United Kingdom

BBC under pressure over Diana interview after princes launch scathing attack

princess diana

The British government vowed on Friday to examine how the BBC was run after a damning inquiry into how the broadcaster got its bombshell 1995 interview with Princess Diana and unprecedented criticism from her son Prince William.

An independent investigation concluded on Thursday that journalist Martin Bashir had lied and used deceit to persuade Diana to agree to the interview in which she disclosed intimate details of her failed marriage to heir to the throne Prince Charles.

It also lambasted the BBC for its “woefully ineffective” investigation into Bashir’s actions the following year and for covering up his wrongdoing. Bashir tricked Diana’s brother into thinking her staff were spying on her, and could not be trusted.

In a scathing statement, Diana’s eldest son William, now 38, called the way the interview was secured “deceitful”.

“It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”

His younger brother Prince Harry said the interview was part of a series of unethical practices that ultimately cost his mother her life.

“Our mother lost her life because of this, and nothing has changed,” he said.

Diana died aged 36 in a Paris car crash in 1997 having become an effective outcast from the royal family, who she suspected of trying to undermine her as her relationship with Charles, William’s father, collapsed.

The BBC has apologised for its failings, but ministers, newspapers, critics and some supporters said the episode raised questions for the publicly-funded broadcaster.

DOING NOTHING NOT AN OPTION

Britain’s justice minister Robert Buckland warned that “doing nothing” about the governance of the BBC was not an option in light of the inquiry by former UK Supreme Court judge John Dyson.

“We will now reflect on Lord Dyson’s thorough report and consider whether further governance reforms at the BBC are needed in the mid-term Charter review,” media minister Oliver Dowden said on Twitter.

A review of the BBC’s royal charter, which sets the 98-year-old broadcaster’s mission, is due in 2022 before it needs to be renewed in 2027.

Some in Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, including the prime minister himself, have voiced scepticism about its funding model – a licence fee levied on all households with a TV – while many accuse it of being politically biased.

“There’s got to be a serious governance structural change inside the BBC,” former BBC chairman Michael Grade told BBC radio.

Some newspapers were damning in their assessment of the report, likening the BBC’s failures to a phone-hacking scandal involving tabloid reporters a decade ago.

“Ten years ago, when the phone-hacking scandal closed the News of the World, BBC journalists were among the loudest of those baying for blood and desperate to see The Sun engulfed too,” The Sun newspaper, the twin tabloid of Rupert Murdoch’s defunct News of the World, wrote in its editorial.

“Their stinking hypocrisy is not lost on us.”

However, some critics of print media said the issue was merely being used as revenge.

Meanwhile, London police said officers would assess the contents of Dyson’s report to see if there was any significant new evidence having previously ruled out a criminal investigation.

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Read alsoPrince Philip makes final journey followed by Charles, William and Harry

EU agrees to open doors to vaccinated foreigners

travel tourism airport passport

European Union countries agreed on Wednesday to ease COVID-19 travel restrictions on non-EU visitors ahead of the summer tourist season, a move that could open the bloc’s door to all Britons and to vaccinated Americans.

Ambassadors from the 27 EU countries approved a European Commission proposal from May 3 to loosen the criteria to determine “safe” countries and to let in fully vaccinated tourists from elsewhere, EU sources said.

They are expected to set a new list this week or early next week. Based on data from the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Britain and a number of other countries would meet the new criteria.

The United States would not, although Americans with proof of vaccination would be welcomed.

One EU diplomat said cases of the Indian variant in Britain would need to be taken into account, although individual EU countries are already setting their own policies. Portugal lifted a four-month travel ban on British tourists on Monday.

Under current restrictions, people from only seven countries, including Australia, Israel and Singapore, can enter the EU on holiday, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated.

Individual countries can and will still be able to choose to demand a negative COVID-19 test or a period of quarantine.

The current main criterion is that there should be no more than 25 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the previous 14 days. The trend should be stable or decreasing and there should be a sufficient number of tests, which would need to show a minimum percentage of negative tests. Variants of concern can be taken into account.

