United Kingdom

London, Apr 28 (PTI) BBC chairman Richard Sharp resigned on Friday after a report found he broke the rules by failing to disclose the role he played in helping former British prime minister Boris Johnson secure an 800,000-pounds loan.

The 67-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker, who has been the chairman of the UK taxpayer-funded licence fee-backed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), said the investigation found he had breached the governance code for public appointments.

London, Apr 28 (PTI) An Indian-origin businessman based in London has been sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months after pleading guilty to fraud by abusing the government’s COVID-19 Bounce Back Loan scheme, the UK’s Insolvency Service said on Friday.

Rajesh Dhirajlal Vaghela, 46, from Stanmore in north London, received a 25,000 pounds loan before closing his business in an effort to avoid repaying the taxpayer loan.

LONDON/NEW YORK, April 28 (Reuters) - Sudan's eruption into conflict has left international consumer goods makers racing to shore up supplies of gum arabic, one of the country's most sought-after products and a key ingredient in everything from fizzy drinks to candy and cosmetics.

About 70% of the world's supply of gum arabic, for which there are few substitutes, comes from the acacia trees in the Sahel region that runs through Africa's third-largest country, which is being torn apart by fighting between the army and a paramilitary force.

LONDON (AP) — The chairman of the BBC quit Friday after a report found he failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest over his role in arranging a loan more than two years ago for Boris Johnson, as scandals from the the former prime minister’s turbulent term continue to rattle U.K. public life.

The publicly funded national broadcaster has been under political pressure after it was revealed that Richard Sharp helped arrange the line of credit weeks before he was appointed to the BBC post on the government’s recommendation.

LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - Television personality Jerry Springer, known for a long-running talk show that featured raucous audiences, controversial topics and fist-fighting guests and who briefly served as Cincinnati mayor, died at age 79 on Thursday, his family said.

Springer died peacefully after a brief illness at his home in suburban Chicago, his family said in a statement. The cause of death was not specified.

LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - Microsoft's (MSFT.O) president Brad Smith said the UK regulator's decision to prevent its acquisition of 'Call of Duty' maker Activision Blizzard "had shaken confidence" in Britain as a destination for tech businesses.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which operates independently from government, blocked the deal on Wednesday, saying it could hit competition in the nascent cloud gaming market.

April 25 (Reuters) - Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to make a deal with the European Union to make it easier for Britons to travel to the bloc, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Sunak is hoping to build on improved relations with the EU to reach an agreement to let Britons use EU e-gates for passport checks, which would speed up border crossings, the report said.

Sunak's spokesman, however, said he did not recognise the reporting that the prime minister was pushing for greater access.

LONDON (AP) — Kelly Curto is taking her first trip outside the U.S., and the die-hard fan of the British royal family is making it the one at the top of her bucket list — heading to London for King Charles III’s coronation.

After arriving on May 5, the 44-year-old school bus driver from Long Island and a friend will head to the Mall, the ceremonial avenue to Buckingham Palace where the monarch’s pomp-filled procession will pass by the following day.

London, Apr 24 (PTI) An inquiry by the UK’s parliamentary standards watchdog into the process followed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when declaring wife Akshata Murty’s business interests was extended in its scope on Monday.

The UK’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had opened the inquiry under Paragraph 6 of the ‘Code of Conduct’ last week, in relation to Sunak declaring Murty’s shares in a childcare firm which stood to benefit from a Spring Budget announcement last month.

23 Apr 2023; MEMO: The UK armed forces have completed a complex and rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families from Sudan, amid a significant escalation in violence and threats to embassy staff, said the country's premier on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

The move followed similar evacuations of US government personnel and Iraqi diplomats from the Sudanese capital Khartoum.