(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - London, 19 Aug - Shares in London closed higher as investors looked ahead to a speech from US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell scheduled for Friday for indications on the central bank's interest rate policy.

Shares of defence stocks came under pressure following a report in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) over the weekend that the German government could halt new military aid to Ukraine.

BAE Systems lost 0.81% at 1,339.00 pence.

Miners were mostly higher reversing last week's losses.

Glencore and Rio Tinto added 2.81% at 415.20 pence and 1.74% at 4,824.50 pence, respectively.

Among individual stocks, Barratt jumped 3.40% at 554.00 pence after it signalled that its proposed acquisition of Redrow would soon be completed.

The London FTSE 100 closed up 0.55% at 8,356.94 points.

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(RADIOCOR) 19-08-24 18:24:43 (0376) 5 NNNN