Europe

LONDON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of England (BoE), the central bank of the United Kingdom (UK), on Thursday once again raised its benchmark interest rate to 1 percent, the highest level since 2009, to curb surging inflation.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met on Wednesday and voted by a majority of 6-3 to increase the Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, the BoE said in a statement.

"Those members in the minority preferred to increase Bank Rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 1.25 percent," according to the statement.

LONDON (AP) — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries decided Thursday to gradually increase the flows they send to the world, even as Europe’s plan to sanction Russian oil threatens to yank millions of barrels off a global market already thirsty for crude.

MILAN (AP) — Across Europe, rising energy prices are testing the resolve of ordinary consumers and business owners who are caught between the continent’s dependence on cheap Russian energy and its revulsion over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

LONDON (AP) — The militaries of Britain and Japan will “work more closely together” under a defense deal that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced during talks with his Japanese counterpart Thursday.

Johnson hosted Premier Fumio Kishida at the British leader’s 10 Downing St. residence. He noted the “strong stance” Japan has taken “against the Russian aggression in Ukraine” and he drew a parallel with the security situation in Asia.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A leading Catalan separatist politician said Thursday that Spain’s top intelligence official acknowledged that her agency had hacked into the cellphones of “some” of the dozens of politicians reported to be targeted by spyware but she said it had proper judicial authorization.

Gabriel Rufián, member of a Catalan pro-independence party, spoke after he participated in a closed-door meeting with the director of Spain’s National Intelligence Center, CNI, along with a select group of Spanish lawmakers.

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 15 million people were killed either by coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the past two years, more than double the official death toll of 6 million. Most of the fatalities were in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas.

In a report Thursday, the U.N. agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the figure as “sobering,” saying it should prompt countries to invest more in their capacities to quell future health emergencies.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Heavy fighting raged Thursday at the shattered steel plant in Mariupol as Russian forces attempted to finish off the city’s last-ditch defenders and complete the capture of the strategically vital port.

The bloody battle came amid growing suspicions that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people with a major battlefield success — or announce an escalation of the war — in time for Victory Day on Monday. That is the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar, marking the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany.

Russia claimed on Wednesday that Israeli mercenaries are fighting alongside the far-right Azov Regiment in Ukraine, agencies have reported.

"Israeli mercenaries are practically shoulder to shoulder with Azov militants in Ukraine," the spokeswoman of Russia's Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, told Sputnik radio.

Zakharova added that she will say something that politicians in Israel, who "exaggerate" the misinformation campaign against Russian, will not like. They will be interested soon, she said.

04 May 2022; MEMO: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday the problem of global food security could not be solved without restoring Ukrainian agricultural production and Russian food and fertilizer output to the world market, reports Reuters.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February has added to volatility in financial markets, sending commodity prices higher and affecting logistics, potentially derailing the economic recovery from COVID-19 in many countries including Nigeria.

05 May 2022; MEMO: Russia has rejected Israel's demand for an apology after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's remark about Adolf Hitler having "Jewish" roots, Al-Watan Voice reported on Wednesday. Lavrov made his comment on Sunday in an interview with Italian television.

During the interview on Rete 4, Lavrov was asked how Russia could say it needed to "de-Nazify" Ukraine, when the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.