Europe

PARIS (Reuters) - France will impose an earlier curfew in 15 northeastern and southeastern departments from Saturday to combat the spread of the coronavirus, starting at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., the government said on Friday.

“We are taking a decision for 15 departments. In a week’s time we will assess the impact of this earlier curfew on these 15 departments, on the circulation of the virus elsewhere in the country,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal told TF1 television.

LONDON, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Roads around Britain's port of Dover remained quiet Friday and largely avoided the previously anticipated confusion and congestion, even though Britain has kicked off a new era outside the European Union (EU).

Without signs of delays on surrounding roads, the first drivers that entered Dover from France found themselves at the center of attention as Brexit transition period ended at 2300 GMT on New Year's Eve.

GENEVA, Jan 01 (APP): Pakistan has called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to push India to release Aasiya Anrabi, a detained Kashmiri rights defender and political activist, who faces an imminent risk of conviction by a “sham” court on January 18.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: The Radio-Technical Troops (RTT) of the Russian Aerospace Forces detected and tracked more than 4,000 combat and reconnaissance aircraft and drones in 2020, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.

"While performing their combat duty in the aerospace defense domain in 2020, units of the Radio-Technical Troops of the Russian Aerospace Forces detected and tracked approximately 2,900 combat aviation aircraft and more than 1,100 reconnaissance aircraft," the ministry said.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: Russian rescue workers have reconstructed more than 250 buildings in Nagorno-Karabakh, working together with the regional Ministry of Urban Construction and the Interior Ministry, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

"As many as 251 buildings have been reconstructed so far, including an apartment building, 245 private houses, two government buildings, an infrastructure facility and two social facilities," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: A system to issue short-stay, single entry e-visas to foreign nationals has been set up in Russia but its launch date will depend on the coronavirus situation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: Russia’s administrative reform involving the right-sizing of state personnel begins nationwide on January 1, 2021. According to plans, it should be completed in three months, by April 1.

As Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin noted earlier, the government often discussed the necessity to optimize the system of management. However, the reform’s dates were postponed several times for various reasons, including over the coronavirus situation.

MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/: The number of coronavirus cases in Russia rose by 27,039 to 3,186,336 in the past 24 hours, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said on Friday.

As many as 5,907 new cases were recorded in Moscow, 3,746 in St. Petersburg, 1,568 in the Moscow region, 506 in the Nizhny Novgorod region, 398 in the Sverdlovsk region, and 392 in the Rostov region.

According to data from the crisis center, there are currently 548,643 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

LONDON, Jan 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Britain became the first nation to approve a lower-cost vaccine partially developed by Oxford University as the Covid-19 pandemic raged worldwide.

New Year’s Eve marks one year since the World Health Organization first mentioned a mysterious pneumonia in China later identified as Covid-19, which went on in 2020 to kill more than 1.79 million people and devastate the global economy in unprecedented ways.

London, Jan 1 (AP-PTI) Britain's long and sometimes acrimonious divorce from the European Union ended on Thursday with an economic split that leaves the EU smaller and the UK freer but more isolated in a turbulent world.