Новости за 26.08.2020

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that German accusations that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned "cannot be true and are rather an empty noise". German doctors said earlier this week Navalny was "probably" poisoned, but Peskov said the diagnosis was still inconclusive. Navalny is in a stable condition in intensive care in a German hospital under police guard after being flown out of Russia last weekend.

German coalition parties on Tuesday agreed to extend measures aimed to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on the EU's largest economy, Reuters reported. These include prolonging aid for small and mid-sized companies until the end of this year and extending a short-time work scheme due to expire in March 2021. The coalition also agreed to an electoral reform that would limit the number of lawmakers in the Bundestag.

The French health ministry reported, on Tuesday, 3,304 new coronavirus infections - a figure well below this weekend's new post-lockdown record of 4,897 cases, Reuters reported. However, the number of hospitalised people aged under-40 has increased to 18 percent since early July compared to about 8 percent from February to July. France has recorded a total of 248,158 coronavirus cases and 30,544 deaths, including 16 in the last 24 hours.

Turkey's foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Tuesday Ankara was ready for EU mediation between Turkey and Greece "without preconditions", adding he expected the EU to act as an "honest and objective" mediator, Ekathimerini writes. Çavuşoğlu also said Greece must abandon its "maximalist approach" and pre-conditions for dialogue to begin over disputed offshore Mediterranean resources. He gave his comments during a press conference with German foreign minister Heiko Maas.

After a man in Hong Kong tested positive twice for Covid-19, the Netherlands and Belgium have each reported the same incident. Marion Koopmans, chief of the Dutch Erasmus MC department of virology, confirmed on Tuesday a case of coronavirus reinfection. Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst also confirmed a reinfection case, saying that "there are indeed enough differences to be able to speak of a different strain, a second infection".

The Irish government said on Tuesday that EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan committed "clear breaches" of public health rules in his recent trip to the country, Reuters writes. Hogan rendered account of his Irish trip to the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, saying he was in isolation until he received a negative Covid-19 test result. But the government guidelines required him to restrict his movements for 14 days.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, on Tuesday, said that the US was interfering Beijing's relationship with Europe, adding it was "in both of our interests to dispel such interferences," Politico reports. Wang made his comments after a meeting in Rome with Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio. After Italy, Wang will visit the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Germany to discuss trade, Hong Kong, coronavirus and the Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

Israeli aircraft struck posts of the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah early on Wednesday after shots were fired from Lebanon towards its troops, Israel's military said, as reported by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Hezbollah gave no comments. The incident comes just weeks after the major blast that devastated large parts of Lebanon's capital, Beirut, and months after large demonstrations against corruption and government dysfunction.

Senior EU foreign affairs official Helga Schmid told MEPs the diplomatic service was working on drawing up sanctions, which should be finalised 'very soon'.

It is time to show Poland's homophobic ruling party that it isn't possible to erode human rights and our common European values without a price.

It is time for France, Germany, and the UK to send the world's most dangerous man - Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei - a message on the price of treaty violations.

The largest mass protests in Belarus' history, unfolding right now, could be called a women's revolution.