United Kingdom

LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The United Nations food agency's world price index declined again in July, edging further away from record highs hit in March.

The Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index, which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 140.9 points last month versus a revised 154.3 for June. The June figure was previously put at 154.2.

The July index was still 13.1% higher than a year earlier, pushed up by the impact of the invasion of Ukraine, adverse weather and high production and transport costs.

LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry on Friday accused Ukrainian forces of shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, saying a leak of radiation had been avoided only by luck.

It said that as a result, the generating capacity of one unit had been reduced and power supply to another had been cut. In addition, the nearby city of Enerhodar was suffering from problems with its power and water supplies, it added in a statement.

LONDON (AP) — The Bank of England projected Thursday that the United Kingdom’s economy will enter a recession at the end of the year as it hiked interest rates by the largest amount in more than 27 years, pushing to tame accelerating inflation driven by the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is recommending Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine carry a warning of the possibility of two types of heart inflammation, an added burden for a shot that has so far failed to win wide uptake.

The heart conditions - myocarditis and pericarditis - should be listed as new side effects in the product information for the vaccine, Nuvaxovid, based on a small number of reported cases, the EMA said on Wednesday.

LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday said that the United States, the world's top military power, was directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine because U.S. spies were approving and coordinating Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian forces.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.

LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Anatoly Chubais, the former privatisation tsar of post-Soviet Russia who quit his post as a Kremlin special envoy due to the war in Ukraine, is in intensive care in Europe with a rare immune disorder, two sources close to Chubais told Reuters.

Chubais, 67, believes he is suffering from Guillain–Barre syndrome, a disease caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system, said the sources.

"He thinks it's a disease," the first source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "Doctors say they found it in time."

01 August 2022; MEMO: The Big Ride for Palestine took to the roads and cycle tracks of England's midlands and north-west over the weekend to raise awareness of the Palestinian issue and funds for children and para-cyclists in the besieged Gaza Strip. More than 250 riders left Derby city centre on Friday morning and headed for Manchester via Stoke on Trent.

LONDON (AP) — Two people are running to be Britain’s next prime minister, but a third presence looms over the contest: Margaret Thatcher.

The late former prime minister dominated Britain in the 1980s, and has left a large and contested legacy. Critics see her as an intransigent ideologue whose free-market policies frayed social bonds and gutted the country’s industrial communities. But for the governing Conservative Party, Thatcher is an icon, an inspiration and the presiding spirit who made Britain fit for the modern era.

LONDON (AP) — Moves by rich countries to buy large quantities of monkeypox vaccine, while declining to share doses with Africa, could leave millions of people unprotected against a more dangerous version of the disease and risk continued spillovers of the virus into humans, public health officials are warning.

Critics fear a repeat of the catastrophic inequity problems seen during the coronavirus pandemic.

LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Britain's defence minister Ben Wallace said on Friday that Russia was failing in "many areas" in its war in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin might seek to change strategy again.

"The Russians are failing at the moment on the ground in many areas ... Putin's plan A, B, and C has failed and he may look to plan D," Wallace told Sky News television.