Category Archives: UK news

Hong Kong migration agents report rush of inquiries for UK visas

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High level of interest in scheme launched on Sunday comes despite fears applications will be monitored

Migration agents in Hong Kong say they have had a rush of inquiries from people seeking to access the new visa scheme launched by the UK government on Sunday, despite fears their applications will be monitored.

Britain’s Home Office is expecting about 300,000 people to exercise a newly offered right to move to Britain and eventually seek citizenship in the next five years. The scheme was announced in July in response to the worsening security situation in Hong Kong, as the Chinese government tightens its control over the city with a draconian national security law.

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‘I couldn’t be prouder’: 16-year-old joins father in HS2 protest tunnel

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Rory Hooper, Swampy’s son, joins environmental activists to protest against environmental destruction

Veteran environmental activist Dan Hooper, known as Swampy, who is one of nine protesters in a tunnel in central London to raise the alarm about the environmental destruction they believe the high speed rail project HS2 will cause, is in the tunnel with his 16-year-old son, it has emerged.

The activists have been in the tunnel close to Euston station since Tuesday to raise awareness of the climate emergency and to try to halt work on the HS2 project which is under way in the Euston area. They argue that many ancient woodlands will be destroyed by the project. HS2 says it is planting 7m new trees.

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UK may help EU before domestic vaccination programme complete, says Liz Truss

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Trade secretary had previously hinted supplies may not be diverted until UK population was vaccinated

The UK could help the EU and other nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies even before the domestic vaccination programme has been completed, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

As ministers sought to smooth relations with Brussels after the EU’s much-criticised and swiftly rescinded decision to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Truss sought to stress the need for international cooperation.

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Liz Truss: we will vaccinate people in UK before helping other countries – video

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The UK can help EU nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said, but only if it does not affect the government’s timetable for vaccinating its own population. She told Sky News's Sophy Ridge: 'We first need to make sure that our population is vaccinated ... It’s a bit too early to say how we would deploy vaccines but we certainly want to work with friends and neighbours, we want to work with developing countries'

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How EU’s floundering vaccine effort hit a fresh crisis with exports row

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A new rule on exports from Europe suddenly blew up into a threat to the withdrawal agreement – and a hasty backtrack

It started with a tweet by a blogger at 4.36pm on Friday. It ended with the prime ministers of the UK and Ireland warning the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, during late night calls, that she had put peace at risk by effectively seeking to erect a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

“OK, I’m not usually on here any more, but I’m making an exception because this is very interesting: the EU’s regulation on export controls for vaccines *does* include vaccines going to Northern Ireland, and the EU is invoking Article 16 of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol,” @dijdowell had tweeted. “I really didn’t have Article 16 being used *by the EU* in the first month of the Protocol’s operation on my list of predictions for 2021. I would be fascinated – *fascinated* – to know what the Irish Government makes of setting this precedent.”

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Leave Hong Kong before it’s too late, say those who now call Britain home

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Former residents who have chosen to take their chances in the UK after Beijing’s clampdown speak out

Aragon starts work on Monday as an estate agent in London, focused on finding clients who want to move to Britain’s capital from his home city of Hong Kong, a move he made himself four months ago.

His job is one of the first created by a new visa scheme that opens today, giving millions of Hong Kong residents the right to move to Britain and eventually seek citizenship, in response to a Chinese government crackdown in the city.

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Just £12,000 of £40m fund for displaced Chagos islanders has been spent

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MP representing most of UK’s Chagossians says failure to use compensation money to help those facing hardship is outrageous

Less than £12,000 of a £40m fund set up to compensate Chagos islanders who were forcibly evicted from their homeland by the British government has reached those living in the UK.

Four years after it was announced, the Foreign Office fund has distributed less than 1% of its budget in direct support to islanders forced from their homes in the Indian Ocean.

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Britain launches new visa for millions of Hongkongers fleeing China’s crackdown

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Scheme allows Hong Kong residents with a BNO passport to live and work in the UK with a pathway to citizenship after five years

A new visa scheme offering millions of Hong Kong residents a pathway to British citizenship will go live on Sunday as the UK opens its doors to those wanting to escape China’s crackdown on dissent.

From Sunday afternoon, anyone with a British national overseas (BNO) passport and their dependents will be able to apply online for a visa allowing them to live and work in the UK. After five years they can then apply for citizenship.

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Couple marry on Covid ward 46 years after first meeting

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Ceremony at Coventry university hospital follows urgent Twitter appeal for registrar

A couple have been married in a hospital’s coronavirus ward after an urgent appeal for a registrar, more than 46 years after they first met on the set of a pantomime.

Philip, 78, and Patricia, 88, were married at Coventry university hospital, where Patricia is being treated for Covid-19, on Friday.

