European Union

The UK government said late Wednesday (4 August) it will ease English entry rules requiring arrivals from France to quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated, following its latest review of travel curbs.

An international donor conference collected hundreds of millions of dollars in urgent aid for Lebanon on Wednesday (4 August), exceeding an initial target, co-hosts France said.

The European Commission has approved a supply contract with U.S. firm Novavax for the purchase of up to 200 million COVID-19 vaccines, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Fire-fighting resources from EU nations are on their way to Greece, Italy, Albania and Northern Macedonia to help fight forest blazes, the EU crisis management commissioner said on Wednesday.

Rescuers used helicopters and water cannon Wednesday to beat back fires encircling a Turkish power plant in the second week of deadly blazes testing the leadership of President Recept Tayyip Erdogan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday ordered a review of the risks to Belarusians in Ukraine following the death of an activist.

The Belarusian activist Vitaly Shishov, who had been reported missing on Monday, was found hanged from a tree in a park near his home in Kyiv on Tuesday. Police said investigations point to murder staged as suicide. Shishov was head of the organisation Belarusian House in Ukraine and supported opponents of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka who had fled the country.

On 4 August 2020 a huge warehouse full of chemicals exploded in the port of Beirut in the largest non-nuclear blast in human history. The investigations so far points to the country's authorities and politicians sharing most of the responsibility for the disaster. However, they are the ones who are now blocking the investigations. A symptom of the dysfunctional state, writes the press.

In Operation Luxor, Austrian police raided the houses of more than 60 suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood last November because they were believed to form part of a terrorist organisation and financing terror. Now the Graz Higher Regional Court has declared that nine of the raids were unjustified as there were insufficient grounds for suspicion. Journalists say the state really made a mess of things with this action.

So many refugees have arrived in Lithuania since Alexander Lukashenka decided to stop preventing migration flows in protest at EU sanctions that Vilnius has declared a state of emergency and massively increased border patrols. The influx has triggered protests in the country, only two percent of whose population are foreigners. The commentaries on the situation are increasingly harsh in tone.