Tag Archives: Britain

UK should be concerned at Chinese gene data harvesting, lawmaker says

By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain should be concerned about the harvesting of genetic data from millions of women by a Chinese company through prenatal tests, a senior British lawmaker told Reuters.

A Reuters review of scientific papers and company statements found that BGI Group developed the tests in collaboration with the Chinese military and is using them to collect genetic data around the world for research on the traits of populations.

“I’m always concerned when data leaves the United Kingdom, that it should be treated with the respect and privacy that we would expect here at home, and the concern that this raises is that it may not be so,” Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told Reuters.

“The connections between Chinese genomics firms and the Chinese military do not align with what we would normally expect in the United Kingdom or indeed many other countries.”

The privacy policy on the website for the Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT), sold under the brand name NIFTY in Britain, says data collected can be shared when it is “directly relevant to national security or national defense security” in China.

BGI says it has never shared data for national security purposes and has never been asked to.

The company said that it fully complied with European GDPR data protection rules and also had the British certification for personal information management.

“BGI’s NIPT test was developed solely by BGI – not in partnership with China’s military. All NIPT data collected overseas are stored in BGI’s labs in Hong Kong and are destroyed after five years,” it said in an email to Reuters, adding that it took data protection, privacy and ethics extremely seriously.

Tugendhat is one of nine British lawmakers who has been sanctioned by China for highlighting alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which Beijing describes as “lies and disinformation.”

He co-leads the China Research Group, a group of Conservative lawmakers which looks to rebalance the strategic relationship with China.

He said that any British companies using the tests should be clear where the data is going, who holds it, and what access others, including other governments, would have to it.

“Unless a company has done that, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for British people to be extremely concerned with these connections,” he said.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout in London, additional reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Kate Holton and Pravin Char)

UK food supply chains ‘on the edge of failing,’ meat industry says

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s food supply chains are “right on the edge of failing” as absence related to COVID-19 has aggravated a critical shortage of labor, a meat industry body said on Wednesday.

The British Meat Processors’ Association (BMPA) said the shortage of skills was so critical, some plants had reported vacancies of 10% to 16% of permanent positions, discounting the impact of the pandemic.

“On top of the underlying worker shortage, we’re also hearing from some members that between 5% and 10% of their workforce have been ‘pinged’ by the (health service) app and asked to self-isolate,” BMPA CEO Nick Allen said.

The shortage of workers affected the meat products that require more labor to produce, he said, meaning those lines would be the first to be cut.

On Monday, England’s car plants, railways, supermarkets and pubs warned the government that the COVID-19 tracing app, which has told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate, was wrecking the recovery and pushing supply chains to the brink of collapse.

Alerts, or “pings,” from the official app telling anyone identified as a contact of someone with the disease to self-isolate for 10 days have also disrupted schools and the healthcare system.

The government has announced exemptions for some workers identified as critical, including health and transport workers, but says it does not plan widespread rule changes.

Pictures on social media showed gaps on supermarket shelves as the so-called “pingdemic” is putting pressure on retailers’ ability to maintain opening hours and stock shelves.

Andrew Opie, director of food & sustainability at industry lobby group, the British Retail Consortium, said the government needed to act swiftly.

“Retail workers and suppliers, who have played a vital role throughout this pandemic, should be allowed to work provided they are double vaccinated or can show a negative COVID test, to ensure there is no disruption to the public’s ability to get food and other goods,” he said.

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Barbara Lewis)

Britain’s COVID-19 cases up by nearly 41% over past week

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has reported 46,558 new cases of COVID-19, government data showed on Tuesday, meaning the rise in cases between July 14 and July 20 stood at 40.7% compared with the previous seven days.

A further 96 people were reported as having died within 28 days of a positive test for COVID-19.

A total of 46.35 million people had received a first dose of a vaccine against coronavirus by July 19 and 36.24 million people had received a second dose.

(Writing by William Schomberg)

Britain issues first Amber Extreme Heat warning

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Met Office issued its first ever amber extreme heat warning on Monday, saying unusually high temperatures expected western areas and continuing high night-time temperatures created potential risks to health.

The alert is the first issued by the Met Office since the national meteorological service launched its extreme heat national severe weather warning system at the start of June to help better inform people of the risks hot weather can bring.

Much of Britain has seen heatwave conditions in recent days but temperatures are expected to rise further, possibly reaching 33 degrees Celsius in some western parts of the country, the Met Office said.

“The impacts of extreme heat can be many and varied. It can have health consequences, especially for those who are particularly vulnerable, and it can impact infrastructure, including transport and energy, as well as the wider business community,” the Met Office said in a statement.

A record-breaking heatwave this month killed hundreds of people in Canada and the United States. Europe also has been unusually hot and flooding has devastated parts of Germany, Belgium and other countries.

