Europe

TBILISI, Oct 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Georgia has arrested former President Mikheil Saakashvili after his return to the country following eight years in exile, as the ex-leader sought to mobilise supporters ahead of national municipal elections seen as critical to the country’s political makeup.

Local media showed a video of smiling Saakashvili being escorted into the Rustavi penitentiary institution on Friday evening.

MOSCOW, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Billionaire Oleg Tinkov, whose online bank is Russia's second biggest credit card issuer, pleaded guilty on Friday to filing a false U.S. tax return and agreed to pay $507 million in taxes, interest and penalties, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

He had been accused of concealing $1 billion in assets and income when renouncing his U.S. citizenship in 2013.

JARINJE, Kosovo, Oct 2 - Kosovo's border crossing with Serbia was reopened on Saturday as Serbs removed trucks and cars and NATO troops moved in under a European Union-mediated deal to end a dispute between the neighbouring countries over car licence plates.

Kosovo special police forces withdrew from the border crossing in the north of the country nearly two weeks after Serbs blocked roads to protest at Kosovo's decision to introduce temporary licence plates for all cars from Serbia.

PARIS, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday played down his conviction for illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 re-election bid, suggesting many people in France had doubts about this week's guilty verdict.

Sarkozy, 66, made his first public comments on the conviction - his second this year - during an appearance at a Paris bookshop to sign copies of his new book "Promenades", which is focused on his literary and cultural influences.

LA PALMA, Spain, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Authorities advised people to limit time outdoors in parts of La Palma on Saturday as the erupting volcano on the Spanish island spewed red-hot lava and thick clouds of black smoke.

However emergency services lifted a stay-home order that had been in effect in Los Llanos de Aridane, El Paso and areas of Tazacorte, places near the volcano that had been affected by poor air quality.

LONDON, Oct 2 (Reuters) - The world's attention will be focused on Scotland for next month's climate summit, Queen Elizabeth told Scottish lawmakers on Saturday, adding that they would have an important role making a better, healthier world.

The queen opened the Scottish parliament on Saturday with fond remarks, four months after an election that returned a pro-independence majority pledging to hold a new referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom.

BERLIN, Oct 2 (Reuters) - A three-way German government led by the Social Democrats (SPD) should be ready to take office by the end of the year, the co-leader of the centre-left party said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday.

Norbert Walter-Borjans said he was confident his party, which won Sunday's national election by a narrow margin that left it seeking partners, could move swiftly to agree a coalition with the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP).

BERLIN (AP) — A joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025.

The BepiColombo mission made the first of six flybys of Mercury at 11:34 p.m. GMT (7:34 p.m. EST) Friday, using the planet’s gravity to slow the spacecraft down.

After swooping past Mercury at altitudes of under 200 kilometers (125 miles), the spacecraft took a low resolution black-and-white photo with one of its monitoring cameras before zipping off again.

MILAN (AP) — U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Saturday he thinks “enormous progress” can be made at upcoming U.N. climate talks in Scotland but more governments must come up with concrete commitments in the next 30 days.

Kerry attended a preparatory meeting in Milan where delegates from around the world sought to identify where progress can be made before the U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties starts in Glasgow on Oct. 31.

LONDON (AP) — The British government has extended an emergency visa program for truck drivers as fuel shortages showed few signs of abating Saturday, particularly in London and the southeast of England.

In an announcement late Friday, the Conservative government said temporary visas for nearly 5,000 foreign truck drivers it hopes to recruit would run until the end of February instead of expire on Christmas Eve as originally planned.

The short duration of the program announced last week drew widespread criticism for not being attractive enough to entice foreign drivers.