Europe

BELFAST, June 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Three men have been arrested in the biggest drug seizure carried out by the National Crime Agency in Northern Ireland.

An estimated 600kgs of herbal cannabis were seized when a lorry was stopped in Templepatrick in the early hours of Wednesday.

The drugs, with an estimated value of £10m-£12m, were discovered among a “cover load” of vegetables.

NCA and PSNI officers took part in the operation.

It is understood the vehicle had travelled through Great Britain and crossed into Northern Ireland on a ferry to Larne.

BRUSSELS, June 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The European Central Bank has taken further dramatic measures to boost the eurozone economies, amid their biggest recession since World War Two.

Just months after emergency measures, the central bank said it would increase the size of its bond buying programme by €600bn to €1.35tn.

The programme will run until June 2021, six months longer than planned.

The move will keep borrowing costs low for countries and firms as they face huge budget deficits and recessions.

MOSCOW, June 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A US military plane carrying 150 donated ventilators to help coronavirus patients landed in Moscow on Thursday in the second such delivery to Russia, the US embassy said.

The plane brought the number of US-manufactured ventilators sent by the United States to Russia to 200, after the first delivery arrived two weeks ago.

US ambassador John Sullivan was at Vnukovo airport to meet the plane along with a representative of the Moscow hospital that will distribute the ventilators.

LONDON, June 4 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson opened the Global Vaccine Summit virtually on Thursday, urging countries and organizations to pledge funding for vaccinations to save millions of lives in the poorest countries and protect the world from future outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The summit hosted by Britain aims to mobilize at least 7.4 billion U.S. dollars for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in additional resources to protect the next generation with vaccines, reduce disease inequality and create a healthier, safer and more prosperous world.

LONDON (AP) — A vaccine summit has raised billions of dollars to immunize children in developing countries as experts wrestled with how any potential vaccine against the coronavirus might be distributed globally — and fairly.

The United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have urged that “a people’s vaccine” be developed for COVID-19 that would be freely available to everyone, calling it a “moral imperative.”

BELGRADE, June 4. /TASS/: Russia has been and will remain Serbia’s friend, these ties will not be damaged, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Thursday, answering a question about the change of leadership of Russia’s Rossotrudnichestvo, federal agency overseeing promotion of the Russian culture overseas.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: The fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic should help establish a reaction algorithm for inevitable outbreaks of diseases in the future, head of the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Anna Popova said during an online discussion held within the Valdai Discussion Club.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: Russia has set up the basic space segment of its missile attack early warning system to continuously monitor US territory for possible ballistic missile launches. The segment’s four satellites are fully coping with their task, a source in the domestic defense industry told TASS on Thursday.

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/: A launch pad for Russia’s advanced Angara Rocket will be sent to the Vostochny space center in Russia’s Far East in July via the Northern Sea Route, the Center For Operation Of Ground Based Space Infrastructure (TsENKI) said in a video uploaded to YouTube.

"Already in July, the Barents cargo ship, carrying the launch pad will embark upon its journey along the Northern Sea Route," the video says.

BERLIN, June 4. /TASS/: German Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas claimed that the investigators are in possession of proof that a Russian national, in cooperation with other people, had conducted a hacker attack on the Bundestag in the interests of the Russian intelligence. He claimed this in an interview for Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, published by the German Federal Foreign Office Thursday.