Europe

BRUSSELS, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- The first meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), set up by the United States and the European Union (EU) during their summit in June to coordinate approaches to key global trade, economic and technology issues, remains suspended despite signs of reconciliation in transatlantic relations, according to an EU spokesperson.

GENEVA, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- A consistent innovation policy, increased spending on education and science and the ability to translate all these into sound results are behind China's current role as a global innovation leader, a senior official from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) told Xinhua on Thursday.

As per the WIPO's "Global Innovation Index (GII) 2021" released on Monday, China is still the only middle-income economy among the world's top 30 most innovative countries. It has established itself as a global innovation leader and is approaching the top 10.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — When a priest arrives at a hospital in Chorzow to perform the last rites, nurse Mariusz Strug can see the fear in dying patients’ eyes. “After the sacrament, they knew what was happening,” he said.

But there have been no psychologists available to offer any consolation to the patients. Strug and another nurse would try to offer some kind words, but they were strained to the limit caring for 60 patients in their COVID-19 ward.

“People come to us and they want us nurses to perform a miracle,” said Strug.

ROME (AP) — A former Catalan leader sought by Spain for a failed 2017 secession bid is expected to appear at an extradition hearing Friday after being detained in Sardinia, an Italian island with strong Catalan cultural roots and its own independence movement.

Italian police on Thursday night transferred Carles Puigdemont to a jail in Sassari, a Sardinian city near Alghero, where he had been detained upon arrival at the airport there. Alghero is hosting a traditional Catalan folklore festival that he was expected to attend.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s political parties prepared to rally their supporters and win over undecided voters Friday, two days before a national election that will determine who succeeds Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years in power.

Merkel’s center-right Union bloc, with Armin Laschet as its candidate for chancellorship, has made small gains in the polls in recent weeks. But it remains narrowly behind the center-left Social Democrats, headed by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/: An amendment backed by the US House of Representatives that would ban American citizens from buying or selling newly-issued Russian sovereign debt on primary and secondary markets, has not yet taken its final form, which is why it is too early to provide any remarks on it, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/: Russia's Health Ministry has received from the Gamaleya Center a package of documents required for the registration of its vaccine against the novel coronavirus, which is meant especially for teenagers, the Health Minister's aide Alexei Kuznetsov told TASS on Thursday.

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/: The future Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) will comprise seven modules and a short-arm centrifuge, according to the specifications of a research project on preparations for a flight to the Moon posted by the federal space agency Roscosmos on the government’s procurement website on Thursday.

"The work on the project of specifications for an assembly module, a versatile nodal module, a laboratory module, a freely flying module, a transformable module, a core unit, an airlock module and a short-radius centrifuge," the document says.

CHISINAU, September 23./TASS/: The leader of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky, believes the peacekeeping mission under Russia’s auspices has no alternative, his press service said on Thursday after Krasnoselsky met with Deputy Speaker of the Russian Federation Council (upper house) Konstantin Kosachev in Moscow.

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/: Russia’s Defense Ministry has rejected Estonia’s claims that a Russian A-50 aircraft intruded into the Baltic republic’s airspace.

"On September 22, the crew of an A-50 plane of the Aerospace Force was performing a scheduled flight from an airfield in the Kaliningrad Region to its permanent base. The flight proceeded along the agreed route with the plane’s transponder turned on. The aircraft’s crew was in contact with Estonian air controllers who did not present any complaints to the Russian crew," the ministry told reporters.