Europe

MADRID, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Spain reported 16,402 new cases of the novel coronavirus in a 24-hour period, bringing the country's tally since the start of the pandemic to 3,005,487, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry also reported 766 fatalities in the past 24 hours -- the highest number of deaths in a single day since April -- taking the total number of victims of the virus to 63,061.

Meanwhile, the incidence rate of the virus continues to fall, dropping from 667.33 cases per 100,000 inhabitants on Monday to 630 cases on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/: Blogger Alexey Navalny’s team members get instructions from NATO countries on how to carry out subversive activities, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/: Two Russian Tu-160 strategic missile-carrying bombers performed a flight over the neutral waters of the Barents, Greenland and Norwegian seas, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"Two Tu-160 strategic missile-carrying bombers performed a planned flight in the airspace over the neutral waters of the Barents, Greenland and Norwegian seas. The flight lasted about 12 hours," the ministry said.

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/: The Russian Progress MS-15 resupply ship that undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday splashed down in the Pacific Ocean outside shipping routes, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos announced.

"The Progress MS-15 quit the Earth’s orbit and ceased to exist. The spaceship’s non-combustible fragments that did not burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere fell at about 12:13 p.m. Moscow time into the ‘spacecraft cemetery’ in the non-navigable area of the Southern Pacific," Roscosmos specified.

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/: The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) applied for registration of the Sputnik V vaccine in the European Union on January 29, 2021, and scientific consultations with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) were held on January 19, the fund’s representative told reporters.

MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/: Calls by Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) - a registered foreign agent - on the European Union and the United States to impose sanctions on a number of Russian nationals don’t constitute a criminal act, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

"It’s not a criminal act de jure," he said, when asked if such calls could be regarded as high treason.

PARIS, Feb 9 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Mercosur/European Union trade agreement signing delayed because of a demand from France for guarantees referred to as “environmental and health standards” from country members of the South American block.

The French foreign trade minister Franck Riester said Paris will not sign, but “it does not mean our withdrawal, but we will only be satisfied with a political declaration on environmental commitments from the four countries involved (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay), and that will take a long time.”

LONDON (Reuters) - State-owned oil companies could squander about $400 billion on investments in the next decade on new oil projects that will struggle to turn a profit as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, a non-governmental organisation said on Tuesday.

The Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) estimated national oil companies, or NOCs, would invest $1.9 trillion in the next 10 years with about a fifth of those investments only breaking even if oil prices stay above $40 a barrel.

BERLIN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- German Federal Foreign Office on Monday declared a staff member of the Russian embassy in Berlin as persona non grata, in response to Russia's expulsion of a German diplomat on Friday.

"Russia expelled several EU diplomats, including one at the German embassy. This decision was not justified in any way," said a statement of the office, adding that the German diplomat was merely carrying out his task of reporting developments on the spot in a legal fashion.

LONDON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Another 14,104 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 3,959,784, according to official figures released Monday.

The country also reported another 333 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 112,798. These figures only include the deaths of people who died within 28 days of their first positive test.