Europe

Berlin, Oct 28 (AP/PTI) Inspectors from the UN's atomic watchdog have confirmed Iran has started building an underground centrifuge assembly plant after its previous one exploded in what Tehran called a sabotage attack over the summer, the agency's head told The Associated Press.

Iran also continues to stockpile greater amounts of low-enriched uranium, but does not appear to possess enough to produce a weapon, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the AP in an interview in Berlin on Tuesday.

TALLINN, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Estonia, Germany, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) at the UN Foundation signed a joint declaration of intent to cooperate on efforts to accelerate digital transformation and digitalization of governmental services for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) particularly in low-resource settings, said the Estonian Ministry of Econimic Affairs and Communications on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/: The situation with healthcare in Russia is much more stable than in many other advanced countries, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov asserted.

MINSK, October 27. /TASS/: Belarus is beginning to face a terrorist threat, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday at a meeting to discuss the preparations for the Belarusian People's Congress, BelTA news agency informs.

ST. PETERSBURG, October 27. /TASS/: Scientists have discovered that there are people who do not contract the coronavirus even after multiple contacts with the infected. At the same time, it remains unclear which resistance biomarkers to the virus they possess, Director of the Saint Petersburg Pasteur Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Areg Totolian said on Tuesday at a forum on healthy society.

MINSK, October 27. /TASS/: Students who join illegal protest rallies in Belarus should be dismissed from universities, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday.

"Students. If you came to study, then study. Let those study who want to. And those who joined unauthorized rallies in violation of law should be stripped of the right to be a student. As I said, please send them to the army or to the streets. Let them walk around the streets. But they must be expelled from universities," Lukashenko noted.

GENEVA, Oct 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization chief warned that abandoning efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic, as suggested by a top US official, was “dangerous”, urging countries not to “give up”.

“We must not give up,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing.

He acknowledged that after months of battling the new coronavirus, which has claimed more than 1.1 million lives globally, a certain level of “pandemic fatigue” had set in.

“It’s tough and the fatigue is real,” Tedros said.

PARIS, Oct 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Long-term exposure to air pollution may be linked to 15 percent of Covid-19 deaths globally, according to research published that highlights the health risks posed by greenhouse gas emissions.

Previous research has showed how air pollution from exhaust fumes and factories takes two years off the life expectancy of every man, woman and child on Earth.

Now experts in Germany and Cyprus say they have estimated the proportion of deaths from coronavirus that can be blamed of the exacerbating effects of air pollution.

MOSCOW, Oct 27 (NNN-TASS) – A Russian fighter chased away a German and a U.S. military aircraft, over the Baltic Sea on Monday, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

Russian airspace control detected two air targets over the Baltic Sea, flying towards the Russian state border, the ministry said, in a statement.

A Russian Su-27 fighter took off and identified the targets as a German Navy P-3C Orion patrol aircraft and a U.S. Air Force U-2S reconnaissance plane.

The Russian jet escorted the foreign aircraft until they flew away from the Russian border.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The number of new coronavirus infections in Germany is likely to reach 20,000 a day by the end of the week, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Tuesday, as authorities readied new curbs to break the second wave of the pandemic.

Germany, widely praised for its initial response to the crisis, is contending with a faster upswing in cases than expected, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel to bring forward to Wednesday talks with state leaders on additional curbs.