Europe

MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/: Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister Andrey Belousov on Friday held a meeting with representatives of the government commission to improve the sustainability of the development of the Russian economy and members of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. The meeting participants discussed measures to normalize business activity after removing the restrictions introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic, a source close to one of the participants told TASS.

MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/: Russia may lift the coronavirus lockdowns in late May or early June, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said on Friday.

"We understand that these lockdowns, depending on the region and the situation, will be lifted either in late May or early June," he said in an interview with the Vesti news program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

Commenting on the forecasts for the coronavirus situation, he said that the epidemic is expected to subside to sporadic cases by the end of this summer.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,251 to 168,551, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday.

The reported death toll rose by 147 to 7,369, the tally showed.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview on Saturday there was a growing risk of a hard Brexit in the midst of the coronavirus crisis as negotiations between Britain and the European Union so far on the future trade relationship had yielded hardly any progress.

Britain left the EU in January, and talks with the bloc are now focused on setting new trading terms from 2021, when London’s status-quo transition period ends. However the talks quickly hit an impasse when negotiations resumed last month, according to diplomats and officials.

ROME, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Italy on Friday posted a decrease in COVID-19 intensive care cases and hospitalizations as the death toll pushed past the 30,000 mark, according to the latest numbers released by the country's Civil Protection Department.

The nationwide total of active infections fell by 1,663 cases to 87,961, down from a total of 89,624 infections on Thursday.

GENEVA, May 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Many thousands of migrants have been left stranded by the coronavirus pandemic, unable to move due to lockdowns and border closures around the globe, the United Nations said.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration said in southeast Asia, east Africa and Latin America, many were attempting to return to their countries of origin but were unable to do so.

Migrant camps were “very prone” to spreading the disease, IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino told reporters in an online briefing.

LONDON, May 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Bank of England has warned that the coronavirus pandemic will push the UK economy towards its deepest recession on record.

It said the economy was on course to shrink 14% this year, based on the lockdown being relaxed in June.

Scenarios drawn up by the Bank to illustrate the economic impact said Covid-19 was “dramatically reducing jobs and incomes in the UK”.

Policymakers voted unanimously to keep interest rates at a record low of 0.1%.

LONDON, May 07 (APP): A new biological reagent was now available to labs around the United Kingdom and the world that would help them to set up and develop accurate diagnostic tests for coronavirus (COVID-19).

According to a UK Government statement,”the reagent is intended to be used in tests that confirm whether an individual is currently infected with the virus”.

The reagent can be used as a positive control for the testing systems used to detect the presence of COVID-19.

MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/: The sharp drop of oil prices in the past several months highlights the beginning of the post-oil period in the global economy, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an exclusive interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman.

"I have repeatedly said that we should forget about the oil sector. Today, with such oil prices, one can say that the post-oil period has started," Aliyev said.

MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/: International structures should launch mechanisms that will allow delivering punishment for failing to implement their decisions to avoid losing authority on the global arena, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an exclusive interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman.

"The authority of an international organizations primarily depends on implementation of decisions it takes, and there is a lot of room for reform there," Aliyev noted. "Even resolutions of the UN Security Council adopted many years ago are not honored."