United Kingdom

LONDON, March 18. /TASS/: Ofcom, the British media regulator, has revoked RT TV channel’s license to broadcast in the UK upon the government’s request, according to a statement on Friday.

"Ofcom has today revoked RT's license to broadcast in the UK, with immediate effect. We have done so on the basis that we do not consider RT’s licensee, ANO TV Novosti, fit and proper to hold a UK broadcast license," the statement reads.

It said the license revocation came amid 29 ongoing Ofcom inspections regarding "the impartiality of RT's coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine."

LONDON (AP) — Unions protested at British ports Friday, demanding the government step in to save jobs and protect key trade routes after major ferry operator P&O Ferries fired 800 U.K. crew members to replace them with cheaper contract staff.

P&O has canceled all its ferry crossings between Britain and continental Europe, threatening to disrupt the movement of travelers and goods across the English Channel and North Sea for days.

17 March 2022; MEMO: UK intelligence services who allegedly provided the CIA with questions to put to detainees being tortured at "black sites" are subject to the law of England and Wales and not that of the countries in which the prisoner was being held, British judges have ruled.

17 March 2022; MEMO: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, both British-Iranian nationals, landed in the UK in the early hours of Thursday and were reunited with their families after years of imprisonment in Iran, Anadolu News Agency reports.

The duo was respectively accused of plotting to overthrow the government and spying, charges they both denied.

They landed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire after a seven-hour flight from Oman, shortly after 0100GMT.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s communications regulator on Friday revoked the license of the state-funded Russian broadcaster RT amid concern that its coverage of the war in Ukraine was biased.

The decision comes as the regulator, Ofcom, conducts 29 investigations into the impartiality of RT’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The volume and nature of the issues raised by these inquiries are of “great concern,” the regulator said, particularly because RT had been fined 200,000 pounds for previous violations of impartiality standards.

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday that many people in Russia were showing themselves to be "traitors" and pointed to those who were resigning from their jobs and leaving the country.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov made the comments a day after President Vladimir Putin delivered a stark warning to Russian "traitors" who he said the West wanted to use as a "fifth column" to destroy the country. 

17 March 2022; MEMO: British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, held talks about energy security on Wednesday with the de facto leaders of Gulf oil exporters, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but secured no public pledge to ramp up production, Reuters reports.

Johnson's trip to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh was aimed at securing oil supplies and raising pressure on President Vladimir Putin over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which led to sweeping Western sanctions on Moscow and soaring world energy prices.

LONDON (AP) — The Bank of England on Thursday is likely to raise its key interest rate for the third time since December as it pushes ahead faster than other central banks in combating a global wave of inflation fueled by soaring energy prices.

LONDON (AP) — Two British citizens who had been jailed in Iran for more than five years — charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori — returned home to their families’ hugs and tears Thursday after the U.K. settled a decades-old debt to Iran.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugged her 7-year-old daughter, and her husband and members of Ashoori’s family tearfully embraced one another after the two arrived via a government-chartered aircraft at the Brize Norton air force base in Oxfordshire in the early morning hours.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that talks were “moving forward” for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained in Iran for almost six years.

Johnson confirmed a negotiating team was at work in Tehran to free Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds dual U.K.-Iranian citizenship. Johnson’s comments were made on a visit to the Middle East, coming a day after Iran returned the passport of the charity worker.