Europe

LONDON, Jul 06 (APP): The United Kingdom (UK) is committed to support the voluntary, safe and dignified return of Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan to Afghanistan.

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/: Russia does not regard the United States as a partner who is able to negotiate and lost trust in Washington as a contractor, but there is the need to start restoring it by small steps, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Izvestiya TV on Monday.

SIMFEROPOL, July 7. /TASS/: Law enforcement officials in Crimea have detained six people suspected of belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir (outlawed in Russia) international terrorist organization, defense attorney Emil Kurbedinov told TASS on Tuesday.

A source in Crimea’s law enforcement earlier reported to TASS that raids related to the Hizb ut-Tahrir case had been conducted in the region. Lawyer Islyam Velilyaev said that his client, a resident of the Oktyabrskoye settlement of the Krasnogvardeisky District, was transferred after the bust to Simferopol.

07 July 2020; MEMO: The German government’s Commissioner for Tourism, Thomas Bareiss, said Monday that tourism with Turkey will resume soon.

Bareiss told German broadcaster NTV that “every country should be treated fairly and I am pretty confident that tourism activity between Turkey and Germany will resume soon”.

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/: Russia and the United States have established a regular dialogue on Afghanistan, which could have bothered certain political circles in Washington, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated in an interview with the Argumenty i Fakty weekly, commenting on the publications about the alleged bounties on US servicemen that Moscow allegedly offered to Afghan militants.

Patrushev noted that the US administration repeatedly imposed sanctions against Russia "based on fake news."

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/: Russia has documented 6,368 cases of COVID-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in the past 24 hours, with the daily increase rate reaching a record low of 0.9%, the anti-coronavirus crisis center informed reporters on Tuesday.

In the past week, the increase rate has not surpassed 1%. In the past 12 days, under 7,000 cases of infection have been reported daily. The total number of those infected in Russia has reached 694,230.

VALLETTA, July 7 (NNN-Xinhua) — Malta and Libya should continue to work better together to prevent loss of lives at sea, Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela told his Libyan counterpart Fayez Serraj here.

Abela said the “excellent” relationship between the two countries will lead to better border controls.

Abela stressed the importance of better border control across Europe and the Mediterranean, and he thanked the Libyan coastguard and Libyan authorities for helping in saving lives at sea.

MOSCOW, July 7, 2020 (BSS/TASS) – Volunteers, who tested a vaccine against the coronavirus two weeks ago at Burdenko military hospital, are feeling well and have not experienced any side effects, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“Two weeks since the vaccination the second group of participants of coronavirus vaccine trials, conducted by the Russian Defense Ministry jointly with the Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, are in stable good health, and there haven’t been any complications or side effects,” the ministry said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Egypt, France, Germany and Jordan on Tuesday warned Israel against annexing parts of the Palestinian territories, saying that doing so could have consequences for bilateral relations.

In a statement distributed by the German Foreign Ministry, the countries, including Israel’s two leading partners in the Middle East, said their foreign ministers had discussed how to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi Sunak earmarked 3 billion pounds ($3.75 billion) to improve the energy efficiency of homes and public buildings as part of broader plans to kickstart the economy and support jobs.

Ahead of an announcement on Wednesday of its next moves to soften the hit from the coronavirus lockdown, the finance ministry said households would be given 2 billion pounds in grants — worth up to 5,000 pounds each — to cover two thirds of the costs of insulation and double-glazing of windows.