Europe

(Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi Sunak is set to increase a tax on business to pay for an extension to COVID-19 support schemes in the budget next month, The Sunday Times reported bit.ly/3ujaBcU.

Sunak, in his speech on March 3, will announce he is increasing corporation tax from 19 pence in the pound and will outline a pathway where it rises to 23 pence in the pound by the time of the next general election, the report said. The move will raise an expected 12 billion pounds ($16.8 billion) a year, the report added.

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Russia would only consider releasing Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny if its leadership was hit with painful personal sanctions, a close ally said ahead of a meeting with European policymakers in Brussels on Sunday.

European foreign ministers are expected to agree on Monday to impose sanctions on allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to the jailing of Navalny.

MOSCOW, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Russia has confirmed the first case of human infection with the avian influenza A(H5N8) virus in the world, a Russian sanitary official announced on Saturday.

Scientists have isolated the genetic material of this bird flu virus in seven workers of a poultry farm in south Russia, where an outbreak among fowls was reported in December, said Anna Popova, head of the country's consumer rights and human well-being watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.

BERLIN, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Germany on Saturday accused German tabloid BILD of hyping up conspiracy theories over the origins of the novel coronavirus, saying its reports are "tasteless and shameless."

In a statement, the Chinese Embassy said the so-called "study" cited by BILD is not a logical and science-based report at all. Shortly after being published, the "study" was widely questioned and sharply criticized by the scientific circle as well as the media and the public in Germany.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: Russia’s authorities never close opposition mass media outlets and never impose sanctions on their own citizens, that is why it is not right to draw any parallels between Moscow’s and Kiev’s policies in these spheres, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday.

"As they say, there is a world of difference here," he said, adding that the Kremlin cannot cite any examples of persecution of the opposition in Russia like the ones in Ukraine.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: The developers of Sputnik V have announced the beginning of trials of a combination vaccine with AstraZeneca, as follows from the post on the Russian vaccine’s Twitter account.

"Using Sputnik V shot as a second shot for AZ vaccine will eliminate the need to wait for 3 months. Clinical trials of this approach have already started," the Twitter post reads.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: The Moscow City Court has ruled that the decision of the court of first instance to convert Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case into real prison time was legal and also took into account the time he spent under house arrest, TASS reports from the courtroom.

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/: Russia doesn’t meet any reciprocity in its attempts to normalize relations with the West, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Saturday.

Commenting on the remarks made by several Western politicians at the Munich Security Conference, Peskov noted, "Russia remains interested in getting good relations back on track with the United States and the European Union."

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will produce 88 million vaccine doses in the first half of this year, including 83 million doses of its Sputnik V shot, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said on state TV on Saturday.

Of these, 59 million will be released for the national inoculation programme, she added. Russia has produced 11.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses so far, of which 7.9 million have been released for the national inoculation programme, she added.

It will produce 30.5 million doses by the end of the first quarter of this year, she added.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Saturday approved a third coronavirus vaccine for domestic use, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on state TV, though large-scale clinical trials of the shot, labelled CoviVac and produced by the Chumakov Centre, have yet to begin.

Russia has already approved two COVID-19 vaccines, including the Sputnik V shot, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, following a similar approach of granting approval before seeing any late-stage trial results.