Europe

PARIS, May 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 1.5 billion doses of anti-Covid vaccines have been injected into people’s arms around the world, six months after the vaccination drive started.

By Tuesday at 1530 GMT at least 1,500,017,337 doses had been injected in 210 countries or territories, according to a tally of official sources.

Nearly three fifths of the total have been administered in three countries: China (421.9 million), the United States (274.4 million) and India (184.4 million).

(Reuters) --- European Union citizens' support for their national governments has fallen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic began, although the supranational bloc itself has maintained trust, a survey by an EU agency published on Thursday showed.

The survey by Eurofound, the EU agency for improving living and working conditions, showed that citizens in 26 of the 27 EU countries had less faith in their national governments than when COVID-19 lockdowns began in March last year. The exception was Denmark, where sentiment was steady.

(Reuters) --- The European Union entered what was intended to be a final round of negotiations on Thursday to bridge differences over the use of COVID-19 certificates designed to open up tourism this summer.

European Parliament lawmakers and current EU president Portugal representing the bloc's 27 members scheduled an afternoon of discussions to break deadlock about the extent to which the certificates would ease travel.

(Reuters) --- Waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines will not be enough to narrow the huge supply gap between rich and poor countries, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Thursday.

South Africa and India have urged fellow WTO members to waive IP rights on vaccines to boost production. Poorer countries that make up half the world's population have received just 17% of doses, a situation the World Health Organization head has labelled "vaccine apartheid".

(Reuters) --- The Group of Seven is playing a "dangerous game" by making aggressive and baseless criticism of the Kremlin because it pushes Russia closer to China, Russia's ambassador to London Andrei Kelin told Reuters on Thursday.

G7 foreign ministers this month scolded both China and Russia, casting the Kremlin as malicious and Beijing as a bully, but beyond words there were few concrete steps aside from expressing support for Taiwan and Ukraine.

LOUTRAKI, Greece (AP) — A large wildfire in Greece gutted and damaged dozens of homes and prompted evacuations Thursday as it tore through rugged forest terrain. No injuries were reported.

Fire department officials said 17 water-dropping planes and three helicopters were involved to try to contain the blaze about 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of Athens that started outside the resort town of Loutraki.

Smoke from the fire reached Athens, affecting visibility.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s leader said Thursday that France and Germany have recently softened their stance in talks with Moscow on settling a conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also told a news conference that his office has reached out to the Kremlin to prepare a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s executive arm on Thursday finalized a third vaccine contract with Pfizer and BioNTech through 2023 for an additional 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 shot to share between the bloc’s countries except for Hungary, which opted out of the deal.

The European commission said the contract, which was agreed on behalf of all 27 EU countries earlier this month, will allow the buying of 900 million doses of the current shots and of a serum adapted to the virus’ variants, with an option to purchase an extra 900 million shots.

PARIS (AP) — The trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy on charges that his unsuccessful 2012 reelection bid was illegally financed has formally started on Thursday. The scandal had thrown his conservative party into turmoil.

Sarkozy, 66, is facing allegations that he spent almost twice the maximum legal amount of 22.5 million euros ($27.5 million) on the presidential race he lost to Socialist Francois Hollande. He has denied wrongdoing.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A Dutch court on Thursday rejected fugitive auto executive Carlos Ghosn’s wrongful dismissal claim against an Amsterdam-based alliance between Nissan and Mitsubishi and ordered him to repay nearly 5 million euros ($6 million) salary he received in 2018.

Ghosn vowed to appeal.

The ruling came in a case in which Ghosn sought to have his 2018 sacking from Nissan-Mitsubishi B.V. overturned and demanded 15 million euros ($16.5 million) in compensation.