Europe

MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for at least one year without any preconditions. He voiced this proposal during the Russian Security Council meeting Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday it was now time to prepare for a no-trade deal Brexit as the European Union had refused to negotiate seriously and that unless Brussels changed course there would not be an agreement.

A tumultuous “no deal” finale to the United Kingdom’s five-year Brexit crisis would sow chaos through the delicate supply chains that stretch across Britain, the EU and beyond - just as the economic hit from the coronavirus pandemic worsens.

MILAN (Reuters) - It is important not to withdraw too early the policies put in place by governments and central banks to counter the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, European Central Bank Governing Council member Ignazio Visco said on Friday.

Visco, who is also the governor of the Bank of Italy, told Bloomberg Television the economy would not return to the situation pre-dating the virus crisis for another couple of years.

PARIS (Reuters) - France plans to raise 20 billion euros ($23 billion) in quasi-equity loans for small firms hit by the coronavirus crisis by offering investors a state guarantee against the first 2 billion euros in losses, officials said.

Fearing failures among firms which were already saddled with record levels of debt before the crisis, the French government wants the programme up and running by early next year as it battles the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Belarus has put opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on its wanted list for allegedly making calls to overthrow the constitutional order, the interior ministry of close ally Russia said on Friday.

Tsikhanouskaya fled to neighbouring Lithuania shortly after a disputed Aug. 9 election and has since met European political leaders and called for her country’s longtime president Alexander Lukashenko, to leave power.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders have agreed to hold video conferences almost on a weekly basis to coordinate national measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, as the continent battles a spike in infections.

Video-conferences are less effective for reaching complex compromises, diplomats say, though they are more practical at present than in-person meetings that increase the risks of infection among leaders and their staff.

Brussels, Oct 16 (AP/PTI) With both sides digging in their heels as another Brexit deadline passed Thursday, the European Union and Britain demanded concessions from one another in talks on a basic trade deal that would soften the economic blow of the coronavirus pandemic for all.

The EU leaders meeting in a summit on the day British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had set as a potential cutoff point for the acrimonious negotiations said in a joint statement it was now up to the UK to make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible."

(Reuters) - Britain’s data protection watchdog said on Friday it has fined British Airways 20 million pounds - its biggest such penalty to date - for failing to protect data that left more than 400,000 of its customers’ details the subject of a 2018 cyber attack.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said its investigators found BA should have identified weaknesses in its security and resolved them with measures available at the time, which would have prevented the data breach.

MOSCOW (AP) — Kyrgyzstan’s embattled President Sooronbai Jennbekov said Thursday he was resigning following protests over a disputed parliamentary election, the third time in 15 years that a leader of the Central Asian country has been ousted by a popular uprising.

LONDON (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization’s Europe office said the exponential surge of coronavirus cases across the continent has warranted the restrictive measures being taken, calling them “absolutely necessary” to stop the pandemic.

In a meda briefing on Thursday, Dr. Hans Kluge warned that even more drastic steps might be needed in such “unprecedented times.”