Europe

MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin always has the necessary communication tools, including the strategic ones, wherever he is, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday.

BRISTOL (England), March 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Two police officers were seriously injured and at least two police vehicles were set on fire in the city of Bristol in southwest England during violent scenes after a peaceful protest, police said.

Thousands of demonstrators had converged on the city centre, ignoring COVID-19 restrictions, to protest against a government bill going through parliament that would give police new powers to restrict street protests.

ATHENS, March 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Greece has ordered private sector doctors in the broader Athens region to assist its public health system to fight a rise in new COVID-19 infections, Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias said on Monday.

The government had earlier called on private sector doctors to help out as Greece’s public hospitals have been overwhelmed by surging COVID-19 infections and intensive care wards are running out of beds.

It said about 200 doctors were needed.

GENEVA, March 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 513,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection were registered worldwide in the past day, with the overall number of such cases exceeding 122.52 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin on Sunday.

As of March 21, as many as 122,524,424 novel coronavirus cases and 2,703,620 coronavirus-associated deaths were registered across the globe. The number of confirmed cases grew by 513,797 in the past 24 hours and the number of fatalities increased by 9,984.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began a visit to China on Monday with a call for Moscow and Beijing to reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar and Western payment systems to push back against what he called the West’s ideological agenda.

Lavrov, on a two-day visit to China, is expected to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart at a time when both countries’ ties with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden are badly strained.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Mark Branson, the head of Switzerland’s financial markets regulator, is to become president of Germany’s finance watchdog BaFin, Germany’s finance ministry said on Monday, as part of a shake-up at the regulator after the Wirecard accounting scandal.

Current BaFin president Felix Hufeld is leaving at the end of the month after coming under pressure for failing to spot wrongdoing ahead of the collapse of the payments company.

LONDON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Demonstrators in Britain on Sunday clashed with police over a bill that will give the police more powers to deal with non-violent demonstrations.

Thousands of people turned up in Bristol, a city in western England, for the "Kill the Bill" demonstration against the government's Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

Officers have suffered suspected broken bones as violent scenes unfolded in Bristol city center, according to the BBC.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s newly-elected parliament held its first session Monday and is expected to nominate the country’s new prime minister.

The new parliament comes after the Feb. 14 election in which Albin Kurti’s left-wing Self-Determination Movement, or Vetevendosje!, won the most votes, but the party still needs the votes of non-Serb minority parties to create a new Cabinet. Vetevendosje! won 58 out of the parliament’s 120 seats.

After their swearing-in, the new lawmakers voted to elect the new speaker, Glauk Konjufca of Vetevendosje!, and his deputies.

LONDON (AP) — AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection against sickness and eliminated hospitalizations and deaths from the disease across all age groups in a late-stage study in the United States, the company announced Monday.

AstraZeneca said its experts did not identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including finding no increased risk of rare blood clots identified in Europe.

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/: Kabul is not against the US proposal on dividing powers with the Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia), but its details should be discussed at talks, Head of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) Abdullah Abdullah said in an interview with TASS.

"As for the mere idea of dividing powers before holding the election, we told the Americans that we could discuss this with the Taliban," Abdullah said.

According to Abdullah, the US proposal includes a range of challenging moments.