Новости за 15.04.2020

National airline Finnair is planning to set up a joint venture with Chinese carrier Juneyao Air, Yle Uutiset newspaper writes. Both firms have been cooperating since July 2019. "Despite these immensely challenging times for our industry, we at Finnair remain steadfast in our belief and commitment to China as a key market and to Juneyao Air as a key partner," chief commercial officer Ole Orver said.

Some 40% of people polled in Spain and 38% in the UK have seen some form of deliberate coronavirus disinformation on digital platforms like Facebook or Twitter, according to a new survey in six countries by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The figures were lower in the other four countries, down to 33% in the US and 28% in Germany.

EU export restrictions will be limited to masks only from 26 April and will exclude the Western Balkans, according to a draft regulation seen by Reuters. Protective spectacles and visors, face shields, protective garments, gloves, and mouth and nose masks can only be exported to non-EU countries under special permits granted by member states, for now. EU hopefuls in the Balkans had in the past complained about lack of solidarity.

US president Donald Trump, who has been under criticism for his handling of the response to the coronavirus, blamed the World Health Organisation for what he called its failures and said he planned to halt American funding of the organisation, the New York Times reports. "Everybody knows what is going on there," he said, blaming the organisation for a "disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations."

Poland is preparing to read a controversial new law in parliament on Wednesday and Thursday, forbidding women to have abortions even if the child was to be born handicapped. The president, Andrzej Duda, has said he would sign it. But women's groups and other activists accused the government of using the pandemic to ram through unpopular legislation, with public protests, for instance, currently limited to people honking horns outside parliament.

EU governments seek difficult balance between restarting economy and risking resurgence in pandemic. The commission wants them to coordinate, but some countries are already easing lockdowns.

Most EU countries are organising distance e-learning to support students amid the coronavirus pandemic, but skills and opportunities are not the same among member states.

Some 180 European politicians, business leaders, MEPs and environmental activists have called for green recovery investment packages to develop "a new model of prosperity" after the pandemic ends.

Four months into the corona crisis and one month into the social and economic shutdown, it seems the big geopolitical loser of the pandemic is likely going to be Europe.

Social distancing was not on the minds of the 2,000 seasonal workers tightly packed into airports in Romania en route to Germany last week.

Ports in Italy and Malta closed amid claims they are no longer safe because of the pandemic. The move means NGO rescue vessels are in limbo. The European Commission says it cannot pass any judgement on the closures.

The International Monetary Fund issued a warning on Tuesday about economic damage from the coronavirus, saying that the global economy faces its worst downturn since the Great Depression as shuttered factories, quarantines and national lockdowns cause economic output around the world to collapse. It projected that global growth will contract by 3 percent in 2020, contrasting an earlier forecast of a 3.3 percent growth.

The leaders of Ireland's rival Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties signed off on a broad agreement struck by their negotiating teams aimed at attracting enough additional support to form a new government, Reuters writes. The centre-right parties, who have swapped power throughout the nation's history but have never formed a coalition together, need the support of at least one smaller party or eight independent lawmakers to reach a majority.

"Some of our large immigrant groups unfortunately have a high risk of becoming very ill from Covid-19", Swedish state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, said on Tuesday based on figures from Sweden's Public Health Agency. "Among the Somalis the risk is almost five times higher than compared to people born in Sweden," he said, pointing to lack of early information as one possible reason. Swedish Covid-19 linked deaths passed 1,000 on Tuesday.

Fraudsters almost stole a €2.4m downpayment for €15m of face masks from German buyers after hijacking the websites of genuine mask suppliers in Ireland and the Netherlands, Interpol has said. But joint action by British, Dutch, and Irish police arrested the perpetrators and recovered the funds, some of which were headed to Nigeria. "They were simply experienced fraudsters who saw an opportunity with the outbreak," Interpol head Jürgen Stock said.