UNITED KINGDOM

Finance minister Jeremy Hunt will bury Britain's failed "Trussonomics" experiment on Thursday by cutting spending and raising taxes, moves that he and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak say are needed to restore investor confidence.

A lawsuit accusing the British government of refusing to acknowledge that jailed Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu was the victim of extraordinary rendition to Nigeria began at a court in London on Tuesday.

The UK has also confirmed the deaths of medic Craig Mackintosh and ex-paratrooper Simon Lingard, who was killed near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine this month.

Skipping lunch each day and watching television in blankets to keep warm is not how Ann and Keith Hartley envisaged their retirement in Burnley, the northern English town hit hardest by Britain's cost of living crisis.

Britain's unemployment rate unexpectedly rose and vacancies fell for a fifth report in a row as employers worried about the outlook for the economy, official data showed on Tuesday, ahead of a tough government budget plan later this week.

His birthday fell a day after Remembrance Sunday, when he led a sombre tribute to Britain's war dead at London's Cenotaph for the first time as monarch.

Britain dispatched 300 troops to Mali in December 2020 to join MINUSMA, a force drawn from dozens of countries aiming to bolster the troubled Sahel nation.

The British government said on Monday it would contribute 1 billion pounds ($1.18 billion) to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, more than six weeks after other countries made their commitments.

Now king and commander-in-chief of British forces, he laid his first wreath at the war memorial as reigning monarch, dressed in a field marshal's ceremonial uniform.

The British government said on Thursday it had frozen assets worth more than 18 billion pounds ($20.5 billion) held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and businesses sanctioned over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

The United Kingdom faced a barrage of questions and criticism of its migration and poverty policies in a United Nations review of its human rights record on Thursday amid allegations that it is backsliding on freedoms.

British fashion retailer Next will buy the Made.com brand for 3.4 million pounds ($3.8 million) after the online furniture seller collapsed into administration, resulting in about 400 job losses.

British employers cut their hiring of permanent staff via recruitment firms for the first time in nearly two years in October as the country's political upheaval added to concerns about the economy, a survey showed on Thursday.

The British government on Wednesday pushed back a deadline to hold a new election in Northern Ireland until at least March to provide space for progress in talks between London and Brussels on post-Brexit trade rules governing the region.

Political differences remain, with Sunak a conservative Eurosceptic free-marketeer, while Macron is fervently pro-EU and a believer in strong state intervention.

British businesses fear a gloomy Christmas ahead, as almost half of households plan to cut festive spending due to the soaring cost of living and sales are already falling sharply in inflation-adjusted terms.

The facility in the busy town processes migrants who have crossed the Channel from northern Europe in small boats.

Albania's prime minister accused Britain on Wednesday of using his country's citizens as scapegoats for its failed immigration policies after derogatory comments by British ministers about a rise in the number of Albanian asylum-seekers.

The UK government could change the law to delay elections in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland's foreign minister said on Wednesday after a meeting with the British minister for the region.

Homemade incendiary devices were thrown at the Western Jet Foil Border Force centre in Dover on Sunday, leaving two staff with minor injuries.

The cost of fresh food in British shops last month was 13.3% higher than a year earlier, the biggest annual increase in records going back to 2005, the British Retail Consortium said on Wednesday.