Railway strikes in the UK have halted services throughout July and Augst 2022.
Sony, owners and creators of the gaming sensation PlayStation, have been hit with a lawsuit with a possible £5 billion pay out.
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The UK government has once again extended its trade sanctions with Russia.
The UK underwent a record-breaking heatwave in July with another hitting the country in August.
The UK has blocked a Chinese company from purchasing intellectual property from the University of Manchester using its powers under the National Security and Investment Act.
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Last year, the global conglomerate, LVMH announced that it would be going ahead with the acquisition of Tiffany, however, in September 2020, LVMH backtracked and decided against the 16.2-billion-dollar acquisition due to the ongoing trade war between their home state of France and the United States.
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The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela published its first report on 16 September 2020. In this, it recognised the numerous cases of extrajudicial executions, torture, excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions et al under the regime of Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela.
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On August 23rd, 2020, Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man was shot multiple times by Rusten Sheskey, a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The shooting occurred two months after the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (2020), a civil rights bill aimed at combatting racial bias, police misconduct, and the use of excessive force.
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The Council of Europe has just issued the UK government with a Level 2 “media freedom alert”, for threatening press freedom after it blacklisted a group of investigative journalists and denied them access to information. It follows a similar warning issued in May this year and the exclusion of ‘The Independent’ from a technical briefing in February.
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Mr. John Christopher Depp, brought an action for libel over articles published by The Sun, branding Mr. Depp a “wife-beater” and making false allegations of verbal and physical abuse, contrary to the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. According to Depp’s barrister David Sherbourne, the article made “defamatory allegations of the utmost seriousness”.
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The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), also known as the furlough scheme launched in March had paid out £35 billion and has been used by 1.2 million employers enabling 9.6m jobs to be furloughed. The UK tax authority has claimed that UK may have paid out up to £3.5 billion in furlough money on fraudulent or mistaken claims.
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The government is planning on imposing targets for the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in response to the recent statistics showing years of decline in the number of rape cases reaching the English and Welsh courts. The targets are being enforced by the Prime Minister’s crime and justice task force in an attempt to force rape prosecutions to rise.
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On August 10, a US Superior Court judge forced Uber and Lyft, to reclassify their workers as employees. Ten days later, hours before the landmark ruling came into force, Uber and Lyft were granted a reprieve to delay the deadline until their appeal was heard. This compounds Uber’s transatlantic woes: the company is currently appealing a similar decision in the UK Supreme Court.
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Since its introduction, the Hate Crime Bill has split opinion. On the one hand, many believe it will positively enhance much needed protection for underrepresented or marginalised groups. On the other, many are concerned that the new Bill could have serious, albeit unintended, implications on the fundamental right of freedom of expression.
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Despite the UK entering the worst recession since records began, Rightmove has reported over £37 billion worth of property sales agreed in July, making it the most active month for home buying since they started tracking this data over ten years ago. The temporary stamp duty changes coupled with changing consumer preferences are just two of the factors that contributed to this occurring.
Standing steadfast as the first legal challenge of its kind, the Court in R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police2 found that South Wales Police’s use of the technology not only failed to adequately protect privacy rights but fatally, did not fully account for the ways in which use of the technology unjustly discriminates against BAME groups.
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On August 14th Amazon launched its online pharmacy in Bangalore, India. This announcement has stirred up fierce opposition from The All India Organization of Chemists & Druggists (AIOCD), who represent retail pharmacies and distributors. In a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Amit Agarwal, an Amazon executive based in India AIOCD stated, Amazon is operating an "illegal e-pharmacy" and declared, "we will not give up. We will fight Amazon tooth and nail" to see the end of Amazon Pharmacy.
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With the recent mass rekindling of the Black Lives Matter protests following the cases of police brutality in the US, other forms of institutionalized racism have come back to light as well. The UK’s Office for National Statistics reported that as of the data updated till 9th June 2020 “for all ages the rate of deaths involving COVID-19 for Black males was 3.3 times greater than that for White males of the same age, while the rate for Black females was 2.4 times greater than for White females.”
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“Today we are filing a complaint in federal court challenging the Administration's efforts to ban Tik-Tok in the US”. Tik-Tok’s lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration has violated due process protections, exceeds the scope of sanction rules and offers no evidence that proves Tik-Tok presents a national security threat.
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On Tuesday 14th July, Oliver Dowden, the UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport announced a UK ban on Huawei supplying kit for the construction of the country’s 5G mobile phone network and that by 2027 all existing Huawei equipment integrated into the network will be removed. This is a U-turn from the position the government took in January when Boris Johnson declared that the Chinese company could have a limited role as a 5G supplier.
