Europe

ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia said on Thursday it would widen the scope of financial support for its economy, allowing a shortening of the working week for some hard-hit firms, to soften the blow from the COVID-19 crisis.

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in March the government has pumped in 7.6 billion Croatian kuna ($1.13 billion) to support salaries in companies in trouble.

GENEVA (Reuters) - France and Germany expressed political and financial backing for the World Health Organization (WHO) in its fight against the coronavirus on Thursday, with Berlin saying it would contribute a record half billion euros in funding this year.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a news conference in Geneva, said the agency, criticised by the United States for being slow off the mark in tackling the pandemic, was getting the financial and political support it needed.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis appointed an administrator on Thursday to run the Polish diocese of Kalisz, whose bishop has been accused of shielding priests known to have sexually abused children.

The move came little more than a month after Church leaders in Poland announced that they were referring Bishop Edward Janiak to the Vatican for eventual judgement.

The Vatican said the pope had appointed Archbishop Grzegorz Rys of the city of Lodz as apostolic administrator, a temporary post. Janiak will remain bishop of Kalisz while the accusations are investigated.

PARIS, June 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a videoconference with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday, with the coronavirus pandemic and the crises in Libya and Syria on their agenda, France announced Wednesday.

The situations in Iran and Ukraine will also be raised, as well as “cooperation in the fields of health and the environment” the French presidency said.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European Central Bank policymakers argued over the timing and size of their emergency stimulus programme this month but agreed that bond buys are the best tool in the circumstances and their benefits outweigh costs, accounts of the ECB’s June 4 meeting showed on Thursday.

Seen as an indirect response to the a challenge by Germany’s Constitutional Court, the ECB defended the asset buys, arguing that ample evidence has been amassed to prove that buying government bonds was the best way to revive the euro zone economy and prop up inflation.

GENEVA, June 24 (Xinhua) -- A World Health Organization (WHO) expert said on Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic has not reached its peak in the Americas and the region is likely to see continued deaths in the coming weeks.

ATHENS, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Josep Borrell, the European Union's (EU) high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said that the EU was determined to protect its external borders during his visit to Greece on Wednesday.

Against the backdrop of increasing tensions between Greece and Turkey, Borrell visited the land border separating the two countries at Kastanies in Evros in northeastern Greece, accompanied by Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias.

PRAGUE, June 24 (Xinhua) -- The defense ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4), namely Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, met here Wednesday to discuss mutual defense alliance before the handover of the group's presidency from Czech to Poland , the Czech Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The Czech Republic presides over the V4 between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. On July 1, Poland will take over the annual presidency of the group.

MOSCOW, June 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russians go to the polls Thursday to cast early votes in a nationwide ballot on constitutional reforms that could see President Vladimir Putin remain in power until 2036.

Election officials say they are opening polls ahead of the official July 1 vote to avoid overcrowding that could spread coronavirus infections.

Masks and disinfectant gels are being made available to 110 million voters across 10 time zones, from the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Pacific Ocean.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and nine other former separatist fighters were indicted Wednesday on a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes charges, including murder, by an international prosecutor probing their actions against ethnic Serbs and others during and after Kosovo’s 1998-99 independence war with Serbia.

Because of the indictment, Thaci has postponed his trip to Washington, where he was to meet Saturday for talks at the White House with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.