Europe

MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/: Two groups of volunteers, comprising Russian servicemen and civilians, have been selected for clinical trials of Russia’s vaccine against the novel coronavirus, the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters on Wednesday.

"In order to participate in clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine, two groups of volunteers have been selected. The first group comprises servicemen who gave their voluntary consent to take part in the trials (officers, warrant officers, contract servicemen). The second group comprises civilian volunteers," the ministry said.

MOSCOW, June 10./TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was not invited to attend the Victory parade in Moscow on June 24, since Ukraine is not a CIS member country de facto, and since it has not signaled its wish to share the joy of Victory Day celebrations, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/: The Project 21631 small missile ship Graivoron armed with Kalibr cruise missiles will be delivered to the Black Sea Fleet by the end of 2020. The latest missile corvette entered dockside trials on Wednesday, Russian Navy Spokesman Captain 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said.

10 June 2020; AFP: Swedish prosecutors on Wednesday named their main suspect in the 1986 killing of prime minister Olof Palme, closing the murder case that has gripped the Scandanavian country for more than three decades.

The suspect was named as Stig Engstrom, a former advertising consultant known for his staunch opposition to Palme's leftwing policies and who is now dead.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil fell more than 2% towards $40 a barrel on Wednesday after a report showed a rise in crude inventories in the United States, reviving concerns about oversupply and weak demand due to the coronavirus crisis.

The report from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said crude stocks rose by 8.4 million barrels, rather than falling as analysts forecast. [API/S] The U.S. government’s official stocks figures are due out later on Wednesday. [EIA/S]

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain risks a big hit to trade and jobs if it cannot strike a post-Brexit deal with the European Union by the end of 2020 or fails to extend its current Brexit transition, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Wednesday.

Risks around Britain’s future relationship with the EU were compounding the uncertainty about the duration of COVID-19 restrictions on the economy, the OECD said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Deepening the European Union’s capital market has become a priority to help the economy recover from COVID-19 and reduce reliance on the City of London, a report for the EU said on Wednesday.

The EU has long sought to encourage companies to issue stocks and bonds to grow, as in the United States. But they still rely on banks for funding after efforts to build a capital markets union (CMU) failed to make significant headway.

LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European Central Bank officials are drawing up a scheme to cope with potentially hundreds of billions of euros of unpaid loans in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The project, which comes as Europe mobilises trillions of euros to bolster the region’s economy, is aimed at shielding commercial banks from any second fallout from the crisis, if rising unemployment chokes off the income needed to repay loans.

LONDON, June 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Another 286 COVID-19 patients died in Britain as of Monday afternoon, bringing the total death toll in the country to 40,883, the British Department of Health and Social Care said Tuesday.

The figures include deaths in all settings, including hospitals, care homes and the wider community.

As of Monday morning, 289,140 people have tested positive in Britain, a daily increase of 1,387, according to the department.

MOSCOW, June 10 (NNN-TASS) – Despite its long-term reliance on Russian spacecraft, the United States does not take the Russian space programme seriously, said Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.

“When our partners finally managed to conduct a successful test on their spacecraft, there were nothing but jokes and mockery directed at us,” Rogozin said, in this week’s Russian version of Forbes, noting that the American space industry should have thanked Russia instead.