United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II delegated one of her most important public duties to Prince Charles on Tuesday, underscoring the increasingly central role the heir to the throne is taking as his mother prepares to celebrate 70 years on the throne.

Charles presided over the state opening of Parliament and delivered the Queen’s Speech laying out the government’s legislative program. The event is a symbol of the monarch’s constitutional role as head of state and is accompanied by centuries of tradition designed to demonstrate the strength of Britain’s political institutions.

Kolkata, May 10 (PTI) Nobel Laureate mathematical physicist Roger Penrose has said that the present universe did not start with the Big Bang and that there was another universe before the present one.

Traces of the older universe can be discovered in present black holes and certain electromagnetic radiation spots in the sky, Penrose, said in his address at a virtual meet at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics here from Oxford on Monday.

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said on Monday he would resign if police decide he broke COVID-19 rules, putting pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson who has refused to step down after he was fined over a lockdown-busting party.

After months of Johnson being criticised for attending parties at his Downing Street residence when Britain was in a strict coronavirus lockdown, attention has turned to a gathering Starmer attended last year in the northeast of England.

LONDON (AP) — A senior British official was meeting with rival Northern Ireland party leaders Monday to press them to re-establish a power-sharing government amid uncertainty after Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein scored a historic victory in local elections.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis was holding talks with leaders of the five parties that formed the last Executive, or devolved government, before it collapsed in February.

LONDON (AP) — Britain will provide an extra 1.3 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in military support to Ukraine to help the country defend against Russian forces, officials said Sunday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders from other Group of Seven countries are expected to hold online talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later Sunday to discuss the further support.

The meeting is partly meant to display unity among Western allies on Victory in Europe Day, which marks Nazi Germany’s surrender in 1945.

LONDON (AP) — The U.K., U.S. and Irish governments have urged rival parties in Northern Ireland to come together to resurrect its power-sharing government after Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein scored a historic victory to become the biggest party in Northern Ireland’s Assembly.

Sinn Fein, which seeks union with Ireland, won 27 seats in the 90-seat legislature, beating the Democratic Unionist Party, which secured 25 seats. It’s the first time in Northern Ireland’s history that an Irish nationalist party has topped the voting.

05 May 2022; MEMO: A group of British activists have unfurled a Palestinian flag on top of the town hall in Bishop's Castle on the English side of the border with Wales. Activist Sarah Wilkinson climbed the building on Monday — the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr — and called out the double standards of the town for raising the Ukraine flag following Russia's invasion but not doing the same for Palestine despite it suffering under 74 years of Israeli occupation.

LONDON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of England (BoE), the central bank of the United Kingdom (UK), on Thursday once again raised its benchmark interest rate to 1 percent, the highest level since 2009, to curb surging inflation.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met on Wednesday and voted by a majority of 6-3 to increase the Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, the BoE said in a statement.

"Those members in the minority preferred to increase Bank Rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 1.25 percent," according to the statement.

LONDON (AP) — OPEC and allied oil-producing countries decided Thursday to gradually increase the flows they send to the world, even as Europe’s plan to sanction Russian oil threatens to yank millions of barrels off a global market already thirsty for crude.

LONDON (AP) — The militaries of Britain and Japan will “work more closely together” under a defense deal that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced during talks with his Japanese counterpart Thursday.

Johnson hosted Premier Fumio Kishida at the British leader’s 10 Downing St. residence. He noted the “strong stance” Japan has taken “against the Russian aggression in Ukraine” and he drew a parallel with the security situation in Asia.