Europe

HELSINKI, May 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Cars are queued up on an old airport runway on the outskirts of the Finnish capital Helsinki — not for coronavirus tests but for drivers to cast their vote.

Outdoor polling stations have sprung up across the Nordic country as authorities try to make voting as socially distanced as possible ahead of the country’s local elections on June 13.

(Reuters) --- A radicalised French ex-prisoner on a watch list of potential terrorist threats stabbed a policewoman inside her station in western France on Friday before being killed in a shoot-out with police, a government minister said.

The victim was seriously wounded but expected to survive, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

The assailant had been released from prison in March following an eight-year sentence for violent crime and was on a security services register for individuals who might pose a terrorism risk.

(Reuters) --- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday offered his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko support in his standoff with the West over his handling of the grounding of a passenger jet and the arrest of a dissident blogger.

(Reuters) --- The head of Belarusian national airline Belavia on Saturday condemned as "despicable" the decision by numerous EU countries to impose airspace restrictions on the carrier following the forced landing of a passenger jet in Minsk.

Most of Belarus's neighbours and many other European nations have banned Belavia flights amid outrage over Sunday's forced landing of a Ryanair (RYA.I) jet en route to Lithuania from Greece and the arrest of a dissident journalist on board. 

LONDON, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Unfounded allegations by some U.S. politicians that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a Chinese lab are making it harder for nations to collaborate on ending the pandemic, and fueling online bullying, said a recent article in British scientific journal Nature.

"Even without strong supporting evidence," calls to investigate Chinese laboratories have reached a fever pitch in the United States, said the article, adding that for many researchers, the tone of the growing demands is unsettling, which could thwart efforts to study the virus's origins.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As fear of repression rises among Belarusians following the arrest of a dissident journalist whose plane was forcibly diverted to Minsk, those who want to leave the country are feeling increasingly cornered.

Its land borders already were under tight restrictions, and now the European Union has banned flights from Belarus after a jetliner was diverted to Minsk earlier this week and authorities arrested a dissident journalist who was aboard.

ROME (AP) — When Italy won the Eurovision Song Contest with an over-the-top glam-rock performance, the victory signaled more than just a psychological boost for one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19: Held before a live, indoor audience of 3,500, the annual kitsch fest confirmed that Europe was returning to a semblance of normalcy that was unthinkable even a few weeks ago.

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/: Russia’s Foreign Ministry has protested against provocations staged near the Russian embassy in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

"On May 28, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Ukraine’s Charge d'Affaires Vasily Pokotilo and strongly protested against the ongoing inflammatory activities taking place near the Russian embassy in Kiev," the statement reads.

"The Russian embassy sent a note of protest to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry following one such incident," the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

MINSK, May 28. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has arrived in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian presidential press service said in a statement on Friday.

"Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived on a working visit to Russia on May 28," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergey Shoigu and his Armenian counterpart Vagharshak Harutyunyan held a working meeting in Moscow on Friday.

"We are strengthening our military interaction both in the bilateral format and within the framework of international structures, first of all, the CSTO [the Collective Security Treaty Organization], Shoigu said while opening the working meeting.