Europe

MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/: The justice of the peace court of Moscow’s Tagansky District fined Google 2 mln rubles ($27,270) for the refusal to remove information prohibited by Russian laws, the Court’s press service told TASS.

"Google LLC was found guilty of an administrative offense stipulated by Part 2, Article 13.41 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses, by the ruling of the justice of the peace of the judicial section No. 422 of Moscow’s Tagansky District. It was assessed an administrative fine worth 2 mln rubles," the court said.

RIGA, May 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Latvia yesterday expelled Belarusian diplomats, in response to actions taken by Belarus.

Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, Latvian Ambassador to Belarus, Einars Semanis, was summoned to the Ministry “where he was notified of the decision ordering diplomats from the Embassy of Latvia in Minsk, to leave the country.

The Ambassador is to leave Belarus within 24 hours, while other diplomats are given 48 hours. One administrative staff member will remain at the Embassy to go on with the work.”

(Reuters) --- The infrastructure for a digital vaccination certificate, intended to make traveling in the European Union easier, will be ready at EU level from June 1, according to the bloc's executive Commission.

Member states then would be able to connect to the system from mid-June, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after a meeting of the leaders of the 27 nation bloc in Brussels on Tuesday.

25 May 2021; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday warned Turkey against what he said were attempts to fuel Ukraine's "militaristic sentiment" after Ankara moved to boost cooperation with Kyiv, Reuters reports.

"We strongly recommend that our Turkish colleagues carefully analyse the situation and stop fuelling Kyiv's militaristic sentiment," Lavrov said in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty newspaper.

(Reuters) --- Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he had been informed in prison about three new criminal investigations against him, according to a post on his Instagram account published on Tuesday.

Navalny said he had learned about the cases from an investigator who visited him in custody on Monday.

"I'm becoming a more hardened criminal every day," he joked in the post. "So don't think I'm only sitting in a cell, drinking tea and doing nothing."

(Reuters) --- Airlines shunned Belarus's airspace on Tuesday and Belarusian planes faced a possible ban from Europe as international outrage mounted over Minsk forcing down a jetliner and arresting a dissident journalist who was on board.

A video released overnight showed 26-year-old Roman Protasevich confessing to having organised anti-government demonstrations. On Sunday he was pulled off a flight from Greece to Lithuania forced down in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

LONDON, May 25 (Xinhua) -- The final step of easing the coronavirus lockdown in England on June 21 is not "not inevitable", a British government adviser said Tuesday.

Adam Kucharski, a member of Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), told the BBC that "we need to keep all options on the table".

The SPI-M gives expert advice to the Department of Health and Social Care and the wider British government on scientific matters relating to Britain's response to an influenza pandemic or other emerging human infectious disease threats.

GENEVA, May 24 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Assembly (WHA), the highest decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), on Monday refused to include a proposal on Taiwan's participation in its agenda.

Chen Xu, China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said in a statement at the meeting that the Chinese delegation firmly supported the recommendation by the General Committee of the 74th WHA to not include the Taiwan-related proposal in the agenda.

PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech Republic on Tuesday lost its fourth health minister since the coronavirus pandemic struck last year.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that the current office-holder Petr Arenberger called him in Brussels, where Babis is attending a summit of European Union leaders to announce his resignation.

Arenberger, the director of Prague’s University Hospital Vinohrady, was only sworn in by President Milos Zeman on April 7.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union agreed Monday to impose sanctions on Belarus, including banning its airlines from using the airspace and airports of the 27-nation bloc, amid fury over the forced diversion of a passenger jet to arrest an opposition journalist.

Reacting to what EU leaders called a brazen “hijacking” of the Ryanair jetliner flying from Greece to Lithuania on Sunday, they also demanded the immediate release of the journalist, Raman Pratasevich, a key foe of authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.