Europe

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/: Russia’s State Space Agency Roscosmos has made the right decision to develop a reusable rocket, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Tuesday.

"It’s a step in the right direction," Musk twitted, commenting on the material released by TASS on Monday on Russia’s plans to develop the Amur methane-fueled rocket with a reusable first stage.

Russia should really aim for a fully reusable rocket by 2026 when the Amur’s first launch is scheduled, Musk stressed.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain needs to know by Oct. 15 if there is going to be a deal with the European Union because businesses need to prepare, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

“We do need to be in a position where we’re able to provide certainty to businesses as to what the terms of our future trading relationship with EU are going to be, and we do believe that we need to be able to give clarity on whether or not there’s going to be a deal by the 15th of October,” the spokesman said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices gained on Tuesday amid supply disruptions in Norway, a new hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House from hospital.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures were up $1.02, or 2.5%, by 1220 GMT at $42.31 a barrel.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were trading $1.02 higher, or 2.6%, at $40.24 a barrel.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he believed Russia’s intelligence services had poisoned him with a Novichok nerve agent because authorities saw him as a threat ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.

“They understood that there were big, big problems threatening them ahead of elections for the State Duma,” Navalny said in a YouTube interview with a Russian blogger, his first video appearance since being discharged from a Berlin hospital.

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised on Tuesday to transform Britain rather than settle for the “status quo” after the coronavirus crisis by building more new homes, improving education, fighting crime and boosting the green economy.

In a speech aimed at rallying his Conservative Party, which has become increasingly critical of its leader, Johnson laid out his vision for Britain, where deep-rooted inequality has been laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic.

MADRID (Reuters) - Bank of Spain governor Pablo Hernandez de Cos on Tuesday warned that potential harsher measures to contain the recent wave of COVID-19 contagion in the country may lead to an even deeper crisis than the bank’s worst-case scenario.

Spain, one of the worst-affected nations with more than 32,000 deaths and more than 800,000 cases, is heading for its worst economic performance on record in 2020, with an expected contraction of 10.5% or 12.6%, according to the Bank of Spain.

De Cos warned that underlying risks remain tilted downwards.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain’s Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and U.S. scientist Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole, the award-giving body said on Tuesday.

Penrose, professor at the University of Oxford, won half the prize for his work using mathematics to prove that black holes are a direct consequence of the general theory of relativity.

06 Oct 2020; MEMO: Turkey on Monday accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “encouraging Islamophobia” with his recent remarks claiming that “Islam is in crisis”.

“The claim by President Macron that ‘Islam is in crisis’ is a dangerous and provocative statement, encouraging Islamophobia and anti-Muslim demagoguery,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on Twitter.

06 Oct 2020; MEMO: Amnesty International has once again called Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz to secure the release of former Hamas official Dr Muhammad Al-Khodari from prison.

MOSCOW, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday called for a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Russian Foreign Ministry said.

In a joint statement published by the ministry, Lavrov, Le Drian and Pompeo, representing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, condemned in the strongest terms the unprecedented and dangerous escalation of violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and beyond.