Europe

BERLIN, Sept 8 (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed concern on Wednesday about the composition of the provisional government established by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The cabinet list announced on Tuesday was entirely filled with leaders of the Islamist militant movement, and veterans of a guerrilla war that ended with a Taliban victory last month after two decades of fighting.

MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday opened the International Motor Show Germany (IAA Mobility) in the southern German city of Munich.

Merkel said she was pleased that the car industry has consistently taken up the challenge of developing alternative drive systems.

She said that it is now evident that the trend is towards electromobility and that the transport sector can and must contribute a great deal to climate neutrality.

BERLIN (AP) — A 30-year-old man went on trial Wednesday for an anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish restaurant three years ago in the eastern German city of Chemnitz in which the owner was injured and the restaurant damaged.

Prosecutors allege that the man, whose name was not given in line with German privacy rules, was motivated by far-right ideology. He has been indicted on charges of severe aggravated assault, breach of the peace and property damage.

VELIKO TARNOVO, Bulgaria (AP) — Standing outside the rundown public hospital in Bulgaria’s northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, the vaccination unit’s chief nurse voices a sad reality about her fellow citizens: “They don’t believe in vaccines.”

Bulgaria has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the 27-nation European Union and is facing a new, rapid surge of infections due to the more infectious delta variant. Despite that, people in this Balkan nation are the most hesitant in the bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

MOSCOW (AP) — A gas explosion in an apartment building outside Moscow on Wednesday killed two people and injured five others, law enforcement officials said.

The blast occurred in a nine-story building in Noginsk, a town 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) east of Moscow. The blast affected the lower part of the building, with three stories appearing to have sustained the most damage. About 30 apartments were damaged. Local authorities evacuated 170 people from the building.

PARIS (AP) — In a secure complex embedded within a 13th-century courthouse, France on Wednesday will begin the trial of 20 men accused in the Islamic State group’s 2015 attacks on Paris that left 130 people dead and hundreds injured.

Nine gunmen and suicide bombers struck within minutes of each other at France’s national soccer stadium, the Bataclan concert hall and Paris restaurants and cafes on Nov. 13, 2015. Survivors of the attacks as well as those who mourn their dead are expected to pack the rooms, which were designed to hold 1,800 plaintiffs and 350 lawyers.

MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/: Moscow will not take part in the Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Afghanistan, scheduled for September 8, which G7 member states wanted to hold with involvement of Russia and China.

"Russia will not take part in this meeting," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS Tuesday.

MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently on a retreat in a Siberian region with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and will return to Moscow late on Wednesday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/: Russia recorded 17,425 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest daily number since June 22, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Tuesday. The total number of cases rose by 7,047,880.

According to data from the crisis center, the coronavirus growth rate was 0.25.%.

In particular, 880 coronavirus cases were reported in the Moscow region in the past day, 626 in St. Petersburg, 510 in the Sverdlovsk region, 475 in the Rostov region, and 461 in the Voronezh region.

VIENNA, September 7. /TASS/: Moscow will prevent any impact on the free expression of the Russian people's will during the September parliamentary election, Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said at the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament on Tuesday.

"Our government agencies and our laws are so effective that we will prevent any kind of interference and impact on the free expression of the people's will," she pointed out.