Europe

ROME, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Italian President Sergio Mattarella has given House Speaker Roberto Fico an exploratory mandate to verify whether the same governing majority that existed before Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigned on Jan. 26 is still workable.

In a brief televised statement, Fico thanked Mattarella for entrusting him with the job of sounding out the members of the preceding government coalition -- the center-left Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement, and the centrist Italia Viva party led by Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister.

(AP) --- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill extending the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States a week before the pact was due to expire.

Both houses of the Russian parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to extend the New START treaty for five years. Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden had discussed the nuclear accord a day earlier, and the Kremlin said they agreed to complete the necessary extension procedures in the next few days.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union introduced tighter rules Friday on exports of COVID-19 vaccines that could hit shipments to nations like the United Kingdom, deepening a dispute with London over scarce supplies of potentially lifesaving shots.

But amid an outcry in Northern Ireland and the UK, the European Commission made clear the new measure will not trigger controls on vaccines shipments produced in the 27-nation bloc to the small territory that is part of United Kingdom bordering EU member Ireland.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 29. /TASS/: The security situation in the Russian Far East is far from clear, but Moscow is aware of all the threats, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday, opening a meeting with permanent members of the Security Council.

KERCH, January 29. /TASS/: Two more Project 22160 ships will be built for the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, Chief of the Russian Navy's General Staff Alexander Vitko told journalists, adding that a total of six such ships will be built.

"All six ships will join the Black Sea Fleet," Vitko said, answering a question from TASS.

He noted that ships of this Project have proven their worth, and, if a decision is made to build more such ships, they will likely to join other fleets.

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/: A total of 19,238 new COVID-19 cases were registered in Russia in the past 24 hours, bringing the total case count to 3,813,048, the coronavirus prevention anti-crisis center announced Friday.

The case growth rate in the past 24 hours was 0.51%, the statistics say.

In particular, 2,284 cases were registered in St. Petersburg, 1,044 - in the Moscow Region, 471 - in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, 378 - in the Voronezh Region, and 377 - in the Rostov Region.

Currently, 485,401 patients remain in hospitals in Russia.

MINSK, January 29. /TASS/: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated that in over a quarter of a century of his presidency, the government has not made any fundamental mistakes, BelTA agency informed on Friday.

"Yes, I am not a saint. It is impossible to have been working as president for more than a quarter of a century and not to have stumbled somewhere, not to have made mistakes. But you and I have not made fundamental mistakes," he said during a meeting with students, quoted by the BelTA agency.

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he has never been to the so-called "palace" in Gelendzhik. "No, I haven’t been," he told reporters on Friday, answering a question on the matter.

Peskov added that he had not seen video footage published by the Mash Telegram channel, where mass construction works are depicted at the alleged site in Gelendzhik. "No, we haven’t seen it so far, there’s been no time for that," he stated.

LONDON: Britain is banning direct passenger flights to and from the United Arab Emirates from Friday, shutting down the world’s busiest international airline route from Dubai to London.

Britain said it was adding the United Arab Emirates, Burundi and Rwanda to its coronavirus travel ban list because of worries over the spread of a more contagious and potentially vaccine resistant COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa.

BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union stood its ground in a row with AstraZeneca over COVID-19 vaccine supplies on Friday, pressing the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker to deliver the doses as promised in its contract.

The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, Britain and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West’s biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems.