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Three Russians and a Ukrainian will face murder charges for the July 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in which 298 people were killed, in a trial to start in the Netherlands next March, an investigation team said on Wednesday. The suspects are likely to be tried in absentia, however, as the Netherlands has said Russia has not cooperated with the investigation and is not expected to hand anyone over. The Dutch-led international team tasked with...

President Donald Trump formally launched his 2020 re-election campaign on Tuesday by presenting himself as the same political insurgent who shook up the Washington establishment four years ago and who is now a victim of an attempted ouster by Democrats. At a packed rally at an arena in Orlando, Florida, Trump made clear he would run for re-election as an outsider, just as he did in 2016. Whether he can pull it off remains far from certain as Trump has...

Housebuilder Berkeley Group Plc reported a slump in annual pretax profit on Wednesday, as Britain's housing sector remains under pressure from uncertainty ahead of the country's exit from the European Union and builders face higher costs. Berkeley reiterated that pretax profit for 2019-20 is expected to fall by around a third from 2018-19. The housing market has weakened since the June 2016 Brexit vote, leading to a drop in prices in London. At the time of the referendum, prices were...

Dominic Raab has backed frontrunner Boris Johnson today, telling the Evening Standard newspaper he was the only candidate who would deliver Brexit by Oct 31st. "The only candidate who will now do this is Boris Johnson and so I'll be supporting him to become our next Prime Minister," he said. The former Foreign Secretary is far ahead of the rest of the pack, stretching a lead which, for many, makes Johnson the all but inevitable victor to replace Prime Minister...

Trust in vaccines - one of the world's most effective and widely-used medical products - is highest in poorer countries but weaker in wealthier ones where skepticism has allowed outbreaks of diseases such as measles to persist, a global study found on Wednesday. France has the least confidence of any country in the world in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, with a third believing that vaccines are unsafe, according to the study. While most parents do choose to vaccinate...

The CBI warn of "Brexit uncertainty biting" as factory orders slump to their lowest since the months following the EU referendum in 2016 Reuters report. British factory orders slid in June against a backdrop of stoppages in car production following uncertainty about when Britain will leave the European Union, the CBI's monthly industrial trends survey showed on Wednesday. The Confederation of British Industry survey's total order book balance sank to -15 this month from -10 in May, the weakest reading...

Evidence suggests Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and other senior Saudi officials are liable for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.N. rights investigator said on Wednesday. There was no immediate reaction from Riyadh which was sent the 100-page report in advance - but the kingdom has regularly denied accusations that the prince was involved. Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, called for countries to widen sanctions to include the Crown Prince and his...

Emissions need to be halved by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius but temperatures are on track to reach double that by the end of the century even if countries' current plans are fully implemented, research by scientists shows. A group of European researchers, Climate Action Tracker, tracks countries' progress towards the globally agreed aim of limiting warming to well below 2C and a more ambitious target of 1.5C. Public concerns about climate change are growing and have...

Italian unions refused on Monday to load electricity generators onto a Saudi Arabian ship with weapons on board in a protest against the war in Yemen. The Bahri-Yanbu vessel loaded arms in the Belgian city of Antwerp earlier this month, but was prevented from picking up another consignment of weapons in the French port of Le Havre following protests by humanitarian groups. Rights campaigners say the weapons contravene a U.N. treaty because they might be used against civilians in Yemen,...