Europe

PARIS, April 11. /TASS/: Moscow expects Paris to support its initiatives aimed at non-placement of arms in outer space, Russian Ambassador to France Alexei Meshkov said in an interview with TASS on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first human space flight.

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 8,702 over the past day, reaching 4,641,390, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Sunday.

The growth rate stood at 0.19% in relative terms.

The lowest growth rates were registered in the Tuva Republic, the Altai Republic (0.01%), the Magadan Region and the Jewish Autonomous Region (0.02%).

Some 694 COVID-19 cases were recorded in St. Petersburg, 574 in the Moscow Region, 239 in the Rostov Region, 236 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region and 198 in the Samara Region.

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/: German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her phone talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin did not demand Russia scale down its military presence near the Ukrainian border but voiced concerns about this, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Moscow. Kremlin. Putin on Rossiya-1 TV channel.

LONDON, Apr 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Another 2,589 people in Britain tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 4,368,045, according to official figures released yesterday.

The country also reported another 40 related deaths. The total number of deaths in Britain now stands at 127,080. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.

BERLIN (Reuters) -The head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, who wants to be their next candidate for chancellor in a September election, said on Sunday the party should make their choice of candidate very soon.

Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Laschet lags behind Markus Soeder, head of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), in opinion polls, but enjoys the support of some powerful state premiers.

PARIS (Reuters) - French lawmakers voted late on Saturday to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by train in under two-and-a-half hours, as the government seeks to lower carbon emissions even as the air travel industry reels from the global pandemic.

The measure is part of a broader climate bill that aims to cut French carbon emissions by 40% in 2030 from 1990 levels, though activists accuse President Emmanuel Macron of watering down earlier promises in the draft legislation.

MOSCOW, April 10 (Xinhua) -- A Russian MiG-31 fighter intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane above the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Russian airspace control systems detected an air target approaching the Russian state border and a MiG-31 of the Eastern Military District took off in response, the ministry said.

The crew of the Russian jet identified the air target as an RC-135 strategic reconnaissance aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and escorted it over the Pacific Ocean.

LONDON (AP) — As many as 60 countries, including some of the world’s poorest, might be stalled at the first shots of their coronavirus vaccinations because nearly all deliveries through the global program intended to help them are blocked until as late as June.

COVAX, the global initiative to provide vaccines to countries lacking the clout to negotiate for scarce supplies on their own, has in the past week shipped more than 25,000 doses to low-income countries only twice on any given day. Deliveries have all but halted since Monday.

ATHENS, April 10. /TASS/: Europe’s economic sanctions against Russia cost dearly to Greece, whose exports fell sharply when those measures were introduced, the Greek first deputy foreign minister, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, was quoted as saying by the ministry’s press service.

During a meeting with Ukraine’s ambassador to Greece, Sergei Shutenko, "Varvitsiotis pointed out that our country had to pay huge economic price in terms of exports to Russia, as a result of European sanctions against Russia," the press service said.

MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/: Forecasts that the global economy will overcome the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2021 are not justified, according to a study from experts at the Higher School of Economics together with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

"Against the background of new waves of the pandemic that have engulfed many countries in recent months, it is already obvious that the initial forecasts of a full-fledged recovery of the global economy from the crisis in 2021 are not being justified," the study said.