Europe

BELGRADE, October 16. /TASS/: The meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be crucial for the contract on gas supply to Serbia, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview aired by the TV Prva channel.

MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/: Russia has recorded a quite high number of coronavirus deaths in recent months, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Rossiya-24 news channel on Saturday.

"We have been recording quite high mortality rates in recent months. And I would like to remind everyone that, as of today, the main preventive measure that helps protect an individual and helps avoid a fatal outcome is vaccination," she said.

YEKATERINBURG, October 16. /TASS/: Police have detained two suspects after 18 people died from methanol-tainted liquor in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-biggest city located in the Urals, Valery Gorelykh, the spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry’s branch for the Sverdlovsk Region, told reporters on Saturday.

GENEVA, Oct 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Trade Organization said its member nations had again failed to agree to suspend intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, with some countries doubting a deal could be reached unless certain delegations make “real compromises”.

  South Africa and India have called for intellectual property rights to be temporarily lifted for coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic in order to boost production and address the gaping inequality in access between rich and
poor nations.

ROME, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Italy's biggest workers' unions rallied in Rome on Saturday and called on the government to dissolve the neo-fascist groups involved in last weekend's violent protests against the COVID-19 health pass.

Last week, police arrested 12 people, including leaders of the extreme right-wing group Forza Nuova, after thousands took to the streets to oppose mandatory 'green passes' for all workers.

PRAGUE, Oct 16 (Reuters) - When Vaclav Havel nearly died of a ruptured intestine as Czech president in 1998, doctors provided daily updates on his condition.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, a Czech president is again in hospital but the public has not been told what is wrong with him.

President Milos Zeman was taken into intensive care in hospital on Oct. 10. Since then, his spokesperson and doctors have not provided a diagnosis or said how long he will need to recover.

LEIGH-ON-SEA, England, Oct 16 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday laid flowers outside the church where a lawmaker was stabbed to death a day earlier, in what police say was a terrorist attack probably linked to Islamist extremism.

The attack on David Amess, from Johnson's Conservative Party, comes five years after the murder of Jo Cox, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, and has prompted a review of the security of elected politicians.

15 Oct 2021; MEMO: Iran is not ready to return to talks with world powers over its nuclear programme yet and its new negotiating team wants to discuss the texts that will be put forward when it meets with the EU in Brussels in the next few weeks, a senior EU official said today.

BRUSSELS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- As winter comes, the circulation of viruses that cause COVID-19 and seasonal influenza could possibly trigger a "twindemic," the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides warned on Friday.

"As we move from autumn to winter... we need to take action and ensure our health systems do not become overburdened," Kyriakides said in a statement.

ROME, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- The latest anti-pandemic protocol requiring all workers in the Italian job market to hold the Green Pass proving COVID-19 vaccination entered into force on Friday.

The Italian government introduced the rule on Sept. 16, then gave companies and employers one month to adjust.

The Green Pass is the certificate showing proof that a person has received at least one dose of the vaccine, or is fully immunized, or has recovered from the infection, or has tested negative in the last 48 hours.