Belgium

BRUSSELS, August 9. / TASS /: The European Parliament’s largest faction, the conservative European People's Party (EPP), on Monday urged the EU to prepare a revolution in Belarus, noting that "the Belarusian regime will fall."

The EPP proposed to show readiness to "punish the regime" by imposing sanctions as well as to "support the ongoing struggle of the people of Belarus."

BRUSSELS, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Calling for "massive" pressure to fight climate change after Monday's dire report by a U.N. science panel, activist Greta Thunberg said she plans to go to this year’s global climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, after all.

The major U.N. conference will test countries' ambition to limit global warming, which a landmark scientific report on Monday warned was dangerously close to escalating beyond the limits countries agreed on.

BRUSSELS, Aug 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Mediterranean has become a wildfire hotspot, with Turkey hit by its most intense blazes on record and a heatwave producing a high risk of further fires and smoke pollution around the region, a European Union atmosphere monitor said.

Wildfires are raging in countries including Greece and Turkey, where thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes.

The fires have struck as southern Europe experiences an intense heatwave, with some places in Greece recording temperatures of more than 46 degrees Celsius.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Despite a sluggish start, the European Union’s COVID-19 vaccination drive has caught up to that of the United States, where the slowdown of the country’s once-vaunted campaign has contributed to the virus’s deadly comeback.

In mid-February, less than 4% of people living in the 27-nation EU were at least partially vaccinated against the coronavirus, compared with nearly 12% in the U.S, according to Our World in Data, an online science publication connected to the University of Oxford.

BRUSSELS, Aug 6 (Reuters) - European Union home affairs ministers will discuss a surge of illegal border crossings from Belarus to EU member state Lithuania at an extraordinary meeting on Aug. 18, the Slovenian EU presidency said on Friday.

Representatives of the EU border agency Frontex and Europol will also take part in the video conference, according to a letter by Slovenia to EU diplomats seen by Reuters.

BRUSSELS, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The Mediterranean has become a wildfire hotspot, with Turkey hit by its most intense blazes on record and a heatwave producing a high risk of further fires and smoke pollution around the region, a European Union atmosphere monitor said on Wednesday.

Wildfires are raging in countries including Greece and Turkey, where thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes and on Tuesday a fire threatened to reach a coal-fired power plant. 

BRUSSELS, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission said on Monday it had opened an in-depth investigation into Facebook's proposed acquisition of Kustomer over concerns that the deal would stifle competition for customer relationship management (CRM) software.

In a statement, the Commission said it was also concerned that the proposed transaction would further strengthen Facebook's market position in the online display advertising market by increasing the already significant amount of data available to Facebook for personalization of the adverts it displays.

BRUSSELS, Aug 2 (Reuters) - The European Union said on Monday it has imposed sanctions on eight Nicaraguans for human rights violations or undermining democracy or the rule of law, including Rosario Murillo, the vice president and wife of President Daniel Ortega.

The step adds to growing international isolation of Ortega's government, which has been criticized for crackdowns against his opponents and critical media in the Central American country he has dominated since returning to power 15 years ago.

BRUSSELS, July 31 (Reuters) - A group of mostly smaller countries submitted new, more ambitious climate pledges to the United Nations this week, raising pressure on big emitters including China to do the same ahead of a major U.N. climate summit in November.

U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa said that as of Saturday the United Nations had received new pledges from 110 countries, out of the nearly 200 that signed the 2015 Paris climate accord.

BRUSSELS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- China opposes any attempts to manipulate the COVID-19 origins study in the name of open and transparent scientific study, the spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the European Union (EU) has said.