United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — As Caribbean nations debate their relationship with the British crown, Prince William says he will support and respect whatever decision the people make.

William, second in line to the throne, made the comments after an eight-day tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas during which he and wife Kate were celebrated but also criticized as being “tone deaf” for perpetuating images of Britain’s colonial rule. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the royals his country intended to become a republic, removing the British monarch as its head of state.

24 March 2022; MEMO: Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, inflicted "exorbitant" domestic abuse against his ex-wife, a senior British judge has concluded as he awarded her sole responsibility for looking after their children, Reuters reports.

The ruling caps the end of an extraordinary, bitter and hugely expensive three-year custody battle at the High Court in London between Mohammed and his former wife, Princess Haya bint Al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah.

LONDON, March 24. /TASS/: The UK authorities have added a number of Russian banks, companies and defense sector enterprises to the black list. According to the list updated on Thursday, 59 individuals and legal entities from Russia come under restrictive measures.

In particular, the list includes Sberbank CEO Herman Gref, the first deputy of the board of the bank Alexander Vedyakhin and the ex-deputy Chairman Lev Khasis, businessmen Oleg Tinkov and Evgeny Shvidler.

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, inflicted "exorbitant" domestic abuse against his ex-wife, a senior British judge has concluded as he awarded her sole responsibility for looking after their children.

The ruling caps the end of an extraordinary, bitter and hugely expensive three-year custody battle at the High Court in London between Mohammed and his former wife, Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah.

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - Russia's defence minister was briefly shown by state media at a meetingof top officials on Thursday after dropping out of public view for days during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Shoigu, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, is overseeing what Russia calls its "special military operation", but had not been seen in public since March 11, fuelling speculation about his whereabouts.

23 March 2022; MEMO: Julian Assange married his fiancee, Stella Moris, in a London prison on Wednesday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Assange, 50, remains in Belmarsh prison as he continues to fight extradition to the US.

He has two children with Moris, a 38-year-old lawyer.

Moris' wedding dress was designed by Vivienne Westwood and her veil was embroidered with messages such as "valiant, wild and relentless."

LONDON, March 23 (Xinhua) -- "The West, and especially America, is principally responsible" for the Ukraine crisis, John J. Mearsheimer, a U.S. political scientist, wrote in a recent opinion piece published in The Economist.

American and European policymakers provoked the Ukraine crisis by trying to integrate Ukraine into the West and asserting that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears full responsibility for the crisis, said Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, "But that story is wrong."

LONDON (AP) — The Dubai government-owned ferry operator at the center of a bitter labor dispute in Britain says it didn’t break the law when it fired 786 crew members without advance notice because they all worked on ships registered outside the U.K.

P&O Ferries also acknowledged in a letter dated Wednesday that the way the dismissals were carried out caused distress for workers and said it had offered “generous compensation” to those involved.

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine wants China to play a more "noticeable role" in halting the war being waged by Russia on its territory and also to become a future guarantor of its security, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday.

Andriy Yermak, who heads Zelenskiy's office, also said he expected a dialogue "very soon" between Ukraine's leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping, without elaborating.

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - A Russian newspaper has accused hackers of planting fake news on its website after a report briefly appeared there saying nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine.

The incident marked the second apparent breach within a week of the tightly controlled war narrative that the Kremlin promotes through loyal Russian media.