Europe

BRUSSELS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) plans to start raising and allocating in the next few months the main part of the 750-billion-euro (906-billion-U.S.-dollar) recovery fund, designed to bail out the bloc's economies hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, EU Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni said Monday.

He told reporters following a Eurogroup ministerial meeting that the roll-out of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the bulk of the massive fund, would be key to address the imbalances and inequalities that were deepened by the public health crisis.

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization chief on Monday lambasted drugmakers’ profits and vaccine inequalities, saying it’s “not right” that younger, healthier adults in wealthy countries get vaccinated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries and charging that most vaccine makers have targeted locations where “profits are highest.”

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/: Moscow plans to protest against violations of freedom of expression in the United States, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Roissiya-1's Voskresny Vecher (Sunday Evening) with Vladimir Solovyov show.

"Believe me, we have plans," she said, when asked whether it was the time to protest against violations of freedom of expression in the US. "We are making preparations," Zakharova added.

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/: Russia will expect the administration of US President-elect Joe Biden to give concrete proposals on the extension of the New START Treaty that expires on February 1, 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

He noted that the Biden administration was likely to accept agreement with Russia and China in those spheres where it would be in the United States’ interests and where they would not be able to do without dialogue with Moscow and Beijing.

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/: The latest statements by Western politicians on the return of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny to Moscow seek to distract their populations from the deep crises that their countries are currently mired in, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference on the outcomes of Russian diplomacy in 2020.

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/: The number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Russia over the past 24 hours has increased by 22,857, bringing the total to 3,591,066, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told journalists on Monday.

The daily growth was the lowest since January 13 when 22,850 infections were detected. On Sunday, January 17, the crisis center reported 23,586 new infections.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny should be released immediately, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Monday.

“Russia is bound by its own constitution and by international obligations to the principle of the rule of law and to the protection of civil rights,” Maas said in a statement. “These principles must, of course, be applied to Alexei Navalny as well. He should be released immediately.”

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is worried about the safety of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny after he was detained on return to Moscow, British Vaccine Deployment Minister Nadhim Zahawi said on Monday.

Russian police detained Navalny on arrival in Moscow on Sunday after he flew home to Russia from Germany for the first time since he was poisoned last summer.

LONDON, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Another 38,598 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, the lowest daily increase since the start of the year, according to official figures released Sunday.

The daily figure, down from 41,346 reported on Saturday, brought the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 3,395,959, the data showed.

Another 671 have died within 28 days of a positive test. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 89,261.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested Sunday at a Moscow airport as he tried to enter the country from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.

Navalny’s detention at passport control in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport was widely expected because Russia’s prisons service said he had violated parole terms from a suspended sentence on a 2014 embezzlement conviction.