Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Queen Elizabeth has asked that there be no gun salutes to mark her birthday on Tuesday, a reporter for ITV News said on Twitter, saying that the monarch did not feel it appropriate in light of the coronavirus crisis.

Gun salutes, in which blank rounds are fired from various location across London, are typically used by the royal family to mark special occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays. The Queen’s 94th birthday is on April 21.

MOSCOW, Apr 18 (NNN-TASS) – Russia registered a daily record of 4,070 cases, over the last 24 hours, with the total number reaching 32,008.

The death toll climbed to 273 from 232 the previous day, while 2,590 people have recovered, including 286 in the last 24 hours, Russia’s virus response centre said in a statement.

The Altai Republic confirmed its first case, meaning the pandemic has now spread to all of Russia’s 85 regions.

Moscow, the worst-hit city across the country, confirmed 1,959 new cases over the last 24 hours, reporting 18,105 cases so far.

BERLIN, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The rate of new infections with COVID-19 in Germany slightly picked up but remained below peak times as the number of confirmed cases increased by 3,380 within one day to 133,830, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Friday.

"The outbreak has, as of today, become controllable and more manageable again," said German Health Minister Jens Spahn at the RKI press conference on Friday.

MOSCOW (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed arms control and other issues Friday as Moscow has signaled readiness to include some of its latest nuclear weapons in the last remaining arms control pact between the two countries if Washington accepts the Kremlin’s offer to extend it.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, April 17. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin gave instructions on Friday to launch preparations for the coronavirus vaccine production in Russia.

"One of the aspects is the production. It is not enough just to find the corresponding medicinal preparation. It is also necessary to produce it in required amounts and it is necessary to take care about that already now. Now it is necessary to start preparations for the process of the [vaccine] production," Putin said at a meeting on building and repurposing health care institutions in the regions.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: The Kremlin believes that Google’s moves to block the accounts of Russian media outlets are unacceptable, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: A gene sequence in the novel coronavirus indicates that the virus was imported to China’s Wuhan, instead of emerging there, China’s Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui told TASS Friday.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: The effect of the new OPEC+ deal will definitely come in, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, adding that it is expected after practical implementation of the agreement starts in May 2020.

"The deal has not been activated though, it has been finalized, but technologically its implementation is to start, which will take some time," he said, adding that "the effect will definitely come in."

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: Washington claims that out of 80 Russian schoolchildren who were studying in the US through educational programs 51 kids already arrived back home, but the Russian Foreign Ministry is only aware of six such children, spokeswoman for the Russian diplomatic agency Maria Zakharova said Friday.

London, Apr 17 (AP) A leading public health expert said Friday that Britain likely has the highest coronavirus death rate in Europe due to what he described as system errors, while the government defended its record in responding to the pandemic.

Anthony Costello, director of the Institute for Global Health at University College London, said the U.K. could see 40,000 deaths by the time the first wave of the country's outbreak is over.