United Kingdom

20 June 2021; MEMO: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Ebrahim Raisi's election as Iran's new president was a blow for human rights and called for him to be investigated over his role in what Washington and rights groups have called the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, reports Reuters.

LONDON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Britain reported more than 10,000 coronavirus cases for a third consecutive day on Saturday as there has been a 79 percent rise in the highly contagious Delta variant in the country in the past week.

Britain has reported another 10,321 coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour period, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 4,620,968, according to official figures released Saturday.

LONDON (AP) — Former U.K. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, a longtime Conservative lawmaker who gained international fame refereeing the country’s bruising political drama over Brexit, said Sunday he has switched allegiances and joined the opposition Labour Party.

Bercow was a Conservative member of Parliament for 12 years until being elected in 2009 to the neutral role of Speaker, responsible for running House of Commons business and interpreting its rules of procedure.

LONDON, June 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Coronavirus-related deaths worldwide passed a grim milestone of 4 million on Thursday as many countries struggle to procure enough vaccines to inoculate their populations.

While the number of new cases and deaths have abated in countries like the United States and Britain, several nations have vaccine shortages as the Delta variant becomes the dominant strain around the world.

It took more than a year for the COVID-19 death toll to hit 2 million, while the next 2 million were recorded in just 166 days.

LONDON, June 18 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered an embarrassing defeat in a election on the outskirts of London on Friday, when his governing Conservative Party lost a previously safe parliamentary seat to the Liberal Democrats.

The Conservatives had comfortably held the leafy, affluent Chesham and Amersham constituency in southern England since its creation in 1974, capturing more than 50% of the vote on every occasion. At the last poll in 2019, Conservative Cheryl Gillan, who died this year, won by a majority of 16,223 votes.

LONDON (AP) — Scotch single malt whisky makers breathed a sigh of relief Thursday after the United States agreed to suspend tariffs on one of Scotland’s main exports in the wake of the resolution of a long-standing transatlantic trade row over subsidies to aircraft companies Boeing and Airbus.

President Donald Trump imposed the 25% tariffs on select products of the European Union, including Scotch single malt whiskies, in October 2019 as part of the trade dispute. While the U.K. is no longer an EU member, it belonged to the bloc when the tariffs were introduced.

London, Jun 16 (PTI) Around 1 million people in the UK aged 21 and 22 will begin to be called forward on Wednesday to book their coronavirus vaccine, as the National Health Service (NHS) led COVID-19 vaccination programme expanded the age-based rollout to cover further younger categories.

June 16 (Reuters) - Britain is considering easing travel restrictions for double vaccinated people, a move which would placate airlines who are threatening legal action against the government’s strict curbs on trips abroad.

Pressure is building in the aviation industry, with airlines desperate for restrictions to be relaxed in time for July and the peak season when they make most of their profits, but Britain sticking to quarantine requirements which deter travel.

LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s biggest political parties appear set to agree on a new government Thursday after ending a standoff that threatened to scuttle the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing administration.

The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party has picked Northern Ireland Assembly member Paul Givan as its choice of first minister. But the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein had threatened not to fill the post of deputy because of a feud about protections for the Irish language.

LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - Britain is keeping all options on the table as a response in a dispute with the European Union over part of their Brexit deal covering Northern Ireland, Brexit minister David Frost said on Wednesday, adding that talks were not making much progress.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he could trigger emergency measures in the Northern Ireland protocol after its implementation at the beginning of this year has seen disruption to trade between Britain and its province.