LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) – An outspoken intervention by a
senior U.S. official who said Britain should not leave the
European Union opened up a new rift between Prime Minister David
Cameron and his deputy on Thursday.

Cameron played down any suggestion of a disagreement with
Washington over his country’s membership of the EU, but Deputy
Prime Minister Nick Clegg, his junior coalition partner, said
U.S. concerns over Europe were spot on.

LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The United States wants Britain to
stay in the European Union and fears a British exit would run
against U.S. interests, a senior official in Barack Obama’s
administration said on Wednesday.

In a strongly-worded intervention days before British Prime
Minister David Cameron delivers his most important speech on
Europe, Britain’s closest ally said it needed London to retain a
“strong voice” within the EU.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron will damage Britain’s fragile economy if he demands major changes that could threaten the country’s relationship with the European Union, business leaders said on Wednesday.

In an open letter, the heads of some of Britain’s biggest companies said Britain can’t afford to quit a market of 500 million people that buys half of its exports.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s goods deficit narrowed slightly in November but held above its average for the past year, raising the chance that trade activity in the last three months of 2012 dragged on economic growth.

The Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday that the goods trade gap shrank slightly less than expected to 9.164 billion pounds from October’s 9.487 billion pounds, as exports rose faster than imports.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s goods deficit narrowed slightly in November but held above its average for the past year, raising the chance that trade activity in the last three months of 2012 dragged on economic growth.

The Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday that the goods trade gap shrank slightly less than expected to 9.164 billion pounds from October’s 9.487 billion pounds, as exports rose faster than imports.

LONDON (Reuters) – The deaths of 96 soccer fans in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster will be reinvestigated after Britain’s High Court quashed the original inquest verdicts on Wednesday due to a “profound and almost palpable” sense of injustice.

The government also set up a new police investigation into Britain’s worst sporting disaster, in a victory for victims’ families who never accepted the official version of events and have campaigned for more than 20 years for “Justice for the 96″.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will withdraw nearly half its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2013, the government said on Wednesday, as part of a security handover to Afghan forces more than a decade after the U.S.-led invasion.

Nearly all of Britain’s 9,000 soldiers are due to pull out when the NATO mission finishes in late 2014, ending a long, costly and unpopular war that has cost the lives of 438 UK troops.

BRUSSELS, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Britain must use the upheaval
created by the euro zone crisis to forge a new relationship with
the European Union, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday
as he fights a rising anti-EU mood at home that could threaten
his chances of re-election.

Speaking at the end of a summit of EU leaders that secured
the first part of a banking union, Cameron played down fears
Britain’s future lies on the margins of a two-tier Europe, while
euro zone members build an ever-stronger core.

BRUSSELS, Dec 14 (Reuters) – All options are on the table to
support the Syrian opposition fighting President Bashar
al-Assad, European Union leaders said on Friday, raising the
possibility that non-lethal military equipment or even arms
could eventually be supplied.

In their strongest statement of support for the Syrian
opposition since the uprising began more than 20 months ago, EU
leaders instructed their foreign ministers to assess all
possibilities to increase the pressure on Assad.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is lurching closer to an embarrassing loss of its prized triple-A credit rating as the economic outlook darkens, and the political pain for Prime Minister David Cameron’s government from a once-unthinkable move may exceed the economic damage.

Finance minister George Osborne warned of weaker growth and more austerity in a budget update on Wednesday. Although he avoided the political mis-steps for which the media lambasted him after March’s budget, there now looms the more menacing specter of a downgrade before an election due in 2015.