United Kingdom

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will next week formally apply to join a trans-Pacific trading bloc of 11 countries, with negotiations set to start later this year, the government said on Saturday.

Since leaving the European Union, Britain has made clear its desire to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which removes most tariffs between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

LONDON (AP) — Cindy had a comfortable lifestyle in Hong Kong: she owned several properties with her husband, they had a good business going. But last year she made up her mind to leave it all behind and move her family to Britain, and not even a global pandemic was going to sway her decision.

LONDON (Reuters) - A man has been charged after a suspicious package was sent to a factory in Wales that produces AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine resulting in a temporary suspension of manufacturing, British police said on Saturday.

The Wockhardt plant in Wrexham provides so-called fill-and-finish capacity for AstraZeneca’s British supply chain, which is the final manufacturing step of putting vaccines into vials or syringes and packaging them.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday hailed a new visa scheme that offers qualifying Hong Kong citizens a route to British citizenship - a programme launched in response to China’s new security laws in the former colony.

The scheme, first announced last year, opens on Sunday and allows those with “British National (Overseas)” status to live, study and work in Britain for five years and eventually apply for citizenship.

LONDON: Britain is banning direct passenger flights to and from the United Arab Emirates from Friday, shutting down the world’s busiest international airline route from Dubai to London.

Britain said it was adding the United Arab Emirates, Burundi and Rwanda to its coronavirus travel ban list because of worries over the spread of a more contagious and potentially vaccine resistant COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa.

29 Jan 2021; MEMO: Executions are imminent in Iraq following the president's approval of the death sentences for hundreds of Sunni prisoners in response to the suicide bombings in the capital Baghdad last week, the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) has warned.

LONDON (Reuters) - Europe’s fight to secure COVID-19 vaccine supplies sharpened on Thursday when Britain demanded that it receive all the shots it paid for after the European Union asked AstraZeneca to divert supplies from the UK.

The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West’s biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems.

28 Jan 2021; MEMO: The UK government's appointment of the Friends of Israel Initiative founder to lead review of anti-radicalisation programme "is testament of the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain", the UK division of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AK Party) said in a press release.

LONDON, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that Britain will impose mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals returning from "red list" countries.

Travelers who return from "red list" countries will be placed in quarantine in government-designated accommodation such as hotels for 10 days, Boris Johnson told lawmakers.

It is understood that travelers will have to pay to isolate in a monitored hotel, with coronavirus testing carried out during their stay.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil rose above $56 a barrel on Wednesday after industry data showed U.S. crude inventories fell unexpectedly, outweighing persistent concerns about demand as coronavirus cases top 100 million globally.

Industry group the American Petroleum Institute (API) said U.S. crude inventories fell by 5.3 million barrels. Analysts had expected them to rise. Official inventory figures are due at 1530 GMT from the Energy Information Administration. [EIA/S]