Europe

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights investigator for Myanmar on Friday urged the U.N. Security Council to consider imposing punitive sanctions, arms embargoes and travel bans in response to a military coup.

The United States, which imposed its own sanctions on Thursday, urged other U.N. member states to follow suit, in its first remarks to the Human Rights Council since returning to the forum this week.

LONDON (Reuters) - The UK Supreme Court on Friday allowed a group of 42,500 Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) in English courts after years of oil spills in the Niger Delta contaminated land and groundwater.

Senior judges said UK-domiciled Shell, one of the world’s biggest energy companies, did have a common law duty of care, in the latest case to test whether multinationals can be held to account for the acts of overseas subsidiaries.

PARIS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A study on serum samples of over 9,000 French adults suggests that COVID-19 infection may have occurred as early as November 2019 in France as some sampled between November 2019 and January 2020 tested positive for antibodies against the virus.

The research, led by Fabrice Carrat, director of Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health, was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology on Feb. 6.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A leader of the Polish Women’s Strike, the movement that has led mass nationwide protests against a near total abortion ban in Poland, has been charged with criminal felonies.

The U.S. State Department said it was watching the situation in the allied NATO country “very closely.”

Marta Lempart told The Associated Press on Thursday that she was formally read the charges at the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw on Wednesday.

MINSK, February 11. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that his country must remain a presidential republic.

"I stand for a constitutional reform. But I am certain that our country must remain a presidential republic," he told the All Belarusian People's Assembly on Thursday.

MINSK, February 11./TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday spoke out in favor of economic integration with Russia on equal conditions, noting that both countries would benefit from that.

MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/: Russia’s latest Udar robotic vehicle will be capable of moving on the battlefield autonomously and interacting with drones, Armament Cluster Industrial Director at the state tech corporation Rostec Bekkhan Ozdoyev told TASS on Thursday.

The operational prototype of the Udar robotic system has been developed by the Signal All-Russian Scientific Research Institute within High Precision Systems Company integrated into Rostec.

MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/: Russia sees signals that the United States is open to launching the new stage of strategic dialogue and is ready to start an effort in this field, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a briefing on Thursday.

"We see signals that Washington is open to launching the new stage of strategic dialogue between our countries. Meanwhile, we are set to deal with the most challenging aspects of strategic sphere in the most decisive way. We plan to immediately launch this effort as soon as Washington is ready for it," Ryabkov said.

MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/: The carrot and stick policy is not acceptable in Russia to stimulate people to get COVID-19 jabs, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday when asked if Moscow is considering specific measures to ramp up the pace of vaccination in the country.

"There can be no stick or carrot here. We just need to tell people that it is necessary to get the shot for their own health and safety," he said.

The Kremlin representative added, "mass media plays an enormous role in getting more people to receive vaccines."

MOSCOW, Feb 11 (NNN-TASS) — The British coronavirus strain will inevitably reach Russia in mid-spring, Yevgeny Timakov, chief physician of the Leader of Medicine medical center and specialist in infectious diseases and vaccines, said.

“The British strain will reach Russia sooner of later. It will be here, most likely, in mid-spring. So, if we ease coronavirus restrictions now, we will have another outbreak, which is undesirable.