Europe

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that Britain should not expect changes to the existing Brexit deal, adding that the situation had not changed with the change of government in Britain.

“We have prepared a treaty and nobody should expect any of its provisions to be changed,” Scholz told a news conference.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to tell German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday that unless she agrees to change the Brexit deal, Britain will leave the European Union on Oct. 31 without a deal.

More than three years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, it is still unclear on what terms - or indeed whether - the bloc’s second largest economy will leave the club it joined in 1973.

ROME, Aug 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Eighty-three migrants rescued at sea by the Open Arms disembarked early on Wednesday (Aug 21) from the charity rescue vessel in Italy’s Lampedusa island, television images showed, after Italian justice ordered they be brought ashore.

The boat had spent six days anchored off Lampedusa before a local prosecutor ordered their disembarkment amid a probe of far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini for forbidding their entry to port.

ROME, Aug 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italian President Sergio Mattarella has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and will kick off consultations with party leaders on Wednesday to seek a solution to the political crisis, his office said.

Mattarella will start his meetings at 4.00 p.m. on Wednesday and wrap them up on Thursday afternoon.

He is expected to see whether there is the political will to form a new government. If not, he will have to dissolve parliament, 3-1/2 years ahead of schedule, and call early elections.

MOSCOW, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Washington's latest test of a missile previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty proves that it started preparing to pull out of the arms control treaty long in advance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

"This was being prepared for a long time, long before August 2, when the legal obligations of the parties formally expired under the INF Treaty," Lavrov told reporters at the opening of a World War II exhibition, according to a transcript of the foreign ministry.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and Britain, which are hurtling toward a costly, damaging no-deal split in a little over two months, kicked off a high-wire week of diplomacy Tuesday by entrenching themselves deeper in their irreconcilable positions.

MILAN (AP) — More than 80 people were being evacuated from a migrant rescue ship on Tuesday, capping a drama that saw 15 passengers jump into the sea to escape deteriorating conditions aboard and spurred Spain to dispatch a naval ship in a bid to end a weekslong humanitarian crisis with Italy.

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte resigned Tuesday amid the collapse of the 14-month-old populist government, raising the possibility of new elections in the fall that could bring to power the anti-migrant interior minister who engineered Conte’s downfall.

20 Aug 2019; MEMO: Swiss prosecutors have ordered that an Israeli billionaire should stand trial on corruption and bribery charges allegedly involving a widow of the former President of Guinea, international news agencies have reported.

BRUSSELS, Aug 19 (NNN-BERNAMA-ANSA) — European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud called Monday for a solution to the two-week Open Arms NGO migrant rescue ship standoff with Italy to enable an immediate landing of the 130 or so migrants.

“We appeal to member States and NGOs to collaborate to find a solution that works and permits an immediate disembarkation of the people on board”, Italian news agency ANSA quoted her saying.

She stressed, however, that the EC does not have competence regarding landing ports.