Europe

VALLETTA (Reuters) - Keith Schembri, the former chief of staff of ex-Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was arraigned in court late on Saturday charged with money laundering, fraud and corruption, police said. He entered a plea of not guilty, court officials said.

Schembri resigned in November 2019, shortly after Yorgen Fenech, a close friend of his, was charged with masterminding the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in October 2017. Fenech pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Prime Minister Muscat resigned two months later.

SOFIA, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in Bulgaria has reached 302,480 after 2,541 new infections were reported in the past 24 hours, official data showed on Sunday.

The death toll in the country has risen to 11,966 after 34 patients died from COVID-19 in the last day, while the number of recoveries rose by 641 to 234,237, according to the country's COVID-19 information portal.

At the same time, the current number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive-care patients rose to 8,545 and 691 respectively.

ATHENS, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Five southern European Union (EU) member states on the frontline of irregular migration flows in recent years urged their EU partners to show more solidarity in addressing the challenge, during a ministerial meeting here on Saturday.

Migration and interior ministers of Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Malta discussed the common problems they are facing and issued a joint statement on their proposals for the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — The eruption of a long-dormant volcano that sent streams of lava flowing across a small valley in southwestern Iceland is easing and shouldn’t interfere with air travel, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said Saturday.

The fissure eruption began at around 8:45 p.m. Friday in the Geldinga Valley, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of the capital, Reykjavik, the Met Office said. The eruption is “minor” and there were no signs of ash or dust that could disrupt aviation, the agency said.

LONDON (AP) — Britain said Saturday that half the country’s adults have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as the government races to reach everyone over age 18 by the end of July.

The National Health Service has put shots in the arms of 26.9 million people, or 51% of the adult population, according to the latest government statistics. The NHS passed the halfway point by delivering 589,689 first doses on Friday, the highest daily total since the mass vaccination program began in early December.

BERLIN (AP) — Protesters in Germany clashed with police Saturday over coronavirus measures, with officers using water cannons, pepper spray and batons against people trying to break through police barriers, German news agency dpa reported.

Protests against government measures to rein in the pandemic also were reported in several other countries across Europe, including Austria, Britain, Finland, Romania and Switzerland.

VIENNA, March 20. /TASS/: The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project will hopefully be completed despite threats of US sanctions, said Rainer Seele, the CEO of Austrian oil and gas company OMV, which is Gazprom’s partner in the project.

"I hope for it [the project’s completion]. This project has huge significance for security of supplies to the European gas market, that is why Europe has the responsibility to make decisions," Seele said in an interview with the Saturday issue of the Wiener Zeitung newspaper, excerpts from which were published by the Austria Press Agency on Friday.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Agency has rescheduled the launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket, expected to deliver 38 satellites to orbit, for a backup date, the agency said in a statement on Telegram.

"The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and 38 foreign spacecraft, from the Baikonur spaceport, has been rescheduled for a backup date," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: The so-called "smart voting" is a meaningless project aimed at interfering in Russia’s domestic affairs, State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on Telegram on Saturday.

Earlier, several political scientists described Volodin’s initiative to formalize the election promises of candidates as an alternative to the Smart Voting project.

MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus cases rose by 9,632 to 4,447,570 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Saturday.

According to data from the crisis center, the coronavirus growth rate is 0.22%.

In particular, 1,728 coronavirus patients were identified in Moscow in the past day, 899 in St. Petersburg (the lowest number since November 1, 2020), 651 in the Moscow region, 352 in the Nizhny Novgorod region, 241 in the Rostov region, 211 in the Samara region and 207 in the Voronezh region.