Europe

MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/: The number of coronavirus cases in Russia rose by 16,688 to 3,934,606 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Friday.

The coronavirus growth rate stands at 0.43%.

The rate is the lowest in the Tuva region (0.08%), the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region, the Jewish autonomous region, the Magadan region, the Sakhalin region, the Kostroma region and Moscow (0.2%).

MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/: The demand of US President Joe Biden to release blogger Alexey Navalny comes down to "aggressive and unconstructive rhetoric," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.

"This is a very aggressive and unconstructive rhetoric, unfortunately," the spokesman told reporters on Friday. "Any hints of an ultimatum are absolutely unacceptable to us."

The spokesman stressed that Moscow would not pay attention to such statements.

BELGRADE, Feb 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Inside the dome of Belgrade’s concrete fair hall, dozens of nurses in hazmat suits inject COVID-19 shots into young and old alike, working with an efficiency that has turned Serbia into continental Europe’s fastest vaccinator.

The small Balkan country has inoculated more than 450,000 of its population of 7 million in almost two weeks, a rate that exceeds all other states in Europe apart from Britain, according to the scientific publication Our World in Data.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scotland’s top civil court has dismissed a case which sought a ruling that the Scottish parliament could hold an independence referendum without permission from London, saying it was premature and hypothetical.

Independence campaigner Martin Keatings wanted legal backing for his argument the Scottish parliament had the authority to hold a new vote on secession without the explicit approval of the United Kingdom government.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany should not drop support for the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia over the crackdown on Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, as “feel-good moralising” is not foreign policy, the man best placed to be the next German chancellor told Reuters.

Pointing to U.S. purchases of crude oil from Russia, Armin Laschet described himself as a political realist - or “Realpolitiker” - and said: “We have to take the world as it is in order to make it better.”

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil hit its highest level in a year on Friday, closing in on $60 a barrel on economic revival hopes and supply curbs by producer group OPEC and its allies.

New orders for U.S.-made goods rose more than expected in December, pointing to continued strength in manufacturing. The U.S. Congress is also moving ahead on President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan.

05 Feb 2021; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called on his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi to expel members of the Syria Civil Defence, known as the White Helmets, from Jordan, during a press conference held by the officials in Moscow.

PARIS, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- The epidemic situation in France was "particularly fragile" as those more infectious variants of the coronavirus circulate faster, but there was no need for the moment to impose a new nationwide lockdown, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday.

With daily averages of 20,000 new infection cases, 1,600 hospital admissions and 320 deaths, "the situation remains worrying," Castex warned.

LONDON, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Travelers returning to Britain from more than 30 "red list" countries will have to quarantine for 10 days in government-approved accommodation like hotels, starting Feb. 15, the British government announced on Thursday.

The measure is being introduced to prevent new variants of COVID-19 from entering Britain. Countries on the list include all of South America, southern Africa, Portugal and the United Arab Emirates. Non-residents and nationals from these countries have already been banned from entering Britain.

ROME, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Thursday signaled his support for a government led by the prime minister-designate Mario Draghi.

In a brief statement to the press, Conte said that he met with Draghi on Wednesday in what he described as "a very long and very open talk."

"To those who say I am an obstacle to the formation of a new government, I say that clearly they don't know me," Conte continued.