Europe

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Russia's crewed spacecraft Yuri Gagarin (Soyuz MS-18) has been docked to the multipurpose laboratory module Nauka.

This is the first-ever crewed spacecraft to have been docked with Nauka, which became part of the ISS on July 29. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA' Mark Vande Hei are on board. The docking was manual.

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Moscow is raising alarm bells over the mounting strife in Kosovo’s north, since the developments there have been going "from bad to worse", Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated in an official commentary.

BRUSSELS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The European Union, fearing a political backlash in member states, can no longer agree to give a guarantee of future membership to the six Balkan countries once promised a place in the club, according to four diplomats and an internal document.

An impasse over a declaration for a summit of EU and Balkan leaders on Oct. 6 is a low point in the EU's strategy to bring Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia into the bloc. It coincides with a flare-up of tension at the Kosovo-Serbia border.

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Four people were seriously hurt in an explosion and fire on Tuesday in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, and police are investigating whether an explosive device was placed at the scene.

At least 16 were taken to hospital after the early morning blast set ablaze an apartment bloc in a central residential area. Fire fighters pulled people from the building while other residents used tied sheets to lower themselves from balconies as grey smoke billowed out of stairwells and windows.

LA PALMA, Spain, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Spain classified La Palma as a disaster zone on Tuesday, a move that will trigger financial support for the island where a volcanic eruption has wrecked buildings and destroyed crops over the past nine days.

The government announced a first package of 10.5 million euros ($12.30 million), which includes around 5 million euros to buy houses, with the rest to acquire furniture and essential household goods, government spokesperson Isabel Rodriguez said.

MINSK, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko called on Tuesday for changes to the constitution that would prevent an opposition movement that rose up against him in mass street protests last year from taking power, the state news agency Belta reported.

President since 1994, Lukashenko has touted constitutional reform as a way out of the political crisis following a disputed election in August 2020. But his opponents have denounced such change as a sham exercise to keep the veteran leader in office.

MOSCOW, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Russia sharply escalated a campaign against jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Tuesday, opening a new criminal case against President Putin's fiercest domestic critic that could allow the authorities to hand him another decade in jail.

In a case condemned by the West, Navalny, 45, is already serving two-and-a-half years in prison for parole violations he says were trumped up to thwart his political ambitions.

PARIS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Green voters on Tuesday chose former Greenpeace activist Yannick Jadot to be their candidate for France's April 2022 presidential election.

Jadot won the vote by a narrow margin, winning 51.03% of the votes against 48.97% for the self-styled radical Sandrine Rousseau.

The 54-year old EU lawmaker wants France to devote 20 billion euros ($23.43 billion) per year to the transition to a more environment-friendly economy, progressively end intensive animal farming and establish a new wealth tax.

Berlin, Sep 27 (AP-PTI) The party that narrowly beat outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel's bloc pushed Monday for a quick agreement on a coalition government amid concerns that Europe's biggest economy could be in for weeks of uncertainty after an election that failed to set a clear direction.

Olaf Scholz, the candidate of the center-left Social Democrats, called for Merkel's center-right Union bloc to go into opposition after it saw its worst-ever result in a national election.

LONDON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Britain's main opposition Labour Party on Monday passed an emergency motion that described the new security pact among the United States, Britain and Australia, known as AUKUS, as a "dangerous move that will undermine world peace."

During the party's annual conference, delegates passed the emergency motion by 70.35 percent to 29.65 percent.

"AUKUS is starting a new nuclear arms race and cold war. We must keep speaking out against it," said former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Twitter on Monday.