Europe

SOCHI, October 21. /TASS/: No one should impose their own values or principles of order on any country, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the plenary session of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

"One should not impose anything on anyone, either the principles of social political system or values, which someone has declared universal due to their own considerations. It’s evident that when a real crisis breaks out, just one universal value remains — this is human life," the Russian leader said.

MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/: Russia’s state-of-the-art Sukhoi Su-57 fifth-generation fighter outperforms its US rivals in weapon systems, robotics, radars and electronic warfare equipment, military expert Alexei Leonkov told TASS on Thursday, commenting on some Western media’s claims that Russian aircraft lagged behind the American F-22 and F-35 planes.

MOSCOW, October 21./TASS/: Reproaches from the European Union targeting Belarus and Russia in connection with a flow of refugees to Europe are groundless, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.

"Appeals to Minsk and Moscow to restrain an exodus of refugees in the form they are presented are inconsistent, given the activities of the Western coalition in the region of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Afghanistan, of course," the diplomat noted.

SOCHI, October 21. /TASS/: The existing model of capitalism has reached its limits, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Everyone says that the existing model of capitalism, which the basis of social structure in the overwhelming majority of countries, has run its course," the head of state said, speaking on Thursday at a meeting of the Valdai International Club.

According to him, this model can no longer offer a way out of the "snarl of increasingly tangled contradictions."

MANILA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday he took full responsibility for the bloody war on drugs that has killed thousands of people, but maintained he will never be tried by an international court.

"If there is any person who is going to prison, it would be me," Duterte said in a speech during an event held by the government's counter-insurgency task force.

"I assume full responsibility," he added.

ROME, Oct 21 (Reuters) - The Group of 20 rich countries are divided over phasing out coal and committing to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as they prepare for a crucial summit in Rome next week, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

The need to curb greenhouse gases will be high on the agenda of the Rome G20 gathering on Oct. 30-31, seen as a key stepping stone immediately ahead of broader United Nations climate talks, called COP26, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland.

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - European Union leaders will pause their meeting in Brussels on Thursday for a farewell photograph with Angela Merkel, who is attending what could be the last of more than 100 summits over nearly 16 years as chancellor of Germany.

The doyenne of European politics has sat at the conference table with four French presidents, five British prime ministers and eight Italian premiers since her first EU summit in December 2005.

Back then, as today with Poland challenging the supremacy of EU law, there was a row blazing between members of the bloc.

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - NATO defence ministers are set to agree a new master plan on Thursday to defend against any potential Russian attack on multiple fronts, reaffirming the alliance's core goal of deterring Moscow despite a growing focus on China.

The confidential strategy aims to prepare for any simultaneous attack in the Baltic and Black Sea regions that could include nuclear weapons, hacking of computer networks and assaults from space.

"It recognises a more 21st century threat and how to deal with it," British defence minister Ben Wallace told reporters.

LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - British police on Thursday charged a 25-year-old Londoner of Somali heritage with stabbing a lawmaker to death in a church, a case that has raised fears about the safety of elected politicians.

Prosecutor James Cable told the court that Ali Harbi Ali, the son of an ex-media adviser to a former prime minister of Somalia, was an Islamic State supporter who had for years planned to kill a member of parliament.

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Poland will not bow to European Union "blackmail" but will seek to solve ongoing disputes, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said, as he arrived on Thursday to defend his nation before a meeting of fellow leaders in an escalating ideological battle.

Long-running tensions between Poland's ruling nationalists and the bloc's liberal majority have risen sharply since Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled on Oct. 7 that elements of EU law were incompatible with the country's charter.