Europe

MOSCOW, March 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Moscow city authorities threatened prison terms of up to five years for people failing to self-isolate in their homes for two weeks after visiting countries hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.

The city government had announced a “high alert regime” and imposed extra measures on Thursday to prevent the spread of the illness in the Russian capital.

PARIS, March 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France has banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people to try and slow the spread of COVID-19, the health minister said, while the number of French lawmakers infected with the virus rose to four.

Oliver Veran confirmed the beefed-up measures but said officials would issue a list of events considered “useful to national life” that would be allowed to continue – such as demonstrations.

BERLIN, March 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Germany announced measures to boost its sputtering economy in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus on Monday, while also calling for the cancellation of large events.

As the number of cases in Germany pushed beyond 900, Health Minister Jens Spahn said gatherings of more than 1,000 people should be scrapped.

“After many discussions with those responsible, I emphatically encourage the cancellation of events with more than 1,000 participants until further notice,” he wrote on Twitter.

CHISINAU, March 8. /TASS/: Moldova’s President Igor Dodon interrupted his working visit to Russia after a novel coronavirus case was confirmed in his country, the Moldovan leader wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.

"I made a decision to interrupt my working visit to Moscow where meetings were planned in the coming days with the leadership of the Russian Federation. I am returning home today to get fully involved in the authorities’ work for overcoming difficulties that have arisen," Dodon wrote.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Russia’s Central Bank has decided to suspend purchases of foreign currency on the domestic market within the fiscal rule mechanism for 30 days, the regulator said in a press release on Monday.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: The decisions to conduct federal loan bonds (OFZ) auctions will be made considering the market environment to facilitate the process of market stabilization, Russia’s Finance Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

"Taking into account high volatility on financial markets, the decisions to conduct OFZ auctions will be made considering the market environment for facilitating the process of market stabilization and preventing excessive pressure on the debt market," the statement said.

STOCKHOLM, March 9. TASS/: The United States and Russia remained the main exporters in 2014-2019, although the volume of arms sales of Russia decreased compared to 2010-2014 by 18%. That is according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), released on Monday.

The new report on the state of world arms trade notes that in 2015-2019 the trade volume increased by 5.5% compared with the previous five-year period (2010-2014).

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Russia and Belarus will find compromises in the energy sector, so those issues should not be politicized, Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko said in a televised interview with Belarus’1 channel aired on Sunday.

"We should not exaggerate the scale of these differences, scale them up, and most importantly, politicize," said the speaker.

According to Matviyenko, the Russian-Belarusian relations are strategic.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: The dollar-to-ruble rate on the international Forex market grew on Monday since the previous closure by 3.93 rubles and amounted to 72.5 rubles, according to the trading data.

The euro-to-ruble at Forex increased compared to the closing level of previous session by 4.89 rubles and amounted to 82.4 rubles.

A sharp jump in the dollar and the euro against the ruble occurred amid the reports that the cost of May futures for Brent crude oil on the ICE Exchange in London fell to $31.02 per barrel.

9 March 2020; AFP: The world is set for its first annual decline in oil consumption in more than a decade due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, the IEA said Monday.

In its latest report -- which did not take into account an oil price war after Saudi Arabia and Russia failed to agree to continue production cuts -- the International Energy Agency chopped its current demand forecast by 1.1 million barrels per day (mbd) in its base case scenario as the coronavirus continues to spread around the world.