United Kingdom

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Britain on Thursday sanctioned the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president for misappropriating millions of dollars which London said was spent on luxury mansions, private jets and a $275,000 glove worn by Michael Jackson.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Teodoro Obiang Mangue, who is also vice president of Equatorial Guinea, had participated in "corrupt contracting arrangements and soliciting bribes, to fund a lavish lifestyle inconsistent with his official salary as a government minister".

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - A British court said on Thursday that Mike Lynch, the British tech billionaire who sold his company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard, can be extradited to the United States to face charges including securities fraud related to the $11 billion deal.

Lynch's lawyer said if Britain's Home Secretary now decides to allow the extradition, Lynch will appeal.

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Britain on Thursday sanctioned one of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's envoys, Alex Saab, in connection with an allegedly corrupt deal to obtain supplies for Maduro’s government-run food subsidy programme.

Saab, a Colombian national, is currently detained in Cape Verde facing extradition to the United States, which accuses him of helping Maduro's government skirt U.S. sanctions imposed in 2019. 

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday to consider seriously Britain's proposals to change what he called the "unsustainable" way a Brexit deal is governing trade with Northern Ireland.

Since it completed its exit from the EU at the end of last year, Britain's ties with the bloc have reached new lows, with both sides accusing each other of acting in bad faith over an agreement for post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland.

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - The English city of Liverpool was removed from UNESCO's list of world heritage sites on Wednesday because new buildings undermined the attractiveness of its Victorian docks, making it only the third site to be removed from the prestigious list.

Liverpool was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nation's cultural organisation in 2004, joining landmarks such as the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

LONDON (AP) — The British government said Wednesday that post-Brexit trade rules it negotiated with the European Union “cannot go on” and need a major rewrite, straining already tense U.K.-EU relations.

The government said Britain would be justified in unilaterally suspending the legally binding Brexit agreement but had decided not to do so just yet.

Tokyo, Jul 20 (AP-PTI) The British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and its strike group will visit Japanese ports in September for joint exercises, defence ministers from Japan and Britain said on Tuesday as the two countries step up military ties amid increased Chinese assertiveness in regional seas.

British defence secretary Ben Wallace said the visit by the Royal Navy's largest warship is part of his country's Indo-Pacific tilt that shares goals with Japan.

LONDON, Jul 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) – England lifted almost all its remaining COVID-19 restrictions yesterday, according to its roadmap out of lockdown.

As the number of daily infections continues to rapidly increase, the final stage of easing virus restrictions came with a note of caution.

Yesterday was described by the British government as Freedom Day, where almost all legal restrictions on social contact have been removed.

LONDON (AP) — A disgruntled former top aide to Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the British leader was dismissive of the threat posed by surging coronavirus cases last year, saying he did not want to impose a new lockdown because the disease was only killing the elderly.

Dominic Cummings left his job as an adviser in November and has since launched a series of excoriating attacks on his former boss.

In an interview with the BBC, Cummings said Johnson resisted locking down the country in the fall of 2020 because “the people who are dying are essentially all over 80.”

BRUSSELS/LONDON, July 19 (Reuters) - Britain will threaten this week to deviate from the Brexit deal unless the European Union shows more flexibility over Northern Ireland, one UK and three EU sources told Reuters, a move that could thrust the five-year Brexit divorce into tumult.

Deviating from the deal's so-called Northern Ireland Protocol is a risky step: its aim was to prevent Brexit from disrupting the delicate peace brought to Northern Ireland by the U.S.-brokered 1998 agreement that ended three decades of sectarian conflict.