Europe

ROME (AP) — Working to patch things up with an old ally, President Joe Biden told French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday the U.S. had been “clumsy” in its handling of a secret U.S.-British submarine deal with Australia, an arrangement that left France in the lurch and rattled Europe’s faith in American loyalty.

VIENNA, Oct 29 (APP): The members of Pakistan and Kashmiri diaspora in Austria and Slovakia on Friday called upon the international community to notice the plight of people in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and work towards the resolution of the longstanding dispute.

In their remarks at a seminar organized by the Embassy of Pakistan in Vienna to mark the Kashmir Black Day, the speakers highlighted the various dimensions of the Jammu & Kashmir dispute. 

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/: Moscow will not listen to other countries' criticism of its foreign agent media law, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"We aren't ready to listen to such criticism," he pointed out. "It is about our domestic legislation and we have no plans to discuss it with anyone," Peskov noted, when speaking about a statement by the United States and its allies, in which they had criticized Russia over the use of the foreign agent media law.

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/: The time frames surrounding coronavirus becoming a seasonal disease are impossible to predict, Deputy Director of the Russian Central Research Institute of Epidemiology Alexander Gorelov said on Friday.

VLADIVOSTOK, October 29. /TASS/: The Project 20380 fourth corvette Rezkiy built for Russia’s Pacific Fleet arrived in Vladivostok for outfitting, mooring and shipbuilders’ sea trials, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Sergei Avakyants told reporters on Friday.

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/: The court announced the first verdict in the case over a fire at the Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) shopping mall in Kemerovo where on March 25, 2018, some 60 people were killed, including 37 children. Eight defendants were sentenced to actual jail terms.

LONDON, Oct 29 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — The United Kingdom’s Departments for Transport and of Health and Social Care issued a joint press release announcing that the seven countries still on the travel red list, all of them from Latin America, would be removed from it shortly.

Effective Nov 1, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela will be moved up to the group of other nations from where travelers returning to England no longer need to go through a hotel quarantine.

BERLIN, Oct 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — German police said Friday they had found a dead Iraqi man among around 30 people apparently smuggled across the Polish border in a van.

  The 32-year-old had been dead for “several hours” when police found the group near the van outside the town of Schoepstal in Saxony on Friday morning, they said.

   The driver, a 48-year-old man of Turkish origin, reportedly fled the scene but was later detained.

   Germany has seen a surge in illegal migrants entering the country from Poland in recent months, most coming via Belarus.

ROME, Oct 29 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the world was rushing headlong towards climate disaster, and said leaders of the Group of 20 wealthy nations must do more to help poorer countries.

Speaking on the eve of a summit of G20 leaders, Guterres told reporters there were "dangerous levels of mistrust" between nationsand said he hoped the forthcoming two-day meeting would help overcome that.

ATHENS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Greece mounted a rescue operation on Friday for a cargo ship carrying about 400 migrants after it sent out a distress signal off the island of Crete, the coast guard said.

The Greek coast guard quoted passengers as saying the Turkish-flagged vessel had sailed from Turkey, calling it "one of the largest search and rescue operations carried out in the eastern Mediterranean."

Authorities said the ship was being taken to land but gave no further details. The nationalities of the passengers were not immediately made public.