England

LONDON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Merchant ships remained backed up in lanes around the Black Sea on Monday as ports struggled to clear backlogs amid growing unease among insurers and shipping companies a day after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo vessel.

Russia said its Vasily Bykov patrol ship on Sunday fired on the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan vessel after the ship's captain failed to respond to a request to halt for an inspection. After an inspection, the vessel continued its journey towards the Ukrainian port of Izmail along the Danube river, Russia said.

LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Britain on Sunday warned citizens going to Sweden of possible terrorist attacks following Koran burnings by anti-Islam activists that have outraged Muslims.

In updated travel advice, Britain's foreign ministry said Swedish authorities had successfully disrupted some planned attacks and made arrests.

"You should be vigilant at this time," it said, adding that "terrorists are very likely to try and carry out attacks in Sweden" with places visited by foreigners potential targets.

LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Britain on Sunday warned citizens going to Sweden of possible terrorist attacks following Koran burnings by anti-Islam activists that have outraged Muslims.

In updated travel advice, Britain's foreign ministry said Swedish authorities had successfully disrupted some planned attacks and made arrests.

"You should be vigilant at this time," it said, adding that "terrorists are very likely to try and carry out attacks in Sweden" with places visited by foreigners potential targets.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s plan to house asylum seekers on a barge moored off the south coast of England ran into another hurdle on Friday as authorities were forced to evacuate the first residents after legionella bacteria was found in the water system.

The move came just days after the first men were moved onto the Bibby Stockholm, a floating hostel that can accommodate up to 500 people, as part of a government effort to cut the cost of sheltering the growing number of people applying for asylum in Britain.

LONDON, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Police officers in Northern Ireland have been left "incredibly vulnerable" after the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) accidentally made public the private details of every staff member.

The surname, initial, rank or grade, work location and department of all PSNI staff, numbering around 10,000, were published online in error in response to a freedom of information request on Tuesday.

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - "Hostile actors" targeted Britain's Electoral Commission in a complex cyber incident that involved hackers accessing internal emails and copies of voter data, the commission said on Tuesday.

The Electoral Commission, the independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance, said the incident came to light last year.

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Russia's lack of ships and Western grain traders' shrinking appetite for business with Moscow are adding to rising costs of moving Russian wheat, at a time when the war in Ukraine has spilled perilously close to vital Black Sea supply routes.

President Vladimir Putin promised to replace Ukrainian grain with Russian shipments to Africa after Moscow in July ended an arrangement that gave Ukraine's food cargo safe passage in the Black Sea, imposing a de-facto blockade on its neighbour and attacking storage facilities, in an escalation of the war.

LONDON/WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - An elite group of North Korean hackers secretly breached computer networks at a major Russian missile developer for at least five months last year, according to technical evidence reviewed by Reuters and analysis by security researchers.

Reuters found cyber-espionage teams linked to the North Korean government, which security researchers call ScarCruft and Lazarus, secretly installed stealthy digital backdoors into systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.

LONDON, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- The British government on Saturday announced a new partnership with social media companies to tackle people smuggling content online, including criminals sharing information about illegal Channel crossings.

Figures show over 90 percent of online content linked to people smuggling is taken down when social media companies are notified, the government said in a statement.

LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Russia has doubled its 2023 defence spending target to more than $100 billion - a third of all public expenditure - a government document reviewed by Reuters showed, as the costs of the war in Ukraine spiral and place growing strain on Moscow's finances.

The figures shed light on Russia's spending on the conflict at a time when sector-specific budget expenditure data is no longer published.