Europe

MINSK, May 4. /TASS/: The European Union and the United States are undermining Minsk's efforts to improve the coronavirus situation, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/: Two people died in a fire that engulfed the Vechny Zov hotel in Moscow in the early hours of Tuesday, a spokesperson for the city’s Health Department told TASS.

"Fourteen people were rushed to hospitals following the fire, with eight children among them. Two of the adults who had suffered injuries in the blaze died later. One of the adults is in highly critical condition. The kids who have been taken to hospitals are receiving all necessary medical treatment, their condition is viewed as stable and their lives are out of danger," the spokesperson noted.

MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/: Moscow’s Gagarinsky District Court has sentenced a Ukrainian national to a three-year prison term for an attempt to smuggle spare parts for a MiG-29 fighter jet into Ukraine, a source in law enforcement agencies told TASS on Tuesday.

BERLIN, May 4. /TASS/: Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) considers it possible to resume the construction of Nord Stream 2 in German waters after a claim initiated by the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), at the end of this May, a representative from the regulator told TASS on Tuesday.

MINSK, May 4./TASS/: A district court in Gomel, Belarus, has sentenced three members from the action group of former presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and one of her confidants to various prison terms, pronouncing them guilty for plotting mass unrest and seizure of administrative buildings, the prosecutor’s office of the Gomel Region said in a report uploaded to the website of the Belarusian General Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday.

(Reuters) --- The European Union has scrapped plans to send observers to a parliamentary election in Ethiopia next month, saying conditions had not been met on communication systems and the mission's independence.

Announcing the decision late on Monday, the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said in a statement that the 27-nation bloc would also not monitor preparations for the June 5 election including voter registration.

(Reuters) --- Germany saw a big jump last year in politically motiviated crimes, and offences commited by far-right supporters hit a record high, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Tuesday.

Far-right offences were up nearly 6% from the previous year at 23,064, and accounted for more than half of all politically motivated crimes, the highest level since police started collecting such data in 2001.

(Reuters) --- France said on Tuesday it will begin delivering 30 Dassault warplanes to Egypt from 2024 in a 4 billion euro ($4.8 billion) deal, as it strengthens ties with a partner it considers vital in fighting Islamist militants.

In December, President Emmanuel Macron drew criticism from rights groupswhen he said he would not make the sale of weapons to Egypt conditional on human rights because he did not want to weaken Cairo's ability to counter militancy in the region.

(Reuters) --- People travelling to Poland from Brazil, India and South Africa will have to quarantine, the Polish health minister said on Tuesday, as he announced cases of a COVID-19 variant first detected in India in the Warsaw and Katowice areas.

The outbreaks poses a fresh risk to Poland just as it starts to emerge from a highly damaging third wave of the pandemic.

COPENHAGEN, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Danish Health Authority has decided to drop the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from its mass coronavirus vaccination program.

"Taking the present situation in Denmark into account, what we are currently losing in our effort to prevent severe illness from COVID-19 cannot outweigh the risk of causing possible side effects in the form of severe blood clots in those we vaccinate," the Danish Health Authority's Deputy Director General Helene Probst said in a press release.