The Commission proposed raising the case rate to 100. The EU ambassadors opted instead for 75. For inoculated people to gain access, they would need to have received an EU-approved vaccine, with those with a World Health Organization emergency listing being considered.

These people should have received final doses at least 14 days before travel. Under the plan, EU countries that waive test or quarantine requirements for vaccinated EU tourists are encouraged to do the same for vaccinated non-EU holidaymakers.

Children should also be able to travel with vaccinated parents.

An emergency brake could be used temporarily to stop all but essential travel from a particular country to limit the risk of more infectious coronavirus variants entering the EU. Such a brake has been proposed for India.

The EU plan covers countries of the border-free Schengen area, including non-EU members Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, but not the non-Schengen EU member Ireland.

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Read alsoEurope reopens: France, Austria welcoming guests in cafes, beer gardens

Ryanair posts record annual loss, hopes to break even this year

ryanair

Ryanair reported a record annual loss on Monday and said it would at best break even in the coming year as it navigates huge uncertainty around the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions and how much travel-starved passengers will pay for summer flights.

Europe’s largest discount airline said the pandemic had made the 12 months to the end of March the most challenging in its history, forcing it to slash capacity by 80% and shed 1,000 jobs.

And while it has seen a “dramatic springback in bookings” in recent weeks, it has almost zero visibility for the rest of the year, Group Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said.

“The likely outturn… is that we are looking at something between a very small loss and break-even for the next 12 months but there are a lot of moving parts and there is a lot of uncertainty,” O’Leary said in a video presentation.

“Most of the uncertainty revolves around the timing of the recovery and the fares that people will pay into the key June, July, August, September travel period,” he said.

The airline reported a record annual after-tax loss of 815 million euros ($989 million) in its financial year to March 31, slightly better than the forecast loss of 834 million euros in a company poll of analysts.

“It’s better than we predicted, but still a fairly traumatic loss for an airline that has been consistently profitable for our 35-year history,” O’Leary said.

Ryanair flew 27.5 million passengers to the end of March down from 149 million the previous year. O’Leary said his current estimate is that the airline would fly between 80 and 100 million in the year to March 31, 2022.

The airline is likely to fly just 5-6 million passengers in its April-June quarter, usually one of its busiest.

The relaxation of travel restrictions in the United Kingdom has seen bookings triple in five weeks from 500,000 to 1.5 million per week, he said.

O’Leary also expressed confidence that the airline would come out of the pandemic with a significantly reduced cost base due to cuts in wages, more efficient new aircraft and lower airport costs.

The airline has in recent months secured extensions on low-cost growth deals with key bases London Stansted, Milan Bergamo and Brussels Charleroi, he said.

Ryanair also reported additional delays in the delivery of its first 737 MAX aircraft, which it said may not arrive until after its peak summer period, but there was no indication they delay would have any impact on capacity.

O’Leary said he was “quite upset” with Boeing over the delays, related to a recent electrical grounding issue, but that he was still in talks about a possible new order for the larger, 230-seat MAX 10.

Ryanair shares were up 0.8% at 17.05 euros at 0730 GMT.

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Read alsoRyanair to restart Budapest services to 40 destinations

Boris Johnson: “There is no place for anti-Semitism in our society”

British Police

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday there was no place for anti-Semitism in society and that British Jews should not have to endure “shameful racism”, after a video online appeared to show people shouting anti-Semitic abuse from a car in London.

Johnson was responding in part to the video, posted earlier on Sunday, showing a convoy of cars bearing Palestinian flags driving through a Jewish community in north London and broadcasting anti-Semitic messages from a megaphone.

Police investigating the incident later said they had made four arrests.

“There is no place for anti-Semitism in our society,” Johnson said on Twitter. “Ahead of Shavuot, I stand with Britain’s Jews who should not have to endure the type of shameful racism we have seen today.”

His comments also referred to other incidents of anti-Semitism over the weekend, an aide said.

Israeli-Palestinian violence has reached its worst level in years over the last week.

“Whatever your view of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, there is no justification for inciting anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim hatred,” communities minister Robert Jenrick said in a statement.

