United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — The Chinese ambassador to Britain accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday of meddling in China’s affairs by offering citizenship to 3 million people from Hong Kong following the imposition of a national security law.

Ambassador Liu Xiaoming defended his country’s new national security law against accusations it’s aimed at eroding Hong Kong’s considerable autonomy and curbing dissent. Liu pointed out that the U.K. handed control of the city that was a British colony for more than a century back to Beijing in 1997.

LONDON, July 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Britain’s separation talks with the European Union resume Monday with few signs of compromise on a new trade agreement and time running out to avoid a messy split.

London will host EU negotiator Michel Barnier after a round of face-to-face talks ended a day early last week in Brussels because of deep divides in the sides’ approach.

Barnier said after ending the negotiations last Thursday that “serious divergences remain”.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Monday, supported by tighter supplies and a string of data expected to show economic recovery across the globe and despite a spike in coronavirus cases in the United States and other countries.

Brent crude LCOc1 was up 73 cents, or 1.7%, to $43.53 per barrel by 0808 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 was up 28 cents, or 0.7%, at $40.93.

LONDON (Reuters) - China’s Huawei has clear conditions to meet for Britain to continue to allow its involvement in the development of 5G telecoms infrastructure, Britain’s health minister said on Sunday, after a report that the firm would be banned from the project.

Officials are drawing up proposals to stop installing Huawei Technologies equipment in as little as six months, the Sunday Telegraph reported, in a reversal of a decision earlier this year.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is putting 8.4 million pounds ($10.49 million) into a new study to examine the long-term effects of COVID-19 on patients, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19 has been observed to cause many health impacts for some patients beyond immediate respiratory issues, but with other infected people asymptomatic, the workings of the virus are not fully understood.

LONDON, July 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Seven police officials were injured in violence at an unlicensed musical event in the British capital as they sought to break up a crowd that posed a risk to public health during the coronavirus pandemic, police said. 

Those at Friday’s event became violent and threw projectiles at police as they entered an estate at Havelock Close in West London, the police said in a statement.

“Officers encountered bricks and other missiles being thrown at them,” police said, adding that the gathering was eventually dispersed with no arrests.

LONDON, July 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — British police said they had arrested a man over the toppling of a statue of a 17th century slave trader last month, an incident which sparked a major debate about Britain’s imperial past.

Anti-racism protesters demonstrating in the port city of Bristol in western England in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in the United States pulled down the statue of Edward Colston and threw it into the harbour.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday urged Britons to act responsibly when pubs reopen this weekend and not to blow the collective effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The latest phase in a gradual reopening of the British economy on Saturday will see pubs in England open for the first time since mid-March, as well as restaurants, museums, hotels and other businesses.

LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

02 July 2020; MEMO: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that his country does not support Israel’s proposed annexation. Johnson made his views known in an opinion piece for Yedioth Ahronoth.

“I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead,” he wrote. “If it does, the UK will not recognise any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties.”