Europe

BERLIN (AP) — Neck rubs, pricy dinners, allegations of phone tapping, awkward handshake moments.

Angela Merkel has just about seen it all when it comes to U.S. presidents.

The German chancellor is making her 19th and likely final official visit to the U.S. on Thursday for a meeting with President Joe Biden — her fourth American president — as she nears the end of her 16-year tenure.

Merkel, who turns 67 on Saturday, will be heading into political retirement soon after deciding long ago not to seek a fifth term in Germany’s Sept. 26 election.

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: No decisions on toughening restrictions towards those, who are not vaccinated against the novel coronavirus infection, have been taken at the federal level in Russia but regional authorities are already imposing certain measures, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Ministry will do everything it can to free Russian citizens serving prison terms in the US, but the conditions for their release are unclear at this point, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/: Moscow and Washington are in contact over the possible consequences of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with the International Affairs magazine.

"The situation is ambivalent. I think that based on a set of political, geopolitical, and domestic political reasons, the US will eventually move towards reducing its military presence in Afghanistan," he pointed out. "It will have multidimensional consequences, we are discussing this all with the Americans," Ryabkov added.

ST. PETERSBURG, July 13. /TASS/: Belarus remains Russia’s large and reliable partner in the economic sphere, the trade turnover between the two countries is growing, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.

BRUSSELS, Jul 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Commercial flights in the European Union (EU) are showing an upward trend as summer begins, according to data published yesterday, by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office.

Along with the tourism industry, the aviation sector has been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, grounding aircraft on the tarmac, as containment measures and travel bans were put in place.

MADRID, Jul 13 (NNN-XINHUA) – Seven new cabinet members, named by Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, on Saturday, were sworn-in in Madrid, capital of Spain, yesterday.

Sanchez announced the reshuffle, with several key positions changing hands.

First Deputy Prime Minister, Carmen Calvo, was sacked, along with several ministers, including the minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, minister of justice, and minister of education, and vocational training.

DUBLIN, Jul 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Europe’s largest budget airline, Ryanair, announced yesterday that, it would recruit 2,000 new pilots over the next three years.

The pilots to be recruited will be trained to fly the Boeing 737-8200 aircraft, that have been ordered by Ryanair from the U.S. plane manufacturer, according to a statement released by the airlines.

Ryanair earlier said that, it had ordered 210 Boeing 737-8200 aircraft, and the first of them had been delivered in the first half of this year, with 60 of them to be received before the peak summer of next year.

13 July 2021; MEMO: Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto yesterday called on the European Union to resolve problems with Turkey on the issue of migrants and refugees as soon as possible, while Ankara seeks to renew a 2016 pact on the matter.

"The coronavirus pandemic and migration will determine the world politics and economy in the future, and the EU should be prepared for this," Szijjarto told reporters following an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels.

BRUSSELS, July 13 (Reuters) - The European Union will try to reassure Bosnians of its readiness to admit their country one day, according to an internal document seen by Reuters, after an unofficial EU diplomatic note raised doubts about Brussels' commitment.

That note, circulated among EU officials in April, proposed redrawing borders along ethnic lines in the Western Balkans in an attempt to unblock stalled reforms in the region. It caused anxiety in Bosnia, which aspires to join both the EU and NATO.