Europe

MOSCOW, March 8. /TASS/: The air temperature in Moscow climbed to a record 8.5 degrees Celsius (47.3 degrees Fahrenheit) on March 8, the highest figure for more than 140 years of weather observations in the Russian capital, Scientific Head of Russia’s Weather Forecasting Agency Roman Vilfand told TASS on Sunday.

"The maximum figure since 1879 was registered in 2014, equaling plus 8.3 degrees. The warm weather today is such that already at night, at 5-6 hours in the morning, the temperature was plus 8.5 degrees. This is a new record for Moscow," Vilfand said.

MOSCOW, March 8. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree that defines the basic tasks of former Prime Minister and now Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev and the goals of the Security Council’s secretaries, according to the document posted on the government’s legal information web portal on Sunday.

MOSCOW, March 8. /TASS/: The limited number of presidential terms is a more preferable option for Russia to guarantee power alternation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

The Russian president made this statement in an interview for the documentary project: "After A Flight over the Abyss." A fragment of the interview was shown on the Vesti Nedely (News of the Week) program on the Rossiya-1 TV Channel on Sunday.

8 March 2020; AFP: Britain unveils its first post-Brexit budget on Wednesday and analysts expect Prime Minister Boris Johnson to press ahead with major spending on infrastructure, despite the economic fallout from the coronavirus.

Finance minister Rishi Sunak, who will present the budget after his predecessor Sajid Javid resigned unexpectedly last month, is also scheduled to outline emergency funding measures in the battle against COVID-19.

08 Mar 2020; MEMO: British police will launch a review of the 2000 probe of the disappearance of the ruler of Dubai’s daughter in Cambridge following a court ruling that he abducted and detained her against her will, Cambridge police said, Anadolu Agency reports.

ATHENS, March 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) –: Greece plans to build two new temporary camps to house hundreds of additional asylum seekers who arrived after a surge enabled by Turkey, the migration minister said.

“We want to build two closed centres in (the northern region of) Serres and the greater Athens area with 1,000 places,” migration minister Notis Mitarachi told Skai TV.

“We need the backing of local communities. We cannot leave all (these) people on the islands,” he said.

LONDON, March 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Britain unveils its first post-Brexit budget on Wednesday and analysts expect Prime Minister Boris Johnson to press ahead with major spending on infrastructure, despite the economic fallout from the coronavirus.

Finance minister Rishi Sunak, who will present the budget after his predecessor Sajid Javid resigned unexpectedly last month, is also scheduled to outline emergency funding measures in the battle against COVID-19.

PARIS, March 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A French lawmaker has been hospitalised after contracting coronavirus, the National Assembly announced Saturday, bringing the number of proven cases in the lower house of parliament to three.

The death toll in France mounted to 11 people with 716 confirmed cases nationwide.

The National Assembly did not name the legislator who recently caught the disease, but said the third case was a female parliamentarian.

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Italy should ban all its citizens from traveling to Europe in order to curb the new coronavirus outbreak, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Sunday.

Italy imposed a virtual lockdown across a swathe of its wealthy north earlier on Sunday, including the financial capital Milan, in a drastic new attempt to try to contain a rapidly growing outbreak of coronavirus.

LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi Sunak, under pressure to meet election promises to voters and fight the spread of coronavirus, has said he is looking at possible changes to budget rules which would give him more room to increase spending.

The Sunday Telegraph quoted Sunak - who is due to deliver Britain’s first post-Brexit budget on Wednesday - as saying that he was studying “with interest” proposals to reclassify some government spending as investment.