The UK government has confirmed its intention to establish an own emissions trading system from 2021, which is to replace the European Union’s system for trading carbon emissions. The government also said it intended to open a consultation on the design of a carbon tax “as an alternative to a UK ETS, to ensure a carbon price remains in place in all scenarios”.

Britain hopes the latest round of trade talks with the European Union starting on Tuesday will keep the process on track before a high-level meeting later this month, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Pope Francis approved on Monday sweeping new rules for procurement and spending in the Vatican meant to cut costs, ensure transparent competition and reduce the risk of corruption in awarding contracts, Reuters reported. The new norms are the culmination of a four-year process to rationalise spending procedures and tackle nepotism and cronyism.

Switzerland’s southern neighbour Italy is going to open its borders for tourists from the EU and Schengen zone countries on 3 June and from that date a 14-day mandatory quarantine period would be scrapped. But even though people from Switzerland will be allowed to go to Italy, Italians won’t be able to enter Switzerland, news wires reported.

A team of 25,000 contact tracers will make their first phone calls within hours - to track down people who will be told to self-isolate under the new test and trace scheme in England, the BBC reported. Tracers will text, email or call people who test positive with coronavirus and ask who they have had contact with. Any of those contacts deemed at risk of infection will be told to isolate for 14 days, even if they are not sick.

UK shoppers face more queuing and limited ability to try products when England’s high street retailers, department stores and shopping centres reopen next month after the coronavirus lockdown.

A banker went on trial in Switzerland on Tuesday charged with failing to sound the alarm over millions of dollars linked to scandal-tainted Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. The former anti-money-laundering executive at private bank Coutts & Co Ltd denies any wrongdoing. Reuters is not naming the defendant due to Swiss laws on privacy in court proceedings.

British government is doing its best to try to shift focus away from a row about a senior aide's travels during the coronavirus lockdown to its plans to further ease restrictions in England, news wires reported. Dominic Cummings claims he had acted "reasonably" and legally when he drove hundreds of miles from home in March.

The United Kingdom has drawn up plans to require employers to cover 20% to 30% of furloughed employees’ wages from August to reduce the vast burden of the coronavirus crisis on government finances, The Times newspaper reported.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisted calls on Saturday from opposition parties to sack adviser Dominic Cummings after he traveled 400 km to northern England while his wife showed COVID-19 symptoms. According to the Guardian and the Mirror newspapers, Cummings, who masterminded the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union during the Brexit referendum, had travelled from London to his parents' home in County Durham while he had coronavirus symptoms.