Europe

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania’s president on Thursday nominated a former army general to be prime minister in the latest effort to end a political crisis amid a coronavirus surge that is stretching the country’s health care system to capacity.

After holding consultations with Romania’s parliamentary parties, President Klaus Iohannis asked Nicolae Ciuca of the National Liberal Party to try to form a new government. Ciuca, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, currently serves as the caretaker defense minister.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Coronavirus infections and deaths in Ukraine surged to all-time highs Thursday amid a laggard pace of vaccination, with overall inoculations among the lowest in Europe.

Ukrainian authorities reported 22,415 new confirmed infections and 546 deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest numbers since the start of the pandemic.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders pressured a defiant Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki Thursday to fall back into line on recognizing that EU law trumps national decision-making, hoping that dialogue will stave off a fundamental crisis in the bloc.

PARIS (AP) — A powerful autumn storm, named Aurore, blasted parts of western Europe on Thursday, knocking out power to a quarter of a million French homes and damaging buildings in at least four countries.

Train services were disrupted by uprooted trees littering tracks in France, Germany and the Netherlands and roofs were ripped off many buildings, including at part of the stadium used by the professional soccer club in the Belgian port city of Antwerp.

20 Oct 2021; MEMO: All investigations into the war crimes and abuses committed by British soldiers in Iraq have now been closed, without resulting in any prosecutions.

The Service Police Legacy Investigations (SPLI), which was staffed by Royal Navy Police and Royal Air Force Police, has investigated the claims by Iraqi civilians of British soldiers' serious criminal behaviour which are alleged to have taken place from 2003 during the US-led invasion, until 2009.

20 Oct 2021; MEMO: An online petition which demands that Denmark should stop the Syrian repatriation policy that puts in danger the residency of a number of Syrian refugees living in the country, got the required number of signatures to be submitted to Parliament, AFP reports.

According to the report, the petition, defending the rights of Syrian people who escape from the war-torn country, has been signed by more than 53,000 people. It needed 50,000 signatures for Parliament to consider it.

MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/: Moscow condemns the terror attack in Damascus that was carried out in an attempt to obstruct the political settlement in Syria and thwart the establishment of security in the capital, Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary regarding the explosion of a bus with Syrian servicemen. 

BRUSSELS, October 20. /TASS/: NATO’s offer to hold a Russia-NATO Council meeting remains relevant, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday, adding that Brussels expects Moscow’s response.

"The offer to meet in the NATO-Russia Council is still on the table. It’s for Russia to respond in a positive way," he said, noting with regret that the NATO-Russia relations are at their lowest point since the Cold War.

"That's actually not an argument against dialogue, that's an argument in favor of a dialogue," the official added.

MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has supported the government’s decision to declare non-working days from October 30 to November 7 in light of the unfavorable epidemiological trends. The regions where the situation is the worst may do so earlier, starting from October 23.

MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/: The Taliban movement (banned in Russia) has called on the international community to recognize Afghanistan’s interim government that they formed, Abdul Salam Hanafi, deputy prime minister of Afghanistan’s interim government, said at a regular round of talks on Afghanistan in Moscow on Wednesday.