Europe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to help with the release of prisoners of war who were captured during fighting with Azeri forces during last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Pashinyan, who travelled to Moscow to meet the Russian leader, also said that he hoped Armenia would be able to acquire large quantities of Russian vaccines against COVID-19.

MOSCOW (AP) — They’re not leaders for life — not technically, at least. But in political reality, the powerful tenures of China’s Xi Jinping and, as of this week, Russia’s Vladimir Putin are looking as if they will extend much deeper into the 21st century — even as the two superpowers whose destinies they steer gather more clout with each passing year.

06 Apr 2021; MEMO: Iran's chief nuclear negotiator on Tuesday urged the US to lift the sanctions from his country in a bid to restore the 2015 nuclear accord as talks between Iran and the world powers still party to the deal ended in Vienna, Anadolu Agency reported.

ROME (AP) — A top official at the European Medicines Agency says there’s a causal link between AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine and rare blood clots, but that it’s unclear what the connection is and that the benefits of taking the shot still outweigh the risks of getting COVID-19.

Marco Cavaleri, head of health threats and vaccine strategy at the Amsterdam-based agency, told Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper on Tuesday that the European Union’s medicines regulator is preparing to make a more definitive statement on the topic this week.

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: The Tagansky district magistrate’s court of Moscow has fined TikTok 2.6 mln rubles ($34,022) because the social network refused to delete information encouraging teenagers to join an unsanctioned walkout in Moscow, a spokesperson with the Tagansky court's press service told TASS on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: Final combat readiness checks for the winter training period kicked off in Russian troops, Russia’s Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu said at the ministry’s conference call on Tuesday.

"In accordance with the Armed Forces’ training plan, final checks have begun in military command centers, military units and formations," the defense minister said.

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: Russia has registered 8,328 new confirmed COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, bringing the total count to 4,597,868 cases, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told journalists on Tuesday.

According to the crisis center, the relative increase of new infections is at the level of 0.18%.

The lowest daily growth rates were seen in the Republics of Tuva and Altai (0.01% each), the Sakhalin Region (0.03%) and the Magadan Region (0.04%).

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: It is necessary to prevent the third coronavirus wave in Russia, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin claimed Tuesday, noting the situation in other countries that have already declared the third wave of the infection.

MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/: Kiev will only aggravate the domestic Ukrainian crisis by its decision to join NATO, this idea is unacceptable for people living in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday.

MOSCOW, April 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Russia said it opposed sanctions against the junta in Myanmar, warning that punitive measures could spark a large-scale civil war in the country.

“A course towards threats and pressure including the use of sanctions against the current Myanmar authorities has no future and is extremely dangerous,” news agency Interfax quoted a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson as saying.

Such policies would “push the Burmese towards a full-blown civil conflict”.