Europe

MINSK, November 2. /TASS/: Police detained some 300 people at unauthorized rallies in Minsk and the Minsk Region on November 1, Belarusian Interior Ministry Spokesperson Olga Chemodanova said on her Telegram channel on Monday.

"Nearly 300 people were detained for violating the law on mass events in Minsk and in the Minsk Region, and administrative protocols were drawn up against them," the spokesperson said.

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: The Design Bureau Fifth Generation (a resident of the Skolkovo hi-tech hub in Moscow and the Academpark technology park in Novosibirsk) plans to launch a group of small satellites for the Internet of things, the design bureau’s press office told TASS on Monday.

"Our future plans envisage launching a cluster of small satellites for establishing communications in the M2M (machine-to-machine) segment," the design bureau said, without specifying the timeframe of creating the orbital constellation.

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: Twenty people were killed and 15 others were wounded as a group of armed individuals attacked a university in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, Qatar’s TV channel Al Jazeera reported citing its sources.

All casualties are students of Kabul University.

Earlier an explosion occurred on the premises of the university in Kabul, after which a group of armed persons opened fire near the law faculty. An opening ceremony for a book fair was being held there, which was attended by Iran’s representatives.

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has emphasized that Russia and China are effectively fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

"The pandemic of the coronavirus infection became a serious trial for all countries this year. Russia and China counteract this challenge effectively," he said on Monday at a video conference of the inter-parliamentary commission on cooperation of the Russian Federal Assembly and the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (NPC).

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: Moldova’s presidential runoff will be quite tough, there are many voters still undecided, so it is too early to make prediction on the election’s outcomes, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Director General Andrey Kortunov told TASS on Monday.

"I think that the fight in the runoff will be tough, and both sides believe that. It is too early to predict the results of the runoff, as the gap between the presidential candidates is not that big," Kortunov said.

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: The Russian authorities are managing to minimize the volatility of the ruble exchange rate and to maintain macroeconomic stability, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

"The ruble is breaching psychological thresholds, but volatility is minimized by the efforts of our regulator," a Kremlin spokesman said, commenting on the depreciation of the ruble.

He drew attention to the fact that "now any world currency is under serious negative pressure from a number of circumstances in the global economy."

MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/: Russia’s coronavirus cases rose by 18,257 in the past day to 1,655,038, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Monday.

The average growth rate dropped to 1.1%.

The lowest growth rate in the past day was recorded in the Chechen Republic, the Republics of Tatarstan and Dagestan (0.5%), the Moscow Region and the Chuvash Republic (0.6%).

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A lawyer turned himself in to Dutch authorities on Monday to face accusations at the International Criminal Court of bribing witnesses in a trial of Kenyan Vice President William Ruto which collapsed four years ago.

Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru was wanted on an ICC arrest warrant dating from 2015 that accused him of trying to bribe six prosecution witnesses to recant testimony in the case.

Ruto and his co-accused, broadcaster Joshua Sang, were both charged with fomenting ethnic violence after a disputed 2007 election when 1,200 people died.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and the United states are confident that ongoing trade talks are heading towards a comprehensive agreement, the British trade ministry said on Monday.

The two sides have now finished their fifth round of talks aimed at securing a trade deal which in Britain is seen as one of the big prizes on offer after the country left the European Union in January and began negotiating its own bilateral deals.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell‮‮‮ ‬‬‬on Monday on worries that widening coronavirus lockdowns in Europe would weaken fuel demand while concerns remain over potential turbulence resulting from this week’s U.S. presidential election.

Brent crude was down 80 cents, or 2.1%, at $37.14 a barrel by 1140 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate fell 93 cents, or 2.6%, to $34.86. Both contracts fell more than $2 earlier in the session.

Countries across Europe have reimposed lockdown measures to try to slow COVID-19 infection rates that have accelerated over the past month.