(Reporting By Susanna Twidale; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

U.S. and allies accuse China of global hacking spree

By Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and its allies accused China on Monday of a global cyberespionage campaign, mustering an unusually broad coalition of countries to publicly call out Beijing for hacking.

The United States was joined by NATO, the European Union, Britain, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Canada in condemning the spying, which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said posed “a major threat to our economic and national security.”

Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Justice charged four Chinese nationals – three security officials and one contract hacker – with targeting dozens of companies, universities and government agencies in the United States and abroad.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chinese officials have previously said China is also a victim of hacking and opposes all forms of cyberattacks.

While a flurry of statements from Western powers represent a broad alliance, cyber experts said the lack of consequences for China beyond the U.S. indictment was conspicuous. Just a month ago, summit statements by G7 and NATO warned China and said it posed threats to the international order.

Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, called Monday’s announcement a “successful effort to get friends and allies to attribute the action to Beijing, but not very useful without any concrete follow-up.”

Some of Monday’s statements even seemed to pull their punches. While Washington and its close allies such as the United Kingdom and Canada held the Chinese state directly responsible for the hacking, others were more circumspect.

NATO merely said that its members “acknowledge” the allegations being leveled against Beijing by the U.S., Canada, and the UK. The European Union said it was urging Chinese officials to rein in “malicious cyber activities undertaken from its territory” – a statement that left open the possibility that the Chinese government was itself innocent of directing the espionage.

The United States was much more specific, formally attributing intrusions such as the one that affected servers running Microsoft Exchange earlier this year to hackers affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security. Microsoft had already blamed China.

U.S. officials said the scope and scale of hacking attributed to China has surprised them, along with China’s use of “criminal contract hackers.”

“The PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) has fostered an ecosystem of criminal contract hackers who carry out both state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain,” Blinken said.

U.S. security and intelligence agencies outlined more than 50 techniques and procedures that “China state-sponsored actors” use against U.S. networks, a senior administration official said.

Washington in recent months has focused heavy attention on Russia in accusing Russian hackers of a string of ransomware attacks in the United States.

The senior administration official said U.S. concerns about Chinese cyber activities have been raised with senior Chinese officials. “We’re not ruling out further action to hold the PRC accountable,” the official said.

The United States and China have already been at loggerheads over trade, China’s military buildup, disputes about the South China Sea, a crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong and treatment of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.

Blinken cited the Justice Department indictments as an example of how the United States will impose consequences.

The defendants and officials in the Hainan State Security Department, a regional state security office, tried to hide the Chinese government’s role in the information theft by using a front company, according to the indictment.

The campaign targeted trade secrets in industries including aviation, defense, education, government, health care, biopharmaceutical and maritime industries, the Justice Department said.

Victims were in Austria, Cambodia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“These criminal charges once again highlight that China continues to use cyber-enabled attacks to steal what other countries make, in flagrant disregard of its bilateral and multilateral commitments,” Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the statement.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, David Shepardson, Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)

Russia warns Britain it will bomb ships next time

By Guy Faulconbridge and Katya Golubkova

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia warned Britain on Thursday that it would bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea if there were any further provocative actions by the British navy off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea.

Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding after the warship breached what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world say belong to Ukraine.

Britain said Russia was giving an inaccurate account of the incident. No warning shots had been fired and no bombs had been dropped in the path of the Royal Navy destroyer Defender, it said.

In Moscow, Russia summoned Ambassador Deborah Bronnert for a reprimand over what it said were Britain’s “dangerous” action in the Black Sea – while foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused London of “barefaced lies”.

“We can appeal to common sense, demand respect for international law, and if that doesn’t work, we can bomb,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.

Ryabkov, referring to Moscow’s version of events in which a Russian aircraft bombed the path of the British destroyer, said that in future bombs would be sent “not only in its path, but also on target.”

The Black Sea, which Russia uses to project its power in the Mediterranean, has for centuries been a flashpoint between Russia and its competitors such as Turkey, France, Britain and the United States.

Russia seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and considers areas around its coast to be Russian waters. Western countries deem the Crimea to be part of Ukraine and reject Russia’s claim to the seas around it.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the British warship, which was travelling from the Ukrainian port of Odessa to the Georgian port of Batumi, was acting in accordance with the law and had been in international waters.

“These are Ukrainian waters and it was entirely right to use them to go from A to B,” Johnson said. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace accused Russian pilots of conducting unsafe aircraft maneuvers 500 feet (152 m) above the warship.

“The Royal Navy will always uphold international law and will not accept unlawful interference with innocent passage,” Wallace said.

Under international law of the sea, innocent passage permits a vessel to pass through another state’s territorial waters so long as this does not affect its security.

Britain disputed the Russian version of events, with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab calling it “predictably inaccurate”.

