United Kingdom

    The UK is to deploy a third warship to help enforce sanctions against North Korea. Amphibious assault ship HMS Albion will join HMS Sutherland and HMS Argyll, which is due in the region later in the year to take part in exercises with Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore. The ships will enforce the UN ban on ship-to-ship transfers of goods destined for North Korea. Several Chinese-registered ships have been seized for secretly siphoning off oil to North Korean ships in international waters over the past few months. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: Our Armed Forces are at the forefront of Global Britain, and the deployment of HMS Albion, Sutherland and Argyll demonstrates our unwavering commitment to our international responsibilities and to maint...

    In any other circumstance, two 91-year-olds strolling slowly around a garden, complaining about the prevalence of noisy aircraft would hardly be of note. But when that elderly couple happens to be the Queen and Sir David Attenborough, old friends and undisputed national treasures, the nature of their conversation is rather more of interest. The Queen could not contain her irritation. Why do they go round and round when you want to talk? she pondered aloud. Poking fun at the noisy aircraft favoured by US leaders, she joked: Sounds like President Trump or President Obama. It is not the first time the monarch has expressed frustration about living under a flight path. In a pre-recorded message, she told BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners Question Time: I very much hope you hav...

    The Russian embassy to the UK has congratulated Yulia Skripal on her recovery from a nerve agent attack that Britain and an array of Western allies blamed on Russia. Yulia Skripal was released from hospital on Tuesday after she and her father, a former Russian double agent, were poisoned in Salisbury in southern England last month. In a message posted on Twitter, the Russian embassy stressed the need for urgent proof that what is being done to her [Yulia] is done on her own free will. Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury on March 4 following exposure to Novichok, a nerve agent. Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, was convicted of selling Russian state secrets to Britain in 2006. He was traded...

    Consumer spending or rather the lack of it, has become more worrying than Brexit for top British executives, Deloitte found. Brexit has fallen into second place as the most significant risk facing company bosses for the first time since the EU referendum, as weak domestic growth saps demand for their goods and services. According to a Deloitte survey of chief financial officers (CFOs) at some of the UK’s biggest businesses, companies are now less pessimistic about Brexit after ministers agreed the terms of a transition period with Brussels to smooth Britain’s exit from the EU. Reflecting the views of 106 companies, including almost a quarter of the FTSE 100, the survey found a fifth of business leaders were more optimistic about their firm’s prospects than they wer...

    Government cuts to the police may have encouraged violent offenders and have likely contributed to a rise in serious violent crime, leaked Home Office documents have revealed. The documents cast doubt on claims by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, on Sunday that cuts to the police were not to blame for rising violence. The Home Office said it would not comment on leaked documents. Rudd will on Monday launch a strategy aimed at tackling serious violent crime, which officials and ministers have been working on for months. The launch comes after a week of shooting and stabbing deaths pushed the homicide rate in London to more than 50 lives lost this year. The home secretary believes the strategy will mark a change in the approach to tackling serious violence,...

    A new political party with access to up to £50m in funding has been secretly under development for more than a year by a network of entrepreneurs, philanthropists and donors keen to break the Westminster mould, the Observer can reveal. The movement, spearheaded by a former Labour benefactor, is understood to have been drawn up by a group frustrated by the tribal nature of politics, the polarisation caused by Brexit and the standard of political leadership on all sides. It appears to have a centrist policy platform that borrows ideas from both left and right. Senior figures from the worlds of business and charity are understood to be involved, as well as former supporters of the main parties, including a number of former Tory donors. Some of those involved have app...

    Meghan Markle will carry a special tribute to Princess Diana on her wedding day Meghan Markle is staying true to her word and ensuring Princess Diana’s memory plays a big part of her wedding day to Prince Harry on 19 May. Last week, Kensington Palace announced Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had chosen London-based florist Philippa Craddock to create their floral displays for their wedding at St George’s Chapel and St George’s Hall. According to reports, Markle will pay tribute to the People’s Princess with her wedding bouquet which will be made up of white garden roses to symbolise the royal. White garden roses will also feature in the church floral arrangement, and sit alongside peonies (Markle’s favourite flower) and foxgloves, according to the BBC. Kensington P...

    The recovery of poisoned spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia has raised hopes the pair could provide new clues to officers investigating the nerve agent attack in Salisbury. It was revealed on Friday that the former Russian double agent was no longer in a critical condition and was responding well to treatment at Salisbury District Hospital, more than a month after he and Ms Skripal were found unconscious on a park bench in the Wiltshire city. Hospital medical director Dr Christine Blanshard has dismissed talk of when they could be discharged as speculation, but with Ms Skripal now well enough to have issued her first statement since the attack, and her father said to be improving rapidly, they could soon be well enough to assist the investigation into how the...

    India is no rush to do a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain and will demand easier access for Indians to migrate to Britain as part of a future trade relationship, the country's high commissioner has said. Many Brexiteers, including Trade Secretary Liam Fox, argue leaving the European Union will allow Britain to sign prosperous new trade deals with global economic powerhouses, including India, the USA and China. Speaking to Politico, Yashvardhan Sinha, the Indian High Commission in London, said India would like to the best deal possible with Britain, however, it is not a priority for its prime minister, Narendra Modi. I don’t think India is in a rush. I think India would like certainly, and I’m sure the U.K. would too to get the best deal possible, Sinha said. Si...