Europe

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union and the United Kingdom made public Saturday the vast agreement that is likely to govern future trade and cooperation between them from Jan. 1, setting the 27-nation bloc’s relations with its former member country and neighbor on a new but far more distant footing.

EU ambassadors and lawmakers on both sides of the English Channel will now pore over the “EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” which contains over 1,240 pages of text. EU envoys are expected to meet on Monday to discuss the document, drawn up over nine intense months of talks.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Medical workers, nursing home residents and politicians are set to be vaccinated against the coronavirus across the European Union on Sunday, part of an effort by the bloc’s 27 nations to roll out shots in a coordinated and equitable fashion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it “a touching moment of unity” in the battle to protect the bloc’s nearly 450 million people from the worst public health crisis in a century.

BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds of migrants were stranded Saturday in a squalid, burnt-out tent camp in Bosnia as heavy snow fell in the country and winter temperatures suddenly dropped.

Migrants at the Lipa camp in northwest Bosnia wrapped themselves in blankets and sleeping bags to protect against the biting winds in the region, which borders European Union member Croatia.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Germany, Hungary and Slovakia began giving out their first coronavirus vaccine shots on Saturday only hours after receiving their first shipments, upsetting the European Union’s plans for a coordinated rollout Sunday across the bloc’s 27 nations.

“Every day that we wait is one day too many,” said Tobias Krueger, operator of a nursing home where immunizations began in Halberstadt, in the northeast German region of Saxony-Anhalt.

London, Dec 25 (PTI) A record number of people have tested positive for COVID-19 in England as millions spend Christmas Day away from friends and family due to a continuing spike in coronavirus infections on Friday.

Figures from the National Health Service's (NHS) Test and Trace network show that between December 10 and 16, 173,875 people received a positive result the highest weekly total of positive cases and a 58 per cent increase on the previous week.

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/: Russian space agency Roscosmos filed a lawsuit against its subsidiary, the Progress Rocket and Space Center, for producing a satellite that stopped working in the orbit, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said on his Facebook page.

"Several years ago, our subsidiary used a rocket that it had manufactured to put into the orbit a satellite that it had also manufactured. Soon, the latter had ‘died’ in the orbit," he wrote. "In line with the current legislation, we are obliged to file a lawsuit in connection with the satellite’s failure."

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/: The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is a priority project for Moscow, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS, adding that Russia is going ahead with its implementation.

"That is a priority project and we are going ahead with its implementation," he said.

"The remaining questions [should be addressed to - TASS] the Americans," Peskov said when asked whether the international agenda around the Nord Stream 2 project may change due to Joe Biden's victory in the US presidential election.

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/: Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has apprehended four members of the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia) who were plotting a terror attack near the building of the law enforcement agencies, the FSB Public Relations Center informed TASS on Saturday.

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus cases have exceeded 3 million. Another 29,258 cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, the total number of infected people has reached 3,021,964, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Saturday.

According to the crisis center, the growth rate has not exceeded 1% for two days. Russia’s coronavirus cases surpassed 1,000,000 on September 1 and 2,000,000 on November 19.

BERLIN, Dec 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Four people were injured in a shooting early Saturday in Germany’s capital Berlin, the fire service said.

A police spokeswoman said four people were taken to the hospital following an altercation involving several people in the Kreuzberg district.

The shooting took place in a gateway on Stresemannstraße, close to the offices of the center-left Social Democrat Party (SPD).

The police spokeswoman said there was no indication of a political motive but that the situation was still very unclear.