Europe

MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/: The state trials of the improved Project 885M (Yasen-M) lead nuclear-powered submarine Kazan will begin in the first half of August, a source in the defense industry told TASS on Saturday.

"The deployment of the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan to the sea for state trials is planned for the first half of August. In case of their successful completion, the submarine is due to be delivered to the Navy before the end of 2020," the source said.

The nuclear-powered submarine Kazan is "100% technically ready for the trials," the source added.

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/: Russia will resume regular and chartered air service with the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Tanzania, Russia’s Air Transport Agency said on Friday.

"Flights will be performed by Russian and foreign air carriers on the regular and chartered basis," the agency said, adding that upper limits on the number arriving passengers have been cancelled.

The agency warned however that air carriers and passengers will be obliged to observe anti-coronavirus recommendations of Russia’s sanitary watchdog.

MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/: At least two people were injured when Israeli military helicopters attacked several Syrian military facilities in the south of the country, the state-run SANA news agency said on Saturday.

According to the agency, three Syrian army outposts were attacked by Israel.

On Friday night, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) press service said Israeli military helicopters had attacked several Syrian army facilities in the country’s south in response to the shelling of the Golan Heights earlier in the day.

MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/: The Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products at the Russian Academy of Sciences has filed a bid for an international tender of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the delivery of the coronavirus vaccine, Center Head Aidar Ishmukhametov told TASS on Saturday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Thousands of people marched in the Russian far eastern city of Khabarovsk on Saturday for the third weekend in a row, protesting at President Vladimir Putin’s handling of a regional political crisis that has sparked demonstrations.

Residents of Khabarovsk, around 3,800 miles (6,110 km) and seven time zones east of Moscow, are unhappy about the July 9 detention of the wider region’s popular regional governor, Sergei Furgal, who was arrested on murder charges he denies.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland should reject a European treaty to combat violence against women as some elements of it go against the country’s constitutional values, a government official said on Saturday.

Poland ratified the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention preventing violence against women in 2015 under the former, centrist government.

BRUSSELS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) on Friday said that Airbus had agreed with France and Spain to remove contentious benefits granted to the aircraft manufacturer, aiming to end a long-running dispute between the EU and the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over subsidies.

24 July 2020; MEMO: French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday called for sanctions to be placed on Turkey as a result of what he said were its violations of Greece and Cyprus’ maritime sovereignty in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“It is not acceptable for the maritime space of a Union member state to be violated or threatened. Those responsible must be sanctioned,” Macron said ahead of a meeting held in Paris with his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades.

PARIS (Reuters) - Europe’s Airbus said on Friday it was amending French and Spanish government loans in a “final” bid to reverse U.S. tariffs and jog the United States into settling a 16-year-old dispute over billions of dollars of aircraft subsidies.

The planemaker said it had agreed to pay higher interest rates on two loans that it received to help develop its A350 jet, which entered service in 2015.

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday he thought the country would be through the coronavirus crisis by mid-2021 but feared there may be a second spike that could overwhelm the health service.

“Whether it came from... a bat, a pangolin or however it emerged, it was a very, very nasty thing for the human race. And I think by the middle of next year we will be well on the way past it,” he told reporters.

“This country is going to bounce back stronger than ever before,” Johnson said. “We’ve still got the threat of a second spike.”