Europe

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: Russia is ready to continue implementing projects similar to Nord Stream 2 with other countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

"We are ready to continue implementing similar high-tech projects with our European and other partners. We expect the logic of mutual benefit to inevitably have the upper hand over various types of artificial barriers of the current political situation," he said.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks that during the meeting with US President Joe Biden in Geneva, both sides must try to find ways to regulate bilateral relations.

"We will discuss issues of bilateral relations. I believe that we will try to find ways to regulate these relations, right now, they are at a very low level, we know this very well," Putin said on Friday during the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

(Reuters) --- The European Union on Friday submitted a plan to the World Trade Organization that it believes will more effectively broaden supply of COVID-19 vaccines than the intellectual property (IP) rights waiver backed by the United States.

India, South Africa and dozens of developing countries are demanding the waiver to address what they say is a "staggering inequity" in access to vaccines and other COVID-19 treatments.

(Reuters) --- Britain, France, Germany and the United States will not push for a resolution against Iran at next week's meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's board despite Tehran's failure to explain uranium traces found at three sites, diplomats said on Friday.

A resolution could have prompted an escalation between Tehran and the West that would have jeopardised talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal taking place in Vienna, where the atomic watchdog is also based. 

(Reuters) --- British judge Brenda Hale will step down from Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal next month when her three-year term expires, the judiciary said on Friday, a move that may deepen uncertainty over the role of foreign judges in the semi-autonomous city.

The departure of Hale, a former president of Britain's Supreme Court, comes amid international concern over the effect on the city of a national security law imposed by China's parliament a year ago.

(Reuters) --- Belarus carriers will be banned from flying over European Union territory or having access to its airports from Friday, the bloc said, as the country's exiled opposition leader called for more joint Western sanctions.

The EU decision is part of planned punitive measures against Belarus in response to Minsk scrambling a warplane to force the landing on May 23 of a Ryanair flight carrying an opposition journalist, who was then arrested. 

(Reuters) --- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed legislation that bars members of "extremist" organisations from running for office, a move allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny say aims to sideline them from parliamentary election this year.

Putin's approval of the law comes days before a court will consider outlawing Navalny's anti-corruption foundation and regional campaign groups on the grounds they are extremist.

ROME, June 3 (Xinhua) -- World food prices surged in May, climbing for a record 12th consecutive month as supply chain issues sparked by the coronavirus pandemic combined to push prices nearly 40 percent above levels from a year earlier, according to data released on Thursday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

MOSCOW, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Reports of alleged "forced labor" in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have been used by the West as a pretext to hinder its development, said the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper in a commentary late last month.

While the West is attempting to promote the idea that workers of the region are subjected to forced labor, human rights abuses, and religious discrimination, personal accounts and direct evidence prove that these claims are false and absurd, the paper said.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 3. /TASS/: Sanctions imposed by the US have prompted Russia to create a safety margin, dramatically reducing international debt, First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Andrey Belousov said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Thursday.

"US sanctions have inflicted certain damages but they give rise to two trends. The first trend is that we created safety margins in all of the most important areas of the Russian economy," Belousov said.