Europe

BERLIN, April 17. /TASS/: Austria will consider it a great honor, if Russia and the United States decide to hold a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden in Vienna, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Saturday.

Austria is already in contact with Russia and the United States on the issue of discussing a potential venue for the Putin-Biden summit, he said.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: The Russian side informed Ukraine’s Charge D’Affaires Ad Interim Vasily Pokotilo about its decision to expel Ukrainian consul in St. Petersburg Alexander Sosonyuk detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) for obtaining law-enforcers’ classified data, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The Ukrainian diplomat must leave Russian territory by April 22, the ministry said.

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/: New confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia grew by 9,321 in the past twenty-four hours, registering the highest level since March 20, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Saturday.

The coronavirus growth rate equaled 0.2%, the latest figures show.

Overall, Russia has recorded 4,693,469 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic in the country, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said.

PARIS, April 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The global coronavirus death toll was expected to reach three million on Saturday, as the race for immunisation continues and countries like India grapple with rising infections and new lockdowns.

The virus that surfaced in late 2019 in central China and the ensuing pandemic has infected more than 100 million people, leaving billions more under crippling lockdowns and ravaging the global economy.

PODGORICA (Montenegro), April 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Montenegro’s finance minister tried to ease concern over a near US$1 billion Chinese-backed road project, insisting the country could afford to repay the debt and did not need EU help.

The project is part of a huge wave of Chinese investments across the Balkan region, which has sparked concern that governments have become too reliant on Beijing’s money.

(Reuters) --- Three members of the International Space Station's crew returned safely to Earth on Saturday on a Russian Soyuz craft, Russia's Roscosmos space agency reported.

The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, a microbiologist who in 2016 became the first person to sequence DNA in space, and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov landed in Kazakhstan at 0455 GMT.

The three had been at the space station since mid-October 2020.

(Reuters) --- Russia's FSB security service briefly detained a Ukrainian diplomat in St Petersburg, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Saturday, in the latest flare-up of tensions between the neighbouring countries.

Interfax news agency earlier reported the FSB as saying Oleksandr Sosoniuk was taken into custody when he tried to obtain classified information from Russian law enforcement databases during a meeting with a Russian citizen.

ATHENS, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The end of the tunnel of the COVID-19 pandemic is now near and the world will exit it through cooperation and the ongoing vaccination programs, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said during a visit to Athens.

"This is the only way out of the pandemic. We have to scale up indeed the vaccinations and give faith in the vaccinations," he said in a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, according to Greek national broadcaster ERT.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Friday responded to a barrage of new U.S. sanctions by saying it would expel 10 U.S. diplomats and take other retaliatory moves in a tense showdown with Washington.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also published a list of eight current or former U.S. officials barred from entering the country, including U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

BERLIN, April 16. /TASS/: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received the first component of AstraZeneca’s anti-coronavirus jab, German Government Spokesman Steffen Seibert reported on his Twitter page on Friday.

The statement quotes the chancellor: "Today, I received the first shot of the AstraZeneca drug. Thank you to everyone who works on the inoculation campaign and who participates in it. Vaccination is the key to overcoming the pandemic."