Europe

27 Sep 2020; MEMO: French-backed tension between East Mediterranean states and Turkey boosts French arms sales, Paul Iddon, contributor to Forbes, revealed on Thursday.

GLION, Switzerland (Reuters) - Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to exchange around 1,000 prisoners, including 15 Saudis, as part of trust-building steps aimed at reviving a stalled peace process, the United Nations and sources said on Sunday.

The Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, and the Houthi movement they have been battling for over five years, in late 2018 signed a deal to swap some 15,000 detainees split between both sides but the pact has been slowly and only partially implemented.

LONDON, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Police has shut down an anti-coronavirus restrictions protest in central London on Saturday because crowds have not complied with social distancing rules.

At least three protesters and one police officer were reportedly injured and treated by medical staff after they clashed at the anti-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square.

Thousands had gathered in the "we do not consent" rally to protest against government rules, with very few wearing masks.

GENEVA (AP) — Voters in Switzerland cast ballots Sunday on a nationalist party’s proposal to limit the number of European Union citizens allowed to live and work in their country.

Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported after polls closed at noon that projections based on partial counts indicated most voters had rejected the measure, which was championed by the populist Swiss People’s Party. It had proposed giving preferential access to jobs, social protection and benefits to people from Switzerland over those from the 27-nation bloc that surrounds it.

PARIS (AP) — France’s interior minister promised Sunday to protect France’s Jewish community from extremists after a double stabbing in Paris blamed on Islamic terrorism.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited a synagogue Sunday ahead of the evening start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and said more than 7,000 police and soldiers are protecting Jewish services this weekend. France has Europe’s largest Jewish community.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Polls opened Sunday in Romania’s municipal election, which is being seen as a test of how the next general election on Dec. 6 will unfold for the country’s minority-led government.

Some 19 million registered voters were choosing local officials, council presidents and mayors to fill more than 43,000 positions across the European Union nation.

The election should reveal the strength of the National Liberal Party (NLP), which has controlled Romania’s minority government since the fall from power late last year of the Social Democrat Party.

MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/: Hackers carried out attacks several months ago on computers of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine’s developers, Director of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology said on Saturday.

MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/: Russia’s commission for selecting cosmonauts will suggest extending the current selection until December in a letter to Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin, the press service of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center told TASS.

"The selection commission made the decision to suggest the head of Roscosmos extending the selection until mid-December ," the press service said.

The press service said the commission examines several would-be cosmonauts every week and has already selected a number of "candidates to candidates."

KIEV, September 26. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has ordered to suspend all flights of An-26 military transport planes until the causes of the deadly crash near Kharkov are established, the deputy chief of the president’s office Oleg Tatarov said.

"The president ordered to suspend all flights of these planes until all causes of the tragedy are established. This order is being implemented," Tatarov told Ukraine-24 TV channel on Saturday.

MOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus cases grew by 7,523 in the past day, a record high since June 22, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Saturday.

According to its data, the daily growth rate in cases rose to 0.7%. The previous week the figure did not exceed 0.6%. The total number of COVID-19 cases in Russia rose to 1,143,571.

Some new 1,792 COVID-19 cases were recorded in Moscow, 232 in St. Petersburg, 204 in the Moscow Region, 189 in the Rostov Region, 166 in the Nizhny Novgorod Region and 159 in the Voronezh Region.