Britain’s Metropolitan police said they have received reports of people shouting anti-Semitic abuse from a car travelling in a convoy of vehicles through the St John’s Wood area of north London.

“Officers investigating a video which appeared to show anti-Semitic abuse being shouted from a car in north London have made four arrests,” a police statement said.

The four men were arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences and were taken into custody at a west London police station, according to the police statement.

The Community Security Trust, a charity that monitors the security of the Jewish community, said the convoy had travelled from Bradford, in northern England.

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Read alsoThe Hungarian tortured to death in Yemen went there to marry a local girl

Indian variant to delay full reopening?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday Britain would accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination programme, to try to contain a fast-spreading variant first identified in India that could knock a re-opening of the economy off track.

The United Kingdom has delivered one of the world’s fastest inoculation campaigns, giving a first shot to almost 70% of the adult population and a second to 36%, helping to reduce infection rates and deaths.

But the emergence of the B.1.617.2 variant in parts of northern England and London

has prompted some scientists to call for the reopening to be delayed, and a rethink on the speed of the vaccine rollout.

“I believe we should trust in our vaccines to protect the public whilst monitoring the situation very closely because the race between our vaccination programme and the virus may be about to become a great deal tighter,” Johnson told a news conference.

He said the government would accelerate remaining second doses to the over 50s and those clinically vulnerable to just eight weeks after the first dose, and would prioritise first doses for those eligible who had not yet come forward.

Even so,

the spread of the variant could disrupt Britain’s progress out of lockdown,

making it more difficult to move to the final stage of a staggered reopening of the economy in June, he said. Johnson had aimed to lift all restrictions on June 21, after allowing people in England from Monday to hug again, meet in small groups indoors and travel abroad.

Chris Whitty, England chief medical officer, said there was now confidence that B.1.617.2 was more transmissible than the

“Kent” variant that fuelled England’s second wave of infections.

He said B.1.617.2 could come to dominate in Britain. Public Health England said on Thursday there had been 1,313 cases in England of B.1.617.2 in a week, more than double the previous week’s figure, with four confirmed deaths.

Whitty said so far there had not been a significant increase in hospitalisations from the variant, which may be because more people had been vaccinated. But both Johnson and Whitty said it was still early days, and scientists would need to scrutinise data over the next two or three weeks to truly see the impact of the variant.

Britain put India on a travel “red list” in April,

meaning all arrivals from India – now suffering the world’s worst wave of COVID-19 – would have to pay to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.

Media reports at the time suggested that, because the quarantine requirement was announced four days in advance, many people had sought to fly beforehand. Britain has a large South Asian community. Even with new variants, the government is

likely to want to avoid repeating the regional curbs used last year,

which ultimately failed to prevent two further national lockdowns.

At the national level, infections are still low, and fell for a fifth consecutive week in England, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed on Friday.

Four Hungarian groups selected for English Folk Expo 2021

Hungary English Folk Expo

Four Hungarian groups including renowned Muzsikás have been specially selected to represent the Hungarian folk music sector at this year’s English Folk Expo (EFEx) and give a performance at the Manchester Folk Festival in October, the Hungarian Heritage House said on Friday.

Organised annually, EFEx and the Manchester festival are major international music industry and cultural events which promote professional folk music groups with focus on a country each year. The festival organisers officially announced on Friday that

the focus of this year’s event will be on Hungary,

the Heritage House said in a statement.

The organisers have selected Muzsikás, the winner of the WOMEX Award for World Music in 2008 and the most renowned and popular Hungarian folk ensemble worldwide. The other three groups include upcoming Ötödik Évszak (Fifth season) founded in 2018, the Pengetos (Plunking) trio with their members playing on the zither, the tambura and the cobza, and the Dalinda trio performing Hungarian folk acapella.

The groups will give concerts in Manchester during the festival running from October 21 until October 24.

Italy lifts quarantine for travellers from EU and UK from May 16

travel, sight, trip

Italy will lift quarantine restrictions for travellers arriving from European and Schengen zone countries, Britain and Israel from May 16, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

People entering Italy from these areas currently face five days of quarantine and mandatory testing both before arrival and at the end of their isolation period.

