LEHTIKUVA / AFP

Europe Minister Jenny Gilruth has expressed concern about the current state of UK and EU relations following the EU-UK Partnership Council, which met for the first time this morning, and the subsequent meeting of the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee.

The Minister has also stressed the importance of meaningful engagement of the Scottish Government by the UK Government in EU-UK discussions.

The EU parliament on Tuesday approved 11.6 million euro ($14 million) in aid to help dismissed workers in Germany, Finland, Belgium, and the Netherlands reintegrate into labour market, the legislature said in a release.

"3,700 workers who lost their jobs in Finland, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands will receive EUR11.6 million in EU aid," the parliament said.

The 24th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum took place on 2–5 June 2021. As in previous years, the business programme focused on the global and Russian economies, social issues, and technological development.

In a landmark judgment, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) today ruled that the UK government’s bulk interception of communications powers  “did not contain sufficient ‘end-to-end’ safeguards to provide adequate and effective guarantees against arbitrariness and the risk of abuse”, thus violating the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. 

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Scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have detected new early-warning signs that the central-western part of the Greenland ice sheet has been destabilizing and may now be close to a critical transition.

Results of the study suggest that there will be substantially enhanced melting in the future. Once the tipping point is crossed the whole ice sheet could melt entirely until the year 3000.

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More than 130 people in Switzerland have contracted the coronavirus after receiving both shots of the vaccine, with 12 cases being fatal, according to the latest data provided by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) on Monday.

From January 1 to May 14, 134 vaccinees were infected with the deadly virus, with most of them aged 80 and over. Of those infected, 27 people were hospitalized and 12 died.

Workers downloading a shipment of the Covishield vaccine of the AstraZeneca laboratory from a plane coming from Amsterdam, as part of an agreement with the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), in Ezeiza airport, Buenos Aires province, Argentina on April 18, 2021. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

Highlighting the gap of vaccinations between high-income countries and low and lower-middle countries, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday said that the world is at risk of 'vaccine apartheid'.

Speaking at the Paris Peace Forum Spring Meeting, Ghebreyesus said: "I think I would go one step further and say not just that the world is at risk of vaccine apartheid; the world is in vaccine apartheid."

Six young people from Portugal are taking 33 countries to the European Court of Human Rights for failing to do their part to avert climate catastrophe - Global Legal Action Network

As the European Court of Human Rights considers a landmark case on climate change brought by six young people from Portugal against 33 European countries, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations and academics have intervened in the case today. They have provided the Court with legal arguments on how government climate policies must protect the rights of people outside their borders.

A patient breathes with the help of oxygen provided by a Gurdwara, a place of worship for Sikhs, inside an auto rickshaw parked under a tent along the roadside amid Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Ghaziabad on April 26, 2021. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

The Coronavirus cases across the globe have breached the 150 million mark, according to the latest update by Johns Hopkins University.

As of 9:51 am IST, the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) reported that the global caseload stood at 150,133,654 while the fatalities from the deadly pathogen stood at 3,162,166.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech during the debate on EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement during the second day of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels, on April 27, 2021. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

The European Parliament on Wednesday ratified the agreement on trade and cooperation between the European Union and the United Kingdom in a 660-5 vote.

The document must now be approved by EU member states to enter into force officially.