United Kingdom

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers in the West.

The remarks from Lukashenko, who has held power in Belarus since 1994, indicate a potential further escalation of the war in Ukraine, possibly with a combined Russian-Belarus joint force in the north of Ukraine.

LONDON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is confident a second referendum on Scottish independence could take place in October next year, she said on Sunday.

Britain's top court on Tuesday begins hearing arguments for allowing a secession vote without approval from British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her government.

In a 2014 plebiscite, which the British government approved, Scots rejected independence by 55%-45%. However, the Scottish National Party argues the vote for Britain to leave the European Union two years later was a game changer.

LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Britain's opposition Labour Party has retained a huge opinion poll lead over Prime Minister Liz Truss's Conservative Party, which has failed to stage a recovery after its annual conference this week, a poll showed on Saturday.

The YouGov poll, carried out on Thursday and Friday for The Times newspaper and based on a survey of 1,737 British adults, showed support for Labour at 52%, down two points from a poll by the same organisation in late September, while the Conservatives were up just one point at 22%.

LONDON (AP) — The death toll from a gas station explosion that shattered a small village in northwest Ireland rose to nine on Saturday, as emergency workers combed through piles of rubble for people who are still missing.

Irish police said they did not expect to find any more survivors from Friday’s explosion in Creeslough, County Donegal. Eight people have been hospitalized after the blast destroyed the Applegreen service station in the community of about 400 people near Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast.

LONDON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A blockchain linked to Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, has been hit by a $570 million hack, a Binance spokesperson said on Friday, the latest in a series of hacks to hit the crypto sector this year.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a tweet that tokens were stolen from a blockchain "bridge" used in the BNB Chain, known until February as Binance Smart Chain.

LONDON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- British households could face blackouts this winter if there are reduced European electricity imports and insufficient gas supplies in the country, a report warned on Thursday.

In the extreme scenario, it could erode the security of supply margins and mean some customers could be without power for pre-defined periods during the day. However, the event is "unlikely," said the Winter Outlook Report published by National Grid ESO, the electricity system operator for Great Britain.

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Harry, singer Elton John and other individuals have launched legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper, alleging phone-tapping and other breaches of privacy, a law firm for some of the group said on Thursday.

Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online, one of the most widely read news websites in the world, said it "utterly and unambiguously" denied the allegations.

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorised a car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, the New York Times reported.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report, which cited unidentified U.S. officials. Ukraine repeated on Thursday its denial of any involvement in the attack.

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A Russian-installed official in Ukraine on Thursday suggested President Vladimir Putin's defence minister should consider killing himself due to the shame of the defeats in the Ukraine war, an astonishing public insult to Russia's top brass.

After more than seven months of war in Ukraine, Russia's most basic war aims are still not achieved while Russian forces have suffered a series of battlefield defeats in recent months, forcing Putin to announce a partial mobilisation.

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia must be part of investigations into last week's explosions in the two Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.

"So far, from those news conferences which took place in Denmark and Sweden, we've heard disturbing statements that any cooperation with the Russian side is ruled out," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.