A negative swab before travelling will still be required, the Ministry said in a statement.

It added that current restrictions for people travelling from Brazil would be maintained.

Quarantine requirement may be scrapped for those arriving from the United States from June, Di Maio said, after meeting Health Minister Roberto Speranza to discuss the easing of restrictions for countries where vaccination levels are high.

Italy has registered 122,694 deaths linked to COVID-19 since the outbreak began last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.1 million cases to date.

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Read alsoItaly might revitalise the smartphone app to trace COVID-19 infections

Which countries do most Hungarians decide to move back home from?

airport

Fortunately, for the past couple of years, the tendency that many Hungarians have moved abroad seems to have slowed down. In fact, according to the most recent data of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), more Hungarians have returned from foreign countries than people moved away.

Portfolio reported that there has been a tendency not just about fewer and fewer Hungarians moving away from their home country, but rather that more Hungarians have moved back home than to any countries around the world. However, the statistics behave strangely in some areas, as well as having an unexpected result of where those Hungarians have come home from.

According to KSH’s data, 19,300 Hungarians have moved away, but luckily, 23,100 people have moved back to their home country.

That is a significant difference, and it is safe to say that it reflects a slight change in emigration tendencies. What is even better is that there has been no emigration below 20,000 since 2012.

Kivándorlási Statisztika
Data: Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH)

Although, the number of people coming back to Hungary seems to have reached a halt. According to Portfolio, the number of returning people has not changed considerably. It is also important to note that it appears that more and more Hungarians prefer closer destinations.

Before 2018, the most popular destination was Germany. Since then, Austria has taken that place probably because they have more options due to the closeness and travel is more accessible as well as less expensive.

Last year, 7,200 Hungarian have moved to Austria, which is a slight decrease in numbers compared to the year prior. The change, however, is somewhat noticeable in Hungarians moving to Germany and the UK, which dropped by almost 1,000 people. Portfolio highlights that Brexit was a huge dealbreaker, as people who would like to go there must undergo a much stricter process to receive a work permit since January 2020.

Last year, contrary to what was expected, more people had come home from Austria than from other countries. The Brexit did not end up launching an enormous wave of Hungarians moving back to their birthplace as was expected.

This date change can also be attributed to last year’s coronavirus outbreak, as many people have moved even within the country in fear of complete curfew. Since airports were closed down and regulated quite early, only people with more mobility could do that.

There is another strange thing that Portfolio highlights. The discrepancy between Hungarian and other countries’ data on Hungarian citizens’ movements. According to KSH, 5,250 Hungarians moved to Germany last year, while the German statistical office registered 13,670. A similar discrepancy can be seen in the case of the UK and the case of Austria as well.

Looking at the Austrian data, KSH says that 600 more people have moved back to Hungary than away, but the data from the Austrian statistical office shows an increase of 4,000.

What might cause this anomaly? Portfolio says that the main difference comes from how the data is registered.

The Hungarian statistical office only considers people moving away who terminate their Hungarian address(es). The foreign data, however, registers how many new citizens or address request there are.

This means that, especially in the case of people moving to Austria, many people keep their Hungarian residency as well, so that they have somewhere to travel back to. We will only see later how the bounce-back of the tourism industry changes emigration tendencies, however.

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Read also9500 Covid-deaths missing from Hungarian statistics, American researchers say

Pfizer seeks UK approval for use of COVID-19 vaccine in teenagers

Pfizer is seeking British approval for the use of its COVID-19 vaccine among 12- to 15-year olds and has submitted data to the health regulator, a company representative said on Tuesday, paving the way for inoculation of adolescents in the country.

The vaccine, developed along with Germany’s BioNTech, has already been approved in the United States and Canada for use against COVID-19 infections in children and young adults.

“I can confirm we’ve submitted data on the efficacy of the vaccine in 12 to 15 year olds for review by U.K. MHRA,”

an official for the U.S. drugmaker told Reuters, referring to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

Health officials are banking on vaccines to end the pandemic, but are worried that some parents will be hesitant in vaccinating their children due to fears of potential side effects and long-term risks. Kids under 12 have so far been less susceptible to COVID-19.

