Europe

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: It is necessary to start this year’s seasonal influenza vaccination in Moscow earlier than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin told the Rossiya 24 TV channel on Thursday.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Visitors of the Army-2020 international military and technical forum will be able to see the Vityaz-D unmanned deep-sea submersible that submerged to the Mariana Trench in the Pacific on May 8, Advanced Research Foundation CEO Andrei Grigoryev told TASS on Thursday.

"The forum will feature a number of our developments, including the Vityaz-D. This will be the vehicle that submerged to the bottom of the Mariana Trench on May 8, 2020," the chief executive said.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Moscow’s Golovinsky District Court on Thursday sentenced Trevor Reed, an American student, to 9 years in penal colony for violent assault of a police officer, the court told TASS.

"The court found Reed guilty under part 2, Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the use of violence against officials) and sentenced him to 9 years in general security penal colony," the source said.

MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters that Moscow does not yet have full information regarding the detention of Russians in Belarus and expects the situation to be clarified.

"Today, our ambassador held a meeting in the Foreign Ministry and with [our] colleagues in Minsk. We hope that we will receive comprehensive information about what happened as a result of that communication and through communication channels between our special services," he explained.

London, Jul 30 (AP/PTI) Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday that its second-quarter earnings plunged 82% as the COVID-19 pandemic slashed energy prices and demand.

Shell reported that adjusted profit, which excludes one-time items and changes in the value of inventories, dropped to 638 million from 3.46 billion in the same period last year.

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s economic slump may not be quite as bad as forecast and activity in the euro zone’s second biggest economy could return to pre-crisis levels in early 2022, the central bank governor has said.

Francois Villeroy de Galhau told Paris Match magazine that President Emmanuel Macron’s government must spend wisely to rebuild trust in the economy. Household and private sector confidence were the key to a relatively swift recovery, he said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain could impose quarantine measures on people arriving from certain countries within days, health minister Matt Hancock said on Thursday, without specifying which countries.

Asked in a BBC radio interview whether it was possible that in the next few days there could be a change in the list of countries to which quarantine measures apply, Hancock replied: “Yes ... We just have to be realistic about the fact that these things change, because the pandemic changes in other countries.”

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine’s law enforcement authorities will consider an issue of a possible extradition of suspected Russian mercenaries, detained in Belarus, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Belarusian security forces detained more than 30 suspected Russian mercenaries near Minsk after receiving information that more than 200 fighters had entered the country to destabilise it ahead of a presidential election.

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus suspects a group of more than 30 Russian mercenaries it detained of planning “acts of terrorism” in the country, Belarusian Security Council State Secretary Andrey Raukov said on Thursday.

Up to 200 mercenaries are still in Belarus and law enforcement agents are looking for them, Raukov told reporters.

BERLIN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- The German government's transatlantic coordinator Peter Beyer criticized on Wednesday the plan of U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany.

A reduction of U.S. troops was "not in the security interest of Germany or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)," Beyer announced on Twitter. The plan would "make no geopolitical sense" for the United States either.