Europe

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/: It was quite predictable that the attempt to impeach Donald Trump, who already vacated the presidential office, would ultimately fail but US society is still split, Chairman of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee for Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky said on Sunday.

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/: The policy of deterring Russia is intensifying as the country grows stronger, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday during a meeting with editors-in-chief of Russian media outlets.

"As soon as we began to stabilize, to get back to our feet - the policy of deterrence followed immediately," he said in a fragment of the meeting, aired by the Rossiya-24 TV channel

"And as we grew stronger, this policy of deterrence was being conducted more and more intensely," Putin added.

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/: The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will be built despite Washington’s destructive steps aimed at hindering this effort, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview broadcast by Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday.

"European countries and European companies are interested in it. We are sure that it will be built despite those destructive approaches, which we have seen on the part of the US that certainly, in its turn, has been delaying the implementation of this project," Novak said.

ATHENS, Feb 14 (NNN-Xinhua) — Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on citizens who remain skeptical about COVID-19 vaccines to get vaccinated.

He made the call at a time when 500,000 vaccinations have been carried out across the country.

MOSCOW, Feb 14 (NNN-TASS) – A total of 98 workers are being evacuated after a cave-in in a coalmine in Russia’s Siberian coal-rich region of Kuzbass, the press service of the Russian emergencies ministry told TASS on Sunday.

Rescuers were alerted about the incident at about 3:10 local time on Sunday (23:10 Moscow time on Saturday).

“A total of 98 people were in the mine at the time of the incident. People are being taken to the surface,” the press service said.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Union will fast track approvals of coronavirus vaccines adapted to combat mutations, the bloc’s Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said in a newspaper interview on Sunday.

“We have now decided that a vaccine that has been improved by the manufacturer on the basis of the previous vaccine to combat new mutations no longer has to go through the entire approval process,” she told Bavaria’s Augsburger Allgemeine.

“So it will be faster to have suitable vaccines available without compromising on safety.”

LONDON (Reuters) - British foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday he shared concerns about the level of access given to a World Health Organization COVID-19 fact-finding mission to China, echoing criticism from the United States.

The White House on Saturday called on China to make available data from the earliest days of the novel coronavirus outbreak, saying it had “deep concerns” about the way the findings of the WHO’s COVID-19 report were communicated.

LONDON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders Friday to discuss efforts to ensure an equal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and prevent future pandemics.

Johnson will call for a new global approach to pandemics, drawing on lessons from the divisions that characterised the initial international response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a press statement released Saturday night by Downing Street.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to appeal to leaders of the world’s richest nations to unite in a “colossal mission” to get COVID-19 vaccines to every country and to lead a sustainable recovery from the pandemic, according to remarks released Saturday.

Johnson is set to chair a virtual meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Friday. It will be the first session led by Johnson since the U.K. took over the G-7′s presidency in January.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo is holding an early parliamentary election to form a new government amid the coronavirus pandemic, an economic downturn and stalled negotiations with wartime foe Serbia.

Some 1.8 million eligible voters on Sunday started to cast their ballots in 2,400 polling stations. They’re electing 120 lawmakers among more than 1,000 candidates from 28 political groupings. Some 100,000 Kosovars in diaspora are also eligible to vote by post.

Those infected by the coronavirus will be able to vote through mobile polling teams.