England

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will travel to Malaysia on Sunday as part of a week-long visit to southeast Asia aimed at deepening economic and security ties in the region, her office said.

Truss will also visit Thailand and Indonesia, chosen to reflect their "growing economic and diplomatic heft", as post-Brexit Britain looks to strengthen relations with nations and regions beyond Europe.

"I want to position Britain where the future growth is and to think about who our major partners will be in 2050 and beyond," Truss said in a statement.

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government rejected fresh accusations of corruption on Sunday after a newspaper investigation found major donors to his Conservative Party were offered seats in parliament's upper chamber.

The government has been embroiled in a corruption row over the past week, with Johnson forced to abandoned plans pushed through parliament to protect one of his lawmakers who was found to have broken lobbying rules. 

LONDON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister John Major on Saturday attacked fellow Conservative Boris Johnson's handling of a corruption row, saying the government's behaviour was arrogant, broke the law and was "politically corrupt".

Johnson was forced to make a U-turn after he abandoned plans pushed through parliament to protect a lawmaker found to have broken lobbying rules.

LONDON/BRUSSELS, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The European Union said on Friday that Britain had made no move to seek a compromise on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland and cautioned London against triggering emergency unilateral provisions in the Brexit deal.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit negotiator David Frost ruled out immediately triggering such provisions, a move that would sour ties with the EU, concern the United States and anger Ireland.

But Frost made clear he wanted Brussels to offer more.

LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The British lawmaker Owen Paterson, who was found guilty of breaking paid lobbying rules, has decided to resign from parliament, the BBC reported on Thursday.

"I maintain that I am totally innocent of what I have been accused of and I acted at all times in the interests of public health and safety," he said according to the BBC.

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - British lawmakers voted on Wednesday to halt the suspension of a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party who was found to have broken rules on paid lobbying, instead backing an overhaul of the process of investigating politicians.

A Committee on Standards report said Owen Paterson committed an "egregious case of paid advocacy" by repeatedly using his position to promote two companies, who together paid him nearly three times his annual parliamentary salary. 

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres received a degree from the University of Cambridge on Wednesday, warning that the world risked falling into a spiral of crises unless it put critical thinking and truth back to the centre of global discourse.

Cambridge conferred a honorary degree of Doctor of Law on Guterres, recognising his work and the work of the United Nations, founded in 1945 as a way bring peace after the horrors of World War Two.

LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Britain gave France 48 hours on Monday to back down in a fishing row that threatens to spiral into a wider trade dispute between two of Europe's biggest economies or face tortuous legal action under the Brexit trade deal.

Post-Brexit bickering over fish culminated last Wednesday in the French seizure of a British scallop dredger, the Cornelis Gert Jan, in French waters near Le Havre. Paris has threatened sanctions from Nov. 2 that could snarl cross-Channel trade.

LONDON (AP) — The chief executive of British bank Barclays stepped down Monday following a report by United Kingdom regulators into his past links with the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Jes Staley has previously said he “deeply regrets” his relationship with Epstein, who killed himself at a federal jail in New York in August 2019 while awaiting a sex trafficking trial. There is no suggestion that the 64-year-old Staley knew anything about Epstein’s alleged crimes.

LONDON, Oct 31 (NNN-XINHUA) – China is committed to developing clean and low-carbon energy, Chinese Ambassador to Britain, Zheng Zeguang said, ahead of the 26th United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland.

As the world’s biggest producer and consumer of energy, China is carrying out a massive energy revolution, Zheng said in a speech, via video link, in the recent The Responsible Energy Forum 2021.