United Kingdom

LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates has become a key trade hub for Russian gold since Western sanctions over Ukraine cut Russia's more traditional export routes, Russian customs records show.

The records, which contain details of nearly a thousand gold shipments between Feb. 24, 2022 and March 3 this year, reveal the names of over 100 non-Russian companies that have handled Russian gold since Western markets banned imports from Moscow.

The shipments in the records, supplied to Reuters by a commercial provider, may not cover all exports in the period.

LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) - The director of a top Russian science institute, arrested on suspicion of treason along with two other hypersonic missile technology experts, stands accused of betraying secrets to China, two people familiar with the case told Reuters.

Alexander Shiplyuk, head of Siberia's Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), is suspected of handing over classified material at a scientific conference in China in 2017, the sources said.

LONDON, May 23 (Reuters) - Prince Harry on Tuesday lost his legal bid to challenge the British government's refusal to let him pay for his own police protection when he is in the United Kingdom.

Harry, King Charles' younger son, was stripped of the police security usually afforded to royal figures in the United Kingdom after he and his American wife Meghan stepped down from their official roles in 2020 to move to the United States.

LONDON (AP) — Several dozen youths pelted police with objects and set cars and trash bins ablaze in Cardiff in local unrest that erupted after two teenagers died in a road crash, officials said Tuesday.

Police said they were supporting the bereaved families and arresting the rioters — but faced questions about whether officers’ actions contributed to the fatal crash. Two teenage boys, ages 15 and 16, died in a crash involving an electronic bicycle in the Ely district of the Welsh capital on Monday evening, police said.

LONDON (AP) — The European Union slapped Meta with a record $1.3 billion privacy fine Monday and ordered it to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decadelong case sparked by U.S. cybersnooping fears.

The penalty of 1.2 billion euros is the biggest since the EU’s strict data privacy regime took effect five years ago, surpassing Amazon’s 746 million euro fine in 2021 for data protection violations.

22 May 2023; AA: Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein achieved a significant victory in Northern Ireland's local elections, becoming the largest party for the first time, according to local media reports.

Following the completion of vote counting late Saturday, Sinn Fein, which advocates for the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, secured 144 out of 462 local government seats.

This marked an increase of 39 seats compared to the previous local government elections in 2019.

20 May 2023; MEMO: Secretary General of the Arab Group in the British Labour Party Omar Mufid revealed that he managed to persuade the UK's Oxford University to retract its link of the cause of the occupation of Palestine with the suffering of Jews in Europe.

LONDON, May 19 (Reuters) - Russian military forces have been enhancing defensive positions in and around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine in recent weeks, four witnesses said, ahead of an expected counteroffensive in the region.

New trenches have been dug around the city and more mines have been laid. Surveillance cameras at the plant are pointing north across a wide reservoir towards Ukrainian-controlled territory.

19 May 2023; AA: The funeral and associated events honoring Queen Elizabeth II, which took place during a period of national mourning, incurred an estimated cost of £162 million (nearly $200 million) to the government, the Treasury said Thursday. 

The state funeral was held on Sept. 19 last year, 11 days after the Queen's passing.

During this period, hundreds of thousands of people visited Westminster to pay their respects as she lay in state.

LONDON (AP) — Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the German lender should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein when he was a client, according to lawyers for women who say they were abused by the late financier.