The drugmakers have said their shot is safe,

effective and produced robust antibody responses in children as young as 12 years of age.

The vaccine, which uses mRNA technology to deliver instructions to the human body to build immunity against the illness, is also being tested in children aged two to 11, with safety and efficacy data expected in September, Pfizer has said.

Although other drugmakers, including AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson <J&J>, are working on vaccines for children,

Pfizer and BioNTech have managed to steal a march.

Pfizer’s vaccine, branded Comirnaty, is also under an EU review for use in children aged 12 to 15 years, with the head of the region’s medicines regulator

saying an approval could come as early as end-May.

The Telegraph earlier reported on the British review, saying the vaccine was likely to be approved before the end of July. The MHRA did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Featured image: illustration

Breaking – UEFA moves Champions League final to Portugal from Turkey!

Football Champions League Portugal

UEFA has moved this month’s Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea from Istanbul to Porto, according to Turkish media reports on Tuesday.

European soccer’s governing body declined to comment on the reports from the media outlets, which included television channel HaberTurk, while Turkish Football Federation officials were not immediately available for comment.

The UK government placed Turkey on its travel ‘red list’ on Friday,

effectively ruling out the opportunity for supporters of the English clubs to attend the game.

Talks have taken place between UEFA and the UK government in recent days on moving the May 29 game to Wembley Stadium in London to allow

easier access for fans of the English clubs.

However, a source with knowledge of the discussions said there were obstacles around the need for quarantine exemptions for international broadcasters, technical and support staff and sponsors.

Porto emerged on Monday as an option to host the final.

Last week, the UK government placed Portugal on its ‘green list’ from May 17, which means fans of the English clubs would be free to travel to the game should it be moved.

Portugal is currently in the last phase of easing a lockdown and expects to lift travel restrictions from May 17.

Featured image: illustration

Britain to be free of coronavirus by August

UK coronavirus reopen travelling to the UK

The new coronavirus will no longer be circulating in Britain by August, the government’s departing vaccine taskforce chief Clive Dix told the Daily Telegraph on Friday.

“Sometime in August, we will have no circulating virus in the UK”, Dix said, adding that he believed the vaccine booster programme could be pushed back to early 2022. The government is looking at which COVID-19 vaccines would offer the best booster shot for vulnerable people later this year.

Dix told the Telegraph that he expects

everybody in the UK to have been vaccinated at least once by the end of July,

by which time “we’ll have probably protected the population from all the variants that are known.”

The UK has administered over 51 million vaccines and has been the second quickest country to give a first dose to at least half its adult population. British officials said people under 40 should be offered an alternative to Oxford/AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine where possible due to a small risk of blood clots.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI)said the advice reflected low levels of coronavirus infection in Britain and the availability of other vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna.

Dix, who was appointed as interim leader of the task force in December, stepped down from his role last week.

Britain reopens travel to limited destinations

heathtrow airport

Britain will allow people in England to resume international travel from May 17 but is limiting the number of destinations open for quarantine-free holidays to just a handful of countries as it cautiously emerges from lockdown restrictions.

Portugal, Israel, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore all made the green list for travel in a system that will be reviewed every three weeks, transport minister Grant Shapps said on Friday. Popular destinations such as France, Spain and Greece did not.

Airlines, holiday companies and tourist hotspots in southern Europe have been waiting for over four months for big-spending Britons to start travelling again, but they will have to wait a few months longer for a full rebound to take off.

Left off the list were Spain, France, Italy and the U.S., the top four most visited countries by UK residents in 2019, which all sit in the amber category, requiring self-isolation on return to the UK.

Despite the limitations, permitting travel abroad is still a welcome boost for the beleaguered sector and should prompt bookings. Britons have been banned from going abroad without an essential reason since early January, a blow for leisure travel and also splitting families who live across different countries.

British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, TUI and others will now likely have to wait until next month for the larger scale re-opening they need to repair their COVID-19 battered finances.

