Europe

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Catalonia will elect its parliament on Feb.14, after a court annuled the regional government’s plan to move the vote to May 30 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The election is considered a litmus test for the Catalan separatist movement.

29 Jan 2021; MEMO: A Swiss human rights organisation has called on the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to urge Saudi Arabia to release detained preacher Salman Al-Ouda.

29 Jan 2021; MEMO: Executions are imminent in Iraq following the president's approval of the death sentences for hundreds of Sunni prisoners in response to the suicide bombings in the capital Baghdad last week, the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) has warned.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A fire early Friday at a key hospital in Bucharest that also treats COVID-19 patients killed at least four people, authorities said.

The fire broke out on the ground floor of the hospital and forced the evacuation of the building that houses 100 people.

An unspecified number of people have been injured before firefighters put out the blaze, Romanian emergency services said in a preliminary report.

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Thursday rejected an appeal by opposition leader Alexei Navalny for his release from jail, while authorities detained several of his allies and warned social media companies about promoting more protests after tens of thousands rallied across the country last weekend demanding his freedom.

Appearing in court by video link from jail, Navalny denounced the criminal proceedings against him as part of a government campaign to intimidate the opposition.

MURMANSK, January 28. /TASS/: Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet aviation and air defense units carried out the first ever complex exercise on fending off an air attack on the guarded site near the Safonovo naval aerodrome in the Murmansk Region, the Northern Fleet press service announced Thursday.

"The exercise involved over 10 vehicles and 100 personnel, including the Ka-29 assault helicopter crew, unmanned aviation and security units," the announcement says.

SEVASTOPOL, January 28. /TASS/: A mobile coastal defense anti-ship system Bastion has carried out a march to a deployment site in Crimea within the framework of an exercise being held against the backdrop of the US destroyer Donald Cook’s visit to the Black Sea, the Black Sea Fleet’s information support office said on Thursday.

Combat crews arrived in the designated area, readied the systems for combat and carried out preparations for virtual fire. The Bastion battalion performed a set of standard tasks and drills in field conditions, the news release says.

STRASBOURG, January 28. /TASS/: Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted on Thursday in favor of extending the Russian delegation’s rights in the organization, a TASS correspondent reported.

A total of 107 members voted yes, 36 were against and 24 more abstained.

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/: Law enforcement agencies were performing their duties when they searched and detained participants in illegal demonstrations that occurred on January 23, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told the media.

We had expressed our concerns before those events took place (January 23 demonstrations). Presently, officers of the law are performing their functions," Peskov said when asked to what extent the Kremlin was concerned about the "significant number of detentions and searches after the demonstrations."

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal is in a terrible phase of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said, warning that it would be some weeks before things might start to improve and only limited help could be expected from abroad.

With a total of 668,951 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 11,305 deaths, including a record 293 dead on Wednesday, Portugal has the world’s highest seven-day average of new daily cases and deaths per million inhabitants.

The situation was not “bad”, it was “terrible”, Costa told the TVI broadcaster overnight.