Europe

New Delhi, Apr 28 (PTI) Switzerland on Wednesday said it is sending oxygen concentrators, ventilators and other medical equipment to India to help it deal with the "challenging times" arising out of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Swiss Embassy in India said the material will be distributed with the support of the Indian Red Cross Society.

"Switzerland through the Swiss humanitarian aid will send medical supplies to India. This will include oxygen concentrators, ventilators and other medical equipment," the embassy said.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Tech giants who control social networks act according their own rules and pursue policies that are not always fair and this sparks condemnation from a number of countries, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev says on Wednesday during the VKLive streaming.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Following a meeting in Paris, Russian and French diplomats stressed the need to hold the summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5) as soon as possible, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Russia confirmed 7,848 COVID-19 cases in the past day, a new low since September 26, bringing the total case tally to 4,787,273, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

The relative growth rate stood at 0.16%.

Moscow registered 1,840 COVID-19 cases while St. Petersburg recorded 723 cases, a new high since March 27. Some 612 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the Moscow Region, 228 in the Rostov Region, 179 in the Samara and Nizhny Novgorod regions each and 159 in the Voronezh Region.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Neither Moscow nor the Vatican has received any official proposal from Kiev for holding a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine in the Vatican, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"President Zelensky said that it would be the perfect place for such a meeting. However, neither the Vatican nor Russia has official information on the matter. We haven’t received specific information about the proposal," Peskov pointed out.

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/: Brussels should look into the issue of private entrepreneurs being involved in ammo depots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference on Wednesday, commenting on the accusations of Bulgaria against Russia.

TIRANA, April 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told supporters they had delivered his Socialist Party’s “most difficult but sweetest” election victory, as almost complete results suggested he had clinched a record third term in office.

The election commission said the Socialists were on course for 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament after Sunday’s vote, making Edi Rama the first Albanian leader to win three mandates.

(Reuters) --- Germany's domestic spy agency is monitoring individuals who have joined anti-lockdown protests to decide if their rejection of government curbs amounts to subversion and incitement to violence.

The surveillance includes some members of the "Querdenker" or "Lateral Thinkers" movement, which has been organising increasingly violent protests against coronavirus lockdowns and includes conspiracy theorists and suspected far-right extremists, a spokeswoman for the BfV spy agency said.

(Reuters) --- Bulgarian prosecutors said they are collecting evidence on the possible involvement of six Russians in four explosions between 2011 and 2020 at Bulgarian arms depots that were storing munitions for export to Ukraine and Georgia.

A spokeswoman said prosecutors could reasonably assume links between the blasts in Bulgaria, the attempted poisoning of Bulgarian arms trader Emilian Gebrev in 2015, and munitions depot explosions in the Czech Republic in 2014.

(Reuters) --- Britain's Electoral Commission has opened an investigation into the financing of the refurbishment of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's apartment, saying there were grounds to suspect an offence may have been committed.

Eight days before local elections across England and for the election of the Welsh and Scottish regional assemblies, Johnson is facing a stream of allegations about everything from his muddled initial handling of the COVID-19 crisis to questions about who leaked what from his office.