They have argued that Britain’s vaccination programme, which has outpaced the rest of Europe, should mean the country can allow more travel sooner, but so far the EU’s plans are ahead. It has recommended the arrival of foreign travellers from more countries from June.

Earlier on Friday, the chief executive of British Airways-owner IAG called on the UK and the U.S. to open a travel corridor given their high vaccination rates.

Countries where Britons might want to travel will still have their own rules for entry. For example, Britons are currently banned from going to the U.S.

Green list travel will involve people taking two COVID-19 tests, one before arrival back into the UK and one within two days of returning.

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Read alsoWhere to travel with the Hungarian immunity certificate?

Airlines, British holidaymakers brace for limited travel restart

Airlines, holiday companies, tourists and vast swathes of southern Europe are looking forward to hearing the UK’s plan to relaunch travel but only a limited number of countries are set to be declared safe to visit.

Britain’s biggest destination countries including mainland Spain and Greece, as well as France, all risk being excluded from the initial “green list” for quarantine-free travel expected on Friday.

After a year of restrictions, that would be a major blow for tourist hotspots and the airline and holiday companies which are all desperate for big-spending Britons to travel.

British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, TUI and others will likely have to wait until at least late June for a larger scale re-opening of UK travel needed to repair their COVID-19 battered finances.

Most travel from the UK has been banned since the beginning of the year due to pandemic restrictions.

The British government has said people from England can go abroad again from May 17 at the earliest, and more clarity is expected on Friday on the traffic light system which will grade countries green, amber or red based on their COVID-19 risk.

The green list is likely to comprise smaller destinations such as Gibraltar, Iceland, Israel and Malta, while bigger markets like Portugal and the United States also have a chance. Some analysts suggest that certain Greek islands like Crete and Rhodes, and Spain’s Canary Islands could feature.

EasyJet Chief Executive Johan Lundgren told an online conference on Thursday that Britain risked being left behind by the rest of Europe if the green list was small.

While Britain’s vaccination programme has outpaced the rest of Europe so far, the EU has already outlined its travel plans, recommending the arrival of foreign travellers from more countries from June.

However limited Britain’s green list, the travel industry will hope that clarity on destinations will boost bookings, and that some customers will travel to amber countries, despite the requirement for 10 days of self-isolation on return.

Green list travel will involve people taking two COVID-19 tests, one before arrival back into the UK and one within two days of returning.

Airlines and travel companies have complained that the high cost of tests – at around 100 pounds ($140) each — will dampen demand, but testing prices are falling as competition picks up.

TUI on Thursday announced testing packages starting at 20 pounds for its UK customers travelling back from green countries.

Britain has promised to reassess its travel plans before June 28 and said that the allocation of countries will be kept under review. The industry is hoping for a review of a country’s category every three weeks.

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Read alsoBritish Airways returns to Budapest in June

US government denies statements of Iranian TV about prisoner swap agreement

USA United States of America Iran Flag

The United States on Sunday denied a report by Iran’s state television that the arch-foes had reached a prisoner swap deal in exchange for the release of $7 billion frozen Iranian oil funds under U.S. sanctions in other countries.

Iranian state television said on Sunday that Tehran would free four Americans accused of spying in exchange for four Iranians held in the United States and the release of the frozen Iranian funds.

The U.S. government denied that an agreement has been reached.

The state TV, quoting an unidentified Iranian official, also said British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be released once Britain had paid off a debt on military equipment owed to Tehran.

A British Foreign Office official played down that report.

Iran and world powers are holding talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord that Washington abandoned three years ago and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

Iranian officials told Reuters last month that an interim deal could be a way to gain time for a lasting settlement that involved unfreezing Iranian funds blocked under U.S. sanctions.

“Informed source says Biden administration has agreed to release four Iranian prisoners jailed for bypassing U.S. sanctions in exchange for four American ‘spies’,” the Iranian state TV report said on Sunday.

“Release of Nazanin Zaghari in exchange for UK’s payment of its 400 million pound debt to Iran has also been finalized. The source also said the Biden administration has agreed to pay Iran $7 billion,” it said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said, “Reports that a prisoner swap deal has been reached are not true.”