BLACK SEA DISPUTE

During its 2008 war with Georgia, Russia bristled at U.S. warships operating in the Black Sea, and in April the United States cancelled the deployment of two warships to the area.

Ties between London and Moscow have been on ice since the 2018 poisoning with a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service.

The British destroyer visited the Ukrainian port of Odessa this week, where an agreement was signed for Britain to help upgrade Ukraine’s navy.

Russia said it had ventured as far as 3 km (2 miles) into Russian waters near Cape Fiolent, a landmark on Crimea’s southern coast near the port of Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet.

Britain’s BBC released footage from the ship showing a Russian coast guard warning that he would shoot if the British ship did not change course.

“If you don’t change the course, I’ll fire,” a heavily accented Russian voice said in English to the British ship. The BBC said shots were fired and that as many as 20 Russian aircraft were “buzzing” the British ship.

Britain said the shots were part of a Russian gunnery exercise. Russia released footage filmed from a Russian SU-24 bomber flying close to the British ship.

“These aircraft posed no immediate threat to HMS Defender, but some of these maneuvers were neither safe nor professional,” Britain’s Wallace said.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Additonal reporting by Michael Holden and William James, Joe Brock in Singapore and Dmitry Antonov and Tom Balmforth in Moscow; Editing by Kate Holton and Angus MacSwan)

Delta COVID variant becoming globally dominant, WHO official says

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Delta variant of COVID-19, first identified in India, is becoming the globally dominant variant of the disease, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist said on Friday.

Soumya Swaminathan also voiced disappointment in the failure of CureVac’s vaccine candidate in a trial to meet the WHO’s efficacy standard, in particular as highly transmissible variants boost the need for new, effective shots.

Britain has reported a steep rise in infections with the Delta variant, while Germany’s top public health official predicted it would rapidly become the dominant variant there despite rising vaccination rates.

The Kremlin blamed a surge in COVID-19 cases on reluctance to have vaccinations and “nihilism” after record new infections in Moscow, mostly with the new Delta variant, fanned fears of a third wave.

“The Delta variant is well on its way to becoming the dominant variant globally because of its increased transmissibility,” Swaminathan told a news conference.

Coronavirus variants were cited by CureVac when the German company this week reported its vaccine proved only 47% effective at preventing disease, shy of the WHO’s 50% benchmark.

The company said it documented at least 13 variants circulating within its study population.

Given that similar mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna posted efficacy rates topping 90%, Swaminathan said the world had been expecting more from CureVac’s candidate.

“Just because it’s another mRNA vaccine, we cannot presume all mRNA vaccines are the same, because each one has a slightly different technology,” Swaminathan said, adding the surprise failure underscored the value of robust clinical trials to test new products.

WHO officials said Africa remains an area of concern, even though it accounts for only around 5% of new global infections and 2% of deaths.

New cases in Namibia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Rwanda have doubled in the last week, WHO emergencies program head Mike Ryan said, while vaccine access remains miniscule.

“It’s a trajectory that is very, very concerning,” Ryan said. “The brutal reality is that in an era of multiple variants, with increased transmissibility, we have left vast swathes of the population, the vulnerable population of Africa, unprotected by vaccines.”

(Reporting by John Miller, writing by Giles Elgood, Editing by Catherine Evans and Michael Shields)

EU and UK say Hong Kong newspaper raid shows China cracking down on dissent

By Guy Faulconbridge and Robin Emmott

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union and Britain on Thursday said a police raid on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily showed that China was using a new national security law to crack down on dissent and silence the media rather than deal with public security.

Just days after the world’s richest democracies scolded China over human rights at a Group of Seven summit and the NATO military alliance warned Beijing over its ambitions, Hong Kong police made dawn arrests of Apple Daily newspaper executives.

Five hundred Hong Kong police officers sifted through reporters’ computers and notebooks at the daily, the first case in which authorities have cited media articles as potentially violating the national security law.

The raid “further demonstrates how the national security law is being used to stifle media freedom and freedom of expression in Hong Kong,” EU spokesperson Nabila Massrali said in a statement.

“It is essential that all the existing rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents are fully protected, including freedom of the press and of publication.”

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also said the raid was aimed at silencing dissent.

“Freedom of the press is one of the rights China promised to protect in the Joint Declaration and should be respected,” Raab said, referring to an accord guaranteeing autonomy for Hong Kong when London handed over its colony to China in 1997.

Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee described the newsroom as a “crime scene” and said the operation was aimed at those who use reporting as a “tool to endanger” national security.

Western leaders say Chinese President Xi Jinping, 68, is cracking down on Hong Kong, which Britain handed back to China in 1997, and Western security officials have expressed apprehension about Xi’s next target.

