Europe

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States, Germany, France and other G7 countries called on Friday for an independent and transparent investigation into alleged human rights abuses during the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

Ethiopia’s federal army ousted the former regional ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), from the capital Mekelle in November.

PARIS (Reuters) -New COVID-19 restrictions in France will impact economic growth this year but it is too early to say by how much, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks as he sought to push back a third wave of COVID-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has issued tenders to buy anti-riot kits and protective police gear, state procurement documents showed, ahead of a protest that allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny hope will be the largest in modern Russian history.

Navalny, 44, was jailed in February on charges he said were fabricated. He declared a hunger strike on Wednesday in a bid to force the prison holding him to provide proper medical care for what he said was acute pain in his back and legs.

PARIS (Reuters) - Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Friday that talks between world powers and Iran over its troubled 2015 nuclear deal had ended and that his assessment was that things were on the right track.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Friday fined Twitter 3.2 million roubles ($42,011.29) over its failure to delete what the authorities said was banned content.

Moscow said last month it had slowed the speed of U.S.-based Twitter inside Russia and on March 16 threatened to ban the social media service outright in a month over content ranging from child pornography to drug abuse.

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany will next week present a multi-billion-dollar proposal to Lebanese authorities to rebuild the Port of Beirut as part of efforts to entice the country’s politicians to form a government capable of warding off financial collapse, two sources said.

A chemical explosion at the port last August killed 200 people, injured thousands and destroyed entire neighbourhoods in the Lebanese capital, plunging the country deeper into its worst political and economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday that any deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine would lead to further tensions near Russia’s borders and force Moscow to take extra measures to ensure its own security.

NATO voiced concern on Thursday over what it said was a big Russian military build-up near eastern Ukraine after Russia warned that a serious escalation in the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region could “destroy” Ukraine.

OPEC+ today debated whether to keep deep oil output cuts in place or ease them after the administration of US President Joe Biden resumed Donald Trump's practice of calling OPEC leader Saudi Arabia and said energy should be kept affordable, Reuters reported.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Twitter she had spoken to Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman.

MOSCOW, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia-China relations have been qualitatively strengthened and continue to be further cemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

Bilateral ties are built on a clear-cut and objective foundation of overlapping interests, Lavrov told the Great Game talk show on Russian TV.

The "strategic interaction and multifaceted partnership" between China and Russia are not directed against anyone, but focus exclusively on the interests of the two peoples and countries, he said.

KIEV, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine will continue negotiating a ceasefire and hopes to achieve peace in Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his official Telegram channel on Thursday.

Ukraine would like to return to a more effective ceasefire regime in Donbas and is working in this direction, Zelensky said, adding that the country will continue advocating a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbas although this process "is not easy."