its brutal occupation forces in occupied Kashmir for their atrocities and gross violation of human rights on defenceless people of Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK).

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain keeps the protection of its armed forces under constant review, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday when asked whether his government would withdraw troops from Iraq over tension in the Middle East.

At a meeting of his cabinet team of top ministers, Johnson reiterated his view that parties should work to ease tensions in the region after Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the decision by a court in Cyprus to hand a suspended sentence to a British teenager accused of faking a gang rape allegation, allowing the 19-year-old to return home, his spokesman said.

The spokesman also said Britain would work with Cyprus and other countries to ensure that such a case could not happen again.

LONDON (Reuters) - Tensions in the Middle East after the killing of a top Iranian general by the United States erased new year gains for a gauge of world shares on Monday as investors pushed safe-haven gold to a seven-year high, and oil jumped to its highest since September.

The United States detected a heightened state of alert by Iran’s missile forces, as President Donald Trump warned the U.S. would strike back, “perhaps in a disproportionate manner”, if Iran attacked any American person or target.

LONDON (Reuters) - British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday he understood why the United States had killed a top Iranian military commander but urged a de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East to avoid war in the region.

Iran condemned Donald Trump as a “terrorist in a suit” after the U.S. president threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites if Tehran attacks Americans or U.S. assets in retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani on Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) - British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday he had raised concerns with his Cypriot counterpart about the treatment of a British woman found guilty by a court in Cyprus of lying about being gang-raped by a group of Israeli youths.

Last month a district court ruled that the woman, aged 19 at the time, had lied about being sexually assaulted by 12 Israeli teenagers at the holiday resort of Ayia Napa in July. She is due to be sentenced on Jan. 7 and faces up to one year in jail.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain warned its nationals to avoid all travel to Iraq, outside the Kurdistan region, and to avoid all but essential travel to Iran following the death of Qassem Soleimani.

“Given heightened tensions in the region, the Foreign Office now advise people not to travel to Iraq, with the exception of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and to consider carefully whether it’s essential to travel to Iran,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement.

“We will keep this under review.”

LONDON (Reuters) - British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab on Friday urged all parties to de-escalate after the United States killed Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani.

“We have always recognized the aggressive threat posed by the Iranian Quds force led by Qasem Soleimani. Following his death, we urge all parties to de-escalate. Further conflict is in none of our interests,” he said in an emailed statement.

LONDON (Reuters) - British businesses reported a fall in Brexit-related uncertainty last month, according to a Bank of England survey that was conducted before and after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s landslide election victory on Dec. 12.

The BoE said a gauge of Brexit uncertainty in its monthly Decision Makers’ Panel survey fell to a six-month low in December.

However, 42% of respondents said they did not expect Brexit uncertainty to be resolved until 2021 at the earliest, up from 34% in November, the BoE said.