United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — British health authorities will begin offering eligible people just a fraction of the normal monkeypox vaccine dose to stretch supplies by about five times, in line with similar decisions to extend available doses in Europe and the U.S.

In a statement Monday, Britain’s Health Security Agency said patients at clinics in Manchester and London would soon get just one fifth the regular monkeypox vaccine dose as part of ongoing research, citing earlier work suggesting the smaller dose provided as effective an immune response as a full dose.

LONDON, Aug 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UK has announced £36 million (approx. US$ 42 million) in UK humanitarian funding to help people in Ukraine, East Africa, and Syria.

 People whose lives have been upended by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, drought and food shortages in East Africa, and conflict in Syria will be among those to benefit from £36 million in UK humanitarian funding announced Friday.

LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the leaders of the United States, France and Germany on Sunday stressed the importance of ensuring the safety of nuclear sites in Ukraine in a call, Johnson's office said.

"On a joint call, the Prime Minister, President (Joe) Biden, President (Emmanuel) Macron and Chancellor (Olaf) Scholz underlined their steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine in the face of Russia's invasion," a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement.

LONDON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lisa O'Neill scrutinizes her bank account to look for possible ways to economize, reviewing her income and outgoings, fearing her family may no longer be able to make ends meet with a staggering rise in energy bills just around the corner.

The working mom-of-four is preparing for a sweeping cost-of-living crisis in the UK.

"We have cancelled a private pension and are using the money we were paying on that to go towards our bills," said O'Neill, who lives just outside Liverpool, in a recent interview with Xinhua.

LONDON (AP) — The first day of a planned strike at Britain’s biggest container port started Sunday, joining a series of walkouts by transportation workers that have disrupted economic activity across the country.

Almost 2,000 workers at the Port of Felixstowe, located about 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of London, walked off the jobs over pay, raising fears of severe supply chain problems. The port handles around 4 million containers a year from 2,000 ships – almost half of the country’s incoming shipping freight.

LONDON (AP) — For years, global health officials have used billions of drops of an oral vaccine in a remarkably effective campaign aimed at wiping out polio in its last remaining strongholds — typically, poor, politically unstable corners of the world.

Now, in a surprising twist in the decades-long effort to eradicate the virus, authorities in Jerusalem, New York and London have discovered evidence that polio is spreading there.

The original source of the virus? The oral vaccine itself.

LONDON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Russia has no moral right to sit at the Group of 20 nations while it presses on with its invasion of Ukraine, a spokesperson for Britain's foreign ministry said on Friday.

"Russia has no moral right to sit at the G20 while its aggression in Ukraine persists," the spokesperson said.

"We welcome Indonesia's efforts to ensure that the impacts of Russia's war are considered in G20 meetings, as well as indications that Ukraine may be represented by President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy at the G20 Leaders Summit."

LONDON, Aug 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Argentina and Australia are the best places on earth in case of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia, according to a scientific report carried by London’s Daily Mail.

“Want to survive a nuclear war? Go to Argentina!,” read a headline earlier this week. It is the “best place to get through ten years of fallout, scientists say.”

LONDON, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- The inflation rate in the United Kingdom (UK) soared to a new 40-year high in July, official data showed Wednesday. Both households and businesses were under mounting pressure and the country's central bank is expected to raise interest rates further.

POOR FAMILIES BEARING BRUNT

The UK's Consumer Prices Index rose by 10.1 percent in the 12 months to July, up from 9.4 percent in June, as rising food prices made the largest upward contribution to the change between June and July, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

17 August 2022; MEMO: Britain's Conservative Party leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak claimed on Monday that there is a "very strong case" for moving the British Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and formally recognising the latter as the "historic capital city" of the occupation state. His comment was made during a Q&A session with members of Zionist lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel.