KATHMANDU, Aug 18: President Ram Chandra Paudel on Thursday received Letters of Credence from Ambassador of the United Kingdom (UK) to Nepal Robert Dominic Russell Fenn and Non-residential Ambassador of Vietnam to Nepal Nguyen Thanh Hai amidst a special ceremony held at the Office of the President.

KATHMANDU, Sept 10: The Government of Nepal (GoN) has decided to mourn the passing away of the United Kingdom Queen Elizabeth II for three days.

KATHMANDU, March 19: The United Kingdom (UK) has handed over two artistic cultural artifacts that were missing from Nepal.

KATHMANDU, Oct 29: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has left for the United Kingdom, leading a 20-member delegation to attend the World Leaders Summit of the 26th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 26), which is being held in Glasgow from November 1 to 2.

As of Sunday, no passenger arriving from the UK has tested positive for COVID-19

With more than 12,000 additional deaths by Nov. 19 in the second wave, Britain is recording nearly four times more deaths per capita than Germany, though not as many as Spain or France.

KATHMANDU, Nov 2: The Parliamentary Hearing Committee (PHC) will conduct hearings on the nomination of ambassadors-designate Yuba Raj Khatiwada (United States), Lokdarshan Regmi (United Kingdom) and Nirmal Kumar Biswakarma (South Africa) on November 12.

LONDON, July 4: Britain will end coronavirus quarantines for people arriving in England from more than 50 countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy - but not the United States - the government said on Friday.

LONDON, June 10: Britain is planning to reopen zoos, safari parks and drive-in theaters as part of the easing of lockdown measures from the COVID-19 pandemic.

LONDON, April 12: An ex-Gurkha army man has died from coronavirus in the United Kingdom on Saturday.

LONDON, March 27: Health minister Matt Hancock said on Twitter on Friday he has tested positive for coronavirus and is self-isolating at home with mild symptoms.

Ireland’s Electoral Earthquake

February 19, 2020 09:30 am

LONDON – Sinn Féin’s success in Ireland’s February 8 general election, where it headed the poll, has come as a shock, owing to the party’s historic ties to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and that organization’s association with violence. The cause of its success was domestic discontent, not nationalist fervor. Nevertheless, Sinn Féin’s victory will put Irish unity—and thus the future of Northern Ireland’s inclusion in the United Kingdom—firmly on the agenda.

Real Brexit Negotiations Start Now

February 2, 2020 08:33 am

NEW YORK – With the United Kingdom set to withdraw from the European Union at 23:00 GMT on January 31, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will finally achieve the Brexit he has championed for the last four years. But, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

LONDON, Jan 9: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan will step back from senior roles in Britain’s royal family and spend more time in North America, they said on Wednesday, an announcement that appears to have taken his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, by surprise.

LONDON – With Brexit dominating the United Kingdom’s agonizing general election this month, a number of momentous policy proposals have received little to no discussion. Chief among these is right-wing Conservatives’ plan to abolish the UK Department for International Development. Now that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has secured a parliamentary majority, the DFID could soon be subsumed into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which would then take charge of administering Britain’s £14 billion ($18.6 billion) annual aid budget.

BRUSSELS, Dec 13: Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears set for a sweeping election victory on a promise to “Get Brexit done”, but there is a reality check waiting for jaded voters who are feeling relieved that the messy divorce seems to be finally over.

LONDON, Sept 24: The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to shut down parliament in the run-up to Brexit was unlawful, a humiliating rebuke that thrusts Britain’s exit from the European Union into deeper turmoil.

LONDON, Sept 5: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to kick off what is in effect an election campaign casting parliament as the enemy of Brexit was overshadowed on Thursday when his younger brother quit the government, citing the national interest.

The battle for Britain

September 5, 2019 00:25 am

BRUSSELS – The Brexit “Leave” campaign has been billed as an effort to “take back control” by restoring “sovereignty” to the United Kingdom’s Parliament. It is thus deeply ironic that one of the first moves of the Brexiteers upon coming to power has been to suspend Parliament and shut down debate over the UK’s impending withdrawal from the European Union on October 31.

