United Kingdom

31 Aug 2021; MEMO: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been urged by British lawyers representing victims to open a war crimes investigation into the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. A dossier submitted to The Hague yesterday provides evidence which suggests strongly that crimes against humanity have been committed during the six-year conflict.

LONDON, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- A multi-million-dollar task force, backed by major chewing gum producers, is to carry out a massive clean-up operation to remove chewing gum blighting 87 percent of sidewalks in England, a British government department announced Monday.

The task force is part of the British government's new strategy to support the evolution and regeneration of high streets across the country, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday praised the “colossal” effort to airlift civilians from Kabul, as U.K. troops and diplomats flew home after the two-week mission, ending 20 years of British military involvement in Afghanistan.

In a video message, Johnson praised the “colossal exertions” of British troops engaged in “a mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”

But his government is facing criticism for leaving behind hundreds, or even thousands, of vulnerable Afghans whom the U.K. had promised to protect.

29 Aug 2021; MEMO: England's military presence in Afghanistan came to an end after 20 years as the remaining UK troops have left, Britain's defense chief said late Saturday, reports Anadolu Agency.

"At 21.25hrs tonight the last RAF plane left Kabul Airport ending the evacuation of military and Afghan personnel," Ben Wallace wrote on Twitter.

LONDON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - British troops will end their evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan on Saturday and many hundreds of Afghans entitled to resettlement in Britain are likely to be left behind, armed forces chief General Nick Carter said.

British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Friday that the country was entering the final hours of its evacuation and would process only people who were already inside Kabul airport.

LONDON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) which is due to be hosted in Glasgow in November, organisers said on Friday.

World leaders are due to meet at the summit to try to flesh out commitments made in Paris in 2015 aimed at stabilising the planet's climate and to speed up action to limit climate change.

Queen Elizabeth said in 2019 that she was impressed by young people's dynamism towards fighting environmental destruction.

LONDON, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Some patients in the United States with a range of debilitating symptoms of COVID-19 but no positive diagnosis have had to wait for months before receiving proper treatments, The Guardian reported Wednesday.

Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, or long COVID, affects about 10 percent to 30 percent of people infected with the virus, said the report, noting that the medical condition can last more than a year and can come with more than 200 possible symptoms, including extreme fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath, and affect 10 organ systems.

26 Aug 2021; MEMO: Turkey and the United Kingdom will cooperate to ensure regional stability, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said late yesterday following an explosion at Afghanistan's Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport, Anadolu Agency reports.

Taking to Twitter, Raab said that he spoke with his Turkish counterpart Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu over the phone about the security situation and strategic priorities in Afghanistan.

26 Aug 2021; MEMO: Lawyers and campaigners have claimed that British nationals of Afghan origin are not being evacuated from Kabul.

According to the Guardian, roughly 50 dual British-Afghan citizens waved their UK passports outside Kabul airport yesterday but were overlooked for evacuation.

Immigration lawyers have said that they are being treated as second-class citizens in the evacuation efforts.

LONDON (AP) — European nations offered stark warnings Thursday about the waning days of a massive airlift to bring people out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, with a British official saying an “imminent attack” could target Kabul’s international airport.

As U.S. President Joe Biden says he’ll stick with his deadline of Aug. 31 to totally withdraw troops from America’s longest war, other nations have landed flight after flight onto the single runway at Kabul’s international airport to help those fleeing.