Author: LoveWorld UK

The British government on Thursday eased lockdown restrictions imposed upon the COVID-19 hotspot of Leicester, but said the central English city was still suffering above-average infection rates and some restrictions must remain. “We’re now in a position to relax some, but not all of the restrictions that were in place,” health minister Matt Hancock said. The situation would be reviewed again in two weeks, he added. Hancock said the seven-day average infection rate in the city at the end of June was 135 cases per 100,000 people, three times higher than anywhere else in Britain. The latest data indicated it…

Europe’s top court on Thursday rejected the validity of a mechanism used by thousands of companies to send data to the United States, backing concerns about U.S. surveillance raised by privacy activist Max Schrems in his clash with Facebook. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield was set up in 2016 to protect the personal data of Europeans when it is transferred across the Atlantic for commercial use. The same court also rejected its predecessor, known as Safe Harbour, in 2015. “In respect of certain surveillance programmes, those provisions do not indicate any limitations on the power they confer to implement those programmes,…

The slide in Britain’s jobs market eased in June, data showed, although the figures did not include the most recent slew of job losses and analysts said they represented a “calm before the storm” caused by the coronavirus’ hit to the economy. The number of employees on company payrolls tumbled by 649,000 between March and June, but the largest falls came at the start of the lockdown, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday. The number of people on payrolls fell by just over 74,400 in June, a much smaller decline than April’s 450,000 and May’s 124,000. Separate figures…

More than 200 of Britain’s top financial experts have joined forces to design initiatives to help small businesses restructure and repay as much as 35 billion pounds in “unsustainable” COVID-19 relief debt. TheCityUK Recapitalisation Group on Thursday proposed the launch of a UK Recovery Corporation (UKRC) to oversee a massive pile of government-guaranteed loans issued since lockdown, offering more manageable terms to borrowers and preventing a wave of bankruptcies borne by the taxpayer. “COVID-19 is a 100-year storm which has caused untold economic damage. The government’s support schemes have been the essential sandbags holding back the flood, protecting businesses and…

The extraordinary hacking spree that hit Twitter on Wednesday, leading it to briefly muzzle some of its most widely followed accounts, is drawing questions about the platform’s security and resilience in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. Twitter said late Wednesday hackers obtained control of employee credentials to hijack accounts including those of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, former president Barack Obama, reality television star Kim Kardashian, and tech billionaire and Tesla founder Elon Musk. In a series of tweets, the company said: “We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully…

China will take necessary measures in responses to Britain’s “discriminatory” ban on Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which has severely damaged China’s investment confidence in the country, China’s Commerce Ministry said on Thursday. “China is evaluating the UK actions that have betrayed free trade principles and will take necessary measures to resolutely defend Chinese firms’ legal rights,” ministry spokesman Gao Feng said during a weekly briefing, without giving details. Earlier on Wednesday, China warned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that his decision to ban Huawei from the 5G network would cost Britain dearly in investment. Johnson on Tuesday ordered Huawei equipment…

Europe’s second-top court on Wednesday rejected an EU order to iPhone maker Apple (AAPL.O) to pay 13 billion euros ($14.78 billion) in Irish back taxes. “The General Court annuls the contested decision because the Commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage for the purposes of Article 107(1) TFEU1,” judges said, referring to EU competition rules. The 2016 ruling and the record sum is part of the European Commission’s crackdown on sweetheart tax deals between multinationals and some EU countries.

Britain’s economy stumbled out of its coronavirus-induced slump in May, dashing hopes of a swift rebound as government budget forecasters said it was on course for its worst year since pre-industrial times. Gross domestic product grew less than any economist polled by Reuters had forecast, up 1.8% after a record 20.3% slump in April when lockdown curbs were tightest, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed. With activity in the dominant service sector not recovering as expected in May, Tuesday’s data fuelled doubts about how much of a bounce-back Britain will see after more businesses were allowed to reopen…

France’s EDF (EDF.PA) has opened a nuclear design centre in Britain to help support construction of its new power plants in the country, the company said on Wednesday. The 21.5-22.5 billion pounds ($27-28 billion) Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which EDF is building with China’s CGN [IPO-CGNP.HK], in the south of England is expected to begin generating power by the end of 2025. It will be capable of generating around 7% of Britain’s electricity demand. EDF said the UK EPR Design Centre in Bristol, in the south west of England, will bring together several engineering firms involved in the nuclear…

Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said he has invited Wycombe Wanderers’ Adebayo Akinfenwa to their Premier League title parade shortly after sending the forward a congratulatory message for sealing promotion to the Championship. After Wanderers beat Oxford United in the League One playoff final at Wembley on Monday to secure their place in the English second-tier for the first time, Akinfenwa had joked in his post-match interview that Klopp could “hit me up on WhatsApp”. The German manager had responded with a video message and said during a news conference on Tuesday that Akinfenwa would also be part of their title…