Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - A government-backed loan scheme to help Britain’s small businesses survive the coronavirus lockdown comes into effect on Monday, allowing firms such as hairdressing salons, coffee shops and florists to receive emergency cash.

Finance minister Rishi Sunak, who previously opposed 100% state backing for commercial loans, announced the new facility on April 27, bowing to pressure to do more for the smallest companies after a previous scheme got off to a slow start.

OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian Air (NWC.OL) has won “strong support” from lessors for its plan to convert debt to equity, the carrier said on Monday, as shareholders prepared to cast their vote on the scheme in a meeting set to begin at 0630 GMT.

With 95% of its fleet grounded amid the coronavirus pandemic, Norwegian Air could run out of cash by mid-May unless shareholders back the plan.

MOSCOW, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Russia on Sunday reported a new single-day record with 10,633 COVID-19 cases confirmed over the last 24 hours, raising its total number of infections to 134,687, its coronavirus response center said in a statement.

Russia has been updating its single-day record every day since April 30, the center's data showed.

The death toll from the pandemic increased by 58 to 1,280 on Sunday, while 16,639 people have recovered, including 1,626 over the last 24 hours, the statement said.

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered more insight into his hospitalization for coronavirus, telling a British newspaper that he knew doctors were preparing for the worst.

The 55-year-old Johnson, who spent three nights in intensive care during his week of treatment in a London hospital after falling ill with COVID-19, told The Sun newspaper he was aware that doctors were discussing his fate.

“It was a tough old moment, I won’t deny it,” he said. “They had a strategy to deal with a ‘death of Stalin’-type scenario.’’

LONDON (AP) — National traumas or major political convulsions have been familiar and bloodied territory in the latter 20th and early 21st centuries for some of the countries currently ravaged by the coronavirus.

Whether by long and brutal wars, invasions, civil wars, revolutions, terror attacks, assassinations of leaders and anti-mafia judges, or natural disasters, distress has often shaped nations psyches. So it is for — among others — the United States, China, Iran, Italy, Spain, France, Britain and India.

ROME (AP) — While millions of people took advantage of easing coronavirus lockdowns to enjoy the outdoors, some of the world’s most populous countries reported worrisome new peaks in infections Sunday, including India, which saw its biggest single-day jump yet.

3 May 2020; MEMO: A number of Belgian NGOs have called to put pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities in order to release blocked Palestinian tax money to enable the Palestinian Authority (PA) to afford the medical kits necessary to fight the outbreak of the coronavirus, Quds Net News Agency reported on Friday.

ROME, May 3 (NNN-XINHUA) – As a national lock-down to fight the virus pandemic draws to a close, Italy posted a decrease in new infections, according to the latest numbers released by the Civil Protection Department.

The number of new infections were 1,900 in the last 24 hours, a drop from Friday’s figure, bringing the total number of infections, fatalities, and recoveries to 209,328.

The death toll registered on Saturday was 474, bringing the total to 28,710, since the pandemic first broke out on Feb 21.

LONDON, May 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Another 621 COVID-19 patients died in Britain, bringing the total virus-related death toll in the country to 28,131, Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, said Saturday.

Chairing Saturday’s Downing Street briefing, Jenrick said, 182,260 people have tested positive for the virus in Britain.

Meanwhile, 105,937 tests were carried out on Friday, Jenrick said. British Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said that, the country has met the goal of 100,000 tests per day.

PARIS, May 3 (NNN-XINHUA) – The French government decided to extend the state of health emergency until July 24, to fight against the virus pandemic, Minister of Health, Olivier Vrran, announced.

The state of health emergency, installed since Mar 24, is to be extended because lifting it, as previously scheduled on May 23, “would be premature” as the risks of an epidemic resurgence are present, the minister told a press conference.