Europe

MOSCOW, March 4. /TASS/: The Kremlin cannot predict how the court will rule in the trial on the MH17 crash in Ukraine, but plans to thoroughly analyze its outcome, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"We have always voiced doubts whether the investigative team’s work is unbiased because we have been stripped of the opportunity to join it," Peskov told reporters.

KIEV, March 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has resigned and the finance minister, foreign minister and the prosecutor general could also exit in a sweeping reshuffle this week.

Zelenskiy has put forward Deputy Prime Minister Denys Shmygal to replace Honcharuk, lawmaker Galyna Yanchenko from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party told reporters after a party meeting ahead of a special parliamentary session convened by the president on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, March 4. /TASS/: Russia does not rule out that the United States and its NATO allies may shortly deploy weapon components in outer space, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Vladimir Yermakov said at a news conference on Wednesday.

"It is not ruled out that we may soon witness the emergence of already weapon components of the US potential and, perhaps, the potential of other states that are US NATO allies, in outer space. We will continue taking all efforts to prevent this scenario," the Russian diplomat said.

MOSCOW, March 4. /TASS/: Russian engineers have secured a patent for the new intellectual critical g-force protection system for military high-maneuver planes, the MiG Aircraft Corporation announced Wednesday.

According to the MiG Corporation, a pilot must always monitor the g-force, which might at times reach 9G, using dashboard indicators, while simultaneously conducting maneuvers during a dogfight. The new intellectual system, which works in conjunction with the helmet display system, would allow the pilot to not get distracted by the dashboard and concentrate on the mission.

BRUSSELS, March 4. /TASS/: Permanent representatives of 27 member states of the European Union agreed to renew individual sanctions against Russians expiring on March 15 for six more months, a source in the EU Council told TASS on Wednesday.

"Individual sanctions against Russian individual and legal entities were renewed for six months at the morning meeting of Permanent Representatives without a discussion. The decision should be formally approved by the EU Council now," the source said.

MOSCOW, March 4. /TASS/: The current economic situation in Russia is far from ideal, Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged in an interview for the TASS project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin".

Putin compared the current climate with the situation back in 2000, when 42 million Russians lived below the poverty line and public debt stood at $145 billion, and the gold and foreign exchange reserves totaled a meager $12.5 billion.

4 March 2020; AFP: Lawmakers in eastern German state Thuringia will try again to elect a new state premier Wednesday, re-running a vote that sank Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling CDU party into what has been described as the biggest crisis in its history.

It is the second attempt in a month to form a working government in the former East German state, after CDU MPs there unleashed an earthquake in national politics by voting with the far-right AfD in February.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Britain’s Prince William arrived in Dublin on Tuesday with his wife Kate in a show of friendship with a neighbor on the first official trip abroad by senior royals since Brexit.

William wore a green tie and Kate a green coat and dress as they stepped off a commercial Aer Lingus flight. It was William’s first official trip to the Republic of Ireland, nearly a decade after his grandmother Queen Elizabeth made history with the first visit by a reigning British monarch.

BERLIN, Mar 4 (NNN-DPA) – German Federal Government spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, said that, the way to the European Union (EU) from Turkey, is not open for refugees and migrants.

“At the moment we are experiencing an extremely worrying situation on the European Union’s external borders with Turkey, on land and at sea. We are seeing refugees and migrants, who are told by the Turkish side that the way to the EU is now open, and of course it is not,” said Seibert.

LONDON (Reuters) - Brent oil prices rose on Wednesday on expectations that major producers have moved closer to an agreement to enact deeper output cuts aimed at offsetting the slump in demand caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Brent crude LCOc1 was up by 30 cents, or 0.6%, at $52.16 a barrel at 0954 GMT. It had risen more than $1 earlier in the session.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) CLc1 was up by 32 cents, or 0.7%, at $47.50 a barrel. The contract had gained 98 cents earlier in the session.