Ron Klain, White House chief of staff, also denied the report. “Unfortunately, that report is untrue. There is no agreement to release these four Americans,” Klain said on CBS “Face the Nation.”

U.S. officials regularly raise the issue of detained Americans with Iran, Klain said.

Tehran and the powers have been meeting in Vienna since early April to work on steps that must be taken, touching on U.S. sanctions and Iran’s alleged breaches of the 2015 deal, to bring Tehran and Washington back into full compliance with the accord.

Iran says $20 billion of its oil revenue has been frozen in countries like South Korea, Iraq and China under the U.S. sanctions since 2018.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday no deal had been reached with Iran in Vienna.

“There is still a fair distance to travel to close the remaining gaps,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “And those gaps are over what sanctions the United States and other countries will roll back. They are over what nuclear restrictions Iran will accept on its program to ensure that they can never get a nuclear weapon.”

ZAGHARI-RATCLIFFE

On the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case, British foreign minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio earlier, “We recognise the IMS debt should be repaid and we’re looking at arrangements for securing that.”

A Foreign Office official later played down the speculation on her release.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, was freed from house arrest in March at the end of a sentence for seeking to overthrow Iran’s government.

An Iranian court sentenced her last month to another year in jail, weeks after she finished the prior five-year sentence, a decision Britain called inhumane.

She was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of media firm Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny all charges against her and say she was only visiting relatives in Iran.

Read alsoIndian healthcare toppling – 300,000 daily cases for 10 days consecutively

Indian healthcare toppling – 300,000 daily cases for 10 days consecutively

India’s new coronavirus cases dipped marginally on Sunday but deaths from COVID-19 jumped by a record 3,689, with one more state going into lockdown as the nation’s creaky healthcare system is unable to cope with the massive caseload.

Authorities reported 392,488 new cases in the previous 24 hours, pushing total cases to 19.56 million. So far, the virus has killed 215,542 people. India reported a record 401,993 new coronavirus cases on Saturday.

Indian hospitals, morgues and crematoriums have been overwhelmed as the country has reported more than 300,000 daily cases for more than 10 days straight. Many families have been left on their own to scramble for medicines and oxygen. Dozens of people have died in the last week due to shortage of oxygen in hospitals in Delhi alone.

Nearly 10 Indian states and union territories have imposed some form of restrictions, even as the federal government remains reluctant to impose a national lockdown.

The eastern state of Odisha became the latest to announce a two-week lockdown, joining Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal. Other states, including Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan have either imposed night curfews or weekend lockdowns.

The Indian Express newspaper reported on Sunday that the country’s COVID-19 taskforce has advised the federal government to impose a national lockdown.

LOCKDOWN FEARS

Last month Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said all efforts should be made be avoid a lockdown.

The federal government fears another lockdown will have a devastating impact on the economy. The lockdown imposed last year after the first COVID-19 outbreak led to job losses as economic output fell a record 24% in April-June 2020 compared with the same period a year earlier.

The major spike in cases has also led to a shortfall in medical staff and, according to media reports, the government is planning to incentivise medicine and nursing student for helping in COVID-19 facilities.

With India’s health system reeling and absenteeism from the workplace soaring – as staff fall ill or take care of relatives – international aid has begun pouring in.

On Sunday, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said it would send more ventilators for India “very shortly”.

Countries including United States have shipped in critical oxygen equipment, therapeutics and raw materials for vaccine production.

Modi’s government has been criticised for letting millions of largely unmasked people attend religious festivals and crowded political rallies in five states through March and April. Daily cases in these states have spiked since then.

Reuters reported on Saturday that a forum of scientific advisers set up by the government warned Indian officials in early March of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold in the country.

Nine arrested in London protests against greater police powers

london-parliament-big-ben

Police arrested nine people who took part in protests in London on Saturday demanding that the government reverse planned legislation that would increase police powers.

