LONDON (Reuters) – Rights group Amnesty International lambasted the United Nations Security Council on Thursday as “tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose”.

In its annual report, Amnesty said the failure of world powers to take stronger action on Syria was evidence that a sclerotic security council was hamstrung by vested interests, and also warned of abuses arising from Europe’s economic crisis.

LONDON, May 22 (Reuters) – Britain moved a step closer to
renewing its Trident nuclear weapons system on Tuesday, awarding
350 million pounds worth of contracts to design a new generation
of submarines that critics say are the result of outdated, Cold
War thinking.

The Successor class submarine would be used to replace the
four Vanguard class vessels currently carrying Britain’s Trident
nuclear missiles, but a debate has raged about whether
like-for-like renewal at an estimated cost of up to 20 billion
pounds ($31.5 billion) is necessary.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s beleaguered media minister Jeremy Hunt, under fire over his contacts with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, came under renewed pressure on Monday after a parliamentary watchdog said it would investigate allegations he had failed to declare donations from media firms.

Labour has already called for his resignation amid allegations he was too close to News Corp as he deliberated whether to allow it to buy the portion of pay TV group BSkyB it does not already own.

LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) – Britain’s beleaguered media
minister Jeremy Hunt, under fire over his contacts with Rupert
Murdoch’s News Corp, came under renewed pressure on
Monday after a parliamentary watchdog said it would investigate
allegations he had failed to declare donations from media firms.

Labour has already called for his resignation amid
allegations he was too close to News Corp as he deliberated
whether to allow it to buy the portion of pay TV group BSkyB
it does not already own.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government said it was to buy vertical take-off fighter jets for its future aircraft carriers, a policy shift on a key weapons purchase that risks being seen as another government gaffe and further evidence of defence mismanagement.

Britain said on Thursday it will buy the F-35B variant of the Lockheed Martin-built Joint Strike Fighter, the model David Cameron said was too expensive, following a defence review after he became prime minister in 2010.

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters) – Britain said it was to buy
vertical take-off fighter jets for its future aircraft carriers,
a policy shift on a key weapons purchase that risks being seen
as another government gaffe and further evidence of defence
mismanagement.

Britain said on Thursday it will buy the F-35B variant of
the Lockheed Martin-built Joint Strike Fighter, the
model David Cameron said was too expensive, following a defence
review after he became prime minister in 2010.

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) – Britain’s coalition government
proposed to streamline employment laws and reform business
regulation in new legislative plans on Wednesday, but critics
said ministers were shrinking from taking bolder action to drag
the economy out of recession.

The broad parliamentary programme, disclosed according to
tradition by Queen Elizabeth, will also split banks into retail
and investment arms, reform the upper house of parliament and
the utility market and create a “green investment bank”.

LONDON (Reuters) – When the former editor of the newspaper at the heart of Britain’s phone hacking scandal appears this week at a media inquiry, Prime Minister David Cameron may have more to worry about than the paper’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.

Cameron’s judgment will be under scrutiny when his friend and former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks is quizzed at an inquiry he reluctantly ordered to investigate the relationship between the media, politicians and the public.

BASILDON, England, May 8 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister
David Cameron rallied behind his coalition with the Liberal
Democrats on Tuesday, hoping to revive its fortunes after big
losses in local elections, but tempting the wrath of an unruly
Conservative right.

Cameron and Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg renewed
their coalition vows in a rare joint appearance at a tractor
factory, pledging to see through an unpopular austerity plan and
to get a shrinking economy back on track.

LONDON (Reuters) – British voters showed their anger against the government’s failure to revive the economy in local elections that saw Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives outflanked on the left by Labour and on the right by anti-European fringe party UKIP.

Cameron blamed the defeat on the “difficult times” facing Britain after it slipped back into a recession last week, while Labour said the results were a wake-up call for the government to soften its flagship deficit-cutting agenda.