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The U.S. State Department removed a National Public Radio reporter from the press pool for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia, the State Department Correspondents' Association said on Monday, days after Pompeo angrily responded to another NPR journalist's interview with him. The removal of NPR reporter Michele Kelemen, who was part of the traveling pool of correspondents with Pompeo on his planned trip to United Kingdom, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia, can only be seen as retaliation for her colleague's interview, the association said.

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:02:10 -0500

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet senior ministers on Tuesday to decide whether to allow the use of equipment made by China's Huawei in Britain's future 5G mobile network. Johnson is under pressure from the United States to block Huawei because of concerns that access to the 5G network could be used by Beijing for espionage and would jeopardise intelligence sharing between Washington and London. Huawei, the world's biggest maker of mobile networking equipment, has denied the allegations.

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:01:35 -0500

Sainsbury's committed itself on Tuesday to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, a decade ahead of the British government's own target which it said "isn't soon enough". Sainsbury's, Britain's second-biggest supermarket group which trades from some 2,300 locations, employs 185,000 people across Britain and Ireland and has over 27 million customers each week, said it would spend 1.0 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) to hit the target. With consumers demanding less waste and action on the environment, retailers are responding and Sainsbury's said its focus would be on reducing carbon emissions by increasing its use of renewable energy, lowering water consumption, cutting the use of plastic, increasing recycling and tackling food waste.

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:01:00 -0500

With little progress to report in efforts to improve professional conduct at Britain's banks, the body charged with raising standards has suggested that getting a better night's sleep might help bankers behave better. The banking industry was asked by parliament to set up the Banking Standards Board in 2016 to improve behaviour after the financial crisis and a subsequent interest rate rigging scandal. The BSB said that its fourth annual survey of efforts to improve culture and raise standards of behaviour at banks showed little change in 2019 after a jump in 2017.

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:01:00 -0500

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns since World War Two to get Britain ready for a no-deal Brexit was largely ineffective, according to a report by the government's spending watchdog. The "Get Ready for Brexit" campaign stated that the United Kingdom would be leaving the EU on Oct. 31 last year and urged the public to visit a new website to check what they needed to do to prepare for a no-deal exit. In the end, parliament voted to extend the exit date to the end of this month and Johnson went on to strike a divorce agreement with the bloc.

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:01:00 -0500