Europe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he had not yet decided whether or not he would run for president again when his current term in the Kremlin ends in 2024, and that it was too early to talk about it.

LONDON, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Britain and the United States signed a customs agreement on Wednesday to ensure continued smooth trade after the Brexit transition period expires at the end of the year.

The bilateral Customs Assistance Agreement was signed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury Jesse Norman and U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood Johnson in London, according to a statement on the British Treasury website.

"This is an important agreement that ensures continuity post EU exit," Norman said.

BRUSSELS, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- China remained the European Union (EU)'s top trading partner as of October, said Eurostat on Wednesday.

The EU's trade in goods with China in the first ten months stood around 477.7 billion euros (582.8 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 2.2 percent compared with the same period of 2019, according to Eurostat.

Meanwhile, the trade in goods with the United States in January-October dropped to 460.7 billion euros, down by 11.2 percent year on year.

MOSCOW (AP) — While excitement and enthusiasm greeted the Western-developed coronavirus vaccine when it was rolled out, the Russian-made version has received a mixed response, with reports of empty Moscow clinics that offered the shot to health care workers and teachers — the first members of the public designated to receive it.

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19, the presidential Elysee Palace announced on Thursday.

It said the president took a test “as soon as the first symptoms appeared.” The brief statement did not say what symptoms Macron experienced.

It said he would isolate himself for seven days. “He will continue to work and take care of his activities at a distance,” it added.

BELGRADE, December 16. /TASS/: The Russian-Serbian mutual return of cultural values has been postponed due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, Russian president’s aide Vladimir Medinsky said during his visit to Belgrade on Tuesday.

BERLIN, December 16. /TASS/: Germany’s death toll from the coronavirus in the past day rose by 952, a new high during the entire pandemic, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), a German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention, said on Wednesday.

The country’s total death toll from the coronavirus hit 23,427. Over the past day, 27,728 coronavirus cases were registered in the country and since the start of the pandemic the coronavirus case tally has reached 1,379,238.

BRUSSELS, December 16. /TASS/: Permanent representatives of the 27 member states of the European Union agreed on a six-month extension of economic sanctions against Russia, which expire on January 31, 2021, a source in the delegation of one of the European countries in the EU Council told TASS.

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus case tally rose by 26,509 in the past day to 2,734,454, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

In the past two days the growth rate did not exceed 1%.

The lowest growth rates in the past 24 hours were recorded in the Republics of Tuva and Altai, the Nenets Autonomous Region (0.4%), the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, the Mari El Republic, the Magadan and Novosibirsk Regions (0.6%).

LONDON, Dec 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Britain and Mexico signed an agreement, aimed to secure the existing bilateral trade, following the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec 31, the British Department for International Trade (DIT) said yesterday.

The UK-Mexico Trade Continuity Agreement will provide certainty for British and Mexican businesses, “trading the goods and services that make up our bilateral trade relationship, which accounts for over five billion dollars per year,” said the DIT.