Europe

PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron named Jean Castex, a top civil servant and local mayor who orchestrated France’s coronavirus lockdown exit strategy, as his new prime minister on Friday as he acted to reinvent his administration and win back voters.

Castex, 55, hails from the centre-right of French politics and served for two years as the second-highest ranking official in the Elysee Palace during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday urged Britons to act responsibly when pubs reopen this weekend and not to blow the collective effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The latest phase in a gradual reopening of the British economy on Saturday will see pubs in England open for the first time since mid-March, as well as restaurants, museums, hotels and other businesses.

03 July 2020; MEMO: The German parliament passed a resolution yesterday urging the government in Berlin to use its close ties with Israel to prevent Tel Aviv from annexing large swaths of the occupied West Bank.

BRUSSELS, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The three presidents of the leading European Union (EU) institutions will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel next week to discuss the thorny issue of the bloc's proposal to revive its economy by raising debt, the European Commission said on Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

02 July 2020; MEMO: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that his country does not support Israel’s proposed annexation. Johnson made his views known in an opinion piece for Yedioth Ahronoth.

“I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead,” he wrote. “If it does, the UK will not recognise any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties.”

CORFU (Greece), July 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Greece reopened flights to its flagship island destinations as it raced to salvage a portion of the annual tourism season that is vital to its economy.

Over 100 flights are expected at 14 regional airports that include the popular islands of Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes and Crete, airport manager Fraport said.

All airports in the country are now receiving international flights and the ports of Patras and Igoumenista will again receive ferries from Italy.

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/: The legitimacy of the Russian constitution amended in 2020 is higher than in 1993, since it was supported by almost twice as many people, Andrei Klishas, chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) and co-chair of the task force for drafting the constitutional amendments, told TASS Thursday.

SEVASTOPOL, July 2. /TASS/: The 13th Ship Repair Plant has completed the dockside repairs of the Guards missile cruiser Moskva, which is the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, and is beginning to float it out from the dry dock, the Shipyard Spokesman Sergei Gorbachev told TASS on Thursday.

The warship was placed in the dock on April 22. The dockside repairs proceeded along with the cruiser’s maintenance, which was also done by the Shipyard’s specialists.

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/: The Kremlin considers the outcome of the vote on amendments to the Russian Constitution as a triumph.

"Certainly, [the Kremlin] calls the [outcome of the vote on amendments to the Constitution] a triumph. Actually, de facto a triumphal referendum was held on trust in President [Vladimir] Putin," Peskov told reporters.