England

Britain says its final civilian flights will soon leave Afghanistan

LONDON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - British troops will end their evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan on Saturday and many hundreds of Afghans entitled to resettlement in Britain are likely to be left behind, armed forces chief General Nick Carter said.

British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Friday that the country was entering the final hours of its evacuation and would process only people who were already inside Kabul airport.

Green queen? UK says monarch will attend climate conference

LONDON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) which is due to be hosted in Glasgow in November, organisers said on Friday.

World leaders are due to meet at the summit to try to flesh out commitments made in Paris in 2015 aimed at stabilising the planet's climate and to speed up action to limit climate change.

Queen Elizabeth said in 2019 that she was impressed by young people's dynamism towards fighting environmental destruction.

UK: "Long COVID" patients in U.S. wait months for diagnosis, treatment: The Guardian

LONDON, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Some patients in the United States with a range of debilitating symptoms of COVID-19 but no positive diagnosis have had to wait for months before receiving proper treatments, The Guardian reported Wednesday.

Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, or long COVID, affects about 10 percent to 30 percent of people infected with the virus, said the report, noting that the medical condition can last more than a year and can come with more than 200 possible symptoms, including extreme fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath, and affect 10 organ systems.

Europe gives dire warning as Kabul evacuation deadline looms

LONDON (AP) — European nations offered stark warnings Thursday about the waning days of a massive airlift to bring people out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, with a British official saying an “imminent attack” could target Kabul’s international airport.

As U.S. President Joe Biden says he’ll stick with his deadline of Aug. 31 to totally withdraw troops from America’s longest war, other nations have landed flight after flight onto the single runway at Kabul’s international airport to help those fleeing.

UK's "Rome" risks losing UNESCO World Heritage Status: heritage group

LONDON, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Described as the "Rome of Britain", the UNESCO World Heritage city Canterbury faces the risk of being recklessly destroyed, SAVE Britain's Heritage, one of the country's leading heritage groups, warned Wednesday.

As a major tourism city 107 km south east of London, Canterbury is in danger of losing its beauty and history by allowing an increasing number of ugly and outsized developments within, or adjacent to, the city's historic core, still enclosed within its circuit of medieval walls, said the heritage group in a report.

UK: Discord, dismay as G7 leaders meet ahead of looming Afghan evacuation deadline

LONDON, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Group of Seven (G7) held a virtual summit on Tuesday as the United States and its allies scramble to complete evacuations from Taliban-held Afghanistan before the impending Aug. 31 deadline, while contention among the "rich countries club" runs deep over U.S. hasty withdrawal from the Asian country and the chaos it engendered.

UK: Record number of migrants cross English Channel in a day

LONDON, Aug 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 800 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK on Saturday – setting a new record for crossings in a single day.

The Home Office said nearly 200 people making the trip were also stopped by the French authorities.

Nearly 12,500 people have made the journey so far this year.

Officials say there are safe and legal routes for migrants and they were working with international partners to tackle the “dangerous crossings”.

Iran resumes fuel exports to Afghanistan after Taliban request, union says

LONDON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Iran restarted exports of gasoline and gasoil to Afghanistan a few days ago, following a request from the Taliban, Iran's Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters' Union said on Monday.

The Sunni Muslim group seized power in Afghanistan last week as the United States and its allies withdrew troops after a 20-year war.

UK: Wuhan lab leak theory more about politics than science: The Guardian

LONDON, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Wuhan lab leak theory is more about politics than science, The Guardian newspaper reported Sunday.

Whatever this week's Biden review on the virus' origins finds, the cause of the pandemic lies in the destruction of animal habitats. As for the "lab leak" theory of the disease, scientists refuted the idea in the paper.

Russian embassy urges UK to drop policy of confrontation against Moscow

LONDON, August 21. /TASS/: The British government needs to abandon the line of confrontation towards Russia, otherwise the UK will face Moscow’s tit-for-tat measures, the Russian embassy to London said in a statement released on Saturday, following the new round of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

"We urge, yet again, the British leadership to relinquish unjustified confrontational stance towards our country. There will be adequate and proportionate response to any hostile act," the embassy said.

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