TOKYO: Britain hailed its first major post-Brexit trade deal Friday after signing an agreement with Japan that it said shows it can stand alone on the global stage, as talks on a pact with the European Union remain bogged down. 

LONDON/WASHINGTON: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s affirmed the United Kingdom’s sovereign debt rating at ‘AA’ on Friday, saying the government’s pandemic response efforts helped limit the hit to its economy.

LONDON: Britain and the European Union have made good progress in talks on a last-minute trade deal that would stave off a tumultuous finale to the five-year-old Brexit crisis, but fish is the biggest sticking point. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases increased by 695 to 120,927, while four people succumbed to the disease in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 744, the health ministry said yesterday. 

LORDSTOWN, US: Workers at the General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio listened when President Donald Trump said the region would soon be booming. But two years after that 2017 speech, the plant closed. 

WASHINGTON: Google’s long-running business model based on free services and advertising will be put to the test in the landmark antitrust lawsuit filed this week by the US Justice Department. 

LONDON: Over half the small and medium-sized companies which together provide jobs for two-thirds of European workers fear for their survival in the coming 12 months, according to a survey released by management consultancy McKinsey yesterday. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours increased by 889 to 119,420, with nine people succumbing to the disease, raising the death toll to 730, the health ministry said yesterday. 

LONDON: Britain’s government borrowing in the first half of the financial year was more than six times higher than before the COVID pandemic, official figures showed yesterday, taking public debt to its highest since 1960.