Europe

MOSCOW, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday that it is expelling 20 staffers of the Czech embassy in Moscow in response to the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats from the Czech Republic.

The ministry said in a statement that it summoned the Czech ambassador to Russia Vitezslav Pivonka and strongly protested against the unfriendly act of Czech authorities.

Pivonka was informed that these 20 people from the Czech embassy must leave Russia by the end of Monday.

BERLIN (AP) — High-level talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States back into the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran are moving ahead with experts working on drafting proposals this week, but a solution remains “far away,” Russia’s delegate said Monday.

The U.S. unilaterally left the agreement, which promises Iran economic incentives in return for curbs on its nuclear program, in 2018 under then President Donald Trump, who said it needed to be renegotiated and imposed crippling sanctions.

PARIS (AP) — The French government bears “significant” responsibility for “enabling a foreseeable genocide,” a report commissioned by the Rwandan government concludes about France’s role before and during the horror in which an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered in 1994.

The report, which The Associated Press has read, comes amid efforts by Rwanda to document the role of French authorities before, during, and after the genocide, part of the steps taken by France’s President Emmanuel Macron to improve relations with the central African country.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, will be admitted to a hospital in another prison, the Russian state penitentiary service said Monday, after the politician’s doctor said he could be near death.

The prison service, FSIN, also said that Navalny had agreed to take vitamin therapy, but an ally of the 44-year-old Kremlin critic cast doubt on that and the hospital transfer, saying his lawyers should confirm both.

BERLIN, April 18. / TASS /: Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany Andrey Melnyk believes that it’s up to Berlin to help Kiev become part of NATO, the diplomat stated on Sunday in an interview with the Welt am Sontag newspaper.

According to the Ukrainian diplomat, Germany has to "take a leading role so that Ukraine becomes a NATO member." "And as soon as possible, without any reservations," he stressed. The ambassador attributed this to the fact that Germany "bore special historical responsibility for Nazi crimes against the Ukrainian people."

MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/: The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the growing COVID-19 incidence and the death toll in recent weeks as an alarming trend, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Russia Melita Vujnovic told TASS on Sunday.

MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/: Russia will carry out a technical inspection of the International Space Station and will make a decision on withdrawing from the project since 2025, and will inform its foreign partners.

MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/: Russia voices a resolute protest against the Czech Republic’s authorities in connection with the expulsion of 18 staff of the Russian Embassy and will take retaliatory measures, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

PARIS, April 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France will impose a 10-day quarantine on arrivals from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and South Africa over concerns about variants of the coronavirus, the prime minister’s office announced.

Although flights from Argentina, Chile and South Africa will not be suspended, all arrivals from those countries will have to submit to the quarantine or face fines.

(Reuters) --- Germany will not let down its Afghan staff as the international military mission in the country winds down after nearly two decades of war, Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer pledged on Sunday.

"I feel it is Germany's sincere duty to not leave these people without protection now that we will permanently withdraw," the defence ministry in Berlin said on Twitter, quoting extracts from an interview with German news agency DPA.