Europe

MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/: Russia’s State Duma (the lower house of parliament) has passed the third and final reading of a bill amending the country’s Constitution.

A total of 383 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill, and no one voted ‘no.’ As many as 43 legislators (members of the Communist Party’s faction) abstained from voting. Other parliamentary factions supported the document.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met retired Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Berlin.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a written statement on Tuesday that Merkel met Haftar in Berlin, where they exchanged views on the Libyan crisis.

Seibert added that Merkel asserted that the use of military force would not lead to solving the Libyan conflict, while stressing the need to move forward to establish a ceasefire and start political negotiations, about the decisions of the last Berlin conference.

BRUSSELS, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The EU decided on mobilizing €25 billion to counter the spread of the new coronavirus, the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen announced.

All the 27 European heads of states and governments joined a video conference with von der Leyen and the European Council’s President Charles Michel on Tuesday afternoon.

The European leaders decided on focusing on four priorities, Michel told a joint press conference with von der Leyen after the leaders’ virtual meeting.

LONDON, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces his first rebellion over the government’s decision to allow China’s Huawei a role in building the country’s 5G phone network.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, has been caught in a stand-off between Washington and Beijing after the United States accused the company of spying to steal Western secrets.

ROME, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy reported five more deaths from prison riots linked to the new coronavirus that have now officially claimed 12 lives over three days.

The justice ministry has blamed all the deaths on drug overdoses that occurred after prisoners broke into medical storage rooms.

The claim was impossible to immediately verify through independent sources.

Jails have been ordered to stop visits and limit day releases as part of a broad government response to a disease that has killed 631 people in Italy in just over two weeks.

11 March 2020; AFP: Britain unveils its first post-Brexit budget on Wednesday, with all eyes on emergency government measures to ease the economic pain from the coronavirus outbreak.

It comes the day after a minister in the health department, Nadine Dorries, tested positive for COVID-19, raising concern about whether she has spread the infection.

Finance minister Rishi Sunak will present the budget in parliament around 1230 GMT, after his predecessor Sajid Javid resigned unexpectedly last month.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Sealing Germany’s borders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus would not work, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday, rejecting calls to follow neighbor Austria in denying entry to visitors from Italy.

Interviewed on Deutschlandfunk radio, Spahn said the focus of Germany’s current approach to the epidemic was to slow the virus’s spread to minimize the peak burden on the country’s health system.

GENEVA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese diplomat has said here that to continue dialogue on the Korean Peninsula situation is in the interest of all the parties concerned and a general expectation of the international community.

Liu Hua, special representative for human rights affairs of China's Foreign Ministry, made the remarks at the ongoing 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

BUDAPEST, March 10 (Xinhua) -- At a forum organized by the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK), Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday pledged government assistance to economic players who suffer losses due to the novel coronavirus.

"An economic protection action plan is needed," Orban said, adding that he had asked the MKIK to collect feedback from business leaders on the difficulties the different industrial sectors expect to face and the ways to address them.

BRUSSELS, March 10 (Xinhua) -- European Parliament (EP) President David Sassoli said on Tuesday that he will work from home in Brussels, after spending a weekend in Italy.

"I have decided after having been in Italy over the last weekend, as a precaution, to follow the indicated measures and to exercise my function as president from my home in Brussels in compliance with the 14 days indicated by the health protocol," Sassoli said in a statement posted by the EP.