Europe

SOFIA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Popular former interim economy and finance ministers have set up a centrist political faction to compete in Bulgaria's third parliamentary election this year on pledges to tackle widespread corruption and foster a fairer distribution of wealth.

The European Union's poorest member state is facing a new election on Nov. 14, after inconclusive votes in April and July.

LA PALMA, Spain, Sept 19 (Reuters) - A volcano erupted on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma on Sunday, sending fountains of lava and a plume of smoke and ash into the air from the Cumbre Vieja national park in the south of the island.

Authorities had already begun evacuating the infirm and some farm animals from the surrounding villages before the eruption, which took place on a wooded slope in the Cabeza de Vaca area at 3:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), according to the islands' government.

BERLIN, Sept 19 (Reuters) - The conservative candidate aiming to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained under pressure on Sunday ahead of a televised election debate that will be one of his last chances to catch up with Social-Democrat rival Olaf Scholz.

The latest INSA poll for Bild am Sonntag puts the Social Democrats (SPD) at 26% support, stable from a week ago, while the conservative bloc of Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, added half a percentage point to come in at 21%.

MOSCOW, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Russians voted on Sunday in the final stretch of a three-day parliamentary election that the ruling party is expected to win emphatically after a crackdown that crushed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's movement and barred opponents from the ballot.

The expected win by the ruling United Russia party is likely to be used by the Kremlin as proof of support for Vladimir Putin, who has been in power as either president or prime minister since 1999.

LONDON, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday unveiled plans to tackle Britain's long-standing "North-South" divide, appointing former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane as chief of a Levelling Up Taskforce.

The British government department in charge of the agenda was also given a new name -- the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

SAMOS, Greece, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Greece inaugurated on Saturday a new type of enclosed controlled reception and identification camp for asylum seekers on the outskirts of Vathy town on Samos island aimed to improve conditions for refugees, migrants and local communities.

The camp, funded by the European Union (EU), is the first of the five structures under construction in five Aegean Sea islands (Samos, Kos, Leros, Chios, Lesvos) that have received the bulk of the influx of irregular arrivals since 2015.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — King Willem-Alexander officially unveiled a new memorial in the heart of Amsterdam’s historic Jewish Quarter on Sunday honoring more than 102,000 Dutch victims of the Holocaust, and the Dutch prime minister vowed that it would remind citizens today to be vigilant against antisemitism.

Designed by Polish-Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind, the memorial is made up of walls shaped to form four Hebrew letters spelling out a word that translates as “In Memory Of.”

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was travelling to the United States on Sunday with senior Cabinet officials to urge world leaders attending the U.N. General Assembly to take urgent action on climate change ahead of this fall’s COP26 climate summit in Scotland.

Johnson is set to co-host a meeting on climate change with U.N. Secretary General António Guterres on Monday. The two will discuss the need to help developing countries mitigate the impact of climate change.

PARIS (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron will speak in the coming days with President Joe Biden in what will be their first contact since a major diplomatic crisis erupted between France and the United States over a submarine deal with Australia, an official said Sunday.

The phone call is at the request of Biden, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said, adding that there was “shock” and “anger” at first. But now it’s time to try to move forward, he said.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Belgian town of Aarschot has a vaccination rate of 94% of all adults, but Mayor Gwendolyn Rutten worries her town is too close for comfort to the capital of Brussels, where the rate stands at 63%. But there’s not much she can do about it.

Her hope is that the government mandates vaccination. “Otherwise, you drag all others back into danger,” Rutten said in a recent interview.