Europe

MADRID (Reuters) - The main hurdle in talks between Spain and Britain over Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status is keeping cross-border traffic fluid, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Tuesday.

Madrid and London are negotiating how to police the land border between Spain and Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, as it was excluded from the last-minute exit deal reached between Britain and the European Union last week.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - China and the European Union are likely to clinch a deal this week that would give EU firms better access to the Chinese market, improve competition conditions and protect EU investment in China, European officials said on Monday.

Talks on the investment deal began in 2014, but were stuck for years as the EU said China was failing to make good on promises to lift curbs on EU investment despite a pledge to open up the world’s second largest economy.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia sentenced a former board member of state energy holding company Inter RAO to 15 years in jail on Tuesday after finding her guilty of spying for Moldova at a trial held behind closed doors, her defence team said.

Karina Tsurkan, who denied any wrongdoing, was detained in June 2018. Some of the details of her case are not publicly known and are classified due to the sensitive nature of the allegations.

BERLIN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The new coronavirus variant discovered in Britain earlier this month seems to have been present in Germany since November, German national daily Die Welt said Monday.

Researchers at Hannover Medical School detected the new variant in samples of an elderly patient who contracted the virus around November and later died, the newspaper said.

Germany reported its first known case of the new variant on Thursday in a woman who flew in from Britain, according to the health ministry of the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg. 

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Several thousand people rallied Monday in Montenegro, accusing the young country’s new government of being pro-Serb because of its plans to amend a religious property law that is strongly opposed by the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Carrying Montenegrin flags and chanting “Treason,” protesters gathered outside the parliament building in Podgorica, the capital, where lawmakers plan to discuss the proposed changes.

LONDON (AP) — British hospitals are canceling non-urgent procedures and scrambling to find space for COVID-19 patients as coronavirus cases continue to surge despite tough new restrictions imposed to curb a fast-spreading new variant of the virus.

Another 41,385 confirmed cases were recorded across the U.K. on Monday. It was the first time the daily number of cases reported in the country surpassed 40,000, although many more tests are being performed than earlier in the pandemic.

LONDON (AP) — First came the Brexit trade deal. Now comes the red tape and the institutional nitty gritty.

Four days after sealing a free trade agreement with the European Union, the British government warned businesses Monday to get ready for disruptions and “bumpy moments” when the new rules take effect on Thursday night.

Firms are scrambling to digest the details and implications of the 1,240-page deal sealed by the EU and the U.K. on Christmas Eve, just a week before the year-end deadline.

MOSCOW, December 28. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto have exchanged congratulations on the upcoming holidays and reiterated their commitment to strengthening mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation in a telephone conversation, the Kremlin press service said on Monday.

"The heads of state exchanged congratulations and warm wishes on the occasion of the New Year holidays," the report reads.

MOSCOW, December 28. /TASS/: The emergence of coronavirus vaccines on the global market is helping to restore oil demand, and the market may return to pre-crisis parameters during 2021, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel.

"Before the end of 2020, we have already seen a recovery in demand, but, nevertheless, we did not reach the parameters that we had before the crisis. We hope that throughout 2021 we will, however, reach pre-pandemic figures," he said.

MOSCOW, December 28. /TASS/: Russia’s Defense Ministry presented two 2021 calendars, with one of them showing the Orion long-range drone in its strike and reconnaissance version (the ‘Inokhodets’ experimental design work) for the first time.

"The Defense Ministry of Russia shows the ‘Inokhodets’ reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle," the ministry said in a statement.

In the photo, the drone is shown with beam holders under the wings for fastening the armament and the attached ammunition. The drone has a desert camouflage color.