Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - British Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said on Sunday that there was a post-Brexit trade deal to be done with the European Union providing the bloc compromised its stance, days after both sides said talks were making little progress.

The United Kingdom left the EU on Jan. 31 but the main terms of its membership remain in place for a transition period until the end of this year to allow it time to negotiate a free trade agreement.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Temporary unemployment schemes operating across Europe could struggle to save the jobs of leisure and travel sector workers facing drawn-out or partial recoveries from the COVID-19 pandemic, even if they help industries that rebound quickly.

Short-term unemployment or furlough schemes have taken in a quarter of Britain’s workforce, nearly two-thirds of those employed by France’s private sector and many millions across Europe.

PARIS, May 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) – After 26 years on the run, Felicien Kabuga, alleged to have been a leading figure in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, has been arrested in Paris, France’s public prosecutor’s office and the police announced on Saturday.

Kabuga, now aged 84, once one of Rwanda’s richest men and accused of financing the genocide, has been living under a false identity in a flat, in Asnieres-Sur-Seine on Paris suburbs, said the statement.

LONDON, May 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Another 468 COVID-19 patients died in Britain, as of Friday afternoon, bringing the total coronavirus-related death toll in the country to 34,466, the Department of Health and Social Care said Saturday.

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

As of Saturday morning, 240,161 people have tested positive for the virus in the country, said the department.

BRUSSELS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in European countries.

PARIS -- France had registered 96 new deaths from COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, fewer than the previous two 24-hour periods, while the balance of the coronavirus-related hospitalization remains negative, France's Health Ministry said on Saturday.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: Russia has launched the production of its advanced Su-35 fighter jets under a contract with Egypt, a military diplomatic source told TASS on Saturday.

"The Gagarin Aircraft Plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur has launched the production of Su-35, intended to be delivered to the Egyptian Air Force under the contract signed in 2018," the source said.

"The timeframe for first batch’s delivery to the Egyptian side has not been set yet, due to restrictions imposed by the novel coronavirus outbreak," he added.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: The third Il-76 aircraft carrying Russian military specialists who helped fight the coronavirus outbreak in Serbia has landed near Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

The plane arrived at Chkalovsky Airfield in the Moscow Region. According to the Defense Ministry, "mandatory sanitary and epidemiological measures are being taken."

Earlier reports said that over 40 military servicemen and four units of equipment would be transported to Russia from Serbia.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: The coronavirus vaccine might be registered in Russia in August, Director of the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Gunzburg said in an interview with Rossiya 1 channel.

"I believe by the end of the summer [a vaccine will be registered]. I would say so. In August, I hope that everything will go as planned and there will be no surprises," he said.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: The first payments of subsidies to Russian airlines affected by the coronavirus pandemic are scheduled to begin before the end of May. The total volume of subsidies will amount to 23.4 bln rubles ($318.5 mln), of which Aeroflot may claim 7.9 bln rubles ($107.54 mln), Russian Transport Minister Yevgeny Dietrich told reporters.

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: Passenger transportation in rail transport is possible this fall - provided that the second wave of the pandemic does not come to Russia, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Transport Vladimir Tokarev told reporters on Saturday.