Europe

VALLETTA, Aug 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM), yesterday, rescued a boatload of 41 migrants, who were in difficulty, while in the island’s search and rescue region, according to a police spokesman.

The AFM also medically evacuated two migrants, rescued by a rescue vessel operated by an NGO, and who were in critical condition. One of the two is suspected to have suffered a heart attack, the spokesman said.

LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Britain will offer all 16- and 17-year-olds their first dose of Pfizer (PFE.N) COVID-19 vaccine, its vaccine advisers said on Wednesday, a move that will give more children protection against the disease before schools return in September.

Britain's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) had initially advised less than two weeks ago that only medically vulnerable children would be offered the vaccine, saying it was taking a precautionary approach.

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. 

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Maria Kolesnikova, one of the leaders of mass street protests against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko last year, went on trial on Wednesday facing up to 12 years in prison on charges of extremism.

Kolesnikova, 39, has not been seen in public for months. She was detained after ripping up her passport to prevent Belarusian security forces from deporting her in a standoff at the Ukrainian border in September.

Aug 4 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization is calling for a moratorium on COVID-19 vaccine boosters until at least the end of September, its head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

The move was to enable that at least 10% of the population of every country was vaccinated, WHO Director-General Tedros said.

The call to stop COVID-19 vaccine boosters is the strongest yet from the UN agency as the gap between inoculation rates in wealthy and poor countries widens.

MOSCOW, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- The sudden shutdown of the Fort Detrick lab in the United States and the pneumonia outbreak that followed are far from coincidental and should be studied in the scope of the ongoing investigation into the pandemic's origins, a Russian political observer has said.

In his article published in the Free Media online newspaper on Saturday, Sergei Plotnikov outlined some striking events that followed after the closure of the prominent military biological lab in Maryland.

04 Aug 2021; MEMO: The advocacy organisation CAGE has launched a legal challenge claiming UK Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, discriminated against Muslim students and failed to protect freedom of expression in a letter to headteachers ordering them to clampdown on students who express solidarity with Palestine on school premises.

MOSCOW (AP) — Space engineers will analyze whether a glitch that caused the International Space Station to spin out of its normal orientation could have impacted any of its systems, a Russian space official said Wednesday.

Sergei Krikalev, the director of crewed space programs at the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, emphasized that last week’s incident did not inflict any observable damage to the space station, but he said that experts would need to study its potential implications.

TATOI, Greece (AP) — More than 500 firefighters struggled through the night to contain a large forest blaze on the outskirts of Athens, which raced into residential areas Tuesday, forcing thousands to flee. It was the worst of 81 wildfires that broke out in Greece over the past 24 hours, amid one of the country’s most intense heatwaves in decades.

Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said the fire north of Athens was “very dangerous,” and had been exacerbated by strong winds and tinder-dry conditions due to the heat that reached 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area.

MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/: Lesochek portable small-size jamming stations will be on display at the Army-2021 arms show, the press office of Russia’s Western Military District reported on Tuesday.

"In late August, this station will be on static display at the Army-2021 military-technical forum," the press office said in a statement.

The Lesochek small-size electronic warfare system considerably outshines foreign rivals by its efficiency through the expanded operating frequency band and new jamming techniques, the statement says.