Europe

LONDON, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Another 3,180 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, according to official figures released Wednesday, meaning that the number of daily COVID cases reported in the country passed 3,000 for the first time since mid-April.

The latest figures brought the total number of coronavirus cases in Britain to 4,470,297, according to the official data.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s two top officials expressed support Thursday for holding the Tokyo Olympics despite growing opposition to the event in Japan because of the coronavirus pandemic.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel discussed the games with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga during a virtual EU-Japan summit.

“He told us that he is engaged with his country’s authorities to take all necessary precautionary measures,” Michel said after the talks.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s health minister on Thursday defended his handling of the coronavirus pandemic after a former top government aide alleged the government’s botched response had led to tens of thousands of needless deaths.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock hit back after Dominic Cummings singled him out for criticism in an excoriating attack on the government.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union nations sketched out plans for new sanctions Thursday against Belarus that will target economic sectors close to its authoritarian president, as they sought to strike back at him for the forced diversion of a passenger jet to arrest a dissident journalist.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Lisbon vowed to continue to ramp up the pressure on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — whose disdain for democratic norms and human rights has made his country a pariah in the West.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Viachka Krasulin said he was arrested and brutally beaten all over his body by police in Belarus for attending a rally in August 2020 that challenged the results of an election keeping authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in power.

Krasulin said security forces threatened to sodomize him with a truncheon for joining the protest. After he complained to authorities about the police actions, they opened a criminal case against him — rather than the security forces — and he decided to flee to neighboring Lithuania.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Parents and pupils are pushing back against efforts to suppress solidarity with the Palestinians following Israel's latest military offensive against Gaza, in which more than 250 people were killed, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly people.

26 May 2021; MEMO: Russian gas producer Gazprom has resumed supplies to Turkey via the Blue Stream gas pipeline, the Interfax news agency quoted the company as saying yesterday.

Gazprom had suspended the supply for planned maintenance on 12 May and restarted earlier than the scheduled date of 27 May.

PRAGUE, May 26. /TASS/: The government of Slovakia approved the use of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the country on Wednesday, STV reports.

Vaccination with Sputnik V is scheduled to start in Slovakia on June 7 at the earliest. The Ministry of health is preparing the relevant resolution in this regard.

The first batch of the Sputnik V was delivered to Slovakia on March 1. The list of vaccination centers where the Russian vaccine will be available for vaccination will appear in the country in the coming days.

MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/: Russia’s Sukhoi aircraft maker (part of the United Aircraft Corporation of Russia’s Rostec) is now developing Russia’s first single-engine low-observable hypersonic light tactical fighter aircraft, an aircraft industry source has told TASS.

MINSK, May 26. /TASS/: The bomb threat against Ryanair's passenger airliner was received from Switzerland, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in parliament at a meeting with legislators, members of the Constitutional Commission, and representatives of government agencies on Wednesday.

"The message that there was a bomb on board that plane came from Switzerland," the television broadcaster ATN's Telegam channel quotes Lukashenko as saying.