Europe

PRAGUE (Reuters) - President Milos Zeman sought on Sunday to defuse a row with China over a visit by the head of the Czech Senate to Taiwan, calling the speaker’s trip a “boyish provocation”.

Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil grabbed headlines last week when he told Taiwan’s parliament “I am a Taiwanese” in a speech that echoed the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s defiance of communism in Berlin in 1963.

PARIS (Reuters) - A coronavirus vaccine that Sanofi (SASY.PA) is developing with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) is likely to be priced at less than 10 euros ($11.80) per shot if it is approved for use, Sanofi’s chief in France said on Saturday.

“The price is not totally set ... We are assessing production costs for the coming months ... We will be below 10 euros,” Olivier Bogillot told France Inter radio.

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain will not blink first in Brexit trade negotiations with the European Union and is not scared of a no-deal exit at the end of the year, the country’s top Brexit negotiator warned the bloc on Sunday.

Britain left the EU on Jan. 31 but talks have so far made little headway on agreeing a new trade deal for when a status-quo transition arrangement ends in December.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Three migrants were rescued off the coast of Malta on Sunday after they jumped overboard from a tanker that has been denied entry by several countries since a rescue operation a month ago.

The captain of the Maersk Etienne chemical tanker had warned last week that, while the migrants had no critical physical problems, the mental strain for those onboard was getting worse.

“The situation onboard Maersk Etienne escalated further this morning when three migrants jumped overboard,” a Maersk spokeswoman said on Sunday.

PARIS (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said in Sunday it was urgent to reach an agreement on Brexit trade talks and he blamed the stalemate on Britain’s attitude.

“The British people do not seem to understand that if one wants to negotate a good deal, one must talk about all issues,” Le Drian told France Inter radio.

“It’s not going well, with only two months left, it is urgent, the countdown has started. We prefer to reach a deal but we need to discuss the whole package, including fisheries, to avoid a no-deal,” he added.

HELSINKI, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Finland's Center Party on Saturday elected Minister of Science and Culture Annika Saarikko as new chairperson at its convention in Oulu, northern Finland.

Center is one of the five parties in the current Finnish center-left coalition government under Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Saarikko, 36, got 51 percent of the 2,264 votes and was elected in the first round. Of the other candidates, incumbent chairperson Katri Kulmuni, who had been running for re-election, failed with 773 votes.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany on Sunday increased pressure on Russia over the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, warning that a lack of support by Moscow in the investigation could “force” Germany to rethink the fate of a German-Russian gas pipeline project.

“I hope the Russians won’t force us to change our position regarding the Nord Stream 2” pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told weekly Bild am Sonntag.

05 Sep 2020; MEMO: Russian gas exports to Turkey have declined to the lowest level since the 1990s due to high prices and searching for alternative markets, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote a report with the headline Expiration of Turkish market, expecting that exports of Russian gas to Turkey could decline to eight or nine billion cubic metres.

05 Sep 2020; MEMO: Israel and Kosovo have agreed to establish diplomatic ties and Kosovo, along with Serbia, will open embassies in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu’s statement came shortly after US President Donald Trump made a similar announcement in Washington, where he met with leaders of Serbia and Kosovo as they agreed to normalize economic ties between them.

MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/: Eight Russian fighter jets of the Southern Military District have been scrambled to intercept three US strategic bombers over the Black Sea, Russia’s National Defense Control Center told reporters on Friday.

According to the center, on September 4 Russian radars detected three B-52N strategic bombers of the US Air Force that were approaching Russia’s sovereign airspace.