United Kingdom

(Reuters) --- British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Friday there was no doubt some countries were using vaccines as diplomatic tool to secure influence, and that Britain did not support so called ‘vaccine diplomacy.

Asked in a Reuters interview whether he was concerned that China and Russia could use vaccines in exchange for influence in parts of the world, he said: "There's no doubt there's some of this is going about, and we don't support vaccine diplomacy, let alone blackmail.

LONDON (AP) — The easing of lockdown restrictions in April helped the British economy grow at its fastest rate since July 2020 and recoup further ground lost during the coronavirus pandemic, official figures showed Friday.

The Office for National Statistics said the economy grew by 2.3% during April, which saw the reopening of shops selling non-essential items and a number of other service providers, such as hairdressers, resuming work. Students also went back to classrooms during April after months of remote learning, while pubs and restaurants could serve customers outdoors.

LONDON (AP) — Imagine trying to make an impression on someone who’s met, well, almost everyone.

Such is the challenge for President Joe Biden, who is set to sip tea with Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday at Windsor Castle after a Group of Seven leaders’ summit in southwestern England.

Biden will be the 13th president to sit with the now-95-year-old monarch. The White House said he previously met the queen in 1982, when he was a U.S. senator.

CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — World leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are set to commit at their summit to share at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with struggling countries around the world — half the doses coming from the U.S. and 100 million from the U.K.

Vaccine sharing commitments from President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday set the stage for the G-7 leaders’ meeting in England, where leaders will pivot Friday from opening greetings and a “family photo” directly into a session on “Building Back Better From COVID-19.”

MAWGAN PORTH, England (AP) — One year ago, the U.S. was the deadliest hotspot of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the cancellation of the Group of Seven summit it was due to host. Now, the U.S. is emerging as a model for how to successfully emerge from more than 15 months of global crisis.

For President Joe Biden, who is meeting with leaders of the wealthy G-7 democracies on his first overseas trip since taking office, it’s a personal vindication of his pledge to turn around the U.S. virus, but also a call to action to enlist other countries in the global fight.

PLYMOUTH, England (AP) — Their nations may have a famed “special relationship,” but President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet for the first time Thursday against a backdrop of differences both political and personal.

Biden hopes to use his first overseas trip as president to reassure European allies that the United States had shed the transactional tendencies of Donald Trump’s term and is a reliable partner again. But tensions may simmer beneath the surface of Biden’s meeting with Johnson.

(Reuters) --- When Dutch boat captain and engineer Ernst-Jan de Groot applied to continue working in Britain after Brexit, he became ensnared in a bureaucratic nightmare because of an online glitch and says he is now likely to lose his job.

Under new immigration rules coming into force, de Groot faces the prospect of losing the right to come to Britain to work unless he can successfully apply for a visa through a government website by the end of June.

LONDON (AP) — Fastly, the company hit by a major outage that caused many of the world’s top websites to go offline briefly this week, blamed the problem on a software bug that was triggered when a customer changed a setting.

The problem at Fastly meant internet users couldn’t connect to a host of popular websites early Tuesday including The New York Times, the Guardian, Twitch, Reddit and the British government’s homepage.

(Reuters) --- Britain urged the European Union on Tuesday to help find an urgent solution to trade difficulties with Northern Ireland before the end of this month, saying there was no case for the bloc to prevent the sale of chilled meat in the province.

"There's no case whatsoever for preventing chilled meat from being sold in Northern Ireland. We think an urgent solution needs to be found," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters.

LONDON (AP) — The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator says the bloc is ready to act “firmly and resolutely” if the U.K. fails to honor its commitments under the divorce deal that was supposed to keep trade flowing after Britain left the EU.

Maros Sefcovic’s comments, published Tuesday in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, came a day before he holds talks with his U.K. counterpart on implementing the deal.