Europe

29 April 2022; MEMO: UK Labour leader Keir Starmer and senior shadow cabinet ministers are said to be on a charm offensive to woe Britain's Jewish community by canvassing for next week's local elections with officials from Israel's Labor Party. That's according to a report in the Guardian which said that a delegation from Israel were taken door-knocking in Barnet, north London, which has a large Jewish community, in what seems to be an attempt to show Labour's commitment to Israel.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 7,710 over the past day to 18,174,991, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Friday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.04%.

As many as 2,558 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 1.5% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients decreased in 39 regions, while in 41 regions the figure increased. The situation remained unchanged in five regions. A day earlier, 2,596 people were rushed to hospitals.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Head of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin told TASS in an interview that he plans to discuss cooperation on the Moon with Chinese partners before the end of May.

"Before the end of May, I plan to hold detailed dialogue with our Chinese colleagues on our cooperation in this direction," he noted.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Russia’s Finance Ministry has all the resources to fulfill its obligations, any default is out of the question, head of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina said after a meeting of the Board of Directors of the regulator on Friday.

"Concerning the Finance’s Ministry’s obligations on debts, I would like to reiterate that the ministry has the resources, and economically, there can be no question of any default," she said.

However, Nabiullina admitted that there are difficulties with payments.

LONDON, April 29 (Reuters) - Russia's most senior lawmaker said on Friday that Ukraine was effectively mortgaging itself to the United States by seeking to tap billions of dollars of weapons loans proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden on Thursday asked Congress for $33 billion to support Ukraine - a dramatic escalation of U.S. funding for the war with Russia - and the Ukrainian president pleaded with lawmakers to give the request a swift approval. 

ROME, April 28 (Reuters) - Face masks will remain compulsory in Italy on public transport and in some indoor venues until June 15, the health minister said on Thursday, as one of the country's hardest hit by COVID delayed an end to pandemic restrictions.

Masks will still be required to access cinemas, theatres, indoor events and to enter hospitals, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said, adding that the government intends to be cautious in lifting the remaining measures.

BERLIN, April 29 (Reuters) - Germany is considering sending long-ranged howitzers to Ukraine, a security source told Reuters on Friday, confirming a report published by Welt am Sonntag newspaper only days after Berlin first decided to supply heavy weapons to Kyiv.

The move follows warnings by the Kremlin that Western arms supplies to Ukraine posed a threat to the security of the European continent "and provoke instability".

KYIV, April 29 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian fighter holed up in Mariupol's steel works said on Friday he hoped the United Nations would come to the besieged and devastated area to evacuate civilians, and that for the first time he had real hope his troops might make it out alive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said on Friday that Ukraine planned to evacuate civilians sheltering in underground bunkers in the vast industrial complex of Mariupol's Azovstal steel works, though he gave no details.

STOCKHOLM, April 28 (Reuters) - Sweden has failed to integrate the vast numbers of immigrants it has taken in over the past two decades, leading to parallel societies and gang violence, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Thursday, as she launched a series of initiatives to combat organised crime.

Many Swedes were shocked earlier this month after violent riots left more than 100 police injured. The violence erupted after a Swedish-Danish politician burned the Quran at a rally and sought to hold more in several immigrant-dominated neighborhoods.

VIENNA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Radiation levels at the exclusion zone of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which Russian forces had controlled for weeks before withdrawing in late March, have remained within the safe range, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Thursday.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi headed a mission to the Chernobyl plant earlier this week to deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems.