Europe

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/: Russia’s United Engine Corporation (part of the state tech corporation Rostec) is launching R&D work on the sixth-generation engine for combat aircraft, United Engine Corporation Deputy CEO for Strategy Mikhail Remizov told TASS on Friday.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, July 16. /TASS/: Russia is seeking to eliminate barriers that obstruct vaccine production and distribution around the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an online meeting with leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

"We believe that it is vital to continue working together on creating new vaccine production capacities in Asia-Pacific, elimination of administrative and other barriers that hinder their production and supply," Putin said.

16 July 2021; MEMO: Britain's role in fuelling the Saudi-led war in Yemen is much greater than earlier thought, according to a new report by the UK-based organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). More than three times as much weaponry and military equipment was sold to Riyadh over the past six years when one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War was unfolding in the Arabian republic following a Saudi aggression.

16 July 2021; MEMO: Companies may ban Muslim employees from wearing a headscarf under certain conditions, the European Union's top court said today, in two cases brought by Muslim women in Germany who were suspended from their jobs after they started wearing the Islamic garment, Reuters reports.

LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - England's coronavirus crisis could return again surprisingly quickly and the country is not yet out of the woods, the British government's chief medical adviser said, as infections surged ahead of the lifting of legal restrictions.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is removing most pandemic restrictions in England from July 19, saying a rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has largely broken the link between infections and serious illness or death. 

GENEVA, July 16 (Reuters) - Nearly 50 African countries are to receive 25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses donated by the United States, with the first shipments to Burkina Faso, Djibouti and Ethiopia in coming days, U.S. officials and the Gavi vaccine alliance said on Friday.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to share 80 million U.S.-made vaccines with countries around the world to protect the most vulnerable and stem transmission of the coronavirus.

KYIV, July 16 (Reuters) - Belarusian police searched offices and homes of independent journalists and human rights activists for the third successive day on Friday, extending what President Alexander Lukashenko's opponents say is a new crackdown on dissent.

The office of U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was one of 19 premises searched, the Belarus Association of Journalists said, denouncing "a massive attack by security forces on journalists across the country."

MOSCOW, July 16 (Reuters) - A former U.S. Marine who is serving a nine-year sentence in Russia was being transferred from a remand cell in Moscow on Friday to the Mordovia region which has a large number of tough, Soviet-era prisons.

Trevor Reed was convicted last year of endangering the lives of two policemen in Moscow while drunk, a charge he denied. He said the ruling was "clearly political", and Washington called the trial "theatre of the absurd".

BRUSSELS, July 15 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is planning to overhaul its current energy taxation system in a bid to synchronize it with the bloc's green ambition, European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni said on Thursday.

He noted that it was high time that the EU updated its Energy Taxation Directive which was almost two decades old and with minimum rates unchanged since 2003.

GENEVA, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Permanent representatives of 48 countries to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) on Thursday addressed to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and voiced their support to advance the study of origins of SARS-CoV-2 globally and opposed the politicization of the origin-tracing.

The diplomats highlighted that COVID-19 is a common enemy of mankind, and it can only be defeated by solidarity and cooperation of the international community.