World News in Brief: February 27

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he has demanded the security forces to create "an environment conducive to a fair and honest election" to be held on May 9.

Fully vaccinated travelers do not need to take a PCR or Rapid Antigen test, to determine the COVID status before traveling to Sri Lanka from March, said the country's Health Ministry Sunday.
Fully vaccinated travelers do not need to take a PCR or Rapid Antigen test, to determine the COVID status before traveling to Sri Lanka from March, said the country's Health Ministry Sunday.

* The United Arab Emirates wants to encourage a political solution in the Ukraine conflict and taking sides would only encourage violence, a senior UAE official said on Sunday.

* Moscow is preparing for negotiations with "all constructive forces" on a settlement in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu.

* Western allies announced sweeping sanctions against Russia, including barring some key banks from the SWIFT payments system. The move will inflict a crippling economic blow to Moscow but also hurt Western companies and banks.

* At least 64 civilians have been killed and more than 160,000 are on the move after Russian troops entered Ukraine this week, a United Nations relief agency said.

* Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom GAZP.M said on Sunday that Russian gas exports via Ukraine to Europe continued normally, in line with requests from customers.

* Refugees continued to pour across Ukraine's western borders, with around 100,000 reaching Poland in two days.

* Iran is ready to "immediately conclude" a deal in talks to revive its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers if Western powers show real will, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Saturday.

* China reported 239 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Feb. 26, the country's national health authority said on Sunday, down from 249 a day earlier. There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 4,636. As of Feb. 26, mainland China had confirmed 109,092 cases.

* India's COVID-19 tally rose to 42,916,117 on Sunday, as 10,273 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.

* Malaysia reported 27,299 new COVID-19 infections, as of midnight Saturday, bringing the national total to 3,395,170, according to the country's health ministry.

* The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,038 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 3,661,049.

* Italy reported 38,375 COVID-19 related cases on Saturday, against 40,948 the day before, the health ministry said, while the number of deaths rose to 210 from 193.

* The Bangladeshi government has decided to extend the ongoing special campaign to administer the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by two days to Feb. 28 amid a rising demand, Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said.

* The death toll from flash flooding in Australia's northeast rose to seven on Sunday as a severe storm system pummelled the city of Brisbane and the southeast of the state of Queensland.

Xinhua/Reuters/VNA