LONDON, Aug 27: Britain’s opposition parties said on Tuesday they had agreed to work together to try and prevent a no-deal Brexit, including through passing legislation or holding a vote of no-confidence in the government.

Trump’s one-way economy

August 18, 2019 01:05 am

LONDON – Nowadays, when people ask me how I am, I answer, jokingly, that I’m doing great, so long as I ignore Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States, Brexit, the crisis of the United Kingdom’s major political parties, and the performance of Manchester United.

LONDON, July 10:  Britain’s ambassador to the United States resigned Wednesday after being made a diplomatic nobody by President Donald Trump following the leak of the envoy’s unflattering opinions about the U.S. administration.

KATHMANDU, July 2: The British Gurkha Satyagraha United Struggle Committee (BGSUTC) UK-Nepal which has been staging protest demanding pay parity for serving British Gurkha soldiers and pensioners with their British counterparts has decided to postpone its protests.

LONDON, June 30: Prince William and his wife Kate will visit Pakistan in the autumn at the request of Britain’s Foreign Office, Kensington Palace said on Saturday.

LONDON, June 14: One of seven contenders to replace Prime Minister Theresa May quit the Conservative Party leadership race on Friday, as front-runner Boris Johnson was accused of trying to dodge media scrutiny.

KATHMANDU, June 14: Nepal and the UK have agreed to continue discussions to resolve various issues raised by former Gurkha veterans including pay parity.

KATHMANDU, June 13: Nepal and United Kingdom have vowed to work to strengthen the trade and investment relationship between two countries in line with Nepal’s ‘Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali’.

In Pictures: Oli meets May

June 11, 2019 18:45 pm

LONDON, June 11: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has held a meeting with his British counterpart Theresa May on Tuesday.

KATHMANDU, June 11: A literary symposium was held in London, the capital city of the United Kingdom, recently. The fourth environment literary symposium organized at the joint initiations of 14 Nepali literary organisations based in the UK on the occasion of World Environment Day was inaugurated by Nepal's Ambassador for the UK and litterateur Dr Durga Bahadur Subedi.

LONDON, May 16: China’s Huawei poses such a grave security risk to the United Kingdom that the government must reconsider its decision to give it a limited role in building 5G networks, a former head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service said on Thursday.

LONDON, April 8: British voters want a strong leader who is willing to break the rules and force through wide scale reform after three years of Brexit crisis pushed confidence in the political system to a 15-year low.

KATHMANDU, March 7: The United Kingdom is investing an extra £15 million to increase individual pensions to its  Gurkha soldiers by between 10 percent and 34 percent.

KATHMANDU, Feb 23: The United Kingdom has conveyed to the Nepali side that it was not immediately possible to fulfill  demands to provide compensation for the disparity that Gurkha servicemen in the British army between 1948 to 2006 faced in their pay, pension and other perks as compared to their British counterparts.

LONDON, Jan 28: British businesses implored politicians on Monday to stop quarrelling over Brexit and agree an orderly exit from the European Union, as some big firms set up emergency situations rooms to cope with the possible tumult of a no-deal divorce.

The Brexitization of European politics

November 3, 2018 00:10 am

BRUSSELS – Far from settling the question of the United Kingdom’s future, the 2016 Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations with the European Union have triggered a full-blown identity crisis and culture war in Britain. Two years after the UK electorate voted by 52 percent  to 48 percent  to withdraw from the EU, it is safe to say that former Prime Minister David Cameron’s ploy to settle a long-running niche debate within the Conservative Party has backfired spectacularly.

LONDON, Sept 3: Former foreign secretary and Brexit hardliner Boris Johnson penned a renewed attack on Britain's government Monday, predicting "victory" for the European Union in its negotiations with London.

IRELAND, Aug 31: Low-skilled migrants risk falling into slavery in post- Brexit Britain, where a dearth of European workers will tempt abusive bosses into a race to the bottom, experts have said.