Europe

30 April 2020; AFP: Germany on Thursday completely banned Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from carrying out activities on its soil, as police raided mosques and venues linked to the group.

Like the European Union, Germany had until now only outlawed Hezbollah's military wing while tolerating its political wing.

But in a shift immediately welcomed by the United States and Israel, the German interior ministry said it now considered the entire movement a "Shiite terrorist organisation".

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Andrzej Duda nominated a former official from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government’s Justice Ministry as acting head of the Supreme Court on Thursday, to pick a replacement for a vocal critic of PiS who is currently in the post.

Government critics say the retirement of Malgorzata Gersdorf opens the way for PiS to select a new chief who will support the party’s judiciary overhaul the European Union has called a subversion of democratic values.

LONDON (Reuters) - Two thirds of companies in Britain have applied for the government’s emergency scheme to pay workers who are laid off temporarily during the coronavirus crisis, according to a survey published by the country’s statistics office on Thursday.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was the most popular of the government’s measures to help companies through the shutdown of much of the economy, with 66% of companies saying they had applied, while 56% had sought deferrals of value-added tax.

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The new Slovak government led by Igor Matovic won an initial confidence vote in parliament on Thursday with 93 out of the 141 deputies present supporting its programme declaration.

The centre-right coalition took over on March 21 from the centre-left Smer party, which had governed Slovakia for 12 of the past 14 years, as Slovakia wrestles with the coronavirus crisis.

GENEVA, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Despite infecting more than three million people around the world, there are still 34 countries and territories that have yet to report a single case of the novel coronavirus.

These include Comoros, Lesotho, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and tiny far-flung island nations in the Pacific such as Nauru, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.

LONDON, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday became a father again when his partner Carrie Symonds gave birth to a healthy baby boy, just weeks after he himself was hospitalised with coronavirus.

The news came as a surprise, as Symonds, 32, was not thought to be due for several weeks, but both she and the baby were said to be doing “very well”.

LONDON, April 29 (Xinhua) -- A total of 26,097 patients have died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in Britain as of Tuesday afternoon, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Wednesday.

It is the first time the government figures have included deaths in care homes and the community, in addition to those in hospitals.

The latest death toll marked an increase of 3,811 compared with the figure available Tuesday.

29 April 2020; MEMO: The British government has suffered a major defeat in its attempt to curb the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in a long running legal battle with the UK’s largest organisation campaigning for Palestinian human rights.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Russia will create a space center for monitoring emergency situations in the country, and the state space corporation Roscosmos plans to allocate more than 7.5 bln rubles ($101.2 mln) to this aim, according to the government’s procurement website.

The space center will "ensure the overall monitoring of man-made and natural emergency situations in Russia and the space system on its basis," the document says. The construction works are due to be completed by November 15, 2025.

NOVO-OGAREVO, April 28. / TASS /: Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to prepare a new package of urgent measures to support business and citizens in the near future, as well as to begin developing a nationwide plan for economic recovery in the aftermath of the epidemic, said he at a meeting in video conference with the heads of the regions on Tuesday.

"I instruct the government in the near future to develop a new, next package of urgent measures to support the economy and citizens," the President said.