Europe

PARIS (AP) — As French President Emmanuel Macron rides out the coronavirus in a presidential retreat at Versailles, French doctors are warning families who are heading for the holidays to remain cautious because of an uptick in infections — especially at the dinner table.

While Macron routinely wears a mask and adheres to social distancing rules, he hosted or took part in multiple group meals in the days before testing positive Thursday. Critics say that’s a bad example for compatriots advised to keep their gatherings to six people.

17 Dec 2020; MEMO: A letter signed by 40 Members of European Parliament (MEPs) calls for preventing the entry of goods produced in "illegal" Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories into Europe.

MEP Billy Kelleher posted the letter on Twitter with a comment reading: "The EU must use its economic power to ensure adherence to international law."

17 Dec 2020; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described American policy in the Middle East on Tuesday as "unconstructive", RT Arabic has reported. He made his comment during a meeting with his Croatian counterpart, Gordan Grlic Radman, in response to America's claim that Moscow's policies in the region are destabilising.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: Russian combat engineers have defused over 6,000 explosive objects and cleared about 200 hectares of territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, Dmitry Perepelkin, a deputy chief of the Russian peacekeeping contingent’s reconciliation center, told reporters on Thursday.

"Russian combat engineers of the Center for Humanitarian Demining have cleared 195 hectares of territory and 60 kilometers of roads from unexploded mines and shells. More than 6,000 explosive objects have been detected and destroyed," Perepelkin said.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin told his annual news conference on Thursday he hopes that at least some problems in Russian-US relations will be solved under Joe Biden’s administration.

"We presume that the newly elected US president will understand what is going on - he is a person, who has experience in both domestic and foreign policy. We expect that all problems, which emerged, or at least some of them will be ironed out under the new administration," Putin said.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: There is no evidence to prove allegations that any country deliberately spread the coronavirus, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual news conference on Thursday.

"As for the origin [of the virus], there are many rumors but I would like to refrain from making statements about for all the nation and the world to hear, particularly because we don’t see evidence proving allegations against anyone," Putin pointed out.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: The Russian Army is among the world’s most efficient today, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Thursday.

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/: Staff at industrial enterprises, public transport and journalists will be able to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus in the Russian capital starting from December 21, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Thursday.

As many as 15,000 people have already got the COVID-19 shot, he noted.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that a joint media investigation that identified named individuals as state security assassins responsible for the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was a “trick” to attack Russia’s leaders.

Navalny declared his poisoning case solved on Monday after the joint investigation said it had identified a team of assassins from Russia’s FSB security service as his would-be killers, who had stalked him for years.

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU’s chief negotiator said on Thursday there had been good progress in trade talks with Britain that aim to prevent a turbulent finale to the Brexit crisis in two weeks’ time, but a British official said the sides were still far apart.

As talks go down to the wire, optimism has risen that a deal is imminent to keep the goods trade that makes up half of annual EU-UK trade, worth nearly a trillion dollars in all, free of tariffs and quotas beyond Dec. 31.