
Britain's Queen Elizabeth, the world's oldest and longest reigning living monarch, celebrated her 93rd birthday on Sunday, Apr 21, by attending the traditional Easter service at Windsor Castle.

Nearly 1,000 UK pubs shut last year, although the rate of closures is slowing, new research claims. About 76 pubs a month vanished from the communities they served in 2018, as people spent less on going out and pubs faced cost pressures, said property firm Altus Group.

Film star Emma Thompson joined climate change activists in a central London shopping district on Friday to read poetry praising Earth's bounties, part of five days of protests which clogged the British capital with transport snarl-ups.

Sir Simon McDonald, Permanent Under-Secretary and Head of the Diplomatic Service at the Foreign Office (FCO) this week assured that the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) and the FCO are “working on a common agenda, which is to secure the future of the Falkland Islands.”

ConocoPhillips is pulling out of UK exploration and production after selling its North Sea oil and gas assets to Chrysaor for US$ 2.68bn (£2bn). The sale will boost Chrysaor's production by about 72,000 barrels a day to 177,000 - making it one of the UK's biggest operators.

The elected government of the Falkland Islands is inviting two members from the community to accompany the official delegation to the UN Special Committee on Decolonization or C24, next June, as representatives of the Islands.

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has begun an official visit to the Republic of Ireland. Speaking on the eve of her visit, she said there would be no chance whatsoever of a post-Brexit trade deal between the US and UK if there were any weakening of the Good Friday Agreement.

The regional Xunta of Galicia has called on Madrid to ensure that Brexit negotiations, and in the event of a hard withdrawal, access to the North Atlantic Gran Sol and Falklands fisheries is guaranteed.

The Electoral Commission has approved The Independent Group's application to register as a political party. The group - made up of 11 former Labor and Tory MPs who their parties in February, will become Change UK. The approval means they can put forward candidates in the European elections due to take place on 23 May - if the UK has not left the EU by then.

Unemployment in the UK fell by 27,000 in the three months to February to 1.34 million, official Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show. The number of people in work was also virtually unchanged at a record high of 32.7 million, with a jump of 179,000.