Britain and its allies say the national security law breaches the “one country, two systems” principle enshrined in the 1984 Sino-British treaty that guaranteed Hong Kong’s autonomy.

China has repeatedly warned Britain and the United States to stop meddling in its affairs and says many Western powers are gripped by an “imperial hangover” after years of humiliating China during the 19th and 20th Centuries.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Robin Emmott; Editing by Alistair Smout and Peter Graff)

UK-EU ‘sausage war’ talks yield threats, not progress

By Elizabeth Piper and Philip Blenkinsop

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Britain and the European Union failed on Wednesday to agree any solutions to ease post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland and exchanged threats in a standoff that could cloud a weekend international summit.

Since Britain completed a tortuous exit from the EU late last year, its relations with Brussels have soured further, with each side accusing the other of bad faith over a part of their Brexit deal that covers goods movements to Northern Ireland.

The row has been dubbed the “sausage war” by British media because it affects the movement of chilled meats from Britain to Northern Ireland.

On Wednesday, it stepped up a gear, with Britain saying it could again unilaterally extend a grace period waiving checks on some goods, and the EU saying it could advance its legal action, a step that could end in tariffs and quotas.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants a summit of the world’s seven largest advanced economies this weekend at a seaside village in southwestern England to showcase what he calls “global Britain”.

But he could receive a warning from U.S. President Joe Biden, who, according to the Times newspaper, will tell London to respect a deal with the EU that was designed to protect a 23-year-old peace settlement in Northern Ireland.

British Brexit minister David Frost, who is expected to attend the summit, met European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic in London to address the issue.

“There weren’t any breakthroughs. There aren’t any breakdowns either, and we are going to carry on talking,” Frost told reporters.

“What we now need to do is very urgently find some solutions.”

A senior UK source close to the talks said all options were on the table if there was no agreement, including London further extending a grace period that waives checks on some foodstuffs moving to Northern Ireland beyond June 30.

Sefcovic responded in kind, saying the EU was considering advancing its legal challenge over Britain’s actions, which could result in a court case by autumn or the eventual imposition of tariffs and quotas.

WORLD IS WATCHING

“The U.S. administration and the U.S. Congress are following this matter very closely,” Sefcovic told a news conference.

“I’m sure that the G7, also the European leaders, would raise this issue because I think that what we should be focusing on right now should be the economic recovery … and how to form and forge this new strategic partnership between the EU and the UK. Instead of that, we have these very difficult meetings.”

Preserving the delicate peace in Northern Ireland without allowing the United Kingdom a back door into the European Union’s single market across the Irish land border was one of the trickiest issues of the Brexit divorce.

The result was the protocol, which essentially kept the province in the EU’s customs union and adhering to many of the rules of its single market — both of which the rest of Britain has left.

While Brussels is upset that London is failing to honor the protocol, London says it has no choice because some of the checks hamper supplies to Northern Irish supermarkets.

It has also pointed to rising tensions among pro-British unionists in the province, who say the protocol undermines the 1998 peace agreement by loosening their ties to Britain.

Aodhán Connolly, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, called for rapid action to protect consumers in the province:

“We need immediate solutions to keep goods flowing now, and we need a breathing space so that the UK Government and the EU can, in the longer term, find a workable solution.”

(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Philip Blenkinsop, additional reporting by Alistair Smout, William James and James Davey; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Kevin Liffey)

Delta coronavirus variant believed to have 60% transmission advantage: UK epidemiologist

LONDON (Reuters) – The Delta coronavirus variant of concern, first identified in India, is believed to be 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant which was previously dominant in Britain, a prominent UK epidemiologist said on Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that England’s full reopening from COVID-19 lockdown, penciled in for June 21, could be pushed back due to the rapid spread of the Delta variant.

Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London told reporters that estimates of Delta’s transmission edge over Alpha had narrowed, and “we think 60% is probably the best estimate”.

Ferguson said that modelling suggested any third wave of infections could rival Britain’s second wave in the winter – which was fueled by the Alpha variant first identified in Kent, south east England.

But it was unclear how any spike in hospitalizations would translate into a rise in deaths, as more detail was needed on how well the vaccine protects against serious illness from Delta.

“It’s well within possibility that we could see another third wave at least comparable in terms of hospitalizations,” he said.

“I think deaths probably would be lower, the vaccines are having a highly protective effect… still it could be quite worrying. But there is a lot of uncertainty.”

Britain has seen over 127,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test, but has given more than three-quarters of adults a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Public Health England has shown that the Delta variant reduces the effectiveness of Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots among those who have only received one shot, though protection is higher for those who have received both doses.

Ferguson said that up to a quarter of the Delta variant’s transmissibility edge over Alpha might come from its immune escape from vaccines, saying it was “a contribution but not an overwhelming contribution” to its advantage.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Sarah Young and James Davey)