More than 1,000 people marched through central London and chanted “Kill the Bill” outside government buildings, as well as dancing to music played from a bus. A police statement said nine people had been arrested and officers were “continuing to engage” with protesters who had gathered in a park in south London after the march.

Similar protests took place in other cities across England and Wales, including Bristol, which saw several days of clashes between protesters and police in March.

Under the new legislation, the British government wants to increase police powers to block non-violent protests which have a “significant disruptive effect” on the public or parliament.

The legislation would target action by groups such as environmental campaigners Extinction Rebellion, which has organised mass protests to block bridges in recent years and whose members have glued themselves to commuter trains. London’s Tower Bridge was closed to traffic in one direction for around an hour on Saturday after an Extinction Rebellion protester glued himself to the road.

Many protesters on Saturday said they did not trust police to protect them and that the new laws would give authorities too much power to shut down politically awkward protests such as those by Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion.

“I am really scared by the fact that they want to make protesting an arrestable offence,”

30-year-old therapist Jade Rea said.

“I don’t think there’s any justification for it because the idea of a protest is to disrupt and really bring to people’s attention that something urgent is going on,” she added.

London police faced criticism from across the political spectrum in March for their handling of a vigil in memory of a murdered woman, Sarah Everard, whose suspected killer was a serving police officer.

British Airways returns to Budapest in June

british airways repülő airplane

The flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom is expecting growing traffic from the middle of this summer.

However, CEO-designate Sean Doyle thinks that the number of long-distance flights will only start to get back to normal from autumn.

Fortunately, British Airways returns to the Hungarian capital towards the end of June, as of current plans.

More and more airlines are announcing to reinstate their old flight routes. Naturally, as Budapest is a popular destination, the capital is already part of many schedules.

Here you can find new and resumed flights to Budapest Airport 

Sean Doyle, named CEO-designate of British Airways last October, talked about how the vaccination and the regular covid testing, together with developments in engineering, will be able to reinstate considerable air traffic in the long run jointly.

According to his estimations, as of July, the demand for flights inside Europe will increase significantly. Moreover, a bigger capacity will be needed in the direction of the United States and certain Asian countries doing well when it comes to the vaccination process.

Scheduled and regular long-distance flights will be launched a bit later, around October or November,

as filling these flights will require the necessary mechanical and engineering background, writes airportal.hu

Doyle also mentioned that conditions need to be met in order to launch these flights between Europe and the USA. The process is facilitated by the announcement of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who said that inoculated American citizens will be able to come to Europe without restrictions. There is no news, however, on air traffic from Europe to the United States.

As many airlines have done so in the past weeks, British Airways announced its destinations for the summer. Although Budapest was not among these cities on the list,

according to the company’s booking system, the airline returns to the Hungarian capital starting from the 3rd of June. In the beginning twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Moreover, four new European destinations will be launched by the UK-based airline from Heathrow airport: Wroclaw, Gdansk, Riga and Cluj-Napoca.

budapest airport
Read alsoVaccine passport to be introduced by airlines from March

England on track for next stage of lockdown easing

london uk

England is on track for the next stage of lifting the lockdown restrictions next month, health minister Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.

Indoor service in pubs and restaurants will be allowed from May 17 at the earliest, according to the government’s roadmap out of lockdown. The data shows

“we are essentially precisely on track for where we expected to be at this point and that is obviously good news, it means we can follow the roadmap,”

Hancock said at a news conference.

Progress with Britain’s vaccine rollout should limit the damage from any third wave of COVID-19 infections, one of England’s top doctors said on Wednesday, adding that there would likely still be bumps in the road in the coming year.

England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam said that the

“modelling consensus is clear that we will have what is called a third wave.”

“I am personally hopeful that if the vaccine programme continues at pace, and continues to be as successful as it’s been, the third wave, so to speak, might just be a third upsurge and much less significant, because of the de-linking of cases to hospitalizations and deaths,” he said at a news conference.

“But I think it’s inconceivable to think that we will go from a period of relative calm…

with no further bumps in the road in terms of upswings in activity

between now and this time next year,” he added, saying he expected more cases, likely in the in the autumn or winter, but it was hard to know for sure.