Europe

10 Dec 2020; MEMO:  Amnesty International accused Airbnb of acting in bad faith towards investors ahead of its stock market debut on Thursday by failing to inform them of its politically sensitive business activities in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Reuters reports.

Airbnb did not provide comment on Amnesty's charge. A company spokesman referred Reuters to a statement it made in 2019 saying it would not take profits from its listings in the West Bank.

United Nations, Dec 10 (PTI) More than 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide as of mid-2020, with existing and new conflicts as well as the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affecting their lives this year, a UN report has said.

According to its report on trends in global forced displacement released on Wednesday in Geneva, The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR estimates that global forced displacement surpassed 80 million at mid-year.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — As the Polish government plays a game of chicken with the European Union over its next long-term budget, some Poles are voicing fears that a drawn-out conflict could put their country on a path toward an eventual departure from the bloc, or “Polexit.”

Poland’s conservative government, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party, denies that it has ever wanted to leave the 27-member bloc, and popular support for EU membership runs extremely high.

KALININGRAD, December 9. /TASS/: A group of the Baltic Fleet’s warships comprising the corvettes Boiky and Steregushchiy returned to its home base of Baltiysk after successfully accomplishing long-distance deployment missions in the North Atlantic, Fleet Spokesman Roman Martov told TASS on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: The state trials of Russia’s Uran-9 tracked unmanned combat ground vehicle (UCGV) will be completed this year, Ground Forces Commander-in-Chief Army Gen. Oleg Salyukov said in an interview with the Krasnaya Zverda newspaper published on Wednesday.

"State trials of the Uran-9 UCGV will be completed this year," he said.

According to the official, various robotic platforms are currently in development in Russia.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus cases grew by 26,190 in the past day and the total case tally reached 2,541,199, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Wednesday.

In the past day, the growth rate did not exceed 1%.

The lowest growth rates were registered in the Chukotka Autonomous Region (0.5%), the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region, Dagestan and the Republic of Altai (0.6%).

STOCKHOLM, December 9. /TASS/: The Danish prosecution has accused a Russian national permanently residing in Denmark of espionage, the press release by the Danish Prosecution Service informs.

"The prosecution has presented charges in accordance with Article 108 of the Criminal Code. The defendant, who has been in custody since early July 2020, is suspected, among other things, of sharing Danish energy technologies with the Russian intelligence," the message informs.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: Crimea is Russia’s sovereign territory, and the country has the right to do everything necessary there to guarantee its security according to the norms spelled out by international law, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, commenting on the Ukraine-initiated resolution on the "militarization" of Crimea approved by the UN General Assembly.

MOSCOW, Dec 9 (NNN-TELESUR) — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ratified a protocol on space exploration cooperation for peaceful purposes signed with Argentinan authorities on Oct 8, 2019.

Besides the optical-electronic surveillance to alert over dangerous situations in the circumterrestrial space, the Protocol allows the deployment of ground stations supervised by the Russian global positioning system (Glonass).

It also provides for cooperation in manned space missions, launch services, and the production of space equipment.

GENEVA, Dec 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Despite calls for ceasefires and compassion amid the Covid-19 pandemic, violence and persecution have continued to force people from their homes, with record numbers now displaced, the UN said Wednesday.

By the end of 2019, 79.5 million people were living uprooted and displaced, including nearly 30 million refugees — more than one percent of the world’s population.

And the UN refugee agency said preliminary figures showed more people had been forced to flee in 2020, pushing the number past 80 million.