United Kingdom

LONDON, June 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Britain and the European Union started a fourth round of talks on a post-Brexit trade deal on Tuesday.

Negotiators from London and Brussels will engage in intensive talks over the coming week via video link.

Previous rounds of talks in Apr and May ended in a stalemate, with London and Brussels blaming each other for the lack of progress.

2 June 2020; AFP: Trade negotiators from Britain and the EU embark on a fourth round of post-Brexit negotiations Tuesday but no-one in London or Brussels expects a breakthrough.

Instead, once the latest cross-Channel video conferences are over, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen will meet to decide how to proceed.

A "high-level" June meeting to take stock of the talks was already foreseen in the political declaration signed by both parties alongside the divorce accord.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and the European Union might be able to reach a compromise on fisheries by settling on the bloc being handed access to UK waters in exchange for higher quotas for the United Kingdom, industry chiefs said on Tuesday.

As the two sides launch a fourth round of virtual negotiations to try to secure a free trade deal and on their future relationship, fisheries looks set to dominate negotiations which run until Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s statistics watchdog chided the government on Tuesday for publishing data on coronavirus tests that it said were “far from complete and comprehensible”.

“The aim seems to be to show the largest possible number of tests, even at the expense of understanding,” David Norgrove, the head of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), wrote in a letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

“It is also hard to believe the statistics work to support the testing programme itself.”

LONDON (Reuters) - The United Kingdom warned China on Tuesday not to cross the Rubicon over Hong Kong, saying the People’s Republic should step back and adhere to its international obligations over the former British colony.

“The ball is in the court of the government in China, it has a choice to make here,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told parliament.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s 650 lawmakers are grappling with a question familiar to millions of their compatriots: When is it safe to go back to work?

Members of Parliament, who have largely been working from home while the coronavirus swept Britain, have been summoned back to the office on Tuesday — and many aren’t happy. They say the government’s decision to scrap a remote-voting system used during the pandemic will turn those who must stay home because of age, illness or family issues into second-class lawmakers.

LONDON, Jun 01 (APP): Calling upon an immediate United Nations (UN) intervention to halt the forced demographic change by the Indian government in occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK), Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid Coordinator Asean Ngo Advocacy Group for Kashmir, and President Malaysia Consultative Council of Islamic Organization urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for implementation of its resolutions on Kashmir to grant the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices were steady on Monday helped by reports that OPEC and Russia were closer to a deal on extending oil cuts but held back by renewed tension between the United States and China.

Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was up 3 cents, or 0.1%, at $37.87 a barrel at 1031 GMT. U.S. crude CLc1 had dipped 27 cents, or 0.8%, at $35.22 a barrel.

LONDON, June 1 (NNN-Xinhua) — Despite the ban of mass gatherings in Britain, thousands of people gathered in London and Manchester to protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man suffocated to death by a white police officer in the mid-western US state of Minnesota.

Chanting “no justice, no peace”, the protesters gathered in London’s landmark Trafalgar Square shortly after 1 pm Sunday before marching through Westminster to Downing Street.

LONDON (AP) — Nations around the world have watched in horror at the civil unrest in the United States following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing.

Racism-tinged events no longer startle even America’s closest allies, though many have watched coverage of the often-violent protests with growing unease. Burning cars and riot police in the U.S. featured on newspaper front pages around the globe Sunday — bumping news of the COVID-19 pandemic to second-tier status in some places.