Europe

MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/: The unrest in Minnesota demonstrates that serious human rights problems have accumulated in the United States, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

"This incident is not the first in the string of incidents exposing lawlessness and unjustified violence by ‘guardians of law and order’ in the United States," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. "Such high-profile crimes are being committed by US police officers too often. The US has evidently accumulated endemic problems in the human rights sphere."

MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/: Washington dealt a blow to the international framework for cooperation in healthcare at the moment when the world needed to join forces, Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS on Friday.

The comment was made following US President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate his country’s ties with the World Health Organization (WHO).

MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/: The residence permit of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who is staying in Russia, has been automatically extended until July 15 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s measures to curb the infection, a law enforcement source told TASS.

Snowden’s residence permit expired on April 30. He submitted all documents for its extension in mid-March. In late March, the Russian Interior Ministry decided to automatically extend residence permits for all holders.

MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia rose by 8,952 to 396,575 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Saturday.

That said, the total number of cases has increased by 2.3%. At the same time, the number of coronavirus recoveries has risen by 8,212 (5.1%) to 167,469.

30 May 2020; AFP: Britain and the EU will attempt to revive their imperilled trade talks on Tuesday, entering a crucial week of negotiations that could mark the final hope for a deal.

Hundreds of officials will hold video talks all week from London and Brussels, the fourth and last scheduled round of negotiations since Britain formally left the EU on January 31.

The previous round ended in acrimony with the EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier asking his UK counterpart David Frost to watch his "tone" in a tetchy exchange of letters.

30 May 2020; AFP: German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not attend an in-person summit of G7 leaders that US President Donald Trump has suggested he will host despite concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, a German government spokesman said Saturday.

Leaders from the Group of Seven, which the United States heads this year, had been scheduled to meet by videoconference in late June after COVID-19 scuttled plans to gather in-person at Camp David, the US presidential retreat in the state of Maryland.

LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping is so nervous about the position of the Communist Party that he is risking a new Cold War and imperilling Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s pre-eminent financial hub, the last British governor of the territory told Reuters.

Chris Patten said Xi’s ‘thuggish’ crackdown in Hong Kong risked triggering an outflow of capital and people from the city which funnels the bulk of foreign investment into mainland China.

LONDON (Reuters) - A third member of a scientific advisory body to the British government has warned that it is too soon to lift the COVID-19 lockdown because the test and trace system is not yet fully operational.

Professor Peter Horby, chairman of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said Britain could not afford to lose control of the virus.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s government is planning to launch a big stimulus package before the summer with a focus on creating jobs and infrastructure projects to help drag the economy out of the coronavirus crisis, the Financial Times reported.

Finance minister Rishi Sunak declined on Friday to say whether he would bring forward his next budget statement, due in the autumn, to spell out how he will tackle Britain’s surging debt.

BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa’s management board has accepted a more favourable set of demands from the European Commission in exchange for approval of a 9 billion euro ($10 billion) government bailout, the carrier said on Saturday, paving the way for its rescue.

The agreement comes after the airline’s supervisory board on Wednesday rejected an initial deal with Brussels including conditions that were significantly more painful.