Europe

09 Jan 2021; MEMO: The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has asked Tehran to disclose all details related to its downed civilian plane last year.

On the first anniversary of the downing of the plane, the ministry published a statement about sharing the same grief with the relatives of the plane crash victims.

PARIS (Reuters) - Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine will arrive in France on Monday, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said, as the country steps up its vaccination drive following a sluggish start.

Castex and Health Minister Olivier Veran visited a health centre in Tarbes, southwestern France, on Saturday as part of the government’s campaign to accelerate France’s vaccine rollout.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Firefighters have brought a large fire at the southern Irish port of Cork under control and no casualties were reported, the port authority, which recently started offering more “Brexit-proof” direct sailings to mainland Europe, said on Saturday.

The blaze began in a grain store at a deepwater berth used for freight services, the port authority said shortly after 0930 GMT, urging local residents to keep all doors and windows shut and remain indoors.

It said just over an hour later that the fire was under control.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece’s conservative government has submitted a bill to parliament to extend the western limit of its territorial waters in the Ionian Sea to 12 nautical miles, following negotiations with its regional neighbours Italy and Albania.

The bill, submitted late on Friday, would extend its western territorial waters from six nautical miles currently. It would not affect waters in the Aegean, off Greece’s southern and eastern coasts where Athens has been in dispute with its NATO ally Turkey over maritime boundaries.

LONDON, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The British government on Saturday urged Britons to "stay at home" in a major advertising campaign to help protect Britain's national health system and save lives as surging coronavirus cases are threatening to overwhelm hospitals in the country.

Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said in a advert rolled out on radio, TV and social media: "COVID-19, especially the new variant, is spreading quickly across the country. This puts many people at risk of serious disease and is placing a lot of pressure on our NHS (National Health Service)."

BERLIN (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic is colliding with politics as Germany embarks on its vaccination drive and one of the most unpredictable election years in the country’s post-World War II history.

After months of relatively harmonious pandemic management, fingers are being pointed as the center-left junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government takes aim at what it says has been a chaotic start to vaccinating the population.

MOSCOW, January 7. / TASS /: Moscow regards the events in Washington DC on January 6 as a domestic affair of the United States and wishes the American people to live though this dramatic period of their history with dignity, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova told TASS on Thursday.

STOCKHOLM, January 7. /TASS/: The Danish Energy Agency has received a new schedule from Nord Stream 2 AG for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the kingdom's exclusive economic zone, which is a condition for the continuation of the project, the ministry told TASS on Thursday.

BRUSSELS, Jan 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The European Union (EU) is “highly concerned” over Iran’s decision to start enriching uranium with 20 percent purity, a spokesperson said.

Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the bloc’s external action service, said at the European Commission’s daily briefing that Iran’s decision was “regrettable.”

MOSCOW, January 7. /TASS/: Four people were caught in an ice glacier collapse in Kamchatka, one was killed, three were wounded, press service of the Russian Emergencies Ministry told TASS.

"According to operational data, four people from the tourist group were under the collapse: three of them were injured, one was killed," the press service said. The Ministry of Emergency Situations noted that, according to preliminary information, other tourist groups who were at the waterfall left the scene in full.