United Kingdom

21 October 2022; MEMO: The UK, on Thursday, announced new sanctions on Iranian individuals and businesses "responsible for supplying Russia with kamikaze drones used to bombard Ukraine", Anadolu News Agency reports.

Russia is using the drones "to attack both civilian targets and critical infrastructure in Kyiv and across Ukraine, with the intention of cutting off Ukrainian people from energy, heating and water," a statement from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - When Liz Truss was asked to come to parliament to explain the sacking of her good friend and finance minister, she sent Penny Mordaunt in her place, offering her potential successor a primetime opportunity to flex her political muscle.

In what only underlined the dwindling fortunes of Truss, Mordaunt took the lead role on Monday to explain why her boss had sacked Kwasi Kwarteng and replaced him with former health minister Jeremy Hunt who ripped up much of her economic plan.

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - A Russian fighter jet released a missile near an unarmed British spy plane patrolling in international airspace over the Black Sea on Sept. 29, UK defence minister Ben Wallace said, in an apparent accident and not a deliberate escalation of tensions.

Britain has condemned Russia for invading Ukraine and hit Moscow with punitive sanctions while giving military and civil support to Kyiv, and relations between the two countries are at historic lows.

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Former British prime minister Boris Johnson is expected to stand in the Conservative Party leadership contest to replace Liz Truss, who said earlier on Thursday she would resign, the Times reported.

"He's taking soundings but is said to believe it is a matter of national interest," Times Political Editor Steven Swinford said on Twitter.

LONDON (AP) — Staffers at the World Health Organization’s Syrian office have alleged that their boss mismanaged millions of dollars, plied government officials with gifts -- including computers, gold coins and cars -- and acted frivolously as COVID-19 swept the country.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Liz Truss quit Thursday after a tumultuous and historically brief term marred by economic policies that roiled financial markets and a rebellion in her political party that obliterated her authority.

Truss became the third Conservative prime minister to be toppled in as many years, extending the instability that has shaken Britain since it broke off from the European Union and leaving its leadership in limbo as the country faces a cost-of-living crisis and looming recession.

LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - New steps from Group of Seven countries to cap Russian oil sales at an enforced low price will not be replicated against OPEC producers, whose plans to cut output have irked consumer countries, a United States Treasury official told Reuters.

Washington has communicated to representatives of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reassure them of those limits to its plans and has maintained from the beginning that the cap would not target other oil producers, the official added.

LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The British government on Wednesday won a vote in parliament on fracking it had earlier told Conservative lawmakers it was treating as a confidence vote.

Members of parliament voted by 326 to 230 against introducing a ban on fracking for shale gas.

LONDON (AP) — British food prices rose at the fastest pace since 1980 last month, driving inflation back to a 40-year high and heaping pressure on the embattled government to balance the books without gutting help for the nation’s poorest residents.

Food prices jumped 14.6% in the year through September, led by the soaring cost of staples such as meat, bread, milk and eggs, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. That pushed consumer price inflation back to 10.1%, the highest since early 1982 and equal to the level last reached in July.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Liz Truss described herself as “a fighter and not a quitter” Wednesday as she faced down a hostile opposition and fury from her own Conservative Party over her botched economic plan.

Yet the grim faces of Conservative lawmakers behind her in the House of Commons suggested that Truss faces an uphill struggle to save her job. Within hours of Truss’ appearance at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session, a senior member of her government left her post with a fusillade of criticism.