United Kingdom

LONDON (AP) — Britain said on Monday it will grant hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea in a bid for energy independence, ignoring calls from environmental campaigners and the United Nations to stop the development of new fossil fuel projects.

The plans announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak include a pledge to invest 20 billion pounds ($26 billion) in carbon capture and storage projects as Sunak maintained the government’s commitment to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050.

LONDON, July 30 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince William has served up a surprise to hungry members of the public when he dished out environmentally friendly burgers from a food truck in south London.

In a video released on Sunday, the heir to the throne handed out "Earthshot Burgers" to highlight the work of last year's winners of his annual Earthshot Prize, which he set up to help develop solutions to major environmental problems.

"Coming right up," the prince said as he served up the burgers to the stunned customers. "Morning everyone, nicely cooked, ready to go."

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - Prince Harry can take some of his lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group to trial but allegations of phone-hacking were too late, the High Court in London ruled on Thursday.

Harry, younger son of King Charles and the late Princess Diana, is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) over multiple alleged unlawful acts he says were carried out on behalf of its tabloids, the Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, from the mid-1990s until 2016.

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - When 22-year-old American student Amelia Dias completed her final year of studying international relations and law at the University of Edinburgh this summer, she was handed an apology letter instead of a degree certificate.

The letter told Dias that, as Edinburgh was among the more than 100 British universities hit by a staff boycott of marking and assessment this year, the assignments she had completed had not all been graded, and it could not award her a degree.

LONDON (AP) — The chief executive of NatWest, one of Britain’s biggest banks, left her job on Wednesday after discussing personal details of a client — the populist politician Nigel Farage — with a journalist amid a furor over financial institutions’ power to refuse customers for their political views.

The bank said Alison Rose was leaving “by mutual consent.” The surprise early-morning statement came just hours after NatWest had expressed full confidence in the CEO, who was the first woman to head one of Britain’s four big banks.

25 July 2023; MEMO: A judge in the UK has ruled that the home secretary acted unlawfully in not providing basic support to asylum seekers including young children and pregnant women.

Mr Justice Swift found that Suella Braverman broke the law by withholding £3 ($3.8) a week for healthy food for children up to three years old and pregnant women after lawyers representing five asylum seekers challenged the home secretary in the high court.

25 July 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia is plotting the takeover of the iconic Selfridges department store in London's Oxford Street in an effort to increase its international influence and boost the development of its economy, the Telegraph has revealed. Riyadh is said to have emerged as the private financial backer of a $5.1 billion purchase of the luxury store. If the deal is completed, the acquisition will seal the Kingdom's third high profile takeover of famous British brands.

25 July 2023; MEMO: The UK government has underwritten financing for an $872 million new high-speed electric railway in Turkiye, local Turkish media reports.

According to the report, HS2 plans are scaled back, and the Northern Powerhouse Rail project gets ditched, Westminster appears to have turned its attention to infrastructure projects in far-flung countries rather than investing in crucial connectivity in the north.

26 July 2023; MEMO: The Palestine Action protest outside the Elbit-owned UAV Tactical Systems factory in Leicestershire's Meridian Business Park has now entered its 87th day. A small but determined group of protesters is on site 24 hours a day to ensure that the local council doesn't remove the flags and banners from the protest camp across the road from the factory entrance.

LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley cut Israel sovereign credit to a "dislike stance" on Tuesday after the country's parliament passed the first in a series of laws sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit the power of the Supreme Court

"We see increased uncertainty about the economic outlook in the coming months and risks becoming skewed to our adverse scenario," Morgan Stanley's analysts said in a research note.

"Markets are now likely to extrapolate the future policy path and we move Israel sovereign credit to a 'dislike stance'."