Europe

MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/: Brent oil futures prices with delivery in May 2020 dropped by more than 4% to $49.66 a barrel on the London-based ICE today, according to trading data.

The last time Brent oil prices were at the level below $50 per barrel at the turn of July 2017.

At the same time WTI futures with settlements in April fell by 4.5% to $44.95 per barrel, their lowest since January 2019.

Meanwhile the dollar added 2.42% against the ruble to 67.6 rubles per dollar. The euro rose by 2.97% and amounted to 74.7 rubles.

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria is ready to deploy up to 1,000 troops and military equipment to the border with neighboring Turkey to prevent illegal migrant inflows, its defense minister said on Friday.

Krasimir Karakachanov said border police had prevented two groups of about 30 people from entering Bulgaria from Turkey early on Friday after Ankara said it would no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO head Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia and Syria on Friday to halt their Idlib offensive and said the military alliance stood in solidarity with member state Turkey, which lost 33 soldiers in an airstrike by Syrian government forces.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, have launched an assault to capture the northwest Idlib region, the last remaining territory held by rebels who are backed by Turkey against President Bashar al-Assad in the nine-year conflict.

LONDON (Reuters) - London’s Court of Appeal ruled on Friday that two judgments in the legal battle between Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, and his former wife over the wardship of their two children should be made public.

Mohammed had said that the judgments of Andrew McFarlane, president of London’s High Court Family Division, in the case involving Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan’s King Abdullah, were wrong in law and should not be publicized.

BRISTOL, England (Reuters) - Greta Thunberg denounced politicians and the media on Friday for failing her generation, saying the world is on fire but they are ignoring a looming climate cataclysm.

Several thousand people attended a rally in the southwestern English city of Bristol to see Thunberg, the teenage activist who has reprimanded governments across the world over climate change.

Known simply as Greta, 17-year-old Thunberg has captured the imagination of many young people with impassioned demands for world leaders to take urgent action.

LONDON (Reuters) - Three former Barclays (BARC.L) executives were acquitted in London on Friday of charges they helped funnel 322 million pounds ($418 million) in secret fees to Qatar during the credit crisis, in return for rescue funding.

In a blow to the UK’s taxpayer-funded Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which prosecuted the case, a jury cleared Roger Jenkins, Tom Kalaris, and Richard Boath of fraud.

The men, aged between 61 and 64, all denied any wrongdoing. Qatar, which is still a significant Barclays shareholder, was neither investigated nor accused of wrongdoing.

LONDON, Feb 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The British government will decide in June whether to abandon talks with the EU and prepare for a no-deal Brexit on World Trade Organization terms.

The decision will be made if insufficient ground has been covered in talks with the EU.

The acid test will be if what it calls “good progress” has not been made on areas such as financial services and data, which the government sees as the easiest areas to negotiate.

VATICAN CITY, Feb 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Pope Francis has reportedly taken ill and cancelled an event at a Rome basilica just a day after he prayed for coronavirus sufferers in Italy.

According to the UK Mirror, the pontiff prayed for coronavirus sufferers on Ash Wednesday, while masking free, and even took time to shake hands and kiss worshippers, including a child, in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

ROME, Feb 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy’s government, desperate to stave off a likely recession, played down on Thursday (Feb 27) he gravity of an outbreak of coronavirus, the worst yet seen in Europe, saying it only impacted a tiny fraction of the country.

But even as ministers took to the airwaves with reassuring messages, officials said the death toll had risen by five from Wednesday to 17, while the number of people who tested positive for the illness increased by more than 200, to 650.

GENEVA, Feb 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization declared that the new coronavirus epidemic was at a “decisive point” as countries across the globe battled to contain the deadly outbreak.

Saudi Arabia banned pilgrims from visiting Islam’s holiest sites as the number of deaths jumped in neighbouring Iran, while Japan and Iraq ordered the closure of schools.