Europe

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants U.S. citizens to come to England "freely" and is discussing a travel corridor with the United States, LBC radio said on Wednesday, before an expected easing of COVID-19 restrictions for visitors from abroad.

Airline and travel bosses have criticised Britain for sticking to strict COVID-19 travel rules which they say mean the country is falling behind the European Union in attracting tourists, but that looks set to change.

OSLO, July 28 (Reuters) - Norway postponed for a second time on Wednesday a planned final step in the reopening of its economy from pandemic lockdown, due to the continued spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, the government said.

"A new assessment will be made in mid-August," Health Minister Bent Hoeie told a news conference.

Measures that will be kept in place to halt the spread of COVID-19 include bars and restaurants being limited to table service and limits of 20 people on gatherings in private homes.

GENEVA, July 28 (Reuters) - Senior U.S. and Russian officials began talks on Wednesday on strategic nuclear stability, with a fresh mandate from their presidents who held a summit in Geneva last month.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov headed their respective delegations at the meeting at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.

NOVO-OGAREVO, July 27. /TASS/: Issuing more dollars to cover the budget deficit in the United States affects the entire world economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, opening a meeting on economic issues on Tuesday. 

According to him, inflation in the United States has exceeded 5% with a target of about 2%, and the United States has been making up a budget with a 15% deficit for two years in a row.

"So they cover this deficit at the expense of what? At the expense of the issue [of the dollar]. This is where inflation comes from," Putin said.

MOSCOW, July 27./TASS/: Russia’s regions will never be a bargaining chip with other countries, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday.

"Of course, the Russian regions cannot and will never be up for bargain, this is out of the question," the Kremlin spokesman asserted. That said, the spokesman commented on a statement from Turkish Professor Hasan Unal, who suggested that Moscow and Ankara could agree on the status of Crimea if Russia recognized the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as an independent state.

MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/: Moscow and Washington are, to some degree, implementing the agreements they reached at a summit held in Geneva in June, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

MINSK, July 27. /TASS/: The creation of a single Russia-Belarus scientific research space will contribute to the real development of the Union State, President of the Kurchatov Institute Scientific Research Center Mikhail Kovalchuk said on Tuesday.

"We are proposing that a single research space be set up and for this purpose we have signed a roadmap with the head of the National Academy of Sciences [of Belarus] today," Kovalchuk said.

MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/: Russia has initiated a draft UN convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes, the press service of the Russian prosecutor general’s office told TASS on Tuesday.

GENEVA, July 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A new World Bank financing mechanism will allow developing countries to purchase Covid-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility, it was announced.

Covax was set up to ensure 92 developing territories could access coronavirus vaccines to fight the pandemic, with the cost covered by donors.

The new mechanism will allow those countries to buy additional doses on top of the subsidised ones they will already receive via Covax.

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that people should not get carried away by six days of better COVID-19 infection data, while one of the country's top epidemiologists said the end of the pandemic could be just months away.

Johnson has lifted restrictions in England and is betting he can get one of Europe's largest economies firing again because so many people are now vaccinated, a decision which marks a new chapter in the response to the novel coronavirus.