United Kingdom

(Reuters) --- The first operational deployment of Britain's flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to Asia will show countries such as China that Britain believes in the international law of the sea, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday.

Johnson said the Carrier Strike Group, which will interact with more than 40 nations on the deployment through the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and South China Sea to Japan, would project Britain's values as well as its military capabilities.

20 May 2021; MEMO: Israeli occupation forces continue to attack the Gaza Strip killing at least 200 Palestinians including 70 children. The Occupation authorities are also practicing serious violations against the Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah's neighbourhood, which is also a blatant breach of laws, treaties, and international conventions.

Al Aqsa Mosque also has been raided by Israeli settlers, and police forces recently

21 May 2021; MEMO: British Labour Party MP Richard Burgon asked the House of Commons yesterday how many more Palestinian civilian casualties it will take before the government takes action to stop Israeli war crimes.

(Reuters) --- The Group of Seven is playing a "dangerous game" by making aggressive and baseless criticism of the Kremlin because it pushes Russia closer to China, Russia's ambassador to London Andrei Kelin told Reuters on Thursday.

G7 foreign ministers this month scolded both China and Russia, casting the Kremlin as malicious and Beijing as a bully, but beyond words there were few concrete steps aside from expressing support for Taiwan and Ukraine.

LONDON, May 17 (Xinhua) -- A total of 2,323 cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in India have been recorded in Britain, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Monday.

Speaking at the House of Commons, the lower house of British Parliament, Hancock said the variant is now the dominant strain of the virus in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, both in northwest England, with 483 confirmed cases.

According to Hancock, in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, cases of the variant have doubled last week.

LONDON (AP) — Gary Miller drove a London taxi. Rohit Patel worked behind the till in a supermarket. Barry Bwalya was in customer service.

When the coronavirus tore through their London neighborhoods in early 2020, they all got sick. More than a year later, they are still struggling.

17 May 2021; MEMO: As Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain, I was proud to work with our partners to organise the estimated 150,000-strong march from London's Marble Arch to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington on Saturday. Our partners were the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, CND, and the Muslim Association of Britain.

(Reuters) --- Ministers will make a decision on June 14 about whether or not to proceed with the final phase of lockdown easing in England, health minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday, describing the pandemic as "under control".

On Friday Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Britain would accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination programme to try to contain a fast-spreading variant first identified in India, warning that Britain's reopening could be knocked off track by the Indian variant. 

LONDON (AP) — Britain deployed public health officials, supported by the army, to distribute coronavirus tests door-to-door in two northern England towns on Saturday in an effort to contain a fast-spreading variant that threatens plans to lift all lockdown restrictions next month.

LONDON (AP) — Ireland’s health service shut down its IT systems on Friday after being targeted in what it called a “significant ransomware attack.”

The Health Service Executive said the move was a precaution, and appointments for coronavirus vaccinations were not affected.

“We’ve taken a precautionary measure to shut down a lot of our major systems to protect them,” chief executive Paul Reid told broadcaster RTE.

“We are at the very early stages of fully understanding the threats, the impact and trying to contain it.”