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Sophie: 10 of the greatest tracks by a genius of pop’s expressive power

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From productions for Charli XCX and Gaika to Sophie’s emotionally shattering solo works, we celebrate a truly singular artist who has died aged 34

This was the track that brought Sophie, the Scottish producer who has died aged 34 following an accidental fall, to wider attention, and how could it not. The opening sounds like an alert announcing a malfunction on a clown car assembly line, all sproings and sirens; these polished, corporate sonics would become a hallmark of the producer’s early work, revelling in the kitsch of the smartphone age. But unlike producers with similar satiric intentions like James Ferraro and Oneohtrix Point Never, you could dance to Sophie – and Bipp is so deliriously danceable.

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‘Find of the century’: medieval hoard of treasures unearthed in Cambridge

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Graves found under demolished student halls are providing valuable insight into life in a post-Roman settlement

An early medieval graveyard unearthed beneath student accommodation at Cambridge University has been described as “one of the most exciting finds of Anglo-Saxon archaeology since the 19th century”.

King’s College discovered the “extensive” cemetery, containing more than 60 graves, after demolishing a group of 1930s buildings which had recently housed graduates and staff in the west of the city, to make way for more modern halls.

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‘I wanted to give something back’: the academic who signed up for the Novavax trial

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Librarian says she feels ‘very lucky’ working from home, so she volunteered for the vaccine test

While many have endured almost a year of stress and hardship during the Covid crisis in the UK, others have remained relatively unscathed.

Caroline Ball, a 37-year-old academic librarian from just outside Derby, has even felt guilty at times, having the good fortune of a stable job which she can do from home and not worrying about homeschooling children.

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‘Half-friends is not a concept’: UK should decide who its allies are, says Macron

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‘History and geography don’t change – I don’t think British destiny is different to ours,’ says French president

Emmanuel Macron has warned that Boris Johnson’s government has to decide who its allies are, insisting that “half-friends is not a concept”.

“What politics does Great Britain wish to choose? It cannot be the best ally of the US, the best ally of the EU and the new Singapore … It has to choose a model,” the French president said, in an interview with the Guardian and a small group of other media.

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Explainer: what is article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol?

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The Brexit deal clause has been triggered by the EU to place controls on the export of Covid vaccines to NI

Under Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol, all products are normally permitted to be exported from the EU to Northern Ireland without checks, as NI remains in the single market for goods and continues to operate under EU custom rules.

The protocol was a resolution to the sticky Irish border question and was designed to avoid a return of checkpoints along the politically sensitive frontier and minimise potential disruption of cross-border trade.

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‘We had to go it alone’: how the UK got ahead in the Covid vaccine race

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Early partnership between Oxford and AstraZeneca, plus upfront funding, proved vital headstart

When it became clear the China coronavirus outbreak might lead to a global pandemic, Oxford University’s life scientists convened a crisis meeting. It took place on Thursday 30 January last year, and if the rest of the world hadn’t yet realised the potential consequences of what was unfolding in Wuhan, they had.

Around the table in the Nuffield Department of Medicine were experts from in and around the university, gathered for a moment they had feared would one day come.

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Everyday Covid mistakes we are all still making

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Can we do more as individuals to help slow the spread of coronavirus? We ask the experts

Covid-19 infections in the UK are reducing but remain stubbornly high, despite a month of lockdown measures. So could we be doing more as individuals to curb transmission of the virus? A virologist, a psychologist and a public health expert share their views on some of the Covid-19 mistakes that we are all still making.

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AstraZeneca must deliver vaccine doses from UK to EU, says Von der Leyen

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Commission president says company legally obliged to use UK plants to help deliver on order

Ursula von der Leyen has said it is “crystal clear” that AstraZeneca is bound by its contract to deliver coronavirus vaccine doses produced in the UK to the EU to make up for a shortfall in production in Belgium.

The European commission president dismissed the arguments of AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soirot, that the British government had a first claim on doses produced in Oxford and Staffordshire.

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Hong Kong: China will no longer recognise British national overseas citizens

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Move comes after UK says people with status can move to Britain and eventually settle

China has announced it will no longer recognise the passports of British national overseas citizens just hours after the UK launched its scheme to give passport holders a path to residency as political freedoms decline in Hong Kong.

“From 31 January, China will no longer recognise the so-called BNO passport as a travel document and ID document, and reserves the right to take further actions,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters, according to AFP.

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EU ‘not fit for purpose’ to reduce poverty in Europe, says UN envoy

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Brexit risks exacerbating poverty issues, says human rights envoy after two-month investigation

The European Union is “not fit for purpose” in the task of reducing poverty in Europe and Brexit risks exacerbating the problem, the UN’s special envoy on human rights has said after a two-month investigation.

Prof Olivier De Schutter, who was given access to senior officials across the bloc’s institutions, said the EU’s “constitutional framework” was driving a race to the bottom in corporation and income tax and salary levels.

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