United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — The chief executive of NatWest, one of Britain’s biggest banks, left her job on Wednesday after discussing personal details of a client — the populist politician Nigel Farage — with a journalist amid a furor over financial institutions’ power to refuse customers for their political views.

The bank said Alison Rose was leaving “by mutual consent.” The surprise early-morning statement came just hours after NatWest had expressed full confidence in the CEO, who was the first woman to head one of Britain’s four big banks.

25 July 2023; MEMO: A judge in the UK has ruled that the home secretary acted unlawfully in not providing basic support to asylum seekers including young children and pregnant women.

Mr Justice Swift found that Suella Braverman broke the law by withholding £3 ($3.8) a week for healthy food for children up to three years old and pregnant women after lawyers representing five asylum seekers challenged the home secretary in the high court.

25 July 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia is plotting the takeover of the iconic Selfridges department store in London's Oxford Street in an effort to increase its international influence and boost the development of its economy, the Telegraph has revealed. Riyadh is said to have emerged as the private financial backer of a $5.1 billion purchase of the luxury store. If the deal is completed, the acquisition will seal the Kingdom's third high profile takeover of famous British brands.

25 July 2023; MEMO: The UK government has underwritten financing for an $872 million new high-speed electric railway in Turkiye, local Turkish media reports.

According to the report, HS2 plans are scaled back, and the Northern Powerhouse Rail project gets ditched, Westminster appears to have turned its attention to infrastructure projects in far-flung countries rather than investing in crucial connectivity in the north.

26 July 2023; MEMO: The Palestine Action protest outside the Elbit-owned UAV Tactical Systems factory in Leicestershire's Meridian Business Park has now entered its 87th day. A small but determined group of protesters is on site 24 hours a day to ensure that the local council doesn't remove the flags and banners from the protest camp across the road from the factory entrance.

LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley cut Israel sovereign credit to a "dislike stance" on Tuesday after the country's parliament passed the first in a series of laws sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit the power of the Supreme Court

"We see increased uncertainty about the economic outlook in the coming months and risks becoming skewed to our adverse scenario," Morgan Stanley's analysts said in a research note.

"Markets are now likely to extrapolate the future policy path and we move Israel sovereign credit to a 'dislike stance'."

LONDON, July 23 (Reuters) - Britain's easyJet (EZJ.L) said on Sunday it was operating flights as normal to Rhodes but was closely monitoring the wildfires on the Greek island.

"We advise customers travelling to and from Rhodes to check the status of their flights on Flight Tracker," it said in a statement.

It said it was working to comply with the requests of the local authorities and is in contact with its customers there.

LONDON (AP) — Environmentalists cautioned Britain’s main political parties on Sunday not to water down their climate change promises after a special election result widely seen as a thumbs-down from voters to a tax on polluting cars.

The governing Conservatives suffered two heavy defeats in a trio of by-elections for House of Commons seats on Thursday. But they managed to win the third contest, for a suburban London district, by focusing on a divisive green levy imposed by London’s Labour Party mayor.

LONDON (AP) — Russia has repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Ukrainian ports key to sending grain to the world. Moscow has declared large swaths of the Black Sea dangerous for shipping. Even the U.S. said ships are at risk of being targeted.

There is still interest from ship owners in carrying Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea — if they can mitigate the risk, according to a major shipping group. And that’s a big if.

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's governing Conservatives lost two strategically important parliamentary seats on Friday but unexpectedly retained former leader Boris Johnson's old constituency in a setback for the opposition Labour Party.

The Conservatives' narrow victory in Uxbridge and South Ruislip gave Sunak some breathing space to try to narrow Labour's large lead in the polls by tackling inflation and a cost-of-living crisis before a national vote expected next year.