Europe

MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/: Moscow has been informed by the US via diplomatic channels that US President Donald Trump will not come to Moscow for the celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

"We have been informed via diplomatic channels that the [US] president won’t come," Peskov said, adding that Kremlin does not know yet who will represent the US during the celebration events.

MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he thinks it possible to amend the constitution to make it possible for him to run for another presidential term. However, in his words, such an amendment is to be assessed by the Constitutional Court.

10 Mar 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia must coordinate on oil prices to avoid economic disruption to other countries, France’s Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, said yesterday.

Oil prices plunged by more than 30 per cent yesterday, dragging financial markets down as Saudi Arabia began a price war with Russia.

AMSTERDAM, March 10 (NNN-BERNAMA) — As expected, none of the four men accused of shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 as it flew over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, turned up at the District Court of The Hague here Monday to face the criminal charges preferred against them. 

In his opening remarks, Judge Hendrik Steenhuis who presided over a three-man bench, said the prosecutor had made all possible attempts to serve the summons on them. 

The four accused are Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.

PRAGUE (Reuters) - China should replace its ambassador in the Czech Republic after the Chinese embassy sent a threatening letter to Czech authorities, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said, a position that may further strain relations between the two countries.

In January, China’s embassy in Prague said in a letter sent to the Czech president’s office that Beijing would retaliate against Czech companies operating in China if a senior Czech lawmaker went ahead with a planned visit to Taiwan.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Andrzej Duda has said he will not organize large election campaign meetings in a bid to stop the spread of coronavirus, which has infected 17 people in the country.

Poles are due to vote in May in a presidential election that will be crucial to the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party’s hopes of implementing its agenda.

Duda is a PiS ally and is ahead in the polls, consistently scoring over 40%.

BRUSSELS, March 9 (Xinhua) -- After assuming the office for 100 days, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday that the European Union (EU) is in a deep dilemma.

"Today we are in the middle of a deep dilemma," von der Leyen addressed the audience in Brussels in her speech marking the 100 days.

"When I started 100 days ago, there were many many different questions and many difficult issues on the agenda, but the EU-Turkey statement was not under question," she recalled.

ROME (AP) — Tensions in Italy’s overcrowded prisons erupted Monday over new coronavirus containment measures, with riots in at least two dozen lock-ups and the deaths of six inmates who broke into an infirmary and overdosed on methadone.

Italy’s national prisoner rights advocate urged wardens to take immediate measures to calm the situation and mitigate the new regulations, which include a suspension or limitation of family visits as a way to prevent transmission of the virus.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and Turkey agreed to review a 4-year-old deal on managing migrants and refugees in an effort to settle a dispute that sent thousands of people to the Turkey-Greece border in hopes of reaching Europe, top EU officials said Monday.

Under the 2016 agreement, the EU offered Turkey up to 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in aid for the Syrian refugees it hosts, fast-tracked EU membership and other incentives to stop Europe-bound migrants. The number arriving in Greece from Turkey dropped dramatically after the deal took effect.

SOAVE, Italy (AP) — The battle to halt the coronavirus brought sweeping new restrictions Monday, with Italy expanding a travel ban to the entire country, Israel ordering all visitors quarantined just weeks before Passover and Easter, and Spain closing all schools in and around its capital.

Even as workers in Beijing returned to their jobs and new infections in China continued to subside, Italians struggled to navigate the rapidly changing parameters of the nation’s self-imposed lockdown.