United Kingdom

LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - A British man who worked in the British embassy in Berlin has been charged with offences under the Official Secrets Act related to passing on information useful to Russia, London police said.

David Ballantyne Smith, 57, who was living in Potsdam, Germany and was employed as a security guard at the embassy, was extradited to Britain from Germany on Wednesday following his arrest by German police in August 2021, the police said.

LONDON, April 5 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a video appeal to Russians on Tuesday, calling on them to share reports about "atrocities" committed by their troops in Ukraine, saying if people knew the truth they would not support the war.

The United States and European countries, including Britain, have accused Russia of war crimes after the release of graphic images of civilian deaths and mass graves in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, over the weekend. 

LONDON (AP) — Two of naturalist Charles Darwin’s notebooks that were reported stolen from Cambridge University’s library have been returned, two decades after they disappeared.

The university said Tuesday that the manuscripts were left in the library inside a pink gift bag, along with a note wishing the librarian a Happy Easter.

LONDON, April 4. /TASS/: The Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development approved taking firm action against Russia and Belarus, suspending the access by both countries to its financing and expertise, the EBRD said in a statement on Monday.

LONDON, April 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Oil prices extended losses on Monday as investors eyed the release of supplies from strategic reserves from consuming nations, while a truce in Yemen could ease supply disruption concerns in the Middle East.

Brent crude futures fell 79 cents, or 0.8per cent, to $103.60 a barrel by 0037 GMT while US West Texas Intermediate crude was at $98.45 a barrel, down 82 cents, or 0.8per cent. Both contracts slipped $1 when markets opened on Monday.

LONDON (AP) — The war in Ukraine is the conflict where spies came in from the cold and took center stage.

Since Russia invaded its neighbor in late February, intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Britain have been remarkably willing to go public with their secret intelligence assessments of what is happening on the battlefield — and inside the Kremlin.

LONDON (AP) — The prevalence of COVID-19 in the U.K. has reached record levels, with about 1 in 13 people estimated to be infected with the virus in the past week, according to the latest figures from Britain’s official statistics agency.

Some 4.9 million people were estimated to have the coronavirus in the week ending March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. The latest surge is driven by the more transmissible omicron variant BA.2, which is the dominant variant across the U.K.

LONDON, April 1 (Reuters) - Ukraine, hoping to tap fresh sources of money to fund its defence efforts, is looking at ways to extend a domestic bond issuance programme to international capital markets, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Kyiv launched a programme selling hryvnia-denominated bonds to raise money for its fight against Russia - dubbed "war bonds" - in late February. The government said it aimed to raise around $1.36 billion through its domestic programme.

LONDON, March 31. /TASS/: Sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia could lead to fragmentation of the global financial system and dilute the US dollar’s dominance in it, Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s first deputy managing director has warned.

The official considers that radical restrictive measures imposed by Western countries after the launch of Russia's special operation in Ukraine may contribute to the emergence of small currency blocs based on trade between certain groups of states.

LONDON, March 31. /TASS/: The British government has put the Russian TV channel RT (the TV-Novosti autonomous non-profit organization), the Rossiya Segodnya media holding, and 12 Russian citizens, including Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, Chief of the National Defense Command and Control Center, and journalist Sergey Brilev, on a sanctions list.

The updated blacklist was published on the British government's website on Thursday morning.