United Kingdom

London, Dec 25 (PTI) A record number of people have tested positive for COVID-19 in England as millions spend Christmas Day away from friends and family due to a continuing spike in coronavirus infections on Friday.

Figures from the National Health Service's (NHS) Test and Trace network show that between December 10 and 16, 173,875 people received a positive result the highest weekly total of positive cases and a 58 per cent increase on the previous week.

LONDON (Reuters) - China will overtake the United States to become the world’s biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the COVID-19 pandemic, a think tank said.

“For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China,” the Centre for Economics and Business Research said in an annual report published on Saturday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Saturday published the text of its trade agreement with the European Union just five days before it exits one of the world’s biggest trading blocs in its most significant global shift since the loss of empire.

The deal includes a 1,246-page trade agreement, as well as agreements on nuclear energy, exchanging classified information, civil nuclear energy and a series of joint declarations.

LONDON (AP) — Around 1,000 British soldiers were spending Christmas Day trying to clear a huge backlog of truck drivers stuck in southeast England after France briefly closed its border to the U.K., then demanded coronavirus tests from all amid fears of a new, apparently more contagious, virus variant.

London, Dec 25 (AP-PTI) The last-minute trade deal between the UK and the European Union means businesses will be spared new tariffs and border disruption at the start of the new year - an economic shock that would have compounded the employment and financial troubles inflicted by the pandemic.

News of the agreement Thursday brought sighs of relief from the offices of corporate bosses and politicians, as well as from consumers anticipating produce shortages and transport workers facing the potential of long backups at border crossings.

LONDON (Reuters) - Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage said on Thursday that he suspected the United Kingdom would remain far too closely aligned to the European Union’s rules after Prime Minister Boris Johnson clinches a trade deal.

“Winning a war is one thing, winning peace is another: I suspect we are going to find ourselves far too closely aligned to EU rules in the years to come,” Farage told Talk Radio.

He said he hoped “this is the beginning of the end of the European Union,” according to a Talk Radio transcript.

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Britain and the European Union were on the cusp of striking a narrow trade deal on Thursday, swerving away from a chaotic finale to a Brexit split that has shaken the 70-year project to forge European unity from the ruins of World War Two.

While a last-minute deal would avoid the most acrimonious ending to the divorce on Jan. 1, the United Kingdom is set for a much more distant relationship with its biggest trade partner than almost anyone expected at the time of the 2016 referendum.

LONDON, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- British Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Wednesday announced that more areas of the East and South East of England will be put into Tier Four restrictions, the highest level, while revealing that two cases of another new variant of the novel coronavirus have been identified in Britain.

LONDON, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Rapid turnaround lateral flow tests on lorry drivers with the help of the British military are expected as part of the measures to unblock cross-channel trade between Britain and France, British media reported Tuesday.

A deal to resume travel with France following a shutdown over the new coronavirus variant found in Britain could come later Tuesday, according to Sky News.

New Delhi, Dec 22 (PTI) The faster spreading coronavirus strain first detected in the UK is unlikely to make vaccines less effective as of now but the preventives may need to be appropriately altered if more mutations occur over time, say scientists.

More than 40 countries, including India, have banned travel to and from the UK, a move several scientists said was necessary in view of the rapid spread of the new viral strain, VUI-202012/